The Imperative of our calling from Acts 4:12

 Acts 4:12 - And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

I absolutely love that verse.  It becomes even more beautiful when you open it up to its broader context and read the first 3 chapters of the book of Acts.  As you see Peter's boldness before the one group whom we would have expected to have intimidated him.  He proclaims to the Sanhedrin there that it is Jesus who is the truth and the life and the way.  In Him and Him alone is salvation.

With verse 12 (among others) Peter slams the door to the universalist thought that all paths lead to God.  There is no other Name under heaven by which anyone is ever saved.  Only through Christ!  And Christ is defined as the Stone that the builders rejected, that God has made Him the cornerstone.

In other words, God has built His true church upon the Cornerstone of Jesus Christ.  The Biblical Christ is the only Christ in whom lies salvation.  We do not get to define who Christ is to us, He is who He is and who He is is revealed in Scripture.

However, because this is such an amazing Scripture that declares the Sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ unto salvation... I think we may overlook the imperative that is contained there as well.  There is an imperative in verse 12 as well.  Jesus isn’t just the Name by which we can be saved… He isn’t just the Name by which we should be saved… He is FAR more than that…

No, Jesus is the Name by which we MUST be saved.  People MUST be saved and that salvation only comes through Jesus Christ!  Solus Christus!  Through Christ alone!

We need, desperately, to see the urgency and imperative nature of the need for salvation that Peter makes clear in our text.

People must be saved.  It is the basic need of all mankind that they be reconciled to the God whom they've sinned against.  It is as necessary as oxygen is to the lungs, but sadly many many are dying every day without even so much as having heard of the Jesus who has died to save filthy rotten wretched sinful people.  No one is too sinful to be saved by the blood of Christ.  We are called to go and preach the Gospel.  God has ordained that through the foolishness of preaching (1 Corinthians 1:18) He makes His Word known to the lost and dying world, dead in their trespasses.

Let us see the necessity of salvation and be diligent to preach the Gospel in boldness no matter what persecution may come.  Further, let us seek to make persecution a means by which our trust in Christ grows stronger and the message of the Gospel is spread to every corner of the world.

God's grace in saving a life...

I post a great deal of videos and other links and such to pro-life materials.  Trying to educate people and get the word out to them that God creates life and that abortion is most definitely murder.  As a result of course I receive, as many of you do who've taken up this mantle as well, many angry criticisms to my inbox complaining that I have no right to say such and that I am anti-women's rights and a bunch of other non-sense.

Well, as many of you know, there are times when you just feel like you absolutely want to just give up.  You feel like nothing you are doing is accomplishing anything and you are just spinning your wheels.

I've been there, then one day about 2 years ago I received an email from a young lady I had known several years prior but had since lost contact.  To give you some background, she was a teenager when I had last been around her, some of her friends attended youth group at the church where I was youth pastor and she didn't come there regularly (she had a different church home) but she had come to a few of the discipleship events we had done. So I knew her as an acquaintance.

Here is the email.

"I wanted to share something with you that really touched me. I recently found out i was pregnant and am only 19. I was not planning on having a baby or even making that a part of my life. I had college and to much fun on my hands or so i thought to be bringing a baby into the world. My parents have raised me in church and I know abortion is wrong but i also knew it was my choice. I thought very hard and actually considered abortion and cried many nights over what to do. Ive been noticing you publishing things on facebook about abortion here lately and watched the video you published today, i really believe that was meant for me from God..to show me what i need to do and follow him. God works wonders and i wanted to share what you and God have helped me with without you even knowing."

I haven't heard much from her in the last year or so, but I do know that she DID give birth to a happy, healthy baby boy and they are doing very well.

So the encouragement to you brethren is to keep fighting the good fight.  Keep proclaiming truth, keep proclaiming the Gospel, and keep doing so in love.

Every time I think about that child I can't help but be humbled at how God used what I thought was not accomplishing anything at all to save a life.  By God's grace, that child is alive and that mother avoided that sin and I am humbled and honored that God would use me and allow me to have any part of that at all.

If you are feeling that what you are doing is pointless... don't give up... press deeper into the grace of Christ and lean more upon His understanding.  His grace is sufficient.  His Word, His truth, will NOT return void without accomplishing what He sends it to do.

If you have a similar story, I'd love to hear it.  Feel free to post it in the comments section below!

Soli Deo Gloria,
j

Favorite Gospel Tract

I'm putting together this list to be of assistance to those who are just getting their feet wet in actively going out and sharing the Gospel.  

If you would assist me by doing the following: 

Post your favorite tract and a link to where it can be ordered from.  Please do not just put the source you prefer to get your tract supply from but specifically the tracts that you feel are most likely to be taken by the recipients.

I will send a copy of Mike Sarkissian's book "Before God: The Biblical Doctrine of Prayer" to the person whose favorite tract I purchase for an upcoming evangelism outreach.

Pastor's Bookshelf: Slave by John MacArthur

We exist to glorify and serve the Risen King of Kings, the Lord Jesus Christ.  He is not here to serve our needs.  What has been lost from the true rendering of the Greek word 'doulos' as 'slave' instead of what we commonly see it rendered as 'servant'?

John MacArthur delivers yet another powerful literary work to help Christians understand exactly what is expected of them and why Christ used the imagery of a slave/master relationship at the same time the language of Christians being His adopted children.  It would seem that much has been lost, by and large, by forgetting this important relational understanding.

I understand that "slave" carries a horrid meaning in America because of the atrocities committed here in the last 3+ centuries, but the early church seemed to have a right understanding of the Christians call to be a slave of Christ and we need to re-embrace that same meaning and try to get beyond the stigma with the word.

"Like slaves we are to be fully devoted to our Master alone."(P.48)  To deny Christ's Lordship is to declare mutiny against Jesus Himself.  Those who are offended at the designation of themselves, as Christians, as slaves to Christ, should examine themselves to see whether it is the American connotation of the word 'slave' that troubles them or the fact that being Christ's slave demands death to self and a forfeiture of seeking my desires first.

"Those unwilling to give up everything to follow [Christ] are not worthy of Him."(P.80)  If we don't want to submit to Christ, we've never submitted to Him to begin with.

Further, we see the wroth of Christ to be our Master and His trustworthy kindness as such when held against the back drop of our former master that we has from birth.  The most "devastating and degenerating power ever to afflict the human race..." (P.120) sin.

Our slavery to sin was one of a cruel master and our broken will readily submitted to him in complete and intentional opposition to God.  And yet God reached out in grace and sent Christ to save us... rebellious wretches... anyway.  But our blessed relationship to our Redeemer doesn't end with slavery alonie.  Christ has not only purchased us, but through His atonement God has adopted us and made us His child!

Amazing Grace!  Gladly then will I therefore bear the title of "slave" for and to Christ my Lord!

Can there be Apostles today?

Acts 1:21-26 - “Therefore it is necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us—  22 beginning with the baptism of John until the day that He was taken up from us—one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection.”  23 So they put forward two men, Joseph called Barsabbas (who was also called Justus), and Matthias.  24 And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all men, show which one of these two You have chosen  25 to occupy this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.”  26 And they drew lots for them, and the lot fell to Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles.

Judas is gone.  Christ has ascended and the Disciples are still waiting obediently for the Holy Spirit to come.  The next thing that needed to be taken care of was the selection of a replacement for Judas.

A 12th Apostle needed to be appointed. 

v21-22 - “Therefore it is necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us—  22 beginning with the baptism of John until the day that He was taken up from us—one of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection.”

Following the guidelines of Scripture, Peter stands and sets out the requirements to be an Apostle.  He lays out 3 basic criteria:

1.) They had to have been “of the men” who had accompanied them all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out amongst them.

The first stipulation was that the person had to be a person who had seen what the other Apostles had seen.  So from the baptism of Jesus by John, Peter says, and forward, the person had to have been in that group of Jesus’ followers for the three years of His public ministry.

Now, the reason for that was of course because of what they were charged with doing.  They were charged with starting churches and founding them on the truths of the Gospel and so they had to have seen it firsthand to best do that.

Second, they had to have been an eye-witness of the resurrection.
Verse 22 says that one of those men must now join them, replacing Judas to be the witness of the resurrection.

You see they were to be first hand witnesses of the resurrection which makes sense because the resurrection is the central theme of our faith!  I mean, Paul said if there is no resurrection then we have no hope and all our worship is in vain!

1 Corinthians 15:13-19 - But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised;  14 and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.  15 Moreover we are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified against God that He raised Christ, whom He did not raise, if in fact the dead are not raised.  16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised;  17 and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.  18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.  19 If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.

All of them were to be personal witnesses to Christ’s ministry, death, and resurrection.  Now, these two criteria are why, without question or subjectivity, no one can be an Apostle today.  Once more, there are NO MORE Apostles today.  Anyone claiming to be one is a liar.

Because no one is living who witnesses those things.  So the Apostolic office is closed.  But we need to note that there is one final way that someone can be an Apostle and it was the way the other 11 became Apostles and Paul himself for that matter.  That was by Divine appointment to the office by Jesus Christ Himself and later I’ll tell you why no one can make the Divine appointment claim stick today.

Well, out of all those gathered, 2 men apparently met those requirements.

v23 - So they put forward two men, Joseph called Barsabbas (who was also called Justus), and Matthias

Nothing is known about these two men really.  They aren’t mentioned elsewhere in Scripture beyond here. 

What they’ve done is narrow the options and eliminated those who didn’t qualify and so now they engage in their normal pattern of prayer to seek the will of the Lord pertaining to whom should be chosen.

v24a - And they prayed – They prayed.  What they were doing was being obedient to the Will of God by seeking Him in prayer.

That’s what they desired as believers, and so what they did was seek out God’s Word for instruction and then they prayed.  Make note of the humility in their prayer…

[And they prayed] v24b-25 –and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all men, show which one of these two You have chosen  25 to occupy this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place.”

Lord, show us the one that everyone likes or whose teaching style suits us?  No

Lord, show us the one that will tickle the people’s ears?  No

Lord, you know our hearts.  Such a truth.  Jeremiah 17:9 says that our hearts are deceitful and try to deceive us constantly.  So how appropriate that they lay that confession before the Lord first.  Lord, you know how prone to self my heart is.  So work above that.

Studying the scriptures they knew that and also they know what God said just one verse later in Jeremiah 17:10 - I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds.

They were aware of God’s word to Samuel in 1 Samuel 16:7 - But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Their prayer is for God to pick because they know that their hearts will taint the decision and what they want to be is obedient and true to God!

So they pray, God, you know our hearts, choose the one YOU want.

v26 - And they drew lots for them, and the lot fell to Matthias; and he was added to the eleven apostles.

Now some would suggest that this was a pagan practice, but in reality this underscores all the more how carefully they wanted to be in their selection of the replacement Apostle.  They wanted to select God’s man free from their influence.

Anyone know why that is the case?  Why I say that?

Well, what had they been doing?  Studying God’s Word right?  In Leviticus 16:8 - Aaron shall cast lots for the two goats, one lot for the Lord and the other lot for the scapegoat.

God tells Aaron that he is to “cast lots” to determine between the two goats offered for the sin sacrifice.  One would be sacrificed and the other would be the scapegoat.  Nehemiah 10, we see another example of casting lots and then in Proverbs.

Proverbs 16:33 - “The lot is cast into the lap, But its every decision is from the Lord.

The lot is cast, but its every decision is FROM THE LORD.  Casting lots was an acceptable Old Testament practice for determining God’s Will, now we don’t need it today.  Why?  Because we HAVE the Holy Spirit that enables us to best discern the will of God.  We also have the complete canon of Scripture so we have the completed written Word of God.

Casting lots was most likely putting their names on stones, placing them in a jar and shaking it around until one fell out, the one that came out would be the one that was chosen.

So the lot is cast and it falls to Matthias.  Which is gives us even more assurance that casting lots here wasn’t sinful.  God no where rebukes them for what they’ve done.

A choice is made by the providence of God.  It doesn’t fall to Matthias by change because there is no such thing as chance.  There is merely God’s sovereign rule and His providential and permissive will.

Now as a side note, you may have wondered about Paul?  Paul wasn’t an eye witness, yet Scripture identifies him as an Apostle.  Well, remember our third criteria, which is by Divine appointment.

Paul is divinely appointed, But what were the specifics of his appointing?  Acts 9 he is converted and then goes to see Annais… why?  To BE confirmed.

He had to go to the eye-witness Apostles to be confirmed by them in his calling.  He, nor anyone else, can just say.  ‘Well God called me to be an Apostle.’ and then go on with it without being confirmed by an existing Apostle.

After the Apostles all died there were still preachers and teachers and such, but no more Apostles.

Secondly, the eye-witness Apostles were called to minister specifically to whom?  The Jews right?  Paul’s chief focus was the Gentiles.

The Gospel was a stumbling block to the Jews because they denied Christ.  So eye-witness testimony would go a LONG way towards credibility for their claims to a society that was massively steeped in legalism.

To the Gentiles, the Gospel was foolishness, so no proof really would help… for them they needed to be brought first to an understanding that God was Creator, not chance or evolution, and they were in need of HIS forgiveness to be reconciled.


So no one today can be an Apostle because no eye-witnesses are living to be Apostles, nor are there any eye-witnesses alive to confirm the Divine appointment of an Apostle.  Anyone who comes to you claiming to be an "Apostle" is likely preaching a different Gospel, and a different Gospel doesn't save (Galatians 1:6-10).  Mark those and continue preaching the one true Gospel.  That Jesus COMMANDS all men to repent and trust in Him for the forgiveness of sins.  (Mark 1:15)

Pastor's Bookshelf: It Is Well by Mark Dever & Michael Lawrence

Have you ever struggled to find the significance and beauty of the sacrifices in the Old Testament?  Most of us have at some point or another.  Mark Dever and Michael Lawrence set out to exegete crucial Old Testament texts that shadow what was accomplished by Christ on the cross.  

The truth that man MUST have a substitute for our sins in order to be spared from God's just wrath is at the very heart of the Gospel.  Dever and Lawrence bring this out in a totality from the Old Testament all the way to looking at the actual words and work of Christ in the New Testament.  From there they look at the depiction of Christ and His suffering from Isaiah 52 & 53.  Bringing it home by then looking at what God has revealed about the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.  They highlights the comprehensive and permanent nature of the salvation that God has provided by His grace.  Climaxing in the understanding that the beauty in the life of a Christian comes from understanding the Gospel more, so that we learn to enjoy God fully as our all-sufficient Savior and see the benefits of our having been redeemed as being far more precious than any mass of worldly treasures and pleasures.  In light of so great a salvation, how could we not trust Him more daily?  One last note, I definitely appreciated there thorough use of Scripture to make their points as well as their constant encouragement to unbelievers, who might be reading the book, to repent and for the believer to guard their heart against legalism and self-righteousness.

Five out of five stars!  Highly recommended!  Great for individual study or small group.

Pick it up from 9Marks Ministries or from Amazon.com

Video: The Gospel by Eric Ludy