The Acts of the Apostles serves as God's pattern for the church age, mirroring the detailed instructions given to Moses for the tabernacle. The sermon highlights the transition from the dispensation of law to the dispensation of grace, emphasizing that Jesus' finished work on the cross marked the end of the old covenant and the beginning of a new era. This new era is characterized by the Holy Spirit's empowerment and the church's mission to be witnesses, with believers gathering on the Lord's Day. The sermon concludes by urging listeners to adhere to the pattern laid out in Acts, ensuring their lives and the church's practices align with God's divine blueprint for this age.
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No, I want to turn to a new book this morning, but you don't have to turn over from where we were last time. Just keep the same page and look on the next, on the other side. I want to read from the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. I've been praying very much about what we should study next. We've been studying John's Gospel a long time, and it seems to me to be the logical thing to go straight across the page. And look at the Acts of the Apostles. I like when I lead a soul to Christ, I usually tell them to read John's Gospel and read it twenty times.
And then when they read that, read that, read the Acts of the Apostles twenty times. And then read the Epistle to the Romans twenty times. Then you get some ideas of God's wonderful plan of salvation. So I'd like to step right over and if the Lord helps us do some studies in the Acts of the Apostles. Acts chapter one and verse one. The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up, after that he, through the Holy Ghost, had given commandments unto the Apostles whom he had chosen. to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God, and being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which says he, you have heard of me.
For John truly baptized with water, but ye should be baptized with the Holy Ghost. not many days hence. When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, Say, Lord, will thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel, 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 has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.
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 you have seen him go into heaven. Shall we pray? Blessed God, our Father, we thank you again for this wonderful book we have in our hands. We thank you for the wonderful plan, thou hast, for the age in which we live.
And we ask the Lord that if the Lord tarry and leads us that we might look into the wonder of this book of the Acts of the Apostles and see thy plan for us. We seek thy blessing this morning and ask that thou speak to every heart. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Now God has divided the history of this world, the course of time, into dispensations. There are seven dispensations for sake of time. I don't want to go into them, but God has divided the world, the history, the course of time.
And many of our speakers who have been here at our conference meetings with their charts, the course of time, the dispensations, they've shown us these things. I won't take time to go over them. I want to talk briefly about two dispensations. There are seven of them. We are living in what we call the dispensation of grace or the church age. The church age. It's lasted nearly two thousand years. It started on the day of Pentecost and it will end when the Lord Jesus comes and calls the church to be with himself. The age before this The era of time, the dispensation, we call the dispensation of law.
When God was dealing with his people under the law and dealing with his people Israel, that lasted about fifteen hundred years. The great day connected with the law was the Sabbath day. Now, I'm not saying that the Sabbath day belonged exclusively to the law. He didn't. Because when God created the heavens and the earth, he worked six days and he rested on the Sabbath day. That was the first Sabbath. So that's his oldest creation, the Sabbath. But he did make that seventh day of rest a law with his people.
and everything was connected with that Sabbath day. They couldn't work on the Sabbath day. God gave them a day of rest. Then also, God, in that dispensation of law, had certain feast days for his people. You read the twenty-third chapter of Leviticus, and there were seven feast days. When they had to go up to three of them, they were they were obliged the men to go up to Jerusalem and take a gift to God on three of these feast days annually. Now when the Lord Jesus died on the cross, he said, it is finished. There have been many arguments and questions as to what did he mean by it is finished.
What was finished? I remember one speaking when I was a very young man, well, not too young, I suppose I was about and I was preaching for the first time in my life before a very, very famous preacher called Mr. Walter Scott. I was in the same assembly with him, and Walter Scott is a man who wrote a wonderful book called The Exposition of the Revelation, which I think is the greatest classic on Revelation, even today. And Walter Scott was a very old man, and he was there with a lot of trepidation. I spoke that night, and I talked about the Lord saying it is finished. And I said that when the Lord said it is finished, salvation's work was done.
But a few days after he got hold of me and he said, Young man, that's not correct. He said when the Lord said it is finished, he was referring to the scriptures. He said there was one thing that had not been fulfilled. It says I thirst and he hadn't done that yet. It says they gave him vinegar to drink and that hadn't happened. And knowing that scripture was not fulfilled, the Lord said, I thirst, and they gave him the vinegar. Then all that was written of him was finished. All the scriptures, every detail written about his crucifixion, have been fulfilled when they gave him the vinegar to drink.
And then he said, it is finished. And he said, actually, salvation's work was not finished until the Lord Jesus said, entered heaven with his own blood, or shall I say, on the merits of his own blood, and the blood was sprinkled in heaven. And then the atonement was made. Well, I bowed to the old man whom I almost reverenced. He was a wonderful old Bible teacher. I said, thank you, Mr. Scott. But I still believe, I did then, and I still do, that when the Lord Jesus said it is finished, salvation's work was done.
He'd paid the price. He'd met the claims of God's throne. He'd satisfied to the last detail the claims of God's throne against me and against you on account of our sin and our work, the salvation's work was finished. But other things were finished. There is a sense in which the Sabbath day was finished. Well, it was finished. And I'd like to read, you've heard me say this before, when they went to the tomb that morning, it says, the Sabbath being over.
The Sabbath being over. I think very significant words. The Sabbath being ended as it was dawning toward the first day of the week. A new dispensation was coming in. The old dispensation was fading out, and the new dispensation was beginning to dawn, and the new dispensation would be characterized not so much by the Sabbath as by the Lord's Day, the first day of the week. And we should find as we go through the Acts, the first day of the week occurs. The Lord Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week.
And now we don't have seven feasts of Jehovah. We don't have to go up to Jerusalem seven times in a year. We have one feast, the Lord's Supper, and we have it on the first day of the week. So we don't now work on an annual basis from the Passover to the Passover, from the atonement to the atonement, from the Feast of Trumpets to the Feast of Trumpets. No, no. We work from Lord's Day to Lord's Day, seven short days. This is something which gives character to the dispensation in which we live, the church age. We're not waiting for long periods to take place for another feast.
We're waiting from Lord's day to Lord's day to see this accomplish. This same Jesus which is taken up from you in heaven shall so come in like manner. We're waiting for him week by week. And in remembering all he's done, we gather on the first day of the week, according to this book. on the first day of the week to break bread every seven days. Now when God was going to bring in the period of law, he made a few statements which are very, very significant. I'd like you to turn back to the twenty-fifth chapter of Exodus. A nation had been born.
Israel had come out of Egypt to be God's peculiar people. He says that in the nineteenth chapter he says in verse, oh let's read it lovely, verse three. Moses went up under God and the Lord, this is the Exodus chapter nineteen, verse three. And the Lord called unto him out of the mountains, saying, Thus shall he say to the house of Israel, And tell the children of Israel, Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bear you on eagle's wings, and brought you unto myself.
Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice, and keep my covenant, then shall ye be a peculiar treasure unto me above all peoples, for all the earth is mine, and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord commanded. And listen to what they said. All the people answered together and said, All that the Lord has spoken, we will do. Big words, eh? All that the Lord has spoken.
we will do. But they didn't do it. They failed. I think their hearts were good. They meant to do it. All that the Lord has spoken, we will do. Now then, go over to chapter twenty-five of Exodus twenty-five. The Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, speak unto all the children of Israel that they bring an offering. Now, we won't read it for the sake of time. They had to bring all sorts of things, gold, silver, blue, scarlet, fine linen, goats, hair, oil, and so on, for making this wonderful tabernacle. And God said in verse eight, Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them.
Now, note the next verse, according to all that I show thee after the pattern of the tabernacle. and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make. Verse forty, the last verse. And look that thou make them after their pattern which was showed thee in the mount. Turn to Hebrews chapter five. Chapter eight, I'm sorry. Hebrews chapter eight. And verse five. In the middle of the verse. Moses was admonished, Hebrews eight, five. Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle.
For see, says he, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed thee in the mount. God was starting a new dispensation, a new era, this dispensation of laws. He had borne his people on eagles, wings, he had brought them out of Egypt. through the red sea on dry land and their enemies destroyed behind them in the sea. And now they were his peculiar people. And he said, I'm going to dwell in the midst of you. And you know what happened. They made a tabernacle. Many times, of course, in our lives and studies, we've gone into the question of the tabernacle.
You know what it was like. But I'd like to see the picture of the camp of the children of Israel. I have my own thoughts on the camp. I have seen many pictures. In my old home, in England, of course, they used to have what they call the front room. That's a kind of a sacred place. You eat all your meals in the other, and the front room is used when the visitors come, you know. And I used to say, why in the world don't we use that room like all the others? But it was kept kind of separate. But on the wall, my father had a picture of the tabernacle. And I remember the last time I was ever home, I had a great desire to write on the back, whenever the old homes split up, give this to me and put my name on, you know.
But I went back to Greece, it was in the war, it started, next time I came home, the house had been bombed and I don't know where the picture was. I never saw it. It's gone. But on that, in that tabernacle, it showed, the tents of the children of Israel. It was an artist's concept of the thing. There was the tabernacle and there was the holy place and the holy of holies and the flame of the clouds going up over it and all the tents around. But when you think of two million people, two million people, that's what, there were sixty, there were, let me see, how many fighting men?
six hundred thousand fighting men over twenty-one years of age six hundred thousand men besides women and children there must have been two million people and the only way I can possibly conceive that they could have built their tents around the tabernacle you read numbers and it says on the east side you get the tribe of Dan the type of Judah and the tribe of Dan or Reuben whatever it was and on the other side three tribes on the north three tribes on the south three tribes Now, they'll tell you that if this is a tabernacle, then there's three tribes here, and there's a tribe here, tribe here, and a tribe here. But two million people, that's a city and a large city. You couldn't have got them here.
They'd have clashed with these coming this way. So I say that a good way out, there was a great big area with a tabernacle in the middle. And a way out here, you get the tribe of Judah. And then you get the tribe of, I forget the other one, and the tribe of the other one. And this way and this way. I say the tribes were put outwards. Not this way, but outwards. Because when they marched off, Judah had to march off first. He couldn't have marched off if the tribes on the north were in his way. So I say they went that way and that way. And what my point is this. That when God looked down upon his people, he said, I'm going to dwell in the midst of them. But when he looked down from heaven, and Balaam when he saw it, he said, how beautiful are thy tents, O Israel.
What wonderful symmetry, and what wonderful symmetry it was. There were three tribes out that way, and when God looked down, he saw a gray big cross in the desert. A gray cross. Two million people. Three tribes that way, three tribes that way, three tribes that way, and three tribes that way, in perfect symmetry, in perfect order, with a banner on the standard for each tribe with the chief at the corner there, wonderfully laid out. And God looked down on a huge cross in the desert, and right in the middle of that cross was a tabernacle, a tent of meeting. And there in that tabernacle, in the second part of it was the Holy Place.
and beyond the holy place through that wonderful veil made of wonderful tapestry work. A beautiful, wonderful old Scottish lady who worked amongst the Armenian people and she went, spent many years as a missionary in Turkey and went right through World War I and under the Turkish rule and came out, I don't know, thousands, One and a half million Armenians were massacred in World War I by the Turks, but she came out with some of our Armenian friends and settled with the refugees at a place called Kokynia near Athens. And oftentimes we visited her.
She was one of the cleverest ladies I ever saw. And she built a tabernacle, a big one. And when I looked at the veil she made, I was amazed. The cunning work. the beautiful diamond she'd fastened into it, and the patterns of charioteer and so on. I thought of the veil as just a plain curtain, but, oh, she'd got wonders in it. And then I read the Word of God, and that's what it said it's like. And inside that wonderful veil was the Holy of Holies, the Ark, and the Mercy Seat. And the two cherubim looking down, with their eyes looking down, and on the day of atonement, the blood was sprinkled there, and their eyes looked down upon that blood.
And God dwelt there amongst his people. I will dwell among you, he said. I'm coming down to dwell among you. You make this tabernacle. But God said, and this is my point, God says, be careful Moses. He admonished him. be careful to make all things according to the pattern which I showed thee in the Mount. Moses must have had a wonderful memory, although he was eighty years of age. He remembered every detail that God gave him, and he came down. Moses didn't build it. He gave instructions. He was a great organizer, great administrator, and he gave instructions to these men to whom God had given wisdom, and they built the tabernacle exactly according to the pattern in the Mount.
That was the beginning of a dispensation. Now the Acts of the Apostles is a beginning of another dispensation, the dispensation of grace, the church age. And I want to suggest to you this morning that the Acts of the Apostles is the pattern. Just as God gave Moses a pattern in the Mount, said, Make it everything in accordance with my pattern. So God has given us in this little book, the Acts of the Apostles, the pattern for his church. And God says to you and me, make everything according to the pattern.
And as you look around the world today, you can check up and see what we are doing. How many Christian people are doing it according to the pattern? God's given us the pattern. It's in this book. And I suggest we get back to the pattern. And if it's not according to the pattern, come out from among it and be according to the pattern. This is what God has given us, the pattern in the Acts of the Apostles. So this is God's great pattern for the church age. The writer of the Acts of the Apostles was Luke, the beloved physician. Luke talks about a former treatise.
The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do and teach. And if you look at Luke chapter one and verse one, the same writer, Luke, he says, For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, even as they were delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also having a perfect understanding of all these things from the very first, to write unto thee in order most excellent theophilus, that thou mightest know the certainty of the things wherein thou hast been instructed.
And then we get Luke's Gospel. That was his introduction to this excellent theophilus, some Roman pro-curator or governor or something, I don't know. He evidently had a title. He was excellent. That was his title, I suppose. Excellent. Theophilus. And he wrote to him and told, what did he tell him? He says, The former treatise I've written, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach. He began to do and teach. Note how it's put. He didn't say the Lord began to teach and do. The Lord began to do and teach.
And the Lord spent thirty years in obscurity, in Nazareth, I suppose, working in a carpenter's shop with his father, and he was doing. It wasn't until he was thirty years of age, he said he went out and started teaching when he was thirty. But all those years before he was doing. And after thirty years, When he went to be baptized, God opened the heavens and said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. God had watched him every day. Just as he watches you and me. For most of us, the workshop days are over. But when we worked in the workshop or worked in the office or in the school or in the hospital, wherever we earned our daily bread, God looked down from heaven.
And he looked down upon his son in the workshop. and he said, I'm well pleased. I don't think he had the modern spirit of wasting all the time with him. I don't think the Lord worked for eight hours paid for five hours work, the sort of thing we get today. I believe God worked, the Lord Jesus worked for his Father, and I believe that you and I, according to Colossians verse three, should do all things in the name of the Lord Jesus. And we should be serious about our work. He began to do, and then he began to teach. It's no good going out teaching if you're not doing.
You've got to live a Christian life, or nobody's going to listen to you. If you don't, live it first, and then preach it. And the Lord gave us the example. He began to do and teach. But he began to do and teach. So it all is life up there till the thirty-three years were ended and he went to the cross and after he met the disciples in the upper room and so on he was still teaching but it says he was beginning he began to do and teach that's why he says to the apostles now when the Holy Ghost has come he will teach you all things the Lord I haven't taught them all things He taught some things, but there was much more to learn.
And so we get all the epistles, we get all the New Testament to go on to teach. The Lord began to teach. And then the Holy Spirit takes up the work and goes on in the teaching. Some have questioned the title of the Acts of the Apostles and say it really shouldn't be called the Acts of the Apostles. It should be called the Acts of the Holy Ghost through the Apostles. Well, we can split heads on all sorts of things, but it was the Apostles working here, but of course the Holy Ghost working through them. So the writer was Luke, and he's going on now to tell what happened in that first century. God's pattern for his church down through succeeding ages.
They didn't know the Lord wouldn't come back for nearly two thousand years. They didn't know that. But here's the pattern for two thousand years. And this pattern is the pattern for nineteen seventy six, just as much as it was for the first century. The Acts of the Apostles. Now in this book there are three movements. There's an upward movement. There's a downward movement and there's an outward movement. In the first chapter, the Lord Jesus was received up into heaven. Three times it talks about he's going up into heaven.
Four times I mean. Four times. They beheld as he was taken up, as he was taken up, as he was taken up, four times. That's the upward movement. The Lord's work on earth was done and now he returned to heaven. Many have tried to describe what a wonderful scene that must have been. These men went out to the Mount of Olives, and the Lord lifted up his hands and blessed them, and a cloud received them out of their sight. But I like to read Psalm twenty-four. Now, some say this Psalm, of course, is a picture of what will happen when the Lord comes back and enter the eastern gate of Jerusalem.
I think it is. but I think it's also no scriptures of private interpretation. And I'd like to read Psalm twenty four and verse seven. And think of the Lord Jesus. I remember when I lived in Greece. King George II of Greece, who's passed away many years ago, he spent about twelve and a half years in exile during World War. No, after World War I, he was, I don't know when exactly, but he was exiled. He lived in London, I think. And I remember very well they were having elections there, and elections there are different to what they are here, and there's a lot of excitement, and we had no king.
It was a democracy. Sometimes when I got to work in the morning, I'd see a little stamp on my desk, and it just said, Urquite. Urquite. Well, Urquite means he's coming. And I go in another monastery called Urquite. Urquite. So I went to some of the men who worked for me, and I say, what's this Urquite? They said, oh, you'll see. Just wait, you'll see. Imagine he's coming. Now, when the royalist party got in, I think it was in nineteen thirty-five, in an election there, they promised that they would not bring the king back.
the Democratic Party, what it was called, the Venizelis Party, like our Democratic Party, the Venizelis Party, they insisted the king does not come back because they are the ones that exiled him. And there were all sorts of tricks went on. I remember Venizelis was driving home from his home one night and he was ambushed and The car was all shut up, he wasn't hurt, but they were tricks going on just like our Watergate and all things go on here. But they said they wouldn't bring the King back. But this Urquite meant he's coming. And then they used to get this royalist party.
They'd get a lot of trucks and load them up with a lot of hooligans in my mind. And they go all through the streets singing, Er, Er, Er, Er, Er, Er, Er, Er, Er, Er, Er, Er, Er, Er, Er, Erkete, Er, Er, Erkete, Erkete, Erkete, Erkete, Erkete, Erkete, Erkete, Erkete, Erkete, Erkete, you know. So every car has to have a horn with a rubber bulb. And they used to go, Per, Per, Per, Per, Per, Per, Per, Per, Per, Per, Per, Per, Perk, Perk, Per Erkete, Erkete, he's coming. Well, it was decided to bring the King back and we were asked, we were honored and granted the permission to be together with some of the senior officers of the Greek Air Force down on the dock side and we actually stood there as we saw the King come ashore that morning.
And I had noticed for some days that there's a long avenue, Leopoldo Seagroup, Seagrew Avenue, about six miles long from the shore right up to Athens, two-lane highway. I probably have six lanes now, I don't know, but in my day. And at the top, just as you entered the city of Athens, they had built a triumphal archway, a beautiful thing. They built right across the road. And I wondered what part this was going to play in the return of the king. And this is what happened. I read it in the newspapers the next morning. When the king drove to the top of this long avenue, the procession stopped and the king got out, and he mounted a beautiful white horse.
And then he drove up to this gateway. And an officer came up. He said, Piers E, see, you're you. That's the same as our horse who goes there sort of thing. And he said, I'm George II, the king of Greece, returning from exile. and the officer turned around and he gave an order and the gates were swung open and George II drove through that triumphal arch into a city. He came back home after twelve years of exile. Now in Psalm twenty-four, I see a picture of the Lord Jesus returning after thirty-three years of exile.
Down here on earth where men didn't know And where men cast him out and rejected him. And now he's going back to where he's known. Now he's going back to his rightful place. And a cloud received him out of this sight. But I suggest to you that behind the cloud this is what took place. One of the watchers on the gates of heaven shouts out, Lift up your heads, though ye gates of thee, lift up the everlasting doors. Verse seven. And the king of glory shall come in. Who is this king of glory? The Lord, strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle. The one who had been to the place called Calvary and defeated the enemy, strong and mighty, mighty in battle, is returning from exile to his own home, to his own city, to his own palace.
And the gates of heaven were swung open. And they sang, lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be, lift up your everlasting doors. Of course, I would suggest, too, for it says again, lift up your heads, though ye gates and be, lift up your everlasting doors. Who is this King of Glory? They don't say this time the Lord's strong and mighty. They say, the Lord of hosts, he is the King of Glory. And I believe that in the future day, the gates of heaven are going to open wide. The Lord Jesus is coming back to call his people to himself. And when the gates of heaven opened in that day, they say, Who is the king of glory? The Lord of hosts, and all the hosts have redeemed.
Ten thousand times ten thousandth of every climbing land. We're going to enter heaven with the king as he rides back, and we'll take our place in the kingdom as he sits upon the throne. So the gates of heaven opened. They saw him go up. Heaven received him back. To his own home, after all those thirty-three years of exile, this is just an introduction. An introduction to the Acts of the Apostles. The Lord gave them a command. Don't leave Jerusalem. Stay there. There was another ten days to go, you know.
Because fifty days from the Passover to Pentecost. And he was seen of them for forty days. So there's another ten days to run. And he says, Stay where you are. And notice what they did. And with this out close, it says, When they were coming, they went into an opera room, and they continued with one accord in prayer and supplication. That's how they spent the ten days waiting for the great day of Pentecost. And this is Luke's introduction to this wonderful book, The Acts of the Apostles. Now let's bow our heads a moment. And as we bow our heads in prayer, let's ask our hearts the questions.
Have we accepted the Lord as our Saviour? He came down from that infinite glory of heaven. He left the pearly palaces and came down to our murky, dirty earth. And cruel men nailed him to a cross. And there, as I said before, He completed all that was necessary that you might be saved. He said it is finished. Are you saved this morning? If not, you can accept the Lord Jesus Christ. You can lift up the gates of your heart and let the King of Glory come in, the Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle, and receive him as your personal Savior. And you can do that now as we close the meeting.
Blessed God, we thank thee as we enter upon another wonderful book. In this wonderful volume of books that thou hast given us, we thank you for the acts of the apostles. We thank you for the pattern of the true church. And we pray that the Holy Spirit might teach us what these things mean. By week, if thou shalt delay thy coming and allow us to carry on. And give us strength for this, we pray, Lord, that we might see wonders. in this act, in this book of the Acts, and we might see the pattern thou hast planned for thy people. We thank thee, Lord, for not left in the dark, but thou hast given us full instruction, as thou didst say to Moses, See that thou do admonish Moses, that thou make all things according to the pattern.
So help us, Lord, to go by the pattern. We seek thy parting blessing now, In the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.