Dennis Tuuri

Turn now to Acts 28 as we continue on with the account of Paul as he has arrived now in Rome. Acts 28 is our sermon text. We’ll read verses 16 through 20. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

“And when we came to Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard. But Paul was suffered, or allowed, to dwell by himself with the soldier that kept him. And it came to pass that after three days Paul called the chief of the Jews together. And when they were come together, he said unto them, ‘Men and brethren, though I have committed nothing against the people or customs of our fathers, yet was I delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans, who when they had examined me, would have let me go because there was no cause of death in me. But when the Jews spake against it, I was constrained to appeal unto Caesar, not that I had ought to accuse my nation of. For this cause, therefore, have I called for you to see you and to speak with you, because that for the hope of Israel, I am bound with this chain.’”

Please be seated. We’ll sing a prayer to God that he would illuminate this text for understanding, and as well the text for those children whose parents desire for them to receive instruction of the word at a level more appropriate to their years of learning.

This is the final section with today’s text of the book of Acts. Today I believe is sermon number 100. And we’ll only have, I think, maybe three more, maybe four. I always think it’d be good at the end of preaching through a book of the Bible to do a summary. I’ve never really done it, but anyway, we’ll conclude very quickly.

You know, basically, chapter 28 here has three different sections. We’ve seen what happened in Malta, the conclusion of that whole thing, and then the trip to Rome, and now we’re at the last section of the book of Acts, as well as chapter 28, which is Paul’s activities while in Rome.

Our message for the next three or four weeks will be all around the theme of Israel. Because here Paul goes again to the Jews. It’s interesting, you know, because he always does that—starts with the Jews and then the Christians. Although this time the Christians came out to meet him. In a way, he really started with the Christians because things are changing.

Well, so today’s talk basically kind of bleeds into the next couple because really it’s a section. I’ve divided it up so we can glean everything we can out of each of the texts, or at least some out of each of them.

But you know, basically today in today’s message we have Paul going to, or calling rather, the Jews to him—the heads of the Jews. And so today he talks about the hope of Israel and they will then listen to him preach. And we’ll see next week the division of Israel—some believe, some don’t. As always happens when Paul would go to the synagogues. Now the synagogues come to him, and so he preaches the hope of Israel.

That leads to the division of Israel, that leads to a declaration or judgment upon visible Israel by the Apostle Paul. He makes a determination and states that. And then that finally leads to the transformation of Israel because he turns to the Gentiles and the Word proceeds unhindered—that’s the way the book of Acts ends. Just like Joshua ends, no failing words. Our last sermon of the book of Acts will be no failing words. The word of God is not hindered by church or by state. The Apostle Paul continues preaching the word unhindered.

So these next, today kind of works with the next couple of three. And so we got the hope of Israel, the division of Israel, the judgment of Israel—a pronouncement or declaration of judgment—then the transformation of Israel. And that ends the book.

You know, I want to talk more about this next week on anti-abortion day of the Lord, Sunday. But I want to mention it here that we really can see in this a picture of how history progresses. There is a uniqueness to this, of course, because there’s a historical thing that’s happening. God has finally woven the two branches of the church together in one in Christ. And that’s the final declaration at the end of this book. So that can only happen once in history. But this is a model that has happened a lot of times before as well.

The manifestation of Christ, the preaching of his word and his presence brings division in the context of the visible church, brings pronouncements of judgment. So there is an application to church history. There’s also application to your personal life in this—you know, how you work with people. We’ll see the way Paul worked with these Jews is really the way we should work with brothers in the Lord, or at least those who are visibly brothers in the Lord in the context of the visible church.

And one of the things that is unusual to our age, and we will do this again next week relative to abortion, is this declaration of judgment. I thought about this week because, you know, there’s a controversy brewing, you know, in Washington DC over William Safire’s column. William Safire is conservative, but William Safire endorsed President Clinton over President Bush in the election three years ago.

And this last week, I guess Safire had enough, and he came out with a column—a political column in which he called the president’s wife Hillary Clinton a congenital liar. And so there’s a real firestorm coming out of Washington DC. How can you possibly say that? The president’s going to hit him in the nose, and Hillary’s mother’s taking offense because she thinks it means the genes, you know. But of course modern language “congenital” simply means it’s innate to a person. It’s who they are. It’s like, you know, “chronic” and “habitual”—terms that the prosecution used in that great movie. Charles Laughton used in reference to a witness: “Are you not in fact a chronic and habitual liar?” And Safire made a declaration.

And you know, there’s nothing wrong with that. If you’ve gone through the correct processes to make declarations and pronouncements about things and people is part of the Christian life, and I think it has to do with the hope of Israel. We’ll talk about that as we get to the end of the talk. Hopefully we’ll be able to work on that somewhat. But just understand that this process of entreating people and teaching the truth and then coming to pronouncements or judgments is part of the Christian walk. The Church of Jesus Christ doesn’t like to do that, but it’s part of who we are.

I think of this too because last Friday night we started a little study out of my home going through the Canons of Dort. Dort was a pronouncement or judgment as Paul evaluates those who had Israel according to the flesh and the synagogue system as he makes a pronouncement upon them in Acts 28. So the Synod of Dort made a pronouncement or judgment upon those who believe in less than a sovereign God, who follow the teachings of Jacobus Arminius. And you know, there comes the time, and it is coming in this country increasingly, when churches who affirm the orthodox faith once delivered have to make judgments and declarations about those churches and individuals who, having heard the truth, rejected it.

Now Paul doesn’t start with that with these Jews. He doesn’t go to them and say, “Well, you turkeys, why aren’t you part of these Christian churches that came out and met me?” He addresses them as men and brothers. But so he works the process correctly. You know, he begins with the presupposition that they simply haven’t heard. They need instruction in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he gives them that.

But once all that is done, and once the church fathers at Dort had thoroughly explained what biblical truth was, they made pronouncement and declaration that those people who reject the scriptures and their plain teaching of God’s sovereignty are outside of the invisible church of Jesus Christ. And that’s what we need to do in our day and age. Safire is correct to make evaluations and judgments. Dort was correct. And in our lives, it’s correct to make evaluations and judgments.

And so that’s what happens here in the context of this account. Now, let’s go through it a little more. Let’s go through this text in some detail now and look at some object lessons along the way.

Verse 16: “When we came to Rome.” That is the arrival at Rome. This is the setting for what’s going to happen. Now we’re finally at Rome. By the way, remember that it was after Ephesus that Paul determined to go to Jerusalem and then also to Rome. He’s at Ephesus on the third missionary journey. The seven sons of Sceva, these vagabond Jews, try to appropriate the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for their own purposes, and they get judged by God. All kinds of people convert to the faith and they burn all their occultic books, etc. And the gospel is proclaimed powerfully at Ephesus, and of course it leads to a riot.

But Paul sees the magnitude of what’s happening with the preaching of the gospel, and he sees that his missionary journeys have concluded. Ephesus is the third, and it’s then in the context of him at Ephesus, just before the discussion of the riot, that Paul says, “After these things, it gives a specific time reference”—after these things Paul said, “I must now go to Jerusalem, and then I must go to Rome.”

And that’s what’s happened for the rest of the book. And here he is now finally in Rome.

What does he do? Well, first of all, before he does anything, God does something once more. God gives favor to Paul on the part of the Roman people that are taking care of him. And if you know the Revelation class, I’ve talked about this here as well. You know, Rome is a protector. It’s a vehicle for the expansion of the kingdom. It’s what it is intended to be by God. Now, eventually it apostasizes and it becomes the great beast in Revelation that’s judged along with the harlot in Jerusalem and the false church. But for now, God wants us to know a couple of things. One, Rome is still doing its job. It doesn’t mistreat. Now, the Jews have pressed these charges. They haven’t released him, but they give him liberty. He’s not held with the rest of the prisoners at jail. He’s allowed to lease his own house, to rent his own house. Now he’s got a garden. He is chained to the garden, but he’s been given favor by God as Paul comes into Rome.

You can look at Paul a couple ways. Imagine Paul coming into Rome, a prisoner bound. Now he may get some favor, but he’s still a prisoner. Who is this guy? This guy is the most important person in the world. That’s who he is. He’s operating in the power of the Holy Spirit. He’s the emissary, the ambassador for the Lord Jesus Christ. And for Rome, this is their salvation or their damnation—how they’re going to react to Paul and the preaching of the gospel, and for the church there as well.

What I’m saying is, the eyes of sight to judge by appearances—you would have esteemed Paul to be not important. But to judge by the word of God and who carries that word, you’d understand the significance of the Apostle Paul. That’s a warning to us not to judge by appearances.

We know here also that we have an encouragement from God in terms of this favor being shown to Paul even in the context of bonds. As Calvin said, “Let us know that God did govern from heaven the bonds of his servant.” God did govern from heaven the bonds of the Apostle Paul. So that’s an encouragement to us. God shows favor to Paul by giving him favor with his jailers.

Now this is not the only occurrence. Joseph was also given favor in the eyes of his keeper. Jehoiachin in the eyes of the king of Babylon in 2 Kings 25. As Matthew Henry said, “When God does not deliver his people presently out of bondage, yet if he, early, he can also however make them to come under an easier burden while in prison.”

So God in the case of Paul here shows again his favor upon Paul and shows really that Paul is not the prisoner. He’s the one kind of in charge here, and he brings people to him.

Now by the way I think it would be good for us to pray that one of our brothers in prison, FA, would receive favor in the eyes of the civil magistrate, the way that Paul received favor. God’s hand is upon the heart of the magistrate. I spoke as his counsel this last week—if there are certain things that may happen tomorrow and the next day, if things go right, he’ll be reduced from medium security to minimum security, and then he could be placed either in Baker City, Salem, or Columbia—the Columbia facility real close to us. Pray that FA, that prisoner who was a Christian, would receive favor in the sight of the authorities and be reduced down to a minimum security position this week. It can happen, and we should ask God for that to happen in this case.

We know that Paul, as I said, is bound here. He is still in prison, but the word is not bound. He makes this very explicit in 2 Timothy 2:9. He says, “Wherefore I suffer trouble as an evildoer even unto bonds, but the word of God is not bound.” Paul will write his prison epistles here in Rome—Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians, etc. The word isn’t bound.

And additionally, he’ll receive people there at his imprisonment that’s described for us in verse 16. And we’ll know that many of Caesar’s household hear the faith and many convert. And Paul said that this imprisonment was for the purpose of the expansion of the preaching of Christ. And while some would preach for not good motivation, nonetheless, the word of Christ is preached. So his very imprisonment becomes, in the sight of Paul who is operating with the eyes of faith and not the eyes of sight, an opportunity for the furtherance of the word.

So the word of God is never ever bound. And so Paul is a picture for us of that here as well.

Paul then in verse 17: “After he’s been settled in here, now it came to pass that after three days Paul called the chief of the Jews together.”

Now I hope I’m not, you know, getting into stream of consciousness here. But whenever we see three days, I think it’s important. I mean, God could have said “after several days.” He says three days. He wants us to remember that what three days is all about. It’s about resurrection. But three days is also about death. Three days is a reminder of the hope of the resurrection, which Paul will focus on in his talk to these Jewish leaders. But three days is also a reminder that there is a waiting period for deliverance. Okay? And that is a reminder of death as well as resurrection.

I thought of this last week, and I pondered what was this about Paul calling these elders to him. And I thought of the book of Exodus 4:29. Moses and Aaron have—Moses been called by God to go deliver the people. Aaron is a spokesman. And in Exodus 4:29 they go to Egypt. And before they go to Pharaoh—as Paul before he goes to Caesar, so to speak, before he goes to Pharaoh—Moses and Aaron call together, the same thing. They call together the elders of the people of Israel in Egypt, and they tell them the words that God has told them to tell them. And they show the signs and wonders that God has said would accompany their preaching, demonstrating the reality of the word.

And upon hearing that, the elders of Israel in Exodus 4:29 thank God and they bow down and worship God because of the deliverance that has been foretold to them and promised.

And so, in a way, I think you can see some correlations here. You know, these Jews, they’re back in Rome. You know, they’ve been kicked out earlier by Claudius. Nero brings them back. Before he goes, things turn real bad—for five or six years he’s fairly moderate. He lets the Jews come back. And by this time, when Paul gets here, there are nine or ten large synagogues, thousands of Jews in the context of Rome. But they’re not on top. They’re there at the behest of the Roman emperor. They are no less slaves than were the church of Israel in Egypt. And they will shortly suffer much persecution by the civil governor—had already done so with their expulsion by Claudius.

I think that one of the things that’s going on here is Paul in this text is reminding us that Israel needs deliverance, and Paul comes in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ to gather the elders together as Moses did, to tell them the words of deliverance—the hope of the Messiah has come. Death has been conquered. And they’re not going to respond the way the Jews did in Egypt. They’re not going to worship God.

Now, the Jews had some trouble after the persecution began as Paul’s—or as Moses’ message proceeded, you know. I mean, things got worse. They couldn’t give any straw making the bricks. Why? Things get worse? Word of God, you know, it always has a testing and trial period. It is three days to the resurrection, a period of their suffering. But they responded correctly, and these leaders do not.

Paul entreats these men. He gathers them together at the end of three days after his arrival. Then he gives them—he talks to them. And the first thing he tells them is when they come together he said unto them, “Men and brethren. Let’s stop there.”

He greets them with this phrase—”men and brethren”—throughout the book of Acts. He always does. Now, it’s significant for a couple of reasons. It’s significant, first of all, because he calls them brethren and men. It’s a brotherly greeting that Paul gives to them. Now, these are still men who are in the synagogue who have not been brought into the Christian church. He could write them off at the outset, but he doesn’t do it because of their objective placement in the Old Testament church of God and because of their external covenantal membership, as it were, the relationship with God.

Paul treats them presuppositionally as members of the body of followers of God. Okay? Now, that’s important for us. It’d be as if you went to a person—a pastor—and perhaps a liberal denomination. You know, Paul knew there were Sadducees, there were Pharisees, and everything else in these synagogues. You know, and we know that there are big problems in some of these mainline denominations or even some of the more conservative denominations. But you don’t write the whole group off. And I think that’s one of the lessons here for us. He goes to them. Now you can, after you preach the gospel and it’s rejected, but the presupposition is that they’re covenantally in the body of Christ or God here in the context of the Old Testament church.

It’s also significant for another reason, and I didn’t think of this until I read Matthew Henry’s commentary. You know, if you address a group of people as “men and brothers,” you’re also calling on them to treat you as a man and a brother, aren’t you? See, I mean, there is—the other side of this is that if you’re, you know, if he’s going to give them the honor of being called brothers, he’s also going to insist upon the fact that he’s a brother.

And of course, that’s much of what he tells them here in his last apology in the book of Acts—that I’ve done nothing wrong against the people of God or against the customs of the fathers. I haven’t sinned against the temple. I haven’t sinned against the synagogue or the people of God. And I’m also innocent relative to civil charges. You know, I’m innocent in terms of the formality and the worship of the church. I mean, he got arrested at the temple fulfilling vows that were Old Testament vows completed in Christ, but he was still doing that stuff. I didn’t violate the formal worship. I didn’t violate the community of God and Israel. It’s what he says here. And I didn’t violate laws of Rome. I’m innocent all the way around.

And so he talks about his continuity with them. See, this isn’t a message coming from outside of the Old Testament church. This is a message coming from within the Old Testament church. This is Rome. And earlier Paul had written his epistle to the Romans much earlier before he got there. Remember he said, “I wanted to come to see you.” He got there, but not quite the way he expected. But remember what he wrote to them: a circumcision is not external of the flesh. It’s of the heart. And the man is the true Jew who’s a follower of Christ and who does the law—not you know, the external Jews.

So Paul is not saying that we don’t want to be Jews. He’s saying we are the Jews. We are the Hebrews. We are the Israelites. We are the Jews. And whoever rejects Messiah, who was the hope of Israel and the Hebrews and the Jews, those are the ones who aren’t Jews. They’re not Israelites. They’re not Hebrews. They’ve apostasized. They’ve fallen away. And they should be kicked out of the synagogues. That’s the intent of what I think Paul is saying here. He addresses them giving him presuppositionally standing, but also insisting on standing for himself as well.

Then he talks about his innocence, of course, as I mentioned already. Let me say here a reminder of what I said once before. In Acts 23:1, where, you know, Paul—as I said, it’s really summed up in Acts 25:8. He answers for himself at one of these trials and he said, “Neither against the law of the Jews, neither against the temple, nor yet against Caesar have I offended anything at all.” Those are the three things, and he repeats them here.

But in Acts 23:1 he stood before the Sanhedrin, the council, earnestly beholding him, and he said, “Men and brethren”—same phrase—”I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.”

We want to be able to stand, if need be, before denominational leaders or church, supposed church leaders, and say that we haven’t sinned against the church. We haven’t sinned against the ordinances of God. We haven’t sinned against the civil magistrate. And if we want to do that, when we have that kind of testimony, Paul had, it requires effort to live a life with a good conscience toward these things. No one can be perfect. No one can be perfect, but we certainly can be essentially guiltless relative to, you know, rebellious acts against the church of Jesus Christ or against the civil magistrate or against the formal worship of God.

And so we want to work hard at having this same conscience that Paul had. Okay.

And then, as I said, he then asserts continuity with that church. He says, “Men and brethren, though I have committed nothing against the people or customs of our fathers, yet was I delivered prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans, who when they had examined me, would have let me go because there was no cause of death in me. He’s totally innocent. But when the Jews spake against me, I was constrained to appeal unto Caesar, not that I had ought to accuse my nation of.” That he wants them to make clear that he’s not there to accuse the Jewish nation, the Israelite Hebrew Jews. He’s not there to accuse the nation. He’s there to defend himself. He didn’t pick the fight. They picked the fight, and he’s got to defend himself. So he had to appeal to Caesar. They gave him no option.

But what the point of this again is—he shows continuity with the visible church of the Old Testament. I’m not fighting against the church, because he is the church. He is the true Jew. See, as he wrote earlier to the Christian church at Rome.

And then finally, verse 20: “For this cause therefore have I called for you. So now we get down to it—to see you and to speak with you. You know, to explain why he’s there—because, and this is the concluding statement as he says this before they respond—that for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.”

So there we get down to it—the end, the central message that Paul brings to them is that it is for the hope of Israel that he is bound with this chain. And that’s what I want to conclude with in terms of our discussion: the hope of Israel.

Let me first make one more point. I’ll make this point again that I made before we move on to the hope of Israel. We have a unique situation here in Paul’s address to these leaders of the Jewish church. It is historically unique, yet it has correlations, as I said back, to Moses and those men. It has correlations to our day and age. Anytime the church has drifted off into apostasy, it tells us what we should do and how we should, you know, presuppose that these people are pastors in the church. Bring the message of the hope of Israel. We are Israel. Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, is what he talks about. He correlates that to men of the word by the word. Paul preaches two things to these Jews, leaders of the Jewish people: that is, Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. And he does it in connection with the word of God. Those are the two elements: Jesus and the word. And that’s how he’s going to bring the transformation of the church to pass in Rome. And that’s what’s going to bring transformation of the church in America today—that same model. It’s going to be to bring the word of God to bear, the word centered on the Lord Jesus Christ. All the externals of the law, the temple, the obedience to the commandments of God, seeking for wisdom—all that stuff means nothing without the Lord Jesus Christ. They all centup on the person and work of Jesus.

The hope of Israel is Messiah.

On the other hand, to preach Jesus, to love Jesus ever so much without obedience to his revealed word also means nothing. And that’s what Dort said. We don’t care how much you say you love Jesus. If you reject the clear biblical teachings of the sovereignty of God—I mean, once you’ve studied them out, once we’ve had it explained to you—you’re a heretic. You’re going to be declared such.

See, Jesus is defined by the word. And that’s the message Paul gives. There’s a model for Israel. There’s a model for how we should deal with the institutional church today. And I would suggest also this is the same basic model as we counsel each other in the context of the church. This is how we work with each other. You want to go to somebody about a problem? You address them as men and brothers. You presuppose your, you know, your fellowship with them. You presuppose your adherence to the word that they profess, and you dialogue with them over the person of Jesus Christ, as defined by his word.

You preach hope, you know. Counseling—that’s a big thing. You want to bring hope to people, but that hope is always tied to the word and essentially to Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. And after all that explanation is done and the word’s been brought to bear and reasoned through, pronouncements and declarations are then in order. People reject the teaching of scripture—not only in order, but there’s a sense in which they’re required for us to make announcements and declarations. Winsomeness by itself is no means of revival. Okay? Declarations must come.

And so it gives us a model for how we interact with each other as well.

And then finally, I want to close by focusing on the hope of Israel. Hope is an important thing in the scriptures. Over and over and over again, hope is portrayed as an extremely important thing. And that’s rather obvious, I suppose. And mostly what I’m going to say now is obvious. But I do want to talk a little bit about this.

Paul—this is his, this is not the first time he used the phrase in terms of his apology here. He has spoken in Acts 23:6, Acts 24:15, Acts 26:7. Okay. In each of those apologies, he talks about the hope of the resurrection, the hope of Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ, and his resurrection. That is central to Paul’s message in terms of the visible church. This is the promise of Moses and the prophets. It has connection to the Old Testament. As I said before, it has continuity with it. The resurrection of the Messiah is fulfilled in Jesus. Okay?

Remember the Sadducees got all bent out of shape about the resurrection. The Pharisees affirmed resurrection. So it’s not just the affirmation of resurrection. Paul is saying the hope has been realized in Jesus Christ. It’s all come to pass now. What has been prophesied has come to pass. And to reject either resurrection or the specific resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ in dealing with death for mankind is a rejection of the hope of Israel. This was the very heart of the gospel.

This crown of hope, so to speak, is completely bound up with Paul’s presentation to the visible church.

Calvin writes, “The law and the temple did not profit the Jews anything without Christ, without the hope of the Israelites, the Messiah. says the covenant of adoption is grounded in him and the promise of salvation is in him confirmed. Neither did they doubt but that the restoring of the kingdom did depend upon the coming of Messiah. Yet even at that time their misery and decay did increase the hope and desire of him. Wherefore Paul said for good cause that he is bound for the hope of Israel whereby we be also taught that no man doth hope aright but he which looketh unto Christ and his spiritual kingdom.”

Let me just mention there again that remember what we talked about in Acts one—”When’s the restoration of the kingdom to Israel?”—and that restoration of the kingdom was focused in Messiah. And Jesus said that, well, I’m not going to talk about that, but I am going to talk about the fact that you got to be my witnesses to Jerusalem, Samaria, Judea, and the uttermost parts of the earth. And that’s all being completed now. And so Israel is being transformed through this process, and Israel will be once again seated over control of the kingdom as God finished weaving in these two elements of the church together and declares those who reject either of those truths—declares those outside of the church. And then Israel is restored, and that’s when the kingdom is restored to Israel—that’s my belief. At that time when this weaving together is complete.

Well, that was the great hope of the Old Testament, that was the hope even of the Jewish people then. But many of them missed the realization of that hope because they rejected the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we have to see that hope is founded in the word of God as made manifest in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 11 says that faith is the assurance of things hoped for. Okay? And it says that God has given us promises out there, and faith gives us hope in the present because of the promises that God gives us for the future. Let me just read a couple of quotes here. This first one is from John Owen.

“This then is the apostle’s account of faith. It is a confidence respecting things hoped for. It is a conviction respecting things not seen. A promise is made respecting future good. I am satisfied that he who promises is both able and willing to perform his promise—that’s God. I believe it. And in believing it, I have a confidence respecting the things which I hope for. A revelation is made respecting what is not evident either to my sense or my reason. I am satisfied that this revelation comes from one who cannot be deceived and who cannot deceive. I believe it, and in believing it, I have a conviction in reference to things which are not seen.

“Faith in reference to events which are past is belief of testimony with regard to them. Faith in reference to events which are future is belief of promises with regard to them. Okay. This confidence respecting things hoped for founded on a divine promise—this conviction respecting things unseen—is the grand spring of dutiful exertion and dutiful submission. It is this, and this alone, that can induce a man to persevere in doing and suffering the will of God till in due time the promised blessing is obtained.

“That it had been so in past ages is the proposition with which the gospel is about, which the apostles are about to prove.”

So the point is this statement of what faith—the relationship of faith to present hope, to a belief in the one who gives us this word, interpreting the past and predicting the future. This faith which gives us hope is in the context of the need for patience, which is what Hebrews 10 ends with. And then the demonstration of the truth of that in the lives of the saints that Hebrews 11 continues with. He’s going to go on to examples that this is exactly how it worked. People believed God’s word, thus had hope for the future, and thus had the patience that’s required for the dutiful exercise of the things God has called us to do.

Homeschooling is hard work. One gets weary. One gets impatient. What’s the answer? The answer is faith in the word of God that says the future of children that are trained by Christian parents—even you know, with all the problems and difficulties—is a good one. To do that you’ve got, first of all, responsibility, and then secondly you’ve got the promise that the seed of the word that you plant in them will not fail. The word of God prospers to what it’s sent to do. And that hope is what gives you the ability to be patient, persevering, and dutiful in the present. Okay?

Hope is given to people who are living in the world in between, so to speak. We see all these great promises given for us. As we sang, you know, “Long life and delivered from the father’s snare.” But that’s not our experience in the present. It wasn’t the experience of the men in the hall of faith, so to speak, either. But it’s not our experience that drives us. That was the point of all that long narrative on that storm. If you put your trust in your reason or your ability, if you put your trust in your experience, you’ll fail. That was the whole point. You put your trust in the word of God, and particularly in the context of that, the word of God as was mediated through Apostle Paul, the messenger for God in the context of that little microcosm of life.

So if you’re trying to work up hope or patience or endurance or duty based upon anything other than the word that tells us of the Lord Jesus Christ and the promises attached to the gospel, you’re going to fail. Okay? You’re going to suffer shipwreck. And that’s good for a Christian, because it weans us off of those kind of reliances.

God says that the hope of Israel, the hope of you—are Israel, you are the Jew, you are the Hebrew. Your hope is in Messiah and in his word. Our only hope is that—Calvin writing on this text—says the purpose of the apostle in James, or in Hebrews chapter 11, is to support what he has said: that there is need for patience. He has quoted the testimony of Habakkuk, who says, “The just shall live by faith.” He now shows what remains: that faith can no more—faith can no more be separated from patience than from itself. The sequence of his thought is this: “We shall never arrive at the goal of salvation unless we are furnished with patience. The prophet declares that the just shall live by faith, but faith calls us to far off things which we have not yet attained, and therefore necessarily includes patience in itself. The minor proposition of the syllogism is: ‘Faith is the substance, etc.’ It’s clear from this that those who think that an exact definition of faith is being here given are utterly mistaken.”

So Calvin says this is not an attempt to trace out a theology of faith or give us a definition of faith. It has to do with his argument about the need for patience, and that’s why he says these things.

Calvin says, “The spirit of God shows us hidden things, the knowledge of which cannot reach our senses. Eternal life is promised to us, but it is promised to the dead. We are told of the resurrection of the blessed, but meantime we are involved in corruption. We are declared to be just, and sin dwells within us. We hear that we’re blessed, but meantime we are overwhelmed by untold miseries. We are promised an abundance of all good things. We are often hungry and thirsty. God proclaims that he will come to us immediately, but seems to be deaf to our cries.

“What would happen to us,” Calvin said, “if we did not rely on our hope, and if our minds did not emerge above the world out of the midst of darkness through the shining word of God and by his Holy Spirit? Faith is therefore rightly called the substance of things which are still the object of hope and the evidence of things not seen.”

So that’s what this hope is all about, and that’s why it’s so essential to our lives. If you don’t want to live in complete denial of reality as a Christian, we need patience. And nowhere is that particularly evident than in a church like this, where you hear preached, you know, all the time about the golden age. And we sang about it a couple weeks ago—all those great Christmas songs. The Christ the scriptures promise over and over and over that this world will be filled with the glory of God and people will be converted. All the nations will be discipled. And yet our experience is that when you preach that kind of gospel, people leave. People have given up hope. The church has no hope relative to the future. We have hope. We have hope, you know, not because we think we can do it. We have hope in no other reason than what the word of God asserts. These things.

In the book The Puritan Hope by Ian Murray, he speaks of the need for hope in the world today. And where is it going to come from? Obviously, what we need is revival. That’s obvious, isn’t it? Reformation and revival. What accompanies revival? What accompanies the Apostle Paul is that he brings revival and transformation to the church of Israel. It is the preaching of the word with Jesus Christ at the center of the message of Paul to Israel. That’s what transforms the church, and it is that which will transform our society again.

Men who have lived in as dark times as we have waited years and years and years for revival. And at times God has brought it, but he always brings it in the context of his word.

Interesting quote here. This is a quote from a minister in Ulster who was a participant in the revival of 1859. He said this: “It were worth living 10,000 ages in obscurity and reproach to be permitted to creep forth at the expiration of that time and engage in the glorious work of the last six months of 1859.” When he got there, when that patience had seen its result finally in his lifetime of revival, he said that six months of the movement of God’s spirit was so glorious that all those years were well worth the wait.

We pray for revival and reformation. We don’t know if it’s been our time. It’s been a hundred years or more since the world has seen this kind of revival and reformation as is promised over and over again in the scriptures—the pouring out of the spirit that we see pictured in various places in the book of Acts. But hold on, have patience, have endurance, have hope, because the word of God promises it.

Spurgeon—listen to what Spurgeon said about revival. He said, “The fullness of Jesus is not changed. Then why are our works so feebly done? Pentecost—is that to be a tradition? The reforming days—are these to be memories only? I see no reason why we should not have a greater Pentecost than Peter saw and a reformation deeper in its foundations and truer in its upbuildings than all the reforms which Luther and Calvin achieved. We have the same Christ. Remember that the times are altered, but Jesus is the eternal and time touches him not.

“Our laziness puts off the work of conquest. Our self-indulgence procrastinates. Our cowardice and want of faith makes us depend upon the millennium instead of hearing the spirit’s voice today. Happy days would begin from this hour if the church would but awake and put on her strength. For in her Lord all fullness dwells. Oh spirit of God, bring back thy church to a belief in the gospel. Bring back her ministers to preach it once again with the Holy Ghost and not striving after wit and learning. Then shall we see thine arm made bare, oh God, in the eyes of all the people, and the myriad shall be brought to rally around the throne of God and the Lamb. The gospel must succeed. It shall succeed. It cannot be prevented from succeeding. A multitude that no man can number must be saved.”

I believe that’s what the scriptures teach. That’s what Spurgeon said. And I believe it. And what I’m trying to say very simply is that’s the hope of Israel. That’s our hope. And that hope will be fulfilled as we emulate the example of Paul in preaching the word, centering upon the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Winsomeness, you know, being exhibiting the Christian virtues—as important as that is—never the vehicle for revival and reformation, transformation of the church. It’s my belief, based upon what we’re reading about here in the text and in other places of scripture as well as history. It’s my belief that service, as important as Christian service is—but I don’t really ultimately believe that the way to affect revival and reformation is through deeds of love and kindness. I don’t believe that. I don’t believe that the exhibition of true Christian community in the context of the watching world is the primary vehicle and means of accomplishing revival and reformation either, as important as it is.

These things are all important—service, winsomeness, community. I don’t believe that you pray, and as a result simply of prayer, see revival and reformation. As important as prayer is, and you know, I don’t believe that ultimately correct, formal worship—as important as that is—can ultimately be seen as the great vehicle for producing the reformation, revival that we all look to as we see the hope of Israel manifested in the manifestation of Messiah, the Christ.

These are, in my way of thinking, secondary aspects of renewal. What is the primary aspect of renewal? It is the preaching of the word that centers upon the Lord Jesus Christ and his sovereignty. Plain and simple. That’s the message that Paul brought to Rome. That’s the message that transformed the church. That’s the message that led to judicial declarations from the word about who is in the church and who is out of the church.

That’s the message that came in the context of the reformers. It was the preaching of God’s word, and of course accompanied by prayer—that God’s word be preached solidly and carefully. It resulted in Christian community. It resulted in people desiring to hear that word. It resulted in deeds of love and kindness and service. It resulted in winsomeness and the demonstration of the fruits of the spirit. All those things are true, but they all come from the seed of the spirit of God moving through the word and challenging men to give up their reason, give up their ability to discern what’s right and wrong, give up all other means and vehicles for hope, save the word of Christ and save the person of Christ.

So that’s what we look for today. You know, we were meeting—Howard has kind of called us to think through what is our purpose, you know, and what things are we good at, not good at. You know, he’s kind of one of those manager types, and that’s good. And you know, I think that it’s very important for us to always remember that what I just talked about is how we began. It was through an appropriation of the word of God first. All other things came out of it. Worship came out. All these other things happened after it. But it was the word of God, Jesus, the King’s command word, insisting on his sovereignty and giving up our supposed autonomy and our ability to be sovereign. That’s what produced all the other changes.

And that’s why we’ve returned at the first of the year to trying to establish a number of classes in which that word will be understood and preached and proclaimed again. That’s why the Canons of Dort. That’s why the book of Revelation. That’s why the introductory class—to explain again the foundation for everything else that we do is the sovereignty of God, the preaching of his word, and the crown rights of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s the hope of Israel. That’s what transformed the church in Rome, and that’s what will transform our lives, this church, and the church of Jesus Christ throughout the world.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your word, and we thank you for the word of our King. We know, Lord God, that to try to understand the scriptures without Jesus is impossible, and to try to understand Jesus without his word is somehow some weird twisting and perversion that fallen man engages in to avoid the responsibility of bending the knee to him. Help us, Lord God, to be diligent in our preaching of the word through the ministry of this church and also through the men of this church as they understand it—to proclaim it, to speak of the implications of it to those that they know—to be able to be winsome, to be presupposing that men want to hear the gospel, but then also to move toward declarations that they reject the true clear preaching of your scriptures.

Lord God, help us revive us as a church that we might preach forth your word. And we pray that your spirit might fill the pulpits of this country with men who would preach that word again and that revival would come.