Thank you for that good singing this morning. No, it's not the sound system, it's my cold. That's what you're hearing. And if I get too drippy, what I'm going to do is take this mic off and use this one. Alright? Fair enough. That'll help you out too. Acts chapter 1 today. We in the American culture may do some things rather well. But one of the things we do not do well is waiting. Most people have a difficult time waiting. It's a difficult, hard discipline.
Whether it's waiting on the physician in his office, waiting on a traffic light, or waiting our turn in the registration line, it's hard for us to wait. How many of us have waited on a customer in the express lane while he or she wrote out a check, and all the time they're writing out the check we're counting how many items they have just to be sure that they haven't gotten over the limit, right? Because that makes us wait extra long.
Some people even have a hard time waiting for the benediction. I can't understand that. But we have a hard time learning to wait. There's something about it that goes against the grain of our Western culture. We want what we want now, without having to wait. Jesus commanded his followers to wait. He told them to wait until they had received what was necessary for them to be effective witnesses. It is interesting that that did not seem to trouble them or perplex them.
Part of that may be cultural. They accepted his word without complaint or question and waited in Jerusalem for those ten days from his ascension until Pentecost. But I notice also they did not waste time during those days of waiting. Somehow I think that we have the idea that waiting time is wasted time, and it does not necessarily have to be so. Those early disciples did in fact wait, but they did not waste those ten days.
In fact, the period of waiting involved three actions which the Holy Spirit seems to deem worth our notice. We'll read about that as we begin in Acts 1, verse 12. Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem a Sabbath day's journey away.
And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room where they were staying, that is, Peter and James, or John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James. These all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brothers.
And at this time Peter stood up in the midst of the brethren, a gathering of about 120 persons who was there together, and said, Brethren, the scripture had to be fulfilled, it's the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas. Just in passing, would you notice that Peter does not attribute those words to David alone, but to whom? Right, to the Holy Spirit, indicating his conviction that the Bible is not merely the writing of men, but it is in fact the very Word of God Himself.
He says, the Holy Spirit spoke concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was counted among us and received his portion in this ministry. Now Luke inserts this parenthesis. This man acquired a field with the price of his wickedness, and falling headlong he burst open in the middle, and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all who were living in Jerusalem, so that in their language that field was called Chalcaldema, that is, field of blood.
For it is written in the book of Psalms, Let his homestead be made desolate, and let no man dwell in it, and his office let another man take. It is therefore necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning with the baptism of John, until the day that he was taken up from us, one of these should become a witness with us of his resurrection. And they put forward two men, Joseph called Barcibus, who was also called Justus.
Barcibus was his Aramaic name, Justus his Roman name. And Mathias. And they prayed and said, Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, show which of these two thou hast chosen, to occupy the ministry and apostleship, from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place. And they drew lots for them, and the lot fell to Mathias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.
In this text that we have read, there are three actions that are worth our study, three actions that are important, that took place during those days of waiting in the Upper Room. The first action is the return of the disciples to Jerusalem, verses 12 to 14. Now, why did they return to Jerusalem? We've already suggested that it was to wait, because Jesus had commanded them to do it.
But they were to wait there, in order that they might begin their witness in Jerusalem, as He had also commanded them. He said, You shall be witnesses of me, both in Jerusalem and Judea. And so they understood they were to wait for the Holy Spirit, and they were to wait to begin their ministry until the Holy Spirit came. The distance from the Mount called Olivet to Jerusalem is called a Sabbath day's journey. That's about two-thirds of a mile.
The Mishnah, which is the first part of the Jewish Talmud, containing the traditional interpretation of the ordinances of the Old Testament, says that it was no more than 2,000 cubits, or about 1,000 yards. Apparently, they arrived at that figure by interpreting Exodus 16.29 in light of Numbers 35.5. In the first place, it says that they were to stay in their place on the Sabbath day. But in the second passage, it suggests that one's place might be up to 2,000 cubits away from his home.
And so they used the one scripture to interpret the other and said, a Sabbath day's journey, you can stay in your place if you don't go more than 2,000 cubits away. So that became known as a Sabbath day's journey. Now, still today, of course, the Mount of Olives is where it was 2,000 years ago, and it's about that same distance from the top of the Mount of Olives over into the old city of Jerusalem.
When they got to Jerusalem, they went to the upper room, not just a upper room, but the upper room, perhaps the same one as they used for the Last Supper and where Jesus appeared to them after His resurrection. Some conjecture, it may have been the house of Mary, John Mark's mother, where the early church gathered on some occasions as recorded in Acts 12 verse 12, where they prayed there. Such a room as this provided privacy in those days from the noise and the eyes of the crowds on the street.
It was usually gotten to by an outside stairway that went up the side of the house. It was a room that the wealthy used as a living room. Sometimes it was rented out to others for various purposes. It was a place that was apparently used often for assembly, study, and prayer. And the text may suggest that this particular upper room was big enough for 120 people, if in fact there is not a change of locations in verse 15 as some think there may be.
There in the upper room there was apparently gathered the nucleus of people who had followed Jesus. In fact, the roll call of them is given. It mentions the eleven. This is not the first time that Luke uses that particular phrase. He uses it in the Gospel of Luke chapter 24 verse 33. Of course, it refers to the eleven disciples, excluding Judas, those who were still with the Lord. Along with the eleven, there were the women.
These women were probably those who followed Jesus throughout his three years of ministry. Some of them, being wealthy, even contributed to the support of Jesus and the disciples. It was these women, apparently, who were with the Lord Jesus even at the cross when his other disciples had forsaken him. And apparently they were, for the most part, from Galilee. Mary is mentioned. In fact, this is the last mention of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in the Bible.
It is peculiar to Luke, his interest in Mary. While she is mentioned elsewhere, Luke takes particular interest in her and devotes the better part of the first chapter of his Gospel to tell about her and her family. And about her words when she found that she was the chosen one of God to bear his son. You will notice that Luke is very sympathetic to Mary. And in fact, Luke is sympathetic to all of the women about whom he writes. In addition to these people, there were the brothers of Jesus.
Now there are those who believe in the immaculate, or rather that Mary had no other children and was a perpetual virgin. And the answer to that is that is an error. She indeed did have other children with Joseph. And some of them are named in the Bible. Among them were Simon, Jude, Joseph, and James. There may have been more. These were the Uterine brothers of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Gospels record that in his earlier ministry, they did not believe in him.
And in fact, on one occasion at least, it suggests that they thought he was crazy. That he was out of his mind. But now after his work at the cross and his resurrection, they had come to believe in him. And we notice in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 that to James in particular, his brother, Jesus appeared after his resurrection. What did they do while they were waiting? Well, it's clear that they prayed. And what did they pray about? Well, we're not really told.
However, it is unlikely that they prayed for the Holy Spirit. As they were praying, they undoubtedly were worshiping God, simply waiting for God to fulfill his promise of sending the Spirit. This worship developed out of a oneness of mind, you will notice in verse 14. Real prayer always does. Real worship always comes out of that same oneness. A church that is divided is a church that cannot worship God. Real worship comes out of the unity of God's people.
And that's one reason it's so important that all of us preserve the unity in our church. Because only as we are one in mind and one in heart, are we able to really pray as a body of people and worship the Lord. That characterized those early disciples as they waited in the waiting room, the upper room in Jerusalem. A second activity I see is that of restoring a denier to leadership, verse 15. You will notice the phrase in verse 13, at this time or literally in these days.
That is a phrase that Luke uses three times in the book of Acts. He uses it again in chapter 6, verse 1, and in chapter 11, verse 27. It seems to introduce three incidents which were self-contained. But he plugged them into the narrative at that point in order to give the action a certain flavor or an insight that he wanted to include. So this is unique, the way that Luke writes this. He says, in these days, this is something that took place. And Luke is the only one who records this.
Peter stood up in the midst of the brethren. Now that's significant. That is significant. Because you see, it tells us that Peter, who had denied the Lord, was now restored, and not just restored into fellowship, but actually restored to leadership in the apostolic band. We can all recall the sad and predicted denial of Jesus by Peter. Jesus was speaking about what was to take place, and Peter said, Never, Lord, we will not allow that to happen. We will be with you to death.
He spoke that a little hastily. For Jesus, I think sympathetically, looked at Peter and said, Before three o'clock in the morning, you will deny me three times. That must have astounded Peter with his rather brash personality. Him deny the Lord? And yet we know the record that, in fact, exactly as Jesus said it would happen, it did. And after his denial, Peter looked at Jesus, it says, in the courtyard. And Jesus glanced at Peter, and their eyes met.
That's all it says, their eyes met, and Peter went out and wept bitterly. There's a lot of pathos in that. There's a lot of feeling in that, just a glance. But Peter knew that as he looked at Jesus, and Jesus looked at him, that Jesus knew all about what had taken place. And he was so crushed and so broken by his own failure, they went out and wept bitter tears of repentance.
That's all we would know if we only had the Gospel of Luke, John records that out there by the Sea of Galilee, Jesus had a conversation, especially with Peter. He said, do you love me? Feed my sheep. And there he seemed to restore Peter in a very special, individual way to a place of usefulness and leadership among the apostles. But Luke doesn't record that for us. I think that this verse, verse 15, is Luke's way of saying to us that Peter had been restored.
He is saying this one who did deny the Lord, and that I wrote about Theophilus back in the first volume, has now been restored because he stands up in the midst of his brethren to say something. By the way, before we attack Peter too harshly for being a denier, let us remember that he was not the only one, because Mark tells us that they all forsook him and fled at that moment in the garden. They all denied him, and in that they were not very much different than we are today. Isn't that true?
For how many of us think that we would be strong, that we would be faithful to the Lord, and yet we have denied him too often when put to the test? So what Peter experienced is not that far from what you and I experience, unfortunately, from time to time. But Peter was restored and God used him. Now the third action is found in verses 16 and 26. The first action is the return of the disciples to Jerusalem. The second, the restoration of a denier to leadership.
Action number three, the replacement of a defector by another. Judas was not just a denier, he was a defector, a betrayer. It was a concern of Peter's, apparently, to reconstitute the band of the apostles to the number 12. Undoubtedly, it was incomprehensible to him and to the others how Judas could have done what he did. After all, this was not too many weeks after that.
It must have been difficult for them to try to understand how Judas, one of their own, could have actually come to their Lord and in the garden with a kiss betrayed him into the hands of his enemies. And then Luke inserts a word here, giving details that are not found anywhere else in Scripture. It emphasizes the awfulness of Judas' fate.
Now if you read your Bible, you will notice that there is an apparent contradiction in these couple of verses with what is said in Matthew 27, verses 3 through 10. Now we're not going to take time to read that this morning, but I'm going to refer to it. This has been called one of the most serious contradictions in the whole New Testament. And there are those who claim that this is ample proof that the Bible is not inerrant. And they say that's not a big deal. We don't worry about it.
Well, my friend, it is a big deal. For if the Bible can be found to be errant, it has no authority over our lives. I care not how you argue it. In the ultimate, the Bible loses its authority if in fact it contains contradictions and errors. Well, now here is an apparent contradiction. But please note with me that it is reconcilable. The two accounts can work together in at least one way, and maybe there's some other way that it actually happened, which we have not figured out.
But here's how it could have happened. In the one place, it says that the chief priests bought the field. But here it says that Judas did it. So the question is, who actually bought the field? And the answer is that both things are true. The chief priests probably bought the field themselves in the name of Judas using the 30 pieces of silver which had belonged to him. For you remember that they threw it at his feet.
And so as was sometimes done in that day, they actually picked up the money, and because it was blood money, they did not want it. It could not be brought back into the temple. They went out and bought the field in the name of Judas. That was a potter's field. What does that mean? Well, the potters would go to that area and dig up clay, which would be used in their pottery. And so it was a field that was full of pits. And therefore it was easy for what? For the burial of bodies.
And so it was used for that purpose. It was called a field of blood because it was bought with blood money, but it's also suggested here that it may have had something to do with the rather ghastly thing that happened to Judas. And that brings us to the second question. How did Judas die?
Because in Matthew it says he hanged himself, and here it says that he fell down on his face, hit his head, and with such a blow that he burst open in the middle, and these rather gory details are given about that. How did Judas die?
Well, it was Augustine who suggested again that the reconciliation is not difficult, that both things actually happened, that Judas hanged himself, and for some reason, either because of the slippage of the rope where it broke or because perhaps his body hung there a while and it fell of its own weight, it did fall, and the result was this rather unsightly scene of him breaking open the middle and all of his insides bursting out all over the place. So actually both things happened.
Now you say, well, why did one say one thing and one another? Well, perhaps it was because of the unique perspective they had. You see, Matthew was writing for the Jews, and to the Jews to record that he committed suicide by hanging himself was enough. To them, suicide was a heinous thing, and to just say that he had committed suicide was enough for the Jews to show that his end was a despicable, horrible end. That's all they needed to know.
But Luke was writing for the Romans, and to the Romans, suicide was morally neutral. So what if you kill yourself? That was their perspective in their paganism. And so to emphasize the awfulness, not the neutrality, but the awfulness of Judas' fate, Luke chooses to inject these gory details to show them how the end was, or what the end was, of Judas, the betrayer. Now Judas' defection and his replacement was in accord with Scripture and the plan of God.
In fact, it was even mandated by it, as Luke seems to suggest in verses 16 and 21, where it says in verse 16 the Scripture had to be fulfilled. The Greek word there was necessary that it be fulfilled. Verse 21, it is therefore necessary, same Greek word. So twice in this text, Luke underscores that his defection and his replacement are all in accordance with God's divine plan. So it was necessary to happen. And then they determine the replacement of Judas. And the qualifications are clear.
He had to be one who was associated with the disciples during the earthly ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ from the time of John's baptism until the time of his resurrection. Now why was that important? Well, the answer is that in this manner, the 12th apostle, like the others, was the guarantor of the gospel message.
He was not just preaching a message that had been handed to him, but he could say by first-hand experience, I saw this, I saw that, I heard those words and declare the gospel in a very special way. Now notice how the decision was made as to who the replacement should be. So they put forward, that is, they proposed two men, Joseph and Matthias, and they prayed together and said, Thou, Lord, who knowest the hearts of all men, show which one of these two, what? Thou hast chosen.
So please notice that the disciples did not make the decision as to which was chosen. The Lord made that decision. They needed some way to know which of their group had been chosen by the Lord to become number 12. And the way that they chose was by lots. Now that is quite foreign to us. When we think of lots, we think of lotteries. They have nothing at all in common. Lots were used in that day by the Jews and throughout the Old Testament as a means of determining God's will.
What may have happened here was that they took two stones, they wrote the names of each of these men on those stones, and then they put them in a basket. Shook the basket, and either someone recently pulled one out or one of them fell out. However, the first stone out was number 12. And that was the means, and it was the God-ordained means, by which He indicated which of the two had been chosen. The question sometimes is asked, well, did the disciples here act in haste in naming the 12?
And the implication is, should they not have waited for Paul? Should he be number 12 rather than Matthias? And my answer to that is no, they did not act in haste. In the first place, you see, Paul could not have met the qualifications for this band of 12. He had not been with Jesus during the three years or so of his earthly ministry. He had seen Him in His resurrection glory, but he could not meet the basic qualification that was mentioned.
Furthermore, Paul is identified in his ministry with the Gentiles, not with the Jews, primarily, and with the Church, and not with Israel, primarily. Although his ministry was in line with the 12, it differs from their ministry in its base and in its direction. And so I do not believe that Paul should have been number 12. He is unique and stands by himself as the apostle to the Church. There were 12 who had to be appointed, however. This was anticipated by the words of Jesus.
He had mentioned them sitting on the 12 thrones in His kingdom. John, in Revelation chapter 21, talks about the beautiful new Jerusalem which we will live in. And he says the foundation of it are 12 precious stones, and the names of the 12 apostles are written on it. Obviously, Judas would not be included in that. Furthermore, there is a symbolic reason. 12 was the symbolic number of fullness and completion to the Jews.
In order for early Christianity to present itself as the culmination, completeness of Israel's hope, there had to be a 12-fold, not 11-fold, witness symbolically. To his credit, Peter came to realize this, probably as they prayed in verse 14. Peter knew the promises of God had to be exactly fulfilled, and therefore he suggested what he did. On the basis of the text, there are several observations that I want to make, and will be on our way.
These observations, I hope, will be practical to our lives. Observation number one. Genuine faith produces an obedient response in our lives. We cannot separate faith and obedience. We sing the song, Trust and Obey, for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey. James says that faith without works is a dead faith. That does not rule out lapses, by the way, or periods of backsliding, if you want to call them that, or times of failure in our lives. It doesn't rule those out.
But those times are not descriptive of most of our life. For the genuine Christian, his life is mainly characterized by obedience, not disobedience. Furthermore, those periods of lapses are not permanent in a genuine Christian. They are temporary. Either the Lord brings us out of them through discipline, or He takes us home to heaven. But they are temporary lapses. Genuine faith produces an obedient response in our lives. The mark of genuine conversion is obedience.
And obedience is the condition of walking in fellowship with Jesus Christ. It was obedience that characterized those disciples and early believers as they went back to Jerusalem there to wait. Is your faith evidenced by your obedience? Is the genuineness of your profession underscored by the way that you live? It is not enough to have mere words to say, I believe. Somewhere there has to be fruit to prove it. Do you have fruit in your life, good fruit? Or is your profession merely superficial?
That is a question that all of us must ask, especially in the light of the stern words of Jesus when He said that in that day, the day of judgment, there would be those who would say to Him, Lord, Lord, did we not do miracles in Your name? Jesus warned that in that day He will say, depart from me, I never knew you. Genuine faith produces an obedient response in our lives. It may be that you are in one of those periods of lapse today. Like Peter, will you be restored?
That brings me to observation number two. A past lapse does not preclude future usefulness. And Peter is my example of that. He had had a lapse, a serious one. But God used him again. I am so grateful that God is the God of new opportunities. And in that regard, I think of Jonah, who the first time the word of the Lord came to him ran away. But it does say, doesn't it, in chapter two, the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. Someone has said God is the God of second chances.
A past lapse does not preclude a future usefulness in the hands of God. Sometimes the consequences of our disobedience may limit the kind or extent of our service, but not total service. God does not have any permanent shelf space for His children. You may have failed the Lord in a way that you think is very grievous. You feel that you are on the shelf now and forever. That is not so, my friend. If you will repent of whatever that disobedience was, God will delight in using you again.
I am glad for that. As Dr. Sweetings said last week, the Christian life is a series of new beginnings. As I look back at my life, I could, I'm sorry to say, name literally thousands of new beginnings. So often Satan discourages us by saying, you failed, you're done. The fact is that all of us frequently fail, but it does not mean that we're done.
It means that we have the opportunity to glorify God in that failure by confessing what we've done wrong and coming back to Him and saying, Lord, I failed, I confess it, restore me to fellowship and use me. Remember, a past lapse does not preclude future usefulness. God still has a place for you. I don't care what it may be. I don't care how grievous it is in your sight or in the sight of other people or in God's sight. God is able to restore you and to use you.
Rejoice in that and claim it today if that applies to where you are. Observation number three, just as God's sovereign purposes cannot be frustrated, so no person is a victim of them either. There are those who have claimed that Judas was but a helpless victim of a God who predestined him to that fate. And therefore Judas is to be pitied. Well, he is in fact to be pitied, but God cannot be blamed for the decision that he made.
We see here an example of God's sovereignty and human responsibility in a delicate balance. God simply allowed Judas to follow the path of his own choices and wickedness. Judas was not an unwilling victim manipulated as a puppet by God's predestination. Yes, it was necessary that Jesus be betrayed by one of his own. The scripture had to be fulfilled about that, but Judas cannot blame God because he's the one. You say, well, couldn't God have stopped Judas? Of course he could have.
Then why did he not? To accomplish his own divine plan, which he ordered from the beginning. That's why. You and I today can be grateful for the sovereign grace of God, which intervenes on our behalf on our rebellious journey toward hell. Because if God did not, in grace, intervene in our lives, all of us would still be on the way to that destiny today. That is the divine sovereignty side of it. Now each of us is responsible for making his own decision, as was Judas.
There is a wonderful and beautiful balance here which glorifies the sovereign grace of God. One day there's going to be a man arise on the earth called Antichrist. God has prophesied that he would come, and he will come. But when he does, he will not be able to say, I am predestined to this, and I am but a helpless victim of God's sovereignty. Not so. For what it is already prophesied he will do, he will do by his own choice, to accomplish his own sinful purposes. Observation number four.
The divine direction is the privilege of God's people. I'm not suggesting you go out and buy lots down at the five and ten store. I don't know if you can get them there. You see, the casting of lots is not intended to be normative for this age. It was peculiar to the Old Testament Jews. Please keep in mind that in this part of Acts we are heavily into Jewish territory.
We are more and more going to make a transition out of this part of Acts into the church and into the gospel going to the Gentiles. But here it's very much still focused on Israel. It's all Israel, in fact. They cast lots. That was Israel's way. Today we have a better way of determining God's direction. You see a better way? It seems like it would be pretty easy to throw lots in a bag and let them fall out and say, well, God wants. Oh, no. No, I'll tell you why. Today we have God's Word.
We have prayer and we have the indwelling Holy Spirit. That's a lot better than to die or little stones or whatever they may have used to determine the will of God. You say, why is that? Well, let me illustrate it this way. There was a time when a ship captain would go out on his ship at night and get out his little navigational instruments and determine where he was. And so from time to time he could make a spot check and determine where he was on his map. We don't do that anymore.
You know why? Because today we have very sophisticated guided systems. Our modern jets have computers that lock on fixed objects or a signal, and those computers continually give minute guidance to that jet as it flies through the sky. Not a periodic check, but constant guidance and direction. And you see, that's what we have today. We don't need to make the constant check with the dice or with the stones or the lots.
We have that constant direction of God in our lives by His Word, by prayer, and by the Holy Spirit's voice within. Are you listening to His guidance today? That is your privilege as a child of God. Do you want to know what to do, which direction to turn? Listen. God's not trying to keep a secret from you. He delights to tell you. Finally, observation number five. And this is especially for those of you here who do not know what it is to be saved.
It is possible to be numbered among God's people and yet not have a part with them in Jesus Christ. You see, Judas was numbered among them. He was for three years walking with those disciples as they watched Jesus do His miracles and heard Him give His teachings. He was numbered among them and yet He had no part with them in the Savior. And I think of those church members who are numbered on the roles of churches but who have no part in Jesus Christ.
Those people who are a part of something in name but who do not know what it is to be saved. Ultimately, Judas left his place among the disciples to inhabit his place in shame and darkness and hell forever. Tragic figure. Tragic figure. But no more tragic than that one whose name is on the church roll and who's been through baptism or confirmation or the rituals of the church or whatever.
And who leaves his place on this earth in death only to find that his next place is not in heaven where he had hoped to go because he was a church member, but in hell because he had no part with the Savior. That is an equal tragedy to that which Judas experienced. If you do not have the assurance of your sins being forgiven, if you do not know that you have a part in Jesus Christ and that you're saved, then today you need to make sure about that.
Because, my friend, hell is filled with people whose names were on church rolls and who in this life performed all kinds of religious and good works but who neglected the one simple thing they needed to do. And that was to repent of their sins and receive Jesus Christ in their lives. You still have time to do that, will you? Will you do it today? Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the power of your Word. I thank you for what it teaches us and how it exposes our lives.
And even though this vessel has been weak this morning, nonetheless, your power has been perfect in weakness. And Lord, all across this auditorium, you've said things to us. We need to respond. And I pray that as we sing this final hymn, you'll help us to respond in a way that would be in obedience to your Word. Help those who do not know Jesus to come today to receive Him.
And those of your children who are in periods of lapse and backsliding to give back to that place of repentance and fellowship and usefulness again. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.