In introducing this subject, notice may be taken of the idea that the apostolic body must number twelve. It was a purely Jewish conception, based on the fact that the tribes composing the nation were twelve. But it was a notion suited to the formality of the age, which made so much of numbers, and washings, and ordinances, and ceremonies. It does not appear that our Lord made any sacredness attach to the number; nor did he, after his resurrection, make any suggestions as to the filling up of the betrayer's office. It may further be shown that the conditions of apostleship laid down by Peter are not otherwise indicated. He seems to have gained the idea by dwelling on the fact that the apostles were to be Christ's witnesses; but our Lord's call to witness was made to disciples as well as to apostles. It would rather seem that the one thing essential to apostleship was direct appointment to office by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. In this view we can fully understand the claim St. Paul makes to the rights, standing, and authority of an apostle. The Revised Version makes a suggestive change in ver. 23, reading "they put forward," for "they appointed;" intimating that candidates were first selected by the apostles, and then "put forward" before the entire body of disciples, who made the definite choice. Regarded as the first effort to secure system and order among the Christian disciples, we may find indications of the early recognition of five great practical principles - the five which have been variously powerful in shaping the order of the various Christian communities as one or the other of them has gained prominence. We do little more than state the principles, leaving the questions of their relative values, their adaptations to present religious life, and their influence on the formation of different ecclesiastical organizations.

I. THE PRINCIPLE OF THE NEED FOR OFFICES IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. This is universally recognized. The offices are arranged with more or less precise copying of the early Church models, and with varying sense of the elasticity of the principle. One thing needs to be carefully impressed, viz. that all offices are for use - for the order and edification of the Church.

II. THE PRINCIPLE OF THE EIGHTS OF THE COMMUNITY. All being believers, having the new life and the indwelling Spirit, - all may and should take part in the proposed election. This principle is recognized in all Churches, but is less prominent in some than in others. Prudence provides limitations of the claims which it might inspire.

III. THE PRINCIPLE OF THE EXECUTIVE RIGHTS OF CHRIST. He is the living and present Head and Ruler of the Church, and must be thought of as actually presiding; not only having given us laws, but actually presiding over their execution. All officials in a Church are Christ's ministers and agents, simply carrying out his will.

IV. THE PRINCIPLE OF THE RIGHT OF JUDICIOUS SELECTION. A large number of people cannot make wise and united selection of suitable men for suitable offices. This is a very practical principle, which prudence would have established if for it there had been no early Church precedent. It is found useful in all societies and associations of men,

V. THE PRINCIPLE OF ELECTION BY THE WHOLE COMMUNITY. All the Church joined in the act of choosing one of the two selected ones. It may be impressed that these simple and practical principles lie at the very foundation of Church order, and that the healthy working of Church systems depends upon the wise applications made of them, relative to the circumstances of national and social surroundings, and the "genius" of the community so ordered. - R.T.

There are many ways of regarding the life of Christ: e.g., the philosophical or ideal, as in John's Gospel; the historical, in its larger world relation, as in Luke and St. Paul's Epistles; or, as here, the familiar. A proverbial touch may be detected in the phraseology of the text recalling Psalm 121:8. Such an expression indicates "the daily round" as distinguished from the special occasions of life. Note two or three reflections upon the great fact of the dwelling amongst us of God's Son.

I. THIS CONTACT MUST BE A GROUND FOR THE MOST COMPLETE SYMPATHY BETWEEN HIM AND US.

1. How thoroughly He shared the occupation, interest, and outlook of man. He entered into human thought, and looked upon the universe as it appears to the human eye and mind. Nothing human was indifferent to Him. All questions of labour, of the family, of social or political affairs, were and are of concern to Him. He is one with us.

2. He was a partaker in the suffering and shame of men. Pain, sorrow, disappointment, formed the alphabet of His experience as of ours. These were for Him a discipline as well as for us, and He regarded them and the problems they present as one of ourselves.

II. HOW INDEPENDENT CHRIST WAS OF EXTERNAL CIRCUMSTANCES AND ASSOCIATES. It has been said that "no man is a hero to his valet." Familiarity breeds, if not contempt, at any rate, loss of reverence. Can we conceive of Jesus losing in moral dignity or the esteem of men by daily intercourse? Here He receives the title "Lord," and His going in and put is "over" His people, i.e., authoritatively, as shepherd over his sheep. He chose a life least calculated to produce social or political effects, yet His influence was enhanced by that fact. His work so absolutely depended on Himself that political influence or high social position mould have injured it. But was He Himself affected by His station in life? Carlyle's vices, we are told by Froude, were to be looked for, considering his nature and upbringing as a Scottish peasant, and even his virtues were those of people of humble circumstances. Were the virtues of the Peasant of Galilee subject to this drawback? Nay; for we see how He towers above His contemporaries and followers. To such an age He could owe nothing, and the best of all ages have done Him homage and tried to imitate Him.

III. IT IS JUST THIS "DAILY ROUND" OF LIFE THAT NEEDS SAVING. Five-sixths of life consists of routine, and what would be the use of a religion that could not affect this? There is a constant tendency to detach the common things of life from moral considerations. Christ's parables discovered the mystery of the kingdom of heaven that was latent in men's daily lives. Who shall tell how much the childhood of Jesus has done to purify home life, or His work as a carpenter to ennoble labour?

(A. F. Muir, M. A.)

On the day which is appointed to commemorate the Apostle Matthias, our Church has selected for the Epistle a portion of Scripture from the Acts of the Apostles, the only portion of Scripture in which his name is to be found. Whatever else is related of him in uninspired authors is attended with uncertainty, however worthy of remembrance. One circumstance is mentioned concerning him by two respectable writers among the early Christians, viz., that he was one of the seventy disciples whom the Lord Christ, during His earthly ministry, sent forth to work miracles and to preach in His name. This circumstance proves that he was known to Christ, and Christ to him; and that Christ had distinguished him among His followers.

I. The first piece of instruction which I think we may learn from this portion of Scripture history is THAT AMONG THE GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANTS OF GOD BAD AND UNFAITHFUL MEN MY BE FOUND. Judas Iscariot was a traitor among the twelve apostles. Satan, as we read in the Book of Job, was among the sons of God when they came to present themselves to Jehovah. Among the early converts to the faith of Christ, Ananias and Sapphira, and Simon Magus, were discovered to be insincere. Our Saviour's parables of the wheat and tares growing in the same field, and of the good and bad fish caught in the same net, give us the like view of His Church here on earth. We know that His Church triumphant will be presented to Him "a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but holy and without blemish." The ministers of Christ's Church, though especially called to be examples to the people whom they are appointed to teach and lead, are certainly not exempt from this corrupting influence: neither is it to be expected that they should be. They are still but men, liable to temptation as the rest of mankind, and subject to the peculiar temptations of their calling.

II. But another piece of instruction which we may learn from this portion of Scripture history is THAT, THOUGH WICKEDNESS BE FOREKNOWN, FORETOLD, AND PREDETERMINED BY GOD, IT IS WICKEDNESS NOTWITHSTANDING. To God, who knows all things, it was certainly known that Judas would act the part which history relates he did. Was Judas, then, innocent on this account? Mark the language of the historian in writing of it: "This man [Judas] purchased a field with the reward of his iniquity." Take another instance of the like kind in our Lord Jesus Christ: "Him," says St. Peter, "being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." Let no Christian, therefore, set the foreknowledge and predestination of God against the willing agency and responsibility of man, as if they were inconsistent and at variance with each other, and could not both be true. And let those who would excuse their impieties, by pretending a fatal necessity, be told that, if their sins be decreed and inevitable, so also is their punishment; and if they cannot but choose the one, they must equally choose the other.

III. A third piece of instruction which we may learn from this portion of Scripture history is THAT WHEN, BY DEATH OR OTHERWISE, A MINISTER OF CHRIST'S CHURCH IS REMOVED FROM HIS CUSTOMARY SPHERE OF SPIRITUAL LABOUR, IT IS THE DUTY OF THE BISHOP, PATRON, AND PEOPLE, AS FAR AS LIES IN THEM, TO APPOINT A GOOD AND WELL-QUALIFIED MINISTER IN HIS PLACE. We may notice, however, in the election of Matthias what was thought particularly necessary for his office. "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 day that He was taken from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of His resurrection." It was an accurate knowledge of Jesus, from the beginning of His public ministry, which was from the time of His being baptised by John to the day of His ascension into heaven. And this knowledge was to qualify the apostle to be a witness of the resurrection of Jesus. Next, therefore, to honesty of character and sincerity of affection to Jesus, this information was a needful quality in a preacher of the gospel. The same quality is still needed in preachers of the gospel, though not to, be obtained from visible intercourse with the holy Jesus. They ought to be well acquainted with the history of His life; with the prophecies of the Old Testament concerning Him; with the manner of their fulfilment, as far as they have been fulfilled; and with all the evidences which clearly prove Him to be "the Christ, the Saviour of the world." To state this knowledge properly and effectually, their hearts also ought to be warmed with love to Jesus, and to the sinners whom He came "to seek and to save."

IV. A fourth piece of instruction which we may learn from this portion of Scripture history is THE DUTY OF PRAYER IN THE CASE OF THE ORDINATION OF MINISTERS GENERALLY, AND ON THE APPOINTMENT OF ANY INDIVIDUAL MINISTER TO SOME PARTICULAR FIELD OF LABOUR IN THE CHURCH OF GOD. This duty was carefully performed by the apostles and disciples of Christ in the instance before us. Let private prayer be added to that which is public, that the Holy Spirit may direct the minds and hearts of all parties concerned in the ordination of ministers. Having thus prayed in faith, they should receive the minister sent to them as Christ's ambassador, to be reverenced for the sake of the King, his divine Master. But, more than this, their prayers should be seconded and followed up by active and cheerful efforts to help him in the great work to which he is called; to unite with him, in their several spheres and stations, in promoting and extending his labour of love, in teaching the young and ignorant, in strengthening the weak, in correcting those who fall into error; and, by their own bright and consistent example, glorifying God, and causing God to be glorified by others, through them.

(W. D. Johnston, M. A.)

(Ordination Sermon): —

1. Here was one of the noblest ventures of faith ever made by man. Viewed from the world's side, it was, as great faith always is, frivolous trifling or daring madness. A little company of ignorant men, in a small province of the Roman world, had for three years followed up and down their land a new teacher, who professed to come from God, but had been crucified and slain. They had been terrified and scattered, and now they gather together in an upper room, and talk of choosing one in the traitor's stead to complete their broken number. They speak great words: they seem to look forth into the wide world around, as though it waited for them, as though they had a message for it, and power over it. Either their minds were full of the darkest delusions, or they were acting in the very might of God. And which was the truth the event may tell us. Prom that completed company a voice awoke to which the world did listen, and before which it fell. No visible strength dwelt in them as they went forth on their errand. They were scourged, imprisoned, slain. Their weapons were endurance, submission, love, faith, martyrdom — and with these they triumphed. They preached "Jesus and the resurrection," and hard souls yielded and were gathered into the new company, and wore its cross and carried on its triumphs, until the world trembled at the change which was passing on itself. And so they have advanced with unfaltering step from that day to this, until all that is mightiest in power, and greatest in nobleness, and highest in intellect, has bowed down in adoration before that witness of the resurrection of Jesus.

2. The acts which we are here this day to do are but the carrying out of those which then were wrought, and we may see in the course of their work what should be the issue of ours. Here is —

I. THE STRENGTH IN WHICH EACH ONE OF THOSE SENT FORTH IS TO LABOUR, AND THE SPIRIT IN WHICH HE IS TO BE RECEIVED. Here is his strength — he is called by God to this office (and woe be to him if he rush into it uncalled), and goes about God's work: he may be, he ought to be, conscious of weakness, and therefore he may be strong; for conscious feebleness may drive him from himself to God in Christ. In spite of appearances, at all times in his ministry there is strength for him: "I witness not of myself, but of the resurrection of my Lord; my words are not mine, but His; I witness not by strength, but by weakness, glorying in infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." And as having such an office they are to be received, not for their natural eloquence or power, not for their acquired skill or learning, but for the supernatural presence which will make their weakness strong.

II. THE NATURE OF THEIR CHARGE — they are sent to bear the witness of Christ's resurrection. All is shut up in this. They come from God to the world with the message of reconciliation; and this message is the incarnation of the eternal Son, His death, His rising again, and from this the truth of the ever-blessed Trinity, and man's restored relation to his God. This is what man's heart longs for unconsciously, and what the asceticism of the natural man is so restlessly craving for where it can never find it.

III. HOW ARE WE TO DISCHARGE THIS GREAT VOCATION?

1. We must be deep students of God's Word. Where else are we to learn our witness of Christ's resurrection? Here it is written clear and full — in the Old Testament in type, prophecy, and promise; in the New in fulfilment, act, history, and grace. In it, day by day, we must live with Him. Thus must our message sink into our own hearts. Even as they "who companied with" Him "all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among them," learned unawares, day by day, the truth they needed, so must it be with us.

2. We must be men of prayer. The union of these two is the essence of the apostolical character. "We will give ourselves continually to prayer, and the ministry of the Word"; and without prayer we cannot bear this burden. How without it shall we have an insight into Scripture? how turn what we read to profit? how have power with God or with our brethren? In prayer, in real, hearty, earnest prayer, all things around us are set into their proper places. In prayer our minds are armed for the coming temptations of the day; they are cooled, refreshed, and calmed after its vexations, fatigues, and anxiety. On our knees, if anywhere, we learn to love the souls of our people; to hate our own sins; to trust in Him who shows us then His wounded side and pierced hands, and to love Him with our whole heart. Nothing will make up for the lack of prayer. The busiest ministry without it is sure to become shallow and bustling. To come forth from secret communing with Him, and bear our witness, and to retire again behind the veil to pour out our hearts before Him in unceasing intercessions and devout adorations, this is, indeed, the secret of a blessed, fruitful ministry. Nor let us suppose that at once, and by the force of a single resolution, we can become men of prayer. The spirit of devotion is the gift of God; thou must seek it long and earnestly; and His grace will work it in thy heart. Thou must practise it and labour for it. Thou must pray often if thou wouldest pray well.

3. We must be men of holiness.(1) Because without this there cannot be reality in our witness. We cannot testify of the resurrection of Christ unless we ourselves have known its power. Even though our lives be correct, yet our lives must be unreal unless the truths we speak have thoroughly pervaded our own souls. If we have for ourselves no living faith in a risen Saviour, we cannot speak of Him with power to others. We must be great saints if we would have our people holy. The pastor's character forms, to a great degree, the character of his flock. We must show them in our risen lives that Christ indeed is risen. This is a witness, from the force of which they cannot escape.(2) Because we are in the kingdom of God's grace, and to us is committed a dispensation of His grace. Every act of ours will be real and effectual only so far as God's grace goes with it; and though He may be, and is, pleased to work by His grace even at the hands of the unholy, yet who can say how greatly such unfaithfulness does mar His work, how much is lost which might be gained? How can the other necessities of our character be supplied if we fail here? How can we be students of God's Word without God's grace? How can they pray for themselves or their people who have not the Spirit of grace and supplication? How can they draw down the blessed dew on others who even repel it from themselves? Who can have daily audience of our King but those who dwell within His courts?

(Bp. S. Wilberforce.)

The fact of Christ's resurrection was the staple of the first Christian sermon. The apostles did not deal so much in doctrine; but they proclaimed what they had seen. There are three main connections in which the fact is viewed in Scripture. It was —

1. A fact affecting Him, carrying with it necessarily some great truths with regard to His character, nature, and work. And it was in that aspect mainly that the earliest preachers dealt with it.

2. Then, as the Spirit led them to understand more and more of it, it came to be a pattern, pledge, and prophecy of their own.

3. And then it came to be a symbol of spiritual resurrection. The text branches out into three considerations.

I. THE WITNESSES. Here we have the "head of the Apostolic College," on whose supposed primacy — which is certainly not a "rock" — such tremendous claims have been built, laying down the qualifications and the functions of an apostle. How simply they present themselves to His mind. The qualifications are only personal knowledge of Jesus Christ in His earthly history, because the function is only to attest His resurrection. The same conception lies in Christ's last designation, "Ye shall be witnesses unto Me." It appears again and again in the earlier address reported in this book. "This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses," etc., etc. How striking the contrast this idea presents to the portentous theories of later times. The work of the apostles in Christ's lifetime embraced three elements, none of which were peculiar to them — to be with Christ, to preach, and to work miracles; their characteristic work after His ascension was this of witness-bearing. The Church did not owe to them its extension, nor Christian doctrine its form, and whilst Peter and James and John appear in the history, and Matthew wrote a Gospel, and the other James and Jude are the authors of brief Epistles, the rest of the twelve never appear afterwards. This book is not the Acts of the Apostles. It tells the work of Peter alone among the twelve. The Hellenists Stephen and Philip, the Cypriote Barnabas — and the man of Tarsus, greater than they all — these spread the name of Christ beyond the limits of the Holy City and the chosen people. The solemn power of "binding and loosing" was not a prerogative of the twelve, for we read that Jesus came where "the disciples were assembled," and "He breathed on them, and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost, whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted." Where in all this is a trace of the special apostolic powers which have been alleged to be transmitted from them? Nowhere. Who was it that came and said, "Brother Saul, the Lord hath sent me that thou mightest be filled with the Holy Ghost"? A simple "layman." Who was it that stood by, a passive and astonished spectator of the communication of spiritual gifts to Gentile converts, and could only say, "Forasmuch, then, as God gave them the like gift, as He did unto us, what was I that I could withstand God?" Peter, the leader of the twelve. Their task was apparently a humbler, really a far more important, one. They had to lay broad and deep the basis for all the growth and grace of the Church in the facts which they witnessed. To that work there can be no successors.

II. THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE TESTIMONY. Peter regards (as does the whole New Testament) the witness which he and his fellows bore as enough to lay firm and deep the historical fact of the resurrection.

1. If we think of Christianity as being mainly a set of truths, then, of course, the way to prove Christianity is to show the consistency of its truths with one another and with other truths, their derivation from admitted principles, their reasonableness, their adaptation to men's nature, and the refining and elevating effects of their adoption, and so on. If we think of Christianity, on the other hand, as being first a set of historical facts which carry the doctrines, then the way to prove Christianity is not to show how reasonable it is, etc. These are legitimate ways of establishing principles; but the way to establish a fact is only one — that is, to find somebody that can say, "I know it, for I saw it." And my belief is that the course of modern "apologetics" has departed from its real stronghold when it has consented to argue the question on these lower and less sufficing grounds. The gospel is first and foremost a history, and you cannot prove that a thing has happened by showing how very desirable it is that it should happen, etc. — all that is irrelevant. It is true because sufficient eye-witnesses assert it.

2. With regard to the sufficiency of the specific evidence —(1) Suppose you yield up everything that modern scepticism can demand about the date and authorship of the New Testament, we have still left four letters of Paul's which nobody has ever denied, viz., the Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians, whose dates bring them within five-and-twenty years of the alleged date of Christ's resurrection, Now we find in all of them the distinct allegation of this fact, and side by side with it the reference to his own vision of the risen Saviour, which carries us up within ten years of the alleged fact. It was not a handful of women who fancied they had seen Him once, very early in dim twilight of morning, but it was half a thousand of them that had beheld Him. He had been seen by them, not once, but often; not far off, but close at hand; not in one place, but in Galilee and Jerusalem; at all hours of the day, abroad and in the house, walking and sitting, speaking and eating, by them singly and in numbers. He had been seen too by incredulous eyes and surprised hearts, who doubted ere they worshipped; and the world may be thankful that they were slow of heart to believe.(2) Would not this testimony be enough to guarantee any event but this? And if so, why is not it enough to guarantee this, too? If the resurrection be not a fact, then the belief in it was —(a) A delusion. But it was not; for such an illusion is altogether unexampled. Nations have said, "Our king is not dead — he is gone away and he will come back." Loving disciples have said, "Our Teacher lives in solitude, and will return to us." But this is no parallel to these. This is not a fond imagination giving an apparent substance to its own creation, but sense recognising the fact. And to suppose that that should have been the rooted conviction of hundreds of men that were not idiots finds no parallel in the history and no analogy in legend.(b) A myth; but a myth does not grow in ten years. And there was no motive to frame if Christ was dead and all was over.(c) A deceit; but the character of the men, and the absence of self-interest, and the persecutions which they endured, made that inconceivable.(3) And all this we are asked to put aside at the outrageous assertion which no man that believes in a God can logically maintain, viz., that —(a) No testimony can reach to the miraculous. But cannot testimony reach to this: I know, because I saw, that a man was dead, and I saw him alive again? If testimony can do that, I think we may safely leave the verbal sophism that it cannot reach to the miraculous to take care of itself.(b) Miracle is impossible. But that is an illogical begging of the whole question, and cannot avail to brush aside testimony. You cannot smother facts by theories in that fashion. One would like to know how it comes that our modern men of science who protest so much against science being corrupted by metaphysics should commit themselves to an assertion like that? Surely that is stark, staring metaphysics. Let them keep to their own line, and tell us all that crucibles and scalpels can reveal, and we will listen as becomes us. But when they contradict their own principles in order to deny the possibility of miracles, we need only give them back their own words, and ask that the investigation of facts shall not be hampered and clogged with metaphysical prejudices.

III. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE FACT WHICH IS THUS BORNE WITNESS TO.

1. With the Resurrection stands or falls the Divinity of Christ. Christ said, "The Son of man must suffer many things, and the third day He shall rise again." Now, if Death holds Him still, then what becomes of these words, and of our estimate of the Character of Him, the speaker? Let us hear no more about the pure morality of Jesus Christ. Take away the Resurrection and we have left beautiful precepts, and fair wisdom deformed with a monstrous self-assertion, and the constant reiteration of claims which the event proves to have been baseless. Either He has risen from the dead or His words were blasphemy. "Declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead," or that which our lips refuse to say even in a hypothesis!

2. With the Resurrection stands or falls Christ's whole work for our redemption. If He died, like other men, we have no proof that the Cross was anything but a martyr's. His resurrection is the proof that His death was not the tribute which for Himself He had to pay, but the ransom for us. If He has not risen, He has not put away sin; and if He has not put it away by the sacrifice of Himself, none has, and it remains. We come back to the old dreary alternative: if Christ be not risen your faith is vain, and our preaching is vain, etc. And if He be not risen, there is no resurrection for us; and the world is desolate, and the heaven is empty, and the grave is dark, and sin abides, and death is eternal. Well, then, may we take up the ancient glad salutation, "The Lord is risen"; and turning from these thoughts of the disaster and despair that that awful supposition drags after it, fall back upon the sober certainty, and with the apostle break forth in triumph, "Now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first-fruits of them that slept."

(A. Maclaren, D. D)

Alphaeus, Andrew, Barsabas, Bartholomew, David, James, Jesus, John, Joseph, Judas, Jude, Justus, Mary, Matthew, Matthias, Peter, Philip, Simon, Theophilus, Thomas, ZelotesAkeldama, Field of Blood, Galilee, Jerusalem, Judea, Olivet, SamariaAppointed, Baptism, Beginning, Death, Heaven, John, John's, Ordained, Received, Resurrection, Rising, Starting, Till, Us-one, Witness1. Christ, preparing his apostles to the beholding of his ascension, .
4. gathers them together unto the Mount of Olives,
6. commands them to expect in Jerusalem the sending down of the Holy Spirit,
9. and ascends into heaven in their sight
10. After his ascension they are warned by two angels to depart, and to set their minds upon his second coming.
12. They accordingly return, and, giving themselves to prayer,
23. choose Matthias apostle in the place of Judas.

Acts 1:22

     8105   assurance, basis of

Acts 1:12-26

     7266   tribes of Israel

Acts 1:15-22

     8712   denial of Christ

Acts 1:15-26

     7392   lots, casting of

Acts 1:21-22

     2427   gospel, transmission
     7026   church, leadership

Acts 1:21-26

     6641   election, responsibilities

June 3. "Ye Shall Receive the Power of the Holy Ghost" (Acts i. 8).
"Ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost" (Acts i. 8). There is power for us if we have the Holy Ghost. God wants us to speak to men so that they will feel it, so that they will never forget it. God means every Christian to be effective, to count in the actual records and results of Christian work. Dear friends, God sent you here to be a power yourself. There is not one of you but is an essential wheel of the machinery, and can accomplish all that God calls you to. I solemnly believe that there …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Ascension Day
Text: Acts 1, 1-11. 1 The former treatise I made, O Theophilus, concerning all that Jesus began both to do and to teach, 2 until the day in which he was received up, after that he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit unto the apostles whom he had chosen: 3 to whom he also showed himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing unto them by the space of forty days, and speaking the things concerning the kingdom of God: 4 and being assembled together with them, he charged them not …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. II

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'To whom also He shewed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.'--ACTS i. 3. The forty days between the Resurrection and the Ascension have distinctly marked characteristics. They are unlike to the period before them in many respects, but completely similar in others; they have a preparatory character throughout; they all bear on the future work of the disciples, and hearten them for the …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts

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A New Year's Sermon 'It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in His own power.'--ACTS i. 7. The New Testament gives little encouragement to a sentimental view of life. Its writers had too much to do, and too much besides to think about, for undue occupation with pensive remembrances or imaginative forecastings. They bid us remember as a stimulus to thanksgiving and a ground of hope. They bid us look forward, but not along the low levels of earth and its changes. …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts

The Theme of Acts
'The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach. 2. Until the day in which He was taken up.'--ACTS i. 1, 2. 'And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, 31. Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.' --ACTS xxviii. 30, 31. So begins and so ends this Book. I connect the commencement and the close, because I think …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts

The Ascension
'The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, 2. Until the day in which He was taken up, after that He through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the Apostles whom He had chosen: 3. To whom also He shewed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: 4. And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts

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'Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us ... must one be ordained to be a witness with us of His resurrection.' --ACTS i. 21, 22. The fact of Christ's Resurrection was the staple of the first Christian sermon recorded in this Book of the Acts of the Apostles. They did not deal so much in doctrine; they did not dwell very distinctly upon what we call, and rightly call, the atoning death of Christ; out they proclaimed what they had …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts

The Ascension: Back Home Again Until -- --
Tarry ye--Go ye: the Jerusalem meeting--the walk to Olives--not Palestine only, but a world--the last word--upward--seen no more. Coming again: gazing upward, Acts 1:10, 11.--a continuation upward--the Olivet outlook. …
S. D. Gordon—Quiet Talks about Jesus

The Parting Promises of the Saviour.
(On Ascension Day.) TEXT: ACTS i. 6-11. THE great event that we commemorate to-day was no doubt something very different to the disciples at that time from what it is to us. They had hardly recovered from the stunned condition into which His death had thrown them; they had hardly come to realize calmly their pain at His separation from them; at least, they had certainly not yet learned to look at it in the right way, for they regarded it as the ruin of His whole work on earth--when His joyful resurrection …
Friedrich Schleiermacher—Selected Sermons of Schleiermacher

The Mystery of Iniquity
"The mystery of iniquity doth already work." 2 Thess. 2:7. 1. Without inquiring how far these words refer to any particular event in the Christian Church, I would at present take occasion from them to consider that important question, -- In what manner the mystery of iniquity hath wrought among us till it hath well-nigh covered the whole earth. 2. It is certain that "God made man upright;" perfectly holy and perfectly happy: But by rebelling against God, he destroyed himself, lost the favour and …
John Wesley—Sermons on Several Occasions

Witnessing Better than Knowing the Future
"When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."--Acts 1:6-8. THESE ARE AMONG THE LAST WORDS of …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 39: 1893

Tenth Day for God's Spirit on Our Missionaries
WHAT TO PRAY.--For God's Spirit on our Missionaries "What the world needs to-day is, not only more missionaries, but the outpouring of God's Spirit on everyone whom He has sent out to work for Him in the foreign field." "Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be My witnesses unto the uttermost parts of the earth."--ACTS i. 8. God always gives His servants power equal to the work He asks of them. Think of the greatness and difficulty of this work,--casting out …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession

The Propagation of Christianity.
IN this argument, the first consideration is the fact -- in what degree, within what time, and to what extent, Christianity actually was propagated. The accounts of the matter which can be collected from our books are as follow: A few days after Christ's disappearance out of the world, we find an assembly of disciples at Jerusalem, to the number of "about one hundred and twenty;" (Acts i. 15.) which hundred and twenty were probably a little association of believers, met together not merely as believers …
William Paley—Evidences of Christianity

The Second Coming of Christ.
When Jesus was taken up into heaven and a cloud had received him out of sight, two heavenly visitants appeared unto the men of Galilee and said, "This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." Acts 1:11. Jesus went up in a cloud and he is to come again in like manner as he went up. "And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory." Mark 13:26. No one knows the exact time of his coming. …
Charles Ebert Orr—The Gospel Day

Other New Testament Names for "Being Filled with the Spirit. "
That we may see how full the New Testament is of this blessing, and that we may the better understand what it is and how it is obtained, let us just glance at some other terms used by the Holy Ghost when speaking of it. 1. "Baptized with the Holy Ghost." "Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence" (Acts i. 5). See also Acts xi. 16, Matt. iii. 11, Mark i. 8, Luke iii. 16, John i. 33. Now, though "baptized" and "filled" are sometimes convertible terms, it is instructive to note …
John MacNeil—The Spirit-Filled Life

Prayer-Equipment for Preachers
"Go back! Back to that upper room; back to your knees; back to searching of heart and habit, thought and life; back to pleading, praying, waiting, till the Spirit of the Lord floods the soul with light, and you are endued with power from on high. Then go forth in the power of Pentecost, and the Christ-life shall be lived, and the works of Christ shall be done. You shall open blind eyes, cleanse foul hearts, break men's fetters, and save men's souls. In the power of the indwelling Spirit, miracles …
Edward M. Bounds—The Weapon of Prayer

Interpretation of Prophecy.
1. The scriptural idea of prophecy is widely removed from that of human foresight and presentiment. It is that of a revelation made by the Holy Spirit respecting the future, always in the interest of God's kingdom. It is no part of the plan of prophecy to gratify vain curiosity respecting "the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power." Acts 1:7. "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God"--this is its key-note. In its form it is carefully adapted to this great end. …
E. P. Barrows—Companion to the Bible

Mount Olivet. The Mount of Olives, 2 Samuel 15:30
Zechariah 14:4. In the Rabbins commonly, The Mount of Oil. "The mount called the mount of Olives, lying over against the city, is distant five furlongs." But Luke saith, Acts 1:12, "Then they returned from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a sabbath-day's journey." But now a sabbath-day's journey contained eight furlongs, or a whole mile. Neither yet, for all this, doth Luke fight against Josephus. For this last measures the space to the first foundation of Olivet; the other, to that …
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

The Resurrection of Christ.
The resurrection of Christ from the dead is reported by the four Gospels, taught in the Epistles, believed throughout Christendom, and celebrated on every "Lord's Day," as an historical fact, as the crowning miracle and divine seal of his whole work, as the foundation of the hopes of believers, as the pledge of their own future resurrection. It is represented in the New Testament both as an act of the Almighty Father who raised his Son from the dead, [209] and as an act of Christ himself, who had …
Philip Schaff—History of the Christian Church, Volume I

The Acts of the Apostles.
Comp. § 82. 1. Critical Treatises. M. Schneckenburger: Zweck der Apostelgeschichte. Bern, 1841. Schwanbeck: Quellen der Ap. Gesch. Darmstadt, 1847. Ed. Zeller: Contents and Origin of the Acts of the Apostles. Stuttg., 1854; trsl. by Jos. Dare, 1875-76, London, 2 vols. Lekebusch: Composition u. Entstehung der Ap. Gesch. Gotha, 1854. Klostermann: Vindiciae Lucancae. Göttingen, 1866. Arthur König (R. C.): Die Aechtheit der Ap. Gesch. Breslau, 1867. J. R. Oertel: Paulus in der Ap. Gesch. …
Philip Schaff—History of the Christian Church, Volume I

The Church and Her Mission, or the Three Constitutional Synods, 1760-1775
. As we enter on the closing stages of our journey, the character of the landscape changes; and, leaving behind the wild land of romance and adventure, we come out on the broad, high road of slow but steady progress. The death of Zinzendorf was no crushing blow. At first some enemies of the Brethren rejoiced, and one prophet triumphantly remarked: "We shall now see an end of these Moravians." But that time the prophet spoke without his mantle. Already the Brethren were sufficiently strong to realize …
J. E. Hutton—History of the Moravian Church

Ascension Day. This Same Jesus which is Taken up from You into Heaven, Shall So Come, in Like Manner as Ye have Seen Him Go into Heaven.
This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come, in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven. Herr auf Erden muss ich leiden [92]Neumann. 1700. trans. by Catherine Winkworth, 1855 Lord, on earth I dwell in pain; Here in anguish I must lie; Wherefore leav'st Thou me again, Why ascendest Thou on high? Take me, take me hence with Thee, Or abide, Lord, still in me; Let Thy love and gifts be left, That I be not all bereft. Leave Thy heart with me behind, Take mine hence with …
Catherine Winkworth—Lyra Germanica: The Christian Year

Power "In" and "Upon. "
You remember that strange, half-involuntary "forty years" of Moses in the "wilderness" of Midian, when he had fled from Egypt. You remember, too, the almost equally strange years of retirement in "Arabia" by Paul, when, if ever, humanly speaking, instant action was needed. And pre-eminently you remember the amazing charge of the ascending Lord to the disciples, "Tarry at Jerusalem." Speaking after the manner of men, one could not have wondered if out-spoken Peter, or fervid James had said: "Tarry, …
Dwight L. Moody—Secret Power

St. Ignatius (Ad 116)
When our Lord ascended into Heaven, He left the government of His Church to the Apostles. We are told that during the forty days between His rising from the grave and His ascension, He gave commandments unto the Apostles, and spoke of the things belonging to the kingdom of God (Acts i. 2f). Thus they knew what they were to do when their Master should be no longer with them; and one of the first things which they did, even without waiting until His promise of sending the Holy Ghost should be fulfilled, …
J. C. Roberston—Sketches of Church History, from AD 33 to the Reformation

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