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The topic before us this morning is announced as freedom and responsibility. A well-worn topic, but nonetheless important, and a very large topic. I want to treat it, however, not so much in its general aspect, but as it relates to the major theme that we have occupied ourselves with during the conference. We have thought of the authority of the Lord Jesus and our response as disciples to that authority. We proceeded to, uh, uh, observe that the authority of the Lord Jesus is to some extent expressed through the church, to whom he has delegated authority. And therefore, we spent time considering traditions, traditions that tend to build up in the churches, and learning from the New Testament that there are two kinds of tradition. Some are bad and must be adjusted or indeed thrown out, because they go against the word of God and are harmful spiritually. Other traditions are good and must be never surrendered for any consideration whatsoever. We further thought together about the church and the exercise of our Lord's authority in the church, and how therefore we ought to go about adjusting the churches, eh, from time to time. And we suggested to ourselves that in all our thinking about the organization of the churches, our thinking should be governed by the basic principles of the gospel that the church is intended to express. Nothing may be done, organized, or allowed in the churches that impedes the gospel, obscures or compromises the gospel, or interferes with the ongoing salvation of the people of God. In that kind of context, I want to make some remarks this morning on the question of freedom and authority. To what extent is the individual free? To what extent is the individual required to bow to authority in the church? The topic is made somewhat difficult for me, one, because of the time. It is an enormous topic, and it's one of those topics to which, to which one can do grievous injustice if one has not sufficient time. And that because of the next difficulty. The Bible, as you have observed, is not itself written in the form of systematic theology. That's why we do need such excellent books have just, as have just been recommended to us. Where learners and godly men look at Holy Scripture and extract, extract from it its basic principles and doctrines and put them together in a systematic way. They are exceedingly helpful and important. All of us, I suspect, have our little systems of doctrine, which we unconsciously build up over the years by one means and another, and if we are not conscious we have a system, then that system can become a little bit dangerous. We constantly need to be aware that we do have systems and check our systems by the word of God. But that said, we, I, I observe again that Holy Scripture is not written in the form of systematic theology, and my task this morning would be a lot easier if it were so, but I should turn you to the chapter that is labeled free- freedom and responsibility rules one to ten thousand and six. And that would be simple, wouldn't it? In every situation, we should refer to the appropriate rule, and that would be that. What a dull book the Bible would be. Who would read it any more than they would read their Ford manual that they get with their Cortina car, that has similar systematic rules for the running of a petrol engine. Bible is not written in the form of systematic theology. And on this topic, we shall be obliged, therefore, to look at scripture and observe its principles as distinct from laws and regulations, and in one passage we shall find certain principles enunciated and illustrated. In other passages we shall find other, and at first sight apparently opposite principles enunciated and illustrated, and our wisdom will be under the guidance of God to consider all these principles and to seek wisdom to know when to apply one and when to apply another. Therefore, you will be merciful with me this morning, I do trust, as I attempt to cope with this particular difficulty in saying things about the relation of freedom to responsibility. I shall be obliged, in the shortness of time, to extract some things that talk about freedom, and then to go to the opposite extreme and talk about things that concern responsibility. And I may well get the balance wrong and emphasize one more than another because I have not the time to discuss it with all that exhaustiveness that, uh, any responsible systematic theologian would do if he were writing a systematic theology. Have mercy on me. I speak as to wise men. Judge you what I say, and let us all seek wisdom of God to notice the various principles, then wisdom of God to know when to apply the one and when the other. First of all, therefore, the question of freedom, and I want to point to one basic freedom to start with in the receipt and understanding of the gospel. Now we all know, and we have had read to us the passages from Galatians chapter five that point out that because we are justified by faith and not by the works of the law, then are we free. God's freeborn sons, their justification not dependent upon their works of merit or attainment. Their inheritance, thank God, now and hereafter not dependent on their works and attainment. Freeborn sons that inherit their glorious inheritance as freeborn sons of their father. And then we have had read to us the balancing verse that tells us that we must not use our freedom for fleshly license. But because we are free, we are in all freedom, but in obedience to the Lord, to use our freedom to serve others, and not to give way and indulge the flesh. Because, among other things and considerations, while we are free in the sense that there is no condemnation, no penalty for the believer, there are consequences. There is no penalty, I repeat, for the believer in the Lord Jesus. There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. So there is no penalty if we sin. There are consequences, and being forgiven the penalty does, is not the same thing as being relieved of the consequences. Illustrate the fact. Well, suppose, I don't know why you should, but suppose you were a farmer and God had commanded you to sow barley in your field. And you disobeyed the Lord, and you went and sowed oats, wild oats at that. I understand Holy Scripture to say that if you are a genuine believer, there is no condemnation. The guilt of sin, the penalty of sin, is forever past, having been borne by Christ. There is therefore now no condemnation. Very good. I pray consider your field in which you have now sown wild oats. Instead of barley. And as the, uh, shoots are coming out through the ground, you say, goodness me, these are wild oats. Oh, let me get down to side, do something about this. So you pray, oh God, make these wild oats turn into barley. You suppose you would. Afraid not. For the law, says Galatians, applies. Whatsoever a man sows, that he reaps. No condemnation. Uh, consequences. Don't use your freedom to sow wild oats. For while there is no condemnation, there are consequences. But upon that aspect of the topic, I do not want to dwell now. I want to come, as I say, to a more basic consideration, the receipt and understanding of the gospel. You will observe that in this great letter to the Galatians, in which Paul proclaims our freedom because the gospel is that a man is justified by faith without works. In this great epistle, he spends the first two chapters relating for us a great chunk of church history. What happened to him at his conversion, where he went, where he traveled, with whom he consulted from time to time. Two whole chapters taken up with the matter of church history. And you might well ask, what has this great, uh, uh, record of church history, two whole chapters of it, got to do with the basic matter of my being justified by faith. Why do I need to bother about early church history? Why, because your very freedom is at stake. For consider what has often been said about the Christian gospel. It has been claimed by some that the individual person cannot come to Holy Scripture, read it, decide what it means, believe and be saved, just like that. Why can't you? Because the individual could not possibly understand the true meaning of Holy Scripture if left to himself. It has been further urged that it was the church, you see, that gave us the New Testament. And therefore the individual by himself cannot understand it. If we would understand the Bible aright, we must take the Bible to the church and ask the church to interpret the Bible. And only then can we be sure that we've got it the right way around, because, so the argument ran, the church it was that gave us the Bible. And if we were disposed to accept that claim, exit, of course, final individual freedom. To read and understand the Bible by yourself, you would always be obliged to accept authoritative pronouncement as to what Holy Scripture means. Therefore, at this point, a basic fundamental principle is at stake, and its name is freedom. You will not need to tell me, of course, that the cla- you will not need me to tell you, of course, that the claim that the church gave us the Bible is quite mistaken and contrary to the fact. The Christian church certainly didn't give us the Old Testament, did he? And then, of course, if you consider the New Testament, it is a misleading term, uh, to start with to say the church gave us the New Testament, because the church is composed of I don't know how many million people. I'm a part of the church. I didn't give you the New Testament. Nor did ninety nine point nine percent of the church give you the New Testament. It was God who gave us the New Testament, the risen Lord Jesus by his Holy Spirit, by means of certain holy inspired writers. It would be more correct to say the church was given the New Testament through these few, very few, God-ordained and specially chosen apostles and prophets. But no more to the point is this chunk of church history that Paul gives us here in chapters one and two. I do not discuss it at length. I fasten on one observation that he makes. He says at the beginning that he did not receive his gospel from man, neither was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ. That's how he got it. He did not get it from the church originally. Thus he claimed. And secondly, in chapter two, verse six, he informs us that on one occasion, when he went up to Jerusalem and talked with Peter and John and James, says he, but from those who were reputed to be somewhat whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me, God accepteth not man's person, they, I say, who were of repute, imparted nothing to me. Paul is insistent that when he went to Jerusalem, not even Peter, nor James, nor John, nor any of the apostles added anything to him, in the sense of the gospel which he preached. Now, why is that important? Well, take it from a very, very practical point of view. Suppose you had been in Arabia when Paul was in Arabia. Or in Timbuktu, when Paul was in Timbuktu. And you had sought Paul out one night in his lodging as he was stitching his tent, and said, Paul, old boy, I am concerned, I've been listening to your preaching, and I'm concerned. I know I'm not right with God. How could I be right with God, Paul? And suppose Paul told you by word of mouth, or by a letter through the post, how you could be right with God in the words that he uses here in Galatians chapter three to six, and you read them. Could you read them or listen to them, understand them, believe them, and be saved there and then in Timbuktu, without consulting anybody else? Or would you have to say to yourself, yes, well, I've heard what Paul says, but I may not have got it the right way round, so I must get me to Jerusalem, perhaps, and consult Peter to know whether I have understood what Paul said correctly. What is the truth of the matter? Well, if it were true that Peter, James, and John, or somebody else, had given Paul the gospel, then you might be very wise to check. Yes, you've listened to Paul, but have you got it the right way round? Well, what you do then is to go to the source and consult the source, Peter, James, and John, who gave him the gospel, to say, now look here, have I got it the right way round? What did you mean when you gave Paul the gospel? The fact, it says Paul, that they didn't give me the gospel. They imparted nothing to me. So therefore it follows that they're in Timbuktu or wherever we are, listening to Paul, wanting to be right with God, because he got it direct from Christ, listening to him. We may understand it, believe it, and be saved, even though we never met Peter or heard him either. Freedom in the receipt and understanding of the gospel. I pass on to other passages of scripture that seem to me to indicate a certain important freedom in the propagation of the gospel. And somewhat arbitrarily, maybe, I, I, I take one example of this and refer you to the story in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter eleven verse nineteen following. And a very exciting story it is. For as far as the Acts of the Apostles is concerned, it is the first major church outside Jerusalem to be founded. And though few verses are devoted to the record of it, it is evident that new and exciting things were involved in the founding of this church. First, I repeat, in the Acts of the Apostles outside Jerusalem. The first church where people came to be called Christians. Of its novelty, let me remind you by recalling how it happened. They who were scattered abroad upon the tribulation that arose about Stephen in Jerusalem and Judea traveled in all directions, as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to none save Jews only. And then somebody had a brilliant idea. There were some of the men of Cyprus and Cyrene who, when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Greeks also. Did you ever hear such extraordinary thing? Never it was done before. Pray, where did he get the authority from? This idea suddenly hit his head. What about preaching to the Gentiles? Was it right to suddenly get an idea like that into your head one Friday afternoon and go and do it? Well, he did, apparently. These fellows from Cyprus and Cyrene, and lo and behold, the hand of the Lord was with them, and a multitude of folks, uh, believed. And the report, says verse twenty two, concerning them came to the ears of the church which was in Jerusalem, and they sent forth Barnabas as far as Antioch. When he was come and had seen the grace of God, was glad, and he exhorted them all that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord, for he was a good man and full of faith, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith, much people was added unto the Lord. He went forth to Tarsus to seek for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him unto Antioch, and it came to pass that even for a whole year they were gathered together with the church, taught much people, that the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. Reading those verses from this responsible historian, Luke, might provoke us to asking one or two basic questions. How did this church get started? Who gave permission? You will notice one very interesting thing. It all happened, apparently, in complete independence of Jerusalem. People just went because they had to. They were persecuted, and they went hither and thither in various directions to get work, to find a job, to find a new place to live. As they went, they gossiped the gospel. Somebody had a bright idea. Why not preach to Gentiles as well? There's no record that they had to apply to Jerusalem for permission. They just went and did it. Before they knew where they were, there were a whole group of converts, and they had a church on their hands. It's what very often happens, isn't it? Churches just happen. As folks get converted. It was only subsequently and after some time that news of it even came to Jerusalem. And when they of Jerusalem, great and learned apostles, suddenly heard that there was a church founded in Antioch. Hey, what to do about that? So they sent, we're told, Barnabas. And when he came down to Antioch, and at this point we listen with both ears cocked up, he told them that they were to... Now he said, my brethren, well, I'm delighted to see, of course, that the gospel was prospered. Thank the Lord he overlooks our little mistakes and irregularities. But you know, it was decidedly irregular of you to go and start a church without first consulting us in Jerusalem. Now, hereafter you will be good boys, won't you? And you will make sure you always consult Jerusalem before you do anything. Cleave to Jerusalem. No, he didn't. For Phanaos was a good man. What a comment of Luke to make. He wa- he was a good man, so he told them. Cleave to the Lord. You see, this is not mere piety in which we sometimes indulge. The fact was the Lord was with them. It is no mere Christian phraseology that says that as these men went and gossiped the gospel, and someone had the idea to speak to Gentiles, and presently a number got converted and a church was formed. It is no mere pious phrase. When Luke says, you see, it happened because the Lord was there with them, directing the work. Barnabas was a spiritual enough man to see it and to exhort those believers to carry on as they had started. The work had started because the Lord had directed it. You cleave to the Lord, said he. He. I take this record to be part of our great charter of Christian liberty in the propagation of the gospel. For the living Lord is with us. He is our headquarters. What a stranglehold, alas, so very often in the course of history have been great ecclesiastical organizations. What a stranglehold on the propagation of the gospel. We should ponder the record seriously and determine in our hearts to maintain our Christian freedom of evangelization on this basic principle that we cleave to the Lord. When the church is founded, ah, now that will bring us other questions, will it not? And here I want to select various things that lie on the other side of the balance. And for that purpose, I ask that we read one Timothy chapter three. The church at Ephesus was, of course, one of the more famous and one of the larger early Christian churches, crucial in the evangelization of the area in which it lived. Because it was a large church, a church that eventually developed all kinds of problems. And here is Paul writing to Timothy, who had the spiritual charge and overseership in that church. And he is telling Timothy, and through Timothy, the believers in the church at Ephesus, and through them us as well, how we ought to behave in the house of God, which is the church of the living God. And he says, I'll write, I'll tell you more when I come, but these things I've written so that you know how to behave in the house of God, the church of the living God. And we observe, of course, that the immediate context of those words are the earlier verses of chapter three, in which Paul has given directions for the qualifications of bishops and deacons. Let me say the very obvious. That when a church was formed in those early days and had bishops and deacons for its government and working, that church was not a democracy. The members of the church were expected to obey their bishops, their elders, their overseers. There is a verse in Holy Scripture that expresses it explicitly. Obey them that have the rule over you, for they watch for your souls as those that must give account. Within the church, God has appointed some as overseers, elders, bishops, shepherds, pastors, call them what you will. The more you have in one church, the better. And normally spoken of in the plural in any one church. And God has entrusted to them the charge of looking after our souls and at the judgment seat of Christ, as shepherds, they will be called to answer for how they have discharged their sacred and solemn responsibility. And they are there to rule. Granted, of course, it is possible for that power to be abused. Granted again that our Lord, on the occasion of the Last Supper in the Upper Room, warned his apostles themselves against the danger of perverting that sacred task. Said he, you know, among the Gentiles and the unconverted, people's concept of rule is that the ruler is the big man who sits upon his great seat and rules and lords it over the others. It shall not be so among you. Which is the greater, said he, the man who sits at his table to eat or the servant who waits on him? Well, obviously the man who sits at the table is the greater. Then said Christ, observe that I have been among you as the servant who waits at tables. And if I, the Lord, exercise my government and pastorship over you by adopting the attitude of the servant who waits and serves you as you sit at table. So must my apostles and pastors and bishops and deacons be careful in the church to exercise their rule and pastorate by adopting that same attitude of service. They are to regard themselves as the younger, as the servants, while the others who are more important sit at the table and are fed by their administration. What a rebuke that is to all the great career structures that have traveled Christendom down the centuries. Having said that, that it is possible for those sacred offices to be corrupted and perverted. Nonetheless, the command is explicit to the rest of us within the church. Obey them that have the rule over you. They watch for your souls as they that must give a cup. Allow me, therefore, just to place before your consideration one of the leading ideas in this first epistle by Paul to Timothy that shall help us orientate ourselves, so to speak, each within his own local church. That quality, perhaps above all others that we shall need to show, each in his own local church, and to develop by God's help, is the quality of godliness. And sometimes we use our Christian terms loosely, so that godliness can stand and do duty for sanctification or holiness or zeal or what have you. But in the New Testament, these u- these terms are used precisely. You may not have noticed that the term godliness scarce occurs in the whole of the New Testament beyond two or three times, until you come to the pastoral epistles, and then there's a great outcrop of this word godliness. It is the quality par excellence that you will need, and I shall need, to display within my church if our churches are to live together in harmony and to the glory of God. Godliness. We have read that tremendous statement that lies at the heart of this little epistle. Great is the mystery of godliness. Pray, what is godliness? The Greek word usabeia has no element in it corresponding to God. It simply means good reverence. The corresponding verb means to reverence something or somebody well. You can use it, and the New Testament does use it, in the sense of showing respect to your family, to your parents, showing respect at home. There the object will be reverencing father or mother and brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. Normally it is used in context where the unspoken object is, of course, God himself, reverencing God well. And it does mean, as we shall see very briefly in a moment, that in all the situations and problems that arise in a church, our attitude must always be first to turn, so to speak, from our problem to God. What is God's view of this thing? And then respecting God and God's view and God's attitude, by his grace, to attempt to interpret that same attitude ourselves in our own situation. And to help us interpret what God's attitude is, Paul indicates in the succeeding chapters that, of course, we have the example of our blessed Lord, who in these same situations interpreted the attitude of God perfectly, and we are to follow his example in that sense. It is not surprising, therefore, that the first epistle to Timothy is full with different names of God, more than any other epistle in the New Testament. Check it out. He is Savior, he is Father, he is the only God, he is the wise God, he is the one God, he is the preserver of all men in life, he is the only and blessed God. He is the potentate King of Kings and Lord of Lords. For if I'm going to be godly, I shall need to know God in all these different characteristics and ways, so that I can interpret God and his attitude appropriately in the different circumstances that arise in the church. The very first attitude, uh, uh, thing about God that Paul calls upon us to notice in chapter one has to do with the problem of how you govern a church. There were some in Ephesus whose idea of governing the church was to teach the law. There's not been wanting a lot of people of that kind in the course of Christian history. For it is, I suppose, an easy idea to fall into, isn't it? If you want the church to behave, what you do is to get, in a decent fashion, good theological terms, but you get the big stick of the law. You say, now my boy, you will pay, won't you? Because you see, if you don't, you will be lost forever. Now you will keep the law. And if you keep it well, there is a chance that with the help of the church, you will be saved. Of course, if you didn't keep the law well, the church might withdraw, and you would be lost. There were those in Ephesus who wanted to govern the church by the application of the principle of law. It was reasonable. That's how you keep people on their toes, isn't it? That's how you get people to behave. That isn't godliness. How shall I know what godliness is? Well, first let me turn round and survey God, and who is he? He is the only wise God, the King eternal. Eternal. Oh, let my eyes and heart be filled with a sense of the majesty of his kingship. So that I might behave in the church. And obey those that have the rule over me. Because the church is the house of the living God, the great King of kings and Lord of lords. Tell me, how does that great king get people to behave? How, for instance, if he were played with a rebel or two, would he get them to behave? Well, says Paul, I can tell you how, because actually there's been an example case, test case. At one stage, God was plagued with a rebel. He was the worst rebel on earth that God ever confronted. He was, in fact, the chief of sinners. Sworn enemy of Jesus Christ, opposing the very gospel of God, doing anything he could to destroy the church of Christ. And God determined he'd had enough of that. He would make this man an example of the way God deals with rebels. Now, of course, the difficulty has turned up in armies sometimes, when armies have threatened to mutiny. In olden days, the general would line the men up, number them one, so on, up to ten thousand, and one in ten had to stand out, and, uh, they were shot for encrage resort. Then say, you know, to put the others in the right mood, that's how the general deals with rebels, you see. Watch out. God determined to make of this rebel an example, that everybody afterwards might have an example. So he chose one Saul of Tarsus. And how did he change him from rebel to obedient servant? Ah, God entrusted that task to Jesus Christ, and says Paul, the grace of our Lord Jesus, uh, the grace of our Lord abounded exceedingly with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. Faithful is the same, worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. God reduced that rebel to an obedient servant by the grace and the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. Or take the problem that comes in chapter uh two. Ephesus was a large church in a multiracial city. How did you get harmony in the church? In a multiracial city with proud Jews and difficult Gentiles. Well, if we want to know how we should behave in a church like that, we'd better turn around and look at God. There is one God. Are you Jew or Gentile? There's not one God for the Jews and another God for the Gentiles. There is only one God, there's only one mediator. We shall have to reflect that in the church, if we will be godly. How did Jesus Christ respond in this situation? Well, he gave himself a ransom for the Jews. No, no. He gave himself a ransom for all. There's only one God who wants to save all, who would have all to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Then Jesus Christ will implement that purpose and give himself a ransom for all. And if we will behave rightly in the church, we in turn shall pray for all men, all those that are in authority, whatever government may be in authority. Pray for them all. And thus comport ourselves as godly men and women in the church that is meant to reflect God's ideas and attitudes. What happens when I can't respect the elders of my church? What do I do? Here I want to quote one thing. When our Lord was here on earth, the Pharisees, scribes, were teaching many things that were wrong and behaving most unfortunately in many respects. According to Matthew twenty three, our Lord charged his disciples in this fashion. The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. What they tell you do, but don't do after their ways. Would you perceive that our Lord was no anarchist? Why tell the apostles to do what the scribes said? Why? Because at that stage, when our Lord was still here on earth, these scribes were at least men who said the word of God was important. To tell folks to disregard them completely, you would have run the danger that the people would have said, oh, not merely the scribes, but the word of God itself is irrelevant. That would have been a disaster. As you perceive it nowadays, when people getting frustrated with misinterpretations in Christendom, sometimes are inclined to throw out not only the misinterpretations, but the Bible itself. And, uh, try to regulate their churches by newfangled notions that they have spun out of their own experience. That is a way to disaster. But after the resurrection, there did come a moment, did there not, when the apostles could no longer submit or stay with the scribes and the elders of Judaism. On what principle did they leave Judaism? Luke tells us again, great historian Luke, to have a sense of... what is, uh, vital and important. He puts it simply like this. Jesus Christ, being raised from the dead, assembled with the apostles for forty days, and he charged them to go and preach the gospel, to do this and to do that. He charged them, said Luke. They set about doing their charge. Presently the Sanhedrin hauled the apostles before them, and the Sanhedrin charged them not to do what Jesus Christ had told them to do. Said Peter and John, sorry, gentlemen, but we shall have to do what God tells us to do. As it seems to me, remains a cardinal principle of Christian practice. If Jesus Christ has charged us to do something, then that's something we must do, whoever they are that forbid us to do. I had wanted to say something from Romans fourteen about the limitations of the authority of elders and bishops and deacons, or indeed of anybody else. But my time is up. Who knows that out of that gracious Christian spirit that you have all shown in the course of this weekend, you might allow me five minutes at the beginning of our question time this afternoon to discuss that other side of the question so necessary to a balanced public. It is exceedingly kind of you to allow me these extra moments, and I shall not split to your shop steward and your particular trade union for, uh, making the worker work overtime. But I am so glad because what I was trying to do this morning was to say some things about the twin topic of freedom and responsibility. Not to say anything in a systematic way, but to try and, uh, focus on, uh, incidents and statements that express certain basic principles. Principles rather than regulations. Principles that we must learn, uh, to apply by the grace and wisdom that God may given us- give us. Principles that lie on both sides of a balance, so that we must learn when it is appropriate to apply one principle and when inappropriate, and when it is appropriate to apply the other and opposite principle and when inappropriate. And I hoped that my talk would in itself illustrate that kind of balance, for as you perceived this morning, my talk hadn't any hope of being complete and covering the entire topic. Rather, I chose different, uh, things and different areas to comment upon, expressing now one side of the balance and now the other. And there was one part that I wanted to talk about, which I didn't get time to, a part necessary, perhaps, to put the balance to what I was saying when I conclude. So let me remind you of what I, uh, the ground I did try to cover this morning. First of all, to dwell on the side of freedom. Our freedom in the reception and understanding of the gospel. Because it is not true that the church gave us the gospel or the Bible, but rather that the gospel and the Bible was given to the church. There lies in that great difference a tremendous principle of freedom. And so I pointed you to the part of the New Testament where Paul goes into church history to explain that he did not get the gospel from the church. He got it direct from the Lord Jesus, and that means that every man, woman, boy, and child is free to come to the writings of Paul, read them, by God's spirit understand them, believe them, and find peace with God, without the necessity of having to take Paul's statements and writings to some ecclesiastical authority, for that authority to give us the final word as to what Paul must have meant when he said this. Secondly, I pointed to an incident in the Acts of the Apostles, illustrative of the freedom we have in the propagation of the gospel. And the incident I quoted was the fa- formation of the first church outside of Jerusalem that is noticed by the Acts of the Apostles, and how with glorious freedom they who were scattered abroad after the persecution that arose about Stephen just went, I nearly said casually, preaching the gospel as they went and gossiping it and making innovations of preaching the gospel to Gentiles, and presently found themselves in Antioch with a host of converts, and the church was born, no one knew quite how, without apparently any control from Jerusalem whatsoever, without seeking special permission from Jerusalem, whether they might or might not establish a church. It was there when the apostles at Jerusalem happened to hear about it, when they sent a good man to see what was happening and to encourage this new church, that good man, because he was a good man, told them at Antioch to cleave, not to Jerusalem, but to the Lord. A glorious freedom in the propagation of the gospel. Then I went to the other side of the fence and noticed that when a church is set up, it is an institution in which, as members of a church, the members of the church are to obey those whom God sets over them as their overseers, shepherds, bishops, translate the word as you please. And a church is not, in that sense, to be an anarchy where each does that which is right in his own eyes. But a community in which God has set rulers, we are exhorted that we are to obey them that have the rule over us, seeing they watch for our souls as they that must give account. And to impress that side of affairs upon us, I refer to the first epistle of Paul to Timothy, written to show us how we ought to behave in the church and to impress upon us, uh, why behavior in that church is so important. It reminds us of what the church is. It is the house of God, church of the living God, pillar and ground of the truth. And therefore, in that house of God, the quality that we shall be called upon to show is, above all other things, godliness, reverence and respect for God. That is not merely a certain awe that comes over the, over the human spirit when the organ plays deep and mystical sounds, but a deliberate attitude that, facing any and every problem, makes a habit of turning first to God, to ask what God's attitude is, and then seeks, under the guidance of his bishops and deacons, to translate God's attitude in the practical situation of the church. And that that would mean getting to know God under those various titles in which in the pastoral epistles he is presented as Savior, as Father, as the one God, preeminently as the King. It will not have escaped our notice that at the first chapter of that epistle, First Epistle to Timothy, and in the last, God is referred to as King. And of course, the language that Saint Paul chooses to use in chapter three at the end, that's bang in the middle of the letter, is deliberately evocative of Old Testament notions. The house of God, which is the church of the living God, says Paul, is pillar and ground of the truth. Pray notice he didn't say that the church is the truth. Church is a pillar and ground of the truth. Now, if we allow ourselves a little fanciful, uh, discussion, that is always allowed at, uh, uh, 10 minutes to four on Sunday afternoon. Goodness me, if theologians can't be a little fanciful at that hour, when could they be fanciful? And, uh, think back to the, uh, institution of the house of God in Old Testament days. We shall, of course, go in our thinking to the times of Solomon, when he built the thing that is called in some historical books the temple, but in other historical books the house of God. That house had before it two massive pillars. Their function was to hold up two delightful capitals, beautifully chiseled according to the art of the time, with lilies and pomegranates and checkerwork nets and what have you, made to look delightfully attractive with lily work and sundry other adornments upon them. So that, as the innocent might suppose, as people approach this house of God, there were these delightful capitals, beautiful, that might attract people to the God whose house it was. The pillars and the bases under the pillar had the workaday job of holding the capital up. Such is the function in this present age of the Church of the Living God, which is the house of God. The church isn't the truth, thank God, but the church's job is to hold up the truth like sturdy pillars on their bases. That God's truth appear an attractive thing to the world. And if I get a bit wobbly as a pillar, then the delightful capital of God's truth is in danger of being lowered into the mud. The truth won't change, but its presentation could be disastrous. Therefore, seeing we are called in our churches, each one to be pillar and ground of the truth, to present God's truth to men, and to represent God, we must know that God, and if that God is king, as one Timothy one and one Timothy six, uh, uh, claims, it stands to reason that his house will express his kingship, his government, his control. Godliness will mean respecting that kingly government. That kingly government, as we saw, has been pleased to arrange that in the churches there shall be overseers, bishops, pastors, to express God's rule. Means, therefore we must obey them that have the rule over us. Then we turned briefly to consider what happens when in all good conscience we feel we can no longer obey elders and bishops in the church, because, but what are those reasons that might compel us to say we can no longer obey? Are we ever free not to obey? I cited, therefore, one incident, and only one incident. Perhaps you may be disposed to question its validity in this context. What our Lord said to his apostles, first before his death and resurrection, and then after. Before his death and resurrection, he made the point that they were at bay, the scribes and Pharisees, because they sat in Moses' seat. They were to recognize the authority of Moses, the authority of the word of God, and not fall into the mistake because the scribes and the Pharisees were not consistent themselves in their obedience, that you could afford to throw out both scribes and Pharisees and the word of God. Respect must ever be had for that word of God. Danger is always present when people become discontent with the rule in their church to throw out not only that rule, but the word of God as well, and invent ideas and structures out of their own experience, or even out of their own heads. On the other hand, after our Lord's resurrection and ascension, his crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, the apostles, being good Jews still, under the authority of the Sanhedrin, found themselves at length obliged to say, sorry, but we can no longer continue. And Luke, that was what I was observing, just as I had to run away. Luke recalls for us the grounds upon which Christianity diverged from Judaism. That is a very long story. It takes Luke twenty eight chapters to tell, so I shan't repeat it this afternoon. But the Acts of the Apostles is, of course, not merely a, a, a little history to be explained by maps and ancient ships bobbing across the Mediterranean, following now one journey and now two, and at last the third missionary journey, or were there four? I could never remember. It is a serious historical document, concentrating our attention on those points where Christianity diverged from Judaism. Because if you will notice the point at which Christianity diverged from Judaism, you will then discover what is essential Christianity. So essential that the Christians could no longer continue with Judaism. Because to continue with Judaism would be to deny Christianity. Therefore, the Acts of the Apostles remains an exceedingly important document for us to understand essential Christianity, for Christendom has shown an alarming tendency over the centuries gradually to slip back from Christianity into Judaism. What are those points at which we must stick and stand? Because not to stick and stand would be to compromise essential Christianity. Luke is written to help us see what those points are. The very first one of them, of course, is the person of Jesus Christ. Christianity said that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God. Judaism said he wasn't. It was impossible to compromise on the two. When they came to the crux in that first part of the Act, and that's all I shall refer to. It resolved itself to this. Jesus Christ charged them to go and preach in his name. The Sanhedrin commander charged them not to preach in his name. They had no option but to obey the Lord and, uh, reject the verdict of the Senate. That was a momentous step for those apostles to take. Remember, pray, that Peter was only a fisherman, as they say. Uh, but as he came to his decision, he found great comfort and guidance in God's holy word. He found it written, found it in the Psalm, actually, that the stone would be rejected by the very builder. And to see that the Sanhedrin and there were the very builders spoken of, who had rejected the stone that is Jesus Christ. Facing their decisions on that word and the leading of the Holy Spirit and plain straightforward necessity to obey Christ, they obeyed Christ rather than men, and Christianity took its first step to diverge from Judaism. That's a big historical story. There were other issues over which Christianity diverged from Judaism, and Acts, as I say, relates them. If we would maintain a Christian testimony in our world, we must take trouble to study our Acts of the Apostles and perceive what those essential features are. We might maintain true Christianity and not slip back intentionally or unintentionally into a kind of a Christianized Judaism. As we do so, I suggest still our attitude should be a positive rather than a negative one. What principle of action here? This, I must obey the Lord Jesus. That's what it is. Finally, and in the last analysis, I must obey the Lord. If the sanatorium won't let me, or somebody else won't let me, well then in the end, I must, in all humility, but I must obey the Lord. Finally, the other passage I wanted to point you to, to put another balance, if not a check, to what I have been saying, is the passage we read this morning in Romans fourteen. I have stressed, as you have heard, uh, the duty that we are under as individual believers to obey the elders and submit to the elders in our churches. There are limits, are there not? To the right of other folks to tell us as individuals what to do. And this is therefore one of those classic passages in which the Holy Spirit insists that as individuals, we must stand on our own two feet before God and not allow other folks to overrule our decisions. Now, chapter fourteen of the Epistle to the Romans deals with what the systematic theologians are want to quote, want to describe as things indifferent. Should you eat meat, or shouldn't you eat meat? Should you eat cabbage, broccoli, and sprouts, or may you eat venison and pork? Should you observe one day above another, or all days alike? Points over which people have genuine consciences for one reason and another. Points over which the New Testament itself does not lay down the law. Now, we must be careful to see what kind of things are here being discussed, because where the New Testament itself does say what we should do, do it we should. There are large numbers of things, are there not, in life, where the New Testament has not given any positive command or any positive prohibition. Sometimes we wish, some of us, that the New Testament had. Wouldn't life be easy if you could turn up rule two thousand and sixty five and that would give you the precise answer as to whether you should or should not eat pork. Whether you should or should not keep Christmas. Is Sunday a Sabbath or isn't it? And so forth and so on. And the question arises, why hasn't God? He had all the resources of heaven to do it with. Thousands of angels, each willing to pen another regulation. Why didn't he give us regulations covering every second of life and every activity that so we could always, uh, just look up the book and do it? Well, he hasn't anyway. And if we believe in inspiration of Holy Scripture, we must decide that he didn't intend to. Why not? I am going to suggest that the reason why he didn't is at least in part, as chapter fourteen seems to indicate, that he wanted to develop in each individual Christian a sense of responsibility direct to the Lord Jesus. I have a car. I think it's a... it's a... it's called a golf, but I don't anything to do with golf. It's one of the, somebody made it anyway. I got a book, and when the thing goes wrong, I look at the book, I do what it says, kick it here or push it there or something, and it goes. And you know, when I've done it, I no more know the maker than I did before. All I got is a book of regulations. Suppose I didn't have a book of regulations, and the thing wouldn't start in the morning, I should have to go and see the man who made it. And suppose the lights wouldn't go on, I'd have to go and see the man who made it. You know, by the time I used up that car, I should get to know the man who made it. Ten thousand and one things in life call for a decision, and there isn't a regulation s- precise and explicit in the book. It drives me to the one who redeemed me. To consult him in prayer and reading of his word. Then to make up my mind, and how shall I then, if I haven't any explicit word in the book, how shall I make up my mind? Well, this predominantly above all else I shall have to remember. I'm not free to live to myself. No one lives to himself. Whether we live, we live to the Lord. Whether we die, we die to the Lord. For to this end Jesus died and rose again, that he might be Lord of everything I do. So I've got to live for him. Well, I shall have to try and find out, well, what would the Lord have me to do then? Because the next thing that I must bear in mind is that I shall have to stand before the judgment seat of Christ, and I shall have to give an account of myself. And when I'm called upon to give an account of myself, the Lord says to me, Gooding, why did you eat pork? I shall have to be able to say in all honesty, Lord, I thought that that's what you would like me to do. And if he says, no, I didn't want you to do that at all, I shall have to be in a position to say, sorry, Lord, but I did pray about it, and I did think about it, and when I decided that I would eat this pork, I actually gave thanks for it, and I really thought this is what you would have me do. If he says to me, why didn't you observe that holy day? I don't think he will, but suppose he said, why didn't you observe during that holy day? Now watch, I, I have to be careful that I'm not in the position that I have to answer, well, Lord, actually, in my own heart, I thought I ought to. You know, I thought really in my own heart that that's what you wanted me to do, but Mr. Smith said I wasn't to do it, so... I didn't do it. What do you think the Lord will say? Pray tell me, who is Mr. Smith? Did Mr. Smith die for you? Is Mr. Smith Lord of your life? Okay, my good man Gooding, I die for you, that I might be Lord. And if you really, in your heart of hearts, think that I would have you do something, then that's something you must do. Mr. Smith may be a good man, for all I know, but he mustn't usurp the place of the Lord in anybody's life. That's why we have to be very careful ourselves, isn't it, how we treat other people. Says Paul, you see, him that is weak in the faith receive you, yet not to doubtful disputations. One man hath faith to eat all things, but he that is weak eateth herbs. Let him not, let not him that eateth says it naught him that eateth not, and let not him that eateth not judge him that eateth, for God has received him. Who art thou that judgest the servant of another? To his own Lord he standeth or foreth. Yeah, he should be met, he shall be made to stand, for the Lord has power to make him stand. We are ultimately the Lord's servant. In that sense, not the servants of men, though we serve all men if we can. Our controller is the Lord. Very good then. If one man regards a day, he regards it to the Lord. Another man doesn't regard the day. Well, that's because he doesn't think that the Lord wants him to regard it anyway. He is to be fully persuaded in his own mind as to what the Lord would have him do. I repeat, if there's an explicit scripture, that's the end of the matter. That's what the Lord wants. But if there's no explicit scripture on such things, then each must be fully persuaded before the Lord in his own mind. Let's take now an example of something I mustn't do. Think of something in your own heart, and you know that it would be, uh, not the best kind of thing to do for a Christian. Hm? We'll call it X. X is a thing that you think is not really the best thing for a Christian to do. Let's suppose you're right, shall we? You're right. It isn't really the best kind of thing for a Christian to do, to do X. Certainly, a Christian doesn't have to do it. And you're right, really. A Christian doesn't have to do this thing X. But here is a believer, and he has a conscience about it, and he thinks he ought to do X. So he thinks he ought to do it. Actually, he doesn't have to do it, if only he knew, but he thinks he ought to. And he does this thing because he feels the Lord would have him do it. And I come along, and with my superior knowledge, I tell him, no, you're not to do it. So just because I say so, he doesn't do it. You say, does it matter? I stopped him doing the thing, but he didn't have to do it anyway. But I stopped him doing it. Does it matter? Yes, it matters. Because, you see, I've come in between his conscience and the law. And in his heart, he still thinks he ought to do it, but I stopped him doing it, so he's not done it, but he's got a bad conscience about it. Because in his heart he thought he ought to do it to please the Lord, and now he hasn't done it. And I have spoiled a man's conscience and spoiled his obedience to the Lord. That is clearly a thing I mustn't do, is it, isn't it? For if I get that good man in the habit of doing things or not doing them simply because I say so, even if what he does is then right, I have now made him do another wrong. I've made him do things or not do things simply because I said so, in defiance of what he thinks the Lord would have him do. And I mustn't do it. I must say I view with alarm that ever recurrent phenomenon, phenomenon in the spiritual world of leaders overstepping their God-given commission, and instead of seeing that in the house of the Lord, the explicit commands of the Lord are performed, go outside it and insist on ruling other people's lives in all sorts of connections for which they have no explicit biblical authority. They do it certainly with good intention. They are anxious that the people in their charge shall live godly lives, but in out stepping over the God-given boundaries of rule in the church, they are ruining the very thing that they were meant to be producing. They should have been producing in each believer a sense of constant referral to the Lord Jesus, and the believer's growth to mature adulthood in spiritual things by being himself responsible to the Lord and taking responsible decisions for which he personally will have to answer responsibly at the judgment seat of Christ. And instead of a mature Christian who can take responsible, uh, decisions responsibly before Christ, they are producing people who in the end have no decision of their own and act simply because they're made to by their leaders. I repeat, that is to ruin the very thing that Christ was trying to produce in the character of the believer. Even simple justice and fair play would approve, wouldn't it, what Paul finally says on the matter. You must be fully persuaded in your own mind. You must take every decision you take in these things indifferent, these things in which there is no explicit command, you must take every decision you take as those who live to the Lord. Your final criterion that you honestly believe in your heart that the Lord would have you do it or he wouldn't have you do it. Because, my good friend, when it comes to the judgment seat of Christ, nobody will answer for you. Each one must give an account of himself. To God. So important is that, that even when in these things I may know I am right in a matter, I'm and another man feels the opposite, I must be careful not to use my liberty in circumstances where it would cause that other man to go against his conscience. I must surrender my own liberty. If the man thinks it's wrong to eat pork. I know actually, because the Lord Jesus says, it is mine whether I eat pork or beef or neither. The kingdom of God is not in meat and drink, but in righteousness and joy in the Holy Ghost. But here's a man who thinks he oughtn't to eat pork because the Old Testament condemns it. I need to be very careful then. And the next time I'm with him in a, a, a hotel eating or invite him to my home, I must respect the man's conscience and not eat pork then, and certainly not make him so embarrassed that he eats pork against his will. For if I make him do something against his will and against his conscience, he's not acting in faith, and that thing by itself means that he is sinning. For whatsoever is not of faith is sin. You say, what does it matter? It matters everything. For, my good friend, Christ gave his life so that he might become Lord of that man's conscience. I must do nothing to undermine that habit in that man's heart of living in faith, in good conscience, personally responsible to the Lord Jesus. Thank you for listening and for the kind and tolerant way you have already accommodated the weaknesses of your preacher this week.