Thanks for joining us today on Encounter God's Truth as author and theologian Dr. John Whitcomb leads us through the Apostles' discussion at the Great Council at Jerusalem in Acts 15. Here pivotal decisions were made about how the church would handle issues related to the relationship between Jewish and Gentile believers. I'm your host Wayne Shepherd, so glad to bring you these timeless truths for changing times on behalf of Dr. Whitcomb, a professor and Bible teacher for nearly 70 years. Now, Dr. Whitcomb was primarily an Old Testament scholar, but he devoted six years to teaching the book of Acts, the only historical book about the church, at the Independent Fundamental Bible Conference in Middletown, Connecticut. We want to thank Middletown Bible Church for helping us distribute these messages anew, and you can also download a free commentary on Acts that Dr. Whitcomb co-authored with Middletown Pastor George Zeller when you go to WhitcombMinistries.org. We are in volume six of our ongoing radio series, Acts, Witness of the Early Church. Remember that you can listen to and share this entire series from our library at sermonaudio.com slash Whitcomb. Dr. Whitcomb begins today near the end of Acts 14, and he's going to touch on some very relevant and practical ministry topics in this lesson. Thanks for following our teaching for this week on the Great Council at Jerusalem. Greetings once again, dear friends. In the name of Christ, our precious Lord and Savior, as we open our Bibles to the book of Acts chapter 14. Acts chapter 14. In verse 22, as Paul and Barnabas complete their first great missionary journey into what is now central eastern Turkey, They come back through the cities where they have, in most cases, been attacked and persecuted and denounced, and even in Lystra, I believe, stoned to death. God brought them back to life to strength to go back, amazingly, to confirm the souls of the disciples, verse 22, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must, through much tribulation, enter into the kingdom of God. Somebody by now is probably saying, Already this week, we have been through enough tribulation, we are qualified for the kingdom. But isn't that amazing what the emphasis God gives on the necessity of confirmation, of instruction, of exhortation, of being reminded, of being taught. over and over, over again, never ever too much teaching of the word. Lest we become weary of the work, God says, you may be weary in it, but not of it. Keep on keeping on in the word of God. And after they had passed through Pisidia, they came to Pamphylia, and when they had preached the word in Perga, Now, they didn't preach the word in Perga, coming up, you remember, into Asia Minor. But now on the way back, they do. There's no results, no reaction recorded by Luke at that particular city. They went down to Italia on the coast, and from then sailed to Antioch, back to their home base. And this is so precious to me and so important. The sending church now deserves and receives a full report of the ministry of the men that they had sent forth. And we have to remember, don't we, there were no emails coming back and forth every few hours of what they're doing and what they experienced, and they must have been astounded to hear of what they experienced. I suspect they hadn't even heard that Mark had left them. had abandoned them at the beginning of their tour. They had not heard that Paul had been stoned to death in Lystra and all the amazing things that happened along that way. It just must have taken hours and hours and hours, if not days, to give that full report. And so when we support missionaries overseas, friends, it's so important, isn't it, to know what are they really doing? If we're praying for them and we're financially supporting them and we're involved with what they're doing, how can we keep track of what's happening? We're accountable to God for these people we send forth, aren't we, that we lay hands on and, in that sense, ordain for special ministries. keep full reports. And it isn't just enough is it to tack their prayer letters on a bulletin board and hope somebody will glance at them someday. This is a very important thing to the Lord, is it not? And so they came back to that church in verse 26. They came to the church where they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they had fulfilled. They had walked 1,250 miles in this ministry. And when they were come, they had gathered the church together and rehearsed all that God had done with them. Don't you like that? Not what we have done, under God's blessing, but what God had done through them. And we often have to say in spite of us. He, God, opened the door of faith under the Gentiles. And there they abode long time with the disciples. Now, perhaps a whole year in Antioch. And I say, well, Lord, probably during that year, Paul had heard terrible reports of what happened in the churches. at Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. What had he heard? That they had defected from the pure gospel, and Paul had to say in Galatians 1, if you believe any other message than that which you heard from me, let that messenger be what? Accursed. Now, as I mentioned yesterday, those messengers were probably Judaizers who had come from the church in Jerusalem. And they were, I think, born-again people. I mean, even the Galatian Christians wouldn't have defected if unbelieving Jews had come up there to talk them out of their newfound faith. But to have believing Jews, and that's what the issue is in the next chapter that we're studying this morning. Believing Jews, Pharisees, were creating this enormous controversy and this enormous problem of how do you get saved? How do you qualify for God's heaven in relation to the law? It's an enormous issue. Then how could Paul say that they were accursed, you see? And in the end of Galatians, he says some very heavy things about those false teachers. So it's a borderline situation, dear friends, as to what the exact relationship of these false teachers was to God, you see. And that's a very heavy problem here in the book of Acts, by the way. And so we say, well, Lord, help us to see a biblically valid, correct interpretation of the false teachers that provoke the book of Galatians. Now, chapter 15, verse one. Here are the false teachers now introduced. And certain men which came down from Judea taught the brethren. Of course, everything from Jerusalem is downhill geographically, right, topographically. So they came down all the way to Antioch and made this announcement. Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, You might just as well go back to Abraham. I mean, in Genesis 17, God said to Abraham, if this ordinance that I'm revealing to you and delivering to you is not implemented and experienced and followed, such people will be cut off. I mean, it was extremely serious. from the time of Abraham onward to reject, to repudiate, to deny, to minimize the necessity of following this ordinance. Now, of course, to us, this is hard to imagine. As Christians, we've been freed by the grace of God from the law for so many centuries that it's hard to picture, you see, what these Jews were thinking. Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. My, can't even be saved. Well, in other words, what they're saying is to the Christians at Antioch, Paul and Barnabas are there for what? False teachers. You follow them, you can't be saved, you Gentiles, okay? That faith alone is insufficient. And all Gentile believers are lost. Kindly agree with me, this is sort of like Sirius. Thank you. Verse two, when therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them, that's putting it mildly, they, that is the church as we see in verse three, the church at Antioch determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain other of them should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles and elders about this question. I would have thought immediately they would have decided to do that. But it was after much dissension and much disputation that they finally agreed that has to be done. Now I'm thinking that with some fear and trembling, Paul and Barnabas head southward and uphill to Jerusalem, hundreds of miles to the south, wondering what kind of a reception will we have by the apostles and elders in the mother church in Jerusalem? These men claim they came from that mother church. Remember, in the meantime, what had happened? Even the apostle Peter, according to Paul in Galatians chapter two, had arrived from the mother church and had come up to Antioch and was amazed at the number of Gentile believers there were. You remember Paul's description of this and was actually doing what? Eating with them, having table fellowship with 100% pure Gentiles who were believers in Jesus and had no connection with Judaism at all. He was eating with them, table fellowship. And then what happened? Well, certain men came from Jerusalem, you see, and saw what Peter was doing. And he saw their expression of horror. And he was immediately overwhelmed with a sense of guilt and abandoned his Gentile Christian friends and dropped his ham sandwiches and moved over to the Jewish group in the church at Antioch. Well, friends, the apostle Paul saw immediately a colossal problem here in Antioch. The church was about to be split. Because even Barnabas, it says, how sad, even Barnabas was led astray by his dissimulation and others. Paul had to confront him right to his face or forevermore the true church of Jesus Christ would be split. Now, friends, Peter, of course, repented by the time we get here to chapter 15. He admitted that he was wrong because he stands 100% with Paul, okay? So, I mean, maybe Paul didn't know that yet. See, Paul is going up to Jerusalem and wonder, what's Peter gonna think of us? What is James, the pastor of the church at Jerusalem, the half-brother of Jesus, you remember, is now the pastor? What's he gonna think? He's 100% Jew, so is Peter and the others. This is a Jewish church in Jerusalem. What are they gonna do to us? How's this gonna work out? Well, they're not gonna change their message. They have been absolutely confirmed in their first missionary journey, haven't they? And in their ministry at Antioch. that God was with them in their new approach to Gentile ministry. So as they came south toward Jerusalem, look what they did. They passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles. In other words, Gentiles are converted without becoming Jews, and they cause great joy unto all the brethren. Why not? Phoenician Christians included many who were pure Gentiles, and Samaritan Christians included those who you may call half-breed Jew-Gentile. And they were thrilled to know, we're legitimate. I mean, we're okay before God. And the Apostle Paul and Barnabas have just told us so. Praise the Lord, we're fine. Now here comes the crisis. And when they were come to Jerusalem, verse four, they were received of the church, and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them." Now, apparently at first they were welcomed. Okay, that's encouraging. They weren't immediately rejected, repudiated, denounced. They were welcomed. there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed. Now you see, that's the point. These Pharisees that are causing this problem, these heretics, these false teachers, are born-again Christians. Now that's the thing that's so hard for us today to fathom, for me at least, because we don't see this kind of tension today. This is 1,900 plus years ago, friends, when this was a huge issue in the early stages of church history, okay? A certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed said it was needful to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses. Now friends, we do know, don't we? These men had a biblical basis for what they were saying, did they not? I mean, most of the Bible is Old Testament. I happen to be an Old Testament professor. I just thought I'd mention that much of the Bible is Old Testament. I wonder if you've ever looked before the verse one of Matthew 1.1, there's another part of the Bible that Christians, I mean, on the average, are relatively ignorant of. But friends, these people had mastered the Old Testament. I mean, these Pharisees could, in some cases, quote the whole Old Testament in Hebrew verbatim. That was a common quality of knowledge, of depth of knowledge. Now, what they understood is a different question. But what they had read and memorized was massive. They knew some things. They weren't just ignorant people, okay? Well, friends, the apostles and the elders came together for to consider this matter, and this is sort of interesting to me. It doesn't say in verse seven, and so the apostle Peter, being the chief of the apostles, and the first pope made an ex cathedra pronouncement, and that ended all discussion. No, he's just one of them. Do you notice this? After much discussion, see? Much disputing. Finally, Peter rises up, and by the way, he doesn't have the first word, do you notice this? And he doesn't have the last one either. Very interesting. Peter rose up and said to them, men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago, it was actually about 10 years earlier, God made choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel and believe. Now that was who? Cornelius, remember in chapter 10 of Acts, who believed without becoming a Jew. He was not a proselyte partially or totally. He was a complete Gentile and he believed and was saved. Okay. And they all knew that that's the whole issue that was settled in Acts chapter 11. Okay. You say, well, if the Jews in the church, the Jewish Christians in the Church of Jerusalem accepted Peter's testimony, you know, he had a number of Jewish witnesses with him up there at Caesarea watching this performance of the Holy Spirit, then why didn't that settle it? Now, here's a problem. Apparently, they all agreed that that was an exception, but they weren't quite ready to see that as a general direction worldwide. Cornelius was especially godly man, you know, a Roman centurion, and he had loved our people and loved our God and so forth. And so God made an exception for him. But let's not carry this too far. That can't be true of the whole world. See, that was their mentality, apparently. Okay, this gets difficult here, what they're thinking. Well, Peter said, you remember, God confirmed that a Gentile, namely Cornelius, could be saved without becoming a Jew. In verse eight, and God, which knoweth the hearts, bear them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us. Okay, now of course, this is a well-known Old Testament doctrine, heart circumcision. All the way back in Deuteronomy and many times, several times in Jeremiah and so forth, God said, it's not enough for you to be outwardly physically circumcised, you have to have a corresponding what? Heart circumcision, or you are totally unacceptable to God. Now that was a doctrine that was clearly enunciated, but not often understood, say, by the Jews. You have to perform these outward ordinances, yes, but it has to correspond to and match what? Inward realities. Offering sacrifice was essential, but it was not isolated from what? A heart relationship to the God to whom you offer the sacrifice. So in Old Testament Israelite worship, you have to have two things going on. Now, today we don't. That's part of our problem. In Judaism, you had to know and love the Lord and believe in him and obey him in the ordinances, the sacrificial system, circumcision, and so forth. Hundreds of laws, hundreds. You had to do them too. You didn't say, well, I believe in God, and so I don't bother with all these laws. And you certainly couldn't say, well, I've obeyed the laws, so I don't need to believe God. You had to have both. Now today, the true church of our Lord Jesus Christ, we have only one requirement, one requirement, and that's to believe in him. You see, we don't have, what, ordinances that are essential. as a part of our relationship to God. Now, there are things that God has commanded us to do, yes, the bread and the cup, so forth, the outworking of the guidelines of Jesus for our Christian lives, and so forth. But I'm talking about, what, essential outward ordinances, physical ordinances. You see, in the Old Testament, friends, just to show you how serious it was, even if you believed in God in your heart, but you didn't do the physical ordinance requirements, God could kill you. You say, really? Yes. Guess what happened to Moses one night in a hotel on the way back to Egypt through Sinai with his wife, Zipporah? God sought to kill him that night on his way back to lead Israel out of Egypt. Why? He had failed to circumcise his younger son. Apparently, Zipporah was not a believer. She, in fact, despised this ordinance. And God, in effect, said to Moses, if you don't obey me, if you don't obey me, how do you expect Israel to obey me? Dropped dead. Now, oh. I mean, we don't, you see what I'm saying? You don't have in the church today that kind of outward what? involvement with ordinances that are a life or death matter. That's the problem. And these Pharisees were terrified. If you're expecting these Gentiles to believe in God and don't expect them also to do the required ordinances, they will be killed. In fact, they're not even saved. Peter said, well, God knows the hearts. These people are heart circumcised, okay? Put it that way, men. And he put no difference, verse nine, between us and them purifying their hearts by faith. By what? Faith, period. My. Our hearts are cleansed, purified, we're acceptable to a holy God, we will enter his holy heaven forever and ever by what means? Faith only. Now this is a shock. But of course, as Paul explains in Galatians and in Romans, Abraham was saved by faith long before circumcision was ever mentioned to him by God. He was saved in Genesis 15, but circumcision not till Genesis 17. Paul makes a big point of that, see? Everybody before Abraham was saved by faith without that ordinance, okay? So these Jews knew their Old Testament, but didn't know it well enough, okay? That's one precious thing, by the way, we have to be careful about. It's Bible memorization. We ought to memorize, encourage our children to memorize scripture. But you know there's a danger there, isn't there? Even a 10-year-old child can rattle off hundreds of verses perfectly, but the thing that concerns us is what? Does the young person really know what he's quoting? Does he understand what he's memorized? That's the issue. And that was their problem, right here, okay? And now Peter hits them hard. Friends, look, he learned a lesson from Paul at Antioch, didn't he? Listen to this, verse 10. Now therefore, why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? You're tempting God. Wow, thank you, Peter. Can you hear Paul and Barnabas say amen? Doesn't really sound much like Peter. But I say, well, Lord, thank you for that, because really, and this, by the way, this creates an enormous question mark here. Neither what? Neither our fathers nor we were able to bear the what? The yoke of the law. Say, now, wait a minute, sir. Why did God give the law if nobody could bear it? Got that figured out? 1400 years of obedience to the law was required, but nobody could bear it. And of course, the answer is what? As Paul says in Galatians, the law was never intended to be a means of salvation, but was intended to be a what? A schoolmaster, a strict schoolmaster reminding you day and night you have 600 laws to obey and you have to obey the first one especially to love the Lord your God with all your mind heart soul and strength which is also totally impossible and therefore you're supposed to become frustrated and desperate and to the point where you say I need a savior Whitcomb Ministries is grateful for this opportunity and privileged to share Encounter God's Truth, the teaching ministry of Dr. John Whitcomb on radio and the internet. Please share your gratitude with this station or outlet on which you are hearing it. We're in volume six of a series called Acts, Witness of the Early Church. It teaches us, as always, that God's word is true from the beginning to the end. Look for news and updates in our Facebook page at facebook.com slash Whitcomb Ministries. Lord willing, we'll pick up here next week in Acts 15. Until then, I'm Wayne Shepherd rejoicing in the power of the gospel and the word of God in the church and in each of our lives. May it fill your heart and soul and guide you until we meet together again next week.