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Chapter 4

THE APOSTOLIC SCENARIO

An Opus beyond Opera

Introduction

Read the Book of Acts - in J. B. Phillips as an introduction, there is just a sense of urgency and accomplishment, suffering as an item on the way and results as a fruit to be found, rather as if you were using a stump-jump plough with all the jars and then looking at the end at the jars of fruit which eventually resulted.

Take in particular, Acts 18:8ff., to Acts 24. There is such a flow as of a river in torrents from its snowy storehouses, set in solidity, moving in moisture, yielding in running water, aggregating in torrents, rushing with purpose, inundating much, easing to a smoother journey over the plains of solid endeavour, completing the journey into the sea of achievement, where the waves and surges have their own magnificent extent and expanse.

It is like a pageant of spiritual passion, endurance, leading on relentless and remorseless, past a procession of evils, harassments, trials, incursions of assorted wickedness, selfishness, panache, inequity, rashness, evil passion, murderous intent, deceit, dissembling, political deviation of corrupted policy amid the inveterate hatred of this world, as though goodness itself were under siege, and whether directly or through selfish or passionate connivance, diplomatic savvy or spiritual slinkiness, evil were attacking and counter-attacking with a desperate drive. This it was pursuing as it yet does, as surely as darkness would envelop and cast its clouds of obscuration over the light. But the sun of salvation has not set; though the day of its availability is fast coming to its final hours.

Such was and is, and will be the dark dynamic which assails the work of the Lord, till the end the overflight of the Spirit of God in its vast movements among men, comes and judgment draws near. It is the Lord by His own Spirit who is showing Christ as in a Gospel written on the side of an airship, while many seek to shoot it down, inflame it into a fiery oblivion or more simply, practically to disregard it, when it cannot be used in some devious manner, to aid the Satanic host. Thus many are the lost former churches, now under the sway of the devil while pretending to be of Christ and still using the name of One whose word is countermanded as if a mother were correcting a child, or a father taken in hand by his son!

These which we shall consider from Acts and elsewhere, they are fine illustrations of the Satanic furore. But the Church continues, with or without the pomp and the ceremony which so many wish to bring into it, and without which they will not even recognise it: for this, it is the very way of this world. But the form of this world, it passes away (I Corinthians 7:31). It likes to have its own sexuality, its own power, its own morals, its own steering committee, its own forms, the liturgies of the lost and the prayers of the dead. It is as it always has been and will be, from the fall to the return of the Lord, recklessly amiss. What however of the self-revealing Lord and His people ?

To be children of light is not only an immense privilege, then, but it incorporates much, so that life in the Lord is set to become a saga of continuity, a procession of empowerment, a path of suffering and a time of testimony, like a glowing aeroplane shining through the night in its intense endeavours, connected at all times by radio to its base. This we shall shortly see as some of the time of Paul is watched from the book of Acts.

Right from the first, the devil sought to deviate, to deter, to envelop: in the attempt to kill the Christ when He was an infant, under Herod's inane rule; then in an effort to use the power of His maturity in having Him as an honoured servant, and many who would have served God, fell for that ploy (Matthew 4 depicts these temptations of the Lord in the wilderness). In turn, when the body to be the Church was becoming more mature, and the death of the Messiah was now not far off, Christ asked the all-important question: Who do you say that I am ? (Matthew 16).

Peter was illuminated by the Lord, the Father Himself opening his eyes, for no one, as Christ put it, knows the Son except the Father and no one knows the Father except the Son and he to whom He wills to reveal Him (Matthew 11).

You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, said the Peter of open mind, willing to see the power and the precepts of Christ working in unison, and that of the devil clearly overthrown. Here then was the form of things, the phrasing was right and the conviction seemed solid.

Was this the spiritual pageant ? Not at all. It was only the opening of the first night curtain! It fell before there was much time to appreciate it.

Thus when Christ indicated that Peter (his name meaning stone) was that apostle's name, and on that rock (a word for a mass of living rock, different in the Greek, a major-minor matter) He would build His church, there may have been a swelling of pride.

Whether or not this was so, one thing is certain, Peter was duped here by the devil!

Indeed, in correcting what he was soon to say, Christ directly declared:

"Get behind Me, Satan. You are an offence to Me,
for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men."

It is no great experience to have the Son of God speak through you to Satan, following what you had to say, and using the denunciatory word "offence"!

So here we have

	1) a play on words.
	2) a play which constitutes a sermon in itself. Indeed, on checking the Bible we find that we also have
	3) an Old Testament exclusion of any categorical elevation of Peter (as if to ignore the word play which EXCLUDED Peter from the foundational place, as surely as does I Corinthians 3:10-11); for it is written that God ONLY is the Rock of the Psalmist, and that HE KNOWS NO OTHER! (II Samuel 22:32-33, Isaiah 44:8).
	The fact that if God knows no other Rock in this select, spiritual foundational sense, that of rest, resource, recourse, reliability without limit or variation, basic establishment of place of formal power and functional feature, then who is it that knows more than God! Who is it who invents some other god who is also the rock, let alone so acting while calling the highly movable Peter that one! Clearly it is an antichristian figure, making in the strict sense, a substitute christ, with a substitute mouth making a substitute Rock out of a non-substitute apostle.
	4) a New Testament exclusion of the same mischief and misconception in I Corinthians 3:10-11 with I Peter 5, where Peter so far fails to assert his imagined imperial powers as to call himself 'also an elder' in that savvy humility which he had learned and knew to be both true and apt!
	5) this flaring and humiliating light: that the thing was shown AT ONCE. What thing ? this, that Peter as such was entirely inadequate, readily moved even to the point of dismissing and seeking to dispense with the entire sacrificial Saviour program; and that any idea of trusting in man, as distinct from God, the finite instead of the infinite, the sinner instead of the Saviour, the pollutable instead of the utterly pure God: that this would be as cursed as the Bible says it is (as in Jeremiah 17). It is in HIM, the Messiah that trust is legitimate (Psalm 2); FOR ONE is your teacher, ONE your Master, ONE your Father (Matthew 23:8-10).

Thus just as Christ detected the devil at work in the temptation of Peter, a new branch of attack and assault on the program of God, after the earlier temptation of Christ;
and just as He roundly rebuked that summit of evil in replying to Peter,
so that same devil has tried remorselessly to assail, assault, spring and seduce.

Despite the work of such an early and notable Bishop of Rome as Gregory the First, who warned against and denounced this papal kind of elevation completely, in effect, this petrine fallacy as a work of antichrist (cf. SMR p. 914), - has proceeded^*1 until it became one which in due course has duped a billion or so persons into the Romanist position. Such do statistics suggest at this day.

Here is that incessant agenda of that evil power to seduce the work of Christ, kill His servants as in the Inquisition, as in the Islamic invasion of Europe and the Middle East, as in the Communist invasion of Russia by force, of Eastern Europe, of China. He seeks in a myriad of ways, engineering modes and multiplying methods, to assault their minds as in the case of John Huss in his notorious imprisonment, burn them like the English martyrs, entice them. He does not disdain even to use the Lord's name as a weapon for work the opposite of what He has commanded. So have many parties and sects, governments and false prophets been driven to cover the church, if possible, with shame, or else, again if possible, make of it a sham. As in ancient Israel (Isaiah 1, Jeremiah 23, Ezekiel 14, 20), so now in the Gentile world, the implausible usurpation proceeds; but its end is short (Revelation 19:19ff.). Its engines toil but in vain.

Those deceived, teacher or taught, are to be pitied; as are those seduced in this realm of spiritual device. To make the Church a sham ? It is not possible, for the gates of hell will not prevail against it, nor will subtle deviations or brute force enable it to be dismantled, though many be starved, imprisoned or dead. With withering and withered hope, in desperate delusion, in a thousand ways not only in one, but in multiplied sects, theologies, perversions of morals and text, the prince of this world tries unyielding to overpower, though defeated: as does a flame in the forest to consume the vast trees in its searing heat and leaping endeavours.

Thus while the words of Christ in Matthew 16 do not show anything but the most flamboyant rejection of Romanist, as of all antichristian pretensions that put illicit words in the mouths of false prophets who add or subtract to the word of God, they do have a message.

They DO show in their setting:

	A) the repetitious assaults of the prince of this world, in the Church, to subdue or to seduce it;
	B) the patient overcoming of his indefatigable darkness by the continuity of light, reflected from the Lord, empowered from His presence, activated at His will,
	whether through great or small (Psalm 678:11 with 68:18-10).

Thus, going backwards from them, we have the effort to kill Christ, spiritually or physically, not once or twice, or to overthrow His words (as in Matthew 22, Luke 11), then going forwards in time, the reckless endeavour to find out what happened if you DID kill Him, when the time was ripe, at the darkness that accompanied the Cross. A prelude to this, then, came the effort to seduce the apostle who found the actual fact that Christ is the Son of God, that leading on to Christ's exposure of another fact. Instead of being founded on man, Christ declared the Church to be built on the ROCK which is CHRIST (and no other) as seen in I Corinthians 3:10-11, 10:4, Isaiah 44; for GOD ALONE is that Rock and Christ has no duplicates, as eternal, sinless and deity.

But in what way is Christ the Rock ? it is as there attested (Matthew 16), Himself as seen and clearly confessed by FAITH, the case that Peter exemplified. Move from this, and you move from Christ, from God the Father and from His service, becoming a rebel and a novelty maker. Nor is any other Gospel (Galatians 1), nor are any other apostles as founders of the built Church (Ephesians 2:22ff.), nor is there any other scripture but that terminating in Revelation 22^*2,
nor any other leader to be followed, for ALL YOU ARE BRETHREN: ONE is your Master, Father. He ? The infinite Lord, come as man (Philippians 2).

Thus the self-revealing God has shone against every darkness, clipped the nails of every scrawny, scratching ferocity of false faith. But let us now proceed now to look at Paul as in Acts 18 and certain following chapters. It is here that that the continuing agenda, the plateaux of power, the programs of God are seen at work, through flood and fire, suffering and triumph, patience and clear testimony, life and death.

THE PAGEANT OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES

We meet Paul in Acts 18, following his confrontation with the philosophers of Athens, moving to Corinth, where he "was compelled by the Spirit, and testified to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ."

He REASONED in the synagogues, and PERSUADED many. He did not merely recite, but applied his mind, gave the evidence, professed accordingly and spoke with faithful passion. But when they opposed him, he declared this: "Your blood be upon your own heads; I am clean. From now on I will go to the Gentiles."

We find a ruler of the synagogue with his whole family becoming Christians (v. 8). Many were baptised, as befits those who had either nothing or circumcision only (cf. News 51).

The dynamic continues as the LORD Himself speaks to Paul at night:

"Do not be afraid, but speak, and do not keep silent; for I am with you ,
and no one will attack you to hurt you: for I have many people in this city."

The route set, the march continued for 18 months, a march into the city from within the city, indeed a spiritual démarche derived from deity. With this period duly spent, Paul's time was up for that labour, and so the people, that is the Jews, arose to denounce him to the proconsul, Gallio, who however spared Paul the trouble of speaking in his defence and declared in effect, that these troublesome Jews should deal with their own particular variety of culture and law, definition and understanding, for the matter was nothing to do with his due jurisdiction!

Next came Ephesus, where in the synagogue he reasoned once more with the Jews, who asking him to stay longer, were met with his conviction that he must visit Jerusalem. He hoped to return, as indeed he did. To Antioch he moved and then confirmed his earlier work in other neighbouring parts (as in Acts 16), and then through Caesarea, he proceeded apparently to Jerusalem, since he had desired "by all means" to do so, and no baulking, but rather fellowship is noted (18:21,22).

Thus exploration, confirmation, confrontation, education, constraint, impulsion, compulsion, divine encouragement, the association of the brethren, movements of personnel as with Priscilla and Aquila (18:2,18), all these things unfolded like fern tendrils from the stem, as prepared, pushed, programmed, persistent and endued.

Next came a fascinating convocation back in Ephesus. He met a group of some 12 disciples who had heard of the baptism of John the Baptist, but had evidently not heard the realities of the risen Christ, or perhaps even of His crucifixion. Duly informed, they were baptised, realising now the need to believe in the One who came after John.

Thus they entered from the Old Covenant into the New (for John was still in the Old Covenant; for the New could not commence until Christ died to institute its mode of pardon through His blood).

They were then filled with the Holy Spirit and in this case, unlike the record for some others (Acts 8, 16:25ff.), they also spoke in tongues^*3; for there is no fetish about it, Paul himself stringently limiting the occurrence and never requiring it (I Corinthians 12, 14) Instead of anything of that kind, he put love on an incomparably higher plane, and prophecy, even in the New Testament norm of exposition (as in the Corinthians passages where it is subject to review), far beyond it. The apostolic inspiration was of an entirely different order (I Corinthians 2:9-13), no more subject to revision, than are one's lungs or liver (Revelation 22, I Corinthians 14:37).

These things being done, we find "unusual miracles" arising like storms over the sea, as the power of God propelled the work (Acts 19:11), and these miracles were of many kinds, including items taken from Paul and used as media. Elsie Salmon, it is worth noting of that remarkable missionary's wife, was also used in healing at a distance (cf. He Heals Today, and Christ Still Healing). Meanwhile, in the vicinity of Paul, some spiritual entrepreneurs sought to cast out evil spirits, only to be told by the same,

"Jesus I know and Paul I know; but who are you ?"

God does not appoint extras like some film mogul. What He gives works, what is apostolic works as apostolic and what is more ordinary, as what it is; but there is no power for His purposes except in and from Him, in His name, in His promises and commands. This, it is covenantal, right down to His blood (Matthew 26:28), without which there is no remission (Hebrews 9), but which on the other hand, sanctifies forever (Hebrews 10:10,14), by its ONE OFFERING. It is indeed one offering by one Saviour in one day (cf. Zechariah 3:8-9), in one way (Matthew 26:39), by Himself (John 10), and neither devil nor man, potentate nor prelate can add to it (Galatians 1, Revelation 22:18-20, Proverbs 30:6).

It is enough, and it is finished, for by this one offering, eternal redemption has already been obtained (Hebrews 9:11-12, 23-28), all things complete (Hebrews 10:10,14). To perfection, addition is subtraction!

Thus the word of God attested and its loose treatment detested, the work progressed. Next Paul was constrained to revisit, for "he purposed in the Spirit" to perform an action (Acts 29:21): passing through Macedonia, he desired to proceed to Jerusalem. It is fascinating how Christ was insistent (for His death) to proceed to Jerusalem (Luke 9:51), to the extent that this being so, a Samaritan village did not receive Him; while Paul was to become so constrained to go there that it became a major feature, with many warning him about the outcome. As to that, it was to work for the mission very well; for his imprisonment became a mode of getting to Rome, to the brethren there, and to Caesar's palace personnel over a protracted period. That initial imprisonment which at last was to mature under favourable conditions in Rome, was an event to come that Agabus, the prophet, for one made strikingly clear (Acts 21:10-14), as we shall later see.

Thus the apostle Paul sent on two disciples in advance; but meanwhile in Ephesus an angry, commercial-cum-religious riot broke out; for some found that Paul's insistence on one God made Diana of Ephesus, a claimed goddess with great profit for those who cast her in silver as for the town as a resultant notoriety, was not to be desired. It was for one thing, bad for business. It seemed to insult their elevation, and ... culture! In high dudgeon, they sought to do as others had done, notably at first in Damascus, and in the case of the people of Lystra, more so in this, that they had left him literally for dead.

Paul was warned not to enter the frenzied meeting, but the city clerk made an irenic and protesting speech to which they gave heed, so that no blood was shed. Paul then left for Macedonia as earlier led, encouraged those earlier met and visited Greece, before sending on a spiritual detachment to Troas. Hearing of another group who would seek to assassinate him, he cancelled plans to sail to Syria, but leaving Philippi, made Troas. The first day of the week having come, they had communion, and Paul preached with such vigour and at such length, it seems, that a young disciple sitting in a window frame fell, but though apparently dead, was revived by Paul who presented him live to his people, thus avoiding a salient potential tragedy for that family and for his work!

The next vigorous phase came when, sailing past Ephesus, he had the elders from that city called and gave them a prophetic and stirring address, telling them of his conscientious endeavours to give them the whole counsel of God and warning them of the impending movement of wolves to cull the flock for their own appetites, false teachers, roving mercenaries (as in II Peter 2), people of vile violence and without virtue, aggressive, intrusive, unendowed, but endued with their own propulsion. Weeping at their beloved apostle, they accompanied him to the shore.

Through varied seaways they came to Tyre, where some urged him, citing spiritual impulse from the Lord, NOT to go to Jerusalem (21:4). At Caesarea, he passed through the house of Phillip with his four daughters who prophesied - showing that women may prophesy or expound the word of God, though they are not allowed to bear authority or hence to be pastors, as in II Timothy 2. Agabus went so far as to take Paul's belt and tie his feet with it, saying that it was in this way that the Jews in Jerusalem bind the man on whom the belt was so placed! Some then joined in, to urge Paul not to go!

The apostle, however, having been moved to go there in no uncertain fashion (Acts 20:23), saw this as a mere warning of sufferings to come, and not at all to be avoided! Again, in form, there is the resemblance to Christ, for He knew that not binding but death awaited Him in Jerusalem, but not the less, but rather the more proceeded to face and find it, this being PART OF HIS OWN MISSION! It was a death which He had to "accomplish" (Luke 9:31).

From all this we learn, and see the need for power and patience alike, to experience dynamic in motion and in action, and then again, in more passive mode, to produce as the Lord enables, even when the winds seem adverse and contrary, BY FAITH.

Duly to Jerusalem Paul went, and then some of seeming wisdom persuaded him to make a vow and go on a spiritual mission into the temple, paying for some others to do likewise, in order to convince local Jews that he was by no means adverse to the Temple, a mere destroyer of the law; while, of course, the Gentiles had no need to do such things, having been given liberty through Christ (as in Acts 15:24-29, 21:25). This seemed to be going beyond being "all things to all men" (I Corinthians 9:19ff.), for it might have led to a sacrifice being made which would have been a misuse of blood! (as the relevant law item, in Numbers 6:1-11 does in fact provide, even a 'sin-offering'!).

Of all that, the legal symbolism for righteousness, Christ is the end (Romans 10:4). He does not of course end moral integrity and the creation-girt laws which are foundational for the human race (for example Exodus 20:10-11) and relate to things past and not to future episodes (cf. Colossians 2:16-17), no shadow but the very nexus of human nature and divine ethics for man as a creature on this earth. ALL must be fulfilled or done (Matthew 5:17ff.), and the act of creation of man of course is not a thing to be fulfilled, but reflected on, and soberly invested with patient wisdom.

On the other hand, it is no more a matter of formalistic fashion, to teach, of of substantial reality, to show. Liberty, however, is not to make of divine formulations, a play thing, but the more sanctified by understanding of the pith and spirit. You do not, in the end, obey a matter spiritually, by ignoring or making a travesty of it, as do modern cities in vast numbers of the day of rest, to their detriment in their heady worldliness.

Paul however was being moved into the forms and pageantry of the law, and though this was on this occasion (for he had fought for liberty) for the intention of stopping needless division, it was unwise wisdom that pushed him into this affair, and in that he nearly lost his life.

This 'peace strategy' which was that to which they urged Paul, in fact led to an angry confrontation with a mob, since Paul was recognised and confronted; and he might have been killed by rioting religionists had not a Roman Captain intervened, and letting him explain, saved the day. He was heard by the seething mob, until his rehearsal of the Lord's dealing and appointment for him reached the point where he was sent to the GENTILES! Away with such a fellow! they cried. But Rome protected him and thus began a protracted period in which Paul was able to present the Gospel in exact and piercing form, or challenges antecedent to it, to many a Jew who came to witness against him, as also to King Herod in no small manner, to small and great. This he did till sent to Rome, an event which followed when apparently intent on avoidance of further plans of ambush by the Jews, and doubtless with due awareness of the prior leading of the Lord concerning Rome (Acts 23:11), he appealed to Caesar (Acts 25:10), his privilege as Roman citizen.

In the process of these Jewish attempts to condemn him, which failed, as was the case with Christ as far as actual evidence and witnesses were concerned, Paul was again given a divine dynamic as the Lord once more spoke to him personally (Acts 23:11).

"Be of good cheer, Paul;
for as you have testified for Me in Jerusalem,
so you must also bear witness at Rome."

This he assuredly did, and in the thrust and broader character of this apostolic mission is to be found the book of Romans, addressed to Christians in Rome, one of the most systematically overviewing of all the epistles. In the transient confines of his imprisonment before the voyage to Rome, Paul had escaped a plot by 40 on oath to destroy him (Acts 23:21), via a nephew, through cavalry and soldiers moving him from Jerusalem to Caesarea, urged a governor towards righteousness, ignored any indications that a bribe was needed for release, and given a testimony of spiritual solidity which was agreeable to godliness as well as more direct testimony concerning the Gospel.

At one point, Agrippa, a king of special wickedness had declared, that Paul almost persuaded him to become a Christian (Acts 25:22, 26:28). There is no slightest evidence that this morbid soul had any irony in his statement, for Paul spoke most directly, personally and appealingly; and the idea that the wicked do not relate to such things is wholly contrary to Matthew 21:31, for many harlots and tax-collectors (viewed as self-serving traitors, since Rome ruled by force in Israel) go into heaven, the Lord declared, before the modishly religious. There is no limit to the movement of the Spirit of God as His word is preached (cf. Isaiah 55, Romans 5), and many not inoculated seem perhaps more readily liberated than those in spiritually suffocating religious garments of their own disposition, adding here, subtracting there till the Gospel becomes unrecognisable!

Moreover, many is the person who, moved into successive wickednesses, laments, or moans in the soul, scarcely giving expression to latent desires at the bondage of sin, yet hoping, wishing that it were otherwise!

It was this same Agrippa, one receiving the title of king from Rome, who agreed to the destruction of Jerusalem later, being persuaded this way and that, and living in incest. His actions formed part of the tapestry of truth, both to spare and to indict, for God is merciful ... which spared the Jews for a generation after their deluded dismissal of Jesus the Christ, before the arduous and decimating fulfilment of His words. So were many tested; and in this, Paul was used to issue challenge, to which many, mercifully, responded in more affirmative ways, with less equivocation, indeed with faith, without which no one can please God (Hebrews 11).

In these ways, in this spiritual pageant, this pseudo-military discipline, but yet this tenderly passionate and concerned voyage of life, Paul forwarded the Self-Revealing Lord of light, who operating on His own account directly; he amplified the work and applied the immutable Gospel of salvation as needed. This however as the title of this volume ( Opus 157) makes so clear, he did in the midst of the vacuous passion of the devil and his minions and myriads, always willing to try, to test, just as to detest and to seek to annihilate the Christian body, work and witness, the souls saved and the salvation proclaimed, whether through dither, or by deletion, perversion or through death. The testimony of the saints, however, is not quashed by death, but kept through it; for when it is truth which is in view, sacrifice seals like a red imprint on a document.

The case has not changed except in one thing: we no longer have apostles on this earth. The Church was built, said Paul, on the foundation of the prophets and apostles, Jesus Christ the cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20-22). What is built is not demolished; it is not to be more built as to its foundation, since that category is final (I Corinthians 3:10-11), or well as a thing of the past. It was already established on such a foundation in that day, and its thrusts into the world do not make a new foundation or even new walls (cf. Revelation 21:14, Acts 15:21).

The pillars are in place; there is no new Christ, new death, new resurrection, new Gospel or new nudity of some uncovered code of conquest invented by some man NOT Jesus Christ, and some body, not the apostles who were in their official form, not subject of accretion: except for Paul, whom they specifically recognised, as one born out of due time. He was specifically and formally received as THE APOSTLE TO THE GENTILES (Galatians 2:7, Romans 11:13), parallel to Peter with the Jews; so that just as there are not two Peters, for only one Peter betrayed Christ during His life, and yet repented, as foretold specifically by Christ, nor are there two Pauls.

Just as there is an apostle designated to deal with that realm with authority, so with the Gentile field is there another. While this in no way degrades the others, it sets the tone and task, the truth and the parameters of the mission of each and of both, together and as one.

At that, Paul had personally had no small exposure to the beginnings of Christianity, having persecuted Christians for a long period before his conversion, being present even at so early an event as the stoning of Stephen (noted in Acts 7), in the first flush of the church's arrival in New Testament format. Moreover, to be so aggressively at work, and so formally involved, Paul would obviously have been aware and interested, long before the Stephen episode, possibly indeed a witness of some of the operations of Christ. Brought in by those who saw it all, in overview, he then had a unique operational felicity and authority (cf. I Corinthians 14:37 and compare this with I Corinthians 14:29!).

Hold fast what you have, says Revelation 3:11, that no one should take your crown (a word to those ready to be dissuaded, being unfounded, even in a sound church, for there may be many such) ; and again, strengthen the things that remain (Revelation 3:2). As noted in New but Not Innovation and another allied sermon^*4, it is not innovation but confirmation that is needed, and in this, there is need of the dynamic of God, not wrought by psychological play, a nonsense desire, a plethora of excited tongues and dizzying claims and counter-claims of greatenss, but worked by Himself according to His biblical word, now as before, for the glory of His name and the extension of His kingdom.

Let no one imagine, then, that new means are to make it work; it is God who makes it work. God, we read from the mouth of Peter, gives the Holy Spirit to those who obey Him. It is to these, not to those who gainsay Him, that this is accorded in service (Romans 8:9, I Corinthians 13:14).

Better a million times over is the faithful man, woman, than the raging lion who imagines his cultural occasions make of him a prophet. Wolves can bay, snap, and kids can play; but the people of God have work to do, and the plan, the program, the power, the basis, the accompanying grace of the Lord Jesus Christ are there for His people; and so is His great commission (Matthew 28:18-20). In focus is ONE, the Saviour and through Him, the trinity, which is ONE; and in His incarnation, ONE, Jesus Christ, and as to His authority to speak, it is ONE criterion, unique and final (Matthew 21:44), on pain of devastation.

in focus is ONE sacrifice (Hebrews 9), ONE Lord (Ephesians 4), and one eternal life (I John 1:1-4). God brooks no interference; and as Christ and as Paul resisted the alternative routes, for the One as Saviour, to the death, for the other as following in service, so must the Christian avoid the folly of the forbidden, and continue in His words, while His words remain in the heart (John 15:7). In this, there is great joy and His kindly presence and power operative.

NOTES

It has done so, in despite of the living and changeless, totally authoritative Christ, unique,
God-as-man, irreplaceable, unrelenting: the payor for whom every payee is one freed, the magnficence to whom every saved sinner looks without qualification or compromise, capitulation or surrender to any other (Isaiah 45:23, Philippians 2:10). If sin afflicts, repent; but if Satan entices, resist him and he will flee (I Peter 5), and use that one and only name (Acts 4:11-12). This is that which counts, for it alone given among men, is true, has shown its sacrificial glory and the dynamic of deity itself. To combine is forbidden, for it is to stumble OVER Him (Luke 20:17-18) is to be broken; whereas, to be stricken, is to be ground to powder. Trifling with truth is the name given to what seeks to forestall, overcome, progress above or regress from Jesus Christ. You might as well seek to unravel live wires on the poles with open hand, as touch His work, His words, to add, to change, to mutate, to dispute. The energy is wasted; the woe is secured.

"For who is God, except the LORD ? and who is a rock, except our God!" David exclaims. There is ONE GOD and ONE ROCK of salvation and rest. Indeed, as Paul declares in citing the Lord: "Behold, I lay in Zion a stumbling stone and rock of offense, and whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame." It is in CHRIST the sinless, the eternal, the Lord that one is to believe (John 6:47) and in Him ONLY (Acts 4:11-12).

It is time for trivialisation of this fact to cease, where His name is to be known. THERE IS NO OTHER NAME, said Peter, UNDER HEAVEN GIVEN AMONG MEN, by which they MUST be saved.

He is relevant, indispensable, subject to no synthesis or substitution, bargaining or further assault. Who ? Jesus of Nazareth raised up from the dead. That is what is written. If God speaks, listen; if man speaks, refer to the Lord; if they differ, trust God: after all, that is central to what is ALL about!

We remind ourselves of what Jesus Christ announced of Himself (Matthew 21:44):

"And whoever falls on this stone will be broken; but on whomever it falls,

it will grind him to powder."

He spoke of the stone which was rejected but which became the headstone of the corner, His very self. He spoke of the one to be killed by the Pharisees and others of that ilk. There is ONLY ONE such. To work IN His name WITH others is one thing; to use it of oneself or any other self or leader, outside the trinity, this is infinitely wrong.

*2 See SMR Appendix C and D.

See A Question of Gifts.

This sermon is available in fuller form, in the oral original, at this site.