THE WORK OF GOD—PART 1
Nearly four and a half years ago, in December of
1999, I began a series of sermons here—actually it was a four-part series
entitled The Work of God. I don’t know if there’s very many here that
remember that. It was done, like I said,
four and a half years ago. Just
recently, I had entertained the thought of re-visiting that particular subject
and that material. Then, this past
weekend on the trip down to
One of the questions asked concerned how we viewed
the work of God and our participation in it.
And I gave a brief answer as to what I felt our role as the Belleville Church of God is in doing the
work. Although that brief answer did
answer the specific question that was asked (and the person was satisfied with
what I told her), I really believe that this is a time to go back and look at
this subject again and talk about the Work of God and what is entailed in the
Work of God and whether or not it is what many of us had thought it to be or
whether it’s actually a lot more.
I’d like to take a fresh look at it from our current
perspective. We’re four and a half years
down the road from when I addressed it last time. At that time, in my mind at least, the water
was still somewhat muddy and it wasn’t really clear as to what role that we
should be playing. I think that water
has cleared somewhat now to where we can, again, take a fresh look at this
material from the perspective that we have right now. Instead of four parts this time, I think we
can get it done in three. So we’re going
to probably make this a three-part series.
I want to title it the same as we did back then. Now, one of the reasons
why I want to do that is that a number of the messages that we have given here
are posted on the website and people can go back and download and listen to
them. But this particular series is not
there because we didn’t choose to put it up.
So, if you want to title this, it will be The Work of God—Part 1.
Most of us who are here today, those of you who are
here and those of you who are listening in—whether it be via the telephone or
via the internet or if you will hear this later via one of the tapes—most all
of us who will hear this have been in the Church of God for quite some
time. We’ve been connected with it or
part of it for several years. During
that time, we have heard a great deal about “the Work” as we called it. We came to call the Work of God just “the
Work”.
If we were to be asked—if you were or if I were to
be asked—to define the Work of God, I think most of us would generally say the
same thing. That it would involve the
commission that Jesus Christ gave to the Apostles before He ascended back to
His Father. You know, during that 40-day period He gave the commission to His
disciples—to His apostles in particular—as to what He expected them to do. In Mark
Mark
Matthew 24:14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a
witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.
And so most of us, I think,
who go back into the 1960s—let’s say that our experience in the Church of God
goes back at least to the seventies or early eighties—most all of us felt that
we were actually participating in the fulfillment of Matthew 24:14. We felt
that Mr. Armstrong’s message to the world, the gospel that he and his son and
others preached to the world on the broadcast, was us participating in the
fulfillment of that prophecy that Christ made. To a great extent, we felt that the
Work involved the preaching of the gospel to the world.
During that period of time,
the Church was in a period of great growth in numbers. I can remember when we first contacted the
You remember we were buying
time—I think there was only one other religious organization that was
purchasing more time. As a matter of
fact, we may have gotten to one little point then where we were purchasing more
than anybody else, I’m not sure. But
anyway, we were purchasing a great amount of radio and TV time. The Plain Truth and other publications were
being sent out at tremendous rates—in the millions and millions of issues. Most of us, at that time, saw ourselves or
viewed ourselves as part of “the Work”—part of “doing” that. Even though we weren’t literally doing it
with our own hands, you might say, we felt we were contributing and were part
of it. We were supporting the effort to do the Work, and the way
that we participated was through our financial support (to a great extent) and by
our prayers for the Work. Many came to
believe that our obligation to God’s Work was limited to our financial support
and our prayers for those actually doing it.
I think most of us felt that way.
The Work continued that way
up until even shortly after the death of Mr. Armstrong. Even after his death, for some time, the Work
continued to be done as the teachings remained consistent for some time. The publications continued to go out and the
broadcasts continued to be made for some time.
But then we began to see a change. We began to see the course that the
Worldwide Church of God was on beginning to change. Now we’re approximately 17½ years past Mr.
Armstrong’s death. And I think it
doesn’t need to be said that there is incredible difference in what we see now
of the
Now, as I mentioned before,
I think that some of us came to believe that the
Now, if we could go back in
time—if it were possible for you or me to go back in time somehow—and appear
200 years ago or 500 years ago or 1,000 years ago or 1,500 years ago and we were
looking for the Church of God based upon what we had become accustomed to in
the 70s, would we be able to find it? If
we were exposed to the Church in the 1970s with all the power it had, and we then
went back in time a thousand years looking for that kind of Work, would we be
able to find it? I daresay not. It didn’t look like that then. It had never looked just like that before. This was a unique window of time in which the
gospel was being preached in this manner.
Now, today, the spiritual organism of the
The ministry is composed of
those who are to be shepherds. By the
way, very interesting, I had a long conversation with a gentleman in
Others get very vocal in
saying the Work is not over; that there is yet a Work to be done and that we
must continue in an attempt to preach the gospel to the world. Many feel very strongly about that. They feel that the Work needs to be revived
so that can be accomplished. Some say
that if you’re not associated with a group that is participating in doing that,
then you’re falling short in your responsibilities. So we have these contrasting ideas along that
line.
Perhaps we should begin this
by asking the question, “Just what is
‘The Work’ of God?” Is it only preaching the gospel to the world
or does it involve much more than that? Well, actually, Mr. Armstrong said repeatedly—and you’ve heard him say this—that the
mission that Christ gave the Church was twofold. First, it was to preach the gospel to the
world and, secondly, it was to feed the flock.
And that was very, very true. Matthew
28:19 is a parallel to that verse that we read in Mark 16 where it says “go
into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature”. This is parallel to that. It doesn’t mention the gospel specifically;
here it says:
Matthew 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples
of all the nations
Preaching the gospel
resulted in making the disciples. And he
says
Matthew 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples
of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit. [and then verse 20 says] 20) teaching them to observe all
things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end
of the age.
And so Christ is mentioning
here in this commission the same twofold commission that Mr. Armstrong
mentioned. Which was the preaching of
the gospel and then the feeding of the sheep.
It’s interesting that this word preaching (we’ve mentioned this before
so it will be redundant to some of you) where it says “preach the gospel”, is keruso and it means “to proclaim as a
herald”. A herald is a person who
carries and announces important news. I
think we can all remember that, even on the telecasts, Jesus Christ was
referred to as a “newscaster”. Remember
that?
As He came preaching the
gospel, He was referred to on our telecasts as a newscaster. He was proclaiming the gospel as a
herald. This word teaching here in verse
20 is didasko in the Greek. It means “to hold discourses with others in
order to instruct them.” And, actually, a simplistic definition of a disciple is
a pupil; one who is taught. So, this
teaching means to hold discourse with others in order to instruct them—to
deliver didactic discourses in a classroom-type setting, which is basically
what we have here. So there are two very
different meanings here between preaching and teaching. So Mr. Armstrong’s words that this mission is
twofold is absolutely correct. It clearly
is a twofold mission.
The Work of God did not begin
with this commission, though. We need to
understand that the Work of God did not begin with this commission. Actually, the Work of God had been going on long
before Jesus Christ gave this commission to the Apostles. Back in Ecclesiastes 7:13—I don’t want you to
turn there right now, because I want to quote just a part of that verse and I
want to go back to it later and look at what the rest of the verse says—but the
first part of it says:
Ecclesiastes
“Consider the work of
God.” Now, Solomon wrote this back when
he lived on this earth and so he knew at that time that there was a Work of God
going on. He said “Consider the work
of God.” In the Hebrew, consider means
“to look at, to view, to inspect, to examine, to investigate, to learn, to gain
understanding about” the Work of God. So
he wrote that way back then. I’ll ask
you to turn to John 5. Jesus Christ said
this when He was here on the earth. John
John
So both God the Father and
Jesus the Christ were involved in a Work.
They had been involved in
“the Work”; actually the work that They were doing. Both of Them had been in the process of doing
“the Work” for some time and it wasn’t altogether what He gave as a commission
to the Apostles. Now let’s go back to
Isaiah 5 and let’s notice what Isaiah was inspired to write back in his day.
Isaiah
And so here Isaiah was
inspired to write that God was doing a Work at the time he wrote this but only a few human beings then, according to Isaiah,
seriously considered that He was doing a Work.
Let’s face it. Most human beings
on this earth are oblivious to the fact that God is doing a Work. That He has a plan or that He has a purpose
or that there is a reason why human beings are on this earth. Most people think that everything has
happened by chance. They haven’t really
looked into that but, basically I think, most people feel that way. That they’re just here living out their lives
and whatever happens, happens, and wherever they happen to land, that’s where
they land—this sort of thing. I think
most people live their lives, generally speaking, that way. They do not regard the work of the
Eternal. In Deuteronomy 31, let’s notice
what Moses wrote.
Deuteronomy 31:30 Then Moses spoke in the hearing
of all the [congregation] of
And so this is a song, but it
is the words of Moses. In chapter 32,
then:
Deuteronomy 32:1 Give ear O heavens and I will
speak; and hear O earth, the words of my
mouth. 2) Let my teaching drop as the
rain, my speech distill as the dew; as raindrops on the tender herb, and as
showers on the grass. 3) For I proclaim the
name of the [Eternal]; ascribe greatness to our God. 4) He is the Rock, His work is perfect; [Notice…He
is The Rock and His Work is
perfect]; For all His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice;
righteous and upright is He.
So Moses stated that God was
doing a Work. He recognized that this
Being, whom he said is The Rock, was doing a Work, and he said that Work was perfect. Then in Isaiah 45, we’ll begin reading in
verse 9
Isaiah 45:9 Woe to him who strives with his
Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the
potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay
say to him who forms it, “What are you making?”
Or shall your handiwork say, “He has no hands?” 10) Woe to him who says to his father, “What
are you begetting?” Or to the woman [or
the mother], “What have you brought forth?”
11) Thus says the [Eternal], The Holy One of
So God’s Work involved the
creation of the heavens and the earth, but the focus was on man. “I have made the earth and created man on it. [It was] I—My hands—[that] stretched out the
heavens and all their host I have commanded.”
And so you might say the work of the great God involving man began right
here when He created the universe. The
vast universe out there He made but His focus
was on man. As we go ahead and read some
of these other scriptures, it’s obvious that all of this was brought into being
because of a purpose He wanted to work out involving man, and it was all part
of His Work. In Psalm 102, let’s notice
Psalm 102:24 I said, “O my God, do not take
me away in the midst of my days; Your years are throughout all
generations. 25) Of old, You laid the
foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands.
Now we find this quoted in
Hebrews 1:10-12, where Paul was the author.
He chose to quote this.
Psalm 102:26 They will perish, but You will
endure. Yes, they will all grow old like
a garment; like a cloak You will change them and they will be changed. 27) But You are the same, and Your years will
have no end. 28) The children of Your
servants will continue and their descendants will be established before You.
And so, God created the
heavens and the earth. He laid the foundation, but it was for
children to be produced. “The children
of your servants will continue and their descendants will be established before
You.” Isaiah 64:8,
Isaiah 64:8 But now, O [Eternal] You are
our Father; we are the clay and You are our Potter. And we are all the work of Your hand.
So God is doing a Work. He’s been involved in this Work for eons of
time; we don’t know how long exactly this universe has been in existence. It’s been in existence for who knows how many
years, perhaps millions. I don’t know
that anybody can determine that. But man
is the focal point of this entire creation.
Psalm 8, this is very familiar, but let’s go back and look at this; what
David was saying so many years ago. He
was inspired to write these words and put them in this book.
Psalm 8:1 O Lord, our Lord, how excellent
is Your name in all the earth, [You] who have set Your glory above the
heavens! 3) When I [that is, David]
consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars which You
have ordained. 4) What is man that You
are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? [or you give
attention to or care for him] 5) For You
have made him a little [while] lower than the angels [This probably should be
rendered, For You have made him for a little while lower than elohim, as the margin has it.] and You have crowned him with glory and
honor. [There is great potential in
human life.] 6) You have made him to
have dominion over the works of Your hands.
[So the works that You have created—those physical things that You’ve
brought into existence—You have made man to have dominion over the works of
Your hands.] You have put all things under
his feet. [So David was privy to a
certain level of knowledge of this Plan that God has, and he saw and understood
that man had a very, very important role in the Work of God and in what God was
doing.] 7) All sheep and oxen, even the
beasts of the field, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea, that pass
through the paths of the sea. [So all of
these are to be under man’s feet.] 9) O
Lord, how excellent is Your name in all the earth!
Let’s go back to Hebrews 2
where Paul quoted that particular Psalm.
I want to continue to read there and notice what is said along the lines
of the importance of man in the Work of God.
We’ll begin reading in Hebrews 2:6.
Hebrews 2:6 But one testified in a certain
place saying: What is man that You are
mindful of him, or the son of man that You take care of him? 7) You have made him a little [while] lower
than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over
the works of Your hands. 8) You have put
all things in subjection under his feet.
For in that He put all [and so Paul begins to comment then on that] in
subjection under him, He left nothing
that is not put under him. But now we do
not yet see all things put under him. 9)
But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the
suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God,
might taste death for everyone. [Then
verse] 10) For it was fitting for Him,
for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to
glory; to make the [author] of their
salvation perfect through sufferings. 11)
For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one,
for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren.
And so Paul commenting on
what David wrote so many years ago showing that he was talking about God reproducing
Himself and the importance of man in this Plan—in this Work that He had set His
hand to do—to bring many sons to glory; individuals whom Jesus Christ
considered to be His brethren and who one day would be fully-born brethren of
His. Let’s go back to Genesis 2 and read
something way back there.
Genesis 2:1 Thus the heavens and the earth,
and all the host of them, were finished.
Now, this is not
specifically here talking about the creation of the heavens and the
earth. This is talking about what God
had just been involved with in refurbishing the earth.
Genesis 2:2 And on the seventh day, God ended
His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work
which He had done. 3) Then God blessed
the seventh day and sanctified it because in it He rested from all His work
which God had created and made.
So go back then to Genesis 1
and we’ll read the first three verses there, where it says:
Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created
the heavens and the earth [initially, this is what we’ve been reading about,
that He initially brought this universe into existence]. 2) The earth was without form, and void; and
darkness was on the face of the deep.
And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. [And so
destruction had occurred to the surface of the earth. And then verse] 3) Then
God said “Let there be light”; and there was light.
And so a process began then wherein He refurbished the
surface of the earth so that it would be habitable for man and so it would be
perfectly suited for verse 26 to occur.
Genesis 1:26 And God said, “Let Us make man
in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish
of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth
and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27) So God created man in His own image; in
the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Now this was an important
part of the Work—of God’s Work. This
refurbishing was necessary as the surface of the earth had come to the point
where it wouldn’t support life—wouldn’t support human life for sure. So it had to be refurbished and prepared for
man. That is what he is talking about
down here in chapter 2, verses 1-3, where He had “finished the Work”. The Work of refurbishing had been
finished. This was a very important part
of the Work; it had a beginning and it had an end—it had been completed. Now, this part came to an end. It was a Work; He said it was a Work and that
He had completed it. But the Work of God
involving man was really just beginning with the creation of man. The Work of God involving man was just
beginning yet He said ‘I’ve finished the Work’.
He finished a part of it.
Let’s go to Psalm 44. What we’re going to do now is just kind of
jump through and look at a few things that occurred in the Old Testament
history, and we’ll make some comments as we move through this. Here the Psalmist is writing and he states
this:
Psalm 44:1 We have heard with our ears, O
God, our fathers have told us [so this is written from the perspective of
somebody who is hearing about what has occurred in the past from the fathers],
the deeds [If you have the
Authorized Version it says “what work”; this word “deeds” is rendered “work] You
did in their days[in the days of the
fathers], in days of old. [Now, notice
what he’s talking about] 2) You drove out
the nations with Your hand, but them You planted; You afflicted the peoples,
and cast them out. [So this is talking
about the birth of the nation of
So, part of the Work of God
involved the birth of the nation of
So, God did a work through Moses. Now, we read through the Old Testament and we
find many characters that God used. The
first record we have is Abel; we have others. We have Moses and we have many
others—David and all the other individuals in the Old Testament. So God worked
through human instruments even in Old Testament times. Now, I’d like to turn to Exodus 18. Moses was an instrument that God used but he
also was to share the work that he had with others. Others were to share in doing the Work. Let’s
notice.
Exodus
And as you read on, it seems
that God did bless that; perhaps God even inspired Moses’ father-in-law to
instruct him in this way. But they had a Work to do is the point that I want to
make.
Exodus 34:10 And He said: “Behold, I make a
covenant. Before all your people I will
do marvels such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation [He would do things with the nation of
So
Exodus 35:4 And Moses spoke to all the
children of
And you can read through
chapters 36 through 40 where it discusses the Work of building the
tabernacle. And it was quite an endeavor
that they went through but it was a Work.
It was a Work of building
this tabernacle. In Exodus 40:17
Exodus 40:17 And it came to pass in the
first month of the second year, on the first day of the month, that the
tabernacle was raised up. 18) So Moses
raised up the tabernacle, fastened its sockets, set up its boards, put in its
bars, and raised up its pillars. [And so
forth; over in verse] 30) He set the laver between the tabernacle of meeting
and the altar, and put water there for washing.
31) and Moses and Aaron and his sons would wash their hands and their
feet with water from it. 32) Whenever they
went into the tabernacle of meeting, and when they came near the altar, they
washed, as the [Eternal] had commanded Moses.
33) And he raised up the court all around the tabernacle and the altar,
and hung up the screen of the court gate.
So Moses finished the work.
So the building of the
tabernacle was part of the Work of God for that particular time. It was a need that needed to be done. It had a beginning and had an end.
That Work began and it was completed and came to an end. Later, the temple was built. It, too, had a beginning and it had an
end. That Work was completed.
Down through time, God accomplished His work through different human
instruments—in some cases He did it with His own hands. But He’s been doing a Work. He has utilized different instruments. Look at Abel; Abel had a Work although it was
very short and very brief—we have very little information about it. But Christ said he was the first
prophet. He had a Work to do. His work
was very different from Moses’ work.
Moses’ work, as great as it
was, was very different from that of David—a very different work. Each had a role to play in the overall Work
of God. It was different due to time,
circumstances, and needs. Certain things
needed to be accomplished at certain times and God used certain individuals to
do them. God’s work with
Now, I want to go—I wasn’t planning
to read that verse today—but let’s go to Ecclesiastes 7. Did any of you look? Did any of you peek at that? Ecclesiastes 7:13, where it says:
Ecclesiastes
Many times we see things
occur, and we think they’re crooked. We
think we need to set our hands to straighten them. Is that what Solomon is saying here? That, maybe, God’s hand was in making the
situation, in our view, crooked? Where a
situation exists that we think we need to take into our hands to try to
straighten? “Consider the work of God;
for who can make straight…” In other
words, consider, examine, and try to figure out what God is doing. “for who can make straight what He has made
crooked?” Now, God doesn’t make anything
crooked but, at times, it may seem to be crooked from our view. When God is
involved in doing something, He knows the end effect is going to be very
good. He may allow circumstances and
situations to come to be for our good. I
have made the statement numerous times that the last 12 years or 13 years have
been the most valuable years of my life; I’ve learned more during that time
than I had learned over many years prior to that. It was very important; it’s been very
valuable.
Our experiences over the
past several years have been very valuable to a number of people. To a number of people it has been very
difficult. Childbirth is difficult, but
look what the reward is. And some of our
experiences are very difficult, but the end result can be very good. It’s hard for us to look at the difficult
times as, maybe, being orchestrated by God.
And I’m not saying any particular thing here; I’m just saying sometimes,
in our view, we may think something is very difficult and very bad, when, in
fact, the end result can be very good.
As we get to the New
Testament it was time for God to begin a very important phase of His Work. He’d been doing a Work, but when it was time for
the events of the New Testament to begin, it was time for Him to begin a very
important phase, a new phase. It was time for God to begin to build His
church. Now, again, there are strong
parallels between the nation of
John 17:1 Jesus spoke these words, [this
is that prayer that He prayed to His Father just before He was betrayed]
lifting up His eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour has come, Glorify
Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You.
2) as You have given Him
authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You
have given Him. 3) And this is eternal
life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have
sent. 4) I have glorified You on the
earth.
I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.
So Jesus Christ came to this
earth being sent by the Father and having a Work to do. He said here “I have finished the work which You have given Me to do”
John 17:5 And now, O Father, glorify Me
together with yourself; with the glory which I had with You before the world
was.
And He goes on then and He
talks about how He had manifested God’s name to the men whom God had given to
Him out of the world and He had taught them these different things—“I have
given them Your word”. Apparently, right
here, the Work that He’s speaking of is His teaching the disciples. He conveyed that truth of God to these human
beings. I don’t think He was talking
about His fulfilling what the Passover lamb pictured, because He hadn’t done
that yet. He hadn’t died yet and He said
“I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.”
So Jesus Christ came to this
earth having a Work to do. He also had to fulfill what the Passover lamb
pictured; He had to complete that Work also.
He had to die. He had to die for
all of us so that this Plan, this Purpose, this focal point of God’s Work could
be accomplished. So He had to do
that. Back in John 4, let’s notice words
that He said. John 4:34,
John
So, whether He was talking
right here about His specific part in that Work, or whether He’s talking about
the overall Work, he said “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to
finish His work.” So Christ’s focus was
on accomplishing both what He had to do while He was in the flesh—to complete
that Work, which He said in John 17 He had completed—or He may have been
thinking even beyond that of this huge Work that God is doing in reproducing
Himself and that His food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish
that work—to get that accomplished.
But the point is, Jesus
Christ came to the earth. He had a role to play; He had a Work to
do. That Work had a beginning and He
said He finished it. He completed
it. Whatever work He was specifically
talking about there, that Work had been completed. John 1,
John 1:6 There was a man sent from God,
whose name was John. [So John the
Baptist here was sent by God. In other
words, he had a mission. God had given
him a job to do.] 7) This man came for a
witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. 8) He was not that Light but was sent to bear
witness of that Light.
So John the Baptist was sent
by God to do a unique Work. The Work had
a beginning and the Work had an end and you know what the end was. You know how John’s work ended. It ended with his death. Now John 9.
Let’s notice something very interesting here that Jesus Christ said.
John 9:1 Now as Jesus passed by, he saw
a man who was blind from birth. 2) And
His disciples asked Him, [So here, the disciples—we don’t know who they are or
how many there were—but Christ was with certain of His disciples and His
disciples asked this question.] saying, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents,
that he was born blind? 3) Jesus
answered, Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God
should be revealed in him.
So he was going to
participate in the Work of God, in the sense that Christ would have the
opportunity to heal him here. But, now
notice verse 4, notice what He says. Now
it says in the New King James, “I
must work.” The margin shows it could be rendered “we” and I think that’s
probably accurate. He’s including His
disciples here when He says “we must
work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day”
John 9:4 [we] must work the works of Him who
sent Me while it is day; [notice] the night is coming when no one can work.
Now just think about
that—that statement right there—think about the life of Christ. He said He had finished the Work; He was
ready to be glorified by the Father. He
was about to die. He was going to die
the very next day when He said those words.
The night came for Him, as far as Him being able to do a Work in the
flesh, the night came. He could no
longer Work in the flesh. That work was
over; it was complete and done. He said,
“we must work the works of Him who
sent Me while it is day.” In other words, while there’s still
opportunity, while it’s still possible,
we are to work the works of Him who sent Me for the night is coming when no one can work.
I’m just going to leave that
for now without any further comment. In
other words, He is saying that there is coming a time or a night, when no one
can work. The human experience that we have
is limited. I mean, we’re only going to
live so long individually. Humanity is
only going to exist on this earth for so long as human beings. John 20:21,
John
So, as Jesus Christ was sent
by the Father to do a specific Work, and there were, I guess we should say,
specific Works—there’s more than one thing that He came to this earth to
accomplish. He came to this earth being
sent by the Father to accomplish certain things in the flesh here on the earth. He is telling the Apostles, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” So there was a Work—there were certain things
that these individuals were to do. Acts
1:4,
Acts 1:4 And being assembled together
with them, He commanded them not to depart from
Now, they were to be
witnesses and, specifically, it states that they were to be witnesses of His
resurrection from the dead. They were to
verify that this individual, who had died, was alive again. They had other things that they were to do and
other things they were to say but, specifically, they were to be
witnesses. As a matter of fact, the
replacement for Judas, remember, had
to experience His resurrection from the dead.
He actually had to experience everything from the baptism of John until
His resurrection from the dead. So he
had to know these certain things in order to be able to do a certain Work.
Now I think you know what a
witness is. A witness is someone who knows
something. He knows, he has facts, he
has information that can be used. So, if
there is a court case, they bring witnesses in who know facts and who have
information that can contribute to the rendering of a fair judgment. (Of course, that doesn’t happen very often in
our courts, but that’s what a
witness does.) And so these individuals
had certain experiences. They knew
certain things and they were able, then, to be used to do a Work of proclaiming
those things. And one of the things that
they were to do was to proclaim the Gospel of the
Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and spoke to
them, saying, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19) Go therefore and make disciples of all
the nations
In other words, it was time
for Jesus Christ to begin to build His Church—go and make disciples—and to do
that, you have to preach the gospel. So,
you preach the gospel and disciples are made.
You baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit, and they become begotten children of God. They become a part of the spiritual organism
of the Church. Then you are to
teach them.
Matthew 28:20 teaching them to observe all
things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end
of the age.
And so they had this twofold
job to do; to preach the Gospel and to teach.
Now, next time, we’re going to look carefully—attempt to look
carefully—at the scriptures in the New Testament as to how they fulfilled that
Commission and how the emphasis
changed as time went by from the preaching of the Gospel to the teaching. It is very clear. Now, in Acts 2, for a final scripture. This was, no doubt, read here last weekend.
Acts 2:1 When the Day of Pentecost had
fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2) And suddenly there came a sound from
heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind and it filled the whole house where they were
sitting. 3) Then there appeared to them
divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. 4) And they were all filled with the Holy
Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them
utterance.
And so, through God’s Holy
Spirit, they were able to begin to fulfill the Commission that Jesus Christ had
just given them. The New Testament
Church of God began on that day, if we understand it correctly—on the Day of
Pentecost in 31 A.D. And they began,
then, to fulfill the Commission and to do the Work of God that had been
assigned to them.
Transcribed by kdo August,
2004