The Gift of Apostle

Colossians 1:1-2

Col-004

© Berean Memorial Church of Irving, Texas, Inc. (1995)

The salutations segment. Number four, Colossians one versus one and two. The apostle Paul writes a letter from his prison cell in Rome about 61 AD to the churches in the city of Colossae in order to counter certain of her teachings which were circulating there among the Christians. This heresy was made up of Greek philosophical ideas and of legalisms from Judaism. Epaphras, who came from the church in Colossae, has brought the report of the hearses to Paul in Rome 1,200 miles away. The heresy focused mainly on false teachings about the person and work of Jesus Christ. This is always Satan's technique. If he can destroy what is true about Christ, then he can destroy everything else that is in the word of God. It all revolves around him. And, if the word of God is undermined concerning the person of God, it all collapses. So, this is what was happening early on here in this church in Colossi.

Jewish authorities turn against Paul

Paul had come himself into Christianity, as you know, via a very miraculous heavenly confrontation with Jesus Christ on the road just outside of Damascus. Paul was a highly educated Roman citizen. He was a devout Pharisee who was much esteemed in Jerusalem and in his hometown of Tarsus. Paul was a zealous agent of the High Priest in Jerusalem as a persecutor of the Christians. Paul's persecuting activity brought much pain and death to Christians, including the death of the first Christian martyr Stephen. Paul's false reality was his view of Jesus Christ. He viewed Christ as an imposter and a blasphemer, but eventually the true reality about Jesus caught up with him and it overwhelmed him, and he became a Christian. Upon his conversion, Paul became a zealous, courageous witness for the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of Israel. However, Paul's friends and the Jewish authorities now turned against this young man that they had held in such high esteem as a Jew and as a devoted Pharisee. They turned against him to the extent that they wanted to kill him, so he had a flee for his life. Paul received three years of direct instruction on church age doctrine from the Lord Jesus in the Arabian Desert. The church age, you see, is totally different from the Mosaic era of Judaism. The vast proportion of Christians has not figured that out to this day. They still think that Christianity has replaced Judaism. They still think that Christians are modern day Jews. They still don't understand that God's covenant, beginning with the covenant with Abraham, is eternal. It must be fulfilled and it will be fulfilled. It doesn't matter to some people, even though they see what is happening in Israel today, that the Jew is back in his homeland since 1948 and that the Jew is now very, very nervous about survival. They are willing to make deals in order to preserve themselves, including giving away part of their own land back to the Arabs.

The whole system of Judaism is on the line in Israel today because the Jews are looking for someone who can take care of them on the international scene, and that someone will be the Antichrist. So, it doesn't take too much sense to look about us and see that God is not through with the Jew. He is at the core of all of events that are taking place today. But Paul was given the doctrine that distinctively belongs to you and me as Christians, and the core of those doctrines is Grace. Under the Old Testament, you had to do things to please God. You had to do things to gain His favor. Under Grace, you have already got His favor, and He calls upon you to act accordingly. So, this was a significant three years of instruction that Paul received directly from Jesus Christ. Therefore, he was head and shoulders above all the other Apostles and his knowledge of what pertained to the church era.

Definition of apostle

The result of all this was that Paul has become the most important and influential person in history since Jesus Himself. This man had a brilliant mind. He was able to grasp the nuances of the doctrines of the church age. He wrote 13 of the New Testament books and, if he wrote Hebrews as he well might have, it'll be 14. He was an educated man with the frame of reference of his age so that he was competent in debating the people of his era. He was a competent leader who was able to organize and to inspire the people who worked with him. He had an indomitable will which kept overcoming adversities. He had a total devotion to his mission of missionary service to the gentile world, and it was this man who made Christianity a religion with adherence throughout the Roman Empire. So, as we look in the book of Colossians 1:1, the first thing we read is Paul. The reference to this man who is the author of this book. The second thing that we observe about this man is that he is an Apostle. This is the Greek word Apostelló (ap-os-tel'-lo). Apostolos is made up of two words. This first Apos is a preposition, and it means from this part. Stellas comes from the verb stello, which means to send. And so, what this verb is saying is to send from literally. It means one sent forth, and thus we can't even translate it as messenger. Now this word Apostle in the New Testament, you should know, has two basic meanings. The first is a general non-technical sense. That is just anybody who happens to be a messenger. We have this illustrated, for example, in II Corinthians 8:23, "As for Titus, another one of the associates with Paul and his ministry was for Titus his partner and fellow worker. Among you, as for our brethren, they are messengers of the churches, a glory to Christ." He refers to Titus and his other workers and calls those workers Apostles and properly translated as messengers. These are just ordinary people who are carrying a message, the message of the word of God. You had this illustrated in Philippians 2:25 where the word messenger is applied to Epaphroditus who was from the church in Philippine. He came to Paul with a message from that church. You have this also used in Romans 16:7 of Andronicus and Junia, two Christians who are called apostles, meaning that they are messengers. One more is Acts 14:14, where you have the combination of Barnabas, the first associate with Paul on his first missionary journey, and Paul himself. In Acts 14:14, we read about them as being Apostles in the sense of messengers Simian has related.

Now, jump Acts 14:14, but when the apostle messengers Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their robes and rushed out into the crowd crying. Here was the occasion where they were being treated as if they were gods. So here you have the apostle Paul being called a messenger in a non-technical sense. Now the opposite is that this word is used in a specific technical meaning. When it is used in this way, it is referring to someone who has been given the specific spiritual gifts of the Apostle. This is described for us, this is referred to in Ephesians 4:11, "And He gave some Apostles and some as Prophets and some as Evangelists and some as Pastor-Teachers." Here in this list of people who communicate the word of God is a category called the Apostle, that same word apostolos, and it means the same basic thing as messenger.

But now in a technical sense, this is an Official Position. It is one of the nine temporary spiritual gifts which are conferred sovereignly by the Holy Spirit in the New Testament era on certain men. Eleven of the Apostles, all except Judas, received the gift of Apostleship on the day of Pentecost. Paul received it on the day of his salvation outside of the city of Damascus. One of the communicator gifts, the Apostle, specifically designed to produce the New Testament scriptures. So, you have these two categories. Whenever you read about an apostle or a messenger, it can be just an ordinary Christian. All of you could call yourselves Apostles if you wanted to because you are messengers as witnesses of God, but you could not call yourself an Apostle in the official sense with the gift and the authority that went with Apostleship. And the Apostle had enormous authority over the churches.

Gift of Apostleship

So, this gift of apostleship was what Paul had, and when he introduces himself to the Colossians as an Apostle, he is referring to the fact, not that he's just a messenger like Ephesus who came from them, but that he is an official gifted spokesman of God with specific authority over them. That's why the Apostle Paul, who had never visited Colossi, who had never met any of these Christians, by and large except a few of them that came to visit him, could write a letter to them and say, "Here's the truth, and I want you to discontinue the heresies that have been reported to me and I want you to take action against the people in your congregation who are conducting these heresies and I want you to follow my directions." And you might say, "Where does he get off telling our church what to do?"

I'll tell you where he gets off. He's an Apostle. An Apostle could walk into your congregation, and he could tell you what to do. Today within the local congregation there is a basic authority of the pastor-teacher and the church boards. They are the authorities, and they are authorities only in that church. They cannot go down the street and tell that congregation how they shall conduct their business. But this is what an Apostle did. He told you how to do things right, and he told you what was right when it came to doctrine. So, the gift of Apostle does not exist today. A few months ago, down on Irving Boulevard there a new storefront church opened, and it called itself the Apostolic Church. They wanted to take that title to give them some dignity and authority, but they didn't have the authority. They were not an Apostolic group whatsoever.

Groups like Roman Catholicism claim that they have Apostles because the apostolic gift is passed down from one generation of priests to the next by the hierarchy of the Roman Church. The truth of the matter is that this is a spiritual gift, and anybody who knows anything about the Bible knows that all spiritual gifts are only bestowed by God, the Holy Spirit. I don't care what of the nine spiritual gifts that are in operation today may attract your attention, a gift that you might like to have. You cannot just say, "I want this gift and I'm going to pray for this gift in the hopes that you'll get it." You will not get it at the point of your salvation. That's when God gives you your spiritual gift, and it is your business to look over these nine gifts and say, "Here's where it fits in. This is the ability I have." One time and custom in Costa Asa Mesa, California, and the Great Calvary Church there as the crowds were pouring in for the charismatic service, not something you do on Sunday, but the jump and jiving service. I attended it, and one man stood up and said, "I have been praying for the gift of healing. I would just like to be able to go around and heal people. I'd like to open a door to a room about midnight and say, 'Are you waiting for me? The Lord has sent me to here to heal you,' and I would go in and heal these people."

So, I'm sitting here listening to this. He doesn't know the first thing about the word of God, which does not speak well about his church. He doesn't even know that you can't pray for a spiritual gift. Whether you're a little kid here this morning, you got a spiritual gift. Whether you're a big kid, you got a spiritual gift. It all comes as a bestow of the Holy Spirit at the point of your salvation. So he said, "I just prayed and prayed and God gave me the gift." Oh, I thought that was interesting. But he said, "I prayed for three people, and they've all died." And he said, "At first, I was discouraged, but then I realized that when they die, that's the most perfect healing of all because they go to be with the Lord." At that point I reached out for my Air Core Upset bag that I always carry on the airlines with me. What a travesty of the word of God! This man was so determined that he was going to pray and not only pray, but he was going to see to it that he got the gift of healing, that he wasn't going to pretend under any condition that he didn't have it. That's how Charismatics do. They create their own reality, and then they believe it, but it's unreality that they believe. So, there are no Apostles here today.

Characteristics of an apostle

Part of the reason for this is that in order to be an apostle, to be given the gift of the Apostle, you had to personally see Jesus Christ alive from the dead after His crucifixion. That itself answers the question as to whether there is apostolic authority that can be passed down from one person to another person today. When the disciples early on decided they needed to replace the traitor Judas with another disciple and another Apostle, they went to prayer, received directions from God, and they indicated in Acts 1:21-22, the guideline for selecting another man. "It is therefore necessary that of the men who have accompanied us all the time, that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, they knew Him in life. Beginning with the baptism of John until the day that He was taken up from us, one of these should become a witness with us of His resurrection." Acts 4:33, "And with great power, the Apostles were giving witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and abundant grace was upon them." These men had to be able to say, "I have seen Him alive. I have personally seen and heard Jesus Christ. I talked to Him, I have carried on a conversation with Him after He had been crucified, after He'd been placed in the tomb. He is alive, and I can testify to that personally." Now if you want to be an apostle, that's the first problem you're going to have to solve, how you're going to be able to say that you can testify personally to having seen Christ alive. We may add I Corinthians 15:7 which says," Then He appeared to James, then to all the Apostles." And, of course, when the Lord ascended in Acts chapter 1, they all saw Him there. So, the Apostles were people who could testify to His resurrection. They also had to have certain other credentials If they were going to be bonafide Apostles, they had to have miraculous credentials. Please notice II Corinthians 12:12, "The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance by signs and wonders and miracles."

The Apostle Paul here is pointing out that he is not just whistling Dixie when he says, "I'm an Apostle and I'm claiming that authority over you. I'm now going to tell you how you are going to conduct yourself, and I'm going to guide you to what is true and what is false." The reason he could do it is because as a true Apostle there were signs, signs of wonders and miracles which he performed among them. Now I don't have to explain to you what is a sign of a miracle. It's something that can override a natural law and either you can do it, or you can't. Acts 2:43 says, "And everyone kept feeling a sense of awe and many wonders and signs were taking place through the Apostles." The early church was indeed impressed by these miraculous signs.

Now I can understand why people would like to have this gift. I wouldn't mind having it myself. It might help me to convince my members to do certain things that they ought to be doing, that would be right things to do. If I could show them a few signs, like if I could say, "If you don't come to church service next Sunday morning and evening, your nose is going to fall off." That might get their attention unless they got a bad nose and they'd say, "Oh, I'm staying home." But if you could have that kind of signs and powers, they might listen to you. Well, this is exactly what they did in the New Testament. Now, of course, if you had miracle capacity, it won't work unless you're in temporal fellowship and unless the way you're using it is within the will of the Holy Spirit. So, you may breathe at ease; nobody can use this and use it in a tyrannical way.

Spiritual gifts require temporal fellowship

Any spiritual gift you have, please remember, will always work as long as you are in temporal fellowship. And what you want to do with it is in the will of the spirit of God. So, if you're going to be an Apostle, you had to testify to the fact that you saw Jesus alive from the dead. You had to show that you had miraculous powers, and then with that would come to you, this gift of authority. You would have authority over local churches. II Corinthians 10:8 says, "For even if I should boast somewhat further about our authority, which the Lord gave for building you up and not for destroying you, I shall not be put to shame." Paul spoke here to these Corinthian Christians who were terribly carnal, terribly outside of justified Christian conduct. I mean they had sexual sins; they had all kinds of things in that congregation, and nobody was raising a protest over it. Nobody was calling a halt to the evil and, worst of all, they're making snide remarks about their teacher Paul. And Paul said, "I won't even descend to your level and shame myself by stressing to you my Apostolic authority because I do have the right to tell you what to do. I'm an Apostle, and I am executing this for your benefit in order to build you up spiritually so that your eternity is a great glorious experience." II Corinthians 13:10 says, "For this reason, Paul concludes this book saying I am writing these things while absent in order that when present I may not use severity in accordance with the authority which the Lord gave me for building up and not for tearing down." Paul says, "I've spoken to you very severely in this letter following up my first letter to you I Corinthians, and I write II Corinthians and I've spoken very plainly to you because I want you to know that when I get there, I'm going to take care of the troublemaker. If I have to take them by the scuff of the neck and throw them out the door and boot them appropriately, I'm going to do it. But I'm going to do the thing that is my authority to do here as an Apostle." So, for a person to claim to be an Apostle, that is a very big thing. That is the true Vicar of Christ on earth, not the Pope who claims to be an apostle. He knows his theology well enough that he needs that. But the true Vicars of Christ on earth, the true representatives of Christ on earth were the Apostles. And there's one other thing that would result with your authority as an Apostle, and that is that you would receive direct communication from God. Galatians 1:15-17, "But when he who had set me apart even for my mother's womb." Ooh, you couldn't have aborted Paul.

God had a purpose for Paul even when he was in his mother's womb. How can God have a purpose with something that's a glob of nothing and not a person? Here's another one of those scriptures that make it very clear that every abortion is an act of murder. "But when he who had set me apart even for my mother's womb and called me through his Grace, was pleased to reveal his son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood." Paul says, "When I was saved in Damascus and Anais came, he brought me back my sight, he laid his hands upon me, and I was at my moment of my salvation baptized into by the Holy Spirit into Christ. He laid his hands on me, I was filled with the spirit, and the scales fell off my eyes and he told me, Paul, God's going to teach you great things now. You will be the great carrier of the doctrine of the church age, and you would be the great Apostle to teach the Gentile nations."

And Paul says, "I didn't go to Jerusalem to have Peter, James, John, and the Apostles teach me this. They knew a great deal, but they didn't know this." What did he do? "Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were Apostles before me, but I went away to Arabia and returned once more to Damascus after three years of instruction there in Arabia by Christ, giving him the whole gamut and council of the church of God of truth that refers to the Church of God era." Then he came back, you remember to Damascus, and he was primed now with the truth.

This is why people want to be Apostles today. This is why Charismatics like to claim apostolic authority because they say they get prophetic utterances from God. Now, if God gives you a prophecy, if he's speaking to you directly and giving you information, that's the same kind of communication that resulted in the New Testament scriptures. People wrote that down, these men, and that was the Bible being produced. But if you're not an Apostle, you'll not get a direct revelation of words of information from God. You will get leading from the spirit of God. Oh boy, will you get leading! You get leading for good and leading for discipline, but on a basis of the doctrines that you know and that you have metabolized in your soul, that you have come positive to, He will lead you. He will guide you even without thinking. That reservoir of doctrine down in your human spirit is going to be clicking up the right answers to your mind. And it's the mind that makes all the decisions about your emotions and your will.

If that's right, then everything is right. The Bible says "As a man thinks, so is he." When your mind is right, everything is right, and the only way you get your mind right is when doctrine keeps pumping up into it. It gives you the perspective on a particular situation. This is the marvels of being taught the word of God. See? You see I'm not some kind of crazy fanatic when I think it's bad to see empty chairs in this auditorium because that means here's a Christian who's riding on last week's food or no food, and why are they not here? I don't feel good. I've got a problem; I've got something else. And usually the answer, the excuse, is not justified in terms of the cost to that person for his eternity. The Apostle does not exist today because there's no one living who has seen Jesus Christ alive from the dead.

And, by the way, I know you're going to come up and say, how do the Charismatics get around that? They all have an experience where they're lying-in bed and they see a figure at the end of their bed; it materializes and there's the Lord glowing in front of them. So, they really claim they have seen him. They know enough to try to cover their tracks and they're deceptive enough to do that. To be a true Apostle, you have to see Jesus in His physical body. You had to have the ability for miracles. You could then exercise authority over all churches, and you had authority which was not abused. You didn't lord it over the people of God. You were their guide and shepherd, and you would receive direct communication from God to guide you. These two kinds of apostles, the general non-technical Apostles just in ordinary messengers; all of you are Apostles in that sense. The technical official sense of the word apostle was for those who had the spiritual gift given to them in New Testament times, and it ended when John, the last of the Apostles, died. The technical Apostles were the official witnesses of Jesus Christ.

They were brought there to be those who could confirm what the Christians were saying. John 15:27, "And you will bear witness, Jesus says, also because you have been with me from the beginning." Speaking to the apostolic man, he said, "You are going to be my witness." Also in Acts chapter 1:8, when he is about to leave them. Jesus says, "You shall receive power (speaking now to the 11 Apostles), but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth." Later He was speaking to the 11 plus Matthias, who had been brought on to fill out the band of 12. So, he did have the, no, that's still not right. He was speaking to the 11, Mathias didn't come till later. He's speaking to the 11 and later Mathias was added, and then the 13th one was Paul. In Acts 10:39, "And we are witnesses of all the things He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, and they also put him to death by hanging him on a cross." So, the technical Apostles were the official witnesses of the Lord. The word Apostles is also used of the 12 as a group in Luke 6:13, 1 Corinthians 15:15. The 12 are referred to as Apostles. And in Colossians 1:1, when Paul says he is an Apostle, he is referring to this gift, the official role, the official position of a spokesman, a witness of Christ. The term Apostle of Jesus Christ distinguishes the technical meaning of Apostle from apostle of the church, which is a general meaning.

You arrive, you will read in scripture about the apostle of the church. That's what all of you are, messengers. But when you read about the Apostle of Jesus Christ, that's the spiritual gift, and that's distinct distinctively different. Now, as for the ministry of the official Apostles, the 12 laid the foundation of the church, and they led its early expressions. Ephesians 2:20, Act 6:2 show that the qualifications for the Apostolic gift made it impossible for anyone to possess it today, as we have shown. There's no such thing as apostolic succession. You are not appointed by men; you are only appointed by the Holy Spirit. An Apostle had supreme spiritual authority in any local church over the believers. No one has this today; the Apostles were instruments of divine revelation used to produce the New Testament scripture. Today the canon, the standard of scripture is closed. All the books are there.

So, there are two periods in Apostolic ministry. There's before Pentecost when they announced the messianic kingdom was at hand, and they spoke to Jews only and that they were to sit as 12 judges over the tribes of Israel and the Millennium. But after Pentecost these Apostles switch gears; they laid the foundation of truths relative to the church age, and they preach the gospel of grace now to Jew and Gentile. Now as for Paul's personal apostleship that he takes such pride in and rightly so, he recognized first of all that his Apostleship was a Grace gift. He did not deserve this. He did see Jesus alive from the dead. That's what happened on a Damascus Road. Acts 22:6-8, "And it came about that as I was on my way approaching Damascus about noontime, a very bright light suddenly flashed from heaven all around me. And I fell to the ground, and I heard a voice saying to me, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?' And I answered, 'Who art thou, Lord?' And He said to me, 'I am Jesus the Nazarene whom you are persecuting.'" I Corinthians 9:1, "Am I not free? Paul says, 'Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?'" And when did he see Him? The only time could not be at Damascus Road. So, it tells us that on that road he looked up it was a blinding light, but in that light, he saw Christ. Also, I Corinthians 15:8, "And last of all, as it were to me, one untimely born, he appeared to me also and last of all, as it were to one untimely born, He appeared to me also." Paul said, 'I was born out of order of the other Apostles, but now I have become an Apostle because I have seen him." Furthermore, Paul confirmed his apostleship by the fact that he had miraculous powers. We have that indicated in Acts 28:8-9, "And it came about that the father of Publius was lying in bed afflicted with recurrent fever and dysentery, and Paul went in to see him. And after he had prayed, he laid his hands on him and healed him." And after this had happened, the rest of the people on the island who had diseases were coming to him and getting cured. There's no question that Paul confirmed his Apostolic claim by the fact that he could perform miracles. I Corinthians 14:18, as another confirmation. "I thank God I speak in tongues languages more than you all." The apostle Paul had the miraculous experience of being able to talk in the foreign language that he didn't know! That confirmed his apostleship, another act of a miracle. And then there's Galatians 1:11-12, "For I would have, brethren, that the gospel which was preached to me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ." Because he was an apostle, he got direct revelation from God, and when he spoke about the gospel of the Grace of God, it wasn't something that Peter James or John or the other Apostles had taught him. He got it directly from the Lord.

Paul calls himself the worst sinner that ever lived

Now as Paul says, in view of all this, it is strange to have Paul tell us he who is the Apostle, the great Apostle to the gentile world, that he is the worst sinner that has ever lived. And the truth of the matter is to this very date, there has not been a greater sinner than the Apostle Paul. He is the worst that ever lived and might bring comfort to some people. I Timothy 1:15, Paul says, "It is a trustworthy statement. This is absolutely true, deserving full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all." The Apostle Paul says that he is the worst sinner that ever lived to this very day. Now, was Paul a really gross sinner?

We would have a problem with that because the thing he prided himself on was how faithful he was to be keeping the Mosaic Law. In Galatians 1:13-14, "For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries, among my countrymen being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions." Paul was head and shoulders above his peers, and he was extremely devoted to morality. He was extremely devoted to the 10 commandments. He was extremely devoted to the Mosaic Law. So how on earth could he say that he was the worst sinner that ever lived? II Corinthians 11:22 points this out, "Are they Hebrews? So, am I, Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I." He had an outstanding religious heritage. He was not ignorant of the Bible, and he had a very good religious background. In Philippians 3:4-6, he points this out. "Although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh, if anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, your natural birth, I am far more circumcised. The eighth day of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews as to the law of Pharisee as to zeal a persecutor of the church as to the righteousness which is in the law found blameless." Now, when he said blameless, it didn't mean that he never sinned. It meant that when he sinned, he brought the appropriate sacrifice. He was devoted to the whole ritual system. We have no record and no reason to believe that Paul was what we would call a gross sinner. He was just very religious and that is what made him the worst of sinners. He had a monumental case of self-righteousness.

Paul's self-righteousness

Ooh, you say, I think I can compete with him. Here is a monumental case of self-righteousness. Paul had a snooty, superior attitude over all the other people he dealt with. He was so right, he was so good, he was so perfect, he could tear into other people, and he was quite confident that he was equipped to do that. What this did, this enormous self-righteousness of Paul, led him to persecute the people of God, the Christians. In Acts 8:3, this is pointed out, "Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house and dragging off men and women. He would put them in prison." He dished out heartache and sorrow without blinking an eyelash to the believers. In fact, he warmed to his persecuting work. And why did he feel free to do that? Because he was so perfect. He was such a righteous man that he could speak for God. He was so righteous that he could speak for God, he could represent God on this earth, and he could do God's work for him. It led him in his self-righteousness to the epitome of that self-righteousness, which was to murder other people. Acts 26:9-11. So, "then I thought myself that I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, and this is just what I did in Jerusalem. Not only did I lock up many of the saints in prisons having received authority from the Chief Priest, but also when they were being put to death, I cast my vote against them. And as I punish them often in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to blasphemy. And being furiously enraged at them, I kept pursuing them even to foreign cities."

Paul looks back and said, "Righteousness drove me to beat up these Christians. If they would not blaspheme Jesus Christ, I'd punch them in the mouth. If they would not subject themselves to the authority of Judaism, I would have them beaten." He treated them mercilessly because he was such a man of God! Such brutality that we Christians are capable of when we find some brother or sister who is not up to snuff! We always will, and we take the attitude that this person should not be below standard, he should be up to speed, and we treat him with a contempt. We treat this lady with a viciousness because we are so self-righteous, and she ought to match up to our standard.

Paul consequently considered himself the worst sinner of all times because of his self-righteousness that caused him to strike at Jesus Christ the only way he could strike at Him. And that was through persecuting security, his body, the believers, the Christians. I Corinthians 15:9, Paul says, "For I am the least of the Apostles who have not fit to be called an Apostle because I persecuted the church of God." Paul says, "It grieves me to realize that here I am, an Apostle, with all the authority and the powers and the dignity of an Apostle authority over the people I was beating up, that I was punishing, that I was putting to death, that I was listening to their children cry as their parents were hauled away." And he shutters as he thinks back on that, and the only thing that carries him through is the principle of confession of known sin.

Paul is never proud. He doesn't go around bragging about this. This is just a historical observation, how bad it used to be, and he is not eating his heart out over it. He knows he has been forgiven. He did it, as he once said, in ignorance and God has taken care of the problem. But what he did rightly causes him, as an intelligent man, to say, "This is quite an anomaly for me to have the authority of an Apostle who is so mistreating these people." In Acts 9:5, You have that experience of how Jesus said, "Why are you kicking against the goads?" You're hitting me when you are striking at the church people. Well, God's grace and the Christians in Jerusalem knew how bad Paul was. So even after Paul was saying they didn't trust him, the Christians, they didn't trust him! But God's grace is brilliantly highlighted by taking the chief of sinners and making him into the chief of the Apostles. I Corinthians 15:10, Explains it all, "But by the Grace of God, I am what I am and His grace toward me did not prove vain, but I labored even more than all of them. Yet not I, but the Grace of God, is with me." And Paul says, "Once I realized what my self-righteousness had done. Once I realized what a brutal beast I had been. Once I realized how I created my own reality, which was a false reality, when I came to the true reality in Christ, then I switched gears. And as determined as I had been a persecutor of the Christians, I was now a determined shepherd to them, caring for them, standing up to them, fighting for their own best interests. I used my Apostolic authority so that they would be entering heaven with maximum rewards and a maximum eternity of joy." Religion had turned Paul the Pharisee into a monster against the Christians, the Lord's people. But God's Grace transformed him into a trophy that we all look up to with admiration now. So, people who like to stand up in testimony meetings and describe what great sinners they were before salvation are a little tiresome. I always find them ludicrous. They don't know what it is to be a gross sinner. But the Apostle Paul knew it, and for what reason? Because he was so steeped in what was human good, his self-righteousness. Most people don't look for grossness in their self-righteousness, in their sense of superiority, and in their contempt for the simple folk. The epitome of badness is not immorality but self-righteousness and the gross evils that come from that.

It is more to the point if you want to stand up and speak about yourself, to speak about your pre-salvation sins of gossip and slander and punish and pushing this and your envy and your hatred and your meanness and your belittling and your self-pity and you'll find that if you're not careful, you still have those things with you. The worst thing that needs to be saved is the tongue. James 3:5-10, "And it is the tongue, which is the agent of our self-righteousness." Please don't bore people by making over how bad you once were. Before you were saved. Just use the historical facts of the Apostle Paul and say this is how bad a person can be, and this is how mightily God can transform him and still use him. That's the most encouraging to me that Paul, who is so far out, so spiritually insane, so far out of reality that God could take him and make him the greatest of the Apostles who had once been the greatest of sinners.

If he can do that for Paul, what can he do for you and me?

Closing prayer

"Thank you, Father, for this, thy word, and we pray that the Apostle Paul will be the great example and the great inspiration to us all of what can happen to a man or woman who is fully dedicated to Thee, who understands that we earn our money to do our ministry and that's all. And we don't keep earning money where we don't need it to do our ministry. We pray, our God, that Thou will help us to focus on what is our true life and what is our true possibilities as children of God. We are Christians, we are not in Judaism, we are in the freedoms of Grace; and yet remains to be seen what Thou will do with everybody sitting in this room right now. Please help us to turn, be free to do it, we pray in His name, amen."

Dr. John E. Danish, 1995

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