On the Edge of Their Seats!

Can you imagine during this 40-day period what it must have been like for the apostles to have Jesus Christ just appear in no advance notice? They're fishing on a lake. He's there on the shore.

They're eating a meal. He comes through the door. They're walking down a highway and He's there and He's gone. I think they came to live with an incredible sense of expectancy that no matter where they were or what they were doing that Jesus Christ might suddenly appear. All that we would learn to live and have conversations and work with the thought that at any moment today He might come. Have you ever found yourself pausing to realize, you know, Jesus could come right now?

That's a great way to live. We should live with the everyday expectation that today could be the day that the Lord returns. Prior to His ascension into heaven, Jesus did appear to His disciples. He taught them, encouraged them, and challenged them. Today, we go back to our vintage wisdom archives to the book of Acts.

This is wisdom for the heart. Stephen Davey is your Bible teacher for this daily program and he called the message you're about to hear on the edge of their seats. As we begin the book of Acts, I want to say just a couple of things as we go through our study and I mentioned names and movements that I believe are worthy of warning.

I want to tell you that for the most part we're talking about people who are going to heaven and we're going to spend eternity together. These are family issues, but I think that they're worthy of warning and I may be speaking to people as we talk about the third wave movement and the ministry of the Holy Spirit, I may be asking you in effect to compromise some things that you hold dear. And so I encourage you to come each Sunday as we study through this dynamic book, this exciting book, as we'll probably do a series within this study on the Holy Spirit. I do want to also sort of allay the foundation, although this is introductory material, I think it helps to get some of these hooks out there that we can put our mental caps on as we study a book that for the most part is confusing to the evangelical body.

Here are three hooks to hang your hat on. Number one, the book of Acts is not a complete history of the early church. The book of Acts covers the highlights of 33 years. It leaves a lot out. God gave us what he wanted us to have, he didn't give us everything we'd want to have and would love to have read. It really doesn't give us much information on the other 11 apostles that primarily focuses on the ministry of Peter to begin with and then later Paul. Somebody once remarked that you could probably entitle this book, and the titles are not inspired, but you could entitle the book instead of the Acts of the Apostles, you could entitle it the Acts of some of the Apostles some of the time.

There's some truth to that. There are 110 people introduced to us in these pages and very little is given to us about them. It doesn't really tell us much about the churches in Galatia, although we would have loved to have learned about that dynamic movement. I found it very interesting that in John, in that Gospel in chapter 13, the Lord Jesus told his disciples, the world will know that you are my disciples by your what? Love. And yet the one word that you never read anywhere in the book of Acts is the word love. Now we certainly believe that love was there.

Luke just didn't record it. While we aren't given everything we'd like to have, we're given everything we need to know and need to have. But remember it's not a complete history. This is a book about a transition.

It covers a few years before it stops. Second principle or hook, it is not a comprehensive theology of church doctrine. This is one of the most significant things to nail down in your own mind as students of the word. In fact, no one book of the Bible should be treated as a complete theological treatise. In fact scripture tells us to compare scripture with scripture, to come up with the full picture. The book of Acts, because it introduces the creation of the New Testament church, is often viewed as, well this is the way the church is supposed to live and act, forgetting that there are epistles where the apostles give the doctrine to the New Testament church in full form. Classic examples of theological subjects that Luke the historian will touch on without giving any explanation. One of the most classic is in Luke chapter 2 where Peter says repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sin. We have entire movements and denominations who have taken that one phrase and said the definition of salvation includes the requirement of baptism.

That's one of the issues. It's interesting that Luke will talk about how Paul almost forcibly requires Timothy to be circumcised as they begin their ministry to the Jews, and yet only a chapter earlier the council at the Jerusalem church met and decreed that circumcision would be put away and considered no longer significant. Why did Paul do that? We don't know.

We're not told. Several times in the history of this book we will learn that people receive the Holy Spirit, the baptism of the Holy Spirit after their conversion. We know from the epistles, as Paul will teach in 1 Corinthians, that the baptism of the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ happens at the moment of conversion. In fact it is impossible for anyone in this age to be saved without having experienced the baptism. If somebody asks me, Stephen, have you been baptized by the Holy Spirit?

I shock them and say yes. We are all spirit baptized believers. There's no such thing as one without it. Although in Acts, as the church is created, the apostles were told await for the baptism that is yet to come. Luke the theologian or Luke the historian doesn't give us theological commentary on much of this and much of the confusion today within movements who talk about the Holy Spirit are selectively applying certain passages of Acts as the theological final word on faith and practice. Acts is not the final word. The Pentecostal, the Charismatic, the Vineyard, the Second Blessing, the Latter Day Rain, all of these movements who, by the way, disagree violently with each other on the ministry of the Holy Spirit, have taken the Holy Spirit primarily as a power which is yet to descend. If you tarry, if you pray, if you weep, if you pursue certain experiences, the power will descend. I'm going to teach that the Holy Spirit is a person who has already descended. You don't get a leg or an arm a little bit here and a little bit later.

You get all of them. Now the problem is he doesn't have all of us. And that's the process we call sanctification. So Acts must be studied with that in mind.

Here's one more principle I'll give you quickly. The Book of Acts is not the concluding statement for normal Christian living or experience. In other words, if you read the Book of Acts, ladies and gentlemen, and you stop, you're going to be confused unless you study the Epistles, written by the apostles to the developing church. You'll be deeply confused as to the nature and pursuit of your Christian experience. That's one of the reasons I am so excited to be in this book now to define certain things that are critical to our Christian experience. Frankly, we have to be careful about applying in a literal fashion other passages of scripture. We're encouraged to compare scripture with scripture to get the full picture.

Let me give you some examples of today's trends. I want you to know that if I'm supposed to be binding demons, then I want to do it. I don't want to miss out on that. That sounds exciting. The only thing I want to know before I start doing it is some answers, like how long is he bound? Five minutes? An hour? Do I repeat it?

Is it a weekly thing? And if I bind a demon in my life, is that demon bound in your life? Better yet, since Christ within me is greater than he, Satan, without me, why don't we just bind Satan and be done with temptation? Don't misunderstand. What I'm saying is if we're to be binding, I want to bind.

I don't want to miss it. If the demonstration of the Spirit's domination is speaking in tongues, I want to do it. If the presence of the Spirit shown through the faith of believers results in the healing of any and all diseases, do you not think I'd be first in line?

I'd want it. All of these things happened, ladies and gentlemen, in the book of Acts as we see this miraculous age creating the church. Now I spoke briefly in our last discussion about the problem of selective literal application. I want to take you back to that example. Many of you weren't here, and you need to see this.

This is a good example. Acts chapter 4. Turn there and look at verse 32. Verse 32 says about this church in Jerusalem, the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them, and with great power the apostles were giving witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and abundant grace was upon them all. I love verse 33, as we talked about, but look at verse 34. For there was not a needy person among them, for all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the apostles' feet, and they would be distributed to each as any had need.

I'm not too sure about that one. I like verse 33. There is an apostolic power validating the resurrection of Jesus Christ in this new organism called the church, but I'm not too sure I want to give away what we're sweating for for the rest of the body.

Are you? As you read and you listen to the Hagins and the Copelands and the Hinns and the Robertsons and the Wimbers, you will hear passages at random from the book of Acts being translated into the normal Christian experience, and yet those men and those movements do not do that with all of Acts. If we did, we would have gone to the temple and prayed according to the Jewish calendar this past week. They did that, Paul and Peter did, late into the book of Acts. If we did this, we would select spiritual leaders by the casting of lots. They did that in the book of Acts.

We'd sell what we owned and create a communal system of assets. They did that in the book of Acts. We'd draft missionaries.

Maybe this morning, through prayer and fasting, we would determine who among us would go to the field. They did that in the book of Acts. We could expect all liars in relation to financial contributions to drop dead in the service. That happened in the book of Acts. And should I preach too long and someone die in the service?

You could expect me to resurrect him from the dead. Paul did that in the book of Acts. The book of Acts needs to be carefully studied and applied. It is a dynamic book. What are we going to see in this book?

A few things. We're going to see a miraculous age as the church is created. We're going to see supernatural signs and wonders and miracles that validated this church creation was indeed from God. We're going to see powerful testimonies of people who've given everything to the cause of Jesus Christ. We're going to see a church dedicated to the propagation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're going to be challenged by their testimony. So that by the time you get to Acts chapter 19, it says that they have reached all of Asia. Can you imagine?

Without any of the technology that we have today, they've reached all of Asia. The church was called into question by the enemies of it with tears of rage in the eyes of their enemies. They declared of the church, you have turned the world upside down. As early as Acts chapter 5, the leadership is hauled in before the religious leaders. And they are said, or they are told to stop preaching in the name of Jesus. And then the classic phrase is, you have filled this city with your gospel. Could we ever be accused of that? We have filled our city with the gospel.

That's what I want to walk away with. Among many other things. I have pastor friends ask me just about every week, hey, how's it going at Colonial? I hear tremendous things about the church. And I want you to know that my answer always includes the words, and usually with a sigh, we haven't even begun. The question is not how big is your church. The question is how big is your city? And have we filled our city with the gospel of Jesus Christ?

And the answer to that is no. And so we come here and we walk away challenged. Vance Habner, the old evangelist, once quipped, he's now with the Lord in heaven. He said most churches start at 11 o'clock sharp and end at 12 o'clock dull. One of the great reasons to get into the book.

Now let's go to exposition. We'll have time for the first few verses. Look at the book of Acts chapter 1 verse 1. The first account I composed Theophilus about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up. It's important to remember that Acts is the sequel to the gospel of Luke. Luke refers to it here in verse 1 as the first account.

Theophilus is a Roman politician high up in the political halls of power in the Roman Empire. And he is receiving the second volume from his medical friend and missionary, Dr. Luke. Now notice what Luke tells him. There's a forceful admonition from the Lord, verse 2, after he had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom he had chosen. The question is what did he order them to do? You have to skip down to verse 4. Gathering them together, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait.

You have to understand the need for this. These men lived in Galilee. These men had wives and families, perhaps children.

They had family businesses in some distant region. They were commanded to remain in Jerusalem, a town that hated them, that had just executed their leader, that wanted them gone. They are commanded to stay. The only explanation for the presence of the apostles on the day of Pentecost, which will come in chapter 2, is they obeyed the command of Jesus Christ to wait. Interesting, one of the first commands given to the body of believers by the resurrected Christ is the command he's given to you and me for differing reasons. Wait. And so they waited for something very special to happen.

What are they waiting for? Verse 4, the latter part, they are to wait for what the Father had promised, which he said you heard of from me, for John baptized you with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. They were already believers, but they didn't have the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Why? The presence of the Holy Spirit was dependent upon the ascension of Jesus Christ. When Jesus Christ ascended, according to his own words in John 14, the Spirit would descend and create this new organism called the New Testament Church. We call that special creative day, Pentecost.

A historic event, and I have in your notes two principles about that, and for the sake of time we're going to wait until we get to chapter 2 to talk about that. But for now, Christ's promises about the Holy Spirit are dependent upon his resurrection. If he didn't resurrect, he can't ascend. If he doesn't ascend, the Spirit can't descend. If the Spirit doesn't descend, the world is without a church. The church is without witnesses.

The church is without ordinances. Sin is without forgiveness. The Christian is without hope.

Eternity is without heaven, and the list could go on and on. So at the outset of the book of action, Dr. Luke writes of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and to his Roman leader, who is very astute, he says, Theophilus, I want you to understand that Jesus Christ validated or confirmed his resurrection two different ways. The first way is visually.

Look at verse 3 now. To these he also presented himself alive after his suffering by many convincing proofs appearing to them over a period of 40 days. Now the word proof you could underline and circle. It was used by writers of medical journals in early Greece. Luke is pulling from his medical profession this selected word by inspiration. The word proof could be translated demonstrative evidence.

As doctors would talk about symptoms and illnesses, they would arrive at conclusions based upon evidence. Luke is saying, Theophilus, we have demonstrative proof. We've seen them. We've seen them alive. If you put all the clues of the gospels together, you discover the appearances of Jesus occurred sometimes at night, sometimes at dawn, once at noon. He appeared once to one person. He appeared to a few people. He appeared to many.

He appeared to 500 at one time. He appeared by a lake. He appeared on a highway. He appeared in a home. All of his appearances were documented, where Paul would write in 1 Corinthians that Jesus Christ first appeared to Peter, and then the other 11. He appeared to James.

He appeared to 500. And then he appeared, Paul writes to me, as one born out of season. Jesus Christ has been proven to be alive visually. But that's not all. Christ is not only confirmed visibly, but verbally.

Look at the last part of verse 3 again, and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. Now, in case someone thought that, well, I thought I saw, but maybe it was a cloud. Maybe it was the sun's rays. Or maybe I'm just hoping to see them. And so I thought I saw them.

And maybe all of these people could be deluded by some kind of hallucination that they had seen something they hadn't seen. But Luke says, for your information, he spoke. Not just spoke, he taught. He delineated information. He illustrated. He taught them over the course of 40 days, never one to lose an opportunity. The master teacher is teaching the future teachers of the church about the kingdom of God. I wish Luke had told us what those points were. I wish he'd given us the information. We're never told, but I guarantee you, ladies and gentlemen, these students were listening now with rapt attention.

It's kind of like when the teacher says, now this will be on the test. Okay. Have you ever flown? I've flown many times. You know, the poor flight attendant gets up there as you're sort of making your way out to take off and going through that spiel. You know what I'm doing? I'm usually reading a magazine or looking out a window or something and she's going all through that, you know, if something happens, this little thing is going to pop down out of the ceiling and you know, you put it on first and then if your kids are good, you can give them some too next after break. And you know, if you look over here, the emergency exits are over the wings and nobody's looking, poor thing. Except the person that's flying for the first time.

You could always tell it. They're reaching for that laminated card. They're just following along. You know, they're looking overhead, wishing for a trial run. See this thing popped down. She says the cushion will be afloat.

He'd like to try it on. He's looking around for the emergency exit. I can remember the first time I flew with my wife. I was sitting by the window, which shows you how selfish I am. I got the window seat. But I was sitting by the window and I was looking out the window and this gal was going through the spiel and I saw this and I said, honey, look, look out there at that. And I felt this sharp nudge in my ribs. Shh, listen. She made me listen to the whole thing. But if I happen to look out my window and see flames coming from an engine, you know what I'd do?

Honey, what did she say? Quick. I'd reach for the laminated card. I'd look around for the emergency exits.

I'd be waiting for that thing to come out of the ceiling. Why? Because now it's happening. What she said might happen is happening.

Now I've got to know. You know what I think, ladies and gentlemen, as Jesus Christ was teaching his disciples, they were listening now. Why? Because what he said would happen was happening. I think they learned more in that 40 day period than they did all three years prior to that. I don't think Peter is waiting for an opportunity to interrupt the teacher. He's listening now.

I don't think James and John are daydreaming of who will be the greatest in the kingdom. They're listening. Why?

They're on the edge of their seats. You were talking about your death. Yeah, well, we heard that. You talked about rebuilding the temple. Yeah, we thought we heard something like that. We heard you talk about the kingdom. That's great.

Not now. As Jesus Christ would appear to his disciples and teach them, they were on the edge of their seat because it was happening. And now they needed to know. In our next discussion, we're going to look at the core of Christ's final words to them that they drank in. But for now, let me give you a couple of things that come from this passage that I think we can apply. There are a couple of things that sort of struck me in a very convicting way.

These are truths for us to apply today. Number one, be willing to wait. I find it fascinating that one of Christ's final commands to his followers was to wait.

You ought to circle that word in your Bibles. You're not the only person he's told to wait. Now, we're waiting for different things. We're not waiting for the Spirit to descend.

He already has descended. But we do wait for answers, don't we? We wait for the one whose timing is perfect to move. You are in company with these apostles who also waited. Be willing to wait. Secondly, expect him to come.

Can you imagine during this 40-day period what it must have been like for the apostles to have Jesus Christ just appear in no advance notice? They're fishing on a lake. He's there on the shore.

They're eating a meal. He comes through the door. They're walking down a highway and he's there and he's gone. Think about it for a moment. What would that have done to you had you lived during those 40 days?

I know what it'd be like. When's he coming now? Everything we did. He might be here.

Every conversation we had. He might slip into this one. Every trip we took, he might join us. I think they came to live with an incredible sense of expectancy that no matter where they were or what they were doing that Jesus Christ might suddenly appear. Ladies and gentlemen, he's told us that he will appear again. To rapture the church body from earth, to meet him in the air, there will be no advance warning, although our ears will pick up the sounds of a trumpet strain and the voice of an archangel, but it will happen in a moment in a twinkling of an eye. He will come like a thief in the night. All that we would learn to live and have conversations and work with the thought that at any moment today he might come.

So we are willing to wait as he works through our lives on earth and we must expect him to come for him to begin our new lives in heaven. I hope that Stephen's message today encouraged you to live with the expectation of Jesus' return. If you do, that mindset will help you live wisely as you travel through this journey of your life.

This is Wisdom for the Heart. Stephen's desire is to help you know what the Bible says, understand what it means, and apply it to your life. I hope you'll join us every day as we spend time exploring the truth of God's Word together. In addition to being your Bible teacher here on Wisdom for the Heart, Stephen is also the president of Shepherds Theological Seminary.

Let me ask you this question. How would your life be changed if you set aside one year for extensive Bible training? Imagine that you could study God's Word, experience authentic community with other Christians, grow in discipleship as a follower of Jesus, take a trip to Israel and explore the Holy Land, and earn your master's degree in theological studies all in one year. Well, the school that Stephen leads offers a variety of programs and degrees, but there's one special program called Shepherds Institute where you can experience all that I just described.

We've had men and women join us right out of college and before entering their careers. They spend one year in God's Word, earn their master's degree, and enter the workforce better equipped to serve God in their church and community. We've had many retired individuals do this program because they wanted to invest the final chapter of their lives in God's kingdom. Whatever God has called you to, investing one year like this will help you.

Invest one year of your life to equip yourself for the rest of your life. Stephen and the world-class faculty are eager to invest in you. I also want to encourage you to let other people know about this program. If you know someone who's thinking about seminary, Shepherds Seminary would be a great choice. Learn more at wisdomonline.org forward slash STS. That's wisdomonline.org forward slash STS. Visit there today then join us back here next time for more wisdom for the heart. you