The Lord Working With Them

In verse 19 we read, “So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.” These men who, according to verse 20, went forth, had been spoken to by the Lord. They did not go forth because they thought it would be a nice thing to do, nor because they had started following Jesus and did not like to go back home in defeat, so, they had received their orders for the years that were to come, in a few words they had been given a work to do that was to occupy them during all their lives, that was to lead them into strange places, a work for which they were to suffer imprisonment, shame, stripes, losses, etc. They had been, in some measure prepared. They had seen the workings of God through the Lord Jesus they had seen miracles, and had heard the wonderful words that had been spoken by the Son of God. They were to receive at Pentecost the power from on high. So the message or the order of St. Mark 16:15 “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” was given to a group of men who had already followed the Lord Jesus some three years. These men also had been humbled by their own failure; they had come to see that they could not depend upon themselves. They were, therefore, ready to receive the power from on high.

We have in the book of The Acts the working out of the commission that was given in St. Mark 16:15. “The Lord working with them” is the part of the text to which I want to refer particularly. When King Herod thought he could do about as he pleased with the church, and killed James the brother of John and imprisoned Peter intending to kill him too to please the Jews, the church began to pray and the Lord began to work with them and at the end of Chapter 12 of The Acts, King Herod is dead and St. Peter is living at Cesares.

Then, too, the Lord worked with them in adding to their number, and not only did He add to them quantity, but quality. Men of the very first order. Stephen, through whom the Lord worked so mightily that men plotted against him, and through whom the Lord spoke so powerfully that they stoned him. Stephen, who has left us an example of victorious martyrdom that will live forever! Also Philip who preached so powerfully at Samaria and with whom the Lord worked so faithfully that “there was great joy in that city.” Then there was the “young man whose name was Saul” who surpassed them all and who, after his conversion near Damascus proved God during a long ministry, in which he traveled much, in which he was beaten, imprisoned and suffered shipwreck; but in spite of all his sufferings he was able, the Lord working with him, to write those epistles that we, thank God, still have to guide us in the way to a deeper life and to feed us spiritually. Epistles that are as fresh today as when they were written, that bring us a message today that fits our case as well as it did that of the churches to which the epistles were sent.

The words of the text “The Lord working with them” mean something more than that the Lord worked with them to give them results. It is true, that as He was with them, the results were assured, but in addition to the joy that they had in seeing Him work and in seeing the results of that work in the salvation of souls, the healing of sick bodies, the raising of the dead, the founding of churches, etc., they had His fellowship. They were seeing eye to eye with Him. What He desired, they desired, too. His interests were theirs, St. Paul writes “We have the mind of Christ.” Surely these spent their lives in the most profitable way in which lives can be spent, “they went forth and preached everywhere,” the Lord gave them the joy of seeing some of the results of their work, and, too, He was with them. And, being in the work, they were able to understand Him better, they learned something of the joys and sorrows of the work that was dear to their master’s heart. We read that Jesus rejoiced in spirit” and St. Paul writes to the Corinthians “I am filled with comfort, I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation.” The Lord Jesus went over Jerusalem; St. Paul writes that he has great heaviness and continual sorrow in his heart and that as he could wish that he himself were accursed from Christ for his brethren, his kinsmen according to the flesh. The Lord Jesus said to the Father “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.” St. Paul could write, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.” The Lord working with them; until the end.

Centuries have passed since the days of St. Paul and the early church; we live, in a sense, in a new world. However the heart of man is the same. Sinners still need the cleansing blood of our Lord Jesus Christ and to those who are saved comes again the message of “Go ye into all the world.” Some, even among the Christians pay but little attention. Others feel their responsibility, but feel so unequal to the task. We may be sure that the group that first heard the Go ye” felt unequal to the task too, but the Lord worked with them and as He worked with them He is ready to work with us. Since the days of the text many have proven that the Lord will work with us, if we will but go forth and preach everywhere. The book of The Acts has been written again and again; not in just the same way, but the principle is the same. The eternal faithfulness of God to those who will take him at His word and go forth to a dying world with the message of salvation through the precious blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. There are cities today as wholly given over to idolatry as was Athens in the time of St. Paul. There are cities today that are as Christ-rejecting as was Jerusalem. There are groups as self-seeking as were the craftsmen of Ephesus. But certain men clave unto Paul and believed at idolatrous Athens; God mightily worked at Jerusalem and a church was founded at Ephesus. These things being true, can we not believe that the Lord will work with us as He did with the early church? It is hard to imagine anything that challenges our faith more than deep-rooted paganism, or a town wholly given to paganism and vice. Yet we have seen that in these places there are prepared hearts; that there are those who are falling down before wood and stone because they know no better; persons who have within a desire for light and who are groping after it, who are ready to receive the gospel message if someone will but take it to them. What we have seen here has shown us that God has lost none of His faithfulness. That he can add worthwhile people to our number. People taken from the error of Rome. That the Lord still works with those who will go forth. That He can and will deliver us from danger and harm. That He will be with us and that we will be able to truly say that “our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.”