Jesus answered(Pilate and said), “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here.”
I closed on Easter Sunday by claiming that Good Friday, the Lord's Crucifixion, was the end of Creation, marked by a silent, solemn Sabbath, and that the First Lord's Day Easter Morning was the Beginning of a whole New World that had not previously existed, a New World spoken into existence when the Father called His Beloved Son back from the grave that morning. But, what really changed in our lives? When I think about my life and the world that we live in, it doesn't seem like a world where the dead rise up. It doesn't seem like the wrongly convicted and punished are justified by a Resurrecting Power. If I were to describe how I feel about most of the problems in life I think powerless would be a very good word. Generally, injustice is all around. Life in the last days of the American Empire, in the period that history will probably remember as the Kleptocracy, rule by theft, is a rather hopeless affair to a thinking person. The self-determination of the world's people is at perhaps the lowest ebb ever, and all of the tools that we thought would make us free, and happy and powerful have been turned into chains. We are surveilled and recorded and tracked at all times by the magic boxes in our pocket that put the world at our fingertips and keep us always chained to the society that preys on us. We are fed a steady diet of obvious lies, not to try and convince us but only to numb our brains and sap our will to fight. We have more and more dollars shoved into our hands to distract us from the fact that there is almost nothing left worth buying. On a more personal note, good deeds are rewarded with being sued, the idle are promoted while the industrious stagnate, and generally speaking every week closes with more problems than there were when it opened. So, where is the New Creation? Sacrificing everything to know the Power of His Resurrection doesn't sound so bad but where is it, where is He? As David complained, "How long Oh Lord, will the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer? When will you stand up for your people?"
Why are we, why am I, so powerless? One answer to that question is really quite simple. We are under God's curse. As one of the prophets, I forget which one, said of Israel's suffering, "How could these things happen if Our Rock had not sold us?" The curse is the distinctive feature of human existence. The imposition of futility on us and on the Creation over which we were given headship, the pointless, the profitless, and the meaningless are almost the sum total of what we have accomplished as a species. We have brought death, and confusion, and deception. While I wouldn't want to be mistaken for an Environmentalist it is a fact that the Lord has smote the earth with fearsome curses, hard and on more than one occasion on account of our sin. And He's not anything like done yet.
From Acts 1: And being assembled together with them, He(Jesus) commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.”
After the Lord's Resurrection, He was with the Apostles for 40 days. And after 40 days the risen Lord, called the Apostles together, to Mount Olivet, probably to His Mountain Garden, I don't know that but it seems appropriate perhaps that as the first act of Mankind began in Eden the second act begins in Gethsemane. The bliss of the one garden was lost forever, but the pain of the other is more than a replacement. It is better to go to the house of mourning than the house of rejoicing. We were once separated from God because of our sin, the Ascension that took place on the Mount of Olives that day marks a separation,in its own way as piercing, but for very different reasons, and we wait for His Return, His Presence, with more longing than men wish for Eden or any fictional Utopia, we pant and even faint for the return of the Beloved. Adam and Eve each had fruitless futile labor. Peter, James, and John were to stay put, to wait for the fulfillment of the Promise, those who toiled brought in no fruit, those who waited reaped a hundredfold. The ants got nothing, the grasshoppers were the instruments of perhaps the only truly positive change in world history. They were told that it wouldn't be many days before the Lord's promise was fulfilled, it was in fact 9 days. Forty days from Easter until the Lord's Ascension 9 more days brings us to the First Day of the Week eight weeks after Passover which as we know fell on Good Friday, seven sabbaths to mark the completion of all old things, and one bright new Sunday morning- the first day of the New Week, brings us to the day when Moses commanded that the Firstfruits of the Spring Harvest, usually barley in ancient Israel I am told, would be brought and offered to the Lord, called in the Books of Moses the Feast of Weeks, but known in Jesus day simply as "The Fiftieth Day"-that day is today. Today is the Day of Pentecost.
When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.(This is from the beginning of Acts 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. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.” So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “Whatever could this mean?” Others mocking said, “They are full of new wine.” But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words. For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
‘And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God,
That I will pour out My Spirit(My own breath, the very Divine Life of the Living God) on all flesh;
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your young men shall see visions,
Your old men shall dream dreams.
And on My menservants and on My maidservants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days;
And they shall prophesy.
I will show wonders in heaven above
And signs in the earth beneath:
Blood and fire and vapor of smoke.
The sun shall be turned into darkness,
And the moon into blood,
Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.
And it shall come to pass
That whoever calls on the name of the Lord
Shall be saved.’“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know— Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it. For David says concerning Him:
‘I foresaw the Lord always before my face,
For He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken.
Therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad;
Moreover my flesh also will rest in hope.
For You will not leave my soul in Hades,
Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.
You have made known to me the ways of life;
You will make me full of joy in Your presence.’“Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne, he, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that His soul was not left in Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear.
“For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself:
‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at My right hand,
Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.” ’“Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Now when they heard this, they were cut to the quick, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized into the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you SHALL receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”-as many as the Lord our God shall call, the children, the young, the old both men and women SHALL receive the Lord's Promise the Holy Spirit.
So, that's Acts 2, the simplest sermon ever preached. Peter tells them that the man they killed not quite two months ago was God's Christ, and that they had an unseen coconspirator in this slaying- not some devil sneaking around in the shadows, though he is real and was there too, but the Predestinating God of Heaven and Earth Himself was the driving force behind the Crucifixion. He tells them that this same Jesus, rose from the dead, because it was not possible for Him to be held by death, and ascended to the right hand of God, and delivered the Spirit of God to men as promised since time began. The fulfillment of that Promise could be plainly seen that day. So, it seems rather straightforward. It seems to me that Peter's message depends entirely on two points, the Lord's resurrection and the unusual events that were happening in Jerusalem that day, although as a note we should mention that weird things had been happening in Jerusalem for the last 50 days, not to say 3 and a half years.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? ...we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.” So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “Whatever could this mean?”
I hesitate to even explain something that the text makes so crystal clear, but I sorta have to. The Apostles, were saying perfectly sensible things. They were describing what God had done. They knew what they were saying. They spoke of their own volition in more than likely Aramaic-the only thing that the speakers, or those among the listerners who spoke Aramaic natively found unusual was the content, the announcement of God's Promise as fulfilled, of the Messianic age as fully arrived, of Christ descended into Hell in the words of the Creed, or Hades as David puts it in the passage Peter quoted, risen and wielding the full power and authority of The One God on behalf of His friends, not at an impersonal distance, but very near, intimately close to our troubles, our needs, our doubts, and our griefs. They weren't "possessed" by the Spirit, I don't think that is the word the Pentecostals use but for simplicity's sake that communicates their idea plainly. They weren't speaking words that were unknown to them and required some other person to make sense of their gibberish.
That morning, Something caused them to reflect on the Gospel, on the life, death, resurrection, and recent ascension of their friend and teacher, and to begin to talk about what they had seen Him do, and heard Him say, and primarily about how His ascension, a genuine historical event nine days prior, guaranteed that all of God's Promises were on Full Go. And everybody understood what they were saying. Even people that shouldn't. And by people that shouldn't I mean people that didn't comprehend the language that Galileans spoke. And people who spoke Aramaic that they learned later in life, heard the Apostles speaking words that they had known since the crib, they didn't speak of some far away God of Philosophy, some abstract Ruler but of Abba, of Dada God.
The significance of this obviously is connected to the Tower of Babel, to a time when mankind's Globalist Utopian One World Government's attempt to transcend human nature and the limitations of life on this Earth backfired spectacularly, probably not for the first time and certainly not for the last time as we are living witnesses, some of us in our own bodies, of the incompetence of men driven to grasp after divinity in their false pride,. The massive and long lasting confusion wrought on that day, at Babel is still with us. The separation that happened on that day in all probability is the beginning of the divergence of the "races" that today's Globalist Utopian dipshits obsess over so much. The confusion of Babel melted away on the first Pentecost of the Christian Period, and still melts away in almost as dramatic a fashion when faced with the Gospel of Him for whom it would not be robbery to be equal with God but did not see equality as something to be grasped at, but finding Himself placed in a discriminated against, marginalized group by the Will of God, made Himself of no reputation and humbled Himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.
The curse of Babel was plainly on holiday that day but seems in our lives to be in full force. Why? It is easy to contrast our powerlessness with the apostolic potency, our cowardice with their boldness, our silence with their voices like the voice of the Archangel. I mean, not just the apostles, but compared with any of the heroes of the faith, we are pretty pathetic. We don't even seem to take the field and our enemies are hardly giants, they aren't even warriors they are predominantly Men in Skirts and the resultant hysterical women enraged because they can't find a good man, which by the way is a perfectly reasonable thing for a woman to be pissed off about, the crazed dykes that afflict our society could be cured in a few minutes if the men of America would put their pants back on and figure out what to do with what's in them. But as it is, Our enemies are afraid to fight us and so they target our children, and although we wear pants we are just as bad because we let them.
It is easy to paint our shortcomings, if anybody has trouble finding mine, see Cheyenne after the service. She can give you a few pointers. But what is the root cause of this difference? I intend today to encourage us to act, to stand up and do battle with the forces of darkness, but what is the thing which divides us from the Men and Women of Faith who stood up and got something done? I spent a lot of time looking into Peter's sermon for something I was missing, something that made the difference. And believe it or not, it just isn't there. There is no secret sauce. Nothing he said is what we lack. We can and have said pretty much the same things that he says in Acts 2 with little to no effect. So let's try this another way. The Curse of Babel isn't the deepest curse, the root curse. Is there a time when we find the Curse of Eden, the Curse of Death, and the fear of it which makes us slaves to the devil, is there a time when we find THAT curse being rolled back? The Resurrection is an obvious example, but there is another that might be more actionable for us. For that we turn to Acts 6 starting in verse 7,
Then the word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith. And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people. Then there arose some from what is called the Synagogue of the Freedmen (Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and Asia), disputing with Stephen. And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke. Then they secretly induced men to say, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.” And they stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes; and they came upon him, seized him, and brought him to the council. They also set up false witnesses who said, “This man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law; for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us.” And all who sat in the council, looking steadfastly at him, saw his face as the face of an angel.
Then the high priest said, “Are these things so?” And he said, “Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said to him, ‘Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.’ Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell. And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no child, He promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his descendants after him. But God spoke in this way: that his descendants would dwell in a foreign land, and that they would bring them into bondage and oppress them four hundred years. ‘And the nation to whom they will be in bondage I will judge,’ said God, ‘and after that they shall come out and serve Me in this place.’
Stephen's message although he goes more in depth than Peter is not much different. He is going to show how the people of God have always been a small group opposed by the dominant culture around them.
Then He gave him the covenant of circumcision; and so Abraham begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day; and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot the twelve patriarchs. “And the patriarchs, becoming envious, sold Joseph into Egypt. But God was with him and delivered him out of all his troubles, and gave him favor and wisdom in the presence of Pharaoh, king of Egypt; and he made him governor over Egypt and all his house. Now a famine and great trouble came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and our fathers found no sustenance. But when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out our fathers first. And the second time Joseph was made known to his brothers, and Joseph’s family became known to the Pharaoh. Then Joseph sent and called his father Jacob and all his relatives to him, seventy-five people. So Jacob went down to Egypt; and he died, he and our fathers. And they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem.
Abraham suffered much and obtained nothing but a Promise. Joseph suffered much, at the hands of his brothers, and those same brothers profited from their crimes against him, much like we profit from the murder of Christ.
“But when the time of the promise drew near which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt till another king arose who did not know Joseph. This man dealt treacherously with our people, and oppressed our forefathers, making them expose their babies, so that they might not live. At this time Moses was born, and was well pleasing to God; and he was brought up in his father’s house for three months. But when he was set out, Pharaoh’s daughter took him away and brought him up as her own son. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds.
“Now when he was forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren, the children of Israel. And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged him who was oppressed, and struck down the Egyptian. For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand. And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting, and tried to reconcile them, saying, ‘Men, you are brethren; why do you wrong one another?’ But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? Do you want to kill me as you did the Egyptian yesterday?’ Then, at this saying, Moses fled and became a dweller in the land of Midian, where he had two sons.
“And when forty years had passed, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush, in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. When Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight; and as he drew near to observe, the voice of the Lord came to him, saying, ‘I am the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ And Moses trembled and dared not look. ‘Then the Lord said to him, “Take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt; I have heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt.” ’
“This Moses whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’ is the one God sent to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the Angel who appeared to him in the bush. He brought them out, after he had shown wonders and signs in the land of Egypt, and in the Red Sea, and in the wilderness forty years. “This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear.’
“This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us, whom our fathers would not obey, but rejected. And in their hearts they turned back to Egypt, saying to Aaron, ‘Make us gods to go before us; as for this Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.’ And they made a calf in those days, offered sacrifices to the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Then God turned and gave them up to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the Prophets:
‘Did you offer Me slaughtered animals and sacrifices during forty years in the wilderness,
O house of Israel?
You also took up the tabernacle of Moloch,
And the star of your god Remphan,
Images which you made to worship;
And I will carry you away beyond Babylon.’
“Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as He appointed, instructing Moses to make it according to the pattern that he had seen, which our fathers, having received it in turn, also brought with Joshua into the land possessed by the Gentiles, whom God drove out before the face of our fathers until the days of David, who found favor before God and asked to find a dwelling for the God of Jacob. But Solomon built Him a house.
“However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says:
‘Heaven is My throne,
And earth is My footstool.
What house will you build for Me? says the Lord,
Or what is the place of My rest?
Has My hand not made all these things?’
Having reviewed the history of this group which was currently sitting in judgment over him, their history of rejecting the Word of the Lord, their congenital rage against the people of God, Stephen has effectively foretold His own end. But he doesn't slow down a beat.
“You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.” When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth. But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; and they cast him out of the city and stoned him.
Stephen, the First of the Martyrs, plainly conquered death and the fear of it which binds us. For him to be raised from the death he so triumphantly entered, would be entirely superfluous. He, all of those who have sealed the Gospel of Jesus Christ with their blood, have so transformed death that they no longer live in the world of the Curse. In the early church, the day of a martyr's death was celebrated as that person's birthday.
And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep. Now Saul was consenting to his death.
And so we see that it is not merely that Stephen in death triumphed over death but over the whole world. The old saying is that "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church" and so Stephen's prayed that his killers, including one Saul of Tarsis, would not be charged with their sin was granted, and the voice that said, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" was not a voice of condemnation, but a voice calling Saul to a new life. We see and maybe feel inspired by this courage that overcomes death, but we are not at all closer to copying it. Let's go back to the beginning of Acts 6 though and see, if we can, how Stephen's story starts, because it is really the same way that Peter's story starts, and Abraham's, and Moses', and David's, and even the Lord Jesus Christ's,
Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews by the Hellenists, because their widows were neglected in the daily distribution. Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” And the saying pleased the whole multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte from Antioch, whom they set before the apostles; and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them.
Stephen was already full of faith and the Holy Spirit when his story begins. What is it that set these men, Abraham, and Moses, and David, and Peter, and Stephen, and even Saul of Tarsis in motion? Not one of them acted on his own initiative, though perhaps I should point out Moses' aborted attempt to act when he slew the Egyptian, or Peter's many false starts before his time is finally come. They were called. Stephen was full of faith and the Holy Spirit, maybe he had been for years, but it was only when God called Him that his actions became significant. And so, I submit, that what is necessary to interrupt the nosedive straight into the pit of Hell in which our society is engaged, is not a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, plenty of those have tried, it is neither a genius nor a great speaker or writer. We do not need a man of action or a person with this virtue or that. What is needed, what is determinant is one thing. We need God to give someone, anyone, a calling to rescue the church, to call our society to repentance. Plenty of people have taken it upon themselves to fill this role and they, we, have accomplished nothing. I promised a call to action, but first let me say that we have been guilty of low expectations, we have been satisfied with a Trump when we need a Luther, or satisfied with Luther when we need Christ, our great sin is that we ask the Lord for too little-expect too little from Him, so the call to action is to the only effective action available to us: to ask the Lord to call for us a Judge, a Prophet, a Shepherd. I feel like the Jews during the 400 years when the Prophets had ceased to speak and they just waited and waited for the Messiah. We are the people who walk in darkness. Pray that we see a great light. Soon.
