Aug 18
5
It Pleased the Lord Through Preaching
Acts 12: 25, 13: 1-3
In this text, we have the account of how the Lord faithfully sent forth Barnabas and Saul to the Gentile world. God has an elect people whom he has determined to save OUT OF all corners and people of this world in Christ Jesus. (Genesis 22: 17, 18 Christ the Seed-Gal. 3: 16; Galatians 3:8, 9.)
This gospel of Christ the Seed was preached unto Abraham and this same gospel shall be preached to all God’s elect scattered throughout the entire world. God uses his church to do so. The very wisdom of God which chose his people in Christ, the very wisdom which accomplished the work whereby mercy and peace have met in harmony in Christ our Substitute, is the same wisdom of God which chose that the instrument he would use to proclaim his gospel would be his church in this world.
The believer–who is perfectly complete in Christ to enter glory right now–remains in this world because God choose to use saved sinners to carry his gospel to his elect and save them through the gospel of our glorified Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 1:21.)
Just as the work of election, of redemption, and of regeneration is the work of our triune God even so the work of raising and equipping his witnesses is the work of our Lord. God’s ambassadors’ are called of God; God gives his saints a heart to recognize his messengers and to support them in God’s work; God separates them to the work he would have them to do; God’s messengers are filled and led by the Spirit of God. Thus they go forth preaching the gospel of Christ and him crucified.
Clay Curtis.