Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Acts 9:31

You’ll notice that pattern frequently in our worship service. We’ll do a responsive reading from the Psalms and then we’ll sing that same psalm. And I mentioned last week that one of the ideas of course of responsive reading is that God repeats things in the scriptures so that we might repeat his words back to him but he phrases them differently in the response teaching us that we are to take God’s word into all of our lives and live them in response to God.

And in a way although this is not the reason we choose the metrical psalms we use—we probably rather sing them in an unmetrical format. In other words, by metrical psalm, somebody has taken Psalm 112, put it to meter, made it rhyme, so it’ll fit the standard tunes we learn to sing as opposed to chanting it or singing it without a fixed meter and a repeating tune. So that’s how we normally sing psalms. And well, we didn’t plan it this way in a way what we just did—where we have God’s word and then we respond back to him in his own words, but words that are different from the first line of the psalm. Then we say it in a paraphrased version, in a metrical version that man has taken and rearranged to fit a tune.

In a way, that’s the model again for us of responsive reading in the Psalms where our lives are lived in antiphonal response to God. He doesn’t want us simply quoting the scriptures in everything we say to each other. But everything we do say is to be based upon those scriptures. So it’s a good pattern for us.

Now, let’s turn to the portion of our service where we receive instruction from God’s word directly. Today’s sermon is from text in Acts chapter 9, verse 31. Please stand for the sermon text, a reading of the sermon text. Acts 9:31. “Then had the churches rest throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria and were edified and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost were multiplied.”

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for this very short summary account of the church at this particular historical place in the book of Acts. And we thank you Lord God for this state of the church so to speak given to us on the basis of the historical occurrences. And thank you Lord God that this provides a model for us as well as what churches should be looking like as you bless them. And we pray Father you’d open our hearts now to hear from this text that your Holy Spirit might write upon our hearts this text.

Help us Lord God to be challenged by it, to be convicted by it, but also to be comforted by it as well. In Jesus name we pray and for the sake of his kingdom. Amen. You may be seated. The younger children may be dismissed to go to their Sabbath schools if their parents desire that for them.

Before us, we’re returning finally after nearly a month, I think, or maybe even a little bit more than a month, departure from our texts in Acts for various reasons. We return to the book of Acts now and we return at a particular place that sort of sums up I think much of what has gone before it. In fact, we could look at it and we will shortly in the context of the outline to look at it as really a summary statement for the first nine chapters of the book of Acts.

Let me remember the immediate context. Of course, this statement comes right after we have the account of Saul’s conversion, his being a brave warrior in both Damascus and then also in Jerusalem, witnessing to the truth of Jesus Christ, suffering persecution himself. The persecutor is now himself persecuted, plots on his life both in Damascus and in Jerusalem, and Jesus tells him to leave Jerusalem. That’s important for us to remember. It’s not always a test of our Christian faith to stand in a situation in which our physical death may be imminent. Jesus for his purposes has us do other things at different times. And so it’s not wrong to remove yourself from physical danger as God instructed Saul to do here in Jerusalem.

And in fact, it was beneficial for the kingdom. It is important too before we move on just to note that we did not mention this back in December when we dealt with this text. But another thing you could talk about in the context of Saul’s departure from Jerusalem—remember we talked about how Jerusalem had really been identified in the text with Damascus and so had become like that old city which had persecuted the people of God so badly in times of the Old Testament.

And so Jerusalem itself is now seen as persecuting God’s people and other prophets and Jerusalem with the casting out so to speak of Saul is filling up for itself its cup of wrath that will overflow in AD 70 and destroy that city and those who were in it who were rebellious against God who had founded the city. So it is a casting out of Saul and his persecution was yet one more strike against the city of Jerusalem that they would receive recompense from God for in AD 70.

But at any event, now we have this text which says that after these things occurred and after Saul departs that the church has rest and it’s edified and it’s multiplied. And this serves as a transition to the following text which will have to do with Peter his journeys first to Joppa and then as well to Cornelius in chapter 10. and the full opening of the door of the church to gentile believers. And so this is somewhat of a transition verse that says that essentially after the great persecution which remember had started earlier a couple of chapters prior to this with Stephen’s martyrdom after that great persecution is calmed somewhat through the departure of Saul.

The church has rest and that sets the stage then for Peter’s visits to various places. He can leave Jerusalem and do the work of the ministry because the persecution apparently had abated somewhat. And so this is a transition verse to that text.

It’s also important to note here just briefly at the introduction of this text as Matthew Henry says though we are always to expect troublesome times yet we may expect that they shall not last always. In other words, our savior said that when you’re in this world you’re going to have tribulation but it’s important to recognize that those tribulations don’t last always. Our life is not filled with troublesome times and tribulations and no rest. No, in the context even of this ongoing persecution which is not over yet by any stretch of the imagination, the early church has a respite given to it by God.

And so we have a respite in our lives as well. There are seasons, there are times when things are particularly difficult. We’re under particular attack personally as the church, as the local church or as the extended church of Jesus Christ in a culture. And yet God gives people times of refreshing so that they might not think that their lives are filled with that kind of intense warfare.

You’ll notice this is—remember we talked before about the correlations to the book of Joshua in the book of Acts going forth to conquer lands. And in Joshua as well, remember they’d go out and do battle. Then they would return to the worship location and get a sense of perspective again. And God would give them rest from enemies. They were defeated sequentially. First two capital cities or two large cities, north and south, and then the northern tribes, the northern Canaanites and the southern Canaanites were dealt with in that way. There was a sequential event and in between those events there were periods of respite and rest, particularly focusing upon worship.

So in any event, that’s kind of the immediate context for the text. And let’s just go through it real quickly now and talk a little bit about what these words mean and then we’ll turn to the outline.

So we have then a statement that we have a time context then that’s given to us in the text: “then had the churches…” So in the context of this immediate historical context that’s given to us the churches are being discussed. The word for church is ekklesia—e-k-k-l-e-s-i-a—called out or called out ones and it’s very important to understand that they’re called out as a governing body. That word was used of governing bodies in the koine Greek of the time and so the church is called to exercise government in the context of the whole world but they are the called out assembly of Jesus Christ the church.

Then it says the church had rest. The word here for rest usually is translated rest—it may be in your version translated peace. It is frequently translated peace. In fact, I think in the King James, it’s only in the book of Acts where this word is translated rest. The word is the base word for our word irenic. If somebody’s speech is irenic, their speech is peaceable speech. It makes for peace or rest. So it isn’t so much physical rest as it is peace.

We’ve talked before about how peace is essentially God’s order in a particular context. I think—I don’t know this for sure, but the old-fashioned name Irene, I think, was probably based on the same Greek word. It would be a nice word for a child to have—a word that means peace.

In any event, so the church then has peace or rest in a particular location: “throughout all”—and all is a comprehensive word meaning whole. In fact the word is holos. It means whole and the whole area of three particularly named locations: Judea, Galilee and Samaria. This is where the church has rest in the context of and this is where the gospel has been reached out to by this particular point in time and we’ll maybe talk a little bit more about that later but those names are significant.

Judea apparently comes from the word meaning the land of Judah or the land of praise. Judah means to praise God. Galilee—as we’ve talked before in the book of Joshua, we went through it—Galilee is the circle of the Gentiles or the heathen circle comes from two words. The gentile people the gentile people, particularly is usually, by that term, outside of the faith and then also the term for around and so it is essentially the heathen circle. That’s significant because the gospel going into Galilee has fulfilled Old Testament prophecies that in Galilee the gentile the nations that the gospel of Christ would affect redemption.

And then Samaria which means watchpost as well. And Samaria you remember is that area of the land that was idolatrous, that had been syncretistic—that is they had mixed the worship of Jehovah with pagan worship symbols and pagan worship. And so Samaria is kind of syncretism. It’s the church that’s blended with the culture around it and thus really departed from the whole worship of God. And so it’s very significant too that the gospel reaches into not only the land of Judah, the land of those that were supposed to praise God, but also into Galilee, circle of the heathen, and also Samaria, the watch post that had not really done its job correctly watching out for idolatry, but rather it slipped into it.

Well, in the context of these three areas, the church has rest. And additionally, we’re told that in addition to the rest, they are edified. And the word there, edified means to be built up. It has specific reference to architecture or homes. And edifice, you know, it’s a word that we use. And to edify means to build up. And so the church is built up here. And it is also built up through a couple of mechanisms.

We’re told that “they were edified and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost were multiplied.”

So, you know, in the outline today, my sermon has to do with—the sermon title references those five words—that the church has rest, it is edified, and it multiplies and the context for that is fear and comfort, the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit. And so they are edified, they are built up, and they are walking in the context of the fear of Christ. Jesus is the Lord and so they are fearful—properly fearing, that is Jesus.

The word walk is significant. It means to traverse to walk around an area. It means in other words that it wasn’t just in some areas of their lives that they were fearing God and had the comfort of the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t just on Sunday. It penetrated through to all of their lives. And that’s significant. And the word walk really comes from a root word meaning to assay or to go through a trial. And so to walk through life is to go through a trial and to go through a test and evaluation.

In the context of all of that, they are blessed by God through those trials because they are walking in the context of two very important things: the fear of Jesus and the comfort of the Holy Spirit. Fear is phobos in the Greek. It’s the root word for our word phobia. You know, you have a fear of something. Now, much talk in our day and age and commentaries about this meaning reverence. And that’s okay if we understand reverence properly as well and that does include a healthy fear and respect for what God will do to us should we disobey him and that is very clear we’ll talk about that in a little bit later too but there is the aspect here of being fearing Jesus—that what he will do to us should we disobey him. That’s part of our motivation.

The Lord is Jesus Christ of course and then in the context we don’t just have fear we also have comfort. The word meaning to come alongside or to call alongside of someone to encourage to exhort to admonish to instruct—lots of implications but essentially is one who is called alongside of us. And the person who is called alongside is a comfort to us as a result. And that person is no other than the person of the Holy Spirit.

He is a Holy Spirit—pure, sanctified, set apart for a particular purpose. And he thus provides us an example of our own lives that we’re to be holy as well. And he is a spirit. He is a force in the context of our life, but he is personal. And so in the context of this, the church then is multiplied. And the word multiplied—its base word comes from the root word that we get our word plethora—of problems or a plethora of blessings—p-l-e-t-h-o-r-a—that word means to have many in abundance teeming mass so to speak and that’s the word used here to have multiplied blessings and so the church is multiplied.

It certainly refers to physical growth as the edification process certainly refers to the building up of the Christian character itself which character we’ve talked a lot about this last month or two. Well, that’s the picture given for us in Luke’s state of the church message, so to speak. We had a state of the union message here in our country this last week, and this is a much nicer one to read than it would have been to watch that one. But in any event, so that’s the state of the church and this is a good thing. Many blessings for God are pictured for us in these verses.

And I’d like to go through these now in a little slower pace and consider these blessings particularly in the context first of all of looking at the blessings themselves and then we’ll talk about how these blessings are distinctive to the church and distinctive to a particular time in the church and a particular kind of church. These blessings come out too. These blessings are great things. We must remember that they do have a context and we cannot take them properly out of that context and apply them willy-nilly to people.

Well, let’s first of all look then at these blessings. The first blessing that’s mentioned in the text and I have sequentially done it as well in the outline and you’ll notice that on the outline I’ve just taken the words of the text and sort of rearranged them a bit putting these first three words—rest and edification and multiplication—in the first three points from the first outline heading which are the blessings. There’s this three-fold blessing, this torrent of blessings. You know when we have the benediction at the end of the service there are three statements that increase in magnification. They’re a torrent of blessings as one common referred to them as and here we have quite a picture of blessed state of the church.

This rest concept is the first one that’s given. The church has rest. And certainly in the immediate context, that means somewhat of a degree of rest from persecution. You remember that we talked from the book of Deuteronomy and the book of Judges before as well as many other times in this church that rest in the scripture is not simply the absence of conflict. Rest or God’s peace is essentially the long-term result of rest is the elimination of the enemies of God from a particular piece of real estate or culture. So ultimately that rest is only finalized when the gospel penetrates these cultures to the end that God’s then judgment comes upon those people that won’t repent.

This is a midpoint rest then for the church or peace in the context of difficulties normally that so. But the context of rest always brings into it the idea that the enemies to the church are foiled and certainly in the foiled plots to assassinate Saul and in the conversion of Saul itself we see a degree of rest and given to the church because God has dealt with the enemies of the church either through converting them or through warning the church of particular disasters that may befall it and thus the church can prevent those things defensively.

So the church has rest in the context of its enemies. Let me also direct you to a particular passage in Psalm 94:13. If you could take your Bibles and open up to Psalm 94:13. This is significant in the context of this statement of rest. David frequently found himself in the position that the early church did as it did the other writers of the psalms. And so there’s always these references in many of the psalms to problems and yet to God’s peace in the midst of those problems.

Of course, the archetype, the typical the primary reference that comes to mind immediately is Psalm 23 where God prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies. But in Psalm 94, I’ll read verses 12-15. We read: “Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest oh Lord and teachest him out of thy law that thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity until the pit be digged or digged for the wicked for the Lord will not cast off his people neither will he forsake his inheritance but judgment shall return unto righteousness and all the upright in heart shall follow it.”

Significant verse 13 that “you may give him rest from the days of adversity until till the pit be digged for the wicked.” And that’s what we’ve got going on in the context of the book of Acts. Then we have the church having rest from days of adversity until waiting for in the future will come the digging of the grave for the wicked. And so the digging of the pit for the wicked will come in AD 70 when the persecutors of the church will be dealt with very dramatically. And finally in the context of particularly the apostate Jewish church very dramatically by God in AD 70.

And so rest while it has an eschatological reality to it, has a temporal aspect to it as well. And the rest that God gives us particular periods of time even in the context of enemies. And that is the situation here with the church. It’s one of the blessings of God that he can through whatever means he chooses hold the adversaries of the church at bay for particular periods of time so the church can rest, catch its breath, worship him, get their heavenly perspective straight again, and then get ready for the next particular set of battles that may come upon it.

And it’s also interesting the context of Psalm 94 that the psalmist writes that he chastens the righteous and that we must always see conflict in the sense of people being adverse adversaries to the church in the sense of God using them frequently to chasten the church and to bring them to correction for situations or simply to maturity.

Well, in any event, that’s one thing we have going on here. I also wanted to mention the context of this idea of peace or rest that part of the blessings of God isn’t rest simply restricted to the church. Now, it is ultimately focused on that and we’re going to say here in a couple of minutes that these blessings are not for those outside of the community of Jesus Christ. But we also have scriptures that tell us for instance in Romans 14:19, “Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace, same word rest, and things wherewith one may edify by another.”

Or in Proverbs 16:7, “When a man’s ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.”

I was particularly struck with this reality as my wife read to me several weeks ago Jeremiah 29 verses one and following. And this is God tells Jeremiah to tell a particular thing to the residue of the elders which were carried away captives which are now in Babylon. And Jeremiah has a message for the elders of the people in Babylon.

And this is what the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel in verse 4 of Jeremiah 29 says, “And to all them that are carried away captive, whom I have caused to be carried away from Jerusalem into Babylon.” And here’s what God’s message was to them in the context of Babylon, an apostate situation, of course, great difficulties. But God tells them this:

“Build ye houses and dwell in them, and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them. Take ye wives and begget sons and daughters, and take wives for your sons, and give your daughters to husbands that they may bear sons and daughters that you may be increased there and not diminished.”

Now, it’s interesting because well, I’ll go on to read and then comment. “And seek the peace of that city, whether I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray unto the Lord for it, for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.”

And then God tells them later on in verse 11 of chapter 29, “I know the thoughts that I think toward you, sayeth the Lord, thoughts of peace, not of evil, to give you an expected end.”

God promises that his thoughts toward them while they have been taken into captivity are good. At the end of 70 years, he says you’ll be brought forth. In the meantime, have children, multiply—in the context of our text, be edified, build houses, he says, literally build houses, be edified in the context of that land, and have peace in that land. See, the same three things that our text talks about were true and capable of being experienced by the church in exile as well in Babylon. The context of enemies, then we can have this kind of peace, this kind of edification, and this kind of multiplication.

Now, I mention that because it’s important for us to recognize that we live in the context of a culture that is certainly much like Babylon. I there’s a new series premiered last week, Babylon 5. And interesting selection for a name, Babylon. We live in the context of a culture that looks increasingly like Babylon and certainly not much like Jerusalem. But in the context of Babylon, these things are true of us as well.

Then it can make application at least and God instructed them and I think he instructs us as well to seek the peace of the cities where we have been carried captive by God that in their peace we shall have peace. Ultimately God does not desire peace for the wicked—they have no peace or rest—but there is a sense of societal peace and well-being that is intended solely for the benefit of the elect of Jesus Christ who live in such a context.

And so when we say the church had rest it rest in the context of enemies and that is an encouragement to us as well to pray for and work for the peace of the cultures in which we live. I don’t know the exact way to apply some of that in our lives. I do know that it is important to us to have some sort of restraining influence on evil in the cultures in which we live. That is part of the peace and rest that God’s gives as a blessing to the church as they are obedient to him.

And so when we live in the context of a culture, it is good for us to try to enact law for instance, that punish murder or punish capital crimes with the death penalty. It’s good to try to keep pagan children abstinent to a certain extent. Why? Because if they’re not, they’re going to be carried off into sexual fantasies and activities that may prove dangerous and harmful toward members of the community of Jesus Christ. And so it is good to exercise a restraining influence on the culture around it, even when it’s as wicked as Babylon was.

Now, ultimately, of course, that peace can only be obtained through the people in the context of Babylon whose hearts are converted, who are brought to repentance for their sins and faith in Jesus Christ. Eventually, that peace will end up just as Joshua and Deuteronomy said—the rest, the peace will be the destruction of all enemies of the church. But in the meantime, during those 70 years, while God kept them in captivity in Babylon, there is an interim peace as well that we must pray for and work toward. And that’s part of the blessings of God upon the church. Rest, peace.

Secondly, edification. The term here, as we said, means to be built up. It’s one of the blessings of God to be built up. J. A. Alexander said that in other words, this means to be built up. This is a favorite figure in the New Testament, not for mere numerical increase and outward organization, but rather for internal growth and spiritual maturity. And so, that’s what’s being stressed here. The edification that the scriptures are replete with references to in terms of spiritual life.

Here I mentioned Matthew Henry saying that in the context of enemies, God frequently gives us wrath to rest. But it’s important to remember that while we have tribulations always, we don’t always have those tribulations going on incessantly. And so, Matthew Henry also says though that in the context of those peaceable times, those times of rest that God gives us in the context of what may be perhaps Babylon, people of God are not supposed to just take that and live at leisure. They’re supposed to work still and continue to progress in the ways that God can call them to progress, to improve—and words of some of the older catechisms—to improve their baptism, so to speak, to mature in the faith, to apply themselves to the secondary means that God gives us for edification.

Edification, the building of a building, doesn’t happen through the waving of a wand. It happens through work and through applying yourself to the secondary means, the materials that God has buildings be built of. And so, edification in the context of the church is a blessing from God, but it’s a blessing to those who make use of the secondary means whereby he is promised to build us up using those particular secondary means.

And so this statement implies a willingness on the part of the church to apply themselves diligently to God’s word. Edification, Lensky says, the strengthening of the entire religious life and activity by means of, and here are those secondary means, the word, of course, and the sacraments. The Holy Spirit works through the word and works the sacraments.

Now, the scriptures tell us a great deal about edification. And I won’t give you a lot of texts, but we have texts, for instance, in 1 Corinthians 14:4 and 5 where Paul says that he is part of that means of edifying the church. He says this: “he that speaketh in an unknown tongue edifies himself, but he that prophesieth edifieth the church. I would that you all speak with tongues rather that she prophesied. For greater is he that prophesies than he that speaks with tongues, except he interpret that the church may receive edifying.”

His point is that those who prophesy, those who speak forth the word of God are a tremendous source of edification, the spiritual maturation, a solidity and maturing of the Christians who hear that speaking forth of the word of God. And he was one of those men. Indeed, he says later in 2 Corinthians 13:10, “I write these things though being absent less being present, I should use sharpness according to the power which the Lord has given me for edification and not to destruction.”

Again, in Ephesians 4:13, we read the God has given some to the church for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of their ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. And so Paul said that he had a sharpness that he would use in person, not for their destruction, but rather through their edification and officers of the church, both through speaking of the word of God and particularly as it’s relevant to the particular culture in which we live and what it requires of us in response through prophesying in that sense—forthelling of the word of God for sharply rebuking some and admonishing others, encouraging others. They are given by God as Ephesians 4 tells us for the edification of the church.

So officers of the church are part of the secondary means—the administration of the word and the sacraments are through officers. So officers are part of the secondary means whereby God gives the church this tremendous state this tremendous blessing which is to be edified to be built up and made secure.

But secondly the church itself of course is also a source of that edification one to another. And there are many scriptures that speak of this as well. We read for instance in 1 Corinthians 14:26, “How is it then, brethren, when you come together, every one of you has a psalm, has a doctrine, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done unto edifying.”

And this isn’t spoken specifically to the officers. This is spoken to the congregation. When you come together in worship, you’re to be thinking of how you may edify or build up each other. Ephesians 4:16, the very text that talked about how God had given us officers for the building up of the church. Says that every the whole body is fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplies. And then eventually he says unto the edifying of itself in love. And so the congregation is part of that edifying process.

Ephesians 4:29 says our speech is important—not simply the speech of prophesying can edify but speech itself. We read there that “let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers.” Tremendous blessing that we can minister grace with our tongues. So we all have a responsibility to use the secondary means of God’s officers, but we also all have a responsibility to edify each other and so bring this tremendous state of blessedness of being mature and established by God into the context of our lives.

You know, 1 Corinthians tells us that knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. It’s not enough just to have a lot of knowledge about a particular thing. He’s talking there in the context of food controversies and it’s important in the context of any subject within the context of the church. We don’t seek to show each other our knowledge so much and get puffed up and compete with each other where division and strife and all that stuff comes in, but rather we’re to seek how to in love edify one another in the context of the body of Christ.

Indeed, Jude 1:26 tells us he writes there that “ye beloved build up yourselves in the most holy faith praying in the Holy Ghost.” We can edify ourselves as well. So edification is a tremendous blessing. There are secondary means of associated with it. Those means of the church, the ministry of the word, the sacraments, the officers of the church, the community of the church, speaking to one another, building each other up and considering one another more important than ourselves. Love edifies as opposed to knowledge which puffs up. And so we have that responsibility.

And third, the great third great blessing—in addition to this rest to the peace, God’s order in the context of the church and the developing order in the context of the world around us, a manifestation of God’s peace and order. And then the edification process—the third blessing is multiplication. Of course, that simply means that the lands that are spoken of here were being Christianized. They were being converted. Same as the early church would do a couple of centuries later to all of Europe. There is a multiplication going on, which means specifically an increase in numbers in those members of the church of Jesus Christ.

Now, we’ve seen this throughout the book of Acts, repeated references to people being added to the number. And here’s another reference because it’s important to see if the church is responsible for converting men and nations. That’s what God has given us the task of doing. And so there are nations here that are being Christianized. And very important to see that.

Okay. So those are the great blessings. And then secondly, we want to point out just briefly that these blessings are intended in the church. You know, it says now then the church had these things these blessings. The culture that we live in the context of doesn’t have these kind of blessings. And certainly if we look at these things as being the state of God’s blessing on the church—peace and rest, edification, and multiplication—and try to judge what’s going on in our country. Do we have a Christian nation? Well, we don’t.

We can see that our culture, as pagan cultures inevitably become, become cultures in which these three things are not seen at all. There is no peace and rest in the context of America. We live in a frenetic age where men are tossed about as the waves of the sea. The wicked has no rest. The scriptures say he is churned up all the time. And so in this country today, people are churned up. And that’s the context of the world in which we live. No rest, no order. In fact, God’s order is overturned on every hand.

And we talked before about last week about the three significant trials. And in the meantime, this last week, the second Menendez brother was also the recipient of a hung jury. They couldn’t convict him either of killing his parents, even though they had shotgunned their parents to death, no immediate provocation. And so, we don’t have rest in the context of this culture. We have far from it. We have a tremendous amount of distress and unrest. We even have it out in the suburbs. It’s easy to talk about what happens in Los Angeles with Reginald Denny being head bashed in and yet no conviction and the Menendez brothers etc.

But John S. showed me as we got together Friday evening, he showed me the Forest Grove paper. The headline was the young youth gang sort of types are targeting Forest Grove. My wife told me that when she was at the printers out in Aloa at Tannerbrook area that they said that there was graffiti gangs that were spray painting cars and stuff there and one of the reasons for the Safeway store out in Aloa closing down early instead of being open 24 hours a day is because the parking lots were being used for drug transactions.

The rot at the core of America’s cities, the cities that reject Jesus Christ, that increasingly is disorder, that rot is moving its way out to the suburbs. There’ll be no area exempt from that—except of course for the church that has rest in the context of wickedness. But our culture has no rest and our culture has no edification. Our culture is not being built up. It’s being torn down.

I remember that talking head song from so many number of years ago. “Pull up the roots. Pull up the roots.” And I knew what they were talking about. I was one time involved in the counterculture movement and that was the entire point was to pull up the roots. Much along the lines of the Psalms that tell us the foundations are destroyed in a culture. What do we do when the foundations are destroyed? Well, that’s what we are in. The foundations were Christian and those that were opposed to Jesus Christ knew they had to pull up the roots.

And that’s what’s being done. America doesn’t have edification. It has earthquakes. It has the tearing down and destruction. And very importantly to point out, this earthquake of course is the work of God. So God is the one causing no peace to those who reject Jesus Christ and who instead of seeing cultures edified—even the physical structures—tears them down.

I don’t know if you knew this or not. I didn’t know it until I heard this last week that right at the center of the earthquake that hit Los Angeles was the largest pornography studios. I was talking to George Coppion this week and he had just been at Westminster West that morning and a student had showed him an Escondido paper that said that the earthquake the epicenter of the earthquake was a pornography studio that supplied 95% of the pornographic videos in this country. And I thought well you know believe it when I read. I thought that’s very interesting but it seemed a bit of an overstatement.

So I was talking to my parents this week and they said yeah we read about that in Newsweek magazine. So I went out and got a copy of Newsweek and indeed it says here that one of the manifestations of that 40 seconds on that Monday morning was—and I quote—”the studios of virtually every major American producer and distributor of pornographic videos.” This is what was damaged and destroyed and industry that happened that just happened to locate itself almost directly at top the fault zone.

Newsweek magazine. This isn’t coming from some Christian source. God speaks in very clear language. And if the government will not stop those who permit the distribution of pornography and who pollute a culture and cause damage to everyone in that culture, God will deal with it. And he dealt with it then. Now, they’ll rebuild. Undoubtedly, they were insured to the hilt and they’ll rebuild. But the point is that God’s message has been written in large words.

You probably didn’t hear about that on the television or radio. I didn’t. Right at the epicenter, pornography studios that supply 95%. God won’t let culture be built up long-term. He’ll destroy it. That rejects Jesus Christ.

And certainly multiplication. As we talked about last week, the context for that sermon is the lack of multiplication, the intended killing off or the multiplying and increase in numbers that this particular culture is given through biology. The aborting of the young, the permitting even encouraging people to search out homosexuality as an alternate lifestyle. And what it really is, as some have said, a death style. There’s no multiplication going on, physical multiplication in this country either. If I think if it wasn’t for the Christians, we’d probably be at negative population growth in this country. They’re basically at ZPG pretty much.

And you think of that, the most many Christians certainly in this church have a lot of children. Well, the pagans are killing themselves off. That’s the judgment of God.

So these blessings are distinctive to the church of Jesus Christ. And that’s very important for us to recognize. We live in the context of an election year now. And it’s going to be easy to be distracted off and think that somehow secular conservatives may produce answers for us that secular liberals can’t. Well, they may be part of the process in which we pray for the peace of the city in which we live. But don’t be fooled by any of that.

We’ve talked before that the context of the persecution for the church was the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees were those who were kind of a ghetto mentality who didn’t thought it evangelized the world certainly pulled back. They were legalists. They added to the law of God. A legalist isn’t somebody who applies the law of God properly. It’s somebody who either tries to use that law for salvation itself or in the case of the Pharisees extend beyond that law and build up a plethora—a multiplying of other laws that aren’t God’s laws.

The Pharisees were conservatives, okay, who wanted justice, law and order sort of felons, but they were godless rebels against God. The Sadducees were the other side of the coin. They were the liberals. They were the pluralists. They were the ones who incorporated Athens and wanted to, you know, as a result, he gave up the idea of resurrection itself. They’re the ones who aired on the side of grace as opposed to the sight of law, I suppose you could say. And the Sadducees are the result of that. And the trials that we have in America today are the result of the church airing on the side of grace and being more like Sadducees than Christians.

And so we have these two contexts. We have concern conservatives and liberals in the context of the church. And we don’t want conservatives and liberals. We want biblically modeled Christians who take the word of God and apply that word and don’t make distinction between grace and law for instance or justice and mercy. I’ve said before that the parties that you’ll be confronted with this year are the conservatives who stress justice and the liberals who stress mercy and compassion supposedly to people.

But neither one of them walk humbly with God. And those are the three requirements that we do justice. We love mercy, but we walk humbly with God. They don’t let justice or mercy be defined by God’s word rather than defined by their own minds. And the mercy of the wicked is cruel because it hurts people. You look at the fact that fewer than four out of 10 black children have both parents live in the context of both parents where eight out of 10 roughly white children do live in the context of both parents.

Why is that? Well, it’s the end result of war on poverty that broke up the family. We could talk a lot about that, but the point is that we want to be sure to understand that there’s no peace, there’s no edification, there’s no multiplication available either through secular conservatives or through secular liberals only in the application of God’s word.

But even there we must say that if the scriptures give us this tremendous picture of blessing in the context of the church—rest, edification, and multiplication—if God gives us this blessed picture, we cannot totally claim that as a church of Jesus Christ today in America. Certainly it doesn’t apply to the wicked about us in the culture, but it doesn’t even apply to the church today. The church doesn’t have this either going out. And why is it? Because we don’t meet the conditions that this church met that’s spoken of here.

Those conditions are laid out for you in your outline. First of all, this church was a restored church. Remember, I’ve used that. I want to kind of remind us here of how this book of Acts has flowed so far. In chapter one was the critical event. What happens? Jesus gives them instructions. They say, “When will the kingdom be restored to Israel?” He says, “It’s not for you to know times or seasons, but you’ll be endued with power with the Holy Ghost.” Okay? And then you’ll be my witnesses. So he says, “The restoration of the kingdom, you’re not going to know specific times. The way it’s going to happen is the power of the Holy Spirit’s going to come upon you and you’re going to then be my witnesses. You’re going to witness to the gospel of myself, Jesus Christ, in these areas.” And so that’s what it’s all about is restoration of the kingdom.

And so then we have the restoration of the 12. The cornerstone is the Lord Jesus Christ. The foundation is the 12 apostles and the 12th apostle is added. Then that which happens next in the context of the book is the edification process begins with the adding of the 12th apostle. The selection of them sovereignly by God just as the rest were chosen not by the vote of man but sovereignly by God. And then we have the gift then of the Holy Spirit. The church is reorganized and empowered for ministry in the context of the day of Pentecost.

And we see by way of picture the salvation of the entire world picture because all men are gathered there from all parts of the earth and the God gives them the apostles the ability to speak in these foreign languages and so there’s a restoration of the prophetic word of God going forth in power to all the nations of the world and then there’s a description for us as Acts chapter 2 comes to a close of the blessedness of the church.

You see scattered throughout these first nine statements or nine chapters are statements like this one that give us little markers that end particular section—always the description of the community life of the church of Jesus Christ. And so we had one at the end of chapter 2.

Then remember we have the healing of the lame man at the door of the temple. Man is restored to worship. And Peter preaches about what? About the restoration of all things—that is ongoing. So the church is restored in its prophetic ministry. It’s restored in its power. It’s organized for the future. It has rested from its enemies. The church is then restored in terms of worship. People are being pictured as being restored to worship. The lay men now can enter into the temple and worship God. And he’s also restored a picture for us, the restoration of all things including restoration to vocational calling.

And then we have a picture of the restoration of justice given for us in the work of God sovereignly judging Ananias and Sapphira. Remember we talked about how important that was. As the church matures, it matures in the ability to discern and speak forth the word of God relative to those who would trouble the church of Jesus Christ from within. And that’s who Ananias and Sapphira were. We had people who were graciously giving of their possessions to the church for the relief of those who didn’t have enough to feed them etc. And yet we had liars and people who hated people in the church as well.

And that was Ananias and Sapphira. And the officers of God church speak the word and God strikes down first Ananias and then his wife. There’s a restoration of justice to the church. Is there fear established in the hearts of the congregation and those who look on the power of Jesus Christ as it is pictured in the prophetic word relative to discipline within the context of the church.

But then secondly, in addition to we’ve seen these picture examples of the salvation of the world, restoration to worship vocation. Then we have specific restorations of justice. But then secondly in Acts chapter 7, the restoration of mercy. Remember the Greek-speaking widows were not being fed in the daily ministration. Weren’t getting enough food. And so there’s a specific selection of seven men to feed them. And so we have a picture of the restoration of acts of mercy and kindness in the context of the church.

And you put those two incidents together and it’s what it talks about here that the church is walking in the fear of Jesus Christ. The restoration of discipline and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost ministered through the officers of the church to the as an example as a picture to all the world to the ministry to the widows who were who were hungry. And so we have this church that is restored and at each of the end points of these things I’ve mentioned in Chapter 2, chapter 4, chapter 5, chapter 6 and 7. There are these descriptions of the blessedness of the church.

And now we have then the selection of the apostle to the Gentiles. And this concludes this first introductory section of the book of Acts leading up to chapter 10 when Peter will go and minister to an actual gentile. Now, we’ve had this symbolically pictured—that people from every nation, the Ethiopian eunuch going into Samaria and we now and this the version of Simon the magician etc. But now we’ll see actually taking of the gospel to a gentile household, the opening up of God’s doors of the church to the gentile people.

So nine closes off this first section and ends with the selection of Saul, persecution of him and then God’s miraculous deliverance of Saul from enemies. And so the church that experiences fully these blessings of rest and edification and multiplication is the church that has matured and we must in these particular areas and speaking of the prophetic word in the restoration of men to biblical worship and biblical vocation, the restoration of justice in the context of the church and the restoration of acts of compassion and mercy in the context of the church.

Until the church in America is matured in these respects, we will not fully experience this particular state of the church address won’t be spoken to the churches by God. There will not be that rest, that edification and multiplication because the church is not matured in these ways. And so there’s a hint of there’s a certainly a note here to us that while these are great blessings to expect in the future, they’re not ours yet in the context of the church in America.

And this is also true because secondly, we’re not a unified church. It’s interesting when it says the churches had rest. There’s a difference in some translations. The King James and the New King James, it uses the plural churches. Other versions use the singular church. And this is not a big issue because there are lots of places in the scripture where the church is referred to as a unit or as individual churches. Both expresses are legitimate according to the New Testament. I only bring this up because you see commentators arguing about this. But it is certainly true the terms are used both ways. But here whether it’s talking about the churches as a group of individual churches—