AD Norris - The Apostles, Their Acts and Their Words - Class 4

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1. 0:00

   The 1981 Texas Chris Philadelphian Bible School, our third period speaker, his brother Alfred Norris, and this is his fourth class on the subject, Apostles, Their Acts and their words. Brother Dan just stopped short of emulating the example of Wilbraham and Mid-Atlantic by saying our third class speaker is Brother Norris. There they called me their second class.

2. 0:33

   Speaker but it’s I’m going down now sometimes when we’re. Reading the scriptures or anxious to have a ready reference to the scriptures, it’s useful to have the kind of passage that gives us basic facts or basic history. In summary, and there are some such very useful chapters throughout the Bible. I might name these and you might like to note them. In case you need a crib at any time, there’s the 9th chapter of Nehemiah, which reviews the history of Israel up to that point very effectively.

3. 1:09

   There’s the 9th chapter of Daniel that does the same, as he leads up to the hope that God will fulfil the prophecy of the 70 years given by Jeremiah. There’s Psalm 78 and Psalms 105 and six, and in the New Testament there’s one we’ve met already in Stephen’s speech in Acts Chapter 7.

4. 1:35

   There’s one we’re just going to meet briefly in Paul’s speech at Antioch in Presidia in Acts chapter 13. There’s a briefer one in First Corinthians, chapter 10.

5. 1:48

   Some of the passages might qualify, but those I mentioned at this stage not particularly because I’m anxious to make life easy, though it does help that way as because they all have something in common. They all describe the history of God’s people from some starting point. It might be Abraham or Moses. They all make reference to God’s constant presence with them, to His mighty works, to His places of worship, to the blessings which they received, to the deliverance from their enemies. And they all finish up, or at some point introduce with the note of Israel’s unfaithfulness.

6. 2:28

   They all say, look how God good has God has been. Look how good God has been to you, and look how ungrateful you have been to him. And they all at some point come with a call to repentance. Oh, with a plea to God for mercy for the people who don’t deserve the blessings He’s.

7. 2:45

   Promised to them as Daniel, so moving they did when he finishes his own parade of the unworthiness of the people with that. Veritable storming of heaven that contains the expression Oh Lord, I beseech thee hear, oh Lord forgive, oh Lord have mercy now is that outburst of passionate feeling for God’s people is not found in the chapters before us. Now the same feeling is there that Israel is being reminded of its glorious history.

8. 3:11

   It is being told how God has so often in the past been good to it, and it is being exhorted pleaded with. Not to let those mercies go to waste. Not to repeat the followers of their forefathers. Not to add one more chapter to the history of rebellion, but to repent while there is time. And with the implication there won’t be much more time if you don’t.

9. 3:38

   So when Paul addresses the synagogue in Antioch in Pisidia, he gives a review of Israel Irish history not dissimilar from that which Stephen had given in Acts Chapter 7 and containing some elements that Peter had given in the Pentecostal speech. All designed to show God’s goodness, his power, his mercy, there in gratitude, and now the possibility of further ingratitude, sealing their faith in the sight of God for many years to come if they reject the new outpouring of His mercy in Jesus Christ.

10. 4:10

    It’s to be noticed that Paul’s pattern of preaching as he went on his missionary journeys was, where it was possible, quite uniform. He began in the synagogues. He preached first of all directly to the Jews assembled in it, and also to those God fearers or proselytes of the gate who were assembled around, who were sympathetic to the Jewish. Cause.

11. 4:34

    He believed in the uniqueness of the Jewish God, but had not yet committed themselves to the Jewish faith. He did that for as long as it was feasible for him to do so. When there wasn’t a synagogue, As for example, that wasn’t in Philippi, then he and his companions went to the Riverside and spoke to the Jewish women who resorted there.

12. 4:55

    But the intention was always the same, to go first to the Jews, through them, to the Gentiles sympathetic with the Jews. And onwards. And after that the Gentiles at large a view has sometimes been expressed. And at the end of Paul’s experience with the Jews in their synagogue in Antioch in Pisidia, he gave up that practice. The way he said, seeing you judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles, he was saying. So now, now I shall leave the Jews out. I should go direct to the Gentiles and leave you alone. Well, it’s not true.

13. 5:37

    Throughout his first and his 2nd, and where feasible, his third, missionary journalist, Paul adopted the same practice always gave the Jews. The first opportunity was with them for as long as they would let him stay with them, and only when they took the initiative of casting him out did he go and preach somewhere else. The pattern for that was set in this chapter before us. He went into the synagogue at Antioch in Presidia, and as you leaf quickly through the pages of the verses of Acts chapter 13, you discover verse 17.

14. 6:11

    God chose their fathers. He exalted the people and showed them mercy in Egypt. When they were in exile he led them out and this is a pattern of things to come About the space of 40 years he suffered their manners in the wilderness and the picture of a body of ill mannered people.

15. 6:29

    Going through the wilderness with God, bearing with them, and enduring what they were like, should have been a signal warning to anybody who’s supposed to show bad manners at that time too, about the space of 40 years. He suffered their manners in the wilderness. He destroyed certain nations, the land of Canaan, and he led them into the land of their inheritance.

16. 6:48

    And there could have been in the background of that too, the unspoken words. He would have destroyed them completely if the people have been faithful, but they weren’t. And some survived to try them and be thorns in their flesh, and tempt them as to whether they would be faithful. Then they had judges for a period exceeding 400 years, terminating in Samuel the Prophet, and at that point they asked for a king. And the very way of putting that which is quite true, that they asked for a king, conveys with the thought. It was their initiative.

17. 7:16

    And the Samuel has had been told by God They have not rejected thee. They have rejected me that I should not be king over them, that asking for a king was in itself. An act of rebellion. Not that God didn’t want them to have a it was evidently in the purpose of God that they should be given a king.

18. 7:34

    And since he chose David in the next generation to fulfil the promise that the sceptre should not depart from Judah until Shiloh come, it is obvious that God himself had had David firmly in mind, and would have given them a king in his own way. That their demand prematurely that they should have a king, like all the nations at their own request, was an act of rebellion and disobedience against him.

19. 7:56

    And they suffered. For it for again, as the scriptures tell us, he gave them a king in his anger, and took him away in his displeasure. Such was Saul, Paul’s earlier namesake, as a king of the combined United Kingdom of Israel. So Saul lasted for 40 years. He tells us then when God had removed him, which he did by the hand of Saul’s own hand on the field of battle with the Philistines verse 22, he raised up David, And again there’s the contrast They asked for a king. God raised up David.

20. 8:29

    They got what they asked for. Later, God gave them what he wanted them to have. And again there’s the contrast between what the people want and what they ought to accept when God provides him. I have found Jesse, David, the son of Jesse, And then after my own heart. And he shall do my will, And even those words He shall do my will. You can trace the difference between a willful people wanting their own way, and the Lord’s not my will but thine be done, and indeed the words of the prayer he taught his disciples. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven.

21. 9:13

    That word of prayer is not a thing to be entered into lightly. The Jews wanted God’s Kingdom. They wanted it earnestly and urgently. They wanted to be rid of their oppressors. They wanted the men of the House of David to reign over them as their Messiah. At least they wanted him to reign Father. They wanted him to reign over the nations around that they might be the head nation and not the tail. They wanted the Kingdom of God to come so that they could get what they wanted.

22. 9:41

    Headship, prosperity, fame, easy, effortless abundance. They would have found it easy to pray thy Kingdom come. Doubtless they did prayer prayer like that, but thy will be done. It’s not quite so easy, not quite so easy for us either. And indeed, when one hears the prayer, sometimes modified in the lips of brethren who say thy Kingdom come, that thy will may be done in earth as it is in heaven, Will almost gets the impression that what we are seeking for is that God should rules other than the other people should have to obey him, that we’re thinking about their being subject to God.

23. 10:19

    Rather than our own. Well, of course it has to be both. And when one prays that prayer and says, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven, we are saying, Lord, we want you to reign, we want you to reign over us. We want your will to be done, and we want to do it. We are also asking, let us start doing it now that when the time comes, we will be the readier to do it for when the Kingdom of God comes, whenever the Kingdom of God was. The supreme glory of the Israelite, or the spiritual Israelite who dwelt or will dwell in that Kingdom will not be that he gets what he wants, but he gives what God wants from an immortal frame where God’s glory covers the earth as the waters cover the sea.

24. 11:10

    So David started in a good way, with all his faults. And compressing the time between David and the day in which Paul was speaking, Paul goes straight to Jesus and said of this man’s seed. The man who was raised up to do God’s will of this man’s seed hath God according to his promise, raised to Israel as Saviour.

25. 11:30

    Jesus and the very word Saviour conjures up their need. David had saved them from their enemies. It was David, and God chose and not fallen. They chose who delivered them from the Philistines. And caused the borders of Israel to extend, broadly speaking, to the ancient promises. He was the man chosen by God to be their deliverer. God’s done it again.

26. 11:52

    Of this man seed God hath raised up Jesus to be your Saviour. The words to Joseph come back into our memory. Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. And there is a wide difference of thinking between save his people from their enemies, they can do that too and save his people from their sins, which starts inside, creates A purified and perjured person and makes that person. Fit to inherit the Kingdom of his glory. So God raised up for Israel a Saviour, Jesus Christ, and that’s why Paul says.

27. 12:30

    Jesus was introduced to the people and consistently remain true to the introduction by the words that they should be baptized with the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins such as John had preached. In verse 24, the message to Israel was not rejoice. The Kingdom of God is at hand, though it could be for the right kind of Israelite, it was repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.

28. 12:54

    And that’s even though repentance doesn’t mean primarily being sorry for specific wrongdoings. But does mean turning one’s whole way of life and going in a quite different direction, a change of mind. Yet that was just what they had needed throughout their histories. Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand. You’ll never get it as you are, as you are. You’re self seeking, proud, self indulgent, arrogant and rebellious.

29. 13:17

    You have to change all that. Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand. But however little they in the earliest stages saw their baptism with John’s baptism as being a burial of an old man, of the rising from that waters, of a new man who should live in newness of life, and however late it was before, that, was expressed in its full form in the 6th. Chapter of Romans.

30. 13:40

    Yet the idea was there that baptism was. Passing through water from an old state to a new state, as surely as Noah’s family had passed from the Ark into the new world, as surely as Israel had passed over the Red Sea into their place of covenant making with God as surely as they passed over the Jordan. Into the promised land.

31. 13:58

    So was baptism, the like figure, saving us, going down, arising again, renewed, Reformed, reborn. So John introduced. Jesus to the people. Not at first. As one who would bring glory and power, but one who was only able to deal with those who would show repentance. Of course the Lord himself carried it on to when John was cast into prison, Jesus began to preach, saying repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand, just as John had done, and when the apostles were sent about their work. Whereas they were told in the marked record to preach the Gospel and in Matthew to teach all nations, in Luke they were told that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his nation among all nations beginning at Jerusalem. So when Paul speaks to the Jews of Pisidian Antioch and introduces the work of Jesus with the prelude of John saying repent and be baptized.

32. 14:58

    He is preparing the way for the change of mind which these Jews too are going to need, if they will take advantage of the work the Lord has done for them. And so the appeal comes in verse 26, Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham. And whosoever among you feareth, God to you is the word of this salvation sent. And I do not know whether the Jews of Antioch in Pisido were sufficiently well acquainted with the detail of John’s preaching to remember that John had said something bearing upon that, very importantly during his preaching. But he had, and they might have known. For he had said.

33. 15:38

    Think not to say within yourselves, we have Abraham to our father. For God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham, men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham. Be true to your calling. Don’t brag about it, don’t boast or rejoice in it, but make it real in your repentant, faithful, trusting lives. Because he says, if you do, you’ll be behaving differently and better from the way in which the Jews of Jerusalem behaved when they got the same message.

34. 16:09

    Do you know what they did? Verse 27. They that dwell in Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him. And though they found no cause of death in him, yet desired, they pilot that he should be slain. And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre. But God raised him from the dead. It’s very like what Peter said to the Jews of Jerusalem themselves.

35. 16:45

    But there they were, the guilty parties, and there they could be directly accused. God hath raised up Jesus, whom ye have crucified, and made him both Lord and Christ. They could be pricked in their hearts because they were at first hand guilty parties. But the Jews of Antioch, the Jews of everywhere else, had to make up their minds whether they would confirm the guilt and become accessories after the fact. Or whether they would repudiate the guilt and undergo their own part in a repentance of heart, and reject what the Jews of Jerusalem had done.

36. 17:18

    Though it’s an interesting problem presented by those words. They that dwell at Jerusalem because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him, and when they had fulfilled all things that were written of him. So two things conspired together. One was the fact that the people did not understand or would not receive what was true about the work of Jesus for him, and therefore killed him because they hated him. The other is that God had always intended that the Lord Jesus Christ should die for our sins, and that they therefore fulfilled the purpose of God in their act of hatred. There were at once rebels and collaborators they rejected, but they brought about.

37. 18:07

    They were simple in what they did, But had they not done it, then the purpose of God could not in that way have been achieved. It was the same in Peter’s speech. I want that in ignorance he did it, as did also your rulers. When they killed the Prince of life and desired A murderer to be granted to them, they were unwittingly bringing about the fulfilment of God’s purpose.

38. 18:31

    But they were not the better men for it. What they did was guilty. It ought not to have been done in that way. And we get later in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians that we speak the hidden wisdom of God in a mystery which none of the Princess of this world knew.

39. 18:46

    For had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. So again, in their ignorance they brought God’s purpose about in what they did. Sinfully they achieved that which had to be done, for the Lord Jesus Christ must, while dying willingly, have someone to put him to death. And they were the guilty Jews anyway. Paul himself was a little like that in the days of his unbelief.

40. 19:13

    He had caused Stephen to be murdered and caused the flock to be scattered. And because he knew him not and didn’t realize what he was achieving, the multi Jews went abroad and preached the gospel in Samaria and then in Antioch and in Cyprus. He too, because he knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets had played his part in achieving God’s purpose in spite of himself, though those days were long past. And now he obeyed willingly, readily. There’s a word of deep reproach in his words, and though they found no cause of death in him.

41. 19:47

    Yet desired they pilot that he should be slain. They could think of no adequate reason why he should be slain. Their effort to trump up false witnesses to give what seemed to be adequate reasons have failed. They’re saddling him with the charge of saying that he was Christ, the son of the living.

42. 20:07

    God had brought the desired result, but it was true and not false. That was no crime. They were the deeper in their guilt for killing him for that cause than they would have been for any other. And then when they had found a reason for killing him, or at least an excuse, they had to go to the Romans, the hated Romans, the oppressors, the people whom they would gladly have been rid of without a word of regret, deed, conquerors of their people. But they went to Pilot, and they said, Will you please arrange to have this Jew of ours killed?

43. 20:41

    He claims to be our king, And anything more incongruous than that you can’t imagine. And Pilot very rightly asked, shall I crucify your king, perhaps in his own humiliation, seeking to wring from them the confession they gave him, however reluctantly? We have no king. But Caesar, they said. And so in denying their deliverer, they confirmed themselves in bondage.

44. 21:07

    We won’t have him. We’d rather have Rome. So deep was their guilt, though they found no cause of death in him, yet desired that pilot of all people that he should be slain. And when pilot didn’t want to do it, they pressed their own iniquity further and deepened their degradation when they said pilot.

45. 21:30

    If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar’s friend. If you don’t get him crucified, we’ll tell Caesar about you, thereby blackmailing the Roman ruler into doing the evil deed they did. When sometimes, and it happened in my experience quite recently, Jews of today say that it was not the Jews who crucified Jesus, it was the Romans.

46. 21:56

    The answer is, of course it was the Romans as far as the actual deed was concerned. But the Romans would never have done such a thing, would never have thought of doing such a thing, resisting to the idea of doing such a thing, until they were compelled into it by the rebellion of the chosen People.

47. 22:12

    And so Paul brings home to Jews living in the dispersion in a foreign country what their fellow Jews living in their native land had done, and invites a decision about it. The decision supported by the fact that God raised Jesus from the dead, that he was seen for many days, and those who went with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, That he was in fact the fulfillment of the promises made to the Father.

48. 22:35

    That there could be no realization of the promises made to faithful Abraham, unless this the seed per excellence had been raised and raised up, and now is in a position to bring about the blessing which had been promised to Abraham and his seed, and through Abraham and his seed. So there we have the sure mercies of David. There we have the promise of the king, who will reign upon the throne of David, as the Angel had said to Mary. For the Lord was conceived.

49. 23:02

    And now we have the same words used by Peter on the Pentecost speech, to the same effect that David had prophesied that God would not leave somebody’s soul in hell. Neither would he let that somebody see corruption. And Paul bringing the point home with no actual tomb to point to, gives the same message. David, after he had served his generation, fell on sleep and was laid in the grave and saw corruption. But he whom God raised from the dead saw no corruption. So there you have Jesus.

50. 23:36

    He is the one who will do the saving he was promised to do. He will provide you with blessings which your own law could never have provided. He will justify you through all those things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. And that letters be elaborated in the letters of the Galatians. And that to the Romans, and brought out in its fullness in the letter to the Hebrews, brings out the contrast between the law in which they trusted, and the Lord, who now had come. All before him was Shadow.

51. 24:08

    Sacrifice Priesthood, Tabernacle Temple. Circumcision, ritual law, cleanness, and uncleanness, although they had some merit in living their ordinary daily lives and made them perhaps a healthy nation, were all primarily intended to point to a real deliverance, A genuine righteousness, a sanctification before God, a cleansing, a perfecting. And the Lord Moses says Paul here as emphatically as the letter to the Hebrews will say it later, could not do that thing.

52. 24:43

    Can’t do it now. So please, Jews of Antioch, wake up to your opportunities while honouring the memory of him who has given you so much to this character completion, and walk out of the pattern of Abraham. Follow the way of faith and become baptized into the Lord Jesus if we had. Modern facilities available to us from those days.

53. 25:09

    We could have videotapes of Paul in the synagogue Antioch and the camera could flash from Paul in his Zealand in his appeal to the assemble company and see the expressions on their faces. We see it done, haven’t we? On less important occasions like this, like somebody crying because her husband is being beaten in a tennis match, but not that.

54. 25:34

    This is quite different. If Paul had turned away from if the camera had turned away from that face of Paul and looked at the audience, I wonder what he would have seen, what it’s like wondering what Stephen saw when reciting that beautiful to this moment Will I look? Decided not to recite it.

55. 25:55

    And looking at that, people said he’s stiff, necked and uncircumcised and told them that he knew what they were like. Paul does it. Here you can be justified, he says in verse 39, from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest that come upon you, which is spoken in the prophets. Behold, ye despise us, and wonder and perish. For I work a work in your days, a work which you shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you. And what was the outcome?

56. 26:34

    It would seem that while not gnashing upon him with their teeth and leading him out to his stone, not yet the Jews as a whole were unmoved by his appeal. It was somebody else who turned, and when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them. The next Sabbath the Jews went away, perhaps saying, We will hear the again of this matter at the best. But Gentiles who had received not the Law of Moses as their guide in life, with its circumcision and all but a respect for the God who was there honoured, could see more clearly with their unfettered gaze what Paul was preaching when he put before them Jesus.

57. 27:15

    And they said, we want to hear more of this. And they were allowed to. The synagogue was still open, but only just to further preaching by Paul. Now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews now, and the religious proselytes too, followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, urged them to continue in the grace of God. Jews had divided themselves.

58. 27:38

    Some were against, some were thinking it over, some were following to learn more, together with Gentiles and proselytes. And the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God. But when the Jews saw the multitude, they were filled with envy and speak against those things which were spoken by Paul. When they saw the multitude, they were filled with envy and spoke against.

59. 28:06

    If only they had all had the spirit of Barnabas, who came and saw the multitude following the way, and was glad because it was a good man, If only they had been able to remove the pride of nation from their hearts, and rejoice that others were coming to God. If only they had been able to hear the words of the Lord, other sheep I have, which are not of this flock, this flock, they must come together and be one full one shepherd, and receive it with pleasure, because blessing of all nations are beginning how much better things would have been for them. But they saw a big multitude, bigger than they had ever assembled in their synagogues or around them, coming to hear Paul.

60. 28:47

    They saw the word of God, based indeed upon their scriptures being preached to a multitude who wasn’t listening to them, and they saw it being done without their help. They saw the intermediary act of the Jews being abolished by direct preaching to Gentiles who come with boldness before the throne of grace, as well as any believing Jew could do.

61. 29:05

    And they didn’t like it. Their privilege was being eroded and so they spoke against the things which were spoken by Paul. And it was at that point that Paul said it was necessary that the word of God should first be preached unto you, But seeing you put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles, For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee for a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldst be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.

62. 29:35

    And naturally enough, when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed, and the word of God was published throughout all the region. But the Jews sought to do to Paul what they had done to Stephen, what they had done to Jesus, and choosing the means at hand, sought to rid them of their lives.

63. 30:00

    But the Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women and the chief men of the city and raised a persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them out of their coasts. But they shook off the dust of their feet against them and came to econium, and the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. We can take that preaching in the synagogue at Antioch as being a pattern of the kind of way that Paul approached the Jews, the kind of way in which they then became divided into some, doubtless few, who would follow him, and many more who would turn aside.

64. 30:39

    How the attitudes polarized under the influence of the unbelieving Jews and Paul was then expelled or cast out or stoned and left for dead. As we read through the Acts of the Apostles, we discover what seems at first sight to be quite numerous examples of Paul’s sufferings in persecution at the hands, almost always at the hands, or because of the activities of the Jews to whom he preached.

65. 31:08

    There was this being cast out. There was a stoning of Zeaconium. There were lines in weight against him as his missionary journeys took their course. There was the enlisting of Roman rulers against him. But when we look at that considerable list of sufferings in the Acts of the Apostles, it’s timely to remember that is not written to be a catalogue of false afflictions.

66. 31:35

    And that if the hall had been told, we would have known a lot more about Paul’s afflictions than we do. And we do know a lot more than Acts would tell us. Because under a certain provocation, Paul himself has told us it was during his third missionary journey, when there was still suffering to come, that he gave us the most comprehensive list we have. And you might get a look at it in the second letter to the Corinthians,

67. 32:09

    Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 11, verse 21. I speak as concerning reproach, as though we had been weak. Howbeit wherein soever any is bold I speak foolishly, I am bold. Also are the Hebrews. So am I. Are there Israelites? So am I. Are there the seed of Abraham? These are false ministers of the gospel. So am I.

68. 32:35

    Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool. I am more now. See the list in Labour’s more abundant in stripes above Measure in prisons, more frequent in deaths. OFT of the use five times received our forces stripes, save one. We don’t have a categorical description of any one. Of those five times thrice Was I beaten with rods.

69. 33:00

    I only know of one once. Was I stoned? That one is recorded. Twice I suffered shipwreck. There isn’t a word about those. For the real shipwreck to come isn’t yet happened, and nice. And today have I been in the deep. That too is new to us. In journeyings, often in perils of waters.

70. 33:18

    I don’t know those either. In perils of robbers? No, I get that in perils by my own countrymen. Plenty of those. But there are doubtless more in perils by the heathens, Some of those in perils in the city, Yes, in perils in the wilderness. I can’t recall the description of them in the Acts.

71. 33:34

    In perils in the sea? No, not yet. In perils amongst false brethren, Yes to some of that. In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often in hunger and thirst, in fastings often in cold and nakedness. Beside those things that are without, there is that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.

72. 33:52

    Well, that’s a very comprehensive list. Perhaps it isn’t comprehensive. It’s a very detailed list compared with this we have in the ACT. It details many, many more sufferings that Paul endured in the service of his master, and we are left to marvel that he could have survived those and still been available to write this letter Act is not there to tell us about Paul’s afflictions. It does so, incidentally, as they arise in the course of his ministry.

73. 34:17

    But for Paul’s own afflictions in the service of his Lord, we need that which was dragged out of him in his writings. By the foolish boastings of those who denied to him the claim to be an apostle of the Lord, we move away. Then from the second, the first missionary journey to its close, we find Paul and Barnabas going back to their centre of operations at Antioch in Syria, and there they report to the community verse 26. And thence they sailed to Antioch, from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God. That you remember is when they laid their hands upon them and sent them away.

74. 34:57

    When the first missionary journey started, they went back to those who had brought blessing upon them, and reported to them, from whence they had been commended, to the grace of God for the work that they had fulfilled. And when they were coming to gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles.

75. 35:15

    And they abode long time with the disciples. But now one of the earliest serious problems which was to impede the work of Paul, came right to the surface. We read the 1st 6 verses to introduce this section of the talk. There were those who came from Jerusalem to Antioch and said there Gentiles aren’t believers unless their men focus circumcised.

76. 35:43

    So Antioch troubled by this or seeking for the definition. Sent Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem to inquiry into the matter, and when they got there a council was assembled and there were certainly some Jews of Paris, except where the true believers badly informed, or some of these grievous wolves in sheep clothing that entered into the pool.

77. 36:02

    It’s hard to say. There were plenty of those around as Paul’s work went on, and they said it was necessary to circumcise the Gentiles and command them to keep the Law of Moses. So now it came up for authoritative definition. Was it necessary or wasn’t it? It had apparently not been necessary in Antioch.

78. 36:22

    When those who went from Jerusalem preached the Gospel, nothing is said of it. But now the Judaizers are at work. The matter is coming to a crisis. Do Gentiles have to become Jews before they can become Christians? That was the question much reasoning to and fro was offered. The crisis point was reached when that ever generous hearted Simon Peter stood up and said, you know, that it pleased God that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of God. That’s another good man, a man who must have found it much more difficult to retreat into the background than one of us would, but who did it gladly, who saw that court assembled and still haven’t testified.

79. 37:07

    I was given the key to open the door to the Gentiles. Paul has now told you that the door of faith has been opened to Gentiles at large. It was my task, under God’s hand to start the work. I’m very glad to see it going on. No move with envy. No. Paul is a usurper, taking my job off me, stealing the limelight where it should have been left to me. None of that.

80. 37:34

    It pleased God to do this. I’m glad to have done it. The door is now wide open through the work of this man who is with you now. Don’t hinder his work. Don’t spoil it by laying a yoke upon the Gentiles which neither we nor our fathers were able to bear.

81. 37:53

    And the man who was called the first of the apostles, the man who was given the keys of the Kingdom of heaven, stood up as a witness in that court under James’s presidency. And James used his witness to bring the court to a doubtless divinely guided decision, when he said Simeon hath declared and to disagree the words of the province.

82. 38:14

    And this is my judgement. So the judgement which James gave, and which was submitted for the endorsement of the assembled company Apostles and Elders of the Light, was that we trouble, not the Gentiles. That we don’t attempt to do the work of Moses for him, the old work, the misunderstood work of Moses for him. For in every city there are Jews still doing that, that we preach the true gospel to them, and lay no further burden upon them than these necessary things.

83. 38:43

    And as is repeated at least twice in this chapter, the necessary things which the Council at Jerusalem decided under God’s hand should be after the Gentiles were that they should abstain from meat suffered unto idols. And from things strangled, and from blood and from fornication, apart from that they were free, Those things they must be cancelled not to engage in. Now there arises the interesting point. Were those four minor public pill sugaring concessions to make the Jews a little happier when Gentiles were admitted into the faith?

84. 39:27

    Well, they asked to take a number of cosmetic measures. It would make it easier for Jews to receive gentiles because they didn’t eat blood, or they didn’t eat meat supper unto idols, or they didn’t eat birds that being strangled and not have their blood poured out, or they didn’t engage in fornication.

85. 39:49

    I don’t think that was the reason. And one good ground for being fairly sure that it was not the reason, is that fornication is included in the list. Because if anything is utterly self-evident, it is that the whole teaching of God demands that those who are true to him to remain chaste and pure and only and faithful in their unmarried and married lives, to keep clear of fornication, is so obvious, however difficult it might be, the love would hardly have been laid. There’s a cosmetic condition upon Gentiles to make them more reconcilable to Jews, and because of that, one has to think of another reason why these obligations were laid upon the Gentiles.

86. 40:35

    Remember them again. Don’t eat meat offered unto idols, don’t eat things strangled, don’t eat blood, and don’t be guilty of fornication. I think we can solve the question, or at least bring it nearer to solution, by concentrating upon the not eating meat offered unto idols. Why shouldn’t they least offered unto idols? There is not, as far as I know, a specific commandment in the law that they shouldn’t. Then why shouldn’t they?

87. 41:04

    For the same reason. I would imagine, as Daniel purpose in his heart, that he would not be defiled by King Nebuchadnezzar’s meat when that was appointed to him and his three friends in the court of Babylon, where Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azaraya, with good Jewish names were invited to become good Chaldeans, Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Mesh, and Nevanigo, by eating the food which Nebuchadnezzar put before them, the King’s meat, the King’s dedicated meat, the meat the Chaldeans ET meet often unto idols.

88. 41:35

    I should think so, and I would think Daniel refused because he was not going to be compromised with things, Chaldea. He was going to make it plain to all concerned that he was a seven of the one true God and no other. That was why he wouldn’t eat the King’s meat, I believe.

89. 41:51

    Now take the case of the Gentiles. Meat, often unto idols, was just meat, possibly better meat than you’d buy if it hadn’t been maybe a very good food. Was it totally irreconciled with the fate hammers to touch it with their lips? No, it wasn’t that. Because when Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians, he said whatsoever is sold in the butcher’s shops.

90. 42:12

    Eat asking no question for conscience sake. If it happens to have been often unto idols, you don’t know. It makes a difference. All you bought is meat. It’s quite all right to eat it, don’t ask. On the other hand, if you go to a feast which has been laid on by somebody who is not of the faith, and you’re disposed to accept his invitation, eat whatever is put in front of you.

91. 42:34

    Don’t ask questions. It’s all right. It won’t do you any harm. Don’t worry about where it’s been. But if somebody says to you this hath been open unto idols, then don’t touch it, for conscience sake, Not only your own, but the conscience of the one who told you. Now that, I think, sets the seal for the reasoning. And the reasoning is when you accept the faith in the environment of gentile paganism, it must be plain to all that you’ve given up your paganism.

92. 43:02

    You have nothing more to do with it. You don’t take pleasure in eating dedicated foods. If anybody tells you it’s been dedicated, you say, I don’t believe in that God anymore. I won’t touch it. Food is just. Food to you till somebody tells you it’s been dedicated. Then it’s forbidden food because you mustn’t seem to compromise with the worship of the idol.

93. 43:23

    So there is Paul interpreting one of these four instructions. Don’t eat, meet other than two idols. If somebody tells you it is, don’t bother to inquire if you don’t know, because if you do, that man will say you can be a Christian and an idol worshiper at the same time, and you must make it plain that you can’t. Now I think that fornication in this context comes into the same category that the evil deeds done in heathen temples with temple prostitutes, male and female. Well, the things that they were told to keep quite clear of them must be none of this for you.

94. 43:57

    So steer clear of sanctified ritual fornication seems to me to be the basic thing laid upon them as a duty here. All other kinds as well, of course they must keep clear of, but that as I say, we’re self-evident. This was the one they needed to be told about. And from that I have to interpolate slightly and suggest that there were ritual libations of blood and ritual strangulations of birds, that all four of them are instructions to abstain from any possible supposed contamination with the idolatry they have left behind.

95. 44:29

    Or, in a nutshell, I read James’s and the church’s pronouncement to mean gentiles do not need to be Jews the most, but they will stop being pagans. So they don’t need to keep the law, but they do need to keep away from the evil customs that would defile and compromise them.

96. 44:48

    We finish the experience of the first missionary journey and the preparation for the next, by considering what happened when they went back to Antioch, Paul, and Barnabas after their discussion with the Church there, and the very satisfactory conclusion to which it LED Acts chapter 15, verse 30. So when they were dismissed, they came to Antioch, and when they had gathered the multitude together they delivered the epistle which, when they had read it, they rejoiced for the consolation, and Judas and Silas being prophets also themselves.

97. 45:22

    Two who had gone with Paul and Barnabas back to Antioch from Jerusalem, Judas and Silas, being themselves prophets, exhorted the brethren with many words, and confirmed them. And after they had tallied their space, they were let go in peace from the brethren unto the Apostles, notwithstanding it pleased Silas to abide there still.

98. 45:41

    Paul also and Barnabas continued in Antioch, teaching and preaching the word of the Lord, with many others also. And some days after Paul said unto Barnabas, let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we preach the word of the Lord, and see how they do. And Barnabas was determined to take with the mark John, whose surname was Mark.

99. 46:03

    But Paul thought it not good to take him with them, who departed, who withdrew from the work in Pamphaglia, and went not with them to the work. And the contention was so sharp between them that they parted asunder one from the other. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed unto Cyprus. And Paul chose Silas and departed, being recommended by the brethren to the grace of God.

100. 46:26

     And he went through Celia and Cilicia, confirming the churches. What a sad thing that was, wasn’t it? What an unseemly quarrel between 2 long standing friends over the person of John Mark. Paul said. We’re not having him, Bolivar said. And I’m not leaving him. And they quarrelled so sharply that they went in opposite directions, or at least in different directions.

101. 46:56

     Is that how you read it? I do hope not. I don’t think it was like that. There are situations which arise in life when it’s right for me to do this, and it’s right for you to do that. But we can’t do it together, because if we did it together, my doing this would be spoiled and so would you are doing that. It was like that with Paul and Barnabas and John Mark. Paul was quite right.

102. 47:27

     He couldn’t have been wrong in making the decision that Mark was not suitable at this time to go with them to the work. He wouldn’t have been able to bear his weight. Mark had a temperament that needed steel in it, but Barnabas said I’m his uncle if that’s the relationship. The English version says Sister’s son Mark to Barnabas in the letter to the Colossians. I can’t leave him in the lurch.

103. 47:53

     He needs me. Something has got to be done to help this man. And they were both right. Paul couldn’t take Mark Barnabas being the Barnabas. He was the son of consolation, always helping the lame dog. Barnabas couldn’t leave him and the contention was so sharp. Means, I think, no more than that. The difference of outlook was so acute that they couldn’t do it together and they parted. I am persuaded with that good Christian humour and mutual forbearance which became two such men. And Barnabas said with the reluctance, Well, goodbye Paul. I have to go with Mark.

104. 48:33

     May it go well with you on your journey. And Paul said to Barnabas, I’m sorry to lose you Barnabas. We’ve worked well together, but I see Mark’s need go and give him all the help you can. I think they said things like that to each other. And Barnabas did the sensible thing. He was a man of Cyprus.

105. 48:51

     You’d noticed that, hadn’t you? He was taking him home to his own home country. But Mark was going to go amongst friends they had believing friends too. In Cyprus by now they’ve had a successful journey there. Mark could be sequestered and kept in good company, free from the ragings of the world around, until it was a different than the better than the more reliable Mark.

106. 49:12

     And it worked. Barnabas, the backroom boy, did the same good job again, as he’d always done before, with the money for the widows, with the sponsoring of Saul, with the calling of salt and testers, with taking the second place in the first missionary journey. He did it again, withdrew from the public eye and took Mark back with him to Cyprus.

107. 49:34

     And it’s time to be able to report that. That same Letters of the Colossians which tells us that Mark is sister son to Barnabas, implies a compliment to Barnabas in saying if Mark come to you, receive him, and perhaps the words touching whom you receive commandments might mean and I’ve told you the needs he has and you’ll know how to treat him.

108. 49:54

     And it’s a mark of the success of Barnabas work too, that later we have Peter calling Mark my son, regarding him as a profitable worker together with him when Paul perhaps is no longer at large. One of us did the last good job we know about in taking Mark to Cyprus and bringing him up to be a strong man in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

109. 50:16

     We’ve almost lost one of us now, save once, and not only briefly. We don’t hear from more about him again, and when we do it still some years later, Paul is still active and obviously so is Barnabas. It’s during the third missionary journey, and it’s in the first letter to the Corinthians where Paul is talking about the contrast between himself and, say, Peter and James and John with their wives.

110. 50:39

     He Paul living a bachelor life or an effective bachelor life as he preached his gospel. He says, I only and Barnabas have we not part of a bare working, so contact wasn’t lost. But one of us went on with it is to us unseen. Work went on successfully serving the Lord, and whatever we have lost to sight, we can have no doubt no failure of confidence that somewhere written large and underscored in the book of life is the name of Joseph, surnamed by the apostles, the Son of consolation.