In our morning sessions together, I would like
to take a fresh look at the Book
of Acts with you.
Somehow or other, it seems easy to feel
that that's just exactly the life that we're
living today, the life that the Christians lived
in the first century of the church.
I think it'd be profitable if we could
just spend a few hours going through the
Book of Acts, picking out some of the
main subjects and looking at them together, and
perhaps in the evening meetings we could concentrate
more on evangelism.
Tonight, first of all, I thought I'd like
to talk about the foundation that these people
operated on, and I'd like to remind our
hearts tonight that there's another side to the
subject that our brother Walden was speaking on,
rebellion, that's the sin of witchcraft.
And yet, we as Christians, in a sense,
should be rebels, not rebels against God, rebels
against many of the things that bind us
now.
I'd like to remind our hearts tonight that
Christianity is really a revolutionary movement and a
good thing, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and
I say this reverently, was the greatest revolutionary
of them all.
And when the disciples, when the apostles went
forth, and the early Christians, they were really
disturbers of the peace.
They were really fanatics for Jesus, and it
got to the point that their enemies had
to cry with tears of rage in their
eyes, these men have turned the world upside
down.
Are we turning the world upside down tonight?
Hardly.
Why not?
Well, I believe that we've lost the impact
of New Testament Christianity, we've lulled ourselves into
thinking that we're really following the pattern, and
if so, it's certainly a pattern without power,
isn't it?
I long to know more of the power
of God by the Spirit of God poured
out in our midst.
I believe God's looking for revolutionaries today.
I don't want to use the word rebel
because Mr. Walden has used it in the
bad sense, correctly, but I certainly agree with
what he said.
I just wish he had added one name
to the name of Dr. Spock.
That's the name of John Dewey, and his
undermining philosophy that he taught at Columbia University.
I thought there was kind of an even
-handed justice recently in the rebellion that took
place at Columbia, but to me as if
some chickens were coming home to roost, and
God was having the last word.
It's absolutely true.
This permissive spirit that's been taught has been
one of the greatest causes of the difficulty
that we're having in the United States today,
and yet we want to be rebels too,
and I believe God's raising up a generation
of rebels among us today.
Young people and people who want to rebel
against living self-centered lives.
That's an awful bondage, you know, and praise
God as I read the book of Acts,
I find that people who were not self
-centered, they were Christ-centered, and you know,
you don't read about all the nervous and
emotional troubles in the book of Acts.
They just didn't seem to have them.
Do you ever think about that?
Why?
Well, they were so engrossed in Christ, and
in the service of Christ, they didn't have
time to be introspective.
I really believe that.
They were weary of living self-centered lives,
and they wanted to be Christ all the
way from now on.
I think we want to see a generation
arising who realize that we're here for a
bigger business than to make money.
That's one of the worst bondages that is
holding us down today, and it's reflected all
through our lives, in the way we talk,
in our conversation, and the ideals we hold
out for our young people, and in the
way we measure their success.
How much money they're making is a test.
But I say again, God has put us
down here for bigger business than to make
money.
We're stooping too low if that's the end
of our existence, and I think God wants
some revolutionaries in the day in which we
live to rebel against the terrible snare of
materialism, against the terrible delusion that happiness is
the possession of things.
What a lie!
There never was a more affluent society than
the one we're living in tonight, and there
was never one more torn apart by frustration
and unhappiness than all the rest.
Over and over again in these days the
words of Hudson Taylor danced in my mind.
He said that he enjoyed the luxury of
having few things to care for, and it
really is a luxury.
A woman said to me recently, I spent
the first 25 years of my married life
accumulating things and spending the second 25 getting
rid of them, and she was much happier.
Materialism is a snare.
Materialism is a bondage.
God's looking for men and women, and young
men and women who will see through it,
rebel against it, and set out for him.
God's looking for people tonight who will look
in the book of Acts, the Gospels and
in the book of Acts, and see that
there's a great gulf between that kind of
Christianity and the kind of Christianity we see
about us in the world today.
He wants people who will turn away from
the tyranny of the fashion parade.
It's really kind of empty, isn't it, when
you stop to think.
Imagine encroached in the things of fashion.
People will turn away from the amusement parade,
turn away from the parade of beauty culture,
if you will, and even from the food
parade.
I believe God's looking tonight for revolutionaries who
are determined to find reality in life.
Someone to live for, and if necessary, someone
to die for, too.
Now, the Lord Jesus laid the foundation doctrinally
for what we find in the book of
Acts, and I really believe with all my
heart that his teaching is the most revolutionary
teaching in the world.
I really believe that the teaching of the
Lord Jesus, for instance, makes the revolutionary teaching
of communism look sick.
But the heartache today is that oftentimes you
find more reality in the average communist than
you do in the average Christian.
That's the heartache.
Well, now, the Lord Jesus laid the platform
by the teachings he gave his disciples, and
I'd like to go over with you tonight,
just very quietly and briefly, some of his
teachings, and all I would ask is that
we try to capture the fact tonight that
there's enough dynamite in any one of these
teachings to blow the church out of its
complacency to reach out with the gospel that
hasn't gone out for centuries.
First of all, I'd like to suggest to
you that the Lord Jesus taught a revolutionary
standard of living.
He taught it in the Gospels, and we're
going to be seeing that as we go
along, but he also teaches it in the
epistles through the Apostle Paul, and I'd like
you to turn with me to a verse
in 1 Timothy, chapter 6, verses 6, 7,
and 8.
It says, But godliness with contentment is great
gain.
For we brought nothing into this world, and
it is certain we can carry nothing out.
And having food and raiment, let us be
there with contentment.
Now, that's the last verse.
The last verse I have particularly in mind.
Having food and raiment, let us be there
with contentment.
Now, I'd like to tell you, that's really
different, isn't it?
Have you read any messages on that verse
lately?
Have you read any all your life on
it?
How many Christians do you know who believe
it?
It says, Having food and raiment, let us
be content.
Incidentally, that word raiment, the word literally translated
means covering, and it's the same word that
would be used to describe the roof over
your head or the clothes that you wear.
Interesting, isn't it?
The Lord Jesus says, Look, you came into
the world empty-handed.
You're going out empty-handed.
Be content with food and clothing and the
roof over your head.
Now, I think as we go to the
book of Acts, we're going to see a
people who didn't bother to think up 60
theological explanations why these verses don't mean what
they say.
They just were naive enough to believe that
the Lord and the Holy Spirit knew what
they were talking about, and they said, Well,
this must be it.
And so they went forth and they lived
on that faith.
Of course, the idea is that everything above
that went into the work of the Lord.
That's the way they lived.
Well, that's very uncomfortable, isn't it?
And immediately when we read a verse like
that, the word prudent comes to our mind.
And we say, Well, that isn't prudent.
Is that right?
Maybe you have to think of your future.
You have to live, don't you?
All I'm trying to say to you tonight
is that the Lord really was a revolutionist,
and he was a disturber of the peace.
And I believe the Holy Spirit still is
a disturber of the peace, and he wants
to disturb my peace, and he wants to
disturb yours as well.
A revolutionary standard of living.
But then the Lord Jesus also taught a
revolutionary social life.
Luke chapter 14, verses 12 and 13.
Then said he also to him that bad
him, When thou makest a dinner or a
supper, call not thy friends nor thy brethren,
neither thy kinsmen nor thy rich neighbors, lest
they also bid thee again in a recompense
be made thee.
But when thou makest a feast, call the
poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, that
thou shalt be blessed, for they cannot recompense
thee, but thou shalt be recompensed at the
resurrection of the just.
Now it's wonderful, you know, how these verses
can be in our Bibles, and we can
put the Bible on the table beside our
bed and sleep comfortably beside it.
But really, really, if you read those verses,
think of what they say, and realize this
is what the Lord is calling us to.
It's really upsetting, isn't it?
What it really means is that going back
from the conference, we would break up these
little social cliques that we have, even in
the local assembly, and instead of inviting those
people who have sweet dispositions like ourselves and
are generally the same intellectual and social level
and good conversationalists with all the rest, and
we'd make a determined effort to go out
and reach people who have no way of
repaying us and speak to witness to them
for the Lord Jesus.
Can you picture the average Christian home next
Thanksgiving or Christmas, if we actually took the
Lord Jesus at His word?
And it really involved going down to perhaps
the Kidwell, bringing out some folks with just
the single purpose of telling them about the
Lord Jesus, maybe going and getting some foreign
students, maybe some students from the Muslim world,
and bringing them into the homes that they
might know, just what a Christian home is
like, giving thanks for the food and reading
the word of God after the meal.
That's what Jesus said.
Don't call those who can repay you.
Have a revolutionary home.
Call in the social outcast.
That's what he said.
I heard a touching story about Jack Wurtzen.
I've always admired Jack Wurtzen's Word of Life.
I've always loved him more since I've heard
this story.
He has this camp, Word of Life camp,
up in Spoon Lake, New York.
The folks were there and they told me
that there was a dear brother there, a
brother in Christ, and he was very horribly
deformed.
Oftentimes he would go into the dining room,
and it was not unusual for him to
be the only person sitting at his table.
Because, I mean, everybody had their own friends
and their own social circle and all the
rest.
And more often than not, he was sitting
alone.
And it often happened that Jack Wurtzen would
come into the dining room late, and whenever
he came to the door, the folks there
would see him coming, and they'd all wave
to him to come over to their table
and sit with them.
And every time, Jack would go over and
sit with that brother who was alone.
Certainly the spirit of what the Lord was
teaching here, wasn't it?
I praise God for the experience I had
in Turkey with those dear young people.
Some of you know Steve Richards and Diane,
other young people there.
I see them going out to the universities,
out in the streets and contacting young people,
bringing them back to their apartments, sitting down
with them, serving them a supper, and then
speaking to them about the Lord Jesus.
And I thought, well, here it is.
It works.
A revolutionary social life set forth in the
word of God for the day in which
we live.
And then the Lord Jesus also taught a
revolutionary view of earthly relationships in verses 25
and 26 of this same chapter, Luke chapter
14, verses 25 and 26.
And I went great multitudes with him, and
he turned and said unto them, If any
man come to me and hate not his
father and mother and wife and children, brethren
and sisters, yea, in his own life also,
he cannot be my disciple.
And that's revolutionary, isn't it?
What it says is that Jesus Christ must
be first, that peers, family relationships, nothing of
the sort must be allowed to come between
Christ and the individual.
Everything else must be subordinated to him.
And really, this was the spirit of those
early Christians as they went forth.
Their attitude was, well, it isn't true, it
doesn't matter, but it is true, nothing else
matters.
But that's why they turned the world upside
down.
A revolutionary view of earthly relationships, and incidentally,
of one's relationship to himself, too.
I often think of that at the end
of the verse, yea, in his own life
also.
And then, of course, the Lord Jesus taught
a revolutionary view concerning our occupation in life.
Matthew chapter 6 and verse 33, a familiar
verse which we need to recall to our
hearts over and over again.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God
and his righteousness, with all these things for
the advent of you.
I have underlined two words in that verse.
The word first, as in the word God.
First, God.
And once again here, we're reminded that our
vocation in life, the purpose of our being
here, is to serve the interests of the
Lord Christ, and that the job is not
the important thing.
The job is secondary.
The purpose of the job is simply to
make expenses and have the wherewithal to help
in the work of the Lord.
Yet, no matter how much you say this,
or no matter how much you might realize
it intellectually, the fact remains today that secular
occupation, for many of us, is the principal
thing in life, and the work of the
Lord takes the fag end.
Is that true?
I'm afraid it's true.
And business today is making increasing demands, increasing
pressures.
Standards of living are rising, and it's so
hard to miss the balance that the Lord
Jesus taught.
Isn't it amazing that he would come into
the world and give this revolutionary view of
occupation, and yet if you really sit down
and think it over, you have to realize
it's true.
You think of the most glorious secular occupation
that there might be in the world today,
and then think of it a hundred years
from today, and the glory fades, doesn't it?
The glory fades.
What will count a hundred years from today?
Only the life that's lived for God, that's
all.
My heart aches when I see our Christian
young people being encouraged down the road to
making a name for themselves in the world.
When you see the sands of time running
out, you think of their potential for God.
If they could only keep a vision, I
think of the strong social pressures, the strong
parental pressures that are on our young people
today.
I long to see more Christian parents who
will encourage their young people to give their
best to the Lord, be satisfied with a
more modest standard of living in order that
men and women might not perish so want
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I think the Lord Jesus taught a
revolutionary view of security, in Anthony 6.25.
Security.
That's a great word today.
He says here, Take no thought for your
life what ye shall eat or what ye
shall drink, nor yet for your body what
ye shall put on.
Is not the life more than meat and
the body than raiment?
Behold the fowls of the air, for they
sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather
into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.
Are ye not much better than they?
Which of you by taking thought can add
one cubit unto his stature, and why take
ye thought for raiment?
Consider the lilies of the field, how they
grow, they toil not, neither do they spin.
Yet I say unto you that even Solomon
in all his glory was not a ray
like one of these.
Perhaps you'll be walking around Yosemite here to
see some wild flowers.
Just remember as you look down on them,
they're saying something to you.
They're saying, Don't worry.
You don't have to worry about the future.
Put Christ first and foremost.
Still take care of the details.
That's where the light face comes in.
Wonderful to think of flowers preaching a message
to us day by day.
Yet that's what the Lord said, Wherefore if
God sowed clove, the grass of the field
which today is, tomorrow is cast into the
oven.
Shall he not much more clove you, O
ye of little faith?
I see that the Lord Jesus knew that
if I had to worry about my future,
then I'd never have time to get to
him.
But that's true too, because if I have
to worry about the unknown future, I'll never
know how much is enough.
And so the Lord says, Look, I want
to make an agreement with you.
You seek first the kingdom of God in
his righteousness and leave the future to me,
and I'll take care of it.
You know what it says?
All these things shall be added unto you.
Revolutionary view of security.
My, how brainwashed we become.
It's in our vocabulary.
So clever.
You get a few stocks and bonds, they're
known as securities.
Are they secure?
There's an awful lot of Christians biting their
fingernails lately.
We talk about land and building, we call
it real estate.
Isn't that clever?
It's real.
You can touch it, you can walk on
it, you can handle it, and therefore it's
secure.
Do you really think it's secure?
Dear friends, there's no security in this world
apart from God.
He's the only security we have.
And I want to tell you, the more
we try to find security in material things,
the more worries, the more distresses, the more
difficulties, the more problems we're going to get.
In my own life, I can see the
Lord day by day, week by week, month
by month, and year by year, just trying
to knock out the props.
Really.
Trying to get me to get rid of
the cushions and the crutches, so I'll have
nothing but himself who is sufficient.
Revolutionary view of security.
Just think of those early Christians, if their
future was their concern, they never could have
accomplished what they did.
Never could have.
The Lord says, look, you can't by thinking
add a cubit to your stature.
I really don't know what that means.
A cubit is supposed to be 18 inches,
and the word stature there can also mean
age, and so frankly it leaves me with
a problem.
But take it either way.
You can't by thinking add an inch to
your height or a day to your age,
and then the Lord says, well, I really
think this is beautiful.
He says, you can't do that which is
least.
Oh, but that's nothing at all.
You can't do that which is least.
How do you think you can control your
future?
That's the truth.
The future belongs to the Lord, and he's
promised to take care of it.
And then the Lord taught a revolutionary attitude
towards other people.
Matthew chapter 19 and verse 19.
Just the latter part of the verse.
Honor thy father and thy mother, and thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
And I want to tell you that I
think that's one of the most revolutionary statements
that was ever spoken.
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Imagine, just put yourself in your own neighborhood.
Think of all the quarrels and bickering and
strife such as is in the average American
neighborhood today.
Think of the Lord planting a Christian family
in that neighborhood who isn't going to react
the way the rest of the people do.
So when they're abused, show kindness, and who
are out for the souls of men and
women who will do anything to get them.
Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
And he that is chief, as he that
doth serve, for whither is greater he that
sitteth at meat, or he that serveth, is
not he that sitteth at meat, but I
am among you, as he that serveth.
Now that's revolutionary.
I think there's a trace of humor there
in verse 25.
He pictures the rulers of this world, sometimes
they're pretty tyrannical, sometimes they take advantage of
the people, and in spite of all their
imperfections, yet they're called benefactors.
Now he said, human ideas of greatness are
fallacious.
In my kingdom it's not going to be
so.
I am among you as he that serveth.
Let him that is greatest among you, let
him be as the younger, and he that
is chief, as he that doth serve.
Marvelous, isn't it, to think of the Lord
of life and glory coming down into this
world and living this out before us, taking
the apron of a slave and girding himself
with it and getting down and washing the
disciple's feet.
It breaks my heart.
That's what he did.
And he says, you have this life and
you'll find a revolution in your home.
You'll find a revolution in your local assembly.
You'll find a revolution in your neighborhood as
well.
And then finally, I like to think that
the Lord Jesus taught a revolutionary view of
social reform.
You know, we live in a world that's
sick.
We live in a country that's plagued with
problems, and everybody has his own idea as
to the solution of this problem.
But as far as I know, the Lord
Jesus is the only one that had the
right solutions.
We Christians today are being criticized that we
have lost any sense of social consciousness.
We should be activists.
We should be participating in all of these
movements that are going on today.
This is what we hear on every hand.
Especially evangelical Christians are taking a terrible beating
today in this connection.
Why aren't we out there in the vanguard
fighting for social reform and all the rest,
alleviating human needs and raising the level of
the people?
So the Lord Jesus really taught a most
revolutionary view of social reform, and you get
it, of course, in John chapter three, where
he said to Nicodemus in verse three, Verily,
verily, I say unto thee, Except a man
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom
of God.
Verse five, Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
Except a man be born of water and
of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the
kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is
flesh.
That which is born of the Spirit is
spirit.
Marvel not that I say unto thee, Ye
must be born again.
The Lord Jesus began with the individual.
He struck at the very root of the
problem, which is sin.
And he gives the only remedy for sin,
cleansing through his own most precious blood.
Education is put forth as a problem today.
It doesn't solve the problem.
It hasn't solved the politics.
Politics is no better than the men who
control it.
Philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, varying forms of government, and
all the rest.
They all leave a man still in his
sin and on the way to hell.
The Lord Jesus has the only answer.
The only answer for this old world tonight
is the revolutionary gospel of the grace of
God that reaches down to where a man
is.
In his sin, provides cleansing for those sinned,
gives him new life in Christ, starts him
on the road to heaven, and teaches him
these revolutionary principles of the word of God.
The difficulty is with us tonight, as I
see it.
I speak for myself today, which is bound
by tradition.
As we look at Christians about us, we
say, well, I don't see them living that
life.
I don't see people around me tonight living
that life.
And as far as the totem pole is
concerned, I seem to be higher than many
of the others.
And so in a very real sense, we
succumb to the chill of our environment, and
it's pretty chilly.
And I believe what God wants us to
do is go back to the words and
realize afresh that Christianity is really a world
-shaking doctrine, a revolutionary movement.
And he wants us to really think his
thoughts after him, and just say, well, this
is what the Lord Jesus did, and what
he taught.
And whether people around me are doing it
or not, by the grace of God, I
want to do it.
By the grace of God, our family is
going to start living this kind of a
life.
Thank you.
Now, Bibles to Acts chapter 1, please.
First chapter of Acts.
I mentioned that we were going to take
up some studies in the book of Acts
during these morning sessions.
Acts chapter 1, verse 6.
When they therefore were come together, they asked
of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this
time restore again the kingdom to Israel?
And he said unto them, It is not
for you to know the times or the
seasons which the Father hath put in his
own power, but ye shall receive power after
that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.
And ye shall be witnesses unto me both
in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in
Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the
earth.
Chapter 2.
When the day of Pentecost was fully come,
they were all with one accord in one
place.
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven
as of a rushing mighty wind, and it
filled all the house where they were sitting.
And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like
as of fire, and it sat upon each
of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy
Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues
as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Then in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 17.
Wherefore, be ye not unwise, but understanding what
the will of the Lord is, and be
not drunk with wine wherein it except, but
be filled with the Spirit.
Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your
heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for
all things unto God and the Father in
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear
of God.
Now I think that the central fact in
the book of Acts is the coming and
filling of the Holy Spirit of God.
That really explains everything that happened after that.
Before Pentecost, the people were sort of a
bland, insipid type of people.
But then the Holy Spirit came, and these
people were supercharged with power and with boldness
for the Lord.
Somebody said that they became radioactive with the
Holy Spirit, and everywhere they went, people felt
the sparks.
And that's thrillingly true.
And as I read the book of Acts,
and as I see these men and women
going forth, little nobody, as far as the
world is concerned, but taken over by the
Holy Spirit of God, as I see the
souls that were being saved all the time,
as I see the New Testament churches that
were being planted, as I see the impact
that was made on the community, as I
see a church so powerful that people were
afraid to join themselves lightly to it.
They realized that God was working, and working
in a mighty power.
As I read this in the book of
Acts, I feel this is what it must
be.
We must have the filling of the Holy
Spirit.
This is the grand imperative.
How can we have it?
To get the answer, we turn over to
Ephesians chapter 5, and verses 17, 18, 19.
Shall we turn back to that passage once
again?
Be filled with the Spirit, the scripture says,
be not drunk with wine wherein is excess,
but be filled with the Spirit.
Now, the first thing I notice in this
passage of scripture is that there are certain
similarities to being filled with the Spirit and
being drunk with wine.
That's rather a shocking thing when you first
come to it, and yet not so shocking
when you begin to realize it.
Similarities to being drunk with wine.
A.
In both cases, the person is under an
outside control.
In both cases, a person is under a
control outside of himself.
The case of a man who's drunk with
wine, he's under the control of alcoholic beverages,
sometimes called spirits.
Kind of interesting, isn't it?
It's an interesting thing that the word spirits
would ever be used of intoxicating liquor, and
yet that's what it's called.
In the case of a man who's filled
with the Spirit of God, he's under the
control of the Spirit.
And when you stop to think of that,
you'll realize that this is the ideal, to
be under the control of the Spirit, to
turn our lives over to Him so that
He can work through us, ungrieved, unquenched, and
unhindered.
A second similarity is that in both cases,
the person is fervent.
There's that word again, Mr. Wallace.
The people, the persons are fervent in both
cases.
When I think of fervent, I have to
think of the word boiling.
I have to think of the idea of
fire.
And when a person is drunk, well, he's
fervent.
He's boiling, as it were.
He's effervescent.
He might have a personality like a Mr.
Milk Toast normally, but he gets a few
drinks in him, and his whole personality has
been changed.
As you know, it's true of a man
who's filled with the Spirit of God, too.
Something happens in the life of that man,
and you can tell it.
And I think one of the greatest curses
of the day in which we live is
that we have a Christianity without the Holy
Spirit.
And oftentimes, you'd like to ask the question
that Paul asked in the 19th chapter of
Acts when he came to some of John's
disciples, and he met these people.
And these people had a thin veneer of
religion about them, and yet he thought, well,
there's something missing in these people's lives.
What is it?
And he said to them, did you receive
the Holy Spirit when you believed?
As you know, that's a very piercing and
a very discerning question.
And sometimes we'd like to ask that today,
even in the circles in which we meet.
Did you receive the Holy Spirit?
People who say they're saints, people who have
all the right answers, people who, as far
as their orthodoxy is concerned, you can't question
it.
And yet, there's no fervency.
There are no rivers of living water.
And Jesus said, he that believeth in me
out of his inward part shall flow rivers
of living water.
Jesus said, when Christ comes in, the waters
are going to flow.
Where are the rivers of living water?
In both cases, the person is fervent.
And that's why it's rather interesting there in
the day of Pentecost, that when the great
miracle had taken place, and when the Holy
Spirit had been given, and when the people
were all filled with the Holy Spirit, natural
men standing by said, these men are drunk
with new wine.
Wasn't that an interesting thing?
That Spirit-filled people, there was something about
them that gave other people the impression that
they were drunk with new wine.
You know, if Spirit-filled men come into
your assembly sometimes, they're apt to make you
feel uncomfortable.
It's such a strange thing to say, but
it's absolutely true.
They're apt to make you feel uncomfortable.
They'll be so fervent that you'll wish, perhaps,
they'd quieten down.
Well, that's the way it was in the
day of Pentecost, certainly.
Then a third similarity is that in both
cases, both speech and song are effective.
Both speech and song are effective.
Almost every time that you ever have the
filling of the Holy Spirit mentioned in the
New Testament, a person's speech is immediately affected
by it.
And usually when he opens his mouth, he
starts talking about the Lord Jesus.
Do you have the Spirit of God?
Are you filled with the Spirit of God?
When you open your mouth, what comes out?
It's an amazing thing that the filling of
the Spirit of God is invariably connected with
witness for the Christ of God.
And it also affects a person's song.
It's interesting that the man, when he gets
drunk, well, you go by those houses and
you hear, I don't know whether you'd call
it song, but you hear something coming out
of the taverns and the bars and all
the rest.
It's an interesting thing.
The man gets loosened up, shall we say.
He loses his inhibitions and he bursts forth
into song.
Well, it's true of the man who's filled
with the Spirit of God, too.
Singing and making melody in your hearts to
the Lord, it says.
And then finally, number D or letter D,
the man's walk is affected.
The man who's under the influence of intoxicating
liquors, he staggers along the street.
The sidewalk has been in the same place
for 50 years, but all of a sudden
it's rolling like waves of a sea and
he's trying to navigate along the sidewalk.
You can tell it by the way he
walks.
It's true of the child of God, too,
who's filled with the Spirit of God.
It affects his walk.
It affects where he goes.
It affects the kind of a life he
lives.
It's absolutely vain to be talking about the
filling of the Spirit of God if there's
been no change in our lives, if we're
undesirnable from the unsaved people about us.
But there are two contrasts between drunkenness and
the filling of the Spirit, and we want
to see these very clearly.
And first is this, that with the filling
of the Spirit there is no riot or
excess.
It says, Be not drunk with wine wherein
is excess.
And you never get that with the Spirit
of God's fillings.
He, there, things are done decently and in
order.
And closely related to that, with the filling
of the Holy Spirit, there is no loss
of self-control.
So when a man is drunk, he does
lose self-control.
He does things that are, in a sense,
he's not even responsible for.
But that isn't true when the Spirit of
God comes in.
The fruit of the Spirit is self-control.
And that's a marvelous thing, isn't it, that
a man can be filled with the Spirit
of God, and yet in a real, though
mysterious sense, he doesn't lose the power to
control himself.
It says in 1 Corinthians 14, The Spirit
of the prophet is subject to the prophet.
Here was a man in the early days
of the church, and the Spirit of God
had come upon him.
He was filled with the Spirit of God,
and he began to speak, and what he
spoke was actually the Word of God.
He was a mouthpiece for God, and yet
he never lost self-control in the process.
He could never say, for instance, Well, I
just couldn't help preaching three hours and a
half.
I was just boring along, and I couldn't
stop.
Well, that isn't true.
When a man is filled with the Spirit
of God, he still has self-control, and
at the same time, he's under the control
of the Spirit.
Now, the filling of the Spirit is the
ideal state for the Christian, and if you'll
just stop to think about it for a
minute, you'll realize that this has to be
true.
Here's a person, and he's filled with the
Spirit.
What does that mean?
Well, it means that today, at the beginning
of the day, he opens his ear to
get his instructions from the Lord.
It means that his life is turned over
to Christ day by day, and what it
really means is that he's at that intersection
when the Lord wants him to be there,
to speak to that man there.
It means that his life is efficient.
There isn't a lot of wasted energy.
The Spirit of God doesn't waste a person's
energy.
It means his life is effective.
It means that every blow really counts.
It's the life of power, and it's the
life of release, too.
The life in which we're released from the
inhibitions and the traditions and all the petty
sins that bind us day by day.
Now, sometimes in the Bible, the filling of
the Spirit seems to be a sovereign gift
of God.
At least in one particular case, it's so.
In Luke chapter 115, you read about John
the Baptist, Luke chapter 115, and it says
that he was to be filled with the
Holy Ghost from his mother's womb.
It says, verse 15, Luke chapter 1, for
he shall be great in the sight of
the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor
strong drink, and he shall be filled with
the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb.
Well, that's a mysterious thing, isn't it?
I think that refers particularly to John's mission
as the forerunner of Christ.
I don't think it means that he didn't
have to be born again.
He was born in sin, shame, and iniquity.
He had to be saved, and yet as
far as his mission was concerned, as the
forerunner of the Lord Jesus, he wasn't to
be filled with the Holy Spirit.
But here in Ephesians chapter 5, verse 18,
it's a command to be obeyed.
It says, be not drunk with wine wherein
is excess, but be filled with the Spirit.
And this puts the responsibility right back on
me.
Do I want to be filled with the
Spirit?
Do I want a life that's effervescent with
God?
Do I want a life so that everywhere
I go I'm going to be seeing things
happening for God, God working in a marvelous,
mysterious, supernatural way?
God, does He want that kind of a
life?
Well, it's your responsibility.
Now, I think we want to mention, too,
that the filling of the Spirit is not
the same as the baptism of the Spirit,
not the same as the indwelling of the
Spirit, it's not the same as the anointing,
it's not the same as the earnest, and
it's not the same as the seal.
Good to distinguish these things.
There is some confusion today on it, although
I'd like to say this.
I've met a lot of people, and they
might not use the right phraseology, and yet
when you come in contact with them, you
really believe that they are filled with the
Spirit.
And I'd rather have the filling, even if
I called it by a wrong name, wouldn't
you?
I'd rather be filled with the Spirit, even
if my phraseology wasn't right, than to be
absolutely perfect as far as the phraseology is
concerned, and not be under the control of
the Spirit of God.
But it's not the same as the baptism
of the Spirit.
In 1 Corinthians 12, verse 13, we read
that the baptism of the Spirit is that
ministry of the Holy Spirit which incorporates us
into the body of Christ by one Spirit,
where we all baptize into one body.
And the baptism of the Spirit, of course,
took place in the day of Pentecost.
We come into the good of it the
moment that we trust Christ as Savior.
That's sovereign.
That takes place at the time of conversion.
It's not the same as the indwelling of
the Spirit of God.
We read about that in John 14, in
verse 16, and once again, this is the
portion of every person who is genuinely born
again through faith in Christ that very moment.
The Spirit of God comes and indwells his
life, and there should be a manifestation of
it after that.
You don't feel the Holy Spirit come into
your life, but you know he comes in
because the Bible says it, and other people
should know he comes in because of what
they see in your life.
The filling is not the same as the
anointing.
The anointing is the use of the Holy
Spirit in connection with his teaching ministry, the
mysterious, marvelous thing that when a person is
saved, the Spirit of God comes in, and
a teaching ministry begins there, and he enables
this child of God, however young in the
faith, to discern between truth and error, to
hear the voice of the true shepherd and
to discern the voice of strangers.
And then it's not the same as the
earnest.
The earnest of the Spirit simply means that
those of us who have the Spirit of
God have the down payment that the full
inheritance will follow.
And it's not the same as the seal,
either.
The seal is a mark of ownership and
a guarantee of the eternal security of the
believer.
Read about that in Ephesians 1, verses 13
and 14.
The filling, is it a crisis or is
it a process?
Well, I like to answer the question by
saying that the filling of the Spirit can
certainly be a crisis followed by a process.
It certainly must be a process.
It must be a day-by-day, hour
-by-hour, moment-by-moment experience.
But I don't rule out the thought of
crisis.
Are you afraid of a crisis experience of
the Holy Spirit?
I'm not.
Christians do have crisis experiences of this.
There comes a time in the lives of
some Christians when the truth of God is
borne home to their soul.
Perhaps they've been saved and now they see
that they've been living for self and trying
to save their life.
And the dam breaks, as it were, and
they get down before the Lord and they
turn control over to the Lord, the Spirit,
and a crisis takes place.
I'm not afraid of that.
I have no doubt Moody had a crisis
experience of the Holy Spirit to prepare him
for the service that God was calling him.
I have no doubt Billy Gray and other
of these men have had crisis experiences.
But whether we have a crisis experience or
not, the important thing, I think, to realize
is that the filling of the Spirit of
God is a continual process in the Christian
life.
Literally, as has many times been pointed out,
the wording is, be ye being filled with
the Spirit.
Wouldn't it be nice if at the end
of this meeting we could have an altar
call and you could come down and just
by some simple act could receive the Spirit,
the filling of the Spirit of God, so
that for the rest of your life you'd
be filled with the Spirit?
Well, it wouldn't really be nice.
If it would be nice, God would have
arranged it that way.
But if that had been His method, then
we would cease to be dependent creatures on
Him.
The greatest glory of the creature is dependence.
That's the way the Lord wants us, moving
ahead on our knees.
And by arranging the filling of the Spirit
of God in this way, He keeps us
on our knees, as we'll see as we
go on.
And so this is a life that we
live.
No pep pill that you can take.
No capsule form.
No single experience that will project you onto
a plateau of Christian experience high above everybody
else.
It's a life to be lived, a process
day by day.
Now, there are certain conditions to be met,
and these are very obvious on the face
of them.
Certain conditions to be met if a person
is going to be filled with the Spirit
of God.
The first is he must confess and put
away all known sins.
1 John chapter 1, verses 5 through 9.
So we turn to that.
1 John chapter 1, verses 5 through 9.
This then is the message which we have
heard of Him, and declare unto you that
God is light, and in Him is no
darkness at all.
If we say that we have fellowship with
Him and walk in darkness, we lie and
do not the truth.
But if we walk in the light, as
He is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another, and the blood of Jesus
Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.
If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not
in us.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful
and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Now, John here is describing a way of
life in which we walk with everything dragged
out into the open as far as God
is concerned.
I wonder, do I know that life today?
Is this the way I'm living?
As I'm walking along the street and an
evil thought enters my mind, do I know
what it is, right then and there, to
rush into the presence of God and say,
Lord, that was sin, and I confess it,
and I forsake it this moment before you?
There's nothing hidden with God.
There's nothing under the counter with God.
God isn't that kind of a God, and
if I'm going to walk in fellowship with
Him, I have to drag it out in
the open and keep it dragged out in
the open, and that's what keeps me clean,
and the Spirit of God can only fill
clean vessels.
Sin breaks fellowship with God.
Sin grieves the Spirit of God, and he
cannot walk along happily with the life where
sin is unconfessed.
Second condition to be met yields Romans chapter
12, verses 1 and 2.
I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies
of God, that ye present your bodies a
living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is
your reasonable service.
And be not conformed to the world, but
be ye transformed by the renewing of your
mind, that ye may prove what is that
good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
If I am to know the fillings of
the Spirit of God, my life must be
turned over to Him without reservation.
So easy to talk about, but another thing
to do.
We don't realize oftentimes the things that are
holding us back from a complete dedication, a
complete devotion to the Christ of God, yet
it's the only reasonable thing to do.
If I want my life to be effective,
if I want to be in the place
of God's choosing, I have to do it.
I just have to come and say, Lord
Jesus, here I am.
Take over, take control, anywhere you want me
to go, anything you want me to do,
anything you want me to say.
You be the leader, I'll do the following.
Yield your life to God.
Then see, let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly.
Colossians chapter 3 and verse 16.
It says, Let the word of Christ dwell
in you richly, in all wisdom, teaching and
admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, singing with grace in your heart
to the Lord.
Now, it's impossible to think of a life
filled with the Spirit of God if that
life at the same time is not filled
with the word of God.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you
richly.
It's impossible to be living day by day
without cracking the Bible, without spending time in
the word, without hearing God's voice speak to
me in the Bible.
It's impossible to think of being filled with
the Spirit.
Isn't it crowding out the scripture for my
life?
Isn't schooling crowding it out?
Well, we can do that.
We can have the filling of the Spirit.
It has often been pointed out that in
the Ephesians passage it says, Be filled with
the Spirit and these things will follow.
In Colossians it says, Let the word of
Christ dwell in you richly and the same
things will follow.
Conclusion, to be filled with the Spirit is
to have the word of Christ dwelling in
you richly.
Things equal to the same thing are equal
to each other.
And then of course, condition to be met,
number four, to be empty of stealth.
And I think you have that suggested at
least in Galatians chapter 2 pointing, I have
been crucified with Christ.
Great thing for us to know and to
remember, all that we were as sons of
Adam, all that we were as men in
the flesh, crucified with Christ.
In us dwells no good thing.
Our job is to be an empty vessel,
to be that glove into which the hand
of Christ can come and move us as
he will.
And so those are some conditions to be
met in connection with the filling of the
Spirit.
Now what are the results of being filled
with the Spirit?
Well, here again we go back to the
book of Acts, first of all, Acts chapter
1 and verse 8.
It says, But ye shall receive power after
that the Holy Ghost is come upon you,
that ye shall be witnesses unto me both
in Jerusalem and all Judea and in Samaria
and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
Result number one of being filled with the
Spirit, power.
Power for what?
Power for witness.
Not necessarily power to do the spectacular, not
necessarily power to do the sensational, although that
was included here in the book of Acts.
The power to open your mouth and testify
for the Lord Jesus Christ.
Result number two of being filled with the
Spirit, boldness.
Acts chapter 4 and verse 31.
You have your Bibles open, turn to that.
Acts chapter 4 and verse 31.
It says, And when they had prayed, the
place was shaken where they were assembled together,
and they were all filled with the Holy
Ghost.
Notice when they spake, it's the tongue every
time, the mouth every time.
They spake the word of God with boldness.
Kind of thrilling, isn't it, to think of
that same mouth that not very long before
was saying, I don't even know the man.
And now that same man gets up on
the day of Pentecost, filled with the Spirit
of God, and he preaches, and three thousand
people are saved.
I tell you, it took boldness, too, to
stand up.
It took boldness for Peter to stand up
that day on the day of Pentecost and
point to the Jewish nation and say, you
took them and you killed them, but God
raised them from the dead in the day
of reckoning coming again.
That's what the filling of the Spirit of
God did with Peter.
It gave him boldness.
And not only that, a third result of
being filled with the Spirit is generosity.
In the very next verse, verse 32, it
says, A multitude of them that believed were
of one heart and of one soul.
Neither said any of them that ought of
the things which he possessed with his own,
and they had all things come.
Now here we go with our sixty theological
reasons why this verse doesn't mean what it
says, or why we should shunt it into
a dispensational pigeonhole and relegate it to the
first days of the church.
But I want to tell you this morning
that wherever the Spirit of God is filling
lives, these results follow.
Generosity.
Too many Christians today, I fear, are suffering
from paralysis of the nerve that leads from
the brain to the wallet.
And when the Spirit of God comes in,
that paralysis is gone.
And people say, material things, so what?
If I can use them for the spread
of the gospel, if I can use them
for the salvation of souls, that's the thing
that really counts.
What a wonderful deliverance it is when the
Spirit of God comes in and fills a
life, and people say, my greatest desire is
to use the material things I have for
the honor of the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Another result of the filling of the witness,
verse 33.
Verse 33, we've already suggested it, but here
it is again.
You can't get away from it.
And with great power gave the apostles witness
of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and
great grace was upon them all.
Isn't that tremendous?
This great power, there was a great witness
there, a great subject to be witnessed about,
and great grace was upon them all.
That is, great enablement was given to them
all.
And then over in Ephesians, chapter 5, we
find that there are some other results of
the filling of the Spirit of God, and
one of them is joy.
Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 19.
It says in the King James Version, speaking
to yourselves, but it really should be speaking
to one another.
It isn't that you go around talking to
yourself, although that isn't so bad either.
But here the thought is, speaking to one
another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
What does that mean?
Well, look, it means when you're filled with
the Spirit of God, your vocabulary is filled
with the Bible, really.
That's really what it means.
And when you're talking to people, you're ministering
to them and you're feeding them.
It's almost on the subconscious level.
It's so much a part of you.
The Spirit has such control over you that
you go around and you're talking to people
and you're helping them on in the things
of God.
And then it says, singing and making melody
in your heart to the Lord.
That's the inward part of it.
You yourself have the joy of the Lord
as your strength day by day.
All right, then another, F, thanksgiving.
You say, oh, that's not very sensational.
That's not very spectacular.
I thought the filling of the Spirit would
do something else.
Well, this is one of the results of
the filling of the Spirit, giving thanks always
for all things unto God the Father in
the name of the Lord Jesus.
And then final result, submitting yourselves one to
another in the fear of God.
Can a wife be filled with the Spirit?
Yes.
Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands.
Can a husband be filled with the Spirit
of God?
Yes.
Husbands, love your wives even as Christ loved
the church.
Can children be filled with the Spirit of
God, Christian children?
Yes.
Honor your father and your mother.
Submit yourselves unto your parents in the Lord.
This is a result of being filled with
the Spirit.
Can employees be filled with the Spirit of
God?
Yes.
They should respect their masters and serve them,
not with that as unto the Lord.
Can masters be filled with the Spirit of
God?
Employers, yes.
They should treat their employees kindly, too.
Final question, does a Spirit-filled Christian know
it?
Well, the answer is, if you mean does
he know it in the sense that he's
proud, that he thinks himself above other Christians,
the answer is no.
If he's that way, he's filled with vitamin
I.
He's filled with a perpendicular pronoun and not
with the Spirit of God.
But does he know it?
If you mean does he know it in
the sense that he realizes that God is
at work and that where he goes, things
are happening for God, the answer is yes,
he knows it.
These people in the book of Acts knew.
They saw the marvelous converging of circumstance.
They saw that their lives were chained to
the chariot wheels of God, and they realized
that things were happening, that the Spirit of
God was working, that he was using weak
clay vessels to work.
That was the thrill of life in the
book of Acts, and it can be yours,
and it can be mine, too.
If we meet the conditions, the result will
follow.
See, so Acts chapter 1, and we'll begin
reading in verse 9.
Acts chapter 1 verse 9 says, And when
he had spoken these things, while they beheld,
he was taken up, and a cloud received
him out of their sight.
And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as
he went up, behold, two men stood by
them in white apparel, which also said, Ye
men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up
into heaven?
This same Jesus, which is taken up from
you into heaven, shall so come in like
manner as ye have seen him go into
heaven.
Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount
called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a sabbath
day's journey.
And when they were come in, they went
up into an upper room, where abode both
Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew, Philip,
and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son
of Alpheus, and Simon, and Judas the brother
of James.
These all continued with one accord in prayer
and supplication with the women, and Mary the
mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.
Now, yesterday we were speaking about the centrality
of the filling of the Holy Spirit in
the Book of Acts.
The Book of Acts is really a wonderful
book.
You can hold it up like a diamond
and see its colors glisten in different lights.
Today we'd like to think of the Book
of Acts as a manual on prayer.
And we'd like to just look at some
of the references to prayer in this wonderful
book.
And as a subtitle for our Bible study
this morning, we might call it, Does It
Pay to Pray?
And we're going to think of every incident,
at least I think we are, dealing with
prayer in the Book of Acts, and look
at the prayer and then see, did anything
happen?
Do you just pray and nothing happens?
Well, we'll see.
The first prayer mentioned in the Book of
Acts is the prayer for Pentecost in the
verses we just read, chapter 1, verses 12
through 14.
The Lord Jesus has ascended into heaven.
The disciples go back to the upper room
in Jerusalem, and they're gathered there, and interestingly
enough, Mary the mother of Jesus is there.
This is the last reference to Mary the
mother of Jesus in the New Testament.
And it's an interesting thing that in this
last reference she's found in prayer with the
disciples.
You don't find the disciples praying to Mary,
but you find her praying with the disciples.
There they are.
They're all with one accord.
They're all bowed in prayer before God.
What were they praying about?
You guess?
Well, they were praying for the coming of
the Spirit, weren't they?
Exactly what they were praying for.
They were praying for the coming of the
Spirit.
Just a humble band of simple believers gathered
there on their knees in an upper room.
Will anything happen?
Does it pay to pray?
The answer to that prayer is found in
chapter 2 of the Book of Acts.
The Spirit of God came, and power was
poured out upon the disciples, and all the
believers were baptized into the body of Christ.
It was a wonderful time of prayer, and
wonderful answer came.
Let me ask you this morning, you who
are believers, do you ever pray for the
Spirit?
You say, Mr. MacDonald, what new heresy is
this?
You said yesterday that when we're saved we're
indwelt by the Spirit.
Well, that's absolutely true, and yet there is
a sense in which we do and should
pray for the Spirit of God today.
We should pray for the Spirit of God
to come upon us in power for our
service for Christ.
Do you ever pray for that?
I think we ought to start.
Jesus said, if you being evil know how
to give good gifts unto your children, how
much more shall your heavenly Father give Holy
Spirit to them that ask him?
And we're told by some Bible students that
when the article the is left out, when
it just says give Holy Spirit, that it
means not the person of the Holy Spirit,
but the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
And I'd just like to suggest to you
this morning that it might be a good
thing for all of us to be more
exercised about this, that as we start the
day that we might ask that the Spirit
of God might be upon us in power
as we go forth in this day, arranging
the contacts of the day, arranging the telephone
calls of the day, supervising in the letters
that are written and the conversations that are
held, that we might see God in all
the circumstances of life day by day.
Well, it was a wonderful time of prayer,
this first prayer meeting in the book of
Acts, and think of a wonderful answer.
The answer was Pentecost, the beginning of the
Spirit.
The second prayer that you have is in
verses 24 through 26, and that's the prayer
for a successor to Judas.
It says in verse 24, And they prayed
and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts
of all men, show whether of these two
thou hast chosen, that he may take part
of the ministry and apostleship from which Judas
by transgression fell, that he might go to
his own place.
And they gave forth their lots, and the
lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered
with the eleven apostles.
Now, I know there's a lot of controversy
among Christians as to whether Matthias was really
the choice or whether it should have been
the apostle Paul.
For my own part, I'm convinced that these
disciples were acting in the fear of God.
They took it to the Lord in prayer.
They asked the Lord to show his will
in the matter, and I'm persuaded he did.
I don't think it was ever God's intention
that Paul should have been numbered with the
twelve.
The important thing here is with their simplicity,
they face a crisis in life.
They go back to the Old Testament scriptures,
and they see that somebody should be appointed
to take the place of Judas.
What are you going to do about it?
How can you know the mind of God
in a case like this?
They had only one resource, and that resource
was prayer.
They prayed, and the lot fell to Matthias.
Now, this was, of course, before the Holy
Spirit was given.
We don't believe that you should use the
lot today, the casting of lots, so that
you don't have to.
We have the Spirit of God, and he
has promised to guide us in all the
affairs of life.
Is there someone here this morning at the
crossroads, perhaps facing a crisis in life, having
to make a decision that you don't know
which way to go?
The answer is prayer.
Get down before the Lord.
Bring it before the Lord.
Wait patiently upon the Lord.
God has promised to show.
And the third instance of prayer is in
chapter two of the book of Acts, verse
42, and this is general prayer following Pentecost.
Verse 41 says, this is chapter two, verse
41 says, Then they 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,
in fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and
in prayers.
Now, here prayer was the atmosphere of their
life.
It wasn't just some specific crisis that came
up that drove them to prayer.
It was the air that they breathed.
Did God answer that prayer?
Was it just going through the motions, spinning
the prayer wheel?
No, just read the following verses, and I
can't help feeling that the following verses are
all part of the context, and this is
the answer.
Fear came upon every soul.
Many wonders and signs were done by the
apostles.
All that believed were together and had all
things common, and sold their possessions and goods
and parted them to all men as every
man had need.
And they, continuing daily with one accord in
the temple and 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 that the Lord added
to the church daily, such as should be
saved, or those that were being saved.
They pray in verse 22.
What is the answer to the prayer in
verse 22?
The answer, as far as I can see
in the verses that follow, is continuous revival.
They were living in a state of continuous
revival, and I believe this is God's will
for us today.
I don't think God wants us to be
on the spiritual roller coaster, up one minute
and down the other.
I believe God wants us to be walking
in the Spirit, abiding in the Spirit, living
in the Spirit.
What is the lesson we learn from chapter
2, verse 42?
We learn the work is done in prayer.
And I really believe this.
I really believe with all my heart that
the principal work in service for Christ is
done on our knees.
That's the thrilling thing to me about the
book of Acts, to see an army, a
five-ranked army of fools, as far as
the world is concerned, moving forward on their
knees and affecting the world for the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Well, then it's rather thrilling to turn over
to chapter 4 and find their prayer for
boldness there.
Chapter 4, verses 24 and 29.
Now, Peter and John have just been released.
They've been in trouble with the law, and
of course it was for Christian propaganda activity.
And it says in verse 23, being let
go, they went to their own company and
reported all that the chief priests and elders
had said unto them.
And when they heard that, they lifted up
their voice to God with one accord and
said, and this is a wonderful prayer.
I'm going to read it.
It says, Lord, thou art God which has
made heaven and earth and the sea and
all that in them is, who by the
mouth of thy servant David hath said, Why
did the heathen rage?
And the people imagined vain things.
The kings of the earth stood up, and
the rulers were gathered together against the Lord
and against his Christ.
For of a truth against thy holy should
be servant Jesus.
For thou hast anointed both Herod and Pontius
Pilate with the Gentiles, and the people of
Israel were gathered together for to do whatsoever
thy hand and thy counsel determined before to
be done.
And now, Lord, behold their threatening, and grant
unto thy servants that with all boldness they
may speak thy word by stretching forth thy
hand to heal, that signs and wonders may
be done by the name of thy holy
child Jesus.
There's something thrilling about this, something that makes
you proud to be a Christian.
When you see these Christians, Peter and John
have just been released from jail, and they
come together and they say, my, this reminds
us of the second Psalm somewhat.
And here the Gentiles and the peoples are
gathered together in opposition to the Lord and
to his Christ.
Why do they do that?
And they go and list the enemies of
the gospel here.
But I think the thrilling thing you want
to notice is the calm and the poise
of these Christian people in prayer.
There's no frenzy here.
They're not frantic here.
They're not falling apart at the seams.
They lift them off carefully before God.
For of a truth against thy servant Jesus,
whom thou hast anointed, Herod, Pontius Pilate with
the Gentiles and the people of Israel were
gathered together.
But then notice the reverse twist in verse
28.
You would think they would have said they're
gathered together to do what they jolly well
pleased to do against thee and against the
gospel, but that isn't what it says.
It says these wicked world rulers and people
gather together to do whatever thy hands and
thy counsel determined before to be done.
And I just believe that pleased the heart
of the Lord Jesus Christ when he saw
those feeble disciples down there in the world
and they realized that he held the scepter
of universal dominion and that not all the
kings of the earth could do a single
thing apart from him.
Wonderful, isn't it?
They gather together to do what you had
determined beforehand was going to be done.
I've often told the story of a prayer
meeting back in Chicago when a couple of
young Christians went to it and these young
people had prayed all night, laying hold of
God for countries of the world.
And I spoke to one of those young
men the next day and I said to
him, what was it like?
He said, I can't tell you.
He said, you'd have had to be there
to know what it was like.
He said, all I can tell you is
this.
He said, one of those fellows started praying
for Russia and for the Iron Curtain, and
he said when he got through, Khrushchev looked
like a midget.
But that's what happened in this prayer meeting,
too.
They were praying, and before they got through
Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Jews and
the Gentiles, they looked like midgets.
Now, what did they pray for specifically?
Well, this is another beautiful thing.
They didn't pray for safety.
They didn't pray for protection.
They didn't pray for long life.
They didn't think that was the important thing.
They prayed for boldness.
Verse 29.
Now, Lord, behold their threatenings and grant unto
thy servants that with all boldness they may
speak thy words.
Thrilling, isn't it?
Did God answer the prayer?
Doesn't it pay to pray?
Verse 31.
And when they had prayed, the place was
shaken where they were assembled together, and they
were all filled with the Holy Ghost, but
they spake the word of God with boldness.
Some people say, you know, I have trouble
speaking for the Lord.
When I start to speak for Jesus, my
lips turn to blubber, and I just find
it difficult to get the words out.
What do you do in a case like
that?
Tell the Lord about it.
Ask the Lord for holy boldness in proclaiming
His word, in witnessing for Him.
God answers prayer.
It must have been thrilling to be in
a place like that.
Have you ever been in a place, in
a prayer meeting, where the place was shaken?
Well, I haven't.
It's a thrilling, thrilling experience, not only where
the place was shaken, but where human hearts
are shaken as well.
I tell you, when we get down before
the Lord in desperate, believing prayer, lives are
transformed in a prayer meeting like that.
Well, then we turn over to chapter 6,
and we find prayer for the choice of
deacons.
Chapter 6, and this is beautiful too, some
lovely touches here.
Let's begin back in verse 1.
In those days, when the number of the
disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of
the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows
were neglected in the daily ministration.
These were all believers, some of the Grecian
or Hellenistic backgrounds, and others of Hebrew background,
all Jewish converts.
Then the twelve called a multitude of the
disciples unto them and said, It is not
reason that we should leave the word of
God and serve tables.
Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven
men of honest report, full of the Holy
Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over
the business.
But we will give ourselves continually to prayer
and to the ministry of the word.
And the saying pleased the whole multitude.
And they chose Stephen, a man full of
faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip,
and Prochurus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas,
and Nicolaus the proselyte of Antioch, whom they
set before the apostle.
And when they had prayed, they laid their
hands on them."
Here was one of the first instances of
difficulties in the early church.
The Hellenistic Jews were, the Hellenistic converts were
complaining against the Hebrew converts.
They thought their widows were being neglected in
the daily ministration.
What do you do in a case like
this?
This is a big problem today.
The problem is always the personal problem.
Interpersonal relationship.
Prayer is sufficient.
They get down on their knees.
They pray.
They selected men to carry on.
They selected what we would call deacons.