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Don’t Go
Presenter: Larry Kirkpatrick
Location: Mentone, California, United States
Delivery: 2007-06-23 23:06Z
Publication: GreatControversy.org 2007-06-23 23:06Z
Type: Sermon
URL: http://www.greatcontroversy.org/gco/ser/kir-dontgo.php
The Christian is often on the move. Although insisting that he is not saved by his works, he is found relentlessly pressing onward in his evangelistic endeavors. Well and good. The Christian should be active about his faith. And yet, the Bible sometimes surprises us. God and His people sometimes have different plans than each other. The beginning of the book of Acts offers us one of these occasions.
And [Jesus], being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith He, ye have heard of Me (Acts 1:4).
They were to await “the promise of the Father.” In essence, Jesus commanded His followers, “Don’t go.” But at the end of Matthew He commanded them to go. “All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:18-20).
So, which is it? “Go,” or “Don’t go”?
This is not the only time in the Bible that God says, “Don’t go” (See situations like Numbers 14:20-25, 29-33, 40-46; Matthew 10:5, 6; Acts 13:44-46; 16:6-10, etc.). If you look at these, you find that in some cases, God asks His people not to go because of priority or timing issues. In other cases, the matter really rests on His presence. He knows that our success in the mission He gives us is mediated by a crucial fact: His presence. Is He with us or not when we go?
If He is with us, then we can expect His kingdom to be glorified by our actions. If we are out cutting our own path, we have no such expectation. Situations change. It was God’s will for Israel to enter the promised land at the conclusion of their trek from Egypt. But when they arrived at the border, their actions showed that they were insufficiently submitted to Him. They were still too inclined to try to do God’s work in their own way. They were not ready for His use. Thus, His will for them changed. They were not to enter at that time. Then they sought to enter in anyway. Their actions delayed their entry by a generation.
God could have sent in those few individuals who were faithful at that time. Josua and Caleb could have gone in, along with perhaps a handful of others who were faithful. But God chose not to do that.
A look back at Moses’ argument may help us here (Exodus 32:11-14). The golden calf incident has just occurred, and God offers to destroy Israel and make a great nation of the descendants of Moses. But Moses argues that they are God’s people, that He, God led them out of Egypt, that if He should slay them the Egyptians will say that he brought them out only to kill them.
The fact is, of course, that most of them did die in the wilderness. But God had not brought them out to slay the, but to save them. Egypt was not educating them how to be children of God, but how to be slaves. It was imperative that His people be removed from that setting. And yet, it was also true that unless they consented to relearn how to follow God, they would misrepresent Him and not achieve His intended will in Canaan. It was for the very reason that His honor was at stake that He could not let them enter as disobedient children.
In the end, many died in the wilderness, not because God intended to kill them there, but because they chose to be rebels, and to remove themselves from God’s will. So He set aside a whole generation, educated a new generation, and only then did they cross the Jordan. All on God’s terms.
Waiting and Delay
So there is waiting and there is delay and often they go together. Delayed submission to God leads God to delay entry by man. Surely this is the very case for Seventh-day Adventists. We should have seen the Second Coming long ago. But our insubordination has led to a delay.
In such a case, we must be careful. Our desire to go must never overcome our desire to obey.
Recall the time of Elijah. Then, no doubt, attempts were made to bring rain. But God had shut the stopper. There would be no rain until God commanded Elijah His representative to pray for it. Surely prayer initiatives were launched by the powers that be in Israel, pleading for rain. But without obedience, there would be no rain. Rather, there would be a delay of rain. Neither Ahab nor the prophets of Baal, nor even Elijah himself, could generate rain by praying for it without obeying for it.
Do you think that if Elijah had been disobedient, that God would have sent rain in response to His prayer? No. And all that pertained to the case of Elijah pertains to our own.
Returning to the New Testament, consider this instruction of Jesus:
But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth (Acts 1:8).God told them, Don’t go. Don’t go until you receive power. And waiting for God to send it was necessary. The power of the Holy Spirit could not be generated by any artificial means or gimmickry. Obedience was the bottom-line, unambiguous, altogether essential prerequisite.
Is it a discouraging message? Do we believe God when He says to go? Do we believe Him when He says, Don’t go? Do we believe only the things that we want to believe? Let us make no mistake. God will not send a disobedient people His latter Rain. Ignorance of His will and disobedience to His will are two very different things. God will not be mocked.
How Many Must Pray?
Now, let’s look at something else, which you may find very encouraging.
How many were gathered together and praying before Pentecost? We answer almost automatically, 120. But a careful reading of the texts suggests an even smaller number.
Acts 1:13 lists 11 men gathered in the upper room. Acts 1:14 adds “the women,” along with Mary the mother of Jesus, and His brethren. These then would be His various brothers and sisters from Joseph, born by his wife previous to Mary. How many people then are we speaking of here, all told? We have the 11 men, plus the women (let’s say another dozen), plus Mary and let’s say six brothers. Obviously, we are speculating a bit here, but most would likely consider these to be fair estimates. That would give us a total of 30 people.
It is clear from Acts 1:13, 14 that these were those who “continued with one accord in prayer and supplication” (Acts 1:14). We are told that the total number of disciples in the church at this time was about 120 (Acts 1:15). But we are not told that they were all gathered together praying as in Acts 1:14. It does appear that on the day of Pentecost the company were all gathered together and that was when the promise of the Holy Spirit was experienced. In other words, there was a small, faithful group praying in the upper room. Doubtless there were others of the disciples scattered through the city also praying. But when God’s appointed time arrived, and when the disciples had been faithfully doing what they had been told to do—to wait—it was then that God answered in power.
Outstanding Issues
God’s people today have some issues to resolve, some very serious, very basic issues to resolve. Such as, what is, in fact, the gospel? What must we do to be saved? What does it mean to be sealed so as to endure the time of trouble looming ahead? If we only pray, we will fail. “He who does nothing but pray will soon cease to pray, or his prayers will become a formal routine’ (Steps to Christ, p. 101). We must obey and we must pray. Nothing else will do. God is waiting for the reproduction of Christ’s character in His people, and it will never come unless we are submitted to the Father as Christ was submitted to the Father. On the other hand, when we are submitted to the Father as Christ was submitted to the Father, the sky is the limit.
If we seek God in the way that God says to seek, we will see quite the crowd coming, daily being added to the church (Acts 2:41, 47).
In obedience to Christ’s command, they waited in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father—the outpouring of the Spirit. They did not wait in idleness. The record says that they were ‘continually in the temple, praising and blessing God.’ Luke 24:53. They also met together to present their requests to the Father in the name of Jesus. They knew that they had a Representative in heaven, an Advocate at the throne of God. In solemn awe they bowed in prayer, repeating the assurance, ‘Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in My name, He will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in My name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.’ John 16:23, 24. Higher and still higher they extended the hand of faith, with the mighty argument, ‘It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.’ Romans 8:34. (Acts of the Apostles, pp. 35, 36).
Conclusion
Sometimes God commands us to wait for something He wants to give us. It is so good that it is more than worth the wait. We must pray. It is a necessity for us in our fallen humanity. We should plead with God for the outpouring of His Spirit personally. We will never be matured Christians unless we permit Him to make us such. But with all these, we must also search His Word closely, carefully. We must seek to apprehend the truth that sanctifies us, that changes us, and we must forever abandon the notion that we can avoid addressing crucial issues that divide us. We want unity, but we have not wanted it badly enough. We want truth, but we have not wanted it badly enough. Our God is more than able, but we must become seekers of Jesus. We cannot be content with the experience that we have or the understanding that we hold. There is more. It is waiting for us. Now let us learn to truly follow Jesus. Now let us understand the gospel. And pray. And God will help us. GCO
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