Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return: 17. Steps in the Program

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Quiet Talks by Samuel Dickey: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return: 17. Steps in the Program



TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About Our Lord's Return (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 17. Steps in the Program

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Steps in the Program

The second passage is in Peter's talk to the great crowd on the day of Pentecost. [Note: Act_2:16-21.] In explaining the remarkable thing that has just taken place, and set all Jerusalem to talking,—the coming of the Holy Spirit and the speaking in strange tongues,—he quotes the Joel passage. It speaks of such an outpouring. But he quotes the entire passage which speaks of a day of the Lord to come, a great and notable day. Before it came there would come a great crisis, terrible happenings on earth, "blood and fire and smoke," and startling happenings in the skies. Peter tells them that the Jesus whom they crucified is the One who is to come after these terrible happenings.

The third passage is in Peter's sermon after the healing of the lame man, told in chapter three. He is preaching to Jews, to whom the Kingdom is the one passionate thought, especially at the great reunion of the Pentecost festival then being celebrated. He is urging upon them that the crucified Jesus is their Messiah, through whom the Kingdom must and will come. And he urges these Jews to repent and accept their Messiah. Then comes the passage of special interest, in verses twenty to twenty-six. The purpose in this preaching Peter is doing, is that they may repent, and so "that He may send the Christ... Whom the heavens must receive until the time of the restoration of all things." [Note: Act_3:20-21.]

The words, "that He may send the Christ," would indicate the purpose of the preaching of the Gospel at this time. It is of course that men personally may be saved; but beyond this it is that Christ may return for the next step in His program. This is a helpful bit of light on the mission of the Church. The one main objective to be kept ever in view by the Church in all its activity is the return of the Lord. The purpose of His return is the restoration of all things. This to the Jew meant the setting up of the Kingdom. The Kingdom is to come through Christ, and at the time of His return. But there is yet more. Peter appeals to Moses and the Prophets, reminding them of what they were so fond of insisting upon, that they were "the sons of the Prophets and of the covenant" made with Abraham, that "in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." Then occurs this striking statement, "unto you (Jews) first God having raised up His servant sent Him to bless you" and so on. That is, the preaching of the Gospel is to be first to the Jew, because the Jew is to be the channel of God's promised blessing to all mankind.

The fourth bit in Acts is in the story of the first council of the Church. [Note: Chapter 15.] It was held at Jerusalem, at the time of the visit of Paul and Barnabas, after their first missionary journey out in the Gentile world. There was a sore question troubling the Church at Jerusalem, and carried into all the places, or many of them, where Paul had been preaching. It arose out of confused ideas about the Jew and the Church. The Church had been of course wholly a Jewish affair up to the time of the vision of Peter on the housetop at Joppa. Then began aggressive work among the outside, non-Jewish, Gentile peoples. Paul's mission was peculiarly to this outside, non-Jewish world, while he always preached first to the Jews in every place. These Pauline Churches contained both Jew and Gentile, but with more Gentiles than Jews. But the Church at Jerusalem remained probably wholly, or almost wholly, a church of converted Jews. The atmosphere there was intensely Jewish.

Now there were certain leaders who taught that these Gentile Christians must become Jews as well as Christians in order to be saved. They could not get hold of the fact that the Jew was rejected racially and nationally; that is, as the distinctive Jew he was rejected, really self-rejected through his rejection of Him who would have brought in the Jew-Kingdom. Personally the Jew could be saved as anybody else, but the time of Jew leadership was over for that time. These leaders apparently could not get hold of this. The confusion was a natural and easy one, in such an intense Jewish atmosphere as Jerusalem. According to all the prophecies, God's plan for blessing to all men was through the Jew. That the Jew was set aside nationally was a hard thing for them to grasp.

This conference of Church leaders was held at Jerusalem to discuss this matter, which was disturbing the Gentile Churches greatly. James, our Lord's brother, seems to have been acting as Chairman or President of the Conference. He seems to give voice to the decision arrived at. [Note: Act_15:13-21; Amo_9:11-12.]His explanation is as intensely interesting to us Gentile Christians as it must have been to the Jew Christians who were open-minded enough to receive it. In effect his explanation is something like this. God's plan of blessing for the world is through the Jew, as the leaders contended, but as matters stood, there was something else to come before this Jew-national blessing to the world. Peter had told how God had first visited these Gentiles to take out of them a people for Himself. And this, he says, is in perfect agreement with the prophecy in Amos, where it says that "after" this is done the Kingdom will be established, and then through it (the Jew-Kingdom) the Gospel is to be preached among all, in order that all the nations may seek after the Lord.

Here are three steps in James' summary. First of all before the Kingdom is set up, there is to be the preaching among the Gentiles, and the taking out of a people for God; then the Jew-Kingdom set up, and then through it a widespread evangelizing among all the peoples of the earth. That Gentile period has extended so long, including our own times, that it is as difficult for us to conceive of it coming to an end and the Jew coming in again, as it was for the Jew leaders to conceive of a Gentile being saved without becoming a Jew. It is the same question practically in the Church today, as in the Jerusalem Church during that first generation, but with the main issue reversed. They could not conceive of a Gentile Christian movement independently of the Jew. We practically find it impossible to conceive of a Jew movement displacing the Gentile leadership in the whole earth.

Let me now try to gather up in a word what additional light is gotten from these Acts passages. Jesus is to come back in the same way as He went up from Olivet, that is, personally, openly, on the clouds, and at an unexpected moment. Before that day there will be a time of terrible crisis in the earth and the heavens, corresponding to the tribulation of the Gospels. Meanwhile the great purpose or mission of the Church is to preach the Gospel to all men in order to bring Christ back again. And this preaching is to be always to the Jew first, because it is through the Jew receiving the Christ that the Kingdom will come, and through this Jew-Kingdom is to come the great blessing to all the earth.

An order of events in this broad program of God running through centuries is as follows: First of all, before the Jew-Kingdom is set up, there is to be a time of Gentile evangelization. This agrees with our Lord's word about the Gospel being preached in all the world for a witness. Then will come the Jew-Kingdom and Jew-leadership among the nations of the earth, and through this new Jew movement there is to be a worldwide evangelization, bringing greatest untold blessings to all the earth.

Then there is the distinct word about our present personal attitude. We are not to be counting dates, nor to be figuring out probabilities, but to be absorbed in witnessing, that is, in taking the news of our Lord Jesus as a personal Saviour earnestly and lovingly to all men. Watching means witnessing, ever on the alert against anything that would keep from the witnessing by life and lip. This is the thing our Lord longs to be finding us doing when He comes back.