day that He was taken up from us, let one be ordained to be a witness with us of His resurrection.” Now no tice that. This was the one qualifica tion that they required that the person should be a witness with them of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the whole purpose of the ministry was to be a witness to a risen Lord through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We de velop this in a later message. It’s good to realize that this is that with which these men started. They didn’t start with a program. So often if we have a church, we have to have our messages prepared and planned and scheemed and, of course, obviously today all this is necessary. No one would deny it. But here we have a group of people who had not a clue where they were going. They had not a clue as to what was going to happen. They had no buildings. They had no finances. They had nothing. All they had was a tremendous sense of commit- al to a risen Lord and that they were going on to witness to this One. They were going to speak about Him. They were going to talk about Him but al ways about Him in relation to this risen Lord, to His risen life. They were not going to talk only about the cross. In fact you will not find that men tioned very much in this book as we shall see later on. It certainly was men tioned and it was essential that it should be mentioned, but the emphasis, the over-emphasis, the continual emphasis, was on the fact that this Lord is a risen Lord. It is the risen life of Christ that somehow, in some way unknown to them as they witnessed to this risen Lord, that a release of power was going to come! The simple fact that these people had nothing at all but power, and that power was based upon their conscious sense of a risen Lord, that these men were commissioned by that risen Lord to be witnesses unto Him. This was going to be the secret that unlocked all else of the things of the Lord in the days to come. How wonderful that by His Grace we might come to know the secret too. 21
unto the uttermost part of the earth.” So, now, the thing that I want you to see there, is the commission that •Jesus Christ gave to these people. He said they were going to receive the pow er—and they certainly did. And He said that this power was going to be demonstrated as they were witnesses quoting His words, “Ye shall be wit nesses unto me.” Notice: they were to be witnesses to a Person and not to a place. This Person was the Lord Jesus Christ, the risen Lord, the Living Lord in all His resurrection power! And as I read further on in this same book, same chapter — chapter 1, I find that starting from about verse 21 that in discussing the appointment of anoth er one to take the place of Judas Iscar iot we read these words from verse 21 of Acts, chapter 1, “Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same Dr. John Hunter (left), chats with Biola President, Dr. Samuel H. Sutherlqnd.
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker