GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT – GIFT OF APOSTLESHIP
DR. JIM DIXON
ACTS 11:1-26
AUGUST 4, 1985
It is called the Walk. It’s not a new dance, an aerobic exercise, or an afternoon stroll in the park. It is the name of a church, sometimes called the Church of the Living Word. It’s headquartered in Southern California. It was founded in 1954 by John Robert Stevens after he had allegedly experienced a visionary experience like the Apostle Paul experienced on the Damascus Road almost 2,000 years ago. Through the years, the Walk has grown. Today they claim 78 congregations in 25 states in 10 nations of the world. The church claims to be building the 144,000 mentioned in the Book of Revelation. They take this to refer to a special group of Christians who will be sealed and protected during the tribulation of the consummation in the final days of the world. The people of the church are that group, or so they claim. The members of the church submit themselves to the authority of the church. Not only in matters of spiritual nurture but in their daily activities. If the church authorities tell them to move—to move to another city—they’re expected to sell their home and move. Their career decisions, marriage partners, all of these things must be approved by the authorities in the church. Some of the members of the church work more than 16 hours a day, devoting the greater portion of their income to the church for the discretionary use of the church authorities.
Members of the church are afraid to leave. I talked to an ex-member of the Walk a few years ago. I had lunch with him and he told me that when some people leave the church, the church brands them as nefrolum, title which the church takes to refer to demonic spirits that were created by the unnatural union of angels with earthly women in the dawn of time. He said that when people leave the church, the church views them as possessed by these demons and some members of the church begin to pray for their death, and he literally shook as he said to me, “Some people are praying for my death even now.” The church claims to be headed by twelve apostles, that’s what I’m told. These apostles claim apostolic authority. Their words, they say, are revelatory. Their commandments are binding. Their writings are scripture. You can take their writings and just tag it on to the back of your Bible and treat those writings with equal respect. That’s what the members of the Walk are told. Because these people hold the office of apostle, and they have the same authority as the original twelve apostles. There’s only one problem. That apostolic office doesn’t exist anymore. Not in the sense of the original twelve.
The original twelve apostles were special. Their call was special. They had all been with Jesus Christ from the beginning, from his baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist. They had all been called by Jesus Christ in the flesh. They were all eyewitnesses to his resurrection and these twelve apostles, together with Mathias who took the place of Judas, and the Apostle Paul who was added by divine sanction and perhaps James, the Lord’s brother who was head of the Jerusalem Church. These apostles formed the bedrock of the First Century Church and the growth of the church was poured in the martyred blood of these apostles. These apostles developed the doctrinal formation of the church and the structural formation of the church. Half of the books of the New Testament were written by the apostles and it may be argued that the other half were written by those endorsed by these apostles. They were miracle workers, and the Lord Jesus said of the original twelve that, “they would one day sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of the Sons of Israel.” They were special and they are gone. They have left this earth and they have ascended to the Father, and they are now in the presence of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
The Apostle Paul said, “Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus. Christ, our Lord?” Paul said “last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. ” He viewed himself the last and the least of the apostles, though sometimes he perhaps questioned that he was the least. If anyone says that they are an apostle in the sense of the twelve apostles—if anyone says. to you that they are an apostle having the same authority as Paul, Peter, James and John—they are apostate, or they are very, very heavily deluded. However, sometimes the Bible speaks of apostleship in a broader sense. Sometimes the Bible speaks of apostleship in a sense greater than the twelve apostles, referring not to “THE” apostles but in this broader sense, and in this broader sense, Barnabas was called an apostle. Andronikas was called an apostle. Timothy was called an apostle. Sylvanus was called an apostle. Junius was called an apostle. Epaphroditus was called an apostle. In the first centuries of the church, many different people were called by God to be an apostle in this broader sense, and the Gift of Apostleship must be understood, not in the sense of the twelve and their authority, but in this broader context.
Now what does it mean to have the Gift of Apostleship today? Biblically, it seems to me, that it means two things, and these comprise our two teachings this morning. First of all, an apostle is a person who has been called to missions. An apostle is a person who has been called to do the work of a missionary. Apostle is a person who goes forth, who is sent forth, and plants churches. The word was not normally used in the sense of someone who plants churches in their own home, but someone who went to a foreign country and planted churches there by the grace and power of God. The word missionary comes from the Latin word to send. The word apostle comes from the Greek word to send. The two words are virtually synonymous in their derivation. Both words mean sent forth. If you have the Gift of Apostleship, you have been sent forth to go forth and do the work of a missionary. If you have the Gift of Apostleship, then you sense that call in your heart and in your spirit. Now this was true even of the original twelve. As history shows, they went forth and did the work of missionaries, and they had moments when they were called by our Lord Jesus Christ. This was even true of the Apostle Paul who met the resurrected Christ in all of his divine glory on the Damascus Road, his glory so great that Paul was blinded, but then when Paul met Ananias, Ananias restored his sight and – Ananias revealed Paul’s call. Ananias told Paul that God was ceiling him to carry the name of Christ to the gentiles, and so Paul went forth and he did the work of a missionary.
Now one of my favorite stories concerns a little church in Scotland in the year 1795. In this little church, a missionary came to speak, and when the missionary was done speaking, an offering was taken. As the offering plate was passed up and down the aisles, a little boy took the offering plate, and he walked out into the center and stood in the center aisle. He put the plate on the floor, and he stepped into the offering plate. The usher said, “What are you doing?” and he said “I’m giving my whole life to Christ. I’m giving my whole life to the service of the Kingdom of Christ.” In that very moment, that little boy, twelve years old, knew that he was called to do the work of an apostle and to enter into the mission fields of the world. That little boy’s name Robert Moffatt. He grew up and became a missionary to Africa. He went to the land of Botswana land and began to work among the Bantu tribes, one of which were the Zulu peoples. The Zulu were extremely violent. Their chief in the early portions of the 19th century was called Shockah. He once killed. 400 women right before his very eyes for his own pleasure and enjoyment. After his mother died, Shockah slew 7,000 natives in a moment of rage. That’s the kind of people that Robert Moffatt went to minister to. And yet he went into that region of South Africa, South Central Africa, and he began to build churches by the power of Christ. Churches developed, and some of the churches grew to 1,000 people in membership, and he actually converted the notorious African tribal chief, Afrikander, to Jesus Christ.
As time passed, Robert Moffatt grew tired. He knew he needed help in this mission. He returned to Scotland to ask for help, to see if there weren’t other people who had the call of an apostle and who were willing to go into the mission field to help him. He went to a little church in Scotland outside of Glasgow in the farm country. He was scheduled to speak one night but there was a great storm and hardly anybody was there. He was disappointed but he stood in front of that small group of people and he began to preach. He told the people about the needs of those other people in Africa, and he said, “Surely God is calling some of you to be an apostle.” Nobody responded, but there was one little boy, twelve years old, who was listening to the whole thing. He was not in the congregation. He was up in the balcony, working on the bellows of the organ, and the Holy Spirit had come upon him while Robert Moffatt was speaking The Holy Spirit had touched him and challenged him, and that was the moment of his call to go into the world and do the work of a missionary. He gave his life, his whole life, to the service of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, and that little boy’s name was David Livingston, and he grew up and married the daughter of Robert Moffatt. He received a doctor’s degree in medicine at the University of Glasgow and then he went, sent forth, “aposetellos,” to do the work of a missionary in Africa. As he left England, he went down to the harbor and his friends joined him. Some of them begged him not to go. This was the year 1840. Some of them begged him not to go, but he turned to them, and he quoted his three favorite verses from the Bible. Matthew 28, verses 18-20, where our Lord Jesus said, “All authority in the heavens on an earth has been given to me. Go ye therefore into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you and Lo, I am with you always, even to the close of the age. ” He quoted those verses and then he turned, and he took that ship to Africa, and he went to Botswana land where Robert Moffatt was and he joined his father-in-law, working among the Bantu tribes and the Zulu’s.
The years passed. The greater portion of 32 years, David Livingston spent in Africa. He died in Africa, serving Jesus Christ. Everyone has heard of his great quest for the headwaters of the Nile, but he made a far greater quest, for the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, and when he died, all throughout his diary they found the same three verses. David. Livingston had written them over and over and over again, almost daily in his diary whenever he felt down, whenever he questioned his call, whenever he felt weak, whenever he wanted to go home, he wrote those words, “Go ye into all the world. Lo I am with you always.”
After he died and his body was carried from Africa back to England and he was buried in Westminster Abbey, in the years that followed, as more and more missionaries went to Africa, everywhere they went, they found people who had accepted Christ through the life and testimony of David Livingston. They found communities of people who had come to believe in Christ. Through his testimony, he had done the work of an apostle. He had entered into missions and a continent would never be the same.
Now perhaps God wants to change some portion of the world through you. You see, I believe with all my heart that God surely is calling somebody from this congregation to do the work of a missionary, that God is calling some people from this congregation in this broader sense to be an apostle—that by his Holy Spirit he has given this gift to some of you. We would gladly send you forth in the name of Christ to wherever in the world. He would send you. Maybe He is calling you. Maybe He is calling your children, but I believe He’s calling some. But He’s given freedom. We must accept that call.
You know a lot of people think we don’t need missionaries anymore. This world can get along fine without them, and the world is evangelized. Everyone has heard of Christ. But it’s simply not true. There are 900 million Muslims in the world today. Most of them know nothing of Christianity. There are very few missionaries bold enough to go, to be sent to the Muslim world. There are 100,000 Alaskan natives, and incredibly, we have sent more missionaries—the Christian world has sent more missionaries—to those 100,000 Alaskan natives than to the whole 900 million people in the Muslim world. That’s how desperate the Muslim peoples are for missionary activity, for someone with the Gift of Apostleship.
We think of Africa as evangelized, and indeed there’s been great strides for the Kingdom of Christ in Southern Africa and Central Africa, but in Northern Africa, there are 2,000,000 people for every minister or missionary—2,000,000 people—and the number of churches, Christian churches, per capita in Northern Africa is so small that if we had the same number of churches per capita in the United States we would only have eight churches in the whole of the United States of America. They are desperate for someone to bring light into their darkness.
We need missionaries in South America. We need missionaries in Asia, the Far East. We need missionaries behind the communist bloc, missionaries in Eastern Europe. All over the world we need missionaries who are willing to respond to the call of the Holy Spirit and go forth and do the work of an apostle. The Bible says, “How beautiful are the feet of those who carry the good news”.
But there is a warning, and this leads us to our second teaching this morning. An apostle is one who is sent into mission, but an apostle is also one who has been called to suffer. I believe that with all my heart. You see, all of us experience tribulation in this world, but there is a peculiar suffering that you must be ready to endure if you are going to accept this call to apostleship.
You know, this past week I was coming out of the house into our front yard, and Drew was in the driveway. He had found some 2 x 4’s and he had a hammer and some nails and he was making something. It was hard to tell what it was. It looked like maybe he was trying to make a table, but he had like six legs all bunched together and not much of a top. I said, “What are you building, Drew?” He kind of thought for a while and he said, “Well I haven’t decided yet.” I noticed that he had his thumb real close to the nail. I said, “Son, you’d better be careful. You’re going to hit your thumb with a hammer.” Drew looked up at me and he smiled. He said “Dad, that’s just one of the risks you’ve got to take if you’re going to be a carpenter!”
I suppose there’s some risk to most everything we do in life but there is a peculiar risk that comes with being a missionary. You know the Lord Jesus Christ, through Ananias, said to the Apostle Paul, “I will show you how much you must suffer for my name’s sake,” and the Apostle Paul did suffer. There is that incredible passage in the Book of II Corinthians where the Apostle Paul says “Is anyone a servant of Jesus Christ? Well, I serve Him more though I am speaking like a fool, but I’ve had far greater labors, far more imprisonment, constant beatings and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I’ve been beaten with rods. Once I was stoned, near to death. Three times I’ve been shipwrecked, a day and a night adrift at sea. On frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from the gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren, in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, oftentimes without food, and cold and in hunger and thirst, exposure. In addition to all of this, I have the constant burden of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak and I don’t feel their weakness?’ Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?”
Such was the life of an apostle and missionary—going forth into the world in the power of Christ. Paul was not unique in his apostolic suffering. Jesus, when he called the twelve, when he sent them forth, he said “I send you as lambs into the midst of wolves.” He told them that they would be abused of all nations for His name’s sake and they were abused, unto death, and we have seen in times past how they were martyred.
Some of the apostles were slain by the sword. That was true of Matthew. Run through with a sword in Ethiopia or Abyssinia. That was true of Thomas, the doubter. He became a missionary. He went into the West Indies and he was run through with a sword in the City of Coromandel. Some of them were beheaded. That of course was true of the Apostle Paul, beheaded at Three Fountains, in the City of Rome. James the Greater—he was also beheaded in the city of Jerusalem. Some were crucified. The Apostle Peter was crucified upside down in the city of Rome. Emperor Nero, near the area where the Basilica of St. Peter stands today, and his brother, Andrew by, another apostle, was also crucified. He preached Christ to his crucifier until the moment of his death, when he drew his last breath. Some of them were stoned to death. That was true of Mathias, who took the place of Judas. It was also true of Bartholomew. He was stoned to death.
Some of the apostles died deaths of hanging. Philip was strung from a pillar in the City of Hierapolis in the land of Pergia and Luke, the beloved physician who wrote the gospel that bears his where name, was strung from an olive tree in the land of Greece where he was sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. Some of them were pushed from great heights. That was true of James the Less was pushed from the wall of the temple and then beaten to death with a fuller’s club. That was true of James, the brother of our Lord Jesus Christ and the great head of the Jerusalem Church. He was pushed from the pinnacle of the temple and then stoned to death where he fell. Jude, another one of the Lord’s brothers, was shot through with arrows. Mark, who wrote the second gospel, died as he was dragged through the streets in the city – in Africa—Alexandria. They all died deaths of martyrdom. Only to John was spared martyrdom and he suffered much as he was sent a prison colony on the island of Patmos, and he was almost boiled in a cauldron of hot oil, but they gladly shared that suffering for the sake of Jesus Christ as they went forth into the world to proclaim his gospel and to proclaim his kingdom. The Apostle Paul said, “I consider the suffering of this present time not worth comparing to the glory that will one day be revealed.”
I think that we sometimes assume that missionaries are no longer martyred in this world, but that’s not true. Missionaries have been martyred in every generation and in every century. In the 20th century, in December of 1934, John and Betty Stam, missionaries to China, were arrested by the communists. They were held for $20,000 ransom, a lot of money 51 years ago. No one paid the money and so the communists took John and Betty’s little 3-month-old daughter, Helen Priscilla, and threatened to execute her if the money didn’t come. John and Betty said, ‘Take our lives in her place of this little girl” and the communists refused. Then a Chinese farmer stepped forward and said, “Take my life in place of this little girl” and they did. The communists took that farmer and they literally cut him up in front of John and Betty Stam. They waited for the $20,000 and it never came so John and Betty Stem were executed for Christ, faithful to him until the last moment. They were beheaded in a public execution. The Christians took that little 3-month-old little girl, Helen Priscilla, and they rescued her and they brought her to the United States. She is grown up now and she is a missionary to China, simply because she’s called, and no amount of suffering can change that call. She. will serve Jesus Christ with all of her life.
You know there’s very few missionaries who are martyred. John and Betty Stan were one of eight couples sent by Moody Bible Institute to China and all eight were martyred, but that’s not really that common in this world. The different type of suffering that missionaries experience, the suffering of being away from home in an alien culture trying to plant churches, in a society that is strange to them, living in the midst of many hardships and in a world that does not have all the conveniences of this great country.
I read the story just recently of Bruce Olson. He was 16 years-old when he was sitting in a church in America. A missionary came to speak. This missionary fit every stereotype that Bruce Olson had in his mind. This missionary wore a polka dot green shirt, baggy grey slacks, He had on an orange tie and tennis shoes. Bruce Olson thought “what a loser!”, but as the missionary began to speak, there was love that came from his heart. There was a power from his presence, in his presence, that came from God. The missionary showed slides and movies as sometimes missionaries do. Bruce Olson remembered seeing some slides of poverty-stricken people in the midst of the cities of New Guinea. This missionary was named Dr. Rayburn. He was a missionary to New Guinea, and he showed slides and movies of people starving in the cities and people who wore rags for clothes, people barely alive, and some shots of people eating rats. Bruce Olson could remember just seeing the tail go in the mouth and zap! the rat was gone. It was all they had to eat. The missionary stood in front of the audience, and he said “I minister amongst the people who are starving, amongst the people who are disease riddled, amongst the people who are living in ignorance and of people who are eating rats, but most of all they are a people who are starving for a knowledge of Jesus Christ. How can you sit there comfortably in your pews and accept that?”
Most of the people didn’t have any trouble accepting that but Bruce Olson did, because he was being called in that very moment to go forth and be a missionary. He went home and he fought the idea. He said, “God, I don’t want to be a missionary. I don’t want to wear polka dot green shirts, baggy gray slacks and orange ties. I don’t want to be a loser.” But he knew God was calling him, so three years later at the age of 19, Bruce Olson went to the Motolean tribespeople in Colombia, South America. He is still ministering there today. He has written a book called “Bruchko” describing some of his incredible experiences as a missionary for Jesus Christ. In one such incidence, he describes where he was marching through the tropical rain forests, going from one of the churches to another church that he had founded and established. He had been three days without food, and he was starving. He was so tired, he just wanted to sit and rest for a while, but soon his rest became sleep. He found himself fast asleep and he was dreaming. He dreamed that a beautiful butterfly came down and fluttered about and landed on his face and kind of walked over his mouth, and he could feel the butterfly tickling his mouth in his dream, and he reached up to grab that butterfly and suddenly he woke up, found his hands to his mouth and he was holding a worm. The worm had actually crawled up from his stomach, hungry. From that experience, Bruce Olson said he learned always to eat at least one meal a day just to keep the worms happy, but you ask yourself how anyone could live like that why anyone would choose to live like that, but they choose to live like that for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Mark and Nancy Moore are two good friends of Barb and I. Mark is a pastor over at Faith Presbyterian Church in Aurora, and I had the privilege of working with Mark, of laboring with Mark, for nine years. For ten years Mark and Nancy were missionaries to Africa where Mark and Nancy built- churches, excuse me, down in Brazil where they built churches and Mark flew an airplane into little, tiny jungle landing strips. There was barely room to land a plane which was quite amazing. Mark was able to do that since he has a hard time today just negotiating traffic with his car, but God gave him grace. They were down there for ten years, and they served Christ faithfully. Three of their daughters, in fact they only have three daughters, they were all born down in Brazil. When they came back to States, all three daughters and Mark and Nancy had worms living inside of them. It took a long time to recover from life in that foreign country. The three daughters are grown and two of them have returned to the mission field and the third one is considering it. I talked to Mark just recently and he and Nancy are longing once more to go back to-the mission field, simply because whatever suffering was there—it pales when compared to the joy of serving Christ and the Kingdom of Christ, simply because they know what it’s like to have that call in their life and heart.
My roommate in seminary was named John Haskells, and John became a missionary in Bowma in the Sudan in Northern Africa and John, just a little over a year ago, was captured by a radical revolutionary group in the Sudan. They threatened his life, and they bounced hand grenades in front of his face and they fired rifle shots in the wall above his head. His wife, Guinn, and their children didn’t know whether John would live or die. Be the grace of God, John was released and given a sabbatical, and the family came back here to the States. Barb and I had breakfast with them, and incredibly, John and Guinn just couldn’t wait to go back and fulfill their call, continue to minister in Bowma. Today there are back there. The government has allowed them to return, and they continue to serve Christ in that place.
The Lord Jesus said “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray the Lord to send more laborers into the harvest,” Each and every one of you, I truly believe, in some sense are called to be apostles, apostolos, you are all sent forth into whatever community in which you live, whatever place of business, you are – called to bear the name of Jesus Christ—no matter what the suffering. I think sometimes we refuse to do the work of a missionary simply because we’re not willing to suffer. Jesus said, “If anyone would crime after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” Those words have special meaning to missionaries. They should have special meaning to you. This life was never meant to be a resort. It was meant to be a mission field in which we work. It was never meant to be a vacation. It was meant to be a labor of love. We have this promise from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that if we would enter into this labor, the labor of His Kingdom, he’ll never fail us. The same promise he gave to David Livingston, he gives to you. “Lo. I am with you always, even to the close of the age.” Let’s pray.