Dennis Tuuri

Acts 1:1-12. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

Acts 1:1-12. 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 40 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 saith ye, Ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

And he said unto them, it is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power, but ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost 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 part 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? The same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven.” Then returned they into Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey.

We thank God for his word and pray that he would help us to understand it and apply it to our lives. We’re going to start the book of Acts today. We had scheduled originally here Bobby Gupta from the Hindustan Bible Institute, but he had to go back to India a little earlier than was originally planned apparently. So we’re going to just go ahead and dive into the book of Acts. And it really fits nicely anyway with world missions.

These first few verses of chapter 1 give us in essence an outline for the book of Acts and also give us the charge to go into all the world proclaiming the gospel. So it’s important that we see that as the primary theme here and it will fit nicely into our subject which we had scheduled Mr. Gupta to speak on, which is world missions.

So what I’m going to try to do here is first of all just look briefly at this text. It’s kind of an introduction to the book of Acts and then we’re going to try to think of some applications of this in our own lives individually and the lives of this church as well. We’ll look at the relationship in the context of all of that of the book of Acts to the rest of the scriptures particularly to Joshua. And also to the book of Genesis and the gospels and the Pentateuch briefly. We’ll do that at the end of looking at the text itself and then I may, if we have time, share a little bit of an article by Robert Dabney who was a southern Presbyterian, a portion of a sermon that he preached to the Presbyterian board of foreign missions in 1858 and talk about the relevance of that to this text and to where we’re at as a church as well and our culture and the world today.

So first let’s look at Acts chapter 1 and we’re going to look at the first 12 verses. Basically and I don’t have an outline today, but you will notice that there is an outline provided. Just so happens the providence of God that we enrolled our two girls in Christian Liberty Academy this year for homeschooling and Joanna’s Bible course is going through the book of Acts and so the handout that you could have picked up with the orders of service comes from Daryl Trulesen, I believe is his name. His book, yes, Daryl Trulesen. His book going through the book of Acts—it’s a workbook for children.

And so I included a couple of things here. At the top of the one side of the page, there’s an outline of the book of Acts that he has developed. And then at the bottom of that is a crossword sort of a thing. And then in the back, there’s some questions and answers for kids to fill in the blanks of. And I thought, well, we’re going to start this book of Acts now. And those of you with children who can read and write and stuff that may give you a good opportunity to use this material to help them begin to work their way through the book of Acts in your times at home, etc.

So this outline really falls naturally from the central verse that we want to talk a little bit about verse 8. But let’s put it in context first by looking at these first few verses. The book of Acts was written around AD 63 and is essentially a continuation of the gospel of Luke. It’s my belief the belief of most orthodox believers that Luke wrote this book although he’s not specifically identified as the writer.

And in the first verse we see a correlation back to the former treatise. Remember I made mention of this two weeks ago—very first verse. “The former treatise have I made O Theophilus of all that Jesus began both to do and teach.” And we talked there about the importance of doing and teaching. Understanding the word of God intellectually and then also receiving instruction but also doing the things. We’ve talked about orthodoxy and orthopraxy—correct understanding of doctrine and correct application of it into our lives.

Very important for us to remember that within a culture that tends to look a lot at intellectualism in terms of the Christian culture at least in some aspects of it and forget the necessity to apply it. But in any event, he’s talking here about the former treatise and I believe this refers back to the gospel of Luke that he had written. And this treatise is identified as what Jesus began to do and teach. That is the gospel of Luke. And then he says “until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles.”

If you look at your gospel of Luke, the last few verses of the Gospel of Luke, you’ll see what’s going on here is he’s picking up essentially where the Gospel of Luke leaves off. The last chapter of Luke, chapter 24, concludes with Jesus coming and appearing to the apostles. This is shortly after the appearance to the disciples on the road to Emmaus and eating food with them and giving them an understanding of who he was, expounding the Old Testament. And that has importance too.

In fact, let’s just go back to verse 21. Well, this will be just kind of stick this away. As long as you’re in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 24, verse 21. This happens on the road to Emmaus. You’ve heard this story probably many times. The disciples didn’t understand this was the Lord they were walking with. They didn’t recognize him. This is the risen Savior. But they’re downcast. They say, “We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel.” They’re talking to this stranger, not knowing it is the Savior himself. And besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done.

So they’re saying, Jesus, well, we’re kind of down because we followed this Messiah fella and it’s the third day and we thought he was going to redeem Israel and you know, lo and behold, he hasn’t done it. And then he goes on to tell them it was necessary. He opens their eyes and says it was necessary, of course, to die and to suffer the passion. All of which the Old Testament foretold. Then in the next few verses, he appears to the disciples.

And let’s begin reading in verse 45. “And then opened he their understanding that they might understand the scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem, and ye are my witnesses of these things. And behold, I send the promise of my father upon you. But tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until you have been endued with power from on high.”

And he led them out as far to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them. And it came to pass while he blessed them, he was parted from them and carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God.

Amen.

So the final conclusion of the gospel of Luke, he portrays the departure of the savior, the ascension at Bethany. And that is over by Mount Olivet or Mount of Olives is another description of that place. It’s a hillside somewhere around 15 furlongs or so, thousand feet let’s see—it’d be let’s see probably somewhere around a quarter to half a mile I suppose from Jerusalem itself and that’s where the Savior ascends from and Luke then in the opening chapter of Acts gives us more detail on the commands that he had given to the apostles just before his leaving. He gives us a little more detail. So he picks up there but he fleshes out the account somewhat.

Okay, so he says and then he puts it in context and this is very important also for our purposes today. Verse three, Jesus had been seen by them 40 days and he spoke of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. And so for 40 days Jesus had been resurrected but not ascended to the father. And in those 40 days he had appeared to the disciples and instructed them. And he had specifically instructed them on what? Things pertaining to the kingdom of God.

So he was opening their understanding to what the kingdom was as we see him doing in the road to Emmaus with the two disciples. As we see him doing to the disciples in the room when he first appears to them. He begins to open their understanding of how the kingdom proceeds and how it is necessary for him to die, to suffer, and be resurrected. And it’s necessary that repentance and remission of sins be preached. That’s all in relationship to this great theme that he spoke on for 40 days, which is the kingdom of God. And that’s verse three.

Okay. Then having assembled together with them, he commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the father. That’s just a repeat of what we just read in the Gospel of Luke. So he’s instructed them for 40 days. He gathers together with them and the last things he tells them is don’t leave Jerusalem until you receive the promise of the father. And then goes on to say, “John baptized with water. You should be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.”

He gives them a time reference. It’s not going to be too far from now in Jerusalem after my ascension. You’re going to receive the power of the Holy Spirit, baptized with his power, filled with his strength for service.

Verse six, “When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, ‘Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel.’” Okay, so now we’ve gotten the setting. This is essentially the last words. Remember we talked about the last words of Joshua. We have here really the last words of our Savior. And it’s very important to understand them in that way as a bequest and a fuller understanding of what will happen and handing on to them the commission to do things and then also guaranteeing them the power of the commission to accomplish it.

And they ask him, Then being gathered together, they asked him of one mind. Not one of them asked this, kind of off from the others, but as a group that, it says they were together, and together they asked of him, “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel.”

And he answers them, and he says, “It’s 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 the Holy Ghost has come, and you shall be witnesses about unto me, both in Jerusalem, Judea, and in Samaria.

Now, it’s not my primary purpose to speak to the difficulties posed by verse 6, but I think it is important. The primary thing we want to focus on is what the Savior caused the apostles to focus on, the disciples in verse 8, and that is that they’re to be witnesses to the ends of the earth. But I think there is a correlation between verse 6 and 8. He is after all answering a question by them. And most of the commentators in the last few hundred years have taken one of two positions relative to the apostles asking this question about the restoration of the kingdom to Israel.

One position is the dispensational position and that is that they’re saying well when will this dispensation be over, the age of the church and then the restoration of the physical kingdom, a fleshy kingdom not through the power of the spirit but through the power of might with the physical race of Israel. When will that be restored? At the end of time and so it’d be as if dispensationalist would say that’s what this is going on here—that eventually the church age concludes, the tribulation, the rapture and then a messianic kingdom is set up in Israel with our Savior reigning over the nation of Israel and they even posit the offering of sacrifices etc. That’s one interpretation.

The other interpretation we would of course reject that interpretation because the scriptures don’t speak of two separate second comings. There’s one second final consummative second coming of our Savior. But the reformers also—not all of them, but many of the reformed theologians of our day particularly—would say that the apostles here, the disciples rather, were not quite sharp enough. They didn’t quite get it down. The dispensationalists are wrong because it won’t actually happen. But they’re right in saying that what the disciples are looking toward is the establishment of a physical kingdom by force to rule over the enemies of Messiah. And they see that in relationship to the kingdom of Israel.

So both current interpretations posit a fleshy, mistaken—well, in the case of the reformed theology, a mistaken view of the kingdom, in the case of the dispensationalist, a correct view of the kingdom that will happen after the dispensation of the church is concluded.

Now, I think there’s a problem with that. If you think that the apostles somehow didn’t quite understand the nature of the kingdom, first of all, notice that they’re coming together as a group asking this. So, if they are—as one commentator said—dense disciples, they are really a group of dense disciples. But recognize what they’ve just gone through. They’ve gone through 40 days of what? Instruction from our Savior on what? The nature of the kingdom. And are they now at the end of that 40 days going to get so screwed up as to forget what the very essential nature of the kingdom is in terms of being spiritual and not a fleshy power from on high physical manipulation of force sort of kingdom?

Are they going to get it all that mixed up? No. And if they did, would our Savior then rebuke them? Well, he might have, but he doesn’t really rebuke them here, does he? He doesn’t tell them that the kingdom will not be restored to Israel. What he tells them is it’s not for you to know the times or the seasons. Those two phrases mean the long periods of time and the short point action sort of events, eras and epochs is the way one commentator put it. Those things the father has given unto his authority. It’s not within our realm of authority. It could be, but God has decided not to. God the Father, he maintains that knowledge for himself.

So Jesus isn’t telling him that there will not be the resumption of the kingdom to Israel. What he does tell them is he then goes on to say, “You shall receive power after you have received the Holy Ghost. You’ll be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and all the world.”

I say Judea, Samaria because in verse 8, the definite article there is only one. So those two are kind of like one thing to in the way our Savior is speaking. There’s Jerusalem, the city, Judea, the area in which Jerusalem is founded, Samaria, which is to the north, which is almost like half gentile, half Jewish, and then the uttermost parts of the earth, the Gentile nations. And our Savior says, Jerusalem, the city, Judea, Samaria, taking that as one big area, and then the whole world as well. And you’re going to be witnesses there.

I guess maybe I’m getting a little too technical here, but the point is this. I think what our Savior is doing is saying, yes, the kingdom will be restored to Israel, and this is the manner by which it shall be restored. And you don’t know the times or seasons, but you’re right, it will be restored. And this is the manner by which it shall be restored. And the manner is the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now, the big question is who is Israel in verse 6? And I don’t know the answer to that question. There are many commentators from the 1800s and other more modern a smaller group of more modern reformed theologians who believe that the preaching the gospel will be effectual to the conversion of the Gentiles. And following that, we’ll see the conversion of the Jews as a nation. A la, Romans 11. And that seems to make some sense in terms of interpreting this verse because after all, you remember that our Savior told of the parable of the vineyard and how the owner of the vineyard sends his servants back to the vineyard and the people beat up the servants and he finally sends his son and they kill the son and then he takes the vineyard away from those people and gives it to another people.

There’s this obvious statement through the parables and also through the teachings of our Savior in the New Testament and also the Old Testament prophecies that the kingdom will be radically changed now. It will no longer be confined to a group of people in Israel. It’ll be essentially taken away from them. They’ll be broken off. The Gentiles will be grafted into the people of God. And then eventually all the Israelites, all the Jews will be saved, being grafted back in those that believe—that is, that are true Israelites or true Jews.

So one method of interpreting this I think correctly and could fit the text would fit the understanding of the kingdom disciples probably had and yet would ignore the dispensationalist errors of the mystery of the church etc. One correct way to interpret this is our Savior is telling them the kingdom will be restored to Israel as a distinct people who believe in the Old Testament—those people only after the gospel is preached to all the Gentiles and then finally the conversion of the Jewish nation will happen and they’ll be grafted into the church and all, every, the world will then be totally essentially converted.

That’s one way of interpreting this that’s correct. Another possible way, however, is to say that Israel is simply those, as it means in its most literal understanding, those who rule for God. The church is Israel now, as many scriptures in the New Testament tell us. And what they could be talking about here is that here we’re hanging around for 40 days. There’s no manifestation of the kingdom of Israel. It seems like the church is not in control. The church is persecuted. The church is not it’s just it’s just it’s cast about and no centrality, no power to it. And Jesus could be saying that the restoration of the kingdom to Israel is the restoration of the rule of the world to the church.

And that I believe is what Acts is all about—is the restoration, the giving over of the ruling of the entire world to those who believe in Jesus Christ.

Now I could be wrong there and it could be the other interpretation. As David Brown for instance in his work of a century or two ago and other postmillennial or optimistic eschatological people believe that it’s the restoration of the Jews after the Gentiles are converted. I could be wrong. Either one of those answers though suffices to essentially giving us the same model for how the kingdom is manifested in Israel. Either it’s a separate people after the Gentiles are converted or whether Israel is speaking here of the church directly. Either way, our Savior tells us a couple of things.

He tells us that we will—the preaching of the gospel to all nations—will be effectual. It’s not a vain effort. After all, they are being given power from on high. They’re being baptized with the Holy Ghost. That’s what they’re waiting for. The Holy Ghost doesn’t come upon men and empower them for works that are vain. No, the preaching of the gospel will be effectual.

And so, Psalms like Psalm 66 that you recited responsively a few minutes ago that talked about all nations will worship the Lord. Micah chapter 3, Isaiah, the predictions that all nations will stream up to the mountain of the Lord. These things are repeated in abundance throughout the scriptures and they’re all right. They’re all correct. The kingdom will grow and cover the whole world.

And our Savior is telling us number one that your task will be effectual because you’ll be receiving power from on high, the gift, the promise of the Father, reception of the Holy Spirit, so that you then are empowered for the task. That task is the preaching and proclaiming of the gospel of Jesus Christ in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and all the world. Our Savior is here commissioning them—if you want to look at it that way—giving them a mandate from his word to evangelize and disciple the entire world and so world missions is at the heart of the book of Acts.

Now you know world missions is not simply at the heart of the book of Acts, however world missions runs throughout the scriptures. As I was thinking about Acts and I’ve talked before about the correlations we will be making over time to the book of Joshua let’s just think in big terms. You get down to the minutiae a lot. Let’s think in big terms.

Last week, I went up to Seattle to preach up there. I took my two boys with me. As we began to drive up north on the freeway. I thought, well, let’s make use of this time. You know, on the way, you’re supposed to teach your children in the way according to Deuteronomy 6. Here, I’ve got a way, a long way. And I thought, let’s just talk about the book of Genesis. We’ve talked about that a lot in our family. And we just reviewed the entire book of Genesis, the major stories. Want to make sure the kids know them, know the chronology. And, you know, it’s good for us to remember that Genesis is the origin. It’s the starting place of the scriptures and the scriptures have a thematic approach to them.

You have Genesis, you got the first Pentateuch and then Joshua and then the rest of the Old Testament and you have the gospels, the four accounts of Jesus followed by Acts. So right away there’s a correlation there. Genesis begins with creation—begins with a world created by God to rest in the seventh day and go into his worship and rest. And then problems happen in the book of Genesis. Sin rears its ugly head. And but it doesn’t stay there.

How does Genesis end? Genesis ends with Joseph, the beloved of the father, having gone through difficult times, imprisonment, a picture of death, yet being restored to power, becoming Pharaoh’s right-hand man, and essentially, I think the language of the Old Testament of Genesis, those last few chapters, shows us the conversion of Egypt, the ruling power of the world at that time, and Joseph feeding all the peoples of the world.

Why do his brothers come back to him? They come back to get food. And those who have spurned Jesus, whether it’s us or the nation of Israel, typified by the tribes that of the rest of Jacob’s sons that put Joseph in slavery and he essentially symbolically killed him. They return to Joseph because he’s the only place where they can get food. Remember, he interprets Pharaoh’s dream. So he disperses what? Grain, bread, communion bread, manna from heaven, so to speak, to his brothers, into all the world. That’s the great famine in all the world, the scriptures tell us.

And so Genesis moves from creation, decreaion if you wish, curse, sin, results of the curse, death and diminishment away and problems, and then a recreation at the end where the whole world is converted and Joseph sits at the top of the power structures of the world dispensing divine bread.

And of course beyond that, of course, we’re just, I see, I believe—and there’s controversial I suppose—but the conversion of Egypt Genesis gives us the model for all of history. That’s what all history speaks to. What do we see in Joshua then? The beginning of the next portion after the Pentateuch, after the instructions that God gives his redeemed people. We see Joshua the same thing. We see them coming out of a wilderness situation. We see that ritual stuff going on at first. Remember the Passover and the circumcision that occurs—the next creation model again.

We have a new people going through the rivers of the Jordan. And then we have some victory at Jericho. And then sin again at Ai and problems. But by the end of Joshua, what does God tell us at the end? The theological conclusion in remember in chapter 21, no failing words, as one commentator put it. All things that God promised hundreds of years before came to pass. And the model we have there is that all of Canaan is redeemed and restored and evangelized or destroyed. They’re either removed like most of them or they’re evangelized—Rahab and the Gibeonites.

And so we have essentially the conversion, the restoration of Israel to the place of ruling for God again in the portion of the world that’s a model for all of the world in the book of Joshua. So we have the same model—new creation, sin and its effects, restoration of the people back and then victory from God in terms of no failing words and God’s word impacts culture and history to the end that his people are established.

What do we see in the gospels? We see the birth of Jesus Christ, God incarnate, new creation so to speak again—second chance so to speak—second Adam the scriptures tell us. And what do we see the effects of sin? Our Savior goes through that death destruction and cursing for us through his work on the cross. And so we see sin but is that the end of the story? No, the gospels end on the upnote—the end of the risen Savior telling his disciples go into all the world preaching the gospel the whole world will be converted just as it was in Genesis just as the model of it was in the book of Canaan. So the gospels you see the same birth of Jesus, the incarnation, new creation, destruction.

Jesus takes upon himself now the judgments of God. In Genesis, the judgment came through the flood essentially. And then the judgment came through a pagan nation. In the book of Joshua, the judgment came by the sword. And the judgment comes essentially to establish God’s people. There was a flood that in Genesis and then there was a later flood where Pharaoh and his men were consumed actually in Exodus then consumed and God’s enemies are destroyed.

In the book of Joshua, the judgment came by way of the sword. And in the gospels, the judgment comes by Jesus Christ himself taking the curse of the people upon himself and redeeming us. And then it ends with the promise of the conversion of the whole world. And so now we have the book of Acts correlated to the book of Joshua. The acts of the apostles are meant to be seen as the acts of Jesus Christ. Verse one says “began to say what Jesus did and taught. And now we’re going to see what the apostles and the rest of the book of Acts do and teach. The church is identified with the Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles are his witnesses.

His witnesses in a very special sense that we aren’t first in the first application of the word. They go forth of those who have seen Jesus literally lived among them and then go out to do his deeds and to teach his doctrine. And what’s what are we going to see in the book of Acts? We’re going to see persecution. We’re going to see problems for the church. We’re going to see imprisonment as we did with Joseph. But how does Acts end? Acts ends with Paul in Rome at the center of the world power again as Joseph ended up in Egypt ruling so to speak.

So Paul now ends up in Rome and the implication is supposed to be we’re supposed to see that Paul is evangelizing members of the Roman household itself. We know that’s true from his epistles. And so essentially the leaven of the kingdom is seen to work its way through infecting at the very heart of the known world the Roman Empire, the great anti-Christian empire. It’s itself now has been affected with the leaven of the kingdom at the end of the book of Acts and we’re supposed to understand then that history will mean that leaven will work its way out and what do we see within a couple of centuries? The conversion of essentially the entire Roman Empire with Constantine.

So the biblical flow of history is all summed up for us as is the book of Acts in verse 8 where Jesus says you’re going to get power from on high it’ll be effectual the purpose of that power is to convert the whole world to engage in world missions to engage in world evangelization.

You know, evangelization can be seen as separate from discipleship. And when people today use the word evangelization, they usually mean just bringing people into the kingdom, preparing them for heaven, and then not really worrying too much about what they do on earth. We know that the commission of our Savior is much broader. We’re to disciple the nations. Disciplization actually is part of evangelization.

The good news is that Christ has ascended and reigns from the right hand of the Father and it’s supposed to have impact in all of our lives. And Jesus says that’s the work we’re to be going through now. And the judgment is comes now not by means of floods, not by means of swords, which were pictures of the efficacy of the word of God, but now it is the preaching of the gospel of Christ, specifically the proclamation of who King Jesus is in its application all of life.

This is what’s effectual now for the conversion not just of Jerusalem, not of the area in which Jerusalem, the model, the home church, mother church was Judea and Samaria. No, this preaching will be effectual—conversion of the entire world. And that’s why the dispensationalists are so wrong to cut short the gospel of Christ and think that somehow we need a physical military return of Messiah to put down his enemies.

No. Jesus says the power of the gospel is the power he uses to conquer the earth. And he shows us that repeatedly in the book of Genesis, the models beginning there, the book of Joshua where all that is worked out and made applicable now to the land of Canaan. The gospels themselves declare this when Jesus raises victorious over his enemies and commissions his people at the end of every gospel to go into the world and receive power and evangelize and convert the world and disciple it.

And we see it in the book of Acts. We’ll see the same model go through new creation of the church, problems, destruction, sin. People are going to be swallowed up by the earth again. Ananias and Sapphira just like Achan was. And the end result of all that will be the establishment of God’s people with the conversion of the Roman household itself, the power center of all the world. And of course, that’s the We could go on to say it’s the same model, the book of Revelation. That’s what happens to the book of Revelation as well.

John ascends up. He’s taken up into heaven. New birth, so to speak. He’s ascended now. And from a heavenly perspective, he sees that all history moves to the establishment of God’s people. Judgments, yes, sin, yes, destruction, decreaion, so to speak, but always to the end. That a purified church should be raised up victorious, not in the heavens by and by, certainly there also, but now on earth as well. And history is that kind of movement.

The book of Acts tells us that’s what’s going to happen. Jesus speaks these things. These are his last words to us. It is a commission from our Lord Jesus, a mandate from his word that we go into all the world preaching the gospel. And he promises us that the power of the Holy Spirit will make this task effectual to us.

It’s interesting that as he ascends then you know it says a cloud received them up. Actually the language there means the cloud carried him up. And you that should remind us that God always comes in his glory cloud in the Old Testament. And now Jesus is riding that glory cloud. The picture of the reigning Master from heaven who comes in the clouds of power. And Jesus will come again in that cloud finally a final time at the consummation of all things. And the disciples are gazing up at this. And who wouldn’t?

It doesn’t happen behind their back where they’re not looking. It happens while they’re watching our Savior. He rises up and ascends to heaven and a cloud comes and lifts him up until they taken completely out of sight and they gaze at that. And that’s what we can do and we understand the realities of all these things the majesty of what God has done with his creation with the sending of his son with the power of the gospel it is awe inspiring to me and I hope it is to you to picture these great movements of the book of Genesis for instance ending with Joseph and the tremendous majesty he exhibits over the whole world the type of the Lord Jesus Christ the greater Joseph the greater Joshua who we’re talking about now in the book of Acts and it is a majestic thing and we come to worship him today and it is easy simply to stand and sit in awe of what has been accomplished and what our Savior tells us that the entire world will be converted.

Remember these are not a great many people that he’s speaking to. This is not some massive audience. He’s talking to a handful of disciples. They didn’t know much about the world. They didn’t have television, radio, international transmissions. The world was a distant place for them. And their Savior had given them an all inspiring words that the very preaching the speaking of those words of the reality of the Lord Jesus Christ calling men to repentance demonstrating the remission of sins and forgiveness and then discipling them with his words that in itself—forget gunpowder and everything else—that’s the dynamite of God and that dynamite will go into all the world. That’s an amazing thing and the entire do you believe it? It’s hard to believe it isn’t it?

And when you do believe it when God gives you power to believe it is awe inspiring. You just want to sit and think about it and wonder with amazement at what Christ has accomplished. And that’s in a sense what they were doing. And in a sense, they do they have happened to them what’s supposed to happen to us at the end of our worship day together. At the end of our worship day, we’re we’re caught up with God in the heavenlies. That’s what worship is all about.

I know we’re an immature church in terms of worship. Over the years though, worship will be more and more evidencing what is going on here. We’re caught up into the heavenlies with God as John was. And we see the reality. What history is all about. And we worship our Savior on this day. And all that worship focuses in on communion. And it’s as if we are gazing at our Savior at the end of communion, thinking of the tremendous things he has done for us and our forgiveness of sins. And then thinking about the implications of that for the entire world.

That’s pictured for us. And then God’s got to come and tell us at the end, okay, now depart in peace. Get out of here now. Go back down from the mountain. There are demon-possessed people out there. You’ve got to go do this work now. You got to do what Jesus is. are you going to do to preach the gospel?

And that’s what happens to these disciples here. They’re up they’re standing gazing up into the heavens struck at what has happened. Verse 10, they look steadfastly toward heaven as he went up. Behold, two men stood by them in white apparel which also said, “You men of Galilee, why stand you gazing up into heaven? The same Jesus which is taken up for you into heaven shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven.”

Who are these two guys? Well, there’s kind of speculation and it’s just speculation. Could be those two angels we looked at the book of Matthew not too long ago during our communion talks about the earthquake and the angel came. Could be those sort of angels in white raiment. Other commentators have talked about speculation and I got this from J. Alexander, tremendous reformed commentator. He said that a friend of his told him maybe this was Elijah and Moses, the two men who were on the mount of transfiguration. And you remember they had to tell the apostles then well Jesus told them to go back down. You’re right. Your point is not to build tabernacles here and stay forever on the mountain top.

Your job is to be empowered, understand what’s going to happen in history, and go down and do it. So, it could be Elijah and Moses here. After all, that mount of transfiguration, they were discussing with our Savior, his coming exodus from Jerusalem. And again, that brings us back to the Old Testament, the Exodus of God’s people out of Egypt, moving toward the promised land behind the great Joshua and Moses. And so, Jesus has identified this to Elijah and Moses at the mount of transfiguration in the gospel accounts as his exodus from Jerusalem and that’s what the disciples are watching.

They’re watching the exodus of Jesus Christ. He goes into the heavenlies and he empowers his people for the exodus to move out from Jerusalem and the whole world now becomes the garden of God and they are commanded by our Savior’s words and then by his emissaries to obey him. Yes, it is a marvelous thing, but don’t let the marvel of it stop you from doing what you’re supposed to do and relax and just enjoy it. No, you must work hard to accomplish what our Savior has called us to do.

And so they return then unto Jerusalem from the mount. They walk in obedience and that’s what we’re called to do. The book of Acts gives us the great flow of history one more time from the scriptures. And it tells us specifically that we live in the days and times in which we’re supposed to go into all the world preaching the gospel of our Savior. And it calls us to worship him. Yes, for that this day particularly. But it also calls us then to obey him with simple acts.

All they had to do was go back to Jerusalem and wait for the promise that had been promised by the Father, the Holy Ghost to empower them for ministry. And that’s what we’ll see the rest of the book of Acts. They receive that power and they work it out.

So we have a mandate from the word. Well, we also have a mandate not just for those apostles. We have a mandate for this church, for every individual member of this church and for also this church as a group to engage in world missions. I thought a lot these last few days about that old slogan from communist Berkeley in the heyday of the 60s their slogan was to think globally and act locally. That’s good, you know, it’s not good if you’re talking about communism but it is good if you’re talking about the gospel. That’s what our Savior is telling his disciples here think globally—recognize that the impact of your words as you use the words of our Savior in response of obedience to him. Those words will impact the globe, but you’re to think globally and you’re to act locally.

And that’s what our Savior’s mandate is for us as well. I mentioned Dabney in his I won’t quote from his sermon, but it’s an excellent sermon by him in his discussions and maybe one of these weeks I will quote from it. He preaches to the foreign mission board in 1858 of the Presbyterian Church on the passage from John 4 where our Savior after talking to the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman says he looks up and he says the fields are white for harvest.

And then in other places of scriptures, he says, pray that God would send forth workers into the fields. Dabney says there’s a couple of implications from that text and it’s important for us as we consider our response to world missions. The world is white to harvest. What does that mean? Dabney says, and I think he’s right, that our Savior is warning us that there is a limited amount of time to do this work.

Yes, it is the providence of God and his calling that empowers us and we’re reaching the elect community that have already been saved eternally by God the Father, but we’re the means. We’re the means. I thought about this in terms of various activities of the church. We always would like miraculous things to happen, you know, to accomplish things in our life. I was thinking this morning that many of the prayer requests that we all hear and we speak to one another can be boiled down to simple discipline in the small things of life.

We want miraculous things, thousands of dollars to get us out of debt. Great wisdom our children want. They can zip through their studies in much quicker fashion. But what they really need is discipline to take the small acts of financial accountability, the small acts of doing their worksheets and their workbooks day by day. And that’s the way God works.

So it is important to recognize that while God is sovereign, he does use the secondary means of his people, not miracles normally, the secondary means of his church. And the church is warned by our Savior time and time again. And it’s a warning that should fall in our ears as well, that the world is white to harvest. We look around us today, as Dabney did in 1858, and we should see that there are nations unconverted, millions, billions of people who have never even heard the gospel. It is not available in their own tongue. In Dabney’s time, the number was 2/3 to 3/4 of the known world.

Now it’s less than that. There’s about 5.4 billion people in the world, but over 2 billion of those people have absolutely no access to the gospel of Jesus Christ, to a viable gospel presentation in their own language. The world is white to harvest. Those souls unreached by a proclamation of the gospel will die and they will not simply die. They will spend eternity in hell.

Dabney said in his sermon that you know it’s always fun for a preacher to give novel thoughts and get plaudits from the people for his great eloquence of speech. But it’s the simple truth as we always return to. And the simple truth I’m pointing you to this morning is that the world is white to the harvest. And as you see your neighbors around you and as you think globally and think for instance great portions of India and Asia that have never heard a gospel presentation in their own tongue recognize that these people are white to harvest in a few days, in a few months, in a few years. People will die. Nations will die.

Nations will die and go to hell. The nations that forget God and turn their back on him will go to hell. Now, in the providence of God, we cannot, you know, call God somehow unfair, unloving because of that. It is given to us by our Savior in the gospels as a prod to action and I give it to you today as a prod to action.

Dabney said also though that in the time of our Savior particularly there were great times of potential for the gospel preaching. He said there are times in history when it is it is in a sense more of an imperative than it is at other times to preach the gospel. And he mentioned how in the mid 1800s how peace had essentially gone over the world. Wars were somewhat reduced. There was a language ability the time at the same time as our Savior. There was the language of Greek that could be used to transport the gospel to lots of nations to the Roman Empire.

God had in his providence prepared pathways so to speak of communication so that the gospel preaching could happen effectually. And I think we live in those sorts of days today as well. We live in the time as we approach a new millennium, the year 2000. For whatever reason, and I think the reason is because God has created men this way, but for whatever reason you think men look towards spiritual truths at these kind of crucial points in history, And as we approach the year 2000, all kinds of spiritual activity begin to take place.

There is an interest on the part of the world in the providence of God in spiritual things. And so the gospel has a great opportunity to go out and pervade the world. English now is a tremendous benefit that God has given to us that English is known in so many countries. I mentioned India here as an example. In India, if you’re received the third or fourth or fifth grade education, you can understand English.

And so there’s no need to understand these other languages though linguistic work is going on. Technology now has given us the ability to translate the word of God into native tongues at much quicker paces. So many of these two billion people can be reached quickly. All that’s required however all of this opportunity that God gives us requires workers to go into the harvest. And that’s where the call to us individually and to the church as well reaches out to us and makes it impact upon us.

I guess all I’m trying to do this morning really is to tell you that the whole book of Acts is a brought a commission to his church to world missions and evangelization of all the world, our local areas, our state, our nation, but also the world. And we’re supposed to be thinking in terms of that according to our Savior.

Let’s think a little bit, if you will, and I hope this doesn’t bore you, but I want to just talk a little bit again about some of the aspects of the world around us. Let’s think a little bit globally here as opposed to just locally.

First of all, recognize that our world is growing tremendously in terms of population. I mentioned 5.4 billion people. In the next 25 years, more people will be born than from the time of Christ until 1960. Okay? So, in the next 25 years, demographically, if you work the numbers out, more people will be born than the number of people that were born from the time of our Savior to the time 1960.

In other words, the point is there’s a lot of people and a lot of people being born. What does that mean to us? And terms of our thinking globally, it means we should pray that God send workers into the field. The fields are white for harvest. There’s all kinds of people to harvest out there. Great numbers. And it requires not now a retraction of missionary activity, but an expansion of it that we could think in terms of sending workers out into the world to harvest that God is bringing up.

There’s a tremendous shift in terms of urbanization. More and more of the world are now living in great urban centers as opposed to rural centers. Mexico City is growing by 80,000 people a month. Mexico City, a city in Mexico. By the year 2000, they will have more people in Mexico City than in all of Canada. Think of that tremendous urbanization. In Argentina, 34% of the people in Argentina live in the capital city of Buenos Aires. And in Uruguay, over 50% of the people in Uruguay live in the capital city of Montevideo.

In 1950 there were two cities in the third world that had populations over 5 million. Now there are 34 cities in the third world with populations of 5 million or more. There are over 275 cities worldwide that have over 1 million people in population. And what does this mean?

Well, if you know much about urbanization, it means that more and more of the structures in which we live are depersonalized. I talked about that a couple of weeks ago, how there’s a tremendous movement toward depersonalization. Next week, I’m going to preach on family camp. And one of the things I’m going to talk about is the quiet passing of natural community. There is no natural community like there was in agrarian cultures. And so, you have to recognize that you got to make more of an effort to build community around the gospel of Christ.

Now, I think in the providence of God, that’s a good thing. I think that natural community is not ultimately what God wants. He wants Christian community. So, I don’t bemoan it. But it is a fact that we must recognize that what we’re saying here in terms of world missions is that people that are going to be reached with the gospel of Christ are depersonalized and that gives us even more of an opportunity for the presentation of the gospel.

Remember two weeks ago I said that if we treat people as people just by that very nature you will have an impact on the world around you because they’re not used to it and they’re made in the image of God although they’re darkened images in rebellion against him.