Delivered By
Dr. Ken Rathbun

Delivered On
March 17, 2024 at 9:30 AM

Subject
What in the World is God doing?

Description

Today, Dr. Ken Rathbun talks about how things do not always go the way we planned.
We need to remember that God is in control and he has a master plan. He can see the whole picture. We only see a small sliver of time and space.

 

What are we supposed to do?

Acts 1:12-26

By Dr. Ken Rathbun

This time we have Dr. Ken Rathbun here again. He was here last week.

He's been here many times. A good friend of the church. So, Dr. Rathbun, come and share God's word with us. My wife was supposed to be the special music today. I'll tell you what.

We woke up, we were trying to go as long as we could before we made the decision. She wasn't feeling good last night. We were at a youth activity at Altoona most of yesterday afternoon and evening.

And she was kind of doing poorly as the evening went on and thought maybe she could rally this morning, but that didn't happen. And actually, Isabel was sick, too. Just the both of them.

But as of this morning, my son got sick, too. Actually, I didn't even recognize my wife's voice this morning. And so it seems to be that same thing that the rest of them have.

So you're stuck with me, and I'm not going to sing in public anyway. I mean, by myself. I think that's for your benefit, really.

Now, I'm kind of worried about the time, because when I got done last week, my son said, oh, you spoke for 48 minutes. And I thought, I don't think I did that. I'm just glad he can't tell time.

And that's probably where that came from. But I am watching it now because I'm worried if I go too long. Good heavens.

So we're in the book of acts. Well, there's business meeting coming on, too, and people's dinners. This is St.

Patrick's Day. I don't know if any of you are irish. I certainly love St.

Patrick's Day. Not necessarily the day of St. Patrick's, but I like the day afterwards because then I go to high V and see if there's any corned beef on sale.

And last year I bought 29 pounds of it. So I tell you, we like that. My wife's from Brazil, so beef products are highly prized.

So, anyway, I was in acts for my devotions several months ago and just was really struck with what was happening in acts chapter one. And one of the questions I mentioned that commentators thought to discuss is, why does acts chapter two come at chapter two? Why didn't Luke just start with the day of Pentecost? I mean, that's a way to start the book off with a bang, right? But actually, this other part here is needful. And most people don't start their books at chapter two anyway, so this gives us some reason here.

But there was things going on here that I think are helpful for us. And in fact, if I had to consider, and I'm not sure how this is really how this works out, but if I had to consider a title for this, I know I put there, what are we supposed to do? But it's almost the title that might work well too, is the disciples shame? The disciples shame. What were they upset about? Well, there's a situation and I don't know, maybe they weren't ashamed about it.

But in any case, this was an issue that they had to deal with. They felt like they had to deal with it immediately. So what happened after the ascension? I mean, we left last week and with a great verse, verse eight.

And then you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you shall be my witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria onto the end of the earth. That's Christ saying that to them. And then they have, the very last thing they hear is from the angel.

Two men stood before him in white and peril, who also said, men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? The same Jesus who has taken up from you into heaven will so come in like manner just as you saw him go into heaven. So hey, there's some really neat things happening here and that's kind of a positive thing. But then they're onto this issue here of what happened.

And so what did happen after the ascension. We can see here in verse twelve, it says then they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount called Olivet. Now in, I think it's Luke, we'll say that they came back rejoicing.

This was a happy time. From the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, about a Sabbath day's journey. So they're only supposed to walk about a kilometer or so.

And then if you do any more walking on the Sabbath, it's considered work. This is a rabbinic tradition. So they tried to stick to that.

So anyways, about a Sabbath day's journey. And when they had entered, they came back to this place. They entered, they went up into the upper room where they were staying.

And who was there? Peter, James, John, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew. And then James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the zealot, and James the son of Judas, the son of James. Now if you happen to count how many people that is, that's eleven people.

And it happens to be the exact same eleven people that were the, they were all apostles. And these all continued in one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary, the mother of Jesus with his brothers. So I want us to talk about this.

And they're going to be concerned about the betrayal of the, the betrayal of Judas. And how does that fly now? I mean, here we have this wonderful movement that we're going to launch here, and we just have to wait for the promise of the Holy Spirit to come, the promise of the father, and that all sounds fine. But then they were praying.

They continued in one accord in prayer. And when it says in prayer, there's actually an article in front of it. So it's actually the prayer now, which the prayer are they talking about? And it very well may be the prayer that's mentioned earlier in the chapter and where they're exhorted to you to pray so that he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, verse four, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he says, you have heard from me, for I'm truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence.

So maybe that's the prayer they're praying. Who knows? But in any case, they're praying. But Peter comes away with an idea there in verse 15.

And so he's concerned about the fact that they're one short of the twelve because they were known as the Twelve and one of them betrayed. Now that could be kind of a scandal. In what sense do they need to be worried about this? How do they account for, I think this is what they're after.

How do they account for Judas's betrayal? How do we now go forward with this wonderful news about Christ? And yet we also have to acknowledge that he was betrayed not by just anybody, but by one of his own twelve apostles. That kind of needs something, I think that, at least in their minds, had to be dealt with. Now, I checked about the term literally the twelve, okay? And it's mentioned 27 times in the gospels and acts.

Matthew mentions it six times, Mark's nine times, which is interesting because Mark's the smallest gospel, and then Luke seven times, John three times, and acts two times. And so they are kind of known as that. You have Jesus and the Twelve, the twelve apostles.

And there's also mention of them made in revelation in other places. But it's kind of embarrassing that they're not the twelve anymore. They're only the eleven.

Maybe the eleven doesn't sound as good as the twelve. It doesn't have the same ring to it, but I don't think that's it. I think it's mainly that how do we account, how did this happen, this betrayal? Of Jesus had to be accounted for, dealt with, explained and fixed or made right.

It seems like this could have been some sort of scandal in the disciples thought after prayer and beseeching God, though this is what needed their first attention. Now, was it embarrassing to them? Why was it their key priority? Their movement had something awkward, perhaps humiliating, uncomfortable, shameful to explain, and they needed to deal with it immediately. And so that's what they do.

We're going to go back over these verses just a little bit, but here's the narrative. And it says, in those days Peter stood up, verse 15 in the midst of the disciples. Altogether the number of names was about 120.

And said, men and brethren, that this scripture had to be fulfilled. And we're going to see that, that there's the necessity in the original language that's mentioned all the way through. It needs to be done.

This had to happen, that the scriptures had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David. Concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who rested Jesus, for he was numbered with us and obtained a part in this ministry. We have to account for this in some way.

Now, why is this even here? I mean, in my thinking, looking back 2000 years ago, that's not the first issue that I would have thought of, but it did to them. So I think this helps us, and I'm still in the introduction here, but it helps us. How do we move forward when something unforeseen happens, something shocking, something perhaps shameful, embarrassing, scandalous, perhaps even well known.

And this was well known because it was known all over Jerusalem. And it says in verse 19, it became known to all those dwelling in Jerusalem. So that the field is called in their own language, this field of blood.

Everybody knew about this. This is the field that Judas had either contracted or someone bought for him in his name. And this is where he died.

And he's the guy that betrayed Jesus. And it wasn't just an outsider, it was one of his inner circle, the twelve. When I was, I think it was in 1981, I think I was just turning eleven years old.

And we moved to Toledo, Ohio. I grew up in Omaha, was born in Omaha, and first eleven years there and then we moved to Toledo, Ohio. And that was a big life changing thing for me.

And my parents were christian school teachers at the Emmanuel Baptist Church in Toledo, Ohio. And at one time that was either one of the largest or the largest of the churches in the GARBC. And it was that when Dr.

Ernest Pickering was speaking there, we had regularly about 1800 on the every Sunday or something like that. And it was a big church, big ministry. And when they would do a Christmas production in the fall or at Christmas time, it would go six nights, the Toledo police would have to come in direct traffic.

It was like a really big deal. So a large ministry there. So I went to Bible College in 1989, and I went to faith Baptist Bible College, by the way, which still needs your prayer and thankfulness.

And we're grateful for what God's done. But anyway, I heard something when I was at Faith Baptist Bible College about my church that I had been a member of for eleven years. Again, I was young, perhaps in the early parts of it, but it went through all my high school years.

So I certainly was self aware of what's going on there. But I didn't find out until then that there was a tremendous scandal in 1979 at my church, at the church that we came to, and that the pastor had run off with a secretary and gone to California. Now he was a used car salesman.

How come I didn't hear about that? Although at that time I was there, how come nobody talked about it? Interesting kind of coda to that story. The same thing happened again in 1996. Now, at this point I was gone in seminary.

In fact, I was a member of Altoona by that time. So it wasn't even my church anymore. But it's interesting.

19, 79, 78, whatever, rent sometime in there. And 1996 the same thing happens again, same church. And that guy actually probably embezzled close to $80,000 on illicit immoral activity.

But anyway, the point, and there's a dynamic there that actually something was very wrong and needed to be fixed and hadn't been fixed the first time. And it just kind of told you that, hey, if nobody is talking about it, it's kind of embarrassing. Why? Because we don't want to air our dirt laundry in front of other people? Well, yeah, okay, I get that, but how come I've never heard of it the whole time I was there? I mean, you get that.

So I wonder if there's something like that, I don't know, happening here in the book of Acts and why they are having to deal with it. But the point here is, how do we move forward when something unforeseen happens? And that unforeseen thing could be embarrassing, or it could be very tragic, or it could be very, just shocking. Now, the gospels and acts are very clear about three things in regard to the betrayal of Judas.

It's clear what he did, how it happened. He betrayed Jesus. It was clear how it happened that he went to on his own accord to the religious leaders and offered them to betray Jesus.

And it's also perhaps maybe the most important thing that's known about it is that Christ knew it was going to happen and he predicted it and it was not a surprise to him. And you'll see this in Matthew, chapter 26. From that time he sought opportunity to betray him.

This is before it ever happened. Verse later in that chapter and as he did eat he said, verily I say unto you that one of you shall betray me. Now that's Christ.

And then he answered just a few verses later, he that dippeth his hand with me in the ditch the same shall betray me. And then verse later at the end of the chapter, arise, let us be going forward. Behold, he is at hand that doth betray me.

So Christ knew about it, mark same thing. And Judas Iscariot named by his own name one of the twelve went to the chief priests to betray him. In the very next verse, when they heard it they were glad and promised to give him money.

And he sought how he might conveniently betray him. How can I work this out? Verse 18 of chapter 14 of Mark it says when they did eat Jesus said, verily I say unto you, one of you that eateth me shall betray me. Christ knew about it ahead of time.

Here's how it happened. Here's what happened. And it's also in Luke 22.

And he went on his way and communed with the chief priests and captains how he might betray him unto them. Verse six of that chapter, he promised and sought opportunity to betray him unto them in the absence of the multitude when no one was around. Basically that was a little bit of strategy.

John Six. John Six is the greatest chapter. I mean here he starts out with loads and loads of the followers.

He talks to him about and feeds the 5000 and does more teaching too. And at the end of it he's only got twelve left over. So a lot of them stop following.

Verse 64 of that chapter says, and there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning that who they were that believe not and who should betray him. And he spake of Judas Iscariot.

This is a little few verses later, the son of Simon. For he was he that should betray him being one of the twelve. Again, that's that connection to the inner circle there.

Chapter twelve, verse four it says one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should be betray him. It was going to say something there. Verse 13 and the supper ended the devil, having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him, for he knew who should betray him.

Therefore he said, saith he, you're not all clean. And then later in that chapter, Jesus said unto them that he was very troubled in spirit, testified, saying, verily, verily, I say unto you that one of you shall betray me. So the whole thing, this was not a surprise to Jesus.

And some people make a big deal about this, like the Jesus seminar or whatever. Oh, Jesus was discomforted and confused during his trial. He didn't answer anything.

He didn't understand what was going on. He had no idea that he was going to be betrayed this way. And of course, that's not at all what the text says.

But anyway, there's five verses found in Matthew, four verses found in Mark, two verses in John and six verses, sorry, two verses in Luke and six verses in John. This is very well established in the gospel. Not a surprise at all.

Jesus knew what was going to happen. However, again, now we're after the ascension, Jesus is not here anymore. In their minds, this needed to be dealt with, accounted for and somehow settled.

So how do we deal with shocking circumstances that in the moment seem to defy all explanation, our expectations and our understanding? How could this have happened? How could the son of God be treated in this way, especially from someone who is from his own inner circle? In other words, how do disciples make sense of this? And apparently this was a very big deal to know first thing out of the gate after the ascension. Sorry. Peter says to them that they need to deal with this.

This is key. So I'm going to go back to our verses. We're going to start in verse twelve again.

And what do we do when we're confronted by something that's shocking or totally different than our expectations and especially in the context of ministry? In the context of ministry as far as in the context of what we're doing for the Lord and this local baptist church is in that very situation. I mean, something could happen or maybe something has already happened, but in any case, we have to know how to deal with these things. And so let's read in our text here more formally.

In verses twelve through 14, it says, then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath slave's journey. And when they had entered, they went into the upper room where they were staying. Peter, James and John, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew, James, the son of Alphaeus, James, Simon the Zealot and Judas, one of the son of James.

And they all continued in one accord in prayer or in the prayer and supplication. They're calling on God for something. And obviously, I think it's perhaps the promise, the Holy Spirit.

These all continued doing that with women and the Mary, the mother of Jesus and his brethren. So how do you deal with this? And again, the issue hasn't come up yet, but what were they doing? And they could look at later and say, were we doing the right thing after the resurrection? Well, what were they doing? And what should we be doing? Number one, by continuing in God's will. By continuing in God's will.

And this is what they had been told to do. This is what they went ahead and were doing, calling on the Lord, supplicating him for what they had were expecting. And then this issue arose.

So originally, again, in Luke 24 52, 53, they were worshiping in the temple, in fact, returning to Jerusalem with great joy. And of course, who were they? Or what was the upper room in those days, as they constructed buildings, they didn't have steel. Now we can construct a building that has the same dimensions at the bottom floor as it is the top floor, even though that might be 30 or 40 floors above.

How come we can do that? Because we got steel. They couldn't do that in those days. The largest rooms were the ones upstairs because the lower stories had smaller rooms, which they gave them more walls which would bear the weight of the upper stories.

And so the more walls you have in there, the more solid that next story is going to be. So who was there? The disciples, whom eleven of the disciples whom Jesus had called women who had attended Christ's ministry, and actually his mother Mary and his brothers says they're with his brothers. This is Jesus's brothers, his immediate family.

And that's interesting because John seven, verse five says his family had still not even believed in him. So that had all changed now. And verse 15, actually, we'll see that it's actually a lot of people there, 120 people.

And what were they doing? They were praying, calling on the Lord. The father would send the promise of the Holy Spirit. Maybe they come up to this idea that he's not going to do that until we get this settled, perhaps.

But anyway, it was a pretty significant issue. It was a time of application, of applying to God for what they would like to see happen. But it's also a time of uncertainty a little bit, also a hopeful time and a time of great anticipation.

We're hoping that this really thing happens that's coming, that's promised in the Holy Spirit. Jesus talked about the Holy Spirit in the book of John, chapter 14, especially. And then all of a sudden, Peter's going to get up in the next verse and kind of blow everybody's mind.

Like, what are we thinking about here? What do we do when we are met? Now, that hasn't happened in our story yet, but what do we do when we're met with a shocking, unexpected circumstance? What are we about to see? Is that which happens to the disciples? And guess who's not there? Guess who's not there to kind of calm things down and point them in the right direction. Who's not there? Jesus is not there. So here's their really first big test.

And, you know, what? Are they going to fight amongst each other? The disciples were not above doing that during the time when Jesus was there. Now, what do you think they're going to do after he's gone? And how would they react? This is kind of a test. Does God do this to people today? Does he allow unforeseen events to come into our lives without warning, seemingly from our perspective, without purpose or reason? Why does he do that? Now, we talked a little bit about this last week.

God allows trials into our lives, and when we are exposed to a trial, it's kind of like being squeezed, and whatever's in the middle or in the inside comes out. Now, that's good for us to see that. Why? It's not God needing to see what's in your heart, because he already knows what's there.

He's doing that so that you will see what's in your own heart. Why? Because we deceive ourselves. I'm not as bad as that.

I'm never going to do that. I would never have that happen. But the truth is that we do, and we are, and we are in need.

And so when we are squeezed, we see what's in our heart. We need to submit. We need to repent.

We need to humble ourselves before God. And that's where transformation can happen, so that we would have the right reaction when these things happen. And that's really part of our sanctification, really.

Let's keep reading in our text. And how do we move forward when something unforeseen happens? By continually doing the will of God. What does God want us to do? Does he want us to stop praying? Does he want us to be confused and discomforted? No.

And so let's look in our text here, verse 15 through 17. It says, in those days, Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples together, the number of their names was about 120. And he said, men and brethren.

This scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke before by the mouth of David. Concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus, for he was numbered with us and obtained a part in this ministry. He was absolutely just like you and I.

He heard the same teaching that Jesus gave. He had not experienced the transformation of life that Jesus offered. But in any case, how do we move forward? By realizing nothing happens that God is unaware of.

In fact, that's why I think it's interesting here. He's pointing to David in this prophecy here, realizing nothing happens that God is unaware of. And you know what? There's comfort in that.

I don't know why it happened. I don't know why God allowed this. But God knew about it.

And one of the things I see that I have in my devotions that I see every morning is that God is here and he is not surprised. I need to know that. I need to know that because I don't know what's going to happen that day.

And then my whole world could be twisted around and unexpected things happen. I need to know that God is here and he's not surprised. So when did this happen? When did this event happened? As far as when it was in those days? What are we talking about? It means that at some undisclosed time, between eight to ten days, approximately between the ascension and Pentecost, according to believers, church study, Bible commentary.

Bible commentary. And what did Peter say? He says we have something to deal with here and it needs our attention immediately. The interpretation here is that the language Peter used was that it was necessary for this to happen.

This had to happen. We have to deal with it. And actually what happened in the betrayal was necessary to happen too.

It had to. It must. Not only so, but there also needs to be a replacement chosen and installed when they haven't got to that part yet, but they will.

We need to keep in mind that God is in control, even when he seems like he's not. Nothing is a surprise to God and nothing is outside his power. All of this was part of the divine necessity here that permeates the whole section.

It was necessary to happen. It had to happen. It had to happen in this way.

And God was not surprised by it. Can we trust the Lord when we don't understand? Is our understanding of God's purpose and plan in our life necessary for us to obey him? No, it's not, because there's a lot of things that happen that I can't explain. And maybe sometimes I'll see.

Oh, yeah, I'm glad that happened that way. It wasn't very easy, but I'm glad it happened because I see some better results now, either in my life or whatever. But sometimes there are things that happen in my life, I still don't know why they happen.

And I'm sure you can relate to that very thing, too. It's wonderfully freeing to come to the realization that full knowledge and comprehension of God's plan is not required to trust him. I don't have to know everything of what's going on in order for me to know God's nature and his character.

And he is trustworthy and he is in control. I don't have to understand that. In fact, that's what makes it faith that we don't understand and yet we follow him.

We'd like to know. We have the why question, but we really need to ask the who question. Who's in control? Who knows what's going on and who's going to help me through it? And that's the Lord Jesus Christ.

We need to know, but we don't have to know. If we did have to, then it would kind of seem like, well, I need to know exactly why this is all happening because I sort of need to give approval to this. Do we need to give approval to God's plans? No, we don't.

And in fact, we would probably get it wrong every time if we had that opportunity because we're looking in our own small tunnel vision. God sees a lot more than we do. But we need to realize that nothing happens that God is unaware of.

He is here and he's not surprised. Let's keep reading in our text in verses 18 through 20 and says, still talking about Judas and he had a part in this ministry. Now, this man purchased a field with the wages of iniquity.

This is Luke's writing now. And falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his enthralls gushed out. It's very gory kind of image that Luke is bringing to our minds.

Now, he's a doctor and probably he's not very fazed by some of this stuff, but I kind of am because I actually passed out last time I was in Brazil through loss of blood. Now, it wasn't very much blood. It was only two drops, but still, if I hadn't cut myself and seen those two drops of blood, I wouldn't have passed out.

So I say that I passed out through blood loss. So in any case, he's giving us something very graphic here. And it became known to all those dwelling in Jerusalem so that the field is called by their own language, Akel Dama.

And I think if it's all one word and you go by the rule that the second to last syllable that has the accent, then it's Akel Dama. But anyway, the field of blood, for it is written in the book of psalms, let his dwelling place be. Let his place be.

Let his dwelling place be desolate and no one live in it. Now this is Peter talking through this and let another take his office. The King James says bishopric, but anyway, his governing position.

So what do we do when we're needing to move forward? How do we move forward when something unforeseen happens? Well, we continue to do God's will. We realize that nothing happens that God is not aware of. And then by understanding that God disperses justice as he wills.

And there was justice here for know, even though, despite the gory description. Now, there's much more here than in Matthew's account. Matthew's account just says that he hung himself and everyone in Jerusalem knew what had happened.

So this is part of why I think the disciples needed an explanation of what took place. What's the story here? And even this field of blood. So did he hang himself or did he fall down and get cut open or whatever that's being described here? Augustine said, well, actually, both things can be right and it depends how you look at.

I mean, one commentator postulated that he could have hung himself sort of over a cliff in the field of blood, or at least a hill. And then eventually after he hung himself, no one cuts him down, his body swells and eventually it spills out and the rope breaks at some point and with a swelled body it just sort of bursts open. I don't know.

But in any case, this is what happened. But more to the matter here is what's going on in Psalm 69 25 and Psalm 108, verse nine. Both of these psalms are royal imprecatory psalms.

So this is David calling on God to issue punishment to those who oppose him and God's will there. But in any case, what we should see here, one writer writes, is that the understanding expressed here is that God is doing something necessarily involved in his divine plan. Number two, that the disciples' lack of comprehension of God's plan is profound, especially with respect to Judas, who was one of their own number and shared in the ministry, and also yet served as a guide for those who arrested Jesus, and that an explicit way of understanding of what's going on under divine direction is through a christian understanding of that.

These two psalms speak of false companions and wicked men generally, and that can be applied to this disciple and this wicked man who is Judas Iscariot. These are helpful for understanding what's going on here. In the passage, again, two accounts, I think they can be reconciled, but in our understanding, look what happened to Judas.

Now, in Jewish thinking, suicide is a heinous option for someone. You should never commit suicide, especially in the rabbinic teaching and the culture in which they lived. However, these things are an even further.

It furthered Luke's purpose in writing instead of just like Matthew saying, oh, he hanged himself. Okay, that would be shameful and a horrible way to die for a Jewish person, because you're not in the ground, you're not facing towards Jerusalem and all that. You're not buried.

But more so here now, with Luke's intention of writing, he wants to include these horrific type imagery of what happened there. It was terrible what he did, and it was terrible what he went through and how he was punished. So in any case, there, the application, I think, to us is God was taking care of Judas and orchestrating his own demise.

And how often do we try, when we're seeing or observing that situation that is distasteful to us, that we would like to manipulate and change things around? Now, I don't know if you've had any thoughts about Putin in the last several year and a half or so, but wouldn't you just like to say, I would love to just squish that guy out of existence and everything would go much better for those involved and whatever else? I mean, there's a lot of complications to the situation in the Ukraine and all that, but, yeah, couldn't we just manipulate it and bring it to the way we think we should stamp out that guy's life or whatever. He's a despicable person or whatever else we want to say. The point is that that's not our role and that's God's role.

And here we have opportunity to trust God, and God dispenses justice as he wills, and everything happens the way he wants it to, and even though that doesn't happen, perhaps even for a long time. But on the other hand, aren't you glad for the grace God gives you that he doesn't stamp you out of existence? Even though we have every right to, every reason for God to do so to us, and yet he chooses to be gracious to us too, I say, well, I haven't done any of those bad, terrible, awful things. Well, you haven't been put in an opportunity to need to do those things, so you don't really know what you would do.

Let's keep reading. In our text it says in verse 21, therefore, of these men who have accompanied us all the time, that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John to this day, when he was taken up from us, one of these must become a witness with us of his resurrection. And they proposed two.

Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed justice. That's a lot of names. And Matthias.

And they prayed and said, you know, o Lord, you, o Lord, know the hearts who know the hearts of all. Show which of these two you have chosen to take part in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place. And they cast their lots and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.

So what's the point here? How do we move forward when something unforeseen happens? By refusing to be discouraged and humbly following God's direction. Humbly following God's direction. Lord, we don't know why you allowed this.

You knew it was going to happen. It's kind of an embarrassment. But you decided this was going to happen and we need to move forward by refusing to be discouraged.

I'm going to talk about that here just at the end, but humbly following God's direction. Now, it might seem strange for us today that casting lots was an acceptable means of decision making. The point, however, is through prayer.

And the Lord's superintendent influence guided the disciples in selecting a replacement for Judas. And so that may not be the way you decide who's going to be the pastor of your church. Well, let's get several guys in here and we'll cast lots.

Maybe we're not going to do that. That's the way. But that was something that was very common to them for the lots and stuff.

And the zeal for filling the vacancy caused by the death of Judas with someone who had proper apostolic qualifications, emphasized three factors. Number one, the awe, which they viewed the role of an apostleship. Number two, the anticipation of the great work which would require a full quota of officials or the twelve to be the twelve.

And then the need to fulfill scripture. Believer study Bible points that out the difficulty involved in moving forward and replacing Judas and then being ready for what God had in mind for them. Difficulty does not determine defection from the duty at hand.

That's a quote there, actually. I made that up. But anyway, it just kind of helps me understand.

Just because something happened doesn't mean we just have to throw everything up and live in confusion. God wanted this to happen. It was a necessity for it to happen.

And here's a way forward here. And this reminds me of just moving forward. Okay.

Yes, this is terrible. This is bad. Didn't want this to happen.

It was foreseen that it was going to happen. Well, we need to move forward now, and we need to deal with it. Actually, God dealt with it because Judas was dead.

It reminded me of something when I was in Jamaica, and we were working towards with some accrediting bodies, and especially a christian one, and this christian one had different. Every other year, they would have a kind of annual meeting. So one time they had it in Puerto Rico, and I went there to that one.

Another time they had it in Haiti, in the country of Haiti, which is in the news a lot now. I was in Cap-Haïtien. I wasn't anywhere near Port-au-Prince.

And I think it was American Airlines just had started a flight service from Miami to Cap-Haïtien, which is right on the north part of the coast. And so we went there, and there was business at hand for what was going on. But two years ago, the director, the head of the accreditation part of the organization, I came there to the one in Puerto Rico, brand new, and I didn't know anything.

And he wanted to get with me and said, hey, look, there's someone here that if he makes a proposal, I want you to be aware of the background poet, because I don't think you'll want to go along with that. And it was a proposal. It was a president of one of the schools that wanted to take over another school, to absorb that school into his school, sort of like a hostile takeover.

And the two schools happened to both be in Jamaica, in Kingston. And I knew of those schools. But anyway, so I'd heard that, well, that guy, the one who wanted to do the takeover, didn't make him any motion back then in Puerto Rico, but in Haiti, he got up and he realized he was sort of beaten in this, that no one was going to go along with this.

This is not going to happen. And so he got up during the business meeting and viciously attacked in a verbal way, the leader of the entire organization. Now, this guy is actually a scholar here in the United States, but he's actually Haitian, and so he's very much concerned with what's going on in the Caribbean.

And he's the head of this accreditation arm of this organization and very humble man, very humble, meek man. And this guy just left nothing of dignity left in this guy. When he was done eviscerating this guy verbally, he just called him out for every just terrible little thing that he could think of and maligned his motives and his position of authority and just called into question everything about him.

And then the guy who's doing the attacking says, and I'm not staying here anymore. And he got up and left somehow. Got a taxi, I think, to the airport in Cap-Haïtien, which is about 1012 miles away.

And we never saw him again. Now, it was interesting. I mean, it's kind of like that awkward silence when maybe your parents fight and you're like, I don't know what we're supposed to do now, but what is going to happen? You know what the guy did, the guy who was attacked, very humble, meek, patient guy.

He said, all right, the next item on our agenda is this. And he just went, kept going, just kept. Never mentioned, never acknowledged it, never tried to defend himself, didn't do any of that.

Next agenda on the item, we're on to the next stop. Why? Because this is what's really happening. This was an attack against me.

This is not the point to depart to place, to deal with this. We're going to keep going. I thought, wow, that's amazing.

What would we want to do? We'd want to defend ourselves. He never said a word during that entire time. That guy talked for about seven minutes.

It was just really, really awkward. Like, this does not sound like a christian thing at all. Here we see in our passage here the need to refuse to be discouraged and just humbly following God's direction.

What do we want to do when things go wrong? What are our options? Well, you probably know this as well as of other Christians who have met with these issues. To do what? To quit, to give up, to give in to discouragement. But we have to ask ourselves, does God know what's going to happen here? Was he there to see it? And of course, the truth is that he is there.

He has allowed it. Many Christians, many people, I should say, have abandoned Christianity because of adverse circumstances in their life. And you know what? I've done all I can, and if this is all I get out of it, then it's not worth it.

I'm out of here. What are you going to do? How are you going to face adversity in the coming days? Now it's not like you haven't faced it already. I realize this.

What have you already faced in your past? Do you doubt God's goodness in your life? Do you doubt his love? Do you doubt his power? What is our response to God when we do that and we have all done that? Don't feel like, well, I don't want to say that because that would sound blasphemous. The truth is we've all done that. What do we need to do? We need to confess it to God now.

We need to confess it and humble ourselves before God and say, you know what? I rose up in anger against the circumstances you put in my life. That that was wrong, because you are God and you know best. Now, if you're here this morning, you're clueless as to God and his dominance over your life.

You need to trust him as your savior. Give up your dependence on yourself. You need to have God make sense of your world.

Because the truth is, when we try to, even as believers try to make sense of our own world, of our world on our own, we can come up with such horrifying results. The truth is we all need to be humble before God and keep doing his will. This is important.

This is what God wants us to do, and this is what will help us as we move forward when difficulties come. And you know what? The difficulties are going to come and they're not going to stop. I think people that believe that Christians should have this wonderful life of prosperity and all the rest of that know that that's not right because that doesn't account for the daily lives that we all live.

But God has a sanctifying process that he wants to work in our life that results in transformation. And he can have the victory when we allow that and when we submit and we humble ourselves before him. Do you need to come to grips with that in your life? The disciples had to realize, look, is this going to destroy us? Is this going to tear apart the entire movement? We had somebody amongst us.

Should we do this? Should we do that? What should we do? Follow God in his word and continue on doing his will. And you know what? This happens in everyday real life all the time. And it happened in the New Testament, too.

At the end of chapter 15. In acts, Paul wanted to do one thing, Barnabas wanted to another, and their disagreement was sharp between them, and they both went different directions. But guess what? Both of them kept doing God's will in spreading the word of God around the world.

Which one was right? Which one was wrong? How can we decide? You know, you could say Paul was right at that time because John Mark was not as ready yet then, but later on he recognized his value. So I don't know how you come up with that, what the quick answer to that is. But the point is that we need to be humbly ready to continue following what God wants us to do in our lives no matter what happens.

Let's ask God to help us in those situations that come as they know most surely will. Let's pray. Father, I just pray that you would help us as we try to make sense of our own lives.

And Father, we do such a horrible job of that because our understanding is so limited and our vision is so narrow. But we thank you, Lord, that you know what's going on and that you can be trusted. And for that we rest ourselves in your care.

And for this we pray in Jesus name. Amen.