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And now let us begin our study this afternoon by reading some scriptures in honor of our blessed Lord, whom we love and whom it is our chief concern to serve. Let's read three passages, the first of which is found in Psalm sixty nine, Psalm 69. Save me, O God, for the waters are coming unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing. I am come into deep waters where the floods overflow me. I'm weary with my crying. My throat is dried, mine eyes fail while I wait for my God. They that hate me without cause are more than the hairs of mine head. They that would cut me off, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty. Then I restored that which I took not away. O God, thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from thee. Let not them that wait on thee be ashamed through me, O Lord God of hosts. Let not those that seek thee be brought to dishonor through me, O God of Israel. Because for thy sake I have borne reproach, shame has covered my face. I am become a stranger unto my brethren and an alien unto my mother's children. For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me. Verse twenty: Reproach hath broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness. And I looked for some to take pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me also gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. At their table before them become a snare, and when they are in peace, let it become a trap. Let not- let their eyes be darkened that they see not, and make their loins continually to shake. Pour out thine indignation upon them, and let the fierceness of thine anger overtake them. Let their habitation be desolate. Let none dwell in their tents, for they persecute him whom thou hast smitten. Psalm one hundred and nine. Psalm um one hundred and nine. Hold not thy peace, O God, of my praise, for the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of deceit have they opened against me. They have spoken unto me with a lying tongue. They compassed me about also with words of hatred and fought against me without a cause. For my love, they are my adversaries, but I give myself unto prayer. They have rewarded me evil for good and hatred for my love. Set thou a wicked man over him, and let an adversary stand at his right hand. When he is judged, let him come forth guilty, and let his prayer be turned into sin. Let his days be few, and let another take his office. Verse twenty seven, verse twenty six: Help me, O Lord my God, O save me according to thy mercy, that they may know that this is thy hand, that thou, Lord, hast done it. Let them curse, but bless thou. When they arise, they shall be ashamed, but thy servant shall be, shall rejoice. Let mine adversaries be clothed with dishonor, and let them cover themselves with their own shame as with a mantle. I will give great thanks unto the Lord with my mouth, yea, I will praise him among the multitude, for he shall stand at the right hand of the needy, to save him from them that judge his soul. And finally, the book of the Acts in chapter one. Beginning there in verse fifteen. And in these days, Peter stood up in the midst of the brethren and said, and there was a great multitude of persons gathered together, about an hundred and twenty. Brethren, it was needful that the scripture should be fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost spake before by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who was guide to them that took Jesus. For he was numbered among us and received his portion in this ministry. And now at this juncture, Luke, the historian, interposes a parenthesis in which he gives us his readers information that, of course, Peter did not need to give to his contemporaries, for they knew it. But we need to know it so that we can make sense of this occasion. So here is Luke's information. Now this man, Judas, obtained a field with the reward of his iniquity, and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all the dwellers at Jerusalem, insomuch that in their language that field was called Akeldama, that is the field of blood. For it is written in the book of the Psalms, and now Peter resumes his observations. For it is written in the book of the Psalms, let his habitation be made desolate, and let no man dwell therein, and his office let another take. Of the men, therefore, which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and went out among us, beginning from the baptism of John unto the day that he was received up from us, of these must one become a witness with us of his resurrection. And they put forward two, Joseph called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. And they prayed and said, Thou Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, show these two the one whom thou hast chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas fell away, that he might go to his own place. And they gave lots for them, and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles. It is, my brothers and sisters, a sincere and genuine pleasure on my part to be with you here once more on this missionary occasion in Greenwood Hill. A great pleasure to see again friends whom the passing of the years endures, endears ever more deeply to our hearts. And a great pleasure too to meet for the first time many who hitherto have been known to me only through their reports in the Missions Magazine or elsewhere, and have been little more than faces, handsome faces, I hasten to add, faces in the missionary handbook. I look forward, as usual, to the stimulation and encouragement of being with you in this week, to be stimulated by your fellowship and friendship, and by the example and the power of your zeal for the Lord. Now, this afternoon session is, in the McDonald sense, a unique session of this conference. That comes about by tradition because of the hour at which this first session is customarily held. There is, by reason of the hour, a special concession normally granted. Many of you will have journeyed great distances to get here and will be tired. The excitement of meeting old friends and new ones, and all the things that have to be talked about on these occasions, has doubtless added a little bit to your weariness. And many of you alas, I fear, have not been able to have your customary siesta. The organizers of this conference, therefore, being kind men underneath at least, have ordained that in this optimum session there shall be the normal concession granted. That is, all over twenty five are allowed to listen with their eyes shut. If you feel disposed to use and take advantage of the concession, pray do, you will not embarrass me and not anybody else, as far as I know. Only please understand this is, as I say, in the McDonald's sense, unique. Woe be to you if you listen with your eyes shut tonight or on any other. I have a special reason this year for being pleased to be allowed to address you, and that is this. It is on my heart to think with you in these days on the topic of the apostolic defense of the gospel. That is the defense of the gospel as practiced by the early apostles, in particular by Peter, as recorded in the early verses of Acts, and then subsequently the defense and confirmation of the gospel as performed by Paul, to which defense Luke devotes a third of the whole of his work. That being my theme, it had been my intention to hold up these two apostles and their defense of the gospel for our admiration, and of course, as is appropriate, to our copying. But I had no sooner determined to hold up their example to us all, then it occurred to me that there was a problem with these two apostles and their defense of the gospel. There is, as you are probably aware, a sizable body of very weighty and grave opinion held by godly men and women of unquestionable theological rank. A great body of opinion, I say, that says that both these apostles got their defense of the gospel completely wrong. Paul, they said, uh, they say, did undoubtedly that, uh, when he set about defending the gospel, as Luke honestly records it, he compromised the very gospel he was meant to defend and fluffed its main issues, so that God was obliged to bless him, if he blessed him at all, in spite of his ruinous defense of the gospel. That problem I seek leave to leave to another occasion. But I had it in mind to start on the very ground floor with this topic and discuss with you this afternoon Peter's defense of the gospel and the way he prepared his fellow believers for the witness they must give to the risen Lord. But here too, the theologians are at my heels, for they tell me that not only did Paul get it wrong, but Peter, if you please, in spite of his keys and all that, got it wrong as well. He went and advised the early church to appoint an apostle in the place of Judas, which thing he never ought to have done. And thus he got the church off on a wrong foot, right at the beginning of their witness to the Lord Jesus. And I said to myself, as I sat in my study thinking about this, well, now here is a pretty state of affairs indeed. I wanted to hold up poor Peter as an example to us all, and lo and behold, I must deal with this thorny problem. And then a stroke of enlightenment came upon me, and I said, ah, ah, here is the obvious solution, my boy. You don't need to settle the problem at all, because the men and women to whom you will be speaking on that Monday afternoon are men and women of profound love for the Lord Jesus, the highest respect for the Lord's apostles, to that extent at least they agree with them, and men and women, moreover, of long experience and mature and balanced spiritual judgment, said I to myself, you don't need, therefore, to solve the problem at all. You can constitute them as a jury. You can put the case against Peter, you can put the case for Peter, and then you can let them decide, retire, and come to their verdict and inform you what the result should be towards the end of the week. So that's what I propose to do. I'm now about to constitute you all a jury of the Supreme Court. I am going to argue first the case against Saint Peter, then the case for Saint Peter, and I'm so going to ask you to deliver the verdict, if not today, then perhaps tomorrow, or at least by Friday. Perhaps I ought to warn you, as the presiding judge, that as you busy yourself as the jury members deciding the case for and against Peter, you will presently find yourself caught up in an altogether different case, a case of immense magnitude. The biggest legal case that ever the whole universe has had to confront. But to start then with the case against Peter, it is as follows, that according to Acts chapter one, he led the early Christians to choose out two men, possible candidates for filling the office of apostle from which Judas had apostatized. They then put these two candidates for the office before the Lord and felt that the Lord indicated to them, by means of the casting of lots, which of those two men he had chosen to fill the office of apostleship, and the lot falling upon a certain Matthias. Matthias was then invited to join the college of the apostles. I'd say some dear theologians and responsible men of God at that, surely Peter and the Christians were obviously wrong. It was, of course, the intention, so they say, that the vacancy should be filled, but certainly not by Messiah. It was the intention of the Holy Spirit to raise up Saul of Tarsus, and after his conversion, to appoint him to this lofty and senior position as an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Peter, by his precipitate and unwise action, went and filled the office with this Matthias, and everybody can see, so the argument goes, what a desperate mistake he made, because at the end, with the appointee of the Holy Spirit, namely Paul the Apostle, to the twelfth position, Matthias had to fill the thirteenth position, and any schoolboy knows there can't be thirteen apostles, but only twelve. After all, when the heavenly city ascends from glory and there are seen to be twelve foundations to the city and names upon the twelve foundations, there will not be room for the name of a thirteenth apostle. So Peter, we may presume, made a mistake. And they say perhaps that isn't altogether to be wondered at. He was rather impetuous, wasn't he? Notorious for the same. If you ask these theologians, uh, why has Luke recorded this? And why does Luke quote the Holy Scripture that Peter claimed justified his action? Then the reply comes back from the theologian. Oh yes, the two psalms that Peter quoted did indeed indicate that, uh, Judas's place should be fulfill- should be filled. Peter's mistake was this, that he jumped to the conclusion that it was his responsibility and the other apostles' responsibility to fill the place, and that anticipated what was in fact the prerogative of the Holy Spirit himself. It was the Holy Spirit that was going to fulfill the injunction of the Psalm, let his, uh, his farm be desolate and his office let another take. And if you say, but how could Peter have got his understanding of scripture so terribly wrong? The reply comes back, the answer is simple. He was delivering his verdict in those days before Pentecost, before the Holy Spirit had come, and therefore was not yet illuminated and enlightened by the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and therefore, though he reverenced Holy Scripture, he came to a very human and mistaken interpretation of the implications of those two psalms. But later on, when he stood up on the day of Pentecost, imbued and filled with the Holy Spirit, of course, then we are to believe he got all his interpretations of Holy Scripture right. To ask again, why then has Luke recorded this sorry mistake right on the first page of his history? The reply will come back, well, at least it serves to warn us. How we always need to be dependent upon the Holy Spirit, both in his interpretation of scripture and in its implication of its injunction. Lest we run too speedily and suppose we know what Scripture is saying and commanding, when all the time our interpretations are inadequate because the mere result of an unenlightened human intellect. As far then, the case against Saint Peter, I hope you have its details clear. The case for Peter. In answer to the charge that he spoiled the determined number of the apostles and elected a thirteenth when there should only have been twelve, then they who stand for Peter say that Paul never did regard himself as one of the twelve apostles. For in one Corinthians fifteen verses five to seven, Paul reports the appearances of our risen Lord, and he says as follows, that the risen Lord appeared to Cephas, then he appeared to the twelve, um and then last of all, he appeared to me. Where it is pretty obvious that me stands in contrast to the twelve. and Paul was not including himself in the twelve, but regarded himself separately from their number. When those who argue against Peter say that the Holy Spirit dealt with Peter's fault by proceeding to ignore Matthias thereafter, evidence of which is that Matthias is never mentioned again in the whole of the New Testament. They who stand for Peter in the matter will come back and reply, but that's no argument at all. Most of the other apostles are nowhere mentioned elsewhere in the whole of the New Testament after Acts, so what does that prove? Well, nothing in particular. When once more they who are against Peter urge that he made his interpretation by his mere human intellect, unenlightened by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, who did not descend till Pentecost. They who stand for Peter point out that Peter got his understanding of the Old Testament, not first from the Holy Spirit when he came at Pentecost, but in those breathtaking Bible readings, when the risen Lord conducted him and the others throughout the whole of the Old Testament, expounding to them in detail the things concerning himself. And if Peter, having been with the Lord and listened to his forty days of expositions of the Old Testament, still got his interpretation of the Old Testament wrong. Then, say they who support Peter, it would begin to undermine our confidence in our Lord's teaching. There then is the case against Peter and the case for Peter. I shall look forward to hearing your verdict as what I ought to believe about it myself, when you have had time to ponder and discuss the question. But of course, this afternoon we cannot leave matters there. For this, when all is said and done, is a minor matter compared with the gigantic thing that we must now discuss. The witness to and the defense of Jesus Christ, our Lord. For pray give a moment to consider the background to the decision that Peter came to, and to which the church came to, in those ten days of prayer and waiting upon God, between the ascension of our Lord and the coming of the Holy Spirit. The forty days were now past, but what momentous days they had been. We cannot possibly recapture the stunned awe. As the apostles had heard the report of the women, had run and seen the empty tomb, and there, to their amazement, the risen Lord himself had appeared in their midst in the upper room, and the overwhelming fact had dawned upon them, the Lord is alive. Then there had been those constantly repeated appearings in the course of those forty days, not one appearing or two, but appearing so frequently repeated that those starkly supernatural appearings became almost the normal thing, as the apostles were schooled to count upon the resurrection of Christ and the reality of the unseen world as the real world, the normal world, of which our present world is but a shade and a shadow. Then there had been the evidences that our Lord was alive, marvelous evidences, indisputable proofs. Handle me, he had said, that it is I myself. A spirit has not flesh and bone, as you see me have. See my hands, that it is I myself. He wasn't merely telling them that he was the same Jesus as they had known before, though that he was telling them, of course. But in saying that it is I myself, not just a spirit, he was telling them something wonderful about the resurrection, that to be I myself, the Lord Jesus had to have a risen, glorified body. For a human being that doesn't have a body is incomplete. And that has been the wonderful, breathtaking evidence as he called for fish and ate before them. And I suspect they were a long while washing up the grease off that plate after the Lord had gone back to glory. Marvelous evidence, that old fish bone and a bit of grease on a plate. But they had not suffered a delusion or a mental aberration. The hard evidence was before them that the Lord was alive, had been in their midst, and had eaten with them. And who shall tell the wonder of those long Bible readings, whether on the road to Emmaus or in the upper room, as he had opened their minds to understand Holy Scripture and had pointed to them throughout the Pentateuch, the prophets, and the writings, the things concerning himself. And they had followed his solemn charge, you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria until the uttermost parts of the earth. The charge terminated with the indescribable wonder as they saw him ascend into glory. In God's mercy and our Lord's wisdom, the apostles were given ten days before the Holy Spirit should come and launch them upon their witness for the Lord. Ten days in which they gave themselves to prayer, in which they could contemplate the task that now lay ahead. They were clear as to what they had to do. They had to be, as Peter phrased it, a witness of the Lord's resurrection, to herald the fact of the world that the Lord whom this world had crucified was risen again. But along with it, they were aware that they had to do more than simply witness to the, the simple fact that he was risen. For the res- resurrection of our Lord carried far-reaching implications. The resurrection of just any man would have been a wonderful thing. But the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead was God's vindication of all that Jesus Christ had ever said, done, or spoken. And therefore it was when they came to choosing an apostle, right or wrong, to fill Judas's place, Peter laid it down that such a man must have this qualification. He must be one of those that from the very baptism of John, from the very beginning, right up until the ascension of the Lord Jesus, had accompanied with the apostles and with the Lord, had been a first-hand witness, not only of that resurrection, but of all the Lord Jesus had said and done and stood for in the days of his flesh among them. To that too they had to witness. And if you ask what indeed and what in particular had they to witness to, short of all he had ever done or said, then of course there was one thing that at this stage would have been to the very forefront of the apostles' minds. It was scarce more than two months since they had stood in Jerusalem's temple courts and listened to the Lord Jesus and watched him as with flashing eye and cord of whips he had cleansed the temple and earned the undying hatred of the temple's chiefs. Of course, it wasn't the first time that our Lord had cleansed the temple. At the very beginning of his ministry, according to John chapter two, he had driven out from the temple the merchants who were changing money and selling animals and, uh, and birds for sacrifice, saying, take these things hence, make not my father's house a house of merchandise. But at that point in his career, the crowds would have gladly perhaps welcomed that gesture as the kind of a thing Messiah, when he came, would be expected to do. Here was a reforming Messiah. But when, in the last week of his life here on earth, our Lord had gone up to the temple and once more had cleansed it, it proved to be the last straw that decided the temple captains, the chief priests, and the high priest himself to have a way with this unwanted disturber. You see, on that occasion, our Lord Jesus had turned round, and in the hearing of the masses of the people, he had virtually accused the temple priests of being corrupt thieves and robbers, abusing religion to make money out of people's souls, selling the good gift of God's salvation, and thus filling their bank balances as they made religion a way of making money. And it was at that stage, Luke tells us, that the high priest determined to destroy him before his influence undermined the confidence of the crowd in the temple and in the priesthood. And our Lord had followed it with a parable, you remember, that showed the priests and showed the people that he understood exactly what the situation was, the famous parable of the tenants of the vineyard, who were not content to be tenants, but wanted not only to rob the owner of the fruit of the vineyard, but in the end saw what they thought their opportunity to rob the owner of the very possession of the vineyard. So as they saw the son of the owner coming, they said to themselves, this is the heir, come let us kill him, and the inheritance shall be ours. It was evident to everybody that stood in the temple court that day that our Lord understood what the high priests were now about to do to him because of his testimony against them. Now, scarce more than two months have passed, and the apostles began to wake up to what they must do. They must go to that same temple. They must stand in front of those same priests. They must stand in front of the same crowd and witness to the fact that Jesus was risen, and therefore witness to the fact that our Lord's denunciation of those high priests was true. This was God's verdict against them, their evil of turning religion into a money-making machine. When that dawned upon them, they found they had a problem, and the problem was not lack of courage. The problem was Judas. Had the apostles now got to go up into that temple and accuse the high priest to his face of having debased his holy office in order to make money, then what do you think the high priest might reply? What would the crowd who stood around reply? What about you? Didn't one of your own crowd do worse? What about your Judas? Wasn't he one of your chief apostles? Wasn't he indeed the treasure? And didn't he sell his lord? And use his inside knowledge of the disciples' habits and our Lord's whereabouts in order to be guide to those who arrested the Lord Jesus and did it for money. And bought with his ungodly gain a little estate outside Jerusalem. Falling down headlong, it bowels gushed out so that the local people knew all about it. You couldn't hide it from them. They called the place Akeldama, that is the field of blood. Even at this long distance, we can hear the crowd talking, can't we? Like they still do today. That's religion for you. That's formal religion, organized religion for you. Doesn't matter whether they are the establishment with their mitres and their gowns, or whether they're some new formed little sect. In the end, it all comes to the same thing. Behind it all is money, big houses, estates. They said it then, they say it now, don't they? As unbelievers point to the hoarded treasures in Christendom, or joke about TV evangelists. The more thoughtful have a little bit more sophisticated comment. They say, well, well, I suppose that's human, human nature. But now look here, you claim that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, isn't that what you claim? You claim that there is hope in him for all who trust him, that one day he's going to come and introduce an age of peace and glory and justice. How do you expect we're going to believe your message? How will he put the world right if it, when it came to choosing a treasure for his little band, he couldn't choose somebody a bit more reliable than Judas. And if I sown treasure is going to cut off with the sun, what kind of faith can we put in the Christian claim that one day Jesus is going to establish righteousness in the earth? I had a problem, do you not think? What would they answer to it? Their first line of defense was simple. Taught by the Lord Jesus, they had come to an understanding of their Old Testament that showed them that this defection, this treason on Judas's part had in fact been prophesied in Old Testament. My brothers, said Peter as he addressed the assembled crowd, what the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand about Judas and all that, it had to be fulfilled. It had to happen. Notice the past tense of the verb. It had to happen. And what did Peter mean by it had to happen? Well, simply this. Now, what Judas did was prophesied of in Old Testament, and therefore it had to be happened because scripture had to be fulfilled. In the same sense as our Lord himself argued that ought not, did not the Messiah have to suffer and to enter into his glories. Why have to? Because in this context, the Old Testament prophets and psalms and the law have prophesied that Messiah would suffer, and since scripture had prophesied it would happen, it had to happen. And from that stems a very simple argument, is that not so? Take the sufferings of Christ. The fact that Jesus Christ our Lord suffered at Calvary is no argument, when you see the point, is no argument against his being the Messiah. It is one of the strongest arguments that he is the Messiah, for in his very suffering he fulfilled what Old Testament had prophesied Messiah would suffer. So it is with the case of Judas. It may be true, as Peter claims, that according to these two psalms, Judas' treason was prophesied in Old Testament, and the fact that he actually betrayed the Lord Jesus is not evidence against our Lord's being Messiah. It is evidence for his being Messiah. And therefore, at this point, Peter isn't afraid that the crowd will discover the fact that the treasurer of the early Christian band had defected. He will go out and advertise it, rather. Let all the world know that Judas betrayed his lord. Let them know it. Let them go put their name upon Judas' field and call it Ekel Dama. Let the press repeated, we want them to know because Judas' betrayal of the Lord is a fulfillment of scripture and therefore an evidence that Jesus is the Messiah. Oh, but we must go a bit deeper, mustn't we? For that argument to be, uh, reliable, we have to ask, what made Peter think that Psalm sixty nine and one hundred and nine, which he quoted, whatever made him think it had got to do anything, uh, to do at all with Judas, or even with our Lord, for that matter? Let me remind you of the historical setting of the Psalm. It is, we're told, a Psalm of David. David had written in the Psalm how the nation, or the some of the nation, had turned against him. Apparently, zeal for the Lord's host, ha- Lord's house had consumed him, and thereby David had incurred a great deal of displeasure and wrath and unpopularity on the part of the nation. His own kin had rejected him. And then something terrible had happened. The Lord himself smote David. And David immediately acknowledges that David himself deserved it. O Lord, thou knowest my folly. But what David was concerned about was this, that there had been a band of people that had put their trust in David, saw him as the Lord's anointed, were prepared to go through thick and thin with David. But when this calamity happened, and the Lord himself smote David, the danger was that this band of his followers would lose their faith in him and come to be ashamed of him and ashamed of their faith. And therefore David cries out in the Psalm that God will come and vindicate him and demonstrate to all and sundry that God is on his side. What made, uh, the apostles think this had anything to do with the Lord Jesus? Well, first, of course, their own experience. They had stood with him on the first occasion in the temple, when he'd made his whip of cords and, uh, driven out the beasts and overchanged the money ta- changes table. They watched his flashing eye, his holy indignation, and the scripture even then had struck them. They remembered the scripture, the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. They had heard him say just before he was arrested, the very last night he was with them, the world outside, don't be surprised, gentlemen, if it hates you, for it hated me first, and it hated me, as Psalm sixty nine says, without a cause. And then, of course, they had listened to our Lord in the forty days as he has expounded these psalms, taking David's experience as proto- One hundred and twenty in that room would have failed to see the point. They had watched our Lord and his zeal for the house of God. They had stood valiantly by him until at last the troops had come and taken him to court, and the court had condemned him, and they had seen their beloved Lord upon a tree. Of course, now they knew he suffered not for his own sins, he suffered for theirs. But oh, what memories would be theirs. Shame has covered my face. Let not them that wait on thee, O Lord, be ashamed for my sake. And oh, how ashamed they had been in those desperate hours when they saw the leaders of the nation's religion strutting past the cross of their beloved Lord and say, let him come down. God delights in him. You see, he's bogus. He said he would destroy our temple. Well, let him destroy it now if he can. But he's nailed to a tree, the old bogus prophet. And no stroke of lightning had come to consume them. And in those ten days, the apostles would remember till their cheeks burned red, would they not? How ashamed they had been of the blessed Lord. They ran off and deserted him and came within an hairbreadth of losing their faith completely in Jesus as God's son and Messiah. All none of them would need to have had it proved to them that David's experiences in Psalms sixty nine and one hundred and nine were relevant to the Lord and relevant to their own situation. And now the Lord has risen. And they were looking forward to the promised coming of the Holy Spirit. Oh, what wonderful days they will be. Our Lord has said that when the Holy Spirit is come, he shall vindicate me. He shall convict the world of sin and righteousness and of judgment. And as the apostles thought of it, they began to see the relevance of Psalm one hundred and nine as well. For you see, Psalm one hundred and nine, being the poetry it is, casts David's troubles in the form of a legal dispute. David has been accused, and falsely accused. David prays that God will now act to vindicate him, that all the world may see that God is on his side, and the accusations were false. My hope is this, says David, that God stands at my right hand, will vindicate me. The phrase is an interesting metaphor, of course. In an ancient law court, when a prisoner was accused, counsel, lawyer for prosecution would stand at the man's right hand and accuse him. The counsel would rise up, the lawyer would rise up to accuse him. And when the prosecution has had their say, then the lawyer for defense would come. He would rise up and stand at the right hand of the man on trial in order to try and prove his innocence. And David thinks of himself as in a great court, and counsel for prosecution has come up and slandered him disgracefully with packets of lies. And David cries out, oh Lord, when that man's turn comes to be judged, let Satan stand at his right hand to accuse him. And then David adds, but Lord, intervene for me. I trust you to come and stand at my right hand that I may be vindicated. Was that relevant? Oh, surely. For now, as we ponder the situation, we've long since lost sight of Peter's little difficulty. We are in the presence of the biggest law scene that the universe will ever see. Jesus Christ has claimed to be God's son, and our world has been spiked with his cross, as religion and politics and Greek civilization have joined together to slander the blessed Lord and say he deserved to be crucified. The dear apostles had grown ashamed of him and run off, and now God had intervened. He is at my right hand, that I shall not be moved. And God had raised him from the dead and declared him to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. But God had intervened to take the case out of the human court. He removed it to the supreme court of the universe, and given its verdict. Jesus Christ is right. When the Holy Spirit has come, he will convict the world of sin because they believe not on me, of righteousness because I go to the Father and am demonstrated to be right, of judgment because the prince of this world is judged. With what joy did they await the coming of the Holy Spirit? He shall witness, and you too, said the Savior, shall witness alongside him. All my brothers and sisters, I may not say it happened, but I imagine them almost running to the temple. They had a chance now, when before they had been ashamed, to stand in public and be witnesses for Jesus Christ, their Lord. Poor Judas. You might almost pity the man, mightn't you? He too had had the chance for this supreme dignity to witness to the deity of Jesus Christ, Lord, son of the owner of the vineyard. And he thrown it away to make a little money, to buy a field, to have a weekend house. And his field would ruin off him, and all Jerusalem could see it. Why did it have to be? Peter said it all had to be because it was written in scripture that Judas would betray him. But why did scripture say that Judas would betray him? Because if it hadn't said it, he wouldn't have, uh, needed to done so, would he, to fulfill scripture? And if we ask the question, I think the answer comes back at the deepest level of all. Why did God allow it so? And why has God published it as a part of the Christian gospel that when his son was crucified, it was as one betrayed by one of his followers? It was because it goes down to the very heart of the diagnosis of the human position upon our planet. Oh yes, the Jews rejected the owner's son and cast him out of the vineyard, but we can extend the parallel, can we not? Who of us has not ever been guilty of living in our little world, forgetting that we're tenants, stewards of goods that belong to another. We've lived as if we owned it. And the world outside goes further. They say there is no owner. And while they may be sizably religious, as Jesus Christ keeps his distance, if Jesus Christ comes pressing his claim, they do to him still what they did in Jerusalem. They nail him to a tree. For Calvary, as they plunged its wood into planet Earth, opened Earth's heart like the cone of a great volcano. The underlying rebellion and independence of our human race against God burst forth its molten lava and showed what lies in every human heart apart from the grace of God. We like our own little lives. We want to be owners. We don't like to. We're tenants. Even the atheist might ponder this story, mightn't they? They say there's no owner up there, you'll see. They say it's up to mankind to keep the universe going. I saw a very interesting suggestion you might like to join in, uh, you'll say, uh, just recently in the scientific magazine that said, uh, to stop the whole universe going down the drain of some great black hole one of these days, we might engineer putting a lot of, uh, material down the black hole and plugging the hole up. Some hope. And if our universe depends for its hope of a reign of peace and joy upon mere human effort, and let them ponder Judas and his field. You'll see they say that in transforming his field into a cemetery to bury strangers in, the priests were doing a charitable thing. The idea was that foreigners could now be buried in Jerusalem, that when Messiah came and the resurrection took place, they would be at the hub of things when they rose from the grave to meet the Messiah. But if the atheist be true, and Jesus Christ be not risen from the dead, there isn't going to be any resurrection. And according to the scientists themselves, one day the sun up in the sky will explode, become a red giant, and in that moment, little Earth will not merely be our cemetery, it will be mankind's incinerator. We have the indescribable honor of going out and defending the Lord Jesus. Yes, the verdict has been given, but ours is the privilege, led by God's spirit, to explain the verdict, and by God's spirit's help to justify the verdict before men. How shall we do it? I leave aside the question whether Peter was right to have another apostle appointed. We've got other pressing matters, haven't we? How shall I convincingly witness to the blessed Lord, whom God has vindicated as son of the owner of the universe, owner of every square inch on earth and everything that's in it. I can tell you how the early church did it. They came to feel that if Jesus Christ be the owner's son, then all must be his. Some sold their houses and brought the money to the feet of the apostles. Some sold their houses, but used their right, unlike Ananias and Sapphira, of remaining stewards of what God had given them. Some didn't sell their houses, but used them to entertain the believers and as basis for the furtherance of the gospel. Of all, it could be said, none of them counted anything they had to be their own costly business. This witnessing and defending the verdict of our Lord Jesus Christ. But not costly, is it? If our message be true, sir, and Jesus Christ is the Son of God, Son and heir of the whole universe. What could I lose if I let go all I had in the cause of his glad service? The apostolic defense of the gospel. So we pray. Now, Lord, from these stirring historic events, we turn to ourselves and to thee. We address thee as Peter addressed thee, O thou who knowest the hearts of all men. At this moment we beseech thee, read our hearts afresh. We praise thee for the dignity thou has given us, that we might be witnesses to thy dear son. And now, with thine eye upon us, meaning it as best we know how, we say afresh, not that I have, mine own I call, I hold it for the giver, for I am his, and he is mine forever Forever and and forever. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.