Acts Chapter 1: The Replacement of Judas

The text this morning is from Acts chapter 1, starting at verse 12. These are the words of God. Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a Sabbath day's journey. And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter and James and John and Andrew and Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes and Judas the brother of James. These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and said, the number of names together were about a hundred and twenty, Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus. For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry. Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity, and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. And it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem, insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue a keldama, which is to say, the field of blood. For it is written in the book of Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, let no man dwell therein, and his bishopric let another take. Wherefore of these men, which have accompanied with us all the time, the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection. And they appointed two, Joseph, called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justice, and Matthias. And they prayed and said, Thou, Lord, which knoweth the hearts of all men, show whether of these two thou hast chosen, that he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place. And they gave forth their lots. and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles. Our gracious God and Father, we commit this time to you. We thank you for your word, a light in a dark place, a light in a dark world. We thank you for your spirit who guides us, and we pray that he would be present and active in our midst this morning. We commit it all to you, in Jesus'name. Amen. This weekend we have a lot of visitors, so I should mention that we have just begun a series through the book of Acts. We're probably going to be doing this for a year or more, but we've just begun and we're still in the first chapter. The main action in the second half of this first chapter has to do with the replacement of Judas Iscariot. But along the way, we learn quite a few interesting things about the early days of the apostolic company or the apostolic band. So let's walk through this passage verse by verse. After seeing Jesus ascend up into heaven, the disciples came back to Jerusalem from Olivet. That's verse 12. This is a Sabbath day's journey, or about two-thirds of a mile. Not that far. If you go to Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives is right there, and Jerusalem is right there. It just takes about 10 or 15 minutes to walk down the slope into the city. It's not that far. A Sabbath day's journey. is how far the rabbis said you could walk without transgressing the commandment to not work on the Sabbath. So you could walk a certain distance, and that was the distance. They came to an upper room where all the remaining disciples were staying. Verse 13. They devoted themselves there to prayer, together with the women, the Lord's mother, and brothers. That's verse 14. Jesus had told them to wait in Jerusalem until power came on them, and they were all waiting in the same room. apartment. This was not just a meeting room, it was a place where the disciples were staying, so it must have been quite spacious. It says the disciples were there devoted to prayer. It says the women were there. These women were probably the women that are mentioned in the Gospels that were part of Christ's entourage. A number of them were wealthy women and they supported the Lord's company with their finances. These women are probably there, indicating that these women are also probably witnesses to the resurrection, as we're going to see. The Lord's mother was there, Mary, the Lord's mother was there, and his brothers were there. It says brothers were there. We know that during the Lord's earthly ministry, his brothers didn't believe in him. And we know that two of his brothers, Jude and James, both contributed a book to the New Testament. We know that brothers of the Lord became part of the early... company of believers, and this is apparently from day one. We have the Lord appearing to his brothers, these brothers, as a kindness to them, and they were joined together with the disciples. Verse 14. At some point, Peter stood up and he addressed the disciples. rest them all, with the assembly numbering around 120 by that point, verse 15. We see in 1 Corinthians that the number of witnesses to the resurrection itself was around 500, and this was a fraction of that amount all gathered in one place in Jerusalem. Peter stands up and he says that the treachery of Judas, who had guided the bad guys to Jesus, was a fulfillment of prophecy, verse 16. There are a number of things that happen. in the passion of the Lord that are fulfillment of prophecy, and Judas'betrayal was one of them. Judas had been one of them and was a minister along with the rest. He held the office of apostle legitimately, and that's in verse 13. Peter's very clear, he was one of us, and he was a minister together with us. The 30 pieces of silver had been used to purchase a field, the same field where Judas burst apart. Verse 13. And this became common knowledge throughout Jerusalem, which resulted in that field being named a keldama, which means field of blood. Judas had betrayed innocent blood with this money, and he had shed his guilty blood in that place. Then Peter had mentioned that this is all fulfillment of prophecy, but then he comes to the actual passages that are being fulfilled. The previously mentioned prophecies are then cited from two places in verse 20. The first is Psalm 69, 25, and the second is from Psalm 109, verse 8. So the task before the disciples on that particular day was to select a replacement for Judas, someone who had been with them from the baptism of John right up to the ascension, verses 21 and 22. So they picked two men who met those qualifications, Joseph and Matthias, verse 23, indicating that these two men had been with the company from the time of John baptizing all the way through the ascension up into heaven, which tells us that the disciples who witnessed the Lord's ascension into heaven were not the only ones there. The disciples were witnesses of the resurrection. In fact, they're picking someone to be a witness together with them of the resurrection. But we also know there were hundreds of people who witnessed the resurrection. Including, I think, the women. The Lord appeared first, well, first to the guards, then the Jewish leaders who bribed them to lie were the second group to know about it. But then the first witnesses of the resurrection were Mary Magdalene, other women, and then they are no doubt part of this as well. So Joseph and Matthias were present from the baptism of John throughout all the coming and going over three years. So the Lord's band must have been quite large. And then they were witnesses of his resurrection and witnesses of his ascension. Verse 23, they then prayed to the one who knows all hearts, asking him to demonstrate which one of the two he had chosen. Verse 24, notice that both of them are qualified. Both of them are qualified to occupy the office. If the lot had gone the other way, it would not have been a problem. Both of them were qualified. So the lot being cast is not sort of a random belief in chance. They're not gambling. What they're doing is making a decision in the light of a biblical understanding of typology, which we're going to get to in a minute, and a biblical prudence. So they acknowledge that Judas had vacated the office. He'd fallen by transgression. And the way Peter puts it is he... He did this in order to go to his own place. Think of it as him seeking his own level. He was occupying an office that was above him. He really held the office, but the office was too much for him. He departed the office, he fell, and he sought out his own level. He sought out his own place. They then cast lots, and Matthias was the one selected, and he was installed together with the eleven. That's verse 26. Now there are a couple of things in here that I want to harmonize with other parts of scripture. I don't want to spend a lot of time on it, but I do if you're a faithful Bible reader, these are the sorts of things you notice. The Gospels tell us that Judas threw the money down in the temple before leaving to hang himself. That's in Matthew 27 5. So he goes, throws the money down in the temple, and then he goes and hangs himself. And you might be wondering, how then did he buy the field? Because Peter says here, that the field he died in was a field that was purchased with the money that he threw down in the temple. How do we harmonize that? This passage tells us that Judas bought a field with that money. That's in verse 18. The harmonization that I I would suggest for you is that the temple authorities bought the field with Judas's money and did so in Judas's name. So Judas throws the money in the temple. They gather the money up. Somebody had to pick the money up. And then this shows you the pathology, the wickedness of the bureaucratic mind. These men are guilty of the worst crime in human history. The very worst crime in human history, and they're worried about what column to put this money in because of a possible audit. We have to be above reproach, do we not? We want to make sure that we don't do anything unwholesome with this money. And they didn't either. What they did is, it's Judas's money, so fair and square, they went and bought a field in Judas's name, the one where he had hanged himself. This is just, it's just bizarre. They are wicked men, wicked, wicked men, but they are telling themselves that they're good and righteous and holy because they're being fastidious. They're being fastidious about this, but they killed the king of glory. That's bizarre. So I argue that they bought the field where Judas hanged himself, and it was called the Keldama. This was not, as Paul says of some of these other events, this was not done in a corner. We're told here that all of Jerusalem knew. the unfolding of these events, and they knew that Judas was the one who had betrayed the Lord, and that was his field, and they called it a field of blood. And that leads us to the other thing that needs to be harmonized. The Gospels tell us that Judas hanged himself in Matthew 27, 5. He goes and hangs himself, and you say, isn't that how he died? Well, Peter says that he fell headlong and burst open, verse 18. So which one is it? Which one is it? Did he hang himself or did he fall and break open, burst open? I argue it was both. He hanged himself and no one came to get the body. He died alone. No one came to get the body. He just hung there for a time and his body swole up, the carcass swole up, and then the rope broke and he fell headlong and burst open. And everybody knew about it. And that's why they called the field a keldama. So that's basically don't pit. One passage is scripture against another passage when they harmonize, when they nicely harmonize. Something else that's interesting about this passage is the use of lots, the use of lots. And this is, what they're doing here is, I believe, filled with typological meaning. This is not just baby needs a new pair of shoes. It's not that kind of gambling, it's not that kind of recklessness. We know, before we go into this, we know that someone who just sort of arbitrarily assigns a meaning to something and then says, I'll flip a coin, and if it comes up heads, I'll be a missionary to Siberia. Well, the Proverbs tells us that the lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision from the Lord. So if it comes up heads, we know... that the sovereign God determined that it would come up heads. We know that. The lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. What we don't have the authority to do is assign an arbitrary meaning to what heads means, right? Because if you say, I flip a coin, I'm going to Siberia, if it comes up heads, it comes up heads and you're going to explain this to your wife. Well, she, if she has her wits about her, are going to say, yes, but we don't know what heads means. We know that God determined it would come up heads. But maybe it's because he's trying to tell you that you're an idiot. She's a respectful wife, so she wouldn't say that, right? But maybe that is what the Lord is trying to say. We don't know what it means. We don't know what it means. But it's appropriate to divide. Let's say you're wanting to divide something up fair and square, and you are going into the land of Canaan, let's say. How would you divide the land up between the tribes and not have it be a cause of dissension? Well, you'd do it exactly the way Joshua did it. You'd do it by lot. And that's what we have here. The Lord's intention of choosing 12 apostles was not accidental. He was deliberately establishing the foundations of a new Israel. He is creating Israel anew. And Israel was composed of 12 tribes. So Jesus picks 12 apostles. The New Jerusalem is the Christian church. The angel says, come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb, and he took John to a high mountain and showed him the new Jerusalem. I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb, that's the Christian church, and he showed him the new Jerusalem. So the New Jerusalem is the Christian church, and it has 12 gates. And these 12 gates are named for the 12 tribes of Israel. That's in Revelation 21-12. So the foundational gates of the New Jerusalem, the Christian church, are named after the 12 tribes. We are also told that the foundation stones of this same church are the apostles. That's Ephesians 2-20, along with the prophets. So the apostles, the 12 apostles... are the 12 foundation stones of this Christian church. Not only so, but the territory of Canaan was divided up between the tribes by lot. In Joshua 14, 2, it says, By lot was their inheritance, as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses, for the nine tribes and for the half-tribes. You remember on the east side of the Jordan, Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh said, This looks good. We'd like to stay here. They're allowed to park there, they're allowed to inherit that if the fighting men go into Canaan and fight with their brothers and then they can return to that place. So the nine and a half tribes go across the Jordan and then all of that land is apportioned to them by Lot. Okay, now so I think this is what the apostles are doing when they are appointing the replacement for Judas. When Peter's exhorting the elders of the Christian church, not to be imperious, not to be bossy, not to be demanding their own way. He tells them not to be lords over God's heritage, not to be lords over God's heritage. And the word for heritage there is kleros, kleros, which is an allotment. Kleros is the way, that's a territory that was divided up in Canaan. So Peter's telling elders, don't be lords over God's allotment, over the heritage that God has chosen by lot. And then in 2 Corinthians 10 16, Paul is being very careful not to intrude into another man's area of ministry or into his territory. Paul also comments that he had a special commission to the Gentiles, just as Peter had to the Jews. That's mentioned in Galatians 2 8. And so it appears that the apostles, while they could cross boundaries, they could go minister in someone else's territory. But when they do that, they're very careful not to give offense. Paul says, I don't want to labor. I don't, I don't. I don't want to barge in and just start ministering. I want to be careful that I'm honoring the person who has the responsibility for that territory. So, it appears the apostles could cross boundaries, but they did so with care, because good fences make good neighbors. Alright, you've got this responsibility, you've got this responsibility, and you've got the other one over there. The apostles had designated for themselves certain territories or defined groups with their respective ministries, and I think they determined them by lot, but the scripture doesn't tell us that, but it tells us that they apportioned the last one, they apportioned the last one to Matthias by lot, indicating that this was their procedure. So, and then of course, according to early church history, Thomas drew the short straw and went to western India. You know, that's a long way. Well, that's all right. So Thomas made it all the way to Western India and the churches that he established. That whole, that movement continues to this day. In short, we shouldn't conclude that casting lots is a great way to make decisions, so much as to conclude that the early disciples were clearly echoing the ancient Israelite conquest of Canaan. They were dividing up the world, prepping for their invasion of it once the Spirit is given. The Spirit is going to be given in the next chapter. That's the signal to go. But when the signal to go is given and the Spirit is poured out, they all know where to go. They've already divided up what direction they're going to head, how they're going to minister, what their respective responsibilities are. Going back to the early thing, we take too much upon ourselves when we say, Oh, if I see a Volkswagen today, that means God wants me to... You don't know anything like that. You don't have the authority to assign meanings to random events, and you don't have the authority to assign a meaning to heads or tails, or meaning to a certain result coming up in the dice that you cast. What you need to do is, and you say, well, is there ever a point? Yeah, okay. Let's say you're deciding between two job offers, and it's really close. You follow the metric of what are your abilities, what are your opportunities, what are your desires. And you think you're, well, I've got the ability, I could do both jobs. I've got equal ability. Man, what are your opportunities? Well, they both off, both firms offered me the job. And well, what do you want to do? Well, that's where I'm stuck. I'm just, I'm torn between the two. I don't know. I think I want both of them. I want both of them equally. Well, now flip a coin, right? And when it comes up and you say heads, I go this way and it comes up heads and you go, oh, two out of three. That tells you which. That tells you that you really wanted to go the other way, and so go the other way. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. So walk like a prudent Christian. Don't walk like a fatalist or a pagan who believes that chance governs anything. Chance governs nothing. Chance governs nothing. God superintends all things, and we should walk in faith with that. And then when we have to decide, and it's just a matter of six of one and a half dozen of the other, then, of course, you can do it that way. And if you're in a position like the apostles were, where you think, okay, we've got to apportion five teams for this youth activity, and you can do it fairly by casting lots, so that everybody knows you're not playing favorites, and that's the reason for dividing up the land of Canaan the way they did. Joshua was not playing favorites. He's not favoring his own tribe, for example. Now, there's another... A very striking feature of this first chapter, and this has to do with what happened in the centuries before Judas was born. Jesus knew that one of the twelve was going to betray him. Jesus knew that one of the twelve was going to betray him, and he knew who it was going to be from very early on in his ministry. There were signs of trouble with Judas early on. In John 6, 64, it says, Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not and who should betray him. John 6, 64. Jesus knew that Judas was trouble very early on. John says that this knowledge is from the beginning, and we don't know for certain, but this may account for why the Lord prayed all night before he announced his selection of his disciples. That's in Luke 6, 12 and 13. When Jesus picked out the twelve, He prayed all night in preparation for that decision that he announced. And it says he knew from the start, he knew from the beginning, who was going to be that trouble. It was going to be Judas. I also want to mention something I mentioned a few weeks ago, but I want to mention it again because I think it ties in with this. We know that Judas was a very great apostate. He fell away and went to his own place. But we sometimes mistake the reason. or the driving force in his apostasy? What was it that he thought he was doing? We know what he did, but what did he think he was doing? Well, I don't think that Judas hated Jesus and was trying to get him killed. I don't think Judas hated Jesus and was trying to betray him and get him killed. And the reason I don't think he was trying to get Jesus killed is because of his reaction when it turned out that that was what was going to happen. The actions of Judas As soon as it became apparent that Jesus was going to die, Judas did not act like a man whose plan is coming to pass. He did not act like a man who's gratified that it's all unfolding just as he had planned. That's not what he does. He sees that Jesus is going to be executed. Jesus is going to be railroaded. And he goes back to the men to whom he had betrayed Jesus and says, I have sinned in betraying innocent blood. And they say, that's not our concern. We don't care. We don't care. And so he throws the money down, and he goes and hangs himself. My reconstruction of it, which is not, this is a reconstruction. This is not straight out of the text, but I think it's worth mentioning. Judas, I think, was compromised in his conscience. We're told in the Gospel of John that he used to skim money out of, he was the treasurer. He used to skim money out of the disciples'shared fund, and he had a compromised conscience on that basis. He saw an opportunity to make a little extra money. That's just a side thing. But what was he trying to do? Remember that Judas had seen Jesus walk on water. Judas had seen Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead. Judas had seen Jesus turn water to wine. He had seen Jesus touch lepers and the leprosy was gone. Judas had seen Jesus conduct himself with mind-boggling power. And Jesus was inexplicably not using that power to deal with the Romans, to deal with the corrupt establishment at the temple. Jesus was not doing what Judas thought he ought to be doing with that power. And so Judas, like all sinners, thought he was the smartest one in the room, and he thought he would force Jesus'hand. We'll just paint Jesus into a corner, and then he will have to use his power to rain down thunder, lightning, and blue ruin. on all the bad guys. And then Jesus will acknowledge that Judas was the hero. And then as soon as it became apparent that that's not what was going to happen at all, Judas despaired and threw the money down and went and hanged himself. Jesus knew that this was a problem. Jesus knew what Judas's problem was from the beginning. So at the Last Supper, the Lord washed the feet of Judas. Think about that for a minute. Jesus knew from the beginning, and Jesus knelt and washed the feet that were going to go out into the darkness to betray him. Jesus washed those feet. And then later, Jesus identified Judas by giving him a piece of bread after dipping it in the sauce. John 13, 26. That's how Jesus identified Judas. And this is in fulfillment of what David had said in Psalm 41. Centuries before, David had prophesied that one who had shared bread with the Christ would be the one who betrayed him, Psalm 41.9. And Jesus pointed to that prophecy explicitly that evening, John 13.18. In short, before Judas was born, his role was assigned. His role was assigned to him. a millennium before he was born. His role was assigned to him. And so the fact that Judas would create a vacancy by this betrayal was written long before he was born, long before he was born. Now this creates questions, does it not? How then is Judas not a puppet? How that, you know, this is the same issue that we confront with all, whenever we deal with God's sovereignty, this is the issue that comes up. How is Judas not a puppet? And then God, And how is God not unjust for then smashing the puppet for doing what God had determined the puppet was going to do? Well, there's more. Psalm 69 is a clear messianic psalm. Psalm 69 is a clear messianic psalm, and it's quoted in the New Testament in five different places. It's rich with quotation material that show up in the New Testament. Those who hate me without a cause, that's verse 4. is quoted in John 15, 25. Those who hate me without a cause is quoted in John 15, 25, and it's applied to those who had seen the Lord's miracles and hated him anyway. What did they remember when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead? Lazarus was in the grave for four days, and Martha was concerned that he was starting to stink, roll the, open the tomb. He'd been... decomposing by all rights, and Jesus raises him from the dead, calls him out, and Lazarus hops out all bound up in grave clothes. And there's a crowd there that had come out from Jerusalem to commiserate with Mary and Martha. Bethany is just a few miles from Jerusalem, and they are apparently a well-connected family because some leading Jews had come out to commiserate with them. And then Lazarus comes hopping out of the tomb after four days in the tomb. And that did not convince everybody in the crowd. It says many believed in him. Many? Why not all? What did the remainder do? They went to plot to kill Jesus. We have to do something about this guy. And then later, they were starting to scheme about how to kill Lazarus. Again, now this tells us that rebellion, disobedience is an ethical issue. Those who hate God without a cause, this is an ethical moral issue. It is not an IQ issue. It's not an intellectual issue. People don't believe in God because they don't want to believe in God. They don't believe in Christ because they don't want to believe in Christ. Then the second quotation from Psalm 69, zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. That's quoted in John 2, 17 in the description of the Lord's first cleansing of the temple. The first cleansing of the temple. John has him cleansing the temple at the beginning of his ministry. The other Gospels have him cleansing the temple at the end of his ministry. Here's another harmonization. I believe that he did both. I believe he cleansed at the beginning, cleansed at the end. And I think that what you have is the pattern that was necessary in the Old Testament. What did you have to do in the Old Testament? If your house developed the creeping crud on the wall, you have some kind of black mold on the wall, what did you have to do? You had to call the priest, and the priest would come and evaluate it. You'd clean it off, you'd scrape it off, and then you'd give it time to grow again or not, and then you'd call him back a second time. If the priest came back the second time and the mold had come back, what did you do with the house? You dismantled it stone from stone, not one stone left on another. You took it apart. and you took it outside the camp. What did Jesus do when he came back the second time and the temple was still corrupt? He cleansed it at the beginning of his ministry. He comes back again and it's still corrupt. It's still a den of thieves. They're still doing all the things that they were doing before. He condemns it. He tells the disciples, not one stone is going to be left on another. Your house is left to you desolate. So zeal of thy house had eaten thee up. And this is a description. of the Lord's first cleansing of the temple. The second part of that same verse, the reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me, is quoted in Romans 15, 3, where Paul applies it to Christ, who lived out an example for us to follow. In other words, the people who would reproach... God would reproach Christ. The people who would reproach Christ will reproach you. And so this should be that we should just recognize that this is the pattern for us to follow. Then the next one, let their table become a snare before them. Verses 22 and 23 is quoted in Romans 11, 9, and it's applied by Paul to reprobate Israel. And then the verse that Peter quotes in our passage comes next. Let their habitation be desolate. And it's talking here about the void that Judas left. So Judas is basically the compatriot. Whether he thinks he hates the establishment, the corrupt establishment of the temple or not, he's on their side. He is among those who hate Christ without a cause by his actions, whether he hated him emotionally or not is immaterial. He hated him in his actions. He is part of the corruption of the temple. He is part of those who reproach. wrongfully. His table became a snare. You remember he was there at the last supper, his feet were washed, but that table, that participation became a snare to him. And then it says his habitation is desolate and needs to be filled. The next Psalm that is quoted by Peter is one of the fiercest imprecatory Psalms in the Bible. That's Psalm 109. And it's a fierce one. And Peter quotes it. Peter quotes it without any embarrassment. Let another take his office. So Judas held an office, and in the Greek, that office was one, he was an episkopos, an overseer, a bishop. His bishopric, the King James says, his bishopric let another take. Now don't mistake this with a 2nd century or 3rd century monarchical bishop. That was a later development in church history. This overseer... position that Judas had was like that of the other apostles. He was an overseer. He was a shepherd. He was a pastor of God's people, but it was an office. Prior to this, prior to this time, Judas had cast out demons. Judas had cast out demons. All but one. He didn't, when it says Satan entered in him, he didn't deal with that, but he was able to cast out demons. Judas had healed the sick. Judas had gone out with the other disciples and he had healed the sick. He'd seen Jesus walk on water. He'd seen him change the water to wine. His treachery did not unwind or undo any of those blessings and did not cause the office itself to disappear. There were people walking around Israel after the resurrection who had been healed by Judas and were grateful to God for what had happened. It was not the case that the disciples were sent out on these missions that Jesus would send them out on and 11 of them were firing hot and there was one One dud in there who couldn't do anything. That was not the case. Judas was a participant with them. He held that office. So nothing is clearer than that God has the ability to wield sinful and wicked actions in a way that results in his own greater glory. God knows how, as I've said many times, God knows how to draw straight with crooked lines. God knows how to accomplish his clean objectives with dirty tools. This world is full of dirty tools, and Emmanuel, God with us, came down into this dirty, filthy workshop and did a marvelous thing. An entirely righteous and clean thing. It was an amazing thing, and it was layered. It was layered. In Acts 2.23, what does it say? Him, and this has to do with Judas'treachery, him being delivered, right, who delivered Jesus over to the bad guys? It was Judas. Judas delivered Jesus to the bad guys. But who was behind it? Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. There are two things that we have to see there. One is the sovereignty of God over every last detail of it. God is sovereign over this wicked action. And secondly, it remains a wicked action and not the action of puppets. ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. The people who killed Jesus were sinning. The people who killed Jesus, when Judas betrayed Jesus, he was sinning. He betrayed him, he took the money in his hands, and they were wicked hands because he took the money to betray the Lord. This determinate counsel of God did not turn anybody involved into a puppet. God's sovereignty is not a zero-sum game. God's sovereignty is not a zero-sum game. It is not the case that we look at human history and then we say God occupies 60% of this, then we do the other remaining 40. It's not that way. He doesn't do 99 and we do 1. He doesn't do 75 and we do 25. It's not like that at all. God sovereignly determines everything 100% and we are responsible for everything we do 100%. Everything about the Passion was scripted. And many of the details of it were down to what the soldiers were going to do with the clothing of Jesus at the base of the cross. They were going to gamble for his clothing. The whole Passion was scripted down to the behavior of chickens. And Jesus says to Peter, you're going to deny me before the cock crows. You're going to deny me. And everything about it was going to happen the way it was going to happen. Why? Because God... determined beforehand what was going to happen. And the people who did it, did it with wicked hands. They're not absolved of anything. And you say, well, how is that possible? I can't do the math. Well, you're not asked, if you could do the math for this problem, you'd be richer than you are. None of us can do the math. Our task as Christians is to receive what the Bible tells us. The Bible tells us that God is sovereign over every last thing, everything, and it tells us that we are not puppets. We are responsible for what we do, and the people who betrayed the Lord did it with wicked hands. The same thing, something very similar, is given to us in Acts chapter 4. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, and I'd throw Judas in there, were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. Now I said earlier that when the fussers at the temple were worried about putting the 30 pieces of silver into the right account, they had just been guilty of the most monstrous crime ever. The execution of Jesus, the only perfect man who ever lived, the only righteous man who ever lived, came to this earth and we found his presence intolerable. We killed him. We murdered him. If he came again, we'd do it again. Apart from the superintending grace of God, apart from the intervention of God, this fallen world would kill him. We would kill him every chance we got to kill him. The unregenerate heart is a God hating heart. And yet, what did God do? This monstrous crime, this thing that was the worst thing ever, was also what? It was your salvation. This terrible, terrible crime. This black day, this thing that caused the apostles to scatter, his mother to weep, the women to stand afar off, the women of Jerusalem to wail at what was being done, the disciples to go hide in an upper room and lock the door. door, that black day was the day of your salvation. It was the day that you were forgiven. The Bible tells us that if the rulers of this age had known what they were doing, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. And this tells us that God knows how to take a grotesque murder that he arranged. It's not just a grotesque murder. It's not God troubleshooting it after the fact. It's a grotesque murder that he had determined before. beforehand to be done, as it says in Acts 2, by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. This was all settled beforehand. So God came down on purpose, picked up this filthy tool of our murderous rage against him, and used that tool to save us. That's what he did. And this is the kind of thing that makes Paul cry out, oh, the depth of the riches of the knowledge and wisdom of God. How unsearchable are his judgments. God knows how. to do clean things with our dirty lives, and has done so. Now, this verse, when I was struggling, as I should not have been struggling, as I was struggling with all the doctrines of grace and what is nicknamed Calvinism, when I was struggling with this, this passage in Acts 4 was my undoing. Because one of my big arguments was, I don't want God to be entailed in wickedness in any way, like I was being noble. Let's protect God from... having anything to do with sin. I was like Peter. Peter's the kind of person, and so was I, who would say two words that ought never to go together, which was, no, Lord. Jesus said, I'm going to go to Jerusalem. No, no, Lord, don't do that. This is unworthy of you. Well, when I was struggling with this, I didn't want God to do things that were unworthy of God. predestined or foreordained a wicked act like this. But when Jesus was praying in the garden, whose will was he wrestling with? God's, the Father's. Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done. But whose will was it also? It was also Herod's. It was also Pontius Pilate, Gentiles, people of Israel, different layers, different actors, different segments. Judas had a part, all of it. They were all involved. God's will was 100%. 100%. And the human actors were 100% responsible for what they did. And so God does this thing, and he accomplishes your salvation and my salvation because he knows how to do this. I used to say, well, if God predestined a sinful act, that would make him sinful. And then I stumbled over this verse. Well, apparently, God knows how to do it. He knows the trick. He could... foreordain at least one action that was wicked and that it remained wicked and he was nevertheless the one who determined it. So I thought, okay, God has the technology. God knows how to do it. And then my argument against him doing this all the time was now gone. If God knows how to do it, why can't he do it all the time? And that's what he does. God is sovereign all day, every day. God is in control of absolutely everything, all day, every day. And your prayer, if I could make an application for many of you who are worried about the coming election, which has got your attention, it's coming up. Your prayer ought to be, God, our nation needs repentance in the worst way. We need to repent as a people. And your prayer ought to be not, Lord, spare us from whatever might bring us to repentance. Your prayer ought to be, God, do what it takes. Do what it takes to break us. Do what it takes to humble us. And pray that prayer in faith. God knows how to do what it takes. That's a prayer he will hear. God, do what it takes. If the election goes this way. We thank him if the election goes the other way. We thank him because we want God to do what it takes to humble a proud and haughty people. And when God does this, and we can take assurance from this passage. You might say, but a Harris presidency would be awful. Granted, so was Herod, Pontius Pilate, Gentiles. It was awful. All of it was awful, yes. But does God know how to do awful? Does God know how to handle awful? Is God still on the throne? Is God still sovereign? Is he still orchestrating all of these things for his glory and for our good? Yes, he is. And part of our good is to learn how to pray, God, do what it takes. And so there's no way for this Christ to be appointed to die for you without the other elements of the story being appointed also. If God appointed Christ to die for you, he didn't appoint Christ to come and then stumble in Jerusalem, fall and die there in Jerusalem by accident. And that being, no, it was necessary for Christ's death to be a murder. And it had to be a murder conducted by the authorities on behalf of the people. And Caiaphas was the high priest that year, and he spoke for the people. He was a representative of the people. It was necessary for the Lord's death to be a murder, and by that murder, he saved the world. By that murder, he saved the world. And we have the privilege of working with that, and submitting to that, and embracing it, and rejoicing in it. And so we do. Our Father, gracious God, we thank you for your goodness to us. We thank you for the gospel of grace. We thank you for the privilege that you've given to us to come before you and to worship before you. Fathers, we come to the table that the Lord has set for us. I pray that we would partake of it in true faith. And I pray that you would establish and edify us in accordance with your word. Fathers, we pray these things. We would lift up to you the words that Jesus taught us to pray, saying, While the church of God has not yet attained perfect unity, We should be laboring toward that unity. We must do this slowly and steadily, knowing that perfect unity will only come with the second coming of our Lord. This steady pursuit of unity requires that we flee idolatry. There are many idols, but only one Lord. There are many idols, and that is why idolatry fractures people into factions and divisions. And there is only one Lord, so those who partake of Him find that they are one with all of those who likewise are not. partake of him. Paul says this very thing in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 17. We, being many, are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread. So not only is there one bread from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ, but there is also one bread, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said it, we, being many, are one bread. It is lamentable that at the supper of our Lord, where we partake of the one bread, many Christian traditions still refuse to let members of the body partake of Christ's body. And God's grace is evident to us here at this table. where all baptized Christians, from the least of them to the greatest, are told, Come and welcome to Jesus Christ. We should rejoice in that grace. But this sentiment must be more than a slogan. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. So as you come to this table, come loving all those who have God as Father, all those to whom he has said, I am your God and you are my people. The only way to truly love that one bread is to come to the true bread who has come down from heaven. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ. Our Father, we thank you for all of the saints, and we rejoice in your kingdom that is coming on earth as it is in heaven. Knit us together in unity as we come to this table to eat and drink, for we come in the mighty name of Jesus, and amen. The charge is this. One of the things that we are seeking to achieve with the... teaching and the ministry here, conferences, like the conference of the Grace Agenda this weekend, is we want to foment and encourage and develop a practical, evangelical, ecumenical approach, where anybody who believes God's Word, anybody who trusts in Christ according to the Gospel, regardless of various denominational distinctives, we want to cultivate a true evangelical unity there. A marvelous book is by Ian Murray, Revival and Revivalism, and he is talking about the revivals that helped establish America in the early years of our country, and that kind of ecumenical unity between the brothers who really loved the Lord, who differed on various things, that was a true hallmark of those revivals, and we want to see the same sort of thing happen. And in our... corner of the woods, in our corner of the vineyard, that happens to be between Presbyterians and Baptists. We want to cultivate a true unity between Presbyterians and Baptists. And some of you, there were over a thousand people in the first service, and we had a couple of infant baptisms in the first service, which exposed a number of our Baptist brethren from out of town to a novelty. Mark Twain was once asked if he believed in infant baptism, and he said, believe in it, I've seen it done. Well, that's it. And you might say, well, couldn't you arrange those on another week, another Sunday? Well, no, it's pretty much one every Sunday. You know, there's no way to arrange them. It happens a lot. But the thing that we want to strive for is despite differences like that, despite differences like that, we don't want to get into squabbles over things like that. The baptism, the Lord's Supper, those are the symbol of unity. It's like the bride and groom getting in a fight over the wedding ring at the ceremony. Let's not do that. God has one Lord, one faith, one baptism. And so, with believing hearts, receive the benediction of your God. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.

These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren. And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and said, the number of names together were about a hundred and twenty, Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus. For he was numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry.

Now this man purchased a field with the reward of iniquity, and falling headlong, he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. And it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem, insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue a keldama, which is to say, the field of blood. For it is written in the book of Psalms, Let his habitation be desolate, let no man dwell therein, and his bishopric let another take. Wherefore of these men, which have accompanied with us all the time, the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection. And they appointed two, Joseph, called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justice, and Matthias.

And they prayed and said, Thou, Lord, which knoweth the hearts of all men, show whether of these two thou hast chosen, that he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place. And they gave forth their lots. and the lot fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles. Our gracious God and Father, we commit this time to you.

We thank you for your word, a light in a dark place, a light in a dark world. We thank you for your spirit who guides us, and we pray that he would be present and active in our midst this morning. We commit it all to you, in Jesus'name.

Amen. This weekend we have a lot of visitors, so I should mention that we have just begun a series through the book of Acts. We're probably going to be doing this for a year or more, but we've just begun and we're still in the first chapter.

The main action in the second half of this first chapter has to do with the replacement of Judas Iscariot. But along the way, we learn quite a few interesting things about the early days of the apostolic company or the apostolic band. So let's walk through this passage verse by verse.

After seeing Jesus ascend up into heaven, the disciples came back to Jerusalem from Olivet. That's verse 12. This is a Sabbath day's journey, or about two-thirds of a mile. Not that far. If you go to Jerusalem, the Mount of Olives is right there, and Jerusalem is right there.

It just takes about 10 or 15 minutes to walk down the slope into the city. It's not that far. A Sabbath day's journey. is how far the rabbis said you could walk without transgressing the commandment to not work on the Sabbath.

So you could walk a certain distance, and that was the distance. They came to an upper room where all the remaining disciples were staying. Verse 13. They devoted themselves there to prayer, together with the women, the Lord's mother, and brothers. That's verse 14. Jesus had told them to wait in Jerusalem until power came on them, and they were all waiting in the same room.

apartment. This was not just a meeting room, it was a place where the disciples were staying, so it must have been quite spacious. It says the disciples were there devoted to prayer. It says the women were there. These women were probably the women that are mentioned in the Gospels that were part of Christ's entourage.

A number of them were wealthy women and they supported the Lord's company with their finances. These women are probably there, indicating that these women are also probably witnesses to the resurrection, as we're going to see. The Lord's mother was there, Mary, the Lord's mother was there, and his brothers were there. It says brothers were there. We know that during the Lord's earthly ministry, his brothers didn't believe in him.

And we know that two of his brothers, Jude and James, both contributed a book to the New Testament. We know that brothers of the Lord became part of the early... company of believers, and this is apparently from day one.

We have the Lord appearing to his brothers, these brothers, as a kindness to them, and they were joined together with the disciples. Verse 14. At some point, Peter stood up and he addressed the disciples. rest them all, with the assembly numbering around 120 by that point, verse 15. We see in 1 Corinthians that the number of witnesses to the resurrection itself was around 500, and this was a fraction of that amount all gathered in one place in Jerusalem. Peter stands up and he says that the treachery of Judas, who had guided the bad guys to Jesus, was a fulfillment of prophecy, verse 16. There are a number of things that happen. in the passion of the Lord that are fulfillment of prophecy, and Judas'betrayal was one of them.

Judas had been one of them and was a minister along with the rest. He held the office of apostle legitimately, and that's in verse 13. Peter's very clear, he was one of us, and he was a minister together with us. The 30 pieces of silver had been used to purchase a field, the same field where Judas burst apart. Verse 13. And this became common knowledge throughout Jerusalem, which resulted in that field being named a keldama, which means field of blood. Judas had betrayed innocent blood with this money, and he had shed his guilty blood in that place.

Then Peter had mentioned that this is all fulfillment of prophecy, but then he comes to the actual passages that are being fulfilled. The previously mentioned prophecies are then cited from two places in verse 20. The first is Psalm 69, 25, and the second is from Psalm 109, verse 8. So the task before the disciples on that particular day was to select a replacement for Judas, someone who had been with them from the baptism of John right up to the ascension, verses 21 and 22. So they picked two men who met those qualifications, Joseph and Matthias, verse 23, indicating that these two men had been with the company from the time of John baptizing all the way through the ascension up into heaven, which tells us that the disciples who witnessed the Lord's ascension into heaven were not the only ones there. The disciples were witnesses of the resurrection. In fact, they're picking someone to be a witness together with them of the resurrection. But we also know there were hundreds of people who witnessed the resurrection.

Including, I think, the women. The Lord appeared first, well, first to the guards, then the Jewish leaders who bribed them to lie were the second group to know about it. But then the first witnesses of the resurrection were Mary Magdalene, other women, and then they are no doubt part of this as well. So Joseph and Matthias were present from the baptism of John throughout all the coming and going over three years.

So the Lord's band must have been quite large. And then they were witnesses of his resurrection and witnesses of his ascension. Verse 23, they then prayed to the one who knows all hearts, asking him to demonstrate which one of the two he had chosen. Verse 24, notice that both of them are qualified.

Both of them are qualified to occupy the office. If the lot had gone the other way, it would not have been a problem. Both of them were qualified.

So the lot being cast is not sort of a random belief in chance. They're not gambling. What they're doing is making a decision in the light of a biblical understanding of typology, which we're going to get to in a minute, and a biblical prudence. So they acknowledge that Judas had vacated the office.

He'd fallen by transgression. And the way Peter puts it is he... He did this in order to go to his own place.

Think of it as him seeking his own level. He was occupying an office that was above him. He really held the office, but the office was too much for him.

He departed the office, he fell, and he sought out his own level. He sought out his own place. They then cast lots, and Matthias was the one selected, and he was installed together with the eleven. That's verse 26. Now there are a couple of things in here that I want to harmonize with other parts of scripture. I don't want to spend a lot of time on it, but I do if you're a faithful Bible reader, these are the sorts of things you notice.

The Gospels tell us that Judas threw the money down in the temple before leaving to hang himself. That's in Matthew 27 5. So he goes, throws the money down in the temple, and then he goes and hangs himself. And you might be wondering, how then did he buy the field?

Because Peter says here, that the field he died in was a field that was purchased with the money that he threw down in the temple. How do we harmonize that? This passage tells us that Judas bought a field with that money. That's in verse 18. The harmonization that I I would suggest for you is that the temple authorities bought the field with Judas's money and did so in Judas's name. So Judas throws the money in the temple.

They gather the money up. Somebody had to pick the money up. And then this shows you the pathology, the wickedness of the bureaucratic mind.

These men are guilty of the worst crime in human history. The very worst crime in human history, and they're worried about what column to put this money in because of a possible audit. We have to be above reproach, do we not? We want to make sure that we don't do anything unwholesome with this money. And they didn't either.

What they did is, it's Judas's money, so fair and square, they went and bought a field in Judas's name, the one where he had hanged himself. This is just, it's just bizarre. They are wicked men, wicked, wicked men, but they are telling themselves that they're good and righteous and holy because they're being fastidious. They're being fastidious about this, but they killed the king of glory. That's bizarre.

So I argue that they bought the field where Judas hanged himself, and it was called the Keldama. This was not, as Paul says of some of these other events, this was not done in a corner. We're told here that all of Jerusalem knew. the unfolding of these events, and they knew that Judas was the one who had betrayed the Lord, and that was his field, and they called it a field of blood.

And that leads us to the other thing that needs to be harmonized. The Gospels tell us that Judas hanged himself in Matthew 27, 5. He goes and hangs himself, and you say, isn't that how he died? Well, Peter says that he fell headlong and burst open, verse 18. So which one is it? Which one is it? Did he hang himself or did he fall and break open, burst open?

I argue it was both. He hanged himself and no one came to get the body. He died alone.

No one came to get the body. He just hung there for a time and his body swole up, the carcass swole up, and then the rope broke and he fell headlong and burst open. And everybody knew about it. And that's why they called the field a keldama. So that's basically don't pit.

One passage is scripture against another passage when they harmonize, when they nicely harmonize. Something else that's interesting about this passage is the use of lots, the use of lots. And this is, what they're doing here is, I believe, filled with typological meaning. This is not just baby needs a new pair of shoes. It's not that kind of gambling, it's not that kind of recklessness.

We know, before we go into this, we know that someone who just sort of arbitrarily assigns a meaning to something and then says, I'll flip a coin, and if it comes up heads, I'll be a missionary to Siberia. Well, the Proverbs tells us that the lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision from the Lord. So if it comes up heads, we know...

that the sovereign God determined that it would come up heads. We know that. The lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. What we don't have the authority to do is assign an arbitrary meaning to what heads means, right?

Because if you say, I flip a coin, I'm going to Siberia, if it comes up heads, it comes up heads and you're going to explain this to your wife. Well, she, if she has her wits about her, are going to say, yes, but we don't know what heads means. We know that God determined it would come up heads.

But maybe it's because he's trying to tell you that you're an idiot. She's a respectful wife, so she wouldn't say that, right? But maybe that is what the Lord is trying to say.

We don't know what it means. We don't know what it means. But it's appropriate to divide.

Let's say you're wanting to divide something up fair and square, and you are going into the land of Canaan, let's say. How would you divide the land up between the tribes and not have it be a cause of dissension? Well, you'd do it exactly the way Joshua did it.

You'd do it by lot. And that's what we have here. The Lord's intention of choosing 12 apostles was not accidental. He was deliberately establishing the foundations of a new Israel. He is creating Israel anew.

And Israel was composed of 12 tribes. So Jesus picks 12 apostles. The New Jerusalem is the Christian church.

The angel says, come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb, and he took John to a high mountain and showed him the new Jerusalem. I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb, that's the Christian church, and he showed him the new Jerusalem. So the New Jerusalem is the Christian church, and it has 12 gates.

And these 12 gates are named for the 12 tribes of Israel. That's in Revelation 21-12. So the foundational gates of the New Jerusalem, the Christian church, are named after the 12 tribes.

We are also told that the foundation stones of this same church are the apostles. That's Ephesians 2-20, along with the prophets. So the apostles, the 12 apostles... are the 12 foundation stones of this Christian church.

Not only so, but the territory of Canaan was divided up between the tribes by lot. In Joshua 14, 2, it says, By lot was their inheritance, as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses, for the nine tribes and for the half-tribes. You remember on the east side of the Jordan, Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh said, This looks good.

We'd like to stay here. They're allowed to park there, they're allowed to inherit that if the fighting men go into Canaan and fight with their brothers and then they can return to that place. So the nine and a half tribes go across the Jordan and then all of that land is apportioned to them by Lot. Okay, now so I think this is what the apostles are doing when they are appointing the replacement for Judas. When Peter's exhorting the elders of the Christian church, not to be imperious, not to be bossy, not to be demanding their own way.

He tells them not to be lords over God's heritage, not to be lords over God's heritage. And the word for heritage there is kleros, kleros, which is an allotment. Kleros is the way, that's a territory that was divided up in Canaan. So Peter's telling elders, don't be lords over God's allotment, over the heritage that God has chosen by lot. And then in 2 Corinthians 10 16, Paul is being very careful not to intrude into another man's area of ministry or into his territory.

Paul also comments that he had a special commission to the Gentiles, just as Peter had to the Jews. That's mentioned in Galatians 2 8. And so it appears that the apostles, while they could cross boundaries, they could go minister in someone else's territory. But when they do that, they're very careful not to give offense.

Paul says, I don't want to labor. I don't, I don't. I don't want to barge in and just start ministering. I want to be careful that I'm honoring the person who has the responsibility for that territory.

So, it appears the apostles could cross boundaries, but they did so with care, because good fences make good neighbors. Alright, you've got this responsibility, you've got this responsibility, and you've got the other one over there. The apostles had designated for themselves certain territories or defined groups with their respective ministries, and I think they determined them by lot, but the scripture doesn't tell us that, but it tells us that they apportioned the last one, they apportioned the last one to Matthias by lot, indicating that this was their procedure. So, and then of course, according to early church history, Thomas drew the short straw and went to western India. You know, that's a long way.

Well, that's all right. So Thomas made it all the way to Western India and the churches that he established. That whole, that movement continues to this day. In short, we shouldn't conclude that casting lots is a great way to make decisions, so much as to conclude that the early disciples were clearly echoing the ancient Israelite conquest of Canaan.

They were dividing up the world, prepping for their invasion of it once the Spirit is given. The Spirit is going to be given in the next chapter. That's the signal to go.

But when the signal to go is given and the Spirit is poured out, they all know where to go. They've already divided up what direction they're going to head, how they're going to minister, what their respective responsibilities are. Going back to the early thing, we take too much upon ourselves when we say, Oh, if I see a Volkswagen today, that means God wants me to...

You don't know anything like that. You don't have the authority to assign meanings to random events, and you don't have the authority to assign a meaning to heads or tails, or meaning to a certain result coming up in the dice that you cast. What you need to do is, and you say, well, is there ever a point? Yeah, okay. Let's say you're deciding between two job offers, and it's really close.

You follow the metric of what are your abilities, what are your opportunities, what are your desires. And you think you're, well, I've got the ability, I could do both jobs. I've got equal ability. Man, what are your opportunities?

Well, they both off, both firms offered me the job. And well, what do you want to do? Well, that's where I'm stuck. I'm just, I'm torn between the two. I don't know.

I think I want both of them. I want both of them equally. Well, now flip a coin, right? And when it comes up and you say heads, I go this way and it comes up heads and you go, oh, two out of three.

That tells you which. That tells you that you really wanted to go the other way, and so go the other way. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

So walk like a prudent Christian. Don't walk like a fatalist or a pagan who believes that chance governs anything. Chance governs nothing.

Chance governs nothing. God superintends all things, and we should walk in faith with that. And then when we have to decide, and it's just a matter of six of one and a half dozen of the other, then, of course, you can do it that way.

And if you're in a position like the apostles were, where you think, okay, we've got to apportion five teams for this youth activity, and you can do it fairly by casting lots, so that everybody knows you're not playing favorites, and that's the reason for dividing up the land of Canaan the way they did. Joshua was not playing favorites. He's not favoring his own tribe, for example. Now, there's another... A very striking feature of this first chapter, and this has to do with what happened in the centuries before Judas was born.

Jesus knew that one of the twelve was going to betray him. Jesus knew that one of the twelve was going to betray him, and he knew who it was going to be from very early on in his ministry. There were signs of trouble with Judas early on.

In John 6, 64, it says, Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not and who should betray him. John 6, 64. Jesus knew that Judas was trouble very early on. John says that this knowledge is from the beginning, and we don't know for certain, but this may account for why the Lord prayed all night before he announced his selection of his disciples. That's in Luke 6, 12 and 13. When Jesus picked out the twelve, He prayed all night in preparation for that decision that he announced.

And it says he knew from the start, he knew from the beginning, who was going to be that trouble. It was going to be Judas. I also want to mention something I mentioned a few weeks ago, but I want to mention it again because I think it ties in with this. We know that Judas was a very great apostate. He fell away and went to his own place.

But we sometimes mistake the reason. or the driving force in his apostasy? What was it that he thought he was doing? We know what he did, but what did he think he was doing? Well, I don't think that Judas hated Jesus and was trying to get him killed.

I don't think Judas hated Jesus and was trying to betray him and get him killed. And the reason I don't think he was trying to get Jesus killed is because of his reaction when it turned out that that was what was going to happen. The actions of Judas As soon as it became apparent that Jesus was going to die, Judas did not act like a man whose plan is coming to pass.

He did not act like a man who's gratified that it's all unfolding just as he had planned. That's not what he does. He sees that Jesus is going to be executed.

Jesus is going to be railroaded. And he goes back to the men to whom he had betrayed Jesus and says, I have sinned in betraying innocent blood. And they say, that's not our concern. We don't care. We don't care.

And so he throws the money down, and he goes and hangs himself. My reconstruction of it, which is not, this is a reconstruction. This is not straight out of the text, but I think it's worth mentioning. Judas, I think, was compromised in his conscience.

We're told in the Gospel of John that he used to skim money out of, he was the treasurer. He used to skim money out of the disciples'shared fund, and he had a compromised conscience on that basis. He saw an opportunity to make a little extra money.

That's just a side thing. But what was he trying to do? Remember that Judas had seen Jesus walk on water. Judas had seen Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead.

Judas had seen Jesus turn water to wine. He had seen Jesus touch lepers and the leprosy was gone. Judas had seen Jesus conduct himself with mind-boggling power. And Jesus was inexplicably not using that power to deal with the Romans, to deal with the corrupt establishment at the temple.

Jesus was not doing what Judas thought he ought to be doing with that power. And so Judas, like all sinners, thought he was the smartest one in the room, and he thought he would force Jesus'hand. We'll just paint Jesus into a corner, and then he will have to use his power to rain down thunder, lightning, and blue ruin. on all the bad guys.

And then Jesus will acknowledge that Judas was the hero. And then as soon as it became apparent that that's not what was going to happen at all, Judas despaired and threw the money down and went and hanged himself. Jesus knew that this was a problem. Jesus knew what Judas's problem was from the beginning. So at the Last Supper, the Lord washed the feet of Judas.

Think about that for a minute. Jesus knew from the beginning, and Jesus knelt and washed the feet that were going to go out into the darkness to betray him. Jesus washed those feet.

And then later, Jesus identified Judas by giving him a piece of bread after dipping it in the sauce. John 13, 26. That's how Jesus identified Judas. And this is in fulfillment of what David had said in Psalm 41. Centuries before, David had prophesied that one who had shared bread with the Christ would be the one who betrayed him, Psalm 41.9. And Jesus pointed to that prophecy explicitly that evening, John 13.18.

In short, before Judas was born, his role was assigned. His role was assigned to him. a millennium before he was born. His role was assigned to him. And so the fact that Judas would create a vacancy by this betrayal was written long before he was born, long before he was born.

Now this creates questions, does it not? How then is Judas not a puppet? How that, you know, this is the same issue that we confront with all, whenever we deal with God's sovereignty, this is the issue that comes up.

How is Judas not a puppet? And then God, And how is God not unjust for then smashing the puppet for doing what God had determined the puppet was going to do? Well, there's more.

Psalm 69 is a clear messianic psalm. Psalm 69 is a clear messianic psalm, and it's quoted in the New Testament in five different places. It's rich with quotation material that show up in the New Testament.

Those who hate me without a cause, that's verse 4. is quoted in John 15, 25. Those who hate me without a cause is quoted in John 15, 25, and it's applied to those who had seen the Lord's miracles and hated him anyway. What did they remember when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead? Lazarus was in the grave for four days, and Martha was concerned that he was starting to stink, roll the, open the tomb. He'd been...

decomposing by all rights, and Jesus raises him from the dead, calls him out, and Lazarus hops out all bound up in grave clothes. And there's a crowd there that had come out from Jerusalem to commiserate with Mary and Martha. Bethany is just a few miles from Jerusalem, and they are apparently a well-connected family because some leading Jews had come out to commiserate with them.

And then Lazarus comes hopping out of the tomb after four days in the tomb. And that did not convince everybody in the crowd. It says many believed in him.

Many? Why not all? What did the remainder do?

They went to plot to kill Jesus. We have to do something about this guy. And then later, they were starting to scheme about how to kill Lazarus. Again, now this tells us that rebellion, disobedience is an ethical issue. Those who hate God without a cause, this is an ethical moral issue.

It is not an IQ issue. It's not an intellectual issue. People don't believe in God because they don't want to believe in God.

They don't believe in Christ because they don't want to believe in Christ. Then the second quotation from Psalm 69, zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. That's quoted in John 2, 17 in the description of the Lord's first cleansing of the temple. The first cleansing of the temple.

John has him cleansing the temple at the beginning of his ministry. The other Gospels have him cleansing the temple at the end of his ministry. Here's another harmonization.

I believe that he did both. I believe he cleansed at the beginning, cleansed at the end. And I think that what you have is the pattern that was necessary in the Old Testament.

What did you have to do in the Old Testament? If your house developed the creeping crud on the wall, you have some kind of black mold on the wall, what did you have to do? You had to call the priest, and the priest would come and evaluate it. You'd clean it off, you'd scrape it off, and then you'd give it time to grow again or not, and then you'd call him back a second time.

If the priest came back the second time and the mold had come back, what did you do with the house? You dismantled it stone from stone, not one stone left on another. You took it apart. and you took it outside the camp.

What did Jesus do when he came back the second time and the temple was still corrupt? He cleansed it at the beginning of his ministry. He comes back again and it's still corrupt.

It's still a den of thieves. They're still doing all the things that they were doing before. He condemns it. He tells the disciples, not one stone is going to be left on another.

Your house is left to you desolate. So zeal of thy house had eaten thee up. And this is a description.

of the Lord's first cleansing of the temple. The second part of that same verse, the reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me, is quoted in Romans 15, 3, where Paul applies it to Christ, who lived out an example for us to follow. In other words, the people who would reproach...

God would reproach Christ. The people who would reproach Christ will reproach you. And so this should be that we should just recognize that this is the pattern for us to follow. Then the next one, let their table become a snare before them.

Verses 22 and 23 is quoted in Romans 11, 9, and it's applied by Paul to reprobate Israel. And then the verse that Peter quotes in our passage comes next. Let their habitation be desolate. And it's talking here about the void that Judas left. So Judas is basically the compatriot.

Whether he thinks he hates the establishment, the corrupt establishment of the temple or not, he's on their side. He is among those who hate Christ without a cause by his actions, whether he hated him emotionally or not is immaterial. He hated him in his actions. He is part of the corruption of the temple.

He is part of those who reproach. wrongfully. His table became a snare.

You remember he was there at the last supper, his feet were washed, but that table, that participation became a snare to him. And then it says his habitation is desolate and needs to be filled. The next Psalm that is quoted by Peter is one of the fiercest imprecatory Psalms in the Bible. That's Psalm 109. And it's a fierce one.

And Peter quotes it. Peter quotes it without any embarrassment. Let another take his office.

So Judas held an office, and in the Greek, that office was one, he was an episkopos, an overseer, a bishop. His bishopric, the King James says, his bishopric let another take. Now don't mistake this with a 2nd century or 3rd century monarchical bishop. That was a later development in church history. This overseer...

position that Judas had was like that of the other apostles. He was an overseer. He was a shepherd. He was a pastor of God's people, but it was an office.

Prior to this, prior to this time, Judas had cast out demons. Judas had cast out demons. All but one.

He didn't, when it says Satan entered in him, he didn't deal with that, but he was able to cast out demons. Judas had healed the sick. Judas had gone out with the other disciples and he had healed the sick.

He'd seen Jesus walk on water. He'd seen him change the water to wine. His treachery did not unwind or undo any of those blessings and did not cause the office itself to disappear.

There were people walking around Israel after the resurrection who had been healed by Judas and were grateful to God for what had happened. It was not the case that the disciples were sent out on these missions that Jesus would send them out on and 11 of them were firing hot and there was one One dud in there who couldn't do anything. That was not the case. Judas was a participant with them. He held that office.

So nothing is clearer than that God has the ability to wield sinful and wicked actions in a way that results in his own greater glory. God knows how, as I've said many times, God knows how to draw straight with crooked lines. God knows how to accomplish his clean objectives with dirty tools.

This world is full of dirty tools, and Emmanuel, God with us, came down into this dirty, filthy workshop and did a marvelous thing. An entirely righteous and clean thing. It was an amazing thing, and it was layered. It was layered. In Acts 2.23, what does it say?

Him, and this has to do with Judas'treachery, him being delivered, right, who delivered Jesus over to the bad guys? It was Judas. Judas delivered Jesus to the bad guys.

But who was behind it? Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. There are two things that we have to see there.

One is the sovereignty of God over every last detail of it. God is sovereign over this wicked action. And secondly, it remains a wicked action and not the action of puppets.

ye have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. The people who killed Jesus were sinning. The people who killed Jesus, when Judas betrayed Jesus, he was sinning. He betrayed him, he took the money in his hands, and they were wicked hands because he took the money to betray the Lord. This determinate counsel of God did not turn anybody involved into a puppet.

God's sovereignty is not a zero-sum game. God's sovereignty is not a zero-sum game. It is not the case that we look at human history and then we say God occupies 60% of this, then we do the other remaining 40. It's not that way.

He doesn't do 99 and we do 1. He doesn't do 75 and we do 25. It's not like that at all. God sovereignly determines everything 100% and we are responsible for everything we do 100%. Everything about the Passion was scripted.

And many of the details of it were down to what the soldiers were going to do with the clothing of Jesus at the base of the cross. They were going to gamble for his clothing. The whole Passion was scripted down to the behavior of chickens.

And Jesus says to Peter, you're going to deny me before the cock crows. You're going to deny me. And everything about it was going to happen the way it was going to happen.

Why? Because God... determined beforehand what was going to happen.

And the people who did it, did it with wicked hands. They're not absolved of anything. And you say, well, how is that possible? I can't do the math. Well, you're not asked, if you could do the math for this problem, you'd be richer than you are.

None of us can do the math. Our task as Christians is to receive what the Bible tells us. The Bible tells us that God is sovereign over every last thing, everything, and it tells us that we are not puppets. We are responsible for what we do, and the people who betrayed the Lord did it with wicked hands.

The same thing, something very similar, is given to us in Acts chapter 4. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, and I'd throw Judas in there, were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. Now I said earlier that when the fussers at the temple were worried about putting the 30 pieces of silver into the right account, they had just been guilty of the most monstrous crime ever. The execution of Jesus, the only perfect man who ever lived, the only righteous man who ever lived, came to this earth and we found his presence intolerable. We killed him.

We murdered him. If he came again, we'd do it again. Apart from the superintending grace of God, apart from the intervention of God, this fallen world would kill him. We would kill him every chance we got to kill him. The unregenerate heart is a God hating heart.

And yet, what did God do? This monstrous crime, this thing that was the worst thing ever, was also what? It was your salvation.

This terrible, terrible crime. This black day, this thing that caused the apostles to scatter, his mother to weep, the women to stand afar off, the women of Jerusalem to wail at what was being done, the disciples to go hide in an upper room and lock the door. door, that black day was the day of your salvation. It was the day that you were forgiven. The Bible tells us that if the rulers of this age had known what they were doing, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

And this tells us that God knows how to take a grotesque murder that he arranged. It's not just a grotesque murder. It's not God troubleshooting it after the fact.

It's a grotesque murder that he had determined before. beforehand to be done, as it says in Acts 2, by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. This was all settled beforehand.

So God came down on purpose, picked up this filthy tool of our murderous rage against him, and used that tool to save us. That's what he did. And this is the kind of thing that makes Paul cry out, oh, the depth of the riches of the knowledge and wisdom of God. How unsearchable are his judgments.

God knows how. to do clean things with our dirty lives, and has done so. Now, this verse, when I was struggling, as I should not have been struggling, as I was struggling with all the doctrines of grace and what is nicknamed Calvinism, when I was struggling with this, this passage in Acts 4 was my undoing. Because one of my big arguments was, I don't want God to be entailed in wickedness in any way, like I was being noble. Let's protect God from...

having anything to do with sin. I was like Peter. Peter's the kind of person, and so was I, who would say two words that ought never to go together, which was, no, Lord.

Jesus said, I'm going to go to Jerusalem. No, no, Lord, don't do that. This is unworthy of you. Well, when I was struggling with this, I didn't want God to do things that were unworthy of God. predestined or foreordained a wicked act like this.

But when Jesus was praying in the garden, whose will was he wrestling with? God's, the Father's. Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done. But whose will was it also?

It was also Herod's. It was also Pontius Pilate, Gentiles, people of Israel, different layers, different actors, different segments. Judas had a part, all of it. They were all involved. God's will was 100%.

100%. And the human actors were 100% responsible for what they did. And so God does this thing, and he accomplishes your salvation and my salvation because he knows how to do this.

I used to say, well, if God predestined a sinful act, that would make him sinful. And then I stumbled over this verse. Well, apparently, God knows how to do it. He knows the trick.

He could... foreordain at least one action that was wicked and that it remained wicked and he was nevertheless the one who determined it. So I thought, okay, God has the technology.

God knows how to do it. And then my argument against him doing this all the time was now gone. If God knows how to do it, why can't he do it all the time? And that's what he does.

God is sovereign all day, every day. God is in control of absolutely everything, all day, every day. And your prayer, if I could make an application for many of you who are worried about the coming election, which has got your attention, it's coming up.

Your prayer ought to be, God, our nation needs repentance in the worst way. We need to repent as a people. And your prayer ought to be not, Lord, spare us from whatever might bring us to repentance. Your prayer ought to be, God, do what it takes.

Do what it takes to break us. Do what it takes to humble us. And pray that prayer in faith. God knows how to do what it takes.

That's a prayer he will hear. God, do what it takes. If the election goes this way.

We thank him if the election goes the other way. We thank him because we want God to do what it takes to humble a proud and haughty people. And when God does this, and we can take assurance from this passage. You might say, but a Harris presidency would be awful. Granted, so was Herod, Pontius Pilate, Gentiles.

It was awful. All of it was awful, yes. But does God know how to do awful? Does God know how to handle awful? Is God still on the throne?

Is God still sovereign? Is he still orchestrating all of these things for his glory and for our good? Yes, he is. And part of our good is to learn how to pray, God, do what it takes. And so there's no way for this Christ to be appointed to die for you without the other elements of the story being appointed also.

If God appointed Christ to die for you, he didn't appoint Christ to come and then stumble in Jerusalem, fall and die there in Jerusalem by accident. And that being, no, it was necessary for Christ's death to be a murder. And it had to be a murder conducted by the authorities on behalf of the people.

And Caiaphas was the high priest that year, and he spoke for the people. He was a representative of the people. It was necessary for the Lord's death to be a murder, and by that murder, he saved the world.

By that murder, he saved the world. And we have the privilege of working with that, and submitting to that, and embracing it, and rejoicing in it. And so we do. Our Father, gracious God, we thank you for your goodness to us. We thank you for the gospel of grace.

We thank you for the privilege that you've given to us to come before you and to worship before you. Fathers, we come to the table that the Lord has set for us. I pray that we would partake of it in true faith. And I pray that you would establish and edify us in accordance with your word. Fathers, we pray these things.

We would lift up to you the words that Jesus taught us to pray, saying, While the church of God has not yet attained perfect unity, We should be laboring toward that unity. We must do this slowly and steadily, knowing that perfect unity will only come with the second coming of our Lord. This steady pursuit of unity requires that we flee idolatry. There are many idols, but only one Lord. There are many idols, and that is why idolatry fractures people into factions and divisions.

And there is only one Lord, so those who partake of Him find that they are one with all of those who likewise are not. partake of him. Paul says this very thing in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 17. We, being many, are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread.

So not only is there one bread from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ, but there is also one bread, the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said it, we, being many, are one bread. It is lamentable that at the supper of our Lord, where we partake of the one bread, many Christian traditions still refuse to let members of the body partake of Christ's body.

And God's grace is evident to us here at this table. where all baptized Christians, from the least of them to the greatest, are told, Come and welcome to Jesus Christ. We should rejoice in that grace. But this sentiment must be more than a slogan.

There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. So as you come to this table, come loving all those who have God as Father, all those to whom he has said, I am your God and you are my people. The only way to truly love that one bread is to come to the true bread who has come down from heaven. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ. Our Father, we thank you for all of the saints, and we rejoice in your kingdom that is coming on earth as it is in heaven.

Knit us together in unity as we come to this table to eat and drink, for we come in the mighty name of Jesus, and amen. The charge is this. One of the things that we are seeking to achieve with the... teaching and the ministry here, conferences, like the conference of the Grace Agenda this weekend, is we want to foment and encourage and develop a practical, evangelical, ecumenical approach, where anybody who believes God's Word, anybody who trusts in Christ according to the Gospel, regardless of various denominational distinctives, we want to cultivate a true evangelical unity there.

A marvelous book is by Ian Murray, Revival and Revivalism, and he is talking about the revivals that helped establish America in the early years of our country, and that kind of ecumenical unity between the brothers who really loved the Lord, who differed on various things, that was a true hallmark of those revivals, and we want to see the same sort of thing happen. And in our... corner of the woods, in our corner of the vineyard, that happens to be between Presbyterians and Baptists. We want to cultivate a true unity between Presbyterians and Baptists.

And some of you, there were over a thousand people in the first service, and we had a couple of infant baptisms in the first service, which exposed a number of our Baptist brethren from out of town to a novelty. Mark Twain was once asked if he believed in infant baptism, and he said, believe in it, I've seen it done. Well, that's it.

And you might say, well, couldn't you arrange those on another week, another Sunday? Well, no, it's pretty much one every Sunday. You know, there's no way to arrange them.

It happens a lot. But the thing that we want to strive for is despite differences like that, despite differences like that, we don't want to get into squabbles over things like that. The baptism, the Lord's Supper, those are the symbol of unity.

It's like the bride and groom getting in a fight over the wedding ring at the ceremony. Let's not do that. God has one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

And so, with believing hearts, receive the benediction of your God. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to God our Savior, who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. Amen.

Transcript for:Acts Chapter 1: The Replacement of Judas

Transcript for:
Acts Chapter 1: The Replacement of Judas