What is the Work of God?
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What Is the Work of God?
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This is a basic question, though we don’t speak of it enough these days. We used to often speak of it and it was, and is to be, the focus of the Church. Why were we called and what is the work of God?
Transcript
What we want to talk about today in the sermon, is a basic question, but it is a question that we don’t talk about as much as we should. It is one that, back in the day – for those of you who are older brethren, you know the day we are referring to – it was, “What is the work of God?”
We talked about that a lot and we kept focused on the work of God. We were doing or helping to do the work of God. That was our calling. That was a part of why we are here, and then why God has called us out of this world, at this time in history, instead of waiting to sort of do it during the millennium, when everybody else, or most everybody else, will be called – those who survive the troubles ahead – or the Great White Throne Judgment, when He will finish up the calling of every last human being that has ever lived on the earth since Adam and Eve.
Why have we been called now, and what is the work that God has called us to do? This is an important question. It is important for us to stay focused on the answer so that we should be able to think, “I know that. I know why we are here.” We are here to do God’s work and to grow in grace and knowledge. But we don’t grow in grace and knowledge unless we are doing God’s work. That has to be the main focus – the work that God is doing. And what work is that? The same work He gave the apostles when He lined that out. And we are going to look at a passage on that here in a minute.
At one time, many years ago, this question would be asked, and it would be, typically, a question that a particular person – minister – would ask. So we expected to hear it from him, in one form or another, as he rehearsed in our minds why we are called now – to do the work of God.
We had a clear vision of God’s work at that time. And I say, at that time, because we just don’t talk about doing God’s work like we used to. We need to. We still are trying to do that work. We are on a rather smaller scale than what we once were twenty some years ago, but we are still doing that same work.
Let’s turn to Matthew, chapter 24, and verse 14, to orient ourselves to this question of God’s work. Christ is giving a summary of the events that are going to transpire – for example – we might just as well do the run-up, starting in verse 4. Matthew 24:4.
The context of this scripture is vitally important. He is sitting on the Mount of Olives. Go back to verse 1. Christ is on the Mount of Olives. The Mount of Olives – I give this as a geography lesson about every time it comes up, because I know where it is, and a few others do from having been there – looking back at Jerusalem – but where the temple was, which is where the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock is, and that area of the mountain top above Jerusalem – all that area – that is where the temple was – on that location. Across from it, to the east, there are two ridges. One ridge drops off quicker than the other, but there are two ridges that run parallel to each other, running north and south for a little while there, and the valley in between those two ridges is called the Vally Kidron in David’s day – and Gethsemane, I think, it was called in the New Testament. So the Garden of Gethsemane was down in that valley. It is a steep valley.
So it is running east and west, and you have, where the temple had been, there is now the shrine of Omar and the wailing wall is just over behind there down and off of the Mount itself, but that level is about 2500 feet above sea-level. Why is that important? Because the Mount of Olives, right across the valley from it, is 2600 feet. Some may think, wow! What is the spiritual significance of that? None. It is of photographic significance, because all of the shots that you see of the Temple Mount with the slight golden glow to it, are taken when the sun is coming up behind the shoulder of the photographer who is standing on the Mount of Olives taking that picture down into that area – the flat-top, where the temple would have been back in the days of Solomon. So it gives you that panoramic view simply because the Mount of Olives is slightly taller than where the Temple Mount was. It has that golden glow in the early morning when the sun hits the angle of the atmosphere. Any photographer who has photographic technology, know it is called golden light. And it is the angle of the sun and the earth’s atmosphere that gives a glow early in the morning and late in the afternoon. So if you can get the sun behind you when you get your camera out – this doesn’t work for selfies, because it is behind you and you are going to get this blinding flash of the setting sunlight. So you have to be an outward looking photographer that takes pictures of other things and other people. You know how that works? Probably not, because we have lost it in the culture of technology today, but you can go back and research it and find out.
So there was the Temple Mount right across the way, and that was where the work was going to get started on the day of Pentecost. We are doing our run-up to Pentecost by reading the book of Luke and the book of Acts – you know, group of chapters by group of chapters – right up to Pentecost. So we get the background, and we’ll even get the aftermath of the day of Pentecost, because once the day of Pentecost came, the work of God began in earnest.
Now when I say began, it had already been going, because Christ was doing the work of God. But it began under the auspices of the apostles – Christ guiding them spiritually – but under their auspices of leadership. Peter, as we will see, being the chief of the apostles – in other words, the supervisor – the leader of the twelve. The twelve had to have a replacement, because Judas Iscariot, of course, had betrayed Christ, and had died. And he was replaced by Matthias, I think it is. So, he was replaced and so now they had twelve again, but it was Peter’s job to oversee the preaching of the gospel to the Israelites – which meant to the Jews and all the scattered tribes, wherever they were in the first century AD. We generally know where they were in the first century AD.
A great deal of them were in northwestern Europe already, and in the British Isles and Ireland, and some in Scandinavia. But there was still a significant percentage that were out in what we call Iran today – it was the Parthian Empire – and all the way down below the Parthian Empire into Scinde, which has been a part of India in the past – the Indus Valley. And that was being ruled by a group of the Israelites known as the Crucians. And then they, along with the Parthians, began to exit, and during the period of time from about 300 BC to after 300 AD was called, Das Völkerwanderung, which is German for The Great Wandering – the people wandering – because that period of history has peoples moving all over the place. And in tracking the tribes of Israel, that is one of the times you see a lot of their tracks being made – part of the time because an aggressive force is coming behind them, making tracks too, as God was herding them up to northwestern Europe. There was a prophecy that they had to move to the northwest of Jerusalem. And north and west leads you right up toward the British Isles.
We might just as well look at that. It’s in Isaiah 49 – chapter 49, and verse 12. This is a world tomorrow prophecy or millennial prophecy, but it says:
Isaiah 49:12 – Surely these shall come from afar. Look! Those from the north and the west, and these from the land of Sinim.
Well, the north and west…that doesn’t mean people necessarily coming out of the north and coming directly from the west, but bringing them together, and it means just northwest – just like we use that particular point on a compass today. They are coming from the northwest and where are they going? Well, back to Jerusalem, back to Israel.
So therefore, the compass is sitting in Jerusalem, and pointing northwest, where the bulk of the tribes went. And that, then, is going to be northwestern Europe, and Britain, Ireland, Scotland, which is where the bulk of the tribes settled, except that there was an element scattered elsewhere. Sinim means the south. So from the south some would come. What part of the tribes of ancient Israel – populations – are south of Jerusalem? Australia, New Zealand, part of the population of South Africa – that part. That is a significant enough part, but is not the bulk. The bulk is north and west, coming from that direction.
So the movement of peoples was taking place, even at the time of the apostles. They had to go and preach the gospel wherever Christ had sent the Israelites. Why would He want to preach to the Israelites and not to the Gentiles? He wanted to preach to the Israelites and He wanted to preach to the Gentiles. The twelve apostles however, were sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. How were they going to get to the Gentiles? What is 12 plus 1? Thirteen, and his name was Paul. Paul was sent to the Gentile communities.
He was on the level of one of the twelve, but he was added in later, specifically, and his job was not to focus on where the Israelites were, although he would have preached some collateral part of the gospel to the Israelites, wherever they happened to be in his pathway. I will explain that in a minute. Primarily though, he went to the non-Israelites – the Gentiles – the rest of the world. Now he didn’t get to all of the rest of the world, but he got to the Greeks, he got to the Romans and various other elements that were there in the Mediterranean area. And according to the British histories, near the end of his life, he was able to actually visit Britain as well – as Peter was.
When you study where the apostles went you have several different schools of religious thought as to where they think they went, but not necessarily with historical evidence. So you try to find historical evidence, as well as where people think they went, and then you weigh, and consider until you come up with a reasonably good understanding of it.
So the apostles had to go to the Israelites, but the Israelites were partly right where the apostles were. Let me show you something very interesting in Acts, chapter 2, as we think about these things that we are sort of seeding into our Pentecost keeping when we get to that in a few weeks.
Acts 2:1-4 – When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues – meaning languages – as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Where they were: traditionally it is viewed that they were on the Temple Mount in what I describe as the University of Judea. That was the portico of Solomon’s Porch, as it was often called – the portico that went around the outside edge of the Temple Mount area. The temple then was out in the middle of that compound – quite a large compound. The portico is where the leading doctors of the law, or the rabbis, of Jesus’ time would have been teaching their disciples and others who might want to come to listen from time to time – maybe on a festival or another day. But those who were specifically wanting to learn would come and learn there. That is probably where Christ was when, in Luke, chapter 2, when Mary and Joseph thought He was with the rest of the family from Nazareth. They didn’t even worry until they got a day’s journey going home to Nazareth, after the Passover season, and found out He wasn’t there in the convoy. So they rushed back and they looked all over, and finally they went up to Solomon’s Portico, and there He was discussing and asking questions and giving answers to the doctors of the law – that meant the leading rabbis, or teachers, of Judea at the time. A remarkable sort of story when you understand a little bit of the background of it.
Well, that is where the apostles would logically have gathered on the Day of Pentecost, perhaps earlier than others would have come. Notice, in verse 5:
V-5-7 – And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews – so you had many Jews there – devout men, from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them – the apostles – speak in his own language. Then they were all amazed and marvelled. Now how many of the apostles would have been able to speak in more than one language? Probably most of them could speak a little Greek, a little Latin, Hebrew and probably Aramaic. So it wasn’t like they were uneducated linguistically. They were more educated than typical Americans are. To be able to speak thoroughly in another language, maybe they were not trained specifically for that. Not all of them had that kind of a background, but there was one, later to come, that did. Then they were all amazed and marvelled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans?
How could they tell if they were Galileans? You could say well, maybe the Galileans dressed like Texans, and you can spot a Texan anywhere, some people say. No, I think it was the accent. They sounded like they were from Galilee. It would be like a Scotsman coming over and giving us a lecture on Ohio history. And you will think, “What does he know about Ohio history? He talks funny and I can’t even understand what county he just pronounced” – if it was a county – because of the brogue – especially if he’s from Glasgow. Glasgow has a brogue that is…unless you are from there, you can’t understand it. At least, that’s my theory. I worked with two fellows from Yorkshire in my Ambassador years. They were full-time farm workers on our research farm. And then I worked part-time on the farm, along with several of the students. One time, the Whitaker brothers…one time, David, the older, said, “Wilt thou go and get horse lad?” He said it heavier and faster than that. I knew he wanted me to do something, because it was a question – the lilt at the end – and I turned to his brother, Art, and I said, “What did he just tell me to do?” He said, “Go get the Land Rover.” I said, “He said, ‘horse.’” He said, “It’s a horse – just like a tractor.” That was what he was referring to – you’ve just got to know that. Okay, so I went and got the Land Rover. The apostles would have had their Galilean accent, because most all of them were from Galilee. And they would probably have had a really noticeable accent that most everybody else in the country could recognize.
V-6-12 – … everyone heard them speak in his own language – the end of verse 7. Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans?” Just like we read – that’s why we would think they would be Galileans. It may have been the dress, but I think it was the accent. “And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born?” Galilean-Parthy. Parthy is a language that the Parthians spoke. But there are the Parthians, you see. They were Israelites – many of them were, but not all of them. They ruled a lot of Gentile areas. They had a huge empire. They had an empire to rival Rome and Rome could never conquer them. They had many knock-down, drag-out battles. Rome won a couple, but never decisive victories of a war, and Parthia won the rest. And their final battle was a tie, but it also broke the power of Parthia worse than it broke the power of Rome, because the hierarchy of Parthia was involved in the war and a lot of them died. So then the Persians rose up. It was 219 AD, that the Parthians had their final battle with Rome – the battle of Nisibis. I think that is in part of Iraq – not in Iran, but at the edge of it. And about 226 AD, 7 years later, the Persians – the second Persian empire – rose up, threw off the Parthian rule, and the Parthians left. “Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia. Phrygia and Pamphylia” – a lot of places here, a lot of language cultures here – “Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes.” So the proselytes – some of them – might actually have been Israelites, but most of them would be Gentiles – non-Israelites is all that Gentile means. “Cretans and Arabs – we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.” So they all seem to be, what we would call, Jewish proselytes. That’s why they were there – to where they can happen to hear the apostles. A proselyte is somebody who converted to being Jewish, religion-wise. That is what that means. And so they were Jewish proselytes, in that sense. And they could recognize and understand what they were saying. So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “Whatever could this mean?”
They had no idea. And others made fun of the apostles and said they were drunk, because they were all saying things in different languages. But they were not drunk at all. It was God organizing His work and beginning to do a great work through those apostles.
They had a clear vision. Peter did, and the others – and Paul, when he was called several years later. They had a clear vision of what their job was to do: To carry the Gospel of the Kingdom of God to the world as a witness. And in the process, God would call some to repentance, and so they would build the Church – the true Church of God. They understood what their mission was. And they set out knowing – as other scriptures indicate – that most of them would die in the saddle – usually crucified, in many cases. Peter was and Andrew, his brother, was. Some of the others were beheaded, as was James, the brother of John – the first one to be martyred in Acts, chapter 12. You can read about that one. James Bar-zebedee – Zebedee was essentially their last name – it was their father’s name – James was the first of the twelve to be executed. All the rest fell as time went by.
Many of them made their way up to northwestern Europe and into Britain as well. Some went across to North Africa to do that, because there were Israelites, at that point, living in the northern coast of Africa. Peter supervised the work of all of them that were going to where the Israelites were located. Paul was sent to the Gentiles later to do the work. Peter supervised the twelve going to Parthia. And a number of them spent their time in Mesopotamia, which was a province of Parthia at the time – and Parthia-proper – and all the way down to the Indus Valley. That was where Thomas was – the apostle Thomas. Doubting Thomas lived, according to tradition at least, which is about as good as what we got on history of them, he lived until he was an old man, still actively preaching the gospel of the Kingdom of God. And then he was executed by some local tribal chieftain, who didn’t like him. He didn’t get beheaded, and he wasn’t crucified. He was a spear-stopper – five of them, according to some, four to others.
These were men who were dedicated to doing the work of God and they gave their lives for it. These are, in that sense, our spiritual heroes, because, brethren, we are doing the work of God today. Now we’ve seen it done more powerfully in our past, but still, it has to be done with whatever means we have at hand to do it. And thus we strive to do exactly that.
There are two aspects of God’s work that we need to look at. Let’s look at the preaching of the gospel first. Let’s turn to Matthew, chapter 28. And here, right at the end of the book of Matthew, the last two verses a contain the words of Christ. If you have red-letter, you can see where they are. Beginning in verse 18 of Matthew 28:
Matthew 28:18-20 – And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” The Father had given Him all authority to go and do the work. He was now authorizing – based on His panoramic authority, in that sense – He was authorizing the apostles – one sent with a message – He had twelve sent with a message – the apostles to go and do the work of God. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations….” Now all the nations would be all the nations where there were Israelites. but in the meantime, while you are going there, make disciples in all the nations you go through. And then later, one would be added, who would be specifically targeting those who were non-Israelites. We will read about Paul’s work here in a minute. “…baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you.” Did Jesus command them to keep Sunday and a bunch of pagan holidays? No. That is not part of the gospel. Keeping the Sabbath is and keeping the holy days of God are! So that is just a classic test-case point there. “…teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
That means right up to His second coming – meaning that the work that they did would be continued, in greater or lesser impact on the culture of the society of its time, on down through the centuries – essentially in a relatively unbroken train, not like the British Crown in an unbroken chain. But if the work was stopped in one place, God would raise up another man over here, and He would begin again for that region, and there would be others that would be doing that. When we study the history of the true Church of God, we find that was exactly the case.
Let’s go to the end of the book of Mark, now. We will read Mark, chapter 16. Again, this is God’s work. This was the work-order, if you want to call it that. “Make out a work-order and get that done.” So here was Christ’s work order. Verse 14, as we start in Mark 16:
Mark 16:14-18 – Later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table, and He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart.... You would think that, maybe, they learned something during His ministry. No, these were men – human nature. They were overcoming, but they had, sometimes, their slow moments. Have you ever had a slow moment in overcoming sin? Undoubtedly, we all have, and definitely, we all do. Well, they had theirs. They were regular folks, but they were the ones Christ did call. He saw something in each one of them that He was going to develop, just like He sees something in each one of us that He is going to develop, and is developing – maybe not to the level of an apostle, but to the level of one of the children of God in the Church of God. He rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen. You can go back and read the back-story on that some time. It is quite interesting. After Christ was resurrected, five hundred people saw Him. The apostle Paul records that in the resurrection chapter. You can go back and get a list of who you want to go look up in the other passages from the apostle Paul. And in verse 15: And He said to them – so He appeared to them and He was sitting at the table. He probably walked through the wall, instead of coming through the door – he just materialized through the wall, because He’d don that before – and He begins to speak. And He says: ”Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” – human creature, obviously. “He who believes and is baptized will be saved. Belief, faith and then baptism. You know, seeking the forgiveness of sin is, essentially, based on repentance, so you have belief and repentance. “He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues – without having to study them – they will take up serpents – not on purpose – and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them, they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
There is anointing with oil – anointing the sick – or sending an anointed cloth – where you put a drop of olive oil on the cloth, lay hands on it, and ask a prayer over it, that God will transfer the blessing of healing to the person to whom the cloth is being sent – that their ailment or injury would be healed by God.
Now let’s go to read how Luke recorded this similar thing, at the end of the book of Luke. Whereas Matthew, Mark and John were all people who associated closely with Christ in one way or another, Luke was not. Luke was called later during the ministry of the apostle Paul.
Luke was a physician – Gentile physician – as I mentioned earlier, travelling with Paul. But he was also a skilled scholar. He did his research as he went, and ultimately wrote a life biography of Jesus Christ – which obviously was being inspired while it was being written – but written from the perspective of one who was a Gentile – or as far as we know, was a Gentile, but not Jewish at least – and then he wrote the book of Acts. He wrote the history – the church history book – of the first century.
Now you can add all of the other epistles that are in the New Testament, but they, then, are the first-hand documents that we get to look at, using Acts, to give us an overview and an insight into our ancestors, spiritually. Maybe they were not our ancestors physically – maybe some of them were, we don’t know, but we will find out someday – but certainly they were spiritually.
All right. Now we go to verse 44 of Luke, chapter 24:
Luke 24:44-49 – Then He said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.” Moses, the Prophets and Psalms – that means the entire Old Testament. Psalms was used here as a symbol for the wisdom literature, which include Proverbs and several other books. And He opened their understanding…. He came and surprised them. This is one of the times when He walked through the wall. They were sitting there eating and they about dropped their teeth when He suddenly materialized right there in front of them. And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ – the Messiah. Christ is the Greek word for the Hebrew word Messiah. It means the same thing – for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day – to be resurrected on the third day, just as it happened – “and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” “That repentance and remission of sins should be preach in His name to all nations.” That means that you need to preach also what sin is. Sin is the transgression of the law, so it has to have an underlying theme of understanding God’s law, because that is how you define sin. “Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you, but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.” That would come on that day of Pentecost, 31 AD, when the apostles were converted. They weren’t converted yet. They were bed-bugs. Have you ever used that saying, “Unconverted as a bed-bug?” Well, most people don’t think bed-bugs are very nice creatures. That’s probably why they use it – but unconverted. They didn’t have God’s Spirit. Then when you realize, “That’s right! Now it explains the apostles quite a lot better during the time that Christ was working with them.”
So here again, we have them sent out to preach the Gospel – the true Gospel – to all the world and then He would empower them. He had given them the ability to do that.
Now we go to John – the last one – chapter 21, and we see another element of the preaching of the gospel of God’s Kingdom and all that that implies. John was adding in another element that would need to be understood. Okay, in chapter 21 of John, we want to look at verse 15, where we’ll start.
Now, I will give you the setting: Jesus had told the disciples, when He appeared to them in Jerusalem after He was resurrected – just walked through the wall, and asked for a piece of fish and honey, and ate it – so that they could know that He was alive. He was there. He wasn’t dead – but He wasn’t physically alive, but spiritually alive. And so He told them to go back to Galilee and He will meet them on a mountain there – in Galilee. Well, this is when He met them. They were out fishing. The disciples had gone back up to Galilee – Peter and his brother, Andrew, and John and James, who were also brothers of the Zebedee family. They were all professional fishermen – those four – so they knew how to fish. They had their boats, they had their nets. Probably the kind of nets that they used were not drag-nets, where they drag them between the boats, but what they called casting-nets, where you find a school of fish and you get a casting-net.
It’s a lot of fun. I had a neighbor, in the Columbus area, that showed me how to use his to catch bait. If we couldn’t catch fish, we’d just go catch bait. They were little minnows – schools of minnows. They were going across the lake and we would get a casting net. It is round – a big round circle when it flattens out – and there are weights all around the perimeter of the net. And there is a cord that goes through the weights. Then you fold it up in a certain way, and when you see where you think there are fish, you give it a toss – real hard – and it starts opening up. And it drops like a big balloon – hits the water with the weights and then it goes down like a big balloon – and any fish that it sinks down over will be caught. When you think you have let it go down far enough, you have the cord that pulls it together – the outside all together – like a bag. You yank on the cord and start dragging it in. So that is a casting net and that is what they would have done.
So they throw the net on this side of the boat, or on that side of the boat, and they ended up with a haul that was just about to swamp one of the boats. They finally got into the shore, and John recognized that it was Christ before they got there. And Peter jumped into the water and swam ahead, and then helped pull the boats up on the beach. So we are going to pick up the discussion here.
John 21:20-22 – Then Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved – in verse 20 – following, who also had leaned on His breast at the supper, and said, “Lord, who is the one who betrays You?” That was John. Peter, seeing him, said to Jesus, “But Lord, what about this man?” Jesus said to him, “If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me.” Now why was Peter picking on John? Well, let’s back up just a tiny bit, starting in verse 15:
V-15-19 – So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?” – meaning the rest of His friends, the disciples – and Peter answered: He said to Him, “Yes, Lord. You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Feed My lambs.” He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” He said to Him, “Yes Lord. You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?’ And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things. You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep. Most assuredly, I say to you, when you were younger, you girded yourself and walked where you wished, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish.” This He spoke, signifying by what death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this He said to him, “Follow Me.”
Now you see the understanding – the build-up – as to why He asked that question three times – because Peter had a specific responsibility that he would have to endure. He was going to be – I am trying to remember how Peter died, whether he was beheaded…no, he was crucified. Paul was beheaded. According to tradition, at least, he was beheaded. Peter was crucified. So we have here the apostles who gave their lives to do God’s work.
V-20-23 – Then Peter, turning around, saw the other disciple – turned to look at John – whom Jesus loved – they were like best friends – following, who also had leaned on His breast at the supper, and said, “Lord, who is the one who betrays You?” John had said all that on the Passover night, and so Peter, referring to John, said, “Lord, what about this man? What about him? Now I understand what I’ve got to do, but what about him?” Jesus said to him, “If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you? You follow Me. If I want him to be alive when I come back, that is My business, Peter. You follow Me.” Now John goes on to say very clearly – and God inspired this part, too – Then this saying went out among the brethren that this disciple would not die. Yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but, “If I will that he remain till I come, what is that to you?”
So we have the great commission given to the disciples of taking care of the flock, feeding the sheep, preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. That was their duty. That was the great commission of the work. And it all ties together – preaching the Gospel to the world and taking care of God’s church.
Now as time went by, and the Church was to never die out, but it would have its ebb and flow. Sometimes it would flow strongly. When you read the history of God’s true Church – and it is a little difficult to discern, because there is a history of another church that predominates an often persecuted true Church of God. And so it tended to destroy histories, but we can find the history of the true Church down through the years. And there have been times when the gospel, in various countries, was preached with great power for its day. They didn’t have the broadcasting power that we have, but they did speak with great power, and then the Church would flow like crazy. It would build. It would grow. There would be many baptisms and conversions and brethren that we will see in the resurrection. And then it would start to ebb, usually after the main leader, that God had used to raise it up, died. If there was not a clear succession – somebody to pick up and carry on the momentum – it would start to wane from time to time. Then there would be a few that would be left – seed population of converted brethren – and it would go on, and it would flow to do a significant work, at the very least, in its day, in another place. And it worked its way all across Europe, into Britain, and ultimately to America. So the work of God has been done by His church following these specific commissions of the twelve apostles.
Now, we have the work in our era and that we look back on, and it is important for us to understand some of that, so I am going to rehearse a little bit of it. We go back to the work that Herbert and Loma Armstrong were to spearhead. Now that began in the twenties, in the 1920’s, when God began to work with Mr. Armstrong. Mrs. Armstrong had come in contact with a neighbor lady who had taught her about the Sabbath. The neighbor lady was apparently a part of the Church of God, Seventh Day, or by whatever name it went by. I think that was the name that was still being used in the 1920’s.
She became convinced of the Sabbath. Mr. Armstrong wasn’t and he thought she was becoming a religious fanatic. You know the story, if you’ve read his autobiography. So he was going to go down and get the research and disprove it. And she said, “If you can show me that I shouldn’t be keeping the Sabbath, then I won’t.” So off he went to the Multnomah County Library in downtown Portland, Oregon. It is still there – a magnificent library – and he had a sister-in-law who was working at there as a librarian, and he told her what he was about – why he was in there. How did he have all the time to go to the library? Well, he was in a low-work time. He had a small business that took about 4 hours a week to work and they were eking an existence along with that. That is in his autobiography as well. So she said, “Oh, that’s nonsense, Herbert. Anybody that knows anything knows that God doesn’t exist and evolution is true.” Well now, when you read the autobiography, suddenly he realizes, “Oh, hold it. I’ve got to disprove that before I can disprove what my wife thinks.” So he proceeded to lay the superstructure of the Does God Exist? booklet that we all have had over the years - very clear logic and to the point. He proved that evolution is not true and God does exist, just like He said, and then he started to try to disprove the keeping of the Sabbath and all these other things that his wife was doing.
Unfortunately, by that time – well, fortunately for him, but unfortunately for his initial impulse – he starting proving the truth. And pretty soon he realized she was right, and Mrs. Runcorn was right. And so then Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong ultimately, and their small family at that time, began to look for other brethren to fellowship with. Mrs. Runcorn knew them. The Church of God, Seventh Day had an organization within the Oregon area – the Oregon Conference of the Church of God, Seventh Day. They began to fellowship with them, ultimately moving down to Salem, about 40 miles south of Portland. In Jefferson, Oregon, which you have heard a lot about, which is where Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong often went to Sabbath services was about ten miles further south of Salem – right down Interstate 5, which goes right down through there today.
They ended up in Jefferson, meeting a lot of the church members there, coming to understand God’s truth. They repented, were baptized, and began to be a part of what they were doing. They weren’t doing much very effectively. They had campaigns and were preaching in communities to try and raise up people that would be converted, but there were few.
When Mr. Armstrong was ordained – in 1927 he was baptized – in 1931 he was ordained on the farm of Yancy McGill, who lived just outside of Jefferson, Oregon. Interestingly, when he was ordained – I read the document, which is in the autobiography – you can read it yourself, if you have a copy of Mr. Armstrong’s autobiography – he was ordained an apostle – not just an elder, but as an apostle. Apparently, they ordained everybody as apostles – that’s what I think probably happened.
Mr. Armstrong, when he would go and then have a campaign, as he tended to refer to them, where they would hire a building in a small town, and then they would give lectures on the Bible or preachings on the Bible every night, there were people who wanted to become a part of it. When he wasn’t there, then there weren’t. The fruits were obviously with him. Ultimately, through the course of events, he ended up down east of Eugene, Oregon, which is from Salem to Eugene about 50 miles, straight south. We lived in Eugene – pastored the Eugene church and associate pastor in the Salem church many years before that. We were ten years in Eugene. There in Eugene, Mr. Armstrong was preaching not in the city, but in a little town about 8 miles east in a school house – country school house a one-room country school house. In the Jean school house and in the Furbutte school house, he ended up having some who came to repentance, and wanted to be baptized, and were, and he began to develop a small congregation. He continued to work in conjunction with the Church of God, Seventh Day, congregation in Jefferson, for many years. He co-pastored their church there, but he was raising up another church in Eugene and that became the parent church, or congregation, of the work that we are part of today.
You can go back and you can read the history, and some of you can recite the history because you have lived decades of it, and pick up, and see the work of God moving across the United States, spreading out to other countries. We were reading, the other night, when Passover and Unleavened Bread were kept in regional sites, just like the Feast of Tabernacles, because we didn’t have local congregations. That was a critical time for hearing many sermons and Bible Studies. And how fast the church grew is quite amazing.
We went through a shrinking process, and the United Church of God got its start when the process of shrinking took place back in 1995. The leadership at that time of the parent organization decided that they didn’t wanted to teach the doctrines of God’s word, which also are the historical doctrines you will find when you find pieces of the true Church down through the ages. They wanted to go to traditional Christian doctrines, which they did. Many of us sitting right here, said, “Uh-uh – not going to do that.” And so we had to go and find brethren, ministers, of that organization who were not going to do that, and were going to stick with God’s truth, and carry on with the work that we had been called to be a part of and called to do.
In principle, like Christ had delegated it to the apostles, we are part of that work and we are to help with the preaching of the gospel to the world as a witness and feeding the flock.
So hopefully, we can give some thought to our calling, brethren, into God’s church and God’s work, and look forward to the time when that work reaches its fulfillment in this age when Christ returns.