Well, in the book of Acts, chapter two,
beginning with verse forty-one, they may that
gladly received his word were baptized.
And the same day there were added unto
them about three thousand souls, and they continued
steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and
in the breaking of bread and in prayers.
And fear came upon every soul, and many
wonders and signs were done by the apostles.
And all that believed were together and had
all things common to all men, as every
man can eat.
And they, continuing daily with one accord in
the temple, breaking bread from house to house,
did eat their meat with gladness and singleness
of heart, praising God and having favor with
all the people.
And the Lord added to the church daily,
such as should be saved.
Now, what I want to speak about particularly
is found in verse forty-two, the apostles'
doctrine and fellowship, and more particularly the apostles'
fellowship, the apostolic fellowship.
Now, this will be a companion sermon to
one that I preached some months ago on
the communion of saints, and there will be
some overlapping of ideas.
I want to mention that just so you
will not think that the old man is
back in his second childhood and is repeating
himself and not knowing it.
I usually know when I repeat myself, and
I repeat myself sometimes deliberately because it's the
only possible way to make ideas stick in
our busy minds.
So this will be on the apostolic fellowship,
and will include the communion of saints and
will also include some truths which I have
given before.
Now, the church here is called a fellowship.
That's a good word, though it's a word
that's been abused tremendously in later times in
the last fifty years, the last twenty-five
anyway.
Every ambitious fellow that wants to start himself
something calls it a fellowship.
But I want to go back to the
New Testament for the word, and notice that
it means a sharing together.
It means more than that, it means an
intimate sharing together.
It means more than that, it means a
communion, a communion of heart and mind.
Now, this communion of heart and mind among
the Christians is taught in the scriptures.
For instance, it says that in the book
of Ephesians, that speaks of God the Father,
after whom the whole family in heaven and
earth is named.
There's the whole family.
And in the fourth chapter of Ephesians, which
we've read that and mentioned it a few
times recently, there is that unity, the seven
unities of the Church of Christ.
But I ask you to notice that before
there can be communion, there must be union.
And this union of believers is, I say,
taught in the scriptures, and it's repeated in
the creed.
I know some people shy away from creeds.
They say, I don't believe in creeds.
I smile when somebody says that I don't
like a creed.
I take the Bible.
A creed means, I believe, credo.
I believe.
And every time you stand to testify and
say, I believe, you're repeating your creed.
Even though you don't believe it, you still,
I mean, even though you don't think it's
your creed, it's your creed.
And I happen to like the old creeds
because they consist of biblical truth carefully put
together by some of the holiest and most
learned men of the Christian era.
And one item in the creed says, I
believe in the communion of saints.
Now, I repeat that I don't believe in
communication with the dead saints.
I believe in the communion of all the
saints in heaven and in earth.
And they are still in our communion, and
we're in their communion.
We're not within communication.
That is, you cannot go into a trance
and communicate with a deacon that died two
years ago in Windsor.
But you, if he was a Christian, you
can be in full fellowship in communion with
him in all that he was and stood
for and where he is now.
There is an unbroken spiritual communion.
You see, distance divides matter, but it doesn't
divide spirit.
So that you can be one in spirit
with the man who died.
I'm just as much one in spirit with
Dr. Sneed now, where he is as I
was when he was in Orlando, Florida.
When he was in Orlando, Florida, a distance
of maybe 900 miles divided him and me.
But now that he is in the kingdom
of God, nothing divides us because there is
no distance to divide.
We are one in the spirit, and so
with the whole Church of Christ around the
world and in heaven.
Now, we sing about the communion of saints
also when we sing, As she on earth
hath union with God, the three in one,
and mystic, sweet communion with them whose grace
is one.
We sing it, and yet we don't believe
it.
You know, I've come to the conclusion, brothers
and sisters, that we Protestants, and particularly we
evangelicals, in our eagerness to be rid of
formality and ritual, we have thrown out a
great many gold nuggets along with some stuff
that should have been thrown out.
And it's mighty nice to remember that we
believe in the communion of saints and that
the saints of God have union now with
all of God's children.
That is the true ecumenicity.
The true ecumenicity that they're fighting for, the
ecumenicity they're fighting for, the union of all
Christians into one great super-church, is not
biblical at all.
We do not need to unite the Church.
The true Church is already united in a
mystic, sweet communion that has never been separated.
Now, this fellowship that we're talking about, this
apostolic fellowship, can be divided up for us
to think about.
It can't be divided actually, but to think
about it we can divide it.
It is a fellowship of truth, and that's
where I don't go along with the ecumenical
brethren who would submerge all truth in order
that we might get together.
Those who believed one thing would submerge it
in order to please those who didn't believe
it, and vice versa.
And pretty soon we would get to a
point where we didn't believe anything at all,
or where we cautiously and tentatively believed everything.
And the man who believes everything is just
as bad off as the man who believes
nothing.
So there is a fellowship of truth, and
the fellowship of God's people is around the
truth of God.
It's centered in the sacred revelation of the
scriptures.
And I'd like to say to you now,
for Avenue Road Church as far as I
have anything to do with it, that we
want nothing beyond the scriptures, and we want
nothing apart from them.
The Holy Book of God is a gold
mine that has never been fully explored, and
it contains all we need.
It is the apple orchard, the orange grove,
it is the herd where all the cattle
are, it contains all the riches that we
need in heaven and earth, and this book
is the center around which all our fellowship
moves.
And we want nothing beyond the scriptures.
That's why I don't allow or won't permit
anybody to come with any visions to me.
I had a vision last night, Brother Tozer.
Well, that's nice.
I hope you slept well.
But as for me, I have the book.
It is written is the book.
It is written in the book, and that
is enough.
Some people used to come to me.
I guess I must have been pretty nasty
at one time in my life, because people
stop certain things.
And maybe it was a kind of divine
nastiness, I don't know.
But people used to come to me and
say, The Lord told me about you, and
so and so.
And I don't remember exactly how I disposed
of them, but it was in a rather
preemptory manner.
And they stopped it.
They don't do it anymore.
My phone line has never been down between
me and God.
And if the Lord wants to talk to
me, my phone's in order, and God can
call me and give me his message, and
I don't need somebody to have a dream
and come to me and say, Now the
Lord told me to tell you thus and
thus.
The Lord doesn't send messengers from their beds
to tell me anything.
He comes through the Holy Ghost and the
scriptures.
We want nothing beyond the scriptures, and we
want nothing less than the scriptures offer.
I should like to bear down hard on
that.
We are not going to take the tradition
of men for our norm, and we're not
going to allow ourselves to stop short just
because others stop short.
We want nothing less than the scriptures offer,
and we firmly reject everything contrary to them.
Now, it is not only a fellowship of
truth, but it is a fellowship of life.
We exist by an infusion of another kind
of life.
You can join this church, I suppose, if
you know the right things to say and
you are good enough to keep out of
jail.
You can join the average church, if nobody
knows anything really bad about you and you
nod your head at the right time, you
can join the average church.
But that doesn't make a church, my brother.
That's a mixed multitude.
The true church is a fellowship of life.
Nobody's in the church except who's been baptized
into the church by the life of God
in the Holy Ghost.
And so any church, and the whole church,
is a fellowship of life.
And since you and I can't, we're not
big enough inside or in our heads to
deal with the whole church, we're going to
have to think about this church.
So we're thinking about this church as a
fellowship of life.
Life comes from God, and it holds the
right relations of truth.
It's a fellowship of truth first because it's
through truth that life comes.
And when life comes, then we're baptized into
one body.
Now, the difference between, say, a mule in
a barn and an automobile in a garage,
is the difference between something assembled and something
living.
The garage contains an organization.
It's been all put together with nuts and
bolts and all sorts of things.
And it's there, and it'll work a certain
way, but it never talks to you.
It never has any will of its own.
It has no personality, no memory, and it
has no imagination, and it hasn't any life,
and it can't reproduce itself.
You can't have one automobile marry another and
have little automobiles.
They don't work that way.
There's no life there.
But if you take the animal in the
barn or in the field and it's alive,
it's alive.
It's an organization, too.
It holds together by joints and marrow and
bones and ligament and skin, but it is
more than an organization.
It is an organism of life.
It is with a church, just as a
mule or a horse is held together by
organization, so it's also this organization in the
church.
But there is life that makes the church
a real organism, and we have this fellowship.
We share together the life of Jesus Christ
by the Holy Ghost, the wonderful life that
couldn't stay in the grave but came out
of the grave on the third day.
We share that.
That's ours to share equally, and it's a
fellowship of a presence.
We have in the scripture the teaching that
Jesus Christ is in the midst of us.
Matthew 18, where two or three are gathered,
I am there in the midst.
John 14, and we will come unto him
and make our abode with him.
Matthew 28, and lo, I am with you
always.
Ephesians 2, 22, we are built together in
the habitation of God through the Spirit.
We accept this, and we believe it.
We believe that there is a presence here.
It always amuses me how people come to
see the new man or hear the new
man.
They say they are like a new voice.
So did they in Ephesus, like new voices.
They were always busy seeing whatever new thing
there was.
Well, my brother and sister, we are not
met together today in the name of either
of these ministers on a platform.
We are met in the name of another
who is present and unseen.
But if we are sensitive enough in the
Holy Ghost, we can feel his presence here.
We can know he is here by theology,
and we can feel him here by mystic
divine communion.
So we know that he is present, and
we believe it.
And we want to try to have it
in conscious experience, not only to know it
theologically, but to have it in conscious experience,
to feel that he is mine, so that
when we come into the house of God,
there is a hushed feeling, a sense that
he is with us there.
And that, then, is the fellowship of a
presence.
The Lord is in his holy temple, and
God is among us and is with us.
This is so important that I don't know
anything more important than this, that when a
group of Christians meet together, they do not
meet as a bunch of politicians.
When they meet together, they share certain things
too.
They share certain political opinions, and they share
the desire to have certain men elected.
They share a desire to have certain laws
passed or rescinded.
And I do not speak against them, and
you have to have politicians to keep the
world rolling, I suppose, although I really don't
know whether that's so or not, but we'll
not discuss that now.
But anyhow, politicians do meet, and they have
reasons for meeting, and they share certain things.
And all right, we don't say a word
against them, we just say we know what
they share.
Or suppose that they love literature, people meet,
literary groups meet together, as they used to
in the Lions Club back in London, when
Samuel Johnson and Boswell and many of the
others used to meet.
They shared one thing, they shared literature and
art and philosophy, and they sat and talked
for hours until the early morning hours, discussing
what was dear to them.
So we have baseball or hockey club fans
who meet and talk, and it's all right,
let them talk.
They have something that they share among them,
and it's good.
But we have something that we share among
ourselves which is infinitely better, and that is
the presence of the Unseen Lord, the Second
Person of the Trinity, the Divine Son, and
that Outbeing, the One God, the Far Almighty,
and Jesus Christ, the Only Son, and also
the Holy Ghost, the Comforter.
So we have this communal worship, this worship
together as a community, and that community of
worship is only as perfect as the private
worship is back home.
If you take 100 people or 1,000
people who do not pray during the week
and bring them together and have them attempt
a fellowship of worship, they may approximate it,
but they won't have much success, for you're
not better because you're in church, you're only
as good as you were when you came
to church.
And so if 100 or 1,000 people
meet together who haven't prayed all week, and
their psychology is a secular psychology, and their
thoughts are worldly, they'll have an awful hard
time getting their thoughts sold in.
I sometimes smile with appreciation at a song
that says, Come, O my soul and sacred
lady, and sing thy great Creator's praise, and
then one part of it says, Call home
thy thoughts that are overbroad.
Our thoughts are like stray cats, they just
rove everywhere.
But when we realize that we're met in
the fellowship of worship, our thoughts should be
around the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
And you'd quit sermon tasting, brother and mister,
and quit testing soul over fire numbers, and
begin to concentrate on the unseen wonderful presence,
and worship him.
It would step up the good and beauty
of your Sunday worship so amazingly, because that's
why we're here.
We're met to worship the Lord.
But also it's a fellowship of love, and
I'm going to pass that over lightly, because
it's love felt toward each other, and a
love felt toward God first of all, and
of course toward lost men.
And then it's a fellowship of service.
I'm also going to skip that thought because
of time considerations, and merely say that we're
not met merely to enjoy ourselves, not even
spiritually to enjoy ourselves.
We are met in order that we might
recharge our batteries in order to serve.
Now Jesus Christ was anointed of God by
the Holy Ghost, and he went about doing
good and healing all that were oppressed of
the devil.
He went about doing good after he was
anointed, and the anointing then was given him
to enable him to go about doing good.
And this we also must do, for as
he was, so are we in this world.
And we are here to serve.
Now we're here to serve.
How much service have we rendered?
Now I don't mean how many sandwiches have
you buttered for the group that meets the
task.
I mean how much service have you rendered
to the poor world.
I don't mean how many cups of coffee
have you poured for people who shouldn't drink
it now because they can't sleep.
I mean, I drink it incidentally and sleep,
but I'm not against coffee, I'm just mentioning.
But I'm just wondering how much service you've
rendered the poor people.
There is a series of articles running in
the Toronto Times.
A certain man, he is a reporter, and
he's out on what you call skid row,
we call it that in Chicago, and I
suppose it's that here.
Well, he's going about young men hunting jobs.
And I didn't know there were so many
people looking for jobs.
I didn't know it.
I know there are five million out of
work in the United States.
I understand that there are something like 400
,000 here, and it's a terrible thing.
I tell you, Brethren, God has given us,
and when he's given us, we ought to
do something.
To see that we serve.
To serve in the name of the Lord.
A cup of water given in the master's
name will not go unrewarded.
The dollar sent to care or save the
Children Federation will not go unrewarded.
The dollar given to the mission cause, not
only to spread the gospel, but to feed
some poor kids who are displaced and whose
parents maybe have been murdered in the terrible
political upheavals throughout the world.
I don't want to die knowing that I
haven't helped anybody while I live.
And it isn't enough, and I can't hide
behind the fact that I preach sermons that
have helped people.
Sermons that have helped people will not bring
any reward in the day of the Lord's
judgment if I have been able to help
in another way and have not been able
to do it, and have not been willing
to do it.
A colored brother down in the city of
Chicago, a great preacher.
He is an ignorant man, but a great
preacher.
He used to say that there's no use
to try to preach the gospel to a
man who's hungry.
He said, if he's hungry, give him a
poke chop.
He said, don't talk to Jesus about a
man when all he can think of is
a poke chop.
He said, give him a poke chop first
and then talk to him about Jesus.
That was wisdom, my brother, that was wisdom.
And I believe in it, and I believe
that you and I are called not only
to help in a spiritual way, but to
help also.
And it says at the bottom of page
three here in our bulletin, a benevolent offering
will be received following the communion service.
That benevolent offering is for people who need
help throughout the city and throughout the world.
Let's give to it.
Let's not draw a careless quarter in, but
let's see that we're serving with what we
have.
And it's the fellowship of the new creation,
and I'm nearly finished.
The fellowship of the new creation.
I believe in this.
Listen to Hebrews 6.
It says that we're partakers of the heavenly
gift, and we've tasted of the heavenly gift,
and have been enlightened, and partakers of the
Holy Ghost, and tasted the good word of
God and the powers of the world to
come.
It says in Hebrews 12 that ye are
come unto Mount Zion, unto this of the
living God.
Not ye will come when ye die, but
you are now come to the heavenly Jerusalem,
to an innumerable company of angels, to the
general assembly and church of the firstborn, which
are written in heaven, and to God, judge
of all, and to the spirits of just
men, made perfect unto Jesus, the mediator of
the new covenant, and to the blood of
sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of
Abel.
Now that, my friends, that is what ye
and I are come unto.
We have entered into this kingdom by the
spirit we've entered into the kingdom.
Our bodies haven't got in there in the
kingdom of Adam.
They're still here subject to decay and sickness
and accidents and dying.
But our spirits are in there, and we
are come unto Mount Zion.
And if any man be in Christ, he
is a new creature.
Now that's our communion.
Old Terstegen says it about these priests of
God, and I believe in the priesthood of
believers.
I didn't get it from the Baptist, nor
the Plymouth Brethren.
I got it from the New Testament.
I believe in the priesthood of believers.
The race of God's anointed priest shall never
pass away.
Before his glorious face they stand and serve
him night and day.
Though reason rave and unbelief flow on a
mighty flood, there are and shall be to
send a hidden priest of God.
His chosen soul, earthly dross consumed in sacred
fire, to God's own heart their hearts ascend
in flame of deep desire.
The indents of their worship fills his temple's
holiest place.
Their song with wonder fills the heaven, a
glad new song of grace.
Such a communion as this will have little
place for the old creation.
And the more we enjoy this communion of
the new creation, the less we'll have for
the old creation.
If the old creation accepts you as one
of them, pats your back, you're pretty sure
you're not in the new creation yet, or
you're not all the way in.
Those who live in the new creation and
those in whom the spirit of God dwells,
they're so different from the old creation that
the old creation can't forgive them.
You know, the church in any given period
may be known by whether the world slaps
you on the back, slaps you in the
face.
It depends, you know, upon where you're slapped.
If the world slaps you on the back,
it's pretty sure that they recognize you as
one of the bunch.
But if they strike you in the face
as they did Jesus and Paul, then it
also may show that you don't belong to
them and they can't overlook it.
Now, this fellowship is a sacred and a
serious fellowship, and it won't have too much
interest for the worldly-minded, really.
It won't have too much interest for the
lovers of money and the lovers of pleasure.
And it won't have too much interest for
the merely social religionists who belong to churches
and as they belong to some club, come
because they like the hymns, they like the
fellowship of social things.
No, you can't expect people to like a
church like this.
But oh, how wonderful it is to have
a fellowship where Christ is.
Close your eyes and know you don't have
to shout, he's here.
To know that you don't have to look
for truth, you have truth.
To know that you worship, truly worship, because
you have truth in life and a presence.
And then serve, not that you might be
saved, but because you are saved and enjoy
the new creation.
Each one of us, each one of us
will have to answer to God in searching
judgment how we've helped or hindered the fellowship,
the apostolic fellowship.
I pray that we may grow in union
and communion until tears won't be unusual, and
occasioned quiet, amen, won't be considered fanatical.
I pray that we may grow in grace
and in the intensity of our inner lives
until we tune into the presence of Jesus
Christ as easily and with as little effort
as you tune into a radio station when
you turn a knob.
Don't you think that's what we're seeking, amen?
Oh yes, not interested in anything else, not
in, I couldn't be interested in anything else,
this is it.
And when we receive communion around the table
together in a sweet, mystic, but real way,
we take of his body and drink of
his blood and share in the whole.