Sermon: Husbands, Wives, and Children
Scripture: Matthew 5:27-30
In this week’s lessons, we learn how a family is to function, and what the responsibilities are of husbands, wives, and children.
Theme: Parents and Children
Sermon: Husbands, Wives, and Children
Scripture: Matthew 5:27-30
In this week’s lessons, we learn how a family is to function, and what the responsibilities are of husbands, wives, and children.
Theme: Life Out of Death
We have touched on many things in this study of the home, but it will be of little benefit unless each of us will put it into effect practically.
Sermon: Divorce and Remarriage
Scripture: Matthew 5:31-32
In this week’s lessons, we look at the subjects of divorce and remarriage, and learn what the biblical standards are for those who are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Theme: The Key Passages
Sermon: Divorce and Remarriage
Scripture: Matthew 5:31-32
In this week’s lessons, we look at the subjects of divorce and remarriage, and learn what the biblical standards are for those who are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Theme: Permanency of Marriage
Sermon: Divorce and Remarriage
Scripture: Matthew 5:31-32
In this week’s lessons, we look at the subjects of divorce and remarriage, and learn what the biblical standards are for those who are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Theme: What Is Fornication?
Sermon: Divorce and Remarriage
Scripture: Matthew 5:31-32
In this week’s lessons, we look at the subjects of divorce and remarriage, and learn what the biblical standards are for those who are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Theme: Deuteronomy 24
Yesterday, we concluded with the first reason why the exception clause of fornication in both Matthew 19 and Matthew 5 does not refer to adultery.
Sermon: Divorce and Remarriage
Scripture: Matthew 5:31-32
In this week’s lessons, we look at the subjects of divorce and remarriage, and learn what the biblical standards are for those who are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Theme: God’s Standards
Sermon: For Time and Eternity
Scripture: Matthew 5:31-32
In this week’s lessons, we learn what faithfulness in marriage means through a dramatic illustration from the life of the prophet Hosea.
Theme: Hosea and Gomer
Sermon: For Time and Eternity
Scripture: Matthew 5:31-32
In this week’s lessons, we learn what faithfulness in marriage means through a dramatic illustration from the life of the prophet Hosea.
Theme: Gomer and Her Lovers
Sermon: For Time and Eternity
Scripture: Matthew 5:31-32
In this week’s lessons, we learn what faithfulness in marriage means through a dramatic illustration from the life of the prophet Hosea.
Theme: Gomer the Slave
Sermon: For Time and Eternity
Scripture: Matthew 5:31-32
In this week’s lessons, we learn what faithfulness in marriage means through a dramatic illustration from the life of the prophet Hosea.
Theme: God’s Faithfulness
Sermon: For Time and Eternity
Scripture: Matthew 5:31-32
In this week’s lessons, we learn what faithfulness in marriage means through a dramatic illustration from the life of the prophet Hosea.
Theme: True Marriage
“In the light of this story we see the inner meaning of marriage as set forth in the Word of God. Marriage is the union of Christ and the Church.
Sermon: To Tell the Truth
Scripture: Matthew 5:33-37
In this week’s lessons, we see the importance of telling the truth, and of the need to cultivate a godly heart and mind.
Theme: The Need for the Truth
Sermon: To Tell the Truth
Scripture: Matthew 5:33-37
In this week’s lessons, we see the importance of telling the truth, and of the need to cultivate a godly heart and mind.
Theme: The Taking of Oaths
Sermon: To Tell the Truth
Scripture: Matthew 5:33-37
In this week’s lessons, we see the importance of telling the truth, and of the need to cultivate a godly heart and mind.
Theme: Man’s Oaths
Sermon: To Tell the Truth
Scripture: Matthew 5:33-37
In this week’s lessons, we see the importance of telling the truth, and of the need to cultivate a godly heart and mind.
Theme: Evasive Oaths
Sermon: To Tell the Truth
Scripture: Matthew 5:33-37
In this week’s lessons, we see the importance of telling the truth, and of the need to cultivate a godly heart and mind.
Theme: Control of the Mind
Sermon: Have We No Rights?
Scripture: Matthew 5:38-42
In this week’s lessons, we see that we are not to demand our rights, but instead, like Jesus, we are to pattern his self-sacrifice and service.
Theme: Eating Loss
Sermon: Have We No Rights?
Scripture: Matthew 5:38-42
In this week’s lessons, we see that we are not to demand our rights, but instead, like Jesus, we are to pattern his self-sacrifice and service.
Theme: The Right to Retaliation
Sermon: Have We No Rights?
Scripture: Matthew 5:38-42
In this week’s lessons, we see that we are not to demand our rights, but instead, like Jesus, we are to pattern his self-sacrifice and service.
Theme: Our Great Example
Sermon: Have We No Rights?
Scripture: Matthew 5:38-42
In this week’s lessons, we see that we are not to demand our rights, but instead, like Jesus, we are to pattern his self-sacrifice and service.
Theme: The Right to Our Time and Money
Sermon: Have We No Rights?
Scripture: Matthew 5:38-42
In this week’s lessons, we see that we are not to demand our rights, but instead, like Jesus, we are to pattern his self-sacrifice and service.
Theme: Cross-Bearing
Let me close by making this personal. What is your attitude toward all that I have been saying? Are you still dealing with the questions of your rights and your wrongs? Or are you learning to live the kind of life lived for us by the Lord Jesus?
Sermon: Love Your Enemies
Scripture: Matthew 5:43-47
In this week’s lessons, we learn how to love our enemies with the divine love that only God gives us in Christ.
Theme: Divine Love
Sermon: Love Your Enemies
Scripture: Matthew 5:43-47
In this week’s lessons, we learn how to love our enemies with the divine love that only God gives us in Christ.
Theme: Love on the Cross
Yesterday we looked at the first Greek word for love, which does not appear in the New Testament. Today we will look at the other three.
Sermon: Love Your Enemies
Scripture: Matthew 5:43-47
In this week’s lessons, we learn how to love our enemies with the divine love that only God gives us in Christ.
Theme: Dying for Sinners
Sermon: Love Your Enemies
Scripture: Matthew 5:43-47
In this week’s lessons, we learn how to love our enemies with the divine love that only God gives us in Christ.
Theme: Loving, Not Liking
Sermon: Love Your Enemies
Scripture: Matthew 5:43-47
In this week’s lessons, we learn how to love our enemies with the divine love that only God gives us in Christ.
Theme: Christ in You
Sermon: Perfection for Saints
Scripture: Matthew 5:48
In this week’s lessons, we learn what it means to be perfect as God is perfect, that it is a work of God that involves the past, the present, and the future.
Theme: The Most Important Verse in the Sermon
Sermon: Perfection for Saints
Scripture: Matthew 5:48
In this week’s lessons, we learn what it means to be perfect as God is perfect, that it is a work of God that involves the past, the present, and the future.
Theme: God’s Working
Sermon: Perfection for Saints
Scripture: Matthew 5:48
In this week’s lessons, we learn what it means to be perfect as God is perfect, that it is a work of God that involves the past, the present, and the future.
Theme: Growing in Perfection
Sermon: Perfection for Saints
Scripture: Matthew 5:48
In this week’s lessons, we learn what it means to be perfect as God is perfect, that it is a work of God that involves the past, the present, and the future.
Theme: An Inflexible Purpose
Sermon: Perfection for Saints
Scripture: Matthew 5:48
In this week’s lessons, we learn what it means to be perfect as God is perfect, that it is a work of God that involves the past, the present, and the future.
Theme: Until the Day of Jesus Christ
Sermon: How to Invest in God’s Program
Scripture: Matthew 6:1-4
In this week’s lessons, we learn about the principle of giving, and the blessings that come from the Lord upon both the giver and the recipient.
Theme: The Source of Charity
Sermon: How to Invest in God’s Program
Scripture: Matthew 6:1-4
In this week’s lessons, we learn about the principle of giving, and the blessings that come from the Lord upon both the giver and the recipient.
Theme: A Matter of the Heart
Yesterday, we concluded by saying that the charity of the early Church was a new and amazing thing to its contemporaries.
Sermon: How to Invest in God’s Program
Scripture: Matthew 6:1-4
In this week’s lessons, we learn about the principle of giving, and the blessings that come from the Lord upon both the giver and the recipient.
Theme: First Given to the Lord
Sermon: How to Invest in God’s Program
Scripture: Matthew 6:1-4
In this week’s lessons, we learn about the principle of giving, and the blessings that come from the Lord upon both the giver and the recipient.
Theme: Spiritual Giving
Sermon: How to Invest in God’s Program
Scripture: Matthew 6:1-4
In this week’s lessons, we learn about the principle of giving, and the blessings that come from the Lord upon both the giver and the recipient.
Theme: Sacrificial Giving
Sermon: How to Pray
Scripture: Matthew 6:5-8
In this week’s lessons, we learn three great principles of prayer, and how we can pray with confidence.
Theme: A Confusing Subject
The second great example of godly living discussed by Jesus Christ in the second chapter of the Sermon on the Mount is prayer. It is an important subject, for prayer is at least partially confusing to us all.
Sermon: How to Pray
Scripture: Matthew 6:5-8
In this week’s lessons, we learn three great principles of prayer, and how we can pray with confidence.
Theme: Praying to God
Sermon: How to Pray
Scripture: Matthew 6:5-8
In this week’s lessons, we learn three great principles of prayer, and how we can pray with confidence.
Theme: Through the Lord Jesus Christ
In yesterday’s study we concluded by talking about the necessity of recognizing that when we pray we are coming into God’s presence.
Sermon: How to Pray
Scripture: Matthew 6:5-8
In this week’s lessons, we learn three great principles of prayer, and how we can pray with confidence.
Theme: In the Holy Spirit
Sermon: How to Pray
Scripture: Matthew 6:5-8
In this week’s lessons, we learn three great principles of prayer, and how we can pray with confidence.
Theme: Praying with Confidence
Sermon: Our Father, Our Daddy
Scripture: Matthew 6:9
In this week’s lessons, we see how we are enabled to approach God in prayer because of the reconciling work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Theme: The Lord’s Prayer
Sermon: Our Father, Our Daddy
Scripture: Matthew 6:9
In this week’s lessons, we see how we are enabled to approach God in prayer because of the reconciling work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Theme: Our Father
The first words of the Lord’s Prayer are an address to God as our heavenly Father. For Jesus said, “After this manner, therefore, pray ye: Our Father, who art in heaven.” These words tell us who can pray and what the privileges of access are for them.
Sermon: Our Father, Our Daddy
Scripture: Matthew 6:9
In this week’s lessons, we see how we are enabled to approach God in prayer because of the reconciling work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Theme: God’s Children
Yesterday we said that during the time of Jesus, the distance between God and man seemed to be widening, such that the names of God were increasingly withheld from public speech and prayers.
Sermon: Our Father, Our Daddy
Scripture: Matthew 6:9
In this week’s lessons, we see how we are enabled to approach God in prayer because of the reconciling work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Theme: Abba, Father
Yesterday we concluded with the tense exchange between Jesus and his opponents in John 8, in which we saw that not everyone who was related to Abraham by birth was truly a child of God.
Sermon: Our Father, Our Daddy
Scripture: Matthew 6:9
In this week’s lessons, we see how we are enabled to approach God in prayer because of the reconciling work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Theme: My Daddy
Sermon: Hallowed Be Thy Name
Scripture: Matthew 6:9
In this week’s lessons, we learn more of who God is, and what it means to hallow His name.
Theme: What God Desires
Sermon: Hallowed Be Thy Name
Scripture: Matthew 6:9
In this week’s lessons, we learn more of who God is, and what it means to hallow His name.
Theme: The Meaning of “Hallowed”
Sermon: Hallowed Be Thy Name
Scripture: Matthew 6:9
In this week’s lessons, we learn more of who God is, and what it means to hallow His name.
Theme: God’s Names
Sermon: Hallowed Be Thy Name
Scripture: Matthew 6:9
In this week’s lessons, we learn more of who God is, and what it means to hallow His name.
Theme: None Like Him
And what about that greatest name of all, the Lord Jesus Christ? In Him all other names are combined. In Him all of the characteristics of God are made manifest. One hymn writer has written:
O could I speak the matchless worth,
O could I sound the glories forth
Which in my Savior shine,
Sermon: Hallowed Be Thy Name
Scripture: Matthew 6:9
In this week’s lessons, we learn more of who God is, and what it means to hallow His name.
Theme: Creator and Redeemer
Sermon: Thy Kingdom Come
Scripture: Matthew 6:10
In this week’s lessons, we learn what the kingdom of God is and how it manifests itself on earth.
Theme: God’s Kingdom
Sermon: Thy Kingdom Come
Scripture: Matthew 6:10
In this week’s lessons, we learn what the kingdom of God is and how it manifests itself on earth.
Theme: God’s Kingdom on Earth
Sermon: Thy Kingdom Come
Scripture: Matthew 6:10
In this week’s lessons, we learn what the kingdom of God is and how it manifests itself on earth.
Theme: How the Kingdom Does Not Come
Sermon: Thy Kingdom Come
Scripture: Matthew 6:10
In this week’s lessons, we learn what the kingdom of God is and how it manifests itself on earth.
Theme: Parables of the Kingdom
Sermon: Thy Kingdom Come
Scripture: Matthew 6:10
In this week’s lessons, we learn what the kingdom of God is and how it manifests itself on earth.
Theme: The Coming Kingdom
Now it should be evident from the imperfect nature of the kingdom of God, as we see it today, that there is yet to be a kingdom in which the rule of the Lord Jesus Christ is totally recognized.
Sermon: Your Will, Or God’s?
Scripture: Matthew 6:10
In this week’s lessons, we learn what it means to pray that the Lord’s will be done, rather than ours.
Theme: Many Wills
Sermon: Your Will, Or God’s?
Scripture: Matthew 6:10
In this week’s lessons, we learn what it means to pray that the Lord’s will be done, rather than ours.
Theme: When Wills Collide
Yesterday, we concluded by looking at the first two expressions of Satan’s will over against God. Today, we begin by addressing the other three.
Sermon: Your Will, Or God’s?
Scripture: Matthew 6:10
In this week’s lessons, we learn what it means to pray that the Lord’s will be done, rather than ours.
Theme: God’s Word
Now someone will say, “That is all very well and good, but what does that have to do with me?” Well, it has everything to do with you. For happiness and joy will come to your life only as you allow God to bend your will to His.
Sermon: Your Will, Or God’s?
Scripture: Matthew 6:10
In this week’s lessons, we learn what it means to pray that the Lord’s will be done, rather than ours.
Theme: God’s Will for Christians
Sermon: Your Will, Or God’s?
Scripture: Matthew 6:10
In this week’s lessons, we learn what it means to pray that the Lord’s will be done, rather than ours.
Theme: Thy Will Be Done
Sermon: What to Pray For
Scripture: Matthew 6:11
In this week’s lessons, after first praying for God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s will, Jesus also taught us how to pray for things that pertain to our own interests.
Theme: Our Willing God
Sermon: What to Pray For
Scripture: Matthew 6:11
In this week’s lessons, after first praying for God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s will, Jesus also taught us how to pray for things that pertain to our own interests.
Theme: The Need to Be God’s Child
Sermon: What to Pray For
Scripture: Matthew 6:11
In this week’s lessons, after first praying for God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s will, Jesus also taught us how to pray for things that pertain to our own interests.
Theme: Our Daily Bread
When we say that this prayer is a simple prayer for the things that we have need of every day and that God invites this type of praying, certain great truths emerge from it.
Sermon: What to Pray For
Scripture: Matthew 6:11
In this week’s lessons, after first praying for God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s will, Jesus also taught us how to pray for things that pertain to our own interests.
Theme: Spiritual Necessities
We must not leave this request for our daily bread without pointing out that we need spiritual nourishment also. This is the third point. We need to feed spiritually on God.
Sermon: What to Pray For
Scripture: Matthew 6:11
In this week’s lessons, after first praying for God’s name, God’s kingdom, and God’s will, Jesus also taught us how to pray for things that pertain to our own interests.
Theme: Praying for Others
Sermon: Forgiveness Guaranteed
Scripture: Matthew 6:12
In this week’s lessons, we see the connection between the Christian’s continuing need of forgiveness from God, and our need to forgive others who wrong us.
Theme: Our Need for Forgiveness
Sermon: Forgiveness Guaranteed
Scripture: Matthew 6:12
In this week’s lessons, we see the connection between the Christian’s continuing need of forgiveness from God, and our need to forgive others who wrong us.
Theme: Forgiveness for Believers
Sermon: Forgiveness Guaranteed
Scripture: Matthew 6:12
In this week’s lessons, we see the connection between the Christian’s continuing need of forgiveness from God, and our need to forgive others who wrong us.
Theme: Assurance
Sermon: Forgiveness Guaranteed
Scripture: Matthew 6:12
In this week’s lessons, we see the connection between the Christian’s continuing need of forgiveness from God, and our need to forgive others who wrong us.
Theme: Forgiveness in Advance
Sermon: Forgiveness Guaranteed
Scripture: Matthew 6:12
In this week’s lessons, we see the connection between the Christian’s continuing need of forgiveness from God, and our need to forgive others who wrong us.
Theme: Debtors
Sermon: How to Defeat Temptation
Scripture: Matthew 6:13
In this week’s lessons, we learn what temptation is, where it comes from, and what we are to do in order to defeat it.
Theme: Deliverance from Temptation
At the very end of the sixteenth century, after the Protestant Reformation in Europe and the wars that had followed upon it, an anonymous Christian wrote some lines that aptly summarize much of what the Bible has to say about temptation. He wrote:
In all the strife of mortal life,
Sermon: How to Defeat Temptation
Scripture: Matthew 6:13
In this week’s lessons, we learn what temptation is, where it comes from, and what we are to do in order to defeat it.
Theme: Types of Temptation
In yesterday’s study, we concluded by saying that the word “temptation” can have two meanings. It can denote a tempting to sin—which is what we commonly understand by the word—or it can refer to the idea of a trial, ordeal, or testing.
Sermon: How to Defeat Temptation
Scripture: Matthew 6:13
In this week’s lessons, we learn what temptation is, where it comes from, and what we are to do in order to defeat it.
Theme: Submit and Resist
Sermon: How to Defeat Temptation
Scripture: Matthew 6:13
In this week’s lessons, we learn what temptation is, where it comes from, and what we are to do in order to defeat it.
Theme: The Lord’s Example
I want to give you one final example of how temptation can be resisted, and the best example I can give is the account of the temptation of Jesus Christ recorded in Matthew 4.
Let me ask the question again that I asked yesterday. How did Jesus resist the temptations that are recorded in Matthew 4? Well, in the first place, He had just spent forty days in fasting and in prayer. In the second place, He replied to the devil in every instance by quoting Scripture.
The first two examples of Christian piety that Jesus gives in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount do not seem particularly difficult. They are giving to the poor and praying. To most people, almsgiving and prayer make sense and are familiar, even though they may not understand them completely or practice them. This is not true of Christ’s third example. The third example is fasting, which means abstaining from food for some spiritual end. Not only does this not seem necessary to most persons, to many it even seems quite foolish or absurd.
The first real clue to what fasting should mean today comes from a study of the Bible. For the clue is seen in the fact that in the Old Testament period fasting had an entirely different purpose than it does in the New. What is more, the pivotal text upon which this change takes place is the text we are studying in Matthew.
Sermon: Fasting
Scripture: Matthew 6:16-18
In this week’s lessons, we learn what Jesus said about fasting, and consider its implications for us today.
Theme: New Testament Teaching
Here is a great change in the use and purpose of fasting, and the change may be traced to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ that we are studying. What did He say? He did not say that fasting was a form of outward piety. He did not consider it an exercise for the subjection of the body. He did not hold it forth as a means of social protest. He taught that it was to be a personal exercise between the individual soul and God.
Sometimes, our fasting will lead us away from such things as entertainment, perhaps from television. This was the experience of David Wilkerson, whose story is told in the best-selling book, The Cross and the Switchblade. Wilkerson had been the pastor of a small Assemblies of God church in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, but although the church had grown and the congregation had been able to erect several new buildings, the pastor himself was restless. One night as he sat watching the “late show” on television, the idea came to him that he might profit from spending the time he usually spent watching television, praying. In other words, he might fast from television and then see what happened.
After the great teachings in the first half of Matthew 6 about the spiritual life of the Christian, the Lord Jesus Christ turned to warnings about the personal failures that most often deprive a believer of spiritual victories and nullify his witness. In these verses (Matthew 6:19-7:5), Jesus warns against a love of possessions, anxiety, and a judgmental attitude toward others.
In this, as in all other areas of the Christian life, the true solution does not lie in abstinence or withdrawal. It lies in the proper use and the proper estimate of the things that God has provided. In other words, we are not called upon to relinquish things but rather to use them under God’s direction for the health and well-being of ourselves and our family, for material aid to others, and for the great task of proclaiming the Gospel and promoting Christian verities.
In yesterday’s study we said that it is not a requirement that Christians give up their possessions; rather, we are to use them for the benefit of others and for the advancement of the Gospel. This is precisely what Jesus himself was teaching in the verses concerned with money and possessions from the Sermon on the Mount. For Jesus was not speaking against possessions. He was speaking against a ruinous preoccupation with them. He said, “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Matt. 6:19-21).
The third reason Jesus Christ warns His followers about an improper concern for possessions occurs in verses 22 and 23. It has to do with our spiritual vision. Jesus said, “The lamp of the body is the eye; if, therefore, thine eye be healthy, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”
The final verse of our section deals with the mutually exclusive nature of serving God and riches. “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Nothing could be said more clearly, or be more obvious. And it should be a heart-searching question for us all. Could anything be more insulting to God, who has redeemed us from the slavery of sin in Christ and has given us all things richly to enjoy, than to take the name of our God upon us, to be called by His name, and then to demonstrate by every action and every decision of life that we actually serve money?
In March 1961, Time magazine published a cover story on the presence of anxiety in America. The article was entitled, “Guilt and Anxiety.” The point of the study was that the breakdown of faith in God (in the nineteenth century) and in reason (in the twentieth century), coupled with the accelerated pace and high tension of modern life, has produced intense anxiety in many millions of people. So much so, in fact, that it is correct to call worry one of the most widespread and debilitating characteristics of our time.
In yesterday’s study, we saw that Jesus provided a cure for anxiety by what He said in Matthew 6: “Therefore, I say unto you, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on… For after all these things do the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you” (vv. 25, 32-33).
Now what are those three teachings? The first is found in verse 24, which is, properly speaking, the conclusion to Christ’s words about money. In that section of the Sermon Jesus taught that a love of money was harmful because it is impossible for a person to serve God and money at the same time. Now He says that for the same reason His followers are not to be anxious about some future happening or provision.
The apostle Peter was one among many Christians who have learned this lesson. In the early days of his association with Jesus he was worried about many things. After he first had courage to walk upon the water he began to look at the waves and became so worried that he began to sink (Matt. 14:30). He was worried that Jesus might not pay taxes (Matt. 17:24ff.). At one point, He was anxious about who might betray Him (John 13:24). He was worried that Jesus might have to suffer and so rebuked Him on one occasion (Matt. 16:22), and sought to defend Him with a sword on another (John 18:10). Peter was a great worrier, but after he had come to know Jesus better he learned that Jesus was able to take care of him
Sermon: Free from Worry
Scripture: Matthew 6:25-34
In this week’s lessons, we learn that not only does Jesus warn us not to worry, but he also provides us with a cure in commanding us not to do it.
Theme: The Man Who Never Worries
In the second half of Matthew six, in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had been talking about failures that will render a Christian apathetic in regard to Christian service. They are a love of money and anxiety. Both of these will have a desensitizing effect on his witness, for if a Christian has his mind centered on things (either to accumulate them or to worry about them) he will not see God and, hence, he cannot serve Him. At this point, however, Jesus goes on to show that there is also a type of zeal that will ruin his witness. This is a zeal for judging others. It is harmful because it will turn a believer into a sharp and unjust critic of his Christian brothers.
In the second half of Matthew six, in the midst of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus had been talking about failures that will render a Christian apathetic in regard to Christian service. They are a love of money and anxiety. Both of these will have a desensitizing effect on his witness, for if a Christian has his mind centered on things (either to accumulate them or to worry about them) he will not see God and, hence, he cannot serve Him. At this point, however, Jesus goes on to show that there is also a type of zeal that will ruin his witness. This is a zeal for judging others. It is harmful because it will turn a believer into a sharp and unjust critic of his Christian brothers.
Now we are going to see as we go on in our next study that none of this is meant to encourage laxity in regard to sound doctrine. We are to discriminate doctrinally. What is more, no congregation will ever be strong unless it is filled with persons capable of leadership who have drunk deeply at the fountain of God’s Word and who are therefore able to do this. It does not support error. But it does mean that we are to be most careful in regard to our attitude to those who appear to us to be erring.
Now all of this really leads up to one great final point, and that is the need for love. We all need love. We need to love. And the reason is simply that when we are filled with love we will find ourselves uninterested in finding a speck in the eye of the other person.
If you discover that a beam is blocking the flow of God’s love in your life, as these beams were blocking the river, then you must know that the only solution is the one to be found in Jesus. He is the Great Physician, and He is able to extract both motes and beams because there is nothing to hinder His vision. Besides, he will give you a vision of His glory, as you look to Him, that will then be reflected from your purified eye to others.
In yesterday’s devotional, we concluded by saying that the Bible teaches that not everyone will be saved. Moreover, among those who will not be saved are some who are so opposed to God’s truth that the Christian should have no dealings with them.
We said yesterday that the only prayer God will ever hear from an unbeliever is the prayer that asks for salvation. Moreover, isn’t this precisely what we have in the example of the Lord Jesus Christ? There are persons who think of Jesus as going about the countryside preaching the Gospel to everyone who would listen and telling them all about His kingdom. However, this is inaccurate. It is probably closer to the truth to say that Jesus was the most discriminating of all preachers in terms of what He taught and to whom He taught it.
Besides wrongly admitting people into church membership without a clear statement of faith, I am afraid, too, that there are many persons in our day for whom the Lord’s table has become a curse rather than a God-given blessing. For it has led many a person to think that he is right with God merely because he has followed some rite of the Christian religion.
Now I have really dealt with the problem of spiritual discrimination, unpleasant as it may have been. But before we end this study we can note a few entirely different but very pleasant things suggested by the word “pearls.”
If a young man wants to ask his father for something, he will pattern his request on the nature and the temperament of his father. If the father is ill-tempered and stingy, the young man will ask for little. He will take care to present his need in the most winsome and unobjectionable manner. If the father is good-natured and is generous, the child will present his need openly and with great confidence.
If we are to exercise the spiritual discrimination and judgment that Christ was talking about in verse six (“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine”), then we must apply verses 7-11 to believers in the Lord Jesus Christ only. We must read the verse this way: “Ask [you who are born again], and it shall be given you [who are born again]; seek [you who are born again], and you [who are born again] shall find; knock [you who are born again], and it shall be opened unto you [who are born again].” Prayer is for believers in the Lord Jesus Christ only.
The second obvious teaching of these verses is that even if we are Christians, we must ask for the thing that God promises. This section of God’s Word contains the positive statement of the principle (“Ask, and it shall be given you”). James 4:2 contains the negative statement (“Ye have not, because ye ask not”). But the teaching of both texts is identical. God delights to give good gifts to His children. Hence, if we do not have them, the fault does not lie in God. It lies in our failure to ask things of Him.
What else do we need in our churches that we are not receiving? Do we lack suitable candidates for church office? Or those for missions? Do we lack Sunday school teachers or church workers? If so, it is because we are not asking. Jesus said, “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into the harvest” (Matt. 9:37-38).
I know that there is something about the idea of prevailing prayer that, at least on the surface, seems contrary to a Calvinistic way of thinking, but the conflict is only superficial. In two of the parables of the Lord Jesus, there is the story of a person who prevailed in a request by means of perseverance. In Luke 11:5-10, there is the story of a man who lacked food to feed a guest who arrived at his home at midnight. He went to his neighbor. At first the neighbor did not want to be bothered, but at last he gave the things that were needed because of the man’s persistence.
The Golden Rule, which is found in the seventh chapter of Matthew, verse 12, is probably the most universally praised statement that Jesus ever made. It has been called “the topmost peak of social ethics… the Everest of all ethical teaching.”
At this point, then, we have actually reached the first great statement of the solution to the problem of human morality. But before we pursue it, it is necessary to see that the major effect that the Golden Rule was intended to have on human goodness was to condemn it. It wipes it out. By this standard, all natural human goodness is condemned, and being weighed in the balances, is found wanting.
Yesterday, we concluded by saying that if we think of a ruler as a straightedge, as the British call it, we then have the idea that what we call the Golden Rule shows us how morally crooked we are, compared with the perfect straightness of God’s moral purity.
Now at this point many very good studies would stop. For this is the Christian Gospel, and it lies at the heart of all Scripture. It is a good place to end. However, I believe that if I were to end here, I would be untrue to this text before me. For the Sermon on the Mount was given, as we saw in one of our earlier studies, not merely to drive a man to Christ (although that is the first thing necessary), but also to set forth that standard of morality to which God is constantly leading the Christian.
God will not quit. Hence, the Golden Rule (as well as all of the Sermon on the Mount) is as much a statement of where God is taking the Christian as it is a standard by which the goodness of the natural man is judged. What will it be? Will you flail away at that or some other standard, and be judged by it? Or will you surrender to Christ, letting God enter your life and remake you into His image?
The Golden Rule is the concluding verse of the major part of the Sermon on the Mount, for all the verses that follow it are but a long, although significant, postscript. Like Matthew 5:48, the verse that concludes the first chapter of the sermon, the Golden Rule aptly summarizes all that has gone before it and then lifts the eyes of the reader to Jesus Christ, who is the only possible source of such goodness. From this point on, Jesus turns to a series of warnings designed to keep His listeners from falling by the wayside through unbelief, apathy, deceit, hypocrisy, or discouragement.
Now if all this is true—that is, if these verses (Matt. 7:13-27) are primarily a warning to those of Christ’s time to keep on until His death and resurrection brought His ministry to completion—then it is also clear how we must understand the first of these four warnings.
Another truth also lies at the heart of His warning, the truth that salvation is by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ only. What is the gate? What is the way that leads to life? The answer is the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “I am the door of the sheep; by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved” (John 10:9). He said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). These verses throw the only proper light upon our text. For they show that Jesus was speaking of faith in Himself when he told the Galileans, “Narrow is the gate, and hard is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” The way to heaven is as narrow as Jesus.
Do not make the mistake of counting upon your moral record as a way of coming to God. It is your record that gets you into trouble in the first place. Your record will condemn you, no matter how good you think you are or how good you appear in other men’s eyes. Count on the fact that Jesus paid the penalty for your sin, that He did what no other person would do. And accept the fact that He by His death provided the way for simple, sinful people like you and me to enter heaven.
We need to see one more great truth from this passage. Jesus said, “Enter in at the narrow gate” or, as the parallel saying in Luke’s Gospel puts it, “Strive to enter in” (Luke 13:24). Clearly it is not enough merely to listen to preaching about this gate or to study its architecture. It is not enough to praise it. It is not enough to stand by it. It must be entered. And this means that there must be a personal decision to enter into Christ by everyone who comes under the preaching of the Gospel.
Some time ago a person commented on the theme to which we now come in our studies, saying, “If you are going to place poison on a shelf where you have healing medicines, you had better label it clearly.” Someone was discussing the presence of false teaching and false teachers in the Church, and he was recognizing that if false teachers are going to be present in the Church, as the Bible teaches they will be, then they must be clearly identified before they do harm.
Now someone will ask, “Do you mean to tell me that God will allow men who are influenced by Satan to become church members?” The answer is “Yes, indeed.” And not only that, He will also allow them to become ministers and speak from the pulpit. This is the real meaning of 2 Corinthians 11:14-15 which says, “For Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works.”
All of this brings us to the main point of Christ’s teaching, of course. For at this point we should correctly ask: How can we recognize false teaching? How can we detect a wolf in sheep’s clothing? There are several answers.
The second test does not come from the Sermon on the Mount itself—although Jesus Christ also referred to it elsewhere—but from the writings of Jeremiah. False prophets do not have disturbing doctrine in their messages, even though the true state of man demands it. Instead, their message is one of false peace.
Finally, there is the test of good works, which is the test that Jesus Himself gives in this sermon. He repeats it twice, once at the beginning of this section, and once at the end. In between he illustrates what he is saying. “Ye shall know them by their fruits… by their fruits ye shall know them” (vv. 18, 20). He shows that men are like fruit trees. Good ones only produce good fruit, and bad ones only produce fruit that is bad.
I do not like the phrase “cheap grace,” which Dietrich Bonhoeffer has made popular and which he deplores. For grace in a very real sense is cheap, or, what is even better to say, is without cost entirely. It is true that grace cost God the Father the death of the Son. But for us grace is bestowed totally without payment, and it is abounding even though we fall back into sin or abuse it. I believe that without an explanation the term “cheap grace” obscures this. Nevertheless, the phrase has some value. We can refer to it profitably now at this point in our studies on the final verses of the Sermon on the Mount.
In the light of these truths it is evident that Christ’s words are a particularly pertinent warning to those who blithely believe a few doctrines or who perform a smattering of so-called good works, and yet have never entered into that kind of true commitment to Christ which results in increasingly costly obedience and in true discipleship.
Because a man can believe certain Christian doctrines with his head and yet still not be converted, there will always be counterfeit or nominal Christians in Church circles. Some of them will be dangerous, for they will be planted there by the devil to deceive the unwary, like tares in fields of wheat. Others will only be self-deluded. Whatever the case, however, the world will be able to point to them and say, “Ah look at those hypocrites; that’s why I’m not a Christian.” Don’t be discouraged by that. Just be sure that you are not one of them. If you are not to be, you must ask the Lord to reveal the state of your own heart before Him and lead you to the fullness of belief in Christ and commitment to Him.
Doctrine is only the first area in which many persons find a false spiritual confidence. A second area is works (v. 22). For there will always be somebody to say, “It’s not just that I believe these things and hear sermons about them. I really serve Christ. I prophesy in His name (it is preaching today). I cast out demons (it is revolution today). I have done many wonderful works (these are the good deeds of Christianity).” Jesus says that it is quite possible for a person to be baptized in the Christian Church, to be confirmed, to take communion, to serve on the church’s boards, even to be a missionary, and still never have come to the place where he is born again.
What matters is the reality of your own personal commitment to Jesus. Are you a Christian? Is it real? The answer to that question does not depend upon your intellectual beliefs (“Lord, Lord”) or upon your good works (“Have we not prophesied in thy name?”), but upon your relationship to the Lord Jesus. Have you ever asked Him to be your Savior? Have you ever said, “Lord Jesus Christ, I want you to enter my heart?” If you have never done that, then you must know that this is the gate to salvation. If you have, then you can be assured that He has entered your life. For He has said, “Blessed are they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled” (Matt. 5:6). He says, “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37).
We come to the very last words of the Sermon on the Mount, the section in which Jesus Christ pictures the difference between those who hear His teachings and do them and those who hear His teachings and do not do them as the difference between a wise man who builds his house upon a rock, and a foolish man who builds his house upon sand. It is a picture that all people know. And it is one that most of us have sung about, in one hymn or another, since the time we were children.
In these closing words of His sermon Jesus was stressing the importance of an adequate foundation, and He is asking the question, “What is your foundation? On what do you build?”
The second important point to be seen in these verses is this: A life built upon Jesus Christ will stand. That is a simple point, of course, but we need to have it clear in our thinking and to get it planted deeply in our minds. A life built upon Jesus will stand, even in the midst of the tribulations of this life or the judgments of eternity.
Now there is one last point here, and it is a point for Christians. What are you building? Oh, you are on the foundation all right. Christ is your Savior. But do you know that it may be possible for Him to be your foundation and yet for you to go through life building things that are worthless and that will not remain as fruit for eternity, even though you will be saved personally?
What are you building upon the foundation that is given you by God? Are you living to yourself? It is entirely possible for Christians to do that. Or are you living for Him? Are you using the talents, blessings, opportunities, influence, and wealth that He has given you to build Christian character and bring men to the Lord Jesus Christ as their Savior?
Everyone knows the difference between a person who speaks out of a vast and accurate knowledge of his subject and one who merely repeats what he has heard from others. The one is the voice of authority; the other is the voice of a parrot. The first is the sound of the fountain bubbling forth freshly from the ground; the second is the empty sound of the cistern.
Christ’s most startling revelation was Himself. As early as the Beatitudes, in His words about persecution, Jesus assumed that the persecution His hearers would experience would be persecution “for His sake,” not for His teaching’s sake but because of their relationship to Him. In the next section of the Sermon on the Mount Jesus set Himself up as the authoritative expounder of the law. He repeatedly said, “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old, Thou shalt do so and so. But I say unto you…” thereby placing Himself above the rabbis and scribes and doing so without the slightest apology, reserve, or qualification.
But Jesus did not only speak with authority. He also acted with authority. And thus, His works serve to substantiate His claims. What were His works? By the time of the preaching of this Sermon, according to Matthew (4:23-25), Jesus had already healed various types of sickness among the people and had cast out demons. They were yet to see lepers cured, the eyes of the blind opened, the dead raised to life, the storms stilled, water turned to wine, thousands fed from just a few shreds of lunch, and heaven opened. These works were meant to accredit Him by revealing the source of His teaching. We cannot study them candidly without coming to the conclusion reached by Nicodemus: “Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God; for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him” (John 3:2).
The final and in many ways the conclusive bulwark of the authority of Jesus Christ is His resurrection from the dead. At the time of the preaching of this Sermon, of course, Jesus had not yet died, let alone been raised from the dead. But we remember that He was ending His Sermon with an encouragement for His hearers to keep on as His disciples until they came to that point. And, whatever the case may have been for them, for us the resurrection is paramount. Did Jesus rise from the dead? If He did, then His authority is established. His teaching is established. His deity is established. And Christianity rests upon an impregnable foundation.
What is the most important message of this Sermon? Certainly, it is the person of Jesus of Nazareth Himself, the Son of God, who spoke as no man had ever spoken before or since, who lived as He preached, and who then died and rose again that He might offer us a full and perfect salvation. Do you believe that? Have you committed your life to His care?
All of the benedictions in the Bible are great because they pronounce a blessing on the people of God based upon the attributes of God. But this benediction is particularly strong. It has an abundance of doctrine and a wealth of spiritual treasures.
However, the most serious war of all, though we seldom give attention to it, is the warfare of the human heart against God. We are against God and His rule because we want to rule ourselves. It’s what sin is all about. So when we read a phrase like “the God of peace,” this isn’t any merely placid or serene sentiment that the author is talking about. This is a phrase that says God is a God of peace because He’s made peace. He’s done it through Jesus Christ. That’s a wonderful thing, indeed.
Yesterday, we looked at the biblical idea of a covenant, and gave some examples. Now those are all great covenants. They were great blessings to the people who received, believed, and obeyed them. But they are not as great as the covenant that’s spoken of in Hebrews 13. Why? First of all, because it’s an eternal covenant. That is, it goes back into eternity past. It was established among the persons of the Godhead before this world even came into being. And because it’s eternal, it’s going to last forever.
That brings us to the next part, which is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is mentioned as a second ground for the petition. It’s part of the covenant because the Father committed Himself to do that with Jesus before the incarnation. It’s part of His eternal agreement with the Son, but it’s more than that. Certainly the way it’s presented here in this great benediction shows that it is a demonstration of the power of God in accomplishing our salvation. The resurrection is proof that He’s done it. It’s a firm foundation for saving faith.
Because of this great plan of redemption God has devised in eternity past through the sacrifice of His Son, the Lamb of God, all glory and praise belong to God in the past and now by us in the future. And when you go to the end of the Bible, to the Book of Revelation, you find the people of God praising God in heaven. In chapter 4 we read, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being” (v. 11).
In this series we are going to be studying the characters of John’s Gospel who had encounters with the Lord Jesus Christ. Some of the best-known characters in the biblical story are found in this Gospel, and others that are found in the other Gospels as well receive fuller treatment in John.
During the last half of the nineteenth century, an evangelist by the name of Henry Drummond wrote a sermon called “The Greatest Thing in the World.” It was about love. It was based on I Corinthians 13, which is certainly one of the greatest chapters in the Bible. If people know anything about 1 Corinthians, this is probably the chapter that comes to mind. This chapter teaches that love is greater than faith, that love is greater than hope.
In the context of the entire book of 1 Corinthians, Paul has repeatedly set love over against the things that the Corinthians thought were most important. He contrasts love with the supernatural gifts. He also contrasts love with the idea of wisdom. In verse 3, Paul contrasts love with doing good deeds, even to the point of becoming a martyr for the sake of something good. He says you can be famous for doing extraordinarily good works, but if you have not love, it profits you nothing.
People ask me when they should pray and how they should pray. Sometimes they even ask, “Why should I pray?” Well, it’s with questions like these that we want to deal, and many of them are answered when we realize that prayer is basically talking with God. Therefore it should be as natural for us to pray as for a child to come to his parents for guidance, for consolation, help, or merely sharing the day’s experiences. If you are a child of God—as the Bible says you are if you have admitted that you are a sinner, believed on the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, and committed yourself to Him—then there need be no restrictions on the time, place or manner in which you speak to Him.
In yesterday’s study, I said that people sometimes ask me questions such as when they should pray, how they should pray, or even why they should pray. Now all these questions have been asked by others, and they were asked in Christ’s day. So when Jesus began to teach about prayer, He dealt with them—sometimes by direct teaching, and at other times by example, as in the Lord’s Prayer, one of His most helpful teachings about prayer. Jesus said, “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and at the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy room, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father, who is in secret; and thy Father, who seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the pagans do; for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye, therefore, like unto them; for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask him” (Matt. 6:5-8).
If we are to exercise the spiritual discrimination and judgment that Christ was talking about in verse six (“Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before swine”), then we must apply verses 7-11 to believers in the Lord Jesus Christ only. We must read the verse this way: “Ask [you who are born again], and it shall be given you [who are born again]; seek [you who are born again], and you [who are born again] shall find; knock [you who are born again], and it shall be opened unto you [who are born again].” Prayer is for believers in the Lord Jesus Christ only.
The second obvious teaching of these verses is that even if we are Christians, we must ask for the thing that God promises. This section of God’s Word contains the positive statement of the principle (“Ask, and it shall be given you”). James 4:2 contains the negative statement (“Ye have not, because ye ask not”). But the teaching of both texts is identical. God delights to give good gifts to His children. Hence, if we do not have them, the fault does not lie in God. It lies in our failure to ask things of Him.
What else do we need in our churches that we are not receiving? Do we lack suitable candidates for church office? Or those for missions? Do we lack Sunday school teachers or church workers? If so, it is because we are not asking. Jesus said, “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into the harvest” (Matt. 9:37-38).
I know that there is something about the idea of prevailing prayer that, at least on the surface, seems contrary to a Calvinistic way of thinking, but the conflict is only superficial. In two of the parables of the Lord Jesus, there is the story of a person who prevailed in a request by means of perseverance. In Luke 11:5-10, there is the story of a man who lacked food to feed a guest who arrived at his home at midnight. He went to his neighbor. At first the neighbor did not want to be bothered, but at last he gave the things that were needed because of the man’s persistence.
The Golden Rule, which is found in the seventh chapter of Matthew, verse 12, is probably the most universally praised statement that Jesus ever made. It has been called “the topmost peak of social ethics… the Everest of all ethical teaching.”
Acts is the second volume of a two-volume history. The first volume is the Gospel according to Luke, written by the companion of the apostle Paul, and this is the second volume. Sometimes scholars refer to these books as “Luke/Acts.” We know they belong together, because the introductions link them. Luke begins by a dedication to a man whom he calls “most excellent Theophilus” (Luke 1:1-4), and Acts mentions Theophilus again, referring also to Luke’s “former book” (Acts 1:1).
We begin with Acts 1:1-11, verses that deal with the forty days between the resurrection of Jesus Christ and His ascension. These were important days, and Luke emphasizes important things as he reviews them. First, there is an emphasis upon the historical basis of Christianity. Luke tells Theophilus, to whom he is writing, that he is a historian and that he is going to continue the history that he began in his Gospel. In that earlier book he said that he had investigated the details of the life of Jesus Christ quite carefully and had written them down only after this investigation. Luke wants to continue that procedure in this volume. The things he wrote concern “all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up to heaven” (Acts 1:1). These things obviously are going to continue in the church by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Thomas was the greatest of the skeptics. Even after the resurrection, when the other disciples had seen Christ and had come to Thomas to proclaim the resurrection, Thomas said, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it” (John 20:25). But when Jesus appeared to Thomas this alone was sufficient to dispel all this doubter’s doubt. He fell before him with the confession, “My Lord and my God” (v. 28). This and other similar experiences are what Luke had in mind when he wrote of “convincing proofs.” He was saying, “I am going to chart the spread of Christianity. But I want you to know at the very beginning that this is a religion based upon historical facts, including even the amazing matter of the resurrection. The resurrection has been demonstrated by many convincing proofs, and it is proof of everything else that needs proving.”
The disciples who were with Jesus in the days between His resurrection and ascension still had old-fashioned ideas, and one of these, as we know from the Gospels, was that the Kingdom of God was going to be established by political, earthly power. Their idea of the Messiah was a soldier like Judas Maccabeus (Judas the Hammer), who was going to be strong enough to drive out any occupying military forces. In these days, the land was occupied by Romans. So they were looking for a Messiah who would expel the Romans and set up the earthly kingdom of David.
t the end of these verses we find a fourth principle for Christian living in this age. It is the expectation of the return of the Lord. This is the passage that tells of Christ’s ascension into heaven. During these days He had been appearing to the disciples on unanticipated occasions to teach them spiritual things. If that had continued, they might have thought, “Well, that’s the way it’s going to be forever. Every so often, Jesus will just be here to give us the kind of instruction we need.” That would have been their mentality. Jesus had to teach them that this phase of His work was ending. So there came the moment when Jesus bid them good-bye and then ascended visibly into heaven and disappeared from sight.
There are four geographical references in verse 8: Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth. In the New International Version, the middle terms are combined by the verse’s punctuation so that there is a three-part progression: Jerusalem (comma), Judea and Samaria (comma), and the ends of the earth. This is because in the Greek text, the word “Samaria” does not have a definite article before it. The article occurs before “Judea,” which suggests that Judea and Samaria belong together, and this makes a three-part outline for the book. Acts 1-11 deals with the preaching of the Gospel in Jerusalem. In Acts 8-12 the gospel expands beyond Jerusalem into Judea and Samaria. Acts 13-28 records the expansion of the Gospel throughout the Roman world.
Acts 1:7-8 also corrects a misconception of the Lord’s plan by the disciples. Jesus told them that they would be empowered by the Holy Spirit, but the disciples were not thinking about spiritual things at this time. They were thinking about earthly kingdoms, and they asked Jesus, apparently just before His ascension, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (v. 6). Their country was occupied by the Romans, and their chief desire was for a Messiah who would drive the Romans out.
We concluded yesterday’s study with our present task: We are to go out into the world and proclaim a kingdom that Jesus established by His death and resurrection. We need to examine this a bit further. I have already pointed out that the kingdom the disciples were expecting was a political kingdom that was ethnically and geographically restricted. Against that background, notice what Jesus Christ taught about the nature of the kingdom.
Several years ago, the brilliant French writer Jacques Ellul wrote a book called The Political Illusion. It is a brilliant book, because it examines and exposes the mystique of political power. Ellul calls political power an illusion created by politicians, because they want to be thought powerful, and by the media, who feed on it. This is not the same thing as saying that the state is unimportant. God established the state to protect the innocent, secure the just punishment of the guilty, and defend its citizens against oppression—both from within and without. This involves power. But there is an illusion surrounding the political process, and it is this illusion of power which Ellul is debunking: the illusion that because a person possesses political office, somehow he or she can control events, change things and produce reformation in the world. Many people believe that, but it is not where true significant power is located. Otherwise, politicians would not be so sensitive to public opinion.
There is another error into which some are falling today, and this is the error of thinking that the kingdom of God is advanced by the “miraculous” or by what those who argue for it sometimes call “signs and wonders.” The argument is that where the Holy Spirit is active, there signs and wonders follow. According to exponents of this view, we should seek healings and miraculous demonstrations of God’s power in the church today. If that is what we are looking for, we are in error, because that is not what Jesus taught. Jesus taught that when we receive the power of the Holy Spirit, the result will not be miracles, signs or healings, but witnessing.
The second half of Acts 1 deals with a period of waiting on the part of the disciples prior to the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, which is described in chapter 2. It lasted ten days. We know that it was ten days because the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost. Pentecost refers to the Feast of Weeks, which was held fifty days after Passover. Since the Lord was taken back to heaven forty days after the resurrection, there must have been a ten-day period in which the disciples waited in Jerusalem.
The first thing we see for the early Christians is that this ten-day period was a time to practice obedience. If we compare verse 12 with verse 4, we find that what the disciples did in verse 12 was a direct response to what the Lord Jesus Christ told them they were to do earlier. Earlier Jesus had said, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.” In verse 12, we find that this is precisely what they were doing.
What do you suppose they prayed for? We sometimes talk about prayer in terms of the “ACTS” acrostic: “A” for adoration, “C” for confession, “T” for thanksgiving and “S” for supplication. I can imagine that they did each of these four things, certainly adoration. After all, God had worked among them in a great way. God had sent the Lord Jesus Christ to die for their sins and then rise again from the dead. When they prayed in those days, they must have praised God for the wisdom, love, power and grace by which He had accomplished such a great plan of salvation in their time.
I notice that when Peter spoke about the need to replace Judas, he began to quote Scripture: “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled which the Holy Spirit spoke long ago through the mouth of David concerning Judas….” (v. 16). Later he quoted two specific passages: Psalm 69:25 (“May his place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in it”) and Psalm 109:8 (“May another take his place of leadership”). This must mean that Peter was studying the Bible in those days and, probably, that the other disciples had been studying it too.
The last thing the disciples did which is mentioned in these verses is that they recognized the need for leadership and took steps to supply it. In their case, it involved the election of Matthias to fill Judas’ place.
Some people have been critical of the disciples at this point. They have suggested that because the disciples chose Matthias by lot—that is, as we would say, by drawing straws—they were acting like pagans, since this was a pagan way of doing things. Others have argued that since we never hear of Matthias again, he must not have been God’s choice to fill the vacancy. Some have looked at Paul and have concluded that he, rather than this relatively unknown man, must have been God’s choice to be the twelfth apostle.1
Acts is short for “The Acts of the Apostles.” Yet when we look at the book closely, as we are doing—thinking not just of the historical flow of events and those through whom the Gospel was preached, but also about what was happening theologically—it is evident that Acts is actually a record of the activity of the Holy Spirit in spreading the Gospel through men and women of His choice, so that it could more properly be called “The Acts of the Holy Spirit through the Church.”
With yesterday’s discussion of “spirit” in mind we can go back to the Old Testament and find some interesting things. For example, at the very beginning of the Bible, Genesis 1:1-2 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” In English the choice of words does not mean a whole lot. We think perhaps of the Holy Spirit as a dove somehow skimming over the waters that were covering the earth at that time. But that is not the idea at all. Rather the Holy Spirit of God is portrayed as God’s breath—as the creative, moving, dynamic breath of God. This breath—this divine, life-giving wind—is what is blowing across the waters at the beginning.
When we put our previous discussions of “spirit” together we begin to get a sense of why the image of wind is so important in Acts 2. The text says, “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting” (v. 2). That sounds very much like the story of the Spirit of God hovering over the waters of the earth at creation. So the suggestion is that here, in Acts, we have a new creation as important (more important in many ways) than the original creation of the heavens and the earth. That heaven and earth are destined to pass away, but what is done by the Spirit at Pentecost is eternal and will thereafter last forever.
Apart from God’s self-revelation men and women have no more than a faint idea of who God is. But when the Gospel comes there is light. People can see as they could not see before. They can see who God is and what the Gospel is. Perhaps as significant as anything, they can see what they are apart from Jesus Christ and what they can be in Him.
The point is that, when the Holy Spirit comes in power, what we are to have is not some particularly intense experience—speaking in tongues, for example, so that in a miraculous way everybody will hear our words in his or her language—but rather a widespread speaking about Jesus. The point is that everyone will hear as the Gospel spreads through the testimony of those who are obeying the Great Commission. That is what you and I are called upon to do. That is the task to which the Lord Jesus Christ sends us.
Jesus had told His disciples that they were going to receive power and that after they had received it they were going to be His witnesses. They were going to begin at Jerusalem, and then they were going to go out from there into all the known world. This is what happened as the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples and Peter preached in Jerusalem.
In today’s study we look at the three texts of Peter’s sermon.
Second, the sermon is Christ-centered. This follows from the first point. If the sermon is biblical and if the Bible is about Jesus Christ, if He is its heart and substance, then a biblical sermon is inevitably a Christ-centered sermon.
It is interesting to notice what Peter had to say about Jesus. This part of the sermon begins at verse 22, after he has cited the text about Pentecost, and it continues to nearly the end. What is missing in these words, that we might have expected Peter as one who had accompanied Jesus through the three years of his active earthly ministry to have included, is Christ’s teachings. We might have expected Peter to have said, “The Lord Jesus Christ taught this or that or this other thing.” But Peter does not do it. He does not include the teachings.
I have spent a great deal of time on the first two points of Peter’s sermon, that it was centered on the Bible and centered on Christ. They are of great importance. But let me mention two more things about Peter’s preaching.
In this chapter we need to look at some of the things that are said about this model church. The key verse is verse 42: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
How is it possible for us to focus on the apostolic teaching? The answer is obvious. These men gave us the New Testament. This is the deposit of their teaching. When it came time to collect the books that were to become our New Testament, the criterion by which that was done was whether they came from the apostles or bore the apostolic blessing. Moreover, the fact that we have our New Testament is a fulfillment of what Jesus Christ said He would do through these apostles. In order for us to copy the New Testament church at this point, as we should, we are to study the book these men have left us. It is in the New Testament that the authentic teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ is to be found.
As we saw in yesterday’s study, an evangelical, Spirit-filled, Bible-oriented church should offer many ways for people to get to know the Bible, but primarily through preaching. The second thing we need is fellowship. Not only did they devote themselves to the apostles’ teaching, the early church also devoted itself to fellowship at many levels.
But if we are followers of Jesus Christ, if we have learned from Him, then we know that “a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15), and that “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). The standard set before us is the standard not of being served, but of serving. So our obligation is to use what we have for others, which is what the early church did. It is one measure of a Christian’s sanctification and maturity.
There is one other characteristic of the church mentioned in this paragraph. It was a witnessing or evangelizing church. That is why we find as we get to the end of the paragraph that the Lord added “to their number daily those who [were] being saved” (v. 47). This does not say specifically that they were out witnessing. But we know that the way God reaches people is through the spoken word and that when the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, what happened is that those who received the Spirit immediately began to speak about Jesus.
At the beginning we have some miracles, the first in Acts 3. There is a bridge here to what we were told in the previous chapter, because there Luke described the early fellowship of believers by saying, “Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles” (v. 43). In that chapter Luke does not give us any indication as to what those miraculous signs may have been. But now, when we come to chapter 3, we have the account of at least one of them.
It is worth studying this sermon carefully, just as we did the sermon in Acts 2. When we compare that sermon with this, we find that there are some differences. Yet there are similarities too, because, regardless of the circumstances, Peter was trying to do the same thing here as on the earlier occasion. That is, he was trying to point his listeners to Jesus as the Savior of the world.
When you think about Christianity, do you think primarily about Jesus Christ? And do you understand who Jesus is by the words and doctrines of the Bible? There is a lot more that Christians talk about, of course. But properly understood, those other things all relate to Jesus in some measure. Without Jesus you do not have Christianity, and the Jesus of Christianity is the Bible’s Jesus. To be a Christian is to have a personal relationship with Him. Therefore Peter was preaching about Him in this sermon.
We need to realize that we are all to blame for the death of Christ in one way or another. Even though we were not there at the time Jesus was arrested, tried, and crucified, it was our sins that took Him there. And if Jesus were here today, we would spurn Him today just as the masses of Israel spurned Him in Jerusalem long ago.
We have looked at the first three features of Peter’s sermon. Today we consider the last feature.
In the fourth chapter of Acts we have a record of the first persecution. I do not know if, on this occasion, Peter remembered what the Lord Jesus Christ had said about persecution. But it might be that when he was dragged before the Sanhedrin he recalled that Jesus had prophesied persecution for all who followed Him.
In opposition to the early Christians we know that the priests and their families, the police force, and the Sadducees were all part of the opposition. But it is not only these who were involved. In verse 5, Luke lists other people as well, three more categories: 1) “the rulers,” 2) “the elders,” and 3) “the teachers of the law.”
It is interesting to notice the methods the authorities used in their offensive against the disciples. They used the world’s methods. That is, they used force or power, because naked power is the only weapon the world really has.
We have seen the forceful methods arrayed against these early preachers of the Gospel. Now we are going to see the force of God and the methods the people of God use. The force on the side of God’s people is the Holy Spirit.
As we have already seen, at Peter’s arrest he did not merely try to defend himself. He used the opportunity to witness to Jesus Christ. There were four points to his sermon. We have already looked in detail at the first two points: 1) their guilt in crucifying Jesus, and 2) the fact of Jesus’ resurrection. In today’s study we continue with the second two.
God had used Peter and John to heal a crippled beggar, and the leaders of Israel were unhappy with the miracle. So they arrested the disciples and brought them before the Sanhedrin. “By what power or what name did you do this?” they demanded. “Name” stands for authority. So they were actually asking, “By what authority did you accomplish this miracle?” The disciples answered, “It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified.” This sentence is the theme of the chapter, and it carries us into this new section. There is a fourfold sequence.
The only thing that ever really changes the world is not laws enforced by arms, but moral renewal in the lives of normal citizens. And that comes from God alone. That is why the only profound changes that come into the world are in periods of revival, as God works in His people in such a powerful way that they are changed. Then because they have been changed, the moral climate of the country is changed, too, and good laws follow. Change must come first, then laws. You never achieve change merely by passing laws, because laws do not change people.
We tend to rebel easily. We rebel when we should clearly submit. But this is not the same thing as saying that we must obey the state at all times and in all circumstances.
We concluded yesterday’s study with the important point that the state is responsible to God for what it does. Incidentally, this is also what gives limits to the civil authorities. We see one of these limits in the story. When the state tells us that we cannot preach the Gospel, that is an overextension of its authority. It is an illegitimate use of its legitimate authority and we must resist it.
Only the kingdom of God will never pass away. It is eternal. The important question is “What kingdom do you belong to?” Where is your ultimate allegiance? Do we have allegiance to the state? Yes, we are to have a certain measure of that. We’re called to give honor where honor is due, taxes where taxes are due, all of that. But most of all, we are called to be citizens of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ and live for Him.
Do you enjoy getting missionary letters? In this age of voluminous and many times worthless communications, I suppose there are Christians who get missionary letters and simply throw them away, the way they throw away many worthless advertisements. But for my part, I enjoy missionary letters. I enjoy them because, by reading them, I feel that a window has been opened for me into Christian work in some other portion of the world, and I am interested in that. I am encouraged to learn what God is doing there.
When God’s people worship God, they always do two things: 1) they pray, and 2) they reflect on the Scriptures. Prayer is our talking to God; the Scriptures are God’s talking to us, and the two always go together. You pray in a right way when you pray scripturally. You study the Scriptures in a right way when you study prayerfully. This is what the church was doing. They had been reflecting on the Scriptures. Now, as they began to pray, the Scriptures, as it were, rose up in them, and they found themselves talking to God in God’s own words, the words of Scripture.
The minds of these early Christians were being scripturally transformed, because, although in a certain sense, being devout Jews, they already knew the Scriptures, before this they had not understood them. They had read the Old Testament. They had heard it in the synagogues. I am sure they had even memorized important passages. But they did not really understand them. It was only after Jesus died and had risen again and the Holy Spirit had come, that their eyes were opened and they saw the Old Testament in its true light.
The verses that came to the minds of the Christians in this important worship service were from Psalm 2. Psalm 2 is a great Messianic psalm, but this is the first time its words have appeared in Acts. The psalm is a record of human rebellion against God and God’s response to it, but it is the verses dealing with the rebellion itself that they cite: “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his anointed One” (Acts 4:25-26).
We come then to the second half of this last section of Acts 4, and here we see a vignette reflecting on the life and work of the church in those days. It was a bit like living in Eden. True, the church was composed of sinful people. We are going to see a pair of them in the very next chapter. But still it was a glorious time. We are told three things about them.
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