Both my Bibles, and I'm tossed betwixt and
between the King James and the New American
Standard, there are desirable things in both renderings
of the same chapter.
The chapter is Acts 20.
It's Paul's farewell address.
And I don't think that he himself was
conscious that as he just summoned the elders
of Ephesus to make his farewell, that he
was aware of what an eternal statement he
was giving.
The statement is classic.
It doesn't mean because it's something ancient.
It means because it's central, intrinsic to everything
that shall ever be understood in the definition
of the word apostolic.
How many people here desire to be an
apostolic people?
I won't ask for the number of hands
who can define what the word means.
As I've said before, I'd much rather see
you salivate over it than be able to
clinically define it.
I don't know that it's definable.
It's too living.
It's too palpitating.
It's an ultimate word.
It's an ultimate statement for an ultimate church.
Built on the foundation of ultimate men.
The church built upon the foundation of the
apostles and the prophets.
Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.
Jesus Christ himself, the apostles and the prophets
themselves.
Not just what they preach, not just what
they teach, not just what they're able to
minister, but what they themselves are, the totality
of these men, this awesome phenomenon, an apostolic
man.
You know what God wants at the end
of the age?
A church like that.
And so I think there are certain wonderful
things as a summation for these days in
this theme that can be found in this
20th chapter.
It's almost criminal just to plunge in at
any particular verse, but because our time is
limited, maybe the 16th verse, For Paul had
determined to sail by Ephesus, because he would
not spend the time in Asia.
For he hasted, if it were possible for
him to be at Jerusalem the day of
Pentecost.
And from the latest he sent to Ephesus
and called the elders of the church.
And when they were come to him, he
said unto them, You know from the first
day that I came into Asia, after what
manner I have been with you at all
seasons, serving the Lord with all humility of
mind and with many tears and temptations, which
befell me by the lying in wait of
the Jews, and how I kept back nothing
that was profitable unto you, but have showed
you and have taught you publicly and from
house to house, testifying both to the Jews
and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God
and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
And now behold, I go bound in the
spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that
shall befall me there, save that the Holy
Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds
and afflictions await me.
But none of these things move me, neither
count I my life dear unto myself, so
that I might finish my course with joy
in the ministry which I have received of
the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of
the grace of God.
And now behold, I know that you all
among whom I have gone, preaching the kingdom
of God, shall see my face no more.
Wherefore I take you to record this day,
that I am pure from the blood of
all men, for I have not shunned to
declare unto you all the counsel of God.
Amen.
Well, Paul was in a rush to get
to Jerusalem.
I know that that's contrary to some of
the counsel that we've been hearing in these
days, not to haste, but I think that
we'll find in the course of our experience
there are occasions that require it.
In fact, if there's anything that I especially
appreciate about Paul, it's the continual redemption of
the time.
In this regard, he was a Hebrew of
the Hebrews.
He never let a moment go to waste.
He never left anything undone that could be
performed.
There always seems to be such a voluminous
sense of activity of the most significant and
eternal kind that flows from his life like
a gushing fountain.
He wanted to say goodbye to these dear
men, the elders of Ephesus, but he could
not allow himself the time to stop.
So calling to them from Miletus, he sent
them a message that they should come to
him.
And to our utter amazement, we read, And
from Miletus, he sent through Ephesus and called
the elders of the church, and when they
will come to him.
No ifs, no ands, no buts.
No letters back to ask, well, what do
you have in mind?
What is so important that it demands our
coming to you?
I checked on the map, and the distance
between Ephesus and Miletus is no miserly thing.
It's quite a substantial journey at a time
when men did not have cars with automatic
shifts and air conditioning and all the rest
of these things.
It was a wearisome journey, it was a
dangerous journey, and yet it says, and when
they will come.
No ifs, no buts, no hows, no maybes.
He called, they came.
I don't know about you, but my spirit
leaps in anticipation of the day when God
shall raise up men of such stature that
when they call, we come.
No ifs, no ands, no buts.
They recognized the authority that Paul so evidently
had and raised not a single question.
No matter what the difficulty or the inconvenience,
they came.
This is not something that can be organized.
This is something organic.
This is something that operates by an anointing
of God, an unction, and an authority that
is demonstrable to men for which no question
need be asked.
And it's the heart and the genius of
that which is apostolic.
What shall he say to them now that
they have arrived?
Is it going to be a little tear
-jerky, sentimental bash?
Paul, in his beautiful unselfconsciousness, in his mindlessness
about himself, in summing up and reminding them
of the things that they had observed together
over those years, gives us a superlative statement
of what apostolic ministry and what an apostolic
man is.
When they will come to him, he said,
You know from the first day that I
came into Asia, after what manner I have
been with you at all seasons.
That's a remarkable statement.
From the first day to the last, you
know what manner of man I have been
with you in all seasons, in the good
weather and the bad, in the times peaceful
and the times tumultuous, under conditions of strain
and stress and under conditions that were joyous,
I have been one consistent thing from the
beginning till the end.
That's an awesome thing that needs to be
understood.
Because this is far beyond any man's ability.
It's not because he had a certain sanguine
temperament that he was that consistent.
The consistency is the statement of the life
by which he lived.
From the beginning, from the Alpha to the
Omega, from the beginning to the end, he
was one consistent thing in God because he
lived from one consistent life.
Namely not his own, but another.
He was eminently the resurrection man who could
say with complete confidence and not as some
kind of diatribe or cliche, for me to
live is Christ.
And both the power, the variety of his
abilities, the astounding thing that Paul was in
all of his manifold brilliance is a testimony
to the fact that that was true.
He was consistent from the beginning to the
last.
One man of man in all seasons is
a statement to the glory of the Christ
who was his life.
One day God is going to have a
church equally as consistent.
It shall not rise and fall with its
fortunes.
It shall not be a group of fair
weather sailors who can shout their amen and
hallelujahs when they are well fed and abounding
in prosperity.
But whatever their condition, whatever their season, they
are consistently one thing because their life is
drawn consistently from one person, namely the resurrected
Lord.
If the apostolic church is anything, it is
eminently a resurrection phenomenon.
The New American phrases that yet in another
way and even in that phrasing there is
a significant thing to be observed.
When they had come to him, he said
to them, And you yourselves know from the
first day that I set foot in Asia
how I was with you the whole time,
serving the Lord with all humility and with
tears and with trials which came upon me
through the plots of the Jews.
Here is what I want to draw to
your attention.
I was with you serving the Lord.
I don't know if that tickles you, it
delights me.
I was with you at all times serving
the Lord.
Notice the difference between serving men or as
against serving God.
I was with you but my service was
unto God.
And that is an apostolic distinctive.
Got that?
I was with you but I was serving
the Lord.
And I'll tell you that there is no
service that more redounds to the benefit of
men than that which is a conscious serving
of the Lord.
That's why he can say in the same
scriptures, I did not withhold from you any
good thing.
Your faces never intimidated me.
I didn't just speak to things that were
pleasing and that you liked, that spoke of
the copious benefits that come from believing.
I also spoke to you of the hardships,
the cross, the suffering.
I gave you the total counsel of God.
I withheld from you nothing because he was
this kind of a minister.
But as I was with you, I was
serving the Lord.
May we be such also.
How I did not shrink from declaring to
you anything that was profitable.
I don't know who we have here that
are elders and leaders or men who will
one day be.
But there's always a tendency to shrink and
to withhold.
Fearful lest if we bring that we're going
to alienate men, going to offend men, going
to lose the esteem of men which we
so much prize and cherish.
To serve the Lord, to be with men
and yet to serve the Lord is not
some kind of blithe waving of the hand.
It's an ultimate testimony of what an apostolic
man and apostolic ministry is.
Requires a selflessness and an utter devotion and
consecration to God.
That even when men will be pained by
your obedience to him, yet you will not
withhold any good thing or shrink from declaring
anything that was profitable.
It's interesting that many of these things that
are profitable are not always immediately recognized as
such.
Maybe later the profitableness of it will be
revealed.
I like what someone has used as a
definition for truth.
Truth, this person said, is first painful before
it becomes glorious.
Men will not always recognize the gloriousness of
truth, but they will be immediately affected by
its pain.
But he did not shrink or withhold any
profitable thing.
Serving the Lord with all humility, solemnly testifying
to both Jews and Greeks of repentance toward
God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
I'll tell you that every statement he makes
is so charged with meaning, with understanding.
How many of us have yet understood, however
long we have been in the Lord, that
repentance toward God must precede faith in Jesus
Christ?
That faith in Jesus is not some kind
of intellectual process.
And many of us are confronting men from
the wrong angle, trying to bring them to
a place of belief, who have not yet
come to a place of repentance toward God.
And I'm especially taken with this, knowing what
kind of confrontation my Jewish people need.
There's no need for them to consider Jesus
as Savior until they have first recognized the
necessity for a repentance toward God, even as
they themselves narrowly understand Him.
For their chronic and historic resistance and rejection
of that God, before they can consider and
receive the grace which is a faith given
of God in Jesus Christ.
Paul had the right order.
Repentance toward God precedes faith in Jesus Christ.
Faith is a function of repenting, and not
a function of intellectualizing.
This is a tremendous summary, coming from a
chief of the apostles, and it deserves our
uttermost attention.
And now behold, bound in spirit, I am
on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what
will happen to me there, except that the
Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every
city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me.
I have a precious intuition that being bound
in the Spirit was not something that Paul
was now going to face in this last
leg of the journey that was to culminate
in his beheading in Rome, but that his
entire life was summed up in the phrase,
being bound in the Spirit, I go on
my way to Jerusalem.
This is an apostolic description.
For every person, man or woman, who takes
to themselves this chief name, apostolic, must eminently
be one who is bound in the Spirit
on their way to Jerusalem.
Are you bound in the Spirit?
Do you know what that means?
To be restricted and hemmed in by God?
Your own desires overruled, or not even so
much as considered?
That the only way to attain to the
Jerusalem of God is to go only in
this manner and in no other.
Bound in the Spirit, I go.
Not just in the final episode of his
life, but in all of the episodes of
his life, because you know how his life
in God began?
By the raising of a tremendous question, which
many of us have not yet come to
ask.
Lord, what would you have for me to
do?
Paul asked this at the inception of the
light that broke upon his life on the
road to Damascus, and he received an answer.
Tell him what things he must suffer for
my name's sake.
From the moment that the light broke, this
dear Jewish man knew that his life was
not his own, that he was to be
bound in the Spirit, that he was not
to seek the places to which he would
go, or the things that he would speak
upon arriving, that nothing was to be predicated
on the basis of his own choice, but
that one who broke upon him in overwhelming
light on the road to Damascus.
Lord, he said with trembling and astonishment, what
would you have for me to do?
And he thereafter lived the totality of his
life in the Spirit of that question.
How many of us who raised our hands
to desire to be apostolic have not yet
had the full courage to ask the same
God that question with trembling and astonishment?
Lest we receive an answer that is disconcerting,
unpleasant, or inconvenient.
Lord, what would you have for me to
do?
I'm continually amazed at the numbers of Christians
who have made their own choice about career,
about future, about the choice of university or
college or training or preparation or ministry or
where they're going to go or where they're
going to live or how they're going to
spend their vacations and not once have thought
to submit the question to God.
This is an apostolic foundation.
And the answer, however it comes in whatever
form, you can be assured is this.
You're going to be bound in the Spirit.
We are all, if we are apostolic, bound
for the same destination, the new Jerusalem of
God.
And there's only one way to attain it.
It's to go, bound in the Spirit, not
knowing what awaits me there.
I'll tell you, for a Jewish guy like
myself who has always prided myself in knowing,
who has been trained by the world not
to take a step without an understanding and
a knowledge of where I'm going and what
the consequence is, this is a total contradiction
of all that the world celebrates as wisdom
and sweet reasonableness.
And that's what I want to say about
that which is apostolic.
It completely contradicts the world in every point
in particular in that which it esteems as
wise and right.
How would you like to go, bound, not
knowing?
I'll tell you, it strikes at the heart
of our deepest insecurities.
And to be apostolic is not for men
who are riddled with insecurity.
It is men who are sublimely confident that
they are accepted in the Beloved.
Who do not need to be shored up,
they don't need to be assured, they don't
need to have fleshly human confidences of what
shall await them there.
They can go bound now, not knowing.
That's how we came to this place.
Not knowing.
That's how we came to community.
Not knowing.
But we came because we were bound in
the Spirit and had no alternative.
I want to say that it was not
a grim business where we bit our lips
and pursed our mouths and grit our teeth
and wrung our fingers at the unhappy lament
that somehow our lives were not our own.
There was somehow a joy in being obedient
to a God who is not required to
give us explanation.
Nor did we ever ask it.
How would you like to have put your
foot over the chain that was at the
top of this road about seven years ago
when this property was bankrupt and for sale
and to have the foot come down on
the other side and for the Lord to
give you the name Dominion and to breathe
into your spirit that this is going to
be an end-time teaching center and a
nucleus for apostolic purposes of God and community
of God and that you are to go
ahead.
And you hardly understand what the word community
means.
You have only the faintest intimation of what
end-time teaching means.
But you go ahead.
Against the opposition of them.
Against their very sage counsel.
Now cats, what do you want to do
way out there?
Your call to your Jewish people and your
home presently is only 20 miles from New
York City with two and a half million
Jews.
And you're going to go up in the
boondocks and play cowboys and Indians?
Explain that, I ask you.
And you cannot.
Do you know why?
Because God has not explained it to you.
You are bound in the spirit and you
go not knowing.
If you have no stomach for that kind
of life if that shatters your security if
you'd have to have some kind of confidences
and guarantees of what your going means or
you're not taking a step you're disqualified from
apostolic consideration.
I'll tell you there's a precious joy and
a wonderful peace in going not knowing.
I only have to know him who knows.
I don't have to know the particulars.
Paul went bound in the spirit not just
in the final episode of his life but
all the episodes of his life.
And so must the church be that is
founded on such men as that who can
move in God not knowing.
Somehow they have a sublime inward confidence that
does not require explanation for they know the
God who summons them.
Not knowing what will happen to me there
except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to
me in every city saying that bonds and
affliction awaits me.
That's true for us too.
But I do not consider my life of
any account as dear to myself.
How can you read through that hurriedly?
But I do not consider my life dear
to myself.
I love the King James rendering but none
of these things move me neither count I
my life dear unto myself.
Well if you don't count your life dear
unto yourself for whom else then is it
dear?
If it's not dear for you for whom
then is it dear?
For another.
Have you made this counting?
Have you made this reckoning, this calculation?
It's foundational.
You want to know what the foundation is
of the apostles and prophets?
It's this.
I do not reckon, I do not count
my life as dear to myself.
It's not to be lived for my purposes
but for another so that I might finish
my course with joy and the ministry which
I have received of the Lord Jesus.
I don't know that God's going to give
us an apostolic ministry until he first sees
a heart that has come to this foundation
I count not my life as dear unto
myself.
Listen guys, you know what the cancer is
of modern Christianity if I haven't told you
now several times?
It's a terrible, inveterate, basic, interwoven self-centeredness
that has merely moved from worldly and material
and carnal things even into the realm of
religious and spiritual things but still has the
believer at the center.
The benefits that accrue to him the delight
that he has the enjoyment he has I'm
not being fed and that's the justification for
leaving and seeking yet another place because your
feeding, your delight, your enjoyment, your satisfaction is
the whole fulcrum upon which every question is
decided.
It's cancerous, it's filthy, it's despicable it's egotistic
and self-centered no matter how spiritually it
clothes itself.
There's only one foundational apostolic position I count
not my life dear unto myself it's not
for me it's dear for another to whom
I have given it in the day that
his light broke upon my soul.
Have you come to that?
There will not be an apostolic church worthy
of that word until there's a people who
have come to this foundational reckoning I count
not my life dear unto myself.
I'll tell you the Lord is saving us
from being a merely phraseological people who are
glib in such speakings and what he does
is he provides you with a 1950 airplane
and puts you, I don't know what, 8,
9, 10,000 feet up in a blizzard
somewhere between Chicago and Indiana where your plane
is bobbing like a cork where John was
with me in Hawaii when in almost hurricane
conditions we were again in another private plane
bobbing like, I don't know what, sick wondering
if we were going to reach our destination
being flown by a man whose plane had
crashed some earlier time and he lost his
wife in that crash passing over vast bodies
of water wondering if you'll reach your destination
it's a wonderful time to reckon whether you're
counting your life as dear unto yourself that's
why this poor could stand before Jews and
stand before Greeks that's why he could not
be moved that's why his tremendous courage astounds
us in his boldness because he had come
to a foundational reckoning to which many of
us have not come who have made many
trips to the altars, teary-eyed and yet
count our life as dear unto ourselves as
if it's ours to seek for its fulfillment
and have not given it over to another
to whom it really belongs in order that
I might finish my course in the ministry
which I received from the Lord Jesus and
you'll come to that you'll receive your true
ministry in the Lord Jesus to testify solemnly
of the gospel of the grace of God
none of these words are accidental none of
these are haphazard phrasings for Paul it was
the gospel of the grace of God can
you testify personally of the gospel of the
grace of God?
I think it's something that's reserved for the
wretched amazing grace that saved a wretch like
me Paul was a wretch in all of
his blindness in all of his Jewish superiority
in all of his Pharisaical misunderstanding in all
of his religious expertise that when the light
broke and God revealed him to be the
murderer that he was he saw himself in
such utter wretchedness and recognized and received the
gospel of the grace of God to which
he thereafter solemnly testified how well do you
know that grace?
not just in the initiation of your salvation
but in all of your continuation with God
to what measure do you know his grace?
how much do you trust him for his
grace?
how much will you extend yourself?
how much will you put aside the securities
and the worldly and earthly things that shore
you up and allow yourself to be stripped
and even voluntarily give it away that you
shall be solely and purely the recipient of
his grace I'm sorry if I have to
use illustrations out of my own experience but
what has happened in the course of our
six years here has been that stripping coming
to the situation with a salary with an
organization of which I was director and one
by one watching the things stripped away which
every man takes as his right who is
evangelically secure in the ministry which he has
life insurance policies medical insurance policies every kind
of thing to hedge his life about with
security one of my colleagues whom I knew
in those early years when we first began
here said, Artie said well if you want
to put all of that property across the
road in the name of Ben Israel be
the fool and do it but please take
my recommendation at least the plot where your
own house is put that in your own
name personally because who's to say what's going
to happen to Ben Israel Ministries it may
one day collapse, fall, stagger people leave, things
change but at least have the security of
knowing that your house is in your name
but I could not we rise and fall
with what God is with the grace that
God is going to meet out to the
band of souls with whom we are joined
and if we lose the property we all
lose and then the Lord subsequently as we
went on fingered everything else the salary went,
the life insurance and the medical insurance even
though my daughter has just come from an
operation in Rochester that will likely run for
thousands of dollars which if we had only
kept the life insurance the medical insurance policy
we would not now have to face the
painful question of how is this expense going
to be met but I'll tell you that
I have no pain over it because I
can testify solemnly to the grace of God
I think God is going to empty us
of our securities I think God is going
to make our life more precarious I think
he's going to invite us to extend ourselves
and to empty out our wallets and to
put away the things that will establish our
security that we might also be able in
our own generation to solemnly testify of the
gospel of the grace of God do you
have a knowledge of that grace?
it doesn't come without some measure of trembling
but when it comes what a privilege to
testify of a God of all grace and
now behold I know that you all among
whom I went about preaching the kingdom will
see my face no more therefore I testify
to you this day that I am innocent
of the blood of all men well I
guess we have to make just a little
allowance for Paul however impeccable and blameless he
is here's one thing that you can fault
him for he's a bit maudlin he takes
himself a little too seriously he has a
little tendency for exaggeration I'm innocent of the
blood of all men come on man what
are you trying to suggest that your preaching
is an issue of life or death that
your ministry is life or death that somehow
if you fail God in total obedience and
give men something less than what God intends
that the issue of life and death and
eternity is involved what do you think you
are anyway I'll tell you what I want
to be accused of that kind of exaggeration
in fact I already stand before you as
a man completely conscious that every time I
open my mouth whether it's here at Dominion
or overseas or any such place the issues
of life and death are always being propounded
and if you don't see it as that
and you think it's some lesser or lighter
thing do not think that you have a
qualification for apostolic ministry I'm innocent of the
blood of all men I'll tell you if
we felt that our preaching and our ministries
were to affect the life or death or
eternal destiny of men we would approach the
pulpit of God with far more reverence and
much greater trembling than we now presently do
and so ought we to do and so
will we do drunk from nothing I have
been bold and fearless because while I was
with you my ministry was unto the Lord
can you see why it is that I'm
so impatient with shysters and counterfeit apostles with
little timsy cutesy guys who have a little
apostolic vocabulary and think that they're doing the
same thing and have not this stature can
you see why it's the man who is
the foundation the church built upon the foundation
of the apostles and prophets what they are
as men in their depth, in their stature
in what is in wrought in them in
their whole view and vision of what they
are and their purpose and the quality of
their service and life is the very foundation
of a church that is to be like
them these are total men who are establishing
and setting for us a standard of totality
toward God and behold I know that you
all among whom I went about preaching the
kingdom will see my face no more have
you preached the kingdom and when the gospel
of the kingdom shall be proclaimed in all
the earth, then shall the end come I
don't know how much of a beginning we
have actually yet even made I know there's
been a lot of gospel things going on
but which gospel gospel of narrow personal salvation
and self interest and benefit that accrues by
believing is not the gospel of the kingdom
Paul had a profound and burning kingdom consciousness
and I have a feeling that the gospel
of the kingdom which he preached and proclaimed
and demonstrated was a far more awesome inclusive,
extensive, profound gospel than what we have understood
in modern times that only serves the self
interest of men men were called out of
something by that gospel and into something of
a society that had its origin in heaven
and we need again to proclaim the gospel
of the kingdom you'll turn to the very
last chapter of Acts, not now, at your
own convenience the very last thing that is
spoken of Paul is that all who came
to him in the quarters which he had
in Rome to them he spoke the things
pertaining to the kingdom it's another subject I
don't have the time now to speak of
it but I want to say this I
am struck by the absence of kingdom consciousness
in God's people they think it only some
kind of airy and ephemeral phrase that points
to some kind of vagary after one leaves
this life, they do not understand it as
an apostle does of the kingdom as present
possibility and reality here now, thy kingdom come
in the earth as it is in heaven
is the Lord's own prayer who is the
high priest and the apostle of our confession,
to the degree that you do not believe
for a kingdom now in the earth to
that degree, you're disqualified from apostolic consideration oh
I tell you the elements here are golden
and the beauty of it is it's spilling
out of this glorious overflowing fountain of life
which is the apostle Paul, who had known
conscious understanding that 2000 years later, some Jewish
guy wet behind the ears, would be using
his farewell address as a statement, as a
classic expression of the quintessential elements of true
apostolicity I tell you when you can pinch
a man and get something like that out
of him in which he's not even aware
and conscious of the glories that are pouring
out of him you have something apostolic for
I did not shrink from declaring to you
the whole purpose of God I wouldn't shrink
from declaring it either except that I don't
really think that I know it okay brother,
right on, you're close to the kingdom don't
make any presumptions that you do, because the
whole purpose of God is not to be
obtained by the hearing of the tapes of
other men however edifying that might be or
the gathering up of a library or the
scouring of your concordance the receiving of the
whole purpose of God, the totality of the
glory of all that that means is that
which is given on the mount to the
man whom God summons to come up and
be here and I will give you the
law that thou mayest teach it the knowledge
of the whole purpose of God is not
for amateurs it's not for presumptuous claimants it's
for men whom God has called in God's
own time to ascend the mount in the
wilderness and to wait six days in the
thick cloud to be emptied of all that
is human of all of your own vain
notions however correct, if they are only correct
humanly, they are not correct enough and when
you are finally emptied out and summoned up
on the seventh day to be in communion
with him who alone can give the law,
then you may receive the whole counsel of
God that thou mayest teach it because that
is an element of that which is apostolic
men who have such a full-orbed sense
of the totality of God's purpose as it
has been revealed to them in deepest communion
upon the mount to which they have been
summoned by God in God's own time and
not before I ask you, is there anything
more tinny and more of a clank than
to see some young hotshot mouthing concepts to
which he has not yet attained in his
own experience have you had that experience?
or have you been such a hotshot?
you know what I mean it has the
ring of truth in a sense it is
truth, it's technically true it's positionally true, it's
scripturally true it's doctrinally true, but it's not
yet true for that brother it has not
been given him in awesome experience and in
communion and in the dealings and trials of
God he has only gleaned it from others
and is pirating something and though it is
technically true, it has no penetrating power it
has no full power to convict and it
falls off our ear like the proverbial water
off the duck's back may God give us
men who can give us the whole counsel
of God who have received it from God
on the mount to which they have been
summoned in His own time I'll tell you
what, I'm willing to wait for such men
we might even delay their coming because of
our presumption that seeks to know things that
the Lord has not yet Himself given so
be on guard for yourselves and all the
flock among which the Holy Spirit has made
you overseers to shepherd the church of God
which He purchased with His own blood I
can just see Paul's sob as he spoke
that line something caught in his throat which
he purchased with his own blood word to
God that it should catch in my throat
that I have to just pause before I
can go on because just the very conjuring
up, reminding of ourselves again about the church
of which He has made us overseers at
the cost of His own blood causes us
to pause and I'll tell you that if
we don't pause and don't recognize the cost
by which it has come we're not likely
to be the overseers that we ought we'll
be presiding over some other cheapy kind of
thing, some kinsley kind of thing, a matter
of mere succession of services and programs and
not the church which He purchased with His
own blood this needs to be rubbed into
our souls we need to understand this in
the depths of our being if we're to
be the apostolic overseers to which God calls
us and I know that after my departure
savage wolves will come in among you not
sparing the flock and from among yourselves men
will arise speaking perverse things to draw away
the disciples after them after my departure from
among yourselves men will arise I'll tell you
what that speaks to me when the apostolic
thing goes the human thing comes after my
departure men will arise will you be jealous
over the thing which is apostolic over the
thing which is true over the thing which
is apostolic and not allow it authentic not
allow it to depart that men will arise
will you be jealous not to cede and
give ground to men which can only come
apostolically do you have such a sense for
that which is authentic that which is true
that you'll not allow men to arise and
give any kind of counterfeit or seeming thing
which is not authentically given of God after
my departure men will arise and indeed hasn't
it been the whole history of the church
since the decline of the apostolic generation with
the fading out of the polls men have
arisen systems have come organizations have been developed
whole kinds of procedures and formalities and formalities
and authorities men have arisen after my departure
may we again have back the organic and
palpitating living thing that the church knew with
such men as Paul and give over that
which has come institutionally and organizationally that is
structured and fixed and formal that has not
this precious life and now I commend you
Paul says in the 32nd verse to God
and to the word of his grace which
is able to build you up and to
give you the inheritance among all those who
are sanctified that's not a little curtsy, that's
not a little cheeky statement I commend you
to God and to the word of his
grace which is able to keep you you
wanna know something guys?
however great the apostle Paul himself was he
is not indispensable polls can come and go
praise God for them but the word of
God is indispensable I commend you to God
and to the word of his grace which
is able to keep you do you have
that confidence in the word of his grace?
do you know it in your experience that
that word can keep and that's why Paul
throughout his whole apostolic career confound fellowships and
leave them and come back a year or
two yet later to find them not only
continuing but flourishing because he has commended them
to the word of his grace may we
have such a sublime reverence for that word
such a confidence in that word that can
not only keep others but can keep us
too if I say to you tonight in
conclusion as you leave dominion I commend you
to God and to the word of his
grace which can keep you will you trust
it?
will you hold fast to it?
will you believe it?
that is apostolic believing that is apostolic reverence
for the word of God which can keep
you and build you up and give you
the inheritance among all who are sanctified I
have coveted no one's silver or gold or
clothes art, does that have a place also
in this apostolic definition?
I believe it does and I'm suspicious therefore
of men who presume to be apostles who
have glittering wardrobes, drive spanking cars, have fleets
of planes or at least better vintage than
what we have there's something inconsistent there's something
contradictory with men who have gold and silver
and clothes that somehow contradicts that which is
apostolic I covet it no man's gold or
silver or clothes not only did I not
have it, I did not seek it it
was not part of my desire I was
impervious to my appearance, I mean I covet
my nakedness, I clothe myself with respectability, but
that's as far as it went, I did
not covet it was not part of my
mindset it had no place in my understanding
it was not a part of the conditions
of my life or existence and I think
that that has to be true not only
of apostles, but also of an apostolic church
I'll never get out of my spirit the
cry that came in St. Paul I think,
in an early full gospel meeting, I haven't
been invited back when the Lord gave such
a blistering word that night, well the men
knew that something was up, because twice before
the meeting they brought me downstairs to pray,
such an anticipation that God was going to
say something for which they trembled, they knew
it was beyond what they had experienced conventionally
in full gospel meetings, and it was and
after the message that night, which I have
completely now forgotten a prophecy came, which I
have not forgotten, where God cried out, where
is your comfort?
and where shall you stand in the day
of extremity you whose comfort is to be
found in your closets and you'll find yourself
in the streets, with the ground undulating under
your feet and every kind of apocalyptic condition
breaking loose in great fear, where will your
comfort be there, who now finds their comforts
in their closets, in their TV set, in
their possessions, in their things where is your
comfort?
an apostolic people need necessarily to be stripped
not by force, not with groanings on our
part, but willingly that we should come to
such a place of detachment as this as
not only to need or to covet silver,
gold, clothing you yourselves know that these hands
minister to my own needs and the men
who are with me, in everything I showed
you that by working hard in the manner
in this manner you must help the weak
and remember the words of the Lord Jesus
that he himself said it's more blessed to
give than to receive in everything I showed
you this morning as I spoke to the
men I quoted from another place where he
said, imitate me and the Lord it's a
remarkable audacity imitate me and the Lord because
it speaks of one and the same thing
in everything I showed you, I didn't just
speak the things that were correct, in everything
I showed you what a man what a
demonstration, what a life what a foundation and
when he had said these things he knelt
down and prayed with them all the humility
of the man not waiting for someone else
to initiate it, he knelt down before them
all, the mindlessness the unselfconsciousness the uncomplicatedness of
Paul the transparency, the simplicity he knelt down
and they began to weep aloud and embraced
Paul and repeatedly kissed him fell on Paul's
neck it says in King James and grieving
especially over the word which he had spoken
that they should see his face no more
and they were accompanying him to the ship
I tell you that there's a certain safety
and security in keeping other believers at a
distance and at arm's length in ministering to
them impersonally of doing your thing and leaving
and going on to your next assignment when
you open yourself like this to men, where
they fall upon your neck, where they embrace
you with tears, where you make yourself vulnerable
that when you leave them it wrenches the
very heart out of your body you can
know that your ministry has been apostolic and
not just ministerial I'm only at the first
phases of such a thing in our own
experience and I cannot remove from my memory
the band of saints that had seen us
off at a train station in East Germany
in the city of Schwerin as we stood
up in the train compartment and they were
down on the platform below and the gusts
of steam coming up and we had our
face to the glass and they were looking
up at us with that expression how can
you describe it?
An expression that said, when shall we see
you again?
What assurance do we have that we're going
again to enjoy each other's fellowship that we're
going to have the privilege of receiving precious
and heavenly things of the kind that you've
imparted now prior to your leaving and we're
looking upon them with a longing and a
knowledge that we might not see them who
knows what's going to befall them in this
no man's land between east and west as
the train begins to chug and take on
speed and pull out of the platform and
your heart is wrenched right out of its
body to see these precious faces are you
willing to have your heart jerked like that?
because the whole wisdom of things that are
ministerial in our generation is don't get yourself
too involved don't expose yourself, don't make yourself
vulnerable keep a ministerial detachment baloney!
that which is apostolic is intense, it is
heartfelt it goes down on the sand it
cries out with men who fall on your
neck and weep there's such a love, there's
such an intensity of relationship that Paul never
had to command, he never had to throw
his weight around he never had to assert
himself he had only to entreat he had
only to suggest, he had only to persuade
and men followed though he could have you
exercise his authority though he could have commanded
he did not true apostolicity I've written at
the top of that page is personal intimate,
relational true voluntary rather than authoritarian not formal,
not organizational not prestigious, not positional not a
man throwing his weight around because he has
a title it's a man who reflects in
such a remarkable degree the high priest and
the apostle of our confession that you love
the Jesus who is his life in him
you love the impeccability of his life, you
love his blamelessness you love his example and
his model you love the fact that he
never withheld any good thing, that he never
spared you, that he never took it easy
and though sometimes you wince at the painful
things that he had to say and do
because his ministry was unto the Lord now
that he is going to depart and you're
not going to see his face anymore your
heart is ready to burst are we willing
to make ourselves open and vulnerable to such
relationship as this?
we have for the first, well it's the
second time now that we have sent a
couple from our fellowship to a foreign country
one couple has come back but I think
God has called them yet again to that
same country and now another dear couple, Paul
and Adrian Volk very precious to me have
been sent to England I can't tell you
what that meant what a wrench, what a
sense of pain to lose these precious people
to have a community council as we did
the other day and for them not to
be there to bring the kind of impartation
that is characteristically theirs it's such a sense
of loss and yet I know and I
sense a hand writing on the wall that
this is only the beginning of the kind
of sacrifice that we must pay of God
calling other couples other individuals who are going
to have to be parted from us it's
going to be such a wrench and such
a tear on the heart are we willing
to come into this apostolic lifestyle this intimacy
of knowing by which when departing comes you
can only fall on the neck and weep
grieving especially over the word that he had
spoken that they should see his face no
more and they were accompanying him to the
ship are you ready to be bound in
the spirit and to go not knowing have
you determined and reckoned that your life is
not your own that you do not count
it dear unto yourself are you ready to
give yourself in the total way that will
produce such a total man and such a
total people for God I was with you
all the while ministering unto the Lord from
the beginning you know what manner of man
I was with you in all seasons all
the more a glorious statement of an apostolic
life because it is so unselfconscious because it
is spoken so spontaneously because it's just such
an impromptu summary of what has been the
truth of this man's life with his people
may it be true also of us and
if it shall be it shall not come
to us at any lesser cost than it
came to Paul have you asked a great
question with which Paul's life began a question
which never left him Lord what would you
have for me to do have you decided
the foundational apostolic question that you count not
your life dear unto yourself and by definition
what adheres in the word life is not
just your own body your own person but
that which is joined with you your wife,
your children, your possessions your all, I count
not my life dear to myself, my savings,
my future my security, whatever it's for the
glory of the Lord I think that God
is waiting for such a yes from a
people who have been satisfied in past times
with giddy of fun and games satisfied with
the verbalizing of these things and the phraseologies
and even systematizing and thinking to set up
and to establish our own systems of submission
of authority and have our own New Testament
fellowship almost a kind of gamesmanship in the
air of it the world is waiting for
the glorious phenomenon of a true apostolic church
built on the foundation of a true apostolic
people who count not their lives dear unto
themselves and are willing to be bound in
the spirit to go to the Jerusalem of
God not knowing so I just want to
invite you are you still willing to raise
your hand?
I want to be an apostolic person all
people is there a juice forming in your
mouth?
something beginning to flow odd I would be
pressed to define what that word means but
I know that it suggests glory I know
it's the ultimate biblical word I know it's
everything that we're about I know that it's
the very thing for which we are even
right now in this moment circled about by
a cloud of invisible witnesses of whom the
world was not worthy who without us are
not complete that we have the privilege of
being in that continuum in that succession to
take the baton to finish the apostolic race
the ministry that the Lord has given to
be innocent of the blood of all men
to discharge it with such and utter ruthlessness
before God independent of the praise or the
applause of men that's where we stand in
this hour let's bow before the apostle and
the high priest of our confession and to
whom shall be glory in the church not
just good services or good programs but glory
because it shall be made up of a
glorious people whose life is not dear to
themselves who are bound in the spirit and
are going not knowing they cannot explain the
various dealings of God they cannot explain the
things which are fingered and required and yet
in it all we enjoy if you have
not in this totality given God a yes
and the whole yielding over of your life
that it shall be dear for Him and
not for yourself would you do it, no?
would you end these days in a significant
way to a God who has spoken to
us significantly would you reckon something once and
for all that is total and unreserved I
am willing to be bound in the spirit
I had thought to go here or to
do this I had contemplated this college or
this career I hadn't even so much as
consulted you it seemed to me the conventional
wisdom the right thing to do to prepare
for the future but from this night forth
I go bound in the spirit I count
not my life dear unto myself I am
willing to forsake my aspirations my intentions for
the future I don't have to know I
want to be an apostolic person I want
to be fitted in to the apostolic purpose
I want my life to count for the
things that are eternal and glorious I want
to be one whose ministry is unto the
Lord and not before men one who will
not shrink from any profitable thing I've been
cowardly, I've been fearful I have needed the
approval of men more than the approval of
God but I want tonight to come to
such a decisive and new place in God
that shall be hereafter the very foundation of
the balance of my days I want to
be apostolic right where you're sitting, just say
that to the Lord in your own words
I count not my life dear to myself
have it, all that is in my life
I take my hands off it's yours I'm
willing to be vulnerable and open though it's
going to wrench my heart I hate these
painful pottings but I'm willing to make myself
open to other men and other women that
if we shall be required to pot I'll
have to suffer the pain of ripping but
I shall not withhold myself, I shall not
play it safe, I shall not be conservative
I shall not keep people at a distance,
so I'll be safe from the pain of
such pottings I'm fully abandoned, settle something with
God that you might receive your ministry