Resources for Finishing Our Lord's Unfinished Work, Part 3
Acts 1:12-26
Take your Bible if you will, please, and turn to Acts, chapter 1, Acts, chapter 1. Now, we've begun our series in the book of Acts, a most important book. Having completed the series of John, which is the life of Christ on earth in His physical body; in the book of Acts we continue the life of Christ as He lives through His church. We come to some tremendous things as we come to this little section in Acts 1:12 through 26. Now, this passage that we're going to be looking at this morning beginning in verse 12 really talks about two kinds of disciples. And there's a great contrast brought to our attention here between the true disciple and the false disciple, a study in stark contrast, a contrast between Judas on the one hand and a man named Matthias about whom we know very little, but nevertheless, a contrast. And there'll going to be many lessons for us to learn as we go through what is really kind of a little historical narrative section that is rich with truth that is applicable to our lives.
Now, as the book of Acts unfolds, we have seen in just the first two messages, that Jesus in chapter 1 is equipping His own for what is going to happen in chapter 2. For in chapter 2, the Holy Spirit descends and the church is born and evangelism begins and the work that Jesus began to do is to be continued in them. But before that can happen there are some preparations that have to be taken care of. And so chapter 1 is preparation for the birth of the church. And we have seen how that very carefully Jesus has given to His own all of the proper equipment. We saw that He gave them the proper message and that is that He taught them all they needed to know. He gave them the proper manifestation. He revealed Himself to them in His glorified post-resurrection body in order that they might be confident that He was really alive from the dead. Then He gave them the proper might. He promised them that the Spirit would come and empower them. He then gave them the proper mystery. He said there are some things you don't need to know and one is the time of My return. And so He left it for every man to live in the light of the fact that Jesus could come any moment. He also gave them the proper mission. He told them they were witnesses to go to the world with the gospel. And then He gave them the proper motive and that was that He would be coming back to see if they had been faithful.
Now, that sums up what we have studied in terms of His preparation of them for the job to be done, but there's one thing left and that is the proper men. In addition to all of those other proper ingredients, Jesus wanted to be sure that the proper men were involved in carrying out the job. And so in verses 12 to 26, basically, we see Jesus replacing Judas with the proper man to fill in the ranks of the 12 to do the job. It's a marvelous thing to realize that God works His will through men. God does not stay supernaturally detached, working His will apart from men, but rather works it through men. This is true even in God's operation in providence. For example, when God works in providence, it is God working His will, but His plans may develop through unexpected concurrences of a thousand, million human wills, some of them yielding, some of them rebellious, some of them intelligent, some of them ignorant and all blended together to accomplish God's will. God works through men. In the Old Testament when Gideon was to defeat the foe, the Bible gave the word of Gideon, or the watchword of Gideon or the slogan of battle as "the sword of the Lord and of Gideon." In other words, it wasn't just the sword of the Lord, it was the sword of the Lord and Gideon because God pours His will through men and operates and functions in the earth through men. He has mediators who are men to carry out His purpose. When it came to dividing the Red Sea to allow the children of Israel to cross, God used a combination of things. Number one, His own will, number two, an east wind, number three, a man named Moses with a stick in his hand. God implements men into the responsibility of carrying out His will. And for this crisis hour in redemptive history, as God is about to give birth to His church, God wants to make sure that the proper men are in the proper place to do the job. Now, we know that the ranks of the disciples have been depleted by one and that one being Judas Iscariot. That means Judas from the town of Kerioth. He has been placed aside by his own will and so he is to be replaced by the will of Jesus Christ.
Now, let me at this point interject something that we must keep in mind in interpreting this passage. Some have interpreted this passage in various ways and I want to give you kind of a basis of how we're going to interpret it. We are assuming that every apostle was chosen by Jesus Christ, that Jesus Himself chose them all with no exceptions including Matthias. There are some who say that this was a mistake on Peter's part here, that he had no business doing that. I don't believe that for a moment because I believe that Jesus Christ chose the first 11 and that He chose the one to make the proper 12 in order that it might be in order for the birth of the church. And that the apostle Paul, who truly was an apostle, was an apostle of a different order, although truly an apostle, said he was an apostle in due season out of context, as it were. He was a very unique apostle and he filled two qualifications out of the three and on the basis of those two, was chosen to be the apostle. Or we should say, on the basis of those two he is declared to be an apostle. And we'll see what the three are later on. So we believe in this passage, then, we have the choice of Matthias to supplant Judas. And we believe it is God, through Christ, doing the choosing. In John 15:16 Jesus said to His disciples, "Ye have not chosen Me, but"...what?..."I have chosen you and ordained you that you should go forth and bring fruit..." In other words, Jesus did the selecting. Now, this does not minimize the apostle Paul, for the apostle Paul, though in a different season, under a different kind of a pattern, was selected by Jesus Himself, for he was stopped on the road to Damascus and Jesus said to him, It's hard for you to fight against Me, isn't it Paul? And right there and then he had a confrontation with Jesus Christ, met Jesus Christ, later was given back his sight, went three years into Arabia and had a personal, spiritual encounter with Jesus Christ, came out and was truly an apostle. But he was an apostle of a different pattern than these 12 apostles. Jesus does the choosing. In Luke 6:13 it says, "He chose twelve..." It wasn't a free-for-all at the Sea of Galilee when He went down there. How many of you would like to follow Me? He said I'll take you, you, you and you. Drop your nets and follow Me. He does the choosing. This is born out, I think, very carefully in Acts, chapter 10, verse 39. Peter is speaking and he says, "And we are witnesses of all things which He did, both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom they slew and hanged on a tree. Him, God raised up the third day and showed Him openly, not to all the people"...remember I told you that in His resurrection He was not revealed to all people..."but unto witnesses"...what witnesses?..."chosen before by God, even to us, who did eat and drink with Him after He rose from the dead. And He commanded us to preach unto the people and to testify that it is He who was ordained by God to be the Judge of living and dead." And so Peter says He appeared to us chosen by God to be His apostles or His preachers. Jesus appointed the 12. Jesus later appointed the 70 as you remember. And then when talking about having future workers, the Bible says "Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest that He send forth laborers into His harvest." Right? You see, Christian service isn't a matter of recruitment; it's a matter of divine appointment. In the days of Paul we read, "How shall they preach except they be sent." And who does the sending?...God does. In these days it's strange but there are many people who are running around who haven't been sent who make themselves ministers of God whereas God has not made them such, who take upon themselves a work with no call from God. You see, it's a very solemn thing to do that. You think of Uzziah who tried to do it and wound up being a leper until he died because he tried to usurp a ministry that wasn't his by God's ordaining. Unless God has called you by laying it on your heart, by preparing you, by training you and giving you, beyond all, the desire and the sensitivity to the Spirit of God, then don't enter into it. James said, "Be swift to hear and slow to speak." James said, "Be not many teachers because unto them is the greater condemnation." Be available if God's calling you and be obedient to His call but don't usurp something that God hasn't called you to do. God appoints, through Jesus Christ, His own. And this is clearly indicated to us all throughout the New Testament. You even have it, for example, in Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 11, which tells us that when beginning the church it says and God really appointed...really Christ...appointed "some apostles...prophets...evangelists...and teaching shepherds," and they are appointed by God. Also, I Corinthians 12:28, the first part of the verse says that they are appointed...uses the word epeita *[I don't think this is the word he wanted here. The word he says is spelled right, but I don't think it's the word he MEANT to say. The word he says here does not mean set in order...] ...they are set in order by God to serve as teaching pastors, evangelists and teachers. So it is God who chooses those who will lead for Him.
Now, in this passage this is exactly what we have. Again, the Lord is choosing. Some would have us believe that Peter is choosing on his own and that he leads them into an error. I cannot believe for a moment that the Lord would allow His church to be founded on an error without ever stating it to be such. And nothing in here says it is. I can't imagine that the Lord would give them all the proper information, all the proper things clear up to verse 11 and let them blow it by choosing an improper man again. I see it not. Plus, if it is true that the office of Judas was prophesied in the Old Testament to be taken by another, then it must be legitimate. We believe that what happens here is of the Lord and we believe that Peter is inspired by the Holy Spirit as he speaks and as he leads those who are in this little meeting in choosing the one to replace Judas. So it is a case, then, of the Lord choosing His servant. Now, we could make great application from that. Suffice it, at that point, to say that the Lord chooses whom He will for His ministries.
Now, let me add, also, that this is the final act of the old dispensation. The age of the Old Testament, the age of law is coming to an end. Here's the final act. The choosing of this one ends it. In chapter 2, the beginning of the new age, as the Spirit comes and the new dispensation is born.
Now, as we look at the text I want to divide into three parts. They are not necessarily strategically connected but simply hooks to hang your thoughts on. Three features stand out. Number one, the submission of the disciples...and this is a beautiful thought...two, the suicide of a disciple, three, the selection of a disciple.
All right, first of all is the submission of the disciples in verses 12 to 15. Now, Jesus, you remember had told them that they had to stay in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit arrived. Luke 24:49 He said "...tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high." Back in verse 4 He said, Don't go anywhere, stay in Jerusalem, wait for the promise of the Father, which was the baptism of the Spirit in verse 5. And verse 8a says and when He gets here, you'll have the power to do the job. He gave them everything, all the equipment except the power and He says stick around until the power arrives. And it was very important for them to wait because the Holy Spirit could not come until Jesus got back to Heaven. John 16:7 says that. If I go away, I will send the Comforter unto you. And I cannot send the Comforter until I depart, he said. So Jesus had to go back to Heaven, set in order whatever had to be done there, then send the Holy Spirit. So there was a period of time in which they had to wait for the arrival of the Spirit because they couldn't go out to be witnesses to the world, they couldn't go out to the do the job unless they had the power to do it and the Spirit was the energy. So they had to wait for the Holy Spirit to arrive. And so they waited and they showed their obedience. It's beautiful. Look at verse 12. "Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet..." That's the Mount of Olives given a little more technical definition for the sake of Theophilus who probably had never been to this area and so Luke describes it for him. Theophilus is the one to whom the book is written. Anyway, "from the Mount of Olives, which is from Jerusalem a Sabbath day's journey." Now, that gives us the designation of the location where Jesus ascended. He had just ascended into Heaven and they left the Mount of Olives. That tells us that the ascension occurred on the Mount of Olives. And isn't it a wonderful thing that they obeyed. Back in verse 4 He said, "tarry in Jerusalem," don't leave Jerusalem. And they went immediately to Jerusalem. That's submission. That's obedience to the will of the Lord. That's the most important thing in the Christian experience is the one word obedience. That's what it's all about. And they obeyed. Now, the little placed called the Mount of Olives is a lovely little spot. It's anything but a mount really in the sense that we in California think about a mountain. It rises about 400 feet above the bottom of the little valley, which isn't much of a valley either...Kidron. And it's just east of Jerusalem. In fact, the east wall of Jerusalem just goes straight down to the bottom of the little Kidron, which only runs in the winter and then back up to the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives is 400 feet high. Jerusalem is 200 feet high. Simple mathematics tell you if you're on the Mount of Olives, you're 200 feet over the top of Jerusalem. It's a fabulous sight at dawn. You get up, you watch the sun come over your back and all of the sudden it lights up the eastern wall and then it hits the temple ground and then, fast, it scatters morning across the whole city of Jerusalem. That's the Mount of Olives. And on that mount, Jesus had ascended. But not just on the Mount, in a particular place. The Mount is like any mount; it goes up and down on both sides. It's on the back side. And if you went down the back side, you'd land in Bethany. And if you kept on going, you'd wind up in the desert in Jericho down by the Dead Sea. So it's on the road to Jericho that the city of Bethany is located on the back side of Olives. And that, in Luke, is very important because Luke gives us a historical note. Luke tells us that Jesus ascended from the Mount of Olives toward Bethany, which means that He ascended from the back side of the Mount of Olives. And I guess that gives it a little more private designation, a little more private occasion, being on the back side of Olives according to Luke 24:50.
Now, the ascension has taken place on the back side of Olive, now it says they left there and went to Jerusalem, which was a Sabbath day's journey. Now, a Sabbath day's journey is a technical term that measures a certain distance. It means 2000 cubits distance. Two-thousand cubits isn't called 2000 cubits; it's called a Sabbath day's journey. And it came about in a very interesting way. I'm gonna give you a little bit of a historical note. Moses didn't design this particular thing. This came about because when the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness, you remember they had a tabernacle. Right? You remember that. And around the tabernacle all the tribes were set in particular locations. They all faced the tabernacle. The furthest location away was 2000 cubits so that on the Sabbath, you were permitted to go to worship and no further. That was the idea. Sabbath was reserved for worship, was it not? No working, no doing anything else. And so they made the maximum, they measured the maximum of the camp and how far away the furthest person would be and that was a Sabbath day's journey. You couldn't go any further than that in order to enable those people to make it to worship. And it was 2000 cubits. And so, consequently, the term "a Sabbath day's journey" because synonymous with a distance of 2000 cubits. This is not to mean that they were walking on the Sabbath day. This is simply a designation of a distance. Now, if they had gone 2000 cubits from the back side of Olive, they would have just barely gotten inside the eastern gate of Jerusalem. And likely they would have been right where they were when they gathered together for the upper room occasion for that last Passover. And perhaps they were in the very same upper room where Jesus had appeared to them in resurrection. But it couldn't have been very far inside the eastern wall. And as best we can tell, that's the same area where the upper room was in proximity to the temple and all of the rest of the thing. And so they took the journey of about 2000 cubits. That would be 3000 feet for you that are still trying to figure that out, or a little over a half a mile. And they, in verse 13 it says, "And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room..." They came into the city of Jerusalem into a house and into an upper room. Now, the houses were very commonly possessing upper rooms or upper chambers, used four times in the New Testament, that particular designation. They were used for many purposes. Evidently, it was kind of like a living room. You know, it was kind of where you keep the kids out kind of thing for meditation, devotions, prayer. And when somebody died they usually got stuck in the upper room. So it had a multi-purpose both for the living and the dead. The reason I say the dead got put there was because in Acts 11 that's where they put Dorcas when she died. And so houses would have it. It was elevated from the regular pattern of the house, which was below. And so it must have been a big upper room. Must have been a pretty wealthy guy who had an upper room that size because they got a lot of people in that upper room. They all went into that upper room. Now, I want to add at this point that the Word also tells us that they had spent time in the temple daily praising God and rejoicing. So it wasn't as if they locked themselves in an upper room. We get this idea so often that they went and locked themselves in an upper room until the Holy Spirit came and just stayed there. That is not so. They were in the temple praising God and having joy. And so they were in and out of this upper room, but they came there to meet together and then would go out from time to time. Now, you'll notice that in verse 13 it tells us who was really gathered there. And you'll notice that there are only 11 disciples listed with the exclusion of Judas. There is a Judas here and I'll explain that in a moment. All right, it says in there abode there "Peter and James and John"...and you know those three..."Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew, and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot"...that's a particular designation of a political nature..."and Judas"...or Thaddaeus is another name..."the son of James"...and that's not to be confused with Judas Iscariot. This is Judas, not Iscariot. This is Judas or Thaddaeus, the son of James. Now, Judas Iscariot is missing. There are only 11 of them there. Now, they are not alone. There are others with them in this upper chamber and that in verse 14 is indicated when it says "These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women..." The women...that's almost a proper noun, you know. They've become so much associated together that they're now called "the women"...Mary Magdalene, Mary the wife of Clopus, Mary and Martha, Salome and perhaps some other women. But they've been around all the way through, have been around helping to sprinkle the body of Christ with spices. They've been around at the resurrection. They've been around. They're disciples of Christ. And it also says...and this is a lovely thing...it says at the end of verse 14, "and with His brethren." Now, this is a marvelous thing. Now, there are some who would say that Jesus had no earthly brothers. That is not so. It says right there, with his brothers..."his brethren." And it refers back to Jesus. It says, "the mother of Jesus and with His brethren." And the fact that the mother would be a human relationship indicates that so would the brothers be. Jesus did have brothers. They were half-brothers because Jesus was virgin born, but they were half-brothers. We even know their names: James, Joses or Joseph, Simon and Jude. And James and Jude figure very prominently in the New Testament for James wrote the epistle of James and Jude wrote the epistle of Jude and James was the first head of the Jerusalem church. He heads up the Jerusalem council in Acts, chapter 15. So they became believers. But the exciting thing is that they were even here because in John 7:5 it says, "neither did his brethren believe in Him." And they had a little hassle in John 7 about going to the Passover and they didn't believe and they mocked Him a little bit. But by the time you get here, there they are gathered in a prayer meeting with the rest of His disciples. It must have been an exciting thing for the Lord to recognize His brothers in that group. Sure He ___________ there. You say, well, how did it happen? When did they get converted? Well, there's not a lot of revelation on it. I have my own opinion, which I'm certainly happy to share with you (laughter). In I Corinthians, chapter 15 and verse 7...don't look it up, but I Corinthians 15:7...the Bible says that Jesus appeared to James after His resurrection. Now, that sets it in order very simply. Jesus likely appeared to James and at that point James became a believer, right, seeing his own brother resurrected. And then James, very likely, became the catalyst for the rest of them. And so by this time, they've all come into the faith and there they are gathered together and that only leaves one other person designated in 14 and that is Mary, the mother of Jesus.
Now, at this point I want to digress from my message...so this doesn't count on my total time (laughter)...and I want to talk for a moment about Mary, the mother of Jesus because I think it's important. Certainly, on Mother's Day there could be no more fitting individual to talk about for just a brief moment than Mary. Now, it's important for us to understand that Mary is never exalted in the Scripture. Only is she exalted in reference to the child that is born from her, not in herself. In fact, on one occasion in Mark, chapter 3, Jesus was teaching in a house. His brothers and mother came and they sent somebody in to tell Him that they wanted to talk to Him and He replied by saying, "Who is My mother?" "Who are My brethren?" And then He pointed to the audience and He said, "Even are ye my mother and my brethren." And then they couldn't figure that out and He said, "Whosoever doeth the will of God, the same is My brother...sister and mother." You see, he minimized the spiritual significance of Mary and His physical brethren. They had to be redeemed just like anybody else. And I want you to notice that it says, "These all continued with one accord in prayer...with the women" with "Mary..." And you'll notice they didn't pray to Mary; they prayed with Mary. Mary was praying. Mary needed to be redeemed. Now, for many years the Catholic Church has taught that Mary is co-redemptrix with Jesus Christ, that she had a part in obtaining redemption through Christ. That is not in the New Testament. That does not appear anywhere in the New Testament. And I'm not minimizing Mary. Perhaps among all women, she is certainly blessed, but among all women, she may be of the loveliest who ever lived and of the most wonderful kind of wife and mother imaginable. I'm not minimizing her humanness; I am eliminating her deity. Mary was in no way co-redemptrix with Jesus Christ. She has no place of superiority; she's simply there. No candles were being burned to her. She is kneeling with everybody else, praying like everybody else and, in fact, praying to her Son like everybody else. She is ne