Our Old Covenant reading is taken from the Minor Prophet, not minor with regard to insignificance, but just simply shorter, of Zechariah, second to the last book of the Old Covenant. Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. We want to read the eighth chapter. Zechariah, chapter eight, beginning with the first verse and reading through the end of the chapter. Will you stand with me to show your respect to God as we hear His word given to us. Hear the word of God. Then the word of the Lord of hosts came, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, I am exceedingly jealous for Zion. Yes, with great wrath I am jealous for her. Thus says the Lord, I will return to Zion and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. Then Jerusalem will be called the city of truth. The mountain of the Lord of Hosts will be called the Holy Mountain. Thus says the Lord of Hosts. Old men and old women will again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each man with his staff in his hand because of age. And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets. Thus says the Lord of Hosts. If it is too difficult in the sight of the remnant of this people in those days, will it also be too difficult in my sight? declares the Lord of Hosts. Thus says the Lord of Hosts, Behold, I am going to save my people from the land of the east and from the land of the west, and I will bring them back, and they will live in the midst of Jerusalem, and they will be my people, and I will be their God in truth and righteousness. Thus says the Lord of Hosts. Let your hands be strong, you who are listening in these days to these words from the mouth of the prophets, those who spoke in the day that the foundation of the house of the Lord of Hosts was laid, that the temple might be built. For before those days there was no wage for man or any wage for animal, and for him who went out or came in there was no peace because of his enemies. But I set all men one against another. But now I will not treat the remnant of this people as in the former days, declares the Lord of Hosts, for there will be peace for the seed, the vine will yield its fruit, the land will yield its produce, and the heavens will give their due. And I will cause the remnant of this people to inherit all these things. And it will come about that just as you were a curse among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so I will save you so that you may become a blessing. Do not fear. Let your hands be strong. For thus says the Lord of hosts, just as I purposed to do harm to you when your fathers provoked me to wrath, says the Lord of hosts, and I have not relented. So I have again purposed in these days to do good to Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. Do not fear. These are the things which you should do. Speak the truth to one another. Judge with truth and judgment for peace in your gates. And let none of you devise evil in your heart against another. And do not love perjury, for all these are what I hate, declares the Lord. Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, The fast of the fourth, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth month will become joy, gladness, and cheerful feasts for the house of Judah. So love truth and peace. Thus says the Lord of Hosts, It will yet be that peoples will come, even the inhabitants of many cities. And the inhabitants of one will go to another, saying, Let us go at once to entreat the favor of the Lord and to seek the Lord of Hosts. I will also go. so many peoples and mighty nations will come to seek the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem and to entreat the favor of the Lord. Thus says the Lord of Hosts, In those days ten men from all the nations will grasp the garment of a Jew, saying, Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you. Acts chapter 1 and once again we will read through the 8th verse. Acts chapter 1 beginning with verse 1 and reading through verse 8. The first account I composed to Theophilus about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up after he had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom he had chosen. To these he also presented himself alive after his suffering by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. In gathering them together, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, which, he said, you heard from me. For John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. And so when they had come together, they were asking him, saying, Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel? He said to them, It is not for you to know times or ethics which the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part. of the earth. Thus far the reading of this portion of God's word. The grass withers, the flower fades, the word of our God abides forever. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Please be seated. The opening verses of this book record the final days of our Lord's bodily ministry in his bodily presence on the earth. To remind you again that one of the themes of the book is that the ascension of our Lord was not the end of our Lord's ministry, it was simply the end of his bodily presence in ministry, the ministry of Christ continues. And we mentioned last week that while the book of Acts has been called the Acts of the Apostles, it has also been called the Acts of the Holy Spirit, and we could very well continue to call it the Acts of Jesus Christ, because it is his spirit which he promised which would carry on that work, and indeed the promise which he gives to us, Lo, I am with you even to the end of the age, is very true. He continues to be present and the church continues to be built by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. In the previous verses, our Lord instructed his disciples to wait for the fulfillment of his promise to send his Holy Spirit. Reminded again that this book originally was the second volume of two that circulated together, Luke being the first, this being the second, and then Sometime in the second century, they were divided. Luke was placed with the Gospels, and Acts was placed as a transition from the Gospels into the Epistles, and it's in Acts that we learn about the Apostle Paul. We learn about the extension of the Gospel, as we see here in verse 8, where it says that there would be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and even to the uttermost parts of the earth. Remember, however, that immediately after the resurrection, our Lord told the women and He also told the disciples that they were to go and wait for Him. He'd appear to them in Galilee. And so they had gone to Galilee. And if you remember those events, the disciples did go to Galilee. Peter and the other disciples decided to go fishing. There Jesus called them on the shore. Have you caught anything? No. Let your nets down on the other side, kind of reminiscent of a previous miracle. They let down their nets and then all of a sudden it dawns on them. It's the Lord. Peter swims to shore and there Peter is asked, Peter do you love me? three times and of course Peter is broken in his humility but he commends Peter and says, feed my sheep, feed my sheep, feed my sheep that all happened in Galilee, well here again they have been assembled here in Jerusalem so that has taken place and now they are assembled in Jerusalem and they have been told to wait, they meet with him, they receive this instruction His instruction was to wait. The fulfillment of the promise prompts the disciples' question about the kingdom. So he tells them that this is going to happen. Wait. Wait for the promise which I gave you. Wait here. Don't begin anything. And their question then, Lord, is it at this time when the Spirit comes that you'll restore the kingdom? The book of Acts is all about the progress of Christ's kingdom. The Old Covenant is filled with the teaching about the Kingdom of God. We read portions of that for you from Zechariah chapter 8 and 18. What glorious promises. The kings of the nations, the peoples of many nations will come to Jerusalem. And it will be in that day that ten men from the nations will take hold of the garment of the Jew and say, let us go with you for we've heard that God is with you. What a glorious thing. I can't wait for the day when ten people are coming to each of you and saying, can we go to church with you? Wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't it be great instead of saying, why don't you come? Well, no, I've got other things to do. They're coming to you and saying, can we come with you? Now you're saying, well, why in the world are you talking about the church? Because it says they'll come to Jerusalem. I want to remind you that that was the language that was used in the Old Covenant. But if you understand the New Covenant's interpretation of the Old, the New Covenant Church is the Old Covenant Church brought into its maturity. The Old Covenant Church was in its infancy. But all those distinctions between Jew and Gentile have been taken out of gear with the advent of Christ. And that which was promised and which was true even in the Old Covenant has now come about. They used that language of coming to Jerusalem or to Zion. You, the people of God, as the old covenant people of God, were the Zion that the Lord loved. You are the church of the living God. You're a dwelling of God in spirit. You're the new temple. You're the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven. You are the people of the kingdom of God. And so the old covenant focus was on the kingdom of Christ. Jesus could say, search the scriptures. For they speak of me, and the message of the new covenant likewise is the message of the kingdom of God has come. And so you read the book of Acts and repeat it again and again. Jesus preaches the kingdom of God. That's not in Acts, but that is in the gospels. You read that Peter preaches the kingdom of God. You read that Paul preaches the kingdom of God. It is vital for the Lord's church in our day to have clear perceptions. about Christ's kingdom, and this evening we want to consider the confusion of the disciples and Christ's correction of it. And so we'll look at verses 6 through 8 this evening, and it's going to be real simple this evening. First of all, I want you to consider the disciples' question. It's found in verse 6. And so when they had come together, they were asking him, saying, Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel? Is this the time of which the Old Covenant looked, the Old Testament prophets, is this the day when Israel will arise once again and be placed as the dominant political, economic, and military power on the face of the earth. The question was rooted in the promises of the Old Covenant. We will read some of those. They had biblical warrant for inquiry. This is not an off-the-wall question. If you read the scriptures, particularly old covenant scriptures, you cannot miss this emphasis. If you read the Psalms, if you read the prophets, you can't miss this. If you read the history, after all, the promise given to Abraham was this, in your seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. Let me just read a few. We've read Zechariah chapter 8. I want you to read some others as well. The most quoted, we've mentioned this before, the most quoted portion of the Old Covenant In the New, let me rephrase that, that portion of the Old Covenant that is most quoted in the New is this portion from the 110th Psalm, where we read, The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make thine enemies a footstool for thy feet. The Lord will stretch forth thy strong scepter from Zion, rule in the midst of thine enemies. Thy people will volunteer freely in the day of thy power, in holy array from the womb of the dawn. by youth are to thee as the dew." Here we see David's Lord speaking to his Lord, that is the Father speaking to the Son, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. Stretch forth your scepter. from Zion. This is a prophecy of the kingdom of God. Isaiah chapter 2, where he tells us again in the book of Isaiah that the word would go forth from Zion, but he tells us something else as well. He tells us in verse 2, now what will come about in the last days, the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains. be raised above the hills and all the nations will stream to it. You see that idea there? Zion will be elevated, Jerusalem will be elevated above all of the nations, and all the nations will stream to it. We pointed out before that that's something not contrary to nations. Water doesn't run uphill, it runs downhill. Here we see the imagery of a stream going uphill. And many peoples will come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of Jacob, that he may teach us concerning his ways, that we may walk in his path. For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he will judge between the nations, will render decisions for many peoples, and they will hammer their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn. war. You see, it's a prophecy of the reign of Christ, the kingdom of God. Chapter 9, verses 6 and 7, we prayed that this evening. Unto us a son is born, unto us a child is given, and the government will be upon his shoulders, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Prince of Peace, and of the increase of his government and of peace there shall be no end. Isaiah chapter 49, verses six and seven, where by the way we're just touching the surface here, we could go on with many others. He says to the Messiah, it is too small a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and restore the preserved ones of Israel. I will also make you a life the nations so that my salvation may teach, may reach the ends of the earth. Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel and it's Holy One to despise one of the one abhorred by nation, the servant of rulers. Kings shall see it arise. Princes shall also bow down because of the Lord who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel who has chosen you." Isaiah 61 verses 4 through 6. I'm skipping over some. Then they will rebuild the ancient ruins. They will raise up the former devastations. They will repair the ruined cities, the desolations of many generations. and strangers will stand and pasture your flocks, and foreigners will be your farmers and your vinedressers, but you will be called the priests of the Lord. You will be spoken of as ministers of our God. You will eat the wealth of nations, and in their riches you will boast. Instead of your shame you will have a double portion, and instead of humiliation they will shout for joy over their portion. Therefore they will possess a double portion, and their land everlasting joy will be theirs. You see this language, and so as the disciples recalled these things, they were steeped in the old covenant scriptures, they said, Lord, is it at this time when Israel will be exalted once again as the chief of the nations, as in the days of David and Solomon? Will she be restored to her former glory as a nation? The question is rooted. The old covenant promises anticipated the glorious future. for God's kingdom. I hope you can see that. And so they anticipated a glorious future for that kingdom. And the Old Covenant promises or describes this restoration in the Lord's, let me say it again, the Old Covenant promises describe restoration, does so in terms of Israel and Judah being restored. When you see those words Keep in mind that he is speaking about the people of God. Keep in mind the instruction that is very clear to us, both in the old, but even more clear in the new. As the Apostle Paul tells us, they are not all Israel who are of Israel. That is, all of the physical descendants, all of the people who are the members of a nation or have a national identity, not all of them are Israel. but rather the people of faith. Those who have the faith of Abraham are Israel. Paul says in the book of Philippians, we are the true circumcision who have faith in the Messiah. Who are those who are the covenant people, the members of God's kingdom? Those who have not just the outward mark, but have the inward reality of the work of regeneration, faith. and repentance, and that is the way it was throughout the old covenant as well. God always made distinctions between those who were merely members of a national identity and those who had indeed the faith of Abraham. And so God made a choice between Isaac and Ishmael, didn't he? Both were the physical descendants of Abraham. was a faithful member of the kingdom of God. Jacob had two sons. Isaac had two sons, Jacob and Esau. One was a covenant keeper. One was a covenant breaker. And what happens to the line of Ishmael? What happens to the line of Esau? They're not considered. They're not part of the kingdom of God under David and under Solomon. They have branched off. They are members of the nations. So the question was rooted in the promises of the old covenant. But the question revealed common misunderstandings. The misunderstandings were common to Jews of the first century. These ideas were prevalent. These ideas continue to be propagated and embraced by large portions of the evangelical church. But I think they are errors. What are the mistakes? First of all, they were mistaken as the nature of the messianic kingdom as to what it was. We've been addressing this already, but I want to spend a little bit more time doing that. They expected the restoration of national Israel to geopolitical dominance and geopolitical influence. They expected the physical presence of the Messiah in Israel's capital. Does that sound like anything that you've heard in your past or in your presence? And you can understand how they arrived at this, right? We tend to put it off to the future. The disciples may have been thinking that very same thing, but indeed there is going to be a time when Israel Jerusalem, the temple, is going to be elevated to geopolitical dominance when Jesus comes back and sits upon his physical throne in Jerusalem. And that's what many evangelicals believe today. It's what the disciples believed in their day, not about the return so much, but about the nature of the kingdom. By the way, If you understand the Gospels, this was one of the reasons why Jesus was not acknowledged to be the Messiah. Remember, when he did not drive out the Romans from Jerusalem, the people who once hailed him, hailed the King of the Jews, Hosanna in the highest, at his crucifixions were the very ones who were saying, crucify him, crucify him. We will not have this man to rule over us. He wasn't what they expected. The kingdom that he brought was not what they were looking for. They were looking for a political leader. They were looking for one who would restore them to geopolitical dominance once again. And indeed, I would suggest to you, this was one of the reasons the disciples were so discouraged after his crucifixion. Remember what they did? Remember the two on the road to Emmaus? They're downcast. They're walking away. And Jesus meets with them. They don't recognize him. We thought that he was the one who would deliver Israel. And we just don't understand it. We really believed that he was the Messiah. But we're disappointed. Why? Because he didn't do what they thought he was going to do. Peter, I'm going fishing. I've had enough of this. Let's just go back and do what we're doing. Enough of this business. He's not who we thought he was. These were men who spent three and a half years with the Lord. He taught them repeatedly about that which was going to happen. But because it didn't meet their expectations and the expectations of their culture, they were greatly discouraged. Mistaken as the nature of the Messianic Kingdom. And they were also mistaken as the means of administering the messianic kingdom as well. Because again, they expected the use of political, military, and economic power, and they expected the political subjugation of unwilling nations. They also expected it to be something of a cataclysmic immediate event. And that didn't happen. Jesus did not come. to exercise political, military, and economic power directly, although that is the fruit of the gospel, that is the fruit not of dominance of an unwilling population, but rather it is the fruit of making men willing in the day of visitation by the preaching of the gospel. What did he say about the nations? He said, The kings of the nations lord it over them, but it shall not be so with you. He who would be first among you. must be the servant of all." That was radical. What king lays down his life for his people in order to redeem or to save a population? So they were mistaken as to the nature of the messianic kingdom. They were mistaken as to the means of administering the messianic kingdom. They thought it was going to be by the levers of power to which the nations look. They did not understand the spiritual nature of the kingdom. Let me pause here and one caveat, one thing that I need to say to keep this in mind. When we talk about the spiritual nature of the kingdom, we are not saying or discounting the temporal benefits or the temporal expressions of the kingdom of God. When God changes the hearts of men, everything about them and their culture will be changed. Their politics will be changed. Their economics will be changed. Their education, thoughts about education will be changed. Their thoughts about family and morality and ethics will be changed. Where Christ comes, there are dramatic changes. Those changes, some of which we read about in those passages in the Old Covenant, where nations no longer lift up sword against nation. Why? because men have been reconciled to God and reconciled to one another. That's why. So when we talk about the spirituality of the Kingdom of God, we aren't saying it's off in some little netherworld where you can't really see it, it's ethereal, and it has no implications for life in this world. That's not what we're talking about. But what we're talking about is the Kingdom of God is not something which is coerced, but rather it is something which is a result of conversion rather than coercion. That's what Jesus came to do. So God's kingdom then is defined by faith. It is not defined by ethnic background or nationality or race or anything else. It is defined by faith. The Kingdom of God, whether it's in the Old Covenant or the New, the Kingdom of God, the citizens of that Kingdom are those who acknowledge Christ to be King, whether in anticipation or in looking back historically. The one who confesses that Christ is King, if you confess Christ as Lord with your mouth and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. And just to demonstrate, that this is the case may I remind you once again that the father of the Jews was converted as a Gentile the kingdom of God began with Abraham if you want to put it that way it actually began much more than that but the identifiable people of God in the old covenant which we come to know as Israel the father of that nation the father of that kingdom the father of that people was converted as a Gentile and so we read, and just to remind you again, we often forget this, but it is such a powerful thing. In chapter 4 of the book of Romans, the Apostle Paul, speaking of the Jews who did not want to accept the reality that Gentiles were fellow heirs and fellow citizens of the kingdom, tells this to them in verse 9, is this blessing of forgiveness of sin and justification? Is this blessing then upon the circumcised or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say, Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it reckoned while he was circumcised or uncircumcised, not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised, and he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of faith which he had while uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised, that righteousness might be reckoned to them, and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also follow in the in the steps of the faith of our father Abraham, which he had while uncircumcised." You see, the father of the Jews, the father of Jerusalem, if you will, the father of the nation of Israel, received the sign of the covenant when a Gentile. So God is the one who defines his kingdom by faith, not by the gene pool, not by nationality. And God's kingdom is established and advanced, not in these other ways, by the preaching of the gospel. Not a cataclysmic event, but gradually over time. Remember the kingdom of parables, our Lord? Jesus said the kingdom of God is like a seed of mustard, which you planted in the garden. Although it is of the smallest of the seeds, Yet when it grows up, it becomes the largest tree of the garden and the birds of the nations nest in its branches. When you see that language becoming a tree and the birds nesting in it, it has the idea of the nations coming and finding shelter in this kingdom. It's like a measure of dough in which a small portion of leaven is placed. and over time the whole lump is leavened. It is not something that takes place immediately, but it is something which takes place over a period of time. Those are the errors that we see that are included or subsumed in the disciples' question. I want to consider also the Lord's response in verse 7. He said to them, it is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by his own authority. It's not for you to know. That's not very satisfying, is it? Lord, just give us a yes or no, would you? Is it now that you're going to restore the kingdom of Israel? And he doesn't answer that directly. He doesn't respond in the way that we would like to see the response couched. We want something more concrete. But he does answer the question, not right here. That question is really answered in the promise of the Spirit of God and the power that they would receive therein. If you look at John chapter 16, these are Jesus' words to his disciples in the 13th verse. We read here, But when He, it's the promise of the Spirit, but when He, the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth. For He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak, and He will disclose to you what is to come. Alright? You're asking if now is the time for the restoration of the kingdom? Don't worry about that. Wait for the Spirit. He'll tell you everything you need to know, because He's going to speak the things that I have. By the way, that does not include the time of Christ's coming. Of that, Jesus said, no man knows, not even the Son of Man, but only the Father. But He doesn't answer the question directly, but He answers it rather indirectly in what we will look at in our third heading. But what he does is he gently rebukes his disciples. The quest for forbidden knowledge has been destructive to many in every generation. We are an inquisitive lot. We always want to know more than God gives us, and we think that we don't have enough information if we don't know everything. Well guess what? You're never going to know everything. And here Jesus affirms, you're not going to know. It's not been given to you to know. What about that quest for hidden knowledge? Adam and Eve wanted to pursue forbidden knowledge. You shall know how to determine good and evil for yourselves. That's not for you to know. God defines it, not you. King Saul wanted to know about the future, the outcome of things, and so he went to the witch of Endor and received the curse of that. Deuteronomy 29.29 says, The secret things belong to the Lord our God. The things revealed belong to us. and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the word of this law. God has revealed to you everything you need to know, and if something is not revealed, you don't need to know it. It's as plain as that. I was struck many years ago reading John Calvin's writings And I was struck by a phrase that seemed to occur rather frequently, and I can't remember whether it was in his institutes or whether it was in his commentaries or what it was that I was reading, but he would be dealing with a particularly difficult subject about which there was limited understanding. And the phrase that he kept on going back to was something along this line, what we are not able to understand, let us learn to simply adore. And I think that's what we need to do. There are some things that we cannot understand. But what we cannot understand, we don't dismiss it because it doesn't measure up to our standards of reason. We simply stand back and we learn to adore. And so the Apostle Paul, when he speaks about that great mystery, which is something that every generation faces, how could it be that God's promises of the Messiah to Israel, when Israel was cast off, what did that mean? And the Gentiles were brought back in. and at a future time when Israel is grafted back into her own olive tree. Oh, the depths and the heights of the mysteries of God. And he simply adores, he simply adores the marvelous machinations of the Lord our God. Because he knew this, that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love him. who are called according to his purposes. We may not know what God is doing in our world, but throughout history he has raised up despotic and tyrannical and ruthless nations to punish his people, to chastise men and he brings them to naught. Everything that happens in the world in the course of nations is done for the sake of his church. So Jesus gently rebuked his disciples. For God reserves the knowledge of some things for himself. In Isaiah 46, verses 9 and 10, we read, I am God, there is no one like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish my good pleasure, calling a bird of prey from the east, and the man of my purposes. from a far country, and here he is speaking, of course, about the enemies of Judah to chastise her. God reserves the knowledge of some things for himself, and this is what our Lord Jesus tells the disciples. It is not yours to know the times or the epochs which the Father has fixed by his own authority. And you don't need to know everything. We've already pointed out that Jesus in his humanity does not know the time of his return. I was reading, and I can't remember who it was that mentioned this, it may have been Matthew Henry, and his commentary said the Jews had a saying, of course they are mistaken, they're still looking for Messiah to come, but they had a saying with regard to the coming of Messiah. They had this saying, perish the man who calculates the time. Anathema to the man who tries to calculate the time of Messiah. I think that is good word for us with regard to the calculation of the second coming of Christ as well. You see that has not been given to us. Knowledge puffs up, love edifies. One of the great heresies of the New Covenant was the Gnostic heresy. They said there's a secret knowledge that you have to have to understand the scripture, to understand the kingdom, the pursuit of forbidden knowledge. Paul's thorn in the flesh was given to him because he had those revelations and he said, lest I be lifted up in pride, God sent me a thorn in the flesh. And he was not permitted to reveal those things to others. just a practical application many years ago to show you how this works out with regard to God withholding information about us. Many years ago when Bonnie was ill and we were trying to determine what course of action to take with her, of course, Jonathan had just been born by C-section and so her immune system was suppressed by that trauma. Following the C-section, she had pulmonary embolism, which was a further trauma to her And then our oncologist told us that he thought it would be wise for her to undergo a staging laparotomy to see how far the cancer had progressed. And I was agonizing over this because I may be wrong, but I have an idea that the more you suppress the immune system, the more susceptible you are to other problems. And I didn't know what to do. I just did, and I was fretting, and I wasn't sleeping. I said, okay, if we do it then, should we do it? I was going back and forth. Finally, one of the elders came over to our home, and he rebuked me, a very proper rebuke. He said, Brent, stop it. You don't know everything. You can't know everything. So you make a best decision that you can make on what you know and leave it in God's hands. That was good counsel. I wanted to know everything. I wanted to know everything and I couldn't. And I was angry because I couldn't. Well, you don't need to know everything. You know enough to discharge your duties. And that's what Jesus tells them. You don't need to know if this is the time when I'll restore the kingdom to Israel. It's really not a matter of that at all. Because I'm not going to restore the kingdom to the Israel that you are thinking about. But you don't need to know that. That's superfluous. You have everything that you need to know to discharge your duties. And you have that as well. The scriptures are sufficient for everything you think and do. And finally, consider the Lord's clarifying instruction, and I believe that this is the thrust of this eighth verse. It is clarifying instruction. It's not for you to know the times or the ethics of the Father as fixed by his own authority, but know this, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the outermost, the remotest part. of the earth. You don't need to know about the secret counsels of God and when he's going to do what and where and how and why. What you need to know is that you will have the Spirit of God and you will carry out this commission that I'm giving to you. This is what you need to know about God's kingdom and this eighth verse basically is a brief outline of the content of Acts. It tells us about the gospel, having received the Spirit of God. It talks about the disciples taking the gospel first to Jerusalem, then to Judea, then Samaria, remember Philip, and then to the remotest part of the earth. Jesus, first of all, empowers his disciples by his Holy Spirit. If you want to know about the way that God will indeed build his kingdom, it is not by political, military, and economic power. It is by the Spirit-filled preaching of the Gospel. That's what you need to know. That's what the Church needs to know. When will Jesus restore the Kingdom? As the Word of God is preached in the power of the Spirit. It is preaching by the Spirit of God, preaching the Gospel that is the power of God and salvation. I'm not ashamed of the Gospel, Paul said. It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Let the church return to spirit-filled preaching that takes everything that Jesus taught us and applies it to the people of God, and the matters of the kingdom will take care of themselves. I remember reading James Henley Thornwell, I believe it was James Henley Thornwell, and he was addressing some who were beginning to question his optimistic view of the future with regard to the preaching of the gospel and the subduing of nations by the preaching of the gospel, and people were questioning that. It was a very pessimistic age in the days of James Henley Thornwell, and his response was this. Let the church begin to faithfully preach the gospel in faith and it will soon be a settled question of whether the gospel will dominate the earth. I like the way he thinks. Maybe not soon in our way of thinking, but he understood the priorities of Jesus. Don't worry about the times and the seasons. You be faithful and then it won't be a question any longer. So they would have spirit-filled preaching in the power of God and they would be accompanied by the works of power to authenticate God's message. So what we see in the book of Acts, we see the powerful preaching of the word But we also see the works of Jesus through the hands of the disciples that authenticate them as messengers. Those miraculous deeds, not miracles, have not ceased, but the ability to work miracles by men has ceased. We don't have those gifts anymore, though God is still the God who works by and even against nature. But what we see is that God gives the power to authenticate his message in a powerful way. And that power, Jesus empowers his disciples for worldwide witness. And this word, to the remotest part of the earth, sometimes when you see the word world, it speaks of the inhabited world. This is the globe itself. He says the disciples would be witnesses to him throughout the entire earth. The promise to Abraham was that in your seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And Jesus told them, go into all the world discipling the nations, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. First of all, baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you even to the end of the age. and Jesus is with us by the power of his spirit. I just finished reading a chapter in John Payton's autobiography, John Payton, missionary to the New Hebrides, and in this chapter he spoke about how he had to challenge these cannibals because they threatened to kill him by their witchcraft. And so he challenged them by that. And what they would do is, the natives were terrified of this because these witch doctors would take food or remnants of food that had been eaten by anybody. If they had a vendetta against you, they would threaten to take those portions of food and they would cast a spell by them. And so the people of the New Hebrides would consume everything or bury it and hide it. And they threatened to kill John Payton by this. And so he assembled three of these three of these witch doctors, and he asked for some food, and he took a bite out of three portions, and he said, here, take it. He says, kill me. Now you can't kill me with sword or club. I can do that. But you've got to kill me by your magic. Kill me. And so they went over and did all these things, and he was over there laughing, and it kind of reminded me of Elijah. And he's over there laughing at them, and the natives were terrified. They expected him just to keel over. At the end of the day, He was in great health, and they said, well, it will probably take a week, but by the next Sabbath, you're going to be dead. And so everybody was terrified, of course, except John Payton. He said, I showed up on the next Sabbath day to preach the gospel, and I was in extraordinary health. And when he did that, he sat down on a log, and he said, OK. You have failed. You have to admit now that my God is more powerful than yours and that's because your God doesn't exist. Now you have to listen to the word of Jehovah. And two of those witch doctors, he doesn't know whether they were converted, sat down, became his friends and protected him, sat down and heard the gospel preached to them. Then he had to travel around the island and he had to come back by land. He traveled by night. Nobody would go with him. because it was so dangerous. He knew if he traveled by day that he'd be killed and eaten. He had to travel by night. And he talked about the harrowing, the harrowing venture, walking on cliffs in the black of night. He couldn't swim, which is amazing for a man who was So he had to go along the cliffs by the seaside, and finally he came to a place where he thought he couldn't see, but it was so steep, there was only one place he could get down because it was in an area that he was aware of, but he couldn't see. He didn't know whether it was high tide or low tide, but he knew that he had to get down into the water. If it was high tide, he'd drown. If it was low tide, he would be able to wade. But the only way that he could get down, he thought it was the place, was to lie on his back, take his belongings, and slide down the rock. It was so far down that when he threw rocks he couldn't hear it hit anything. And he said, entrusting myself to Jesus, I slid down the rock. It was low tide. I waited home and came to my home. He says, but I am absolutely convinced. in the presence of my blessed Jesus because I never could have undertaken such a task had I not been confident of his presence with me every step of the way. That was a spirit-filled man. You shall receive power after the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth and John Taten And you, as you preach the gospel, as you live the gospel, are building the kingdom of God. And the day will come when ten men will take the hem of your garment and say, please, please, can we come with you? Can we come with you? Because we have heard that God is with you. Lord, hasten the day. Father, we do pray that you would give us proper ideas about the kingdom. Indeed, that Christ has ascended and he has come up to the ancient of days and to him has been given an everlasting kingdom. Indeed, the stone that is cut out without hands has smitten the statue and is now filling all the earth. So Lord, we pray that you will indeed pour out your Spirit upon us once again, that you'll anoint your church and your people with your Spirit for Spirit-filled preaching, Spirit-filled believing, Spirit-filled obedience, and that you would make us your witnesses worldwide. Indeed, we pray that you will bring about that great promise, that in your seed that is in Christ, every nation of the earth should be blessed. Hear our prayers, we ask, and accept our worship, and use us for your kingdom, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, people of God, look up and receive the benediction of your God. And now may the grace, mercy, and peace of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be with you, abide with you, and equip you for lifelong service to the glory of His name. Amen.