20-2 The Apostles’ Preaching
One can only be impressed by the way that within only three days of arriving
in Rome after an awesome journey, Paul began preaching by inviting the
local Jews to come to him. He would have had so much else to attend to
surely, quite apart from getting over the trauma of the journey. The apostles
sought to convict men of their desperation, the urgency of their position
before God, the compelling nature of the cross, that they were serious
sinners; that a man cannot behold the cross and be unresponsive, but rather
must appropriate that work and gift to himself through baptism. The urgent
appeal for repentance was quite a feature of their witness (2:38;
5:31; 7:51; 11:18; 17:30; 18:18; 20:21; 26:20; Heb. 6:1). The gap between
first hearing the Gospel and being baptized would appear to have been
far shorter in the 1st century than in the 21st.
Because of the urgency of appeal in the approach of the preachers, the
listeners responded quicker- for they sensed the compelling urgency of
what they were hearing. The Gospel demands a response, and the preacher
of it can really do nothing else but consciously or unconsciously urge
that response upon the hearer. In the Acts account, people heard the message
and within a matter of hours were baptized. The simple point is, that
there was the utmost speed of response to the very same message which
we have heard and preach.
Baptism needs to be perceived as a crisis point, the concentration of
a whole life in a life-determining decision. It isn’t an end in itself,
but neither is it something drifted into. May I suggest there needs to
be a greater stress on repentance in our preaching, 20 centuries
later. This is why baptism was up front in their witness, for it is for
the forgiveness of sins; thus in Acts 22:16 the early preachers appealed
for repentance and baptism in the same breath. And this was the implication
of the Lord’s parabolic command to His preachers in Mt. 22:9: “Go ye therefore
[cp. “go ye therefore and teach all nations”] unto the partings of the
highways” (RV) and invite people to the wedding feast of the Kingdom.
The point from which He foresaw us making our appeal was a fork in the
road. We are to appeal to men and women with the message that there is
no third road; that it truly is a case of believe or perish. There is
no example of apologetics in their preaching, but rather an utter confidence
that they were holding out to men the words that gave eternal life. Their
words, lives and body language reflected their deep sense of the peril
of those outside of Christ. By preaching, they were freed from the blood
of men (20:26); evidently alluding to how the watchman must die if he
didn’t warn the people of their impending fate (Ez. 3:18). In line with
this, “necessity is laid upon me…woe is unto me if I preach not
the Gospel” (1 Cor. 9:16). Paul felt an ineffable sorrow and personal
responsibility for the unbelieving Jews, to the point that after the pattern
of Moses he would fain have given his salvation for theirs (Rom. 9:1).
This was quite something. And it would have been noticeable in the style
of his witness, and such a level of love would surely have found response.
There are times it sends shivers down my spine to realize that men like
Paul and Moses were willing to give up their eternal life for others.
What a height of love they rose to. And what an unending challenge they
are to us.
“Forthwith…immediately”
Paul and the apostles were urgent in their preaching. When Paul received
the go ahead to preach in Macedonia, he “immediately endeavoured” to go
there, even not waiting for Titus to join him, such was his urgency (Acts
16:10; 2 Cor. 2:12,13). And the response of people to these urgent preachers
was therefore quick too. Men who began doubting and cynical were pricked
in their heart, they realized their need, and were baptized within hours
(Acts 2:12,37). The men who marvelled and doubted whether Peter was anything
more than a magic man were within a few hours believing and being baptized
(Acts 3:12; 4:4). There is a speed and power and compulsion that pounds
away in the narrative. Luke has a favourite Greek word, often translated
“forthwith…immediately” (Acts 3:7; 5:10; 9:18; 12:23; 13:11; 16:26,33).
This is quite some emphasis; and Luke uses the very same word a lot in
his Gospel, as if to show that the speed and power and achievement
of the Lord’s ministry is continued in that of His ministers now (Lk.
1:64; 4:39; 5:25; 8:44,47,55; 13:13; 18:43; 19:11; 22:60). The word is
scarcely used outside Luke’s writing. And he uses many other words to
stress the speed and urgency and fast moving nature of the Lord’s work.
They are worth highlighting in your Bible; for our ministry is a continuation
of that of our early brethren (Acts 9:18-20,34; 10:33; 11:11; 12:10; 16:10;
17:10,14; 21:30,32; 22:29; 23:30). The preaching of a God hurt by sin,
passionately consumed in the death of His Son, feeling every sin, rejoicing
over every repentance and baptism…this was something radically different
in the 1st century world, just as it is in ours. And such a
God imparted a sense of urgency to those who preached Him and His feelings
and ways and being, a need for urgent response, a need to relate to Him,
which was simply unknown in other religions. The urgency of man’s position
must be more up front in our witness. Christianity went wrong in the 2nd
century AD because the church abstracted God and His being into nothingness,
to the point that the urgent import of the true doctrines was lost in
practice. May this not be the case amongst us .
Mainstream Christian groups, who do not possess the Truth which we do,
have estimated that “More than 2,700 million people, which is more than
two-thirds of all humanity, have yet to be evangelised. We are ashamed
that so many have been neglected; it is a standing rebuke to us and to
the whole Church. There is now, however, in many parts of the world an
unprecedented receptivity to the Lord Jesus Christ” [taken from The
Lausanne Covenant]. These words are surely a challenge to us. For
far less than two thirds of all humanity have heard the Truth. The urgency
of our task, possessing God’s saving Truth as we do, is far greater.
Or it ought to be.
Jesus Is Coming
Urgent response in view of coming judgment is a repeated theme in the
teaching of Jesus. His servants are to wait in hourly anticipation of
His return (Mk. 13:34-36; Lk. 12:36-38); the day of reckoning is even
now at hand, all our guilt will be uncovered, and we should act now before
it is too late (Lk. 16:1-8). We are as a guilty man about to be hauled
to court, whose only way out is to make peace with his offended brother
(Mt. 5:25,26). Unless we repent, a great tower is about to fall upon us
(Lk. 13:1-5). Jesus saw Divine judgment as something imminent, something
which is essentially happening now, and therefore day by day we need to
live accordingly. He insisted that any supposition that life will simply
carry on as it is…was a fatal delusion. He piercingly dismantles our natural
human assumption that life can be broadly maintained as it is or simply
adapted a little. There is an urgent need to change and to keep
on being transformed in the new life in Him. So the urgency of
response is because the Lord is coming back soon, but also because He
is right now our constant and insistent judge. Our generation particularly
ought to have a sense of urgency. For I will go on record as saying that
I do truly believe the Lord may very well come in our time. He is near,
even at the doors. Written in our lives, as a neon sign in the black of
our human lives, should be the simple reality: Jesus Is Coming.
The unjust steward in the parable of Luke 16 ran round forgiving others
their debts, so that in his time of crisis and judgment he would have
a way out of his own debt problems. And in the context of forgiving our
brethren, the Lord holds him up as an example. But He laments that sadly,
the children of this world are often wiser than the children of the Kingdom,
i.e. the believers (Lk. 16:8). I take this as meaning that the Lord is
sorry that His people don’t see the same obvious need to forgive each
other, in view of their own inadequacies and the coming of judgment. The
children of this world see the coming of their judgments and the urgency
of the need to prepare, far more strongly than many of us do; we who face
the ultimate crisis of sinful, responsible man meeting with an Almighty
God.
Ready To Respond
The Passover night is alluded to in the New Testament as being typical
of the spirit which we ought to have in daily life as we await the Lord’s
return. They were to eat it with their clothes girded together ready to
up and go, huddled together in their family / ecclesial units, focused
upon the slain Passover lamb in their midst which was to be their salvation.
”Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind…and hope to the end for the
grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ…forasmuch
as ye know that ye were [redeemed] with…the precious blood of Christ,
as of a [Passover] lamb without blemish” (1 Pet. 1:13,18,21). “Let your
loins be girded about, and your lights burning, and ye yourselves like
unto men that wait for their Lord, when he will return…that they may open
unto him immediately” (Lk. 12:35,36). In order to be ready to quit this
life at any moment, with no looking back after the pattern of Lot’s wife,
we need to live in a daily spirit of urgent awareness of our position,
living as we do in Egyptian darkness.
How we respond to Jesus now is how we will respond at His return. Those
who open to Him immediately will be saved (Lk. 12:36). The wise virgins
go immediately and are thereby accepted, whereas the foolish delay their
response. The implication is surely that those who are ready to drop all
and go when He knocks, will be saved. Our reaction in that split second
of knowing ‘He’s back!’ will determine our eternal destiny; it will effectively
be our self-judgment. And yet in this life too, the figure of the Lord
knocking at our door is used to describe our response to Jesus in this
life (Rev. 3:20). If there is no immediacy of response now, there will
not be then.
We must agree with our adversary quickly, for we are on our way to judgment
(Mt. 5:25). The call of the Gospel is effectively a call to go to judgment.
If we truly perceive this, and our coming need for the utmost grace, we
will settle our differences with our brethren- “quickly”. The whole Kingdom
of God is likened to the parable of the virgins about the judgment (Mt.
25:1). We are speeding towards judgment, therefore we should
watch with urgency what manner of people we are (2 Pet. 3:11,12). “The
things that shall come upon them, sealed up among my treasures, make haste”
(Dt. 32:34,35 Heb.). We are on our way to judgment day, and that day is
rushing towards us (cp. Lk. 14:31); the hearing of the Gospel is in itself
a call to go forth and meet the Lord (Mt. 22:8). The believer is called
to his Lord to receive his pounds, and yet is also again called to Him
in judgment at His return (Lk. 19:13,15). The repetition of the idea of
being called to our Lord surely suggests that our calling to Him in the
first place is in fact a calling to judgment. We are being gathered to
judgment now (Mt. 13:47; 22:10; Jn. 11:52) although we will be
gathered then to meet the Lord (s.w. Mt. 3:12; 13:30). The point is, we
must act now as men and women will do when they are on their way to judgment,
and the meeting with their ultimate destiny. Then we will not be bickering
amongst ourselves or worrying about our worldly advantage; then, only
one thing will matter. And so now, only one thing matters. The Christian
life is likened to a man on his way to his judge along with his adversary
(Lk. 12:58); and evidently, he ought to settle his differences with his
brother before he arrives, for this judge will be extremely hard upon
those who cannot be reconciled to their brethren. This would suggest that
the Lord foresaw that getting along with our brethren would be a major
part in the development process of His people; and as they draw closer
to the day of meeting with Him, the more urgent is the need to settle
their disputes, as He will be unsympathetic towards them. Indeed, the
point of conversion is the beginning of the gathering (Lk. 11:23; Jn.
4:36)
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