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THE KING’S BUSINESS
know it, we must have power also to com municate it with power to others. How long they should be kept waiting they did not know, but in point o f fact they were kept waiting ten days. All through these ten days they alone knew the Gospel which the world was perishing in ignorance of, yet they must “wait,” (or, “ remain about” ). How tremendously important in God’s sight it is that those who would work for Him should, receive the promise o f the Father before they undertake the service to which He has called them! It does not follow, however, because they had to wait ten days that we shall have to. W e are told in the second chapter, the first verse, -w iy they had to wait ten days, viz., because the day set by God in His eternal counsels and set forth in the Old Testament type for .the coming o f the Holy 'Spirit was not ful filled until “the day o f Pentecost was being fulfilled” (See R. V. M arg). Since the day o f Pentecost—the day for the‘ giving o f the Holy Spirit to His church-—is now fulfilled, whoever meets the conditions o f the enduement from on high, receives that enduement at once. Jesus went on to-tell them that they should be baptized with the Holy Ghost “not many days hence." Evi dently then, they had not received that bap tism as yet, but they were already regen erated men, saved men (John 13:10; 15:3). It is clear then that regeneration is one thing and the baptism with the Spirit some thing'additional (cf. Acts 8:12, 15, 16). One may be a believer and a regenerated man, without having received the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 8:12, 15, 16), but in the normal order o f Christian experience, true repentance, and believing in Jesus, and being baptized in His name, brings with it the baptism in the Holy Spirit then and there (Acts 2:39; cf. Acts 10:43-48). vs. 6, 7. “ They therefore, when they were come together, asked him, saying, Lord, dost thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know times or seasons, which the Father hath set within his own authority,” The mention o f “the promise o f the Father” seems to have suggested to
“ infallible” is left out. There is in the Greek no adjective descriptive o f the word translated “proofs,” but the word itself means more than proofs, it means sure, or indubitable, proofs; so while the word “ infallible” proofs does not exactly render the Greek word, it does suggest the force o f the noun so translated. The proofs o f His resurrection were not merely proofs of a weak or doubtful character, hut conclusive proofs that there was no disputing or answering. During these forty days there was one constant topic of conversation between our Lord and the Apostles; that topic was “the things concerning the king dom o f God.” That should be largely the topic o f conversation among believers today. Our Lord told them at this time many things about, the kingdom that He had not been able to tell them (because o f their dullness and unfitness to hear) during the years of His intercourse with them preced ing His resurrection. The substance of what He told them on these occasions we find in the epistles that the Apostles wrote at a later day. vs. 4, S. And being assembled together with them, He charged them not to depart from ] erusalem, but to wait for thé promise o f the Father, which, saith he, Ye heard from me: For John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with (rather in) the Holy Ghost, not many days hence.” Before leaving the Apostles, Jesus laid a solemn charge upon them not to take up the commission ;o f world-wide evangeliza tion, a commission which He himself had given them, until they had received the all essential fitting, “the promise o f the Father.”. This' promise of the Father, as it appears from the fifth verse, was the baptism in the Holy Spirit (cf. Luke 24:49). Though the world was perishing for the knowledge o f the truth which they alone could teach, nevertheless, they were to stay right there in Jerusalem and .wait until they were “clothed with power from on high,” should receive “the promise of the Father,” should be “ baptized with the Holy Spirit” before we undertake to tell the saving truth. It is not enough that we
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