Reading: Acts 10:36,44.
It is that little parenthesis in verse 36 which has been
holding my attention today and I believe pressing itself upon me for a brief
word this evening. Probably there is no greater parenthesis, or even direct
statement, in the whole range of Scripture than that simple, precise statement: "He is Lord of all," and it is important to recognise, to take account of
the text. It does not say He will be Lord of all, it says He is Lord of all,
and as you will notice it is a parallel statement to that which occurred in
the second chapter: "God hath made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom
ye crucified." Chapter 2 and chapter 10 as most of you know, are companion
chapters. The one is the counterpart of the other. One is the Jewish Pentecost
and the other is the Gentile Pentecost; two halves of one thing. In the first
it is Israel; but Israel only represented a half, a part of God's thought and
intention: the Gentiles were included in the Divine thought; so that
Pentecost of chapter 2 must necessarily be broadened out to include the
Gentiles to make it complete. And in chapter 10 the same instrument, the same
messenger, the same spokesman, Peter, is used to complete this Divine act of
grace; and by wonderful activities and strategic movements of the Holy Spirit
and angels in co-operation, Peter is found at length in the house of
Cornelius, the Gentile. And having made a parallel declaration to the one
which he made in Jerusalem to the Jews, the same result follows, the Holy
Spirit fell upon the Gentiles as upon the Jews, and many were turned to the
Lord.
Everything Begins with Christ as Lord
So that the commencement of everything in this
dispensation, and the foundation of everything for this dispensation, is the
Lordship of Jesus Christ, not only the Saviourhood of Jesus Christ, but
before that and over that and encircling that, His Lordship. It is a wonderful
statement: "He is Lord of all." To use the very words of Peter in the 2nd
chapter: "Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted, and having
received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost". Exalted by the right hand of God. "God hath made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom ye crucified... He is Lord of all."
Just to gather up a few thoughts as quickly and
briefly as possible let us remind ourselves that that statement in the first
place represents the act and the mind of God. God's act in relation to His Own
mind and eternal intention, was in the setting of His Son Jesus Christ in the
place of sovereign Lordship in this universe, and there He is now, and
everything that is proceeding in the history of this world is proceeding in
relation to that, not in spite of that, not contrary to that, not out of
relation to that, but altogether in relation to the fact that He is Lord of
all. Although to the human mind, and to all natural appearance there might
seem to be one tremendous contradiction to that fact, one great denial of it,
and it might be said — Well, if He is Lord of all why are things as they are?
Where does His Lordship come in with things taking the course which they are
taking; the awful state of this world? To look at it as it is and say, in
spite of all this, He is Lord of all — yes, it may seem to be a contradiction,
a denial and a mystery, but when you really look into it you find that the
course of things is the explanation of His Lordship and not the contradiction
of it. You will find that it is because the Lordship has not been recognised,
accepted and established that things are as they are, and that the course
which things are taking, which is so terrible, is the greatest proof that we
could possibly have that the Lordship of Jesus Christ is being resisted and
that His opposition to that course is making the very world reel and flounder.
When you look into those spheres, those realms, those lives where He is
Lord, recognised, accepted and honoured, you find a change of such conditions,
you find an entire revolution of situations, you find there that it is proved
up to the hilt that in His Lordship Jesus Christ is capable of doing what no
other power or force or combination of forces has ever been able to do, even
when it has exhausted all its resources — He can do it. There have been ghastly
situations in this world which men by force and by legislation and by every
conceivable means at their command have tried to stamp out and they have utterly failed and had to draw
back and survey their failure and acknowledge that they have not the key to
the situation, they have not the power to deal with that thing, and even
though they may, by sheer assertion of force, have managed up to a point to
hold the thing in rebellious sway or subjection, they have not got rid of it.
It is still there waiting to break out, and every now and again the thing
makes its presence manifest, it shows that it is not dead. In such situations
again and again that which is here stated: "The word which he sent unto the
children of Israel, preaching good tidings of peace by Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all)" has solved the problem, has dealt with
the thing, not only
to suppress but to rule it out, to quench it; and what armies have failed to
do, the gospel of peace by Jesus Christ preached, He being Lord of all, has
met that situation and changed the entire face of things.
History's Witness
It is not for us tonight to stay to go over history and
show how again and again that has proved true. We have said that there have
been terrible things which no one could deal with in their root, but which
have gone when Christ has come in. You think of some of those awful things in
heathendom where little children, babes, being offered to idols have been on
certain religious festivals placed in the red hot outstretched hands of mighty
images, with their furnaces kindled inside, and the fire and smoke belching
from nostrils, mouth, eyes, and then from a mother a babe is torn and placed
in those red hot hands, and to drown the screams and shrieks of the tortured
infant, men with their tom-toms made the most infernal noise. Armies tried to
deal with that, legislation tried to deal with that, and found — as has always
been proved — that these heathen superstitions are so deeply rooted that the
heathen are prepared to fight for them and to lay down their lives, and
although you may impose upon them some law, some restriction, you have not got
to the heart of things. But such things are almost a thing of the past. The
armies have not solved it, legislation has not solved it, the gospel of peace
by Jesus Christ (He is Lord of all) has solved it, and those things are rarely
heard of because of the gospel of peace by Jesus Christ. And I could give you
a good many more illustrations of this thing.
We are making a declaration which has behind it a
tremendous amount of evidence. "He is Lord of all." There is nothing too great for His
Lordship. God has appointed Him and placed Him Lord of all, and that is a fact
which has got to be reckoned with. Where His Lordship has been disowned and
thrust away, there you have the most ghastly conditions in this world. Is not
God demonstrating that before our eyes? Oh, if you have eyes to see, if
you
have intelligence to take in the situation, if you have true
information and get behind the lies that are broadcast, you have evidence
which is undeniable that in those parts of the world where Jesus Christ is
ousted deliberately you have the most ghastly state of things conceivable;
and how men can want and press propaganda to bring those conditions into this
country is inconceivable, but there they are. We could stay, if it were wise
and necessary to talk about it, and I would not be talking to you for ten
minutes about conditions in Russia now but that you would be shuddering. What
is it? It is God's proof, that to reject the Lordship of His Son and
to throw it out is the most disastrous thing that ever comes to mankind. And
therefore, it is the greatest proof that the recognition and acceptance of
Jesus Christ as Lord means to change the whole situation and to bring about an
entirely different order of things. So it is; God is going to have His end.
Oh, let there be done all that man can do — they have tried
it before! Their story now is the story of a nation or an empire that has been
glorious and waned and gone to pieces, and you go round the world now looking
at the relics of the empires which set themselves against the Name of the Lord
Jesus Christ, to blot out that Name. God will have His end! This strong
affirmation is necessary because we are not going to be able to reject the
Lord Jesus with impunity. We may get through this life having rejected Him and
come to no apparently disastrous end, but that is not the end. "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment." We shall have to face God's eternal
determination concerning His Son there at His throne. What God says by His
Spirit and has recorded is, "He is Lord." Nothing can alter that, we
have to
face that. But that is the hard side. I do trust that pressing it that way is
not necessary, and yet we always have to remember that we can never get away
from God's facts, and to try to reject them, ignore them, set them aside only
means that we come under those activities of Divine sovereignty sooner or
later again, and have to reckon with them; and all the time we are
doing this we are losing what God intended for us in making His Son both Lord
and Christ.
The Universal Need
But recognising the side of the
severity of this thing, there is the other side. Not only is this God's
appointment and determination, this is our need, our greatest need, that He,
the Lord Jesus Christ shall be Lord of all. It is our need. It is the world's
need. The world's greatest need today is the enthroning of the Lord Jesus. Of
course, we can say that in a kind of general way and it makes no difference
what we say in a little corner of the globe like this. You may say it where
you like, you may proclaim it on housetops, but it does not make much
difference. But all the same, it is true. The world's need is Jesus Christ as
Lord, and God is heading up everything to that. Oh yes, He is heading it up.
The world never was in such a state as it is now. We all recognise the
seriousness of the outlook today. Did you ever know of the very institutions
of this world whose whole business and ambition, is to have money to handle,
to deal with, and to possess; did you ever know of such institutions dreading
the thought of having any money, so that bankers today do not want money.
They do not want your money, they do not know what to do with it; they will
not accept the responsibility for handling it. That is an awful outlook, but
it is only one phase of the situation today.
With this seething turmoil
beneath the surface, we seem to be on the edge of a terrific volcano which may
break at any moment and involve all the nations again in a most terrible
upheaval; and the awful blindness and awful insensibility of so many is
amazing. So recently the cry was "the war to end war," and today there is a
headlong rush to something worse than anything that ever has been, and the
last was the worst that ever was. There it is, and this is the state, and God
is allowing this course to be followed. He is permitting this to head
everything up — to what? To the acknowledgment of His Son as Lord, the bringing
in of the kingdom of His Son, and not until the Lord Jesus reigns will there
be a change. Here, again, the very world conditions show the greatest need
that He should be Lord of all.
But we ourselves need that, the unsaved man and woman
needs that. If you are unsaved you need the Lord Jesus to be Lord in and of your life. You need Him to be Saviour to save you, but oh, what you
need above and beyond that is that He shall be Lord. That He shall be in
charge, that He shall be in control, that He shall govern, that He should
bring in His reign of peace and of power and of glory into your life. You need
that He shall be Lord of all. And we who do know Him as Saviour, we who are
His, we need to know Him as we have never known Him as Lord of all. What is
the need of the believer, the greatest need of the believer? It is
that the Lord Jesus should really ascend the throne and take the government
and bring everything within the compass of our lives under His sway, under
His government, under His direction, to bring our thoughts and our
imagination, our reasons, under His sovereign sway. To bring our desires, and
affections under His government; to bring our wills, our choosings, our
determinations, our selections, all under His dominion; to bring us
altogether into subjection to His reign of holiness of life, of victory, of
joy, of peace.
Yes, the believer who is saved needs Him to be Lord of all, and
I do believe that the trouble with so many of us who know the Lord but who are
limited in our lives, limited in our usefulness, our service, limited in our
joy, I do believe that the solution to the whole thing is a fresh expression
of the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ in our hearts. If these chapters
here, Acts 2 and 10 speak of anything at all, they do declare what a state
of life is where He is Lord of all. Read them again. After all, the incoming
of the Holy Spirit there, when the Holy Spirit came on those two occasions
and took possession, it was only that heavenly fact, that Christ was Lord,
having its counterpart by the Holy Spirit in those who believed. That is the
meaning of the Holy Spirit filling the life. A life filled with the Holy
Spirit is, in other words, a life filled with the lordship and sovereignty of
Jesus Christ. You find a wonderful state of things here in these accounts
when that takes place. You see the change in the men who are most in evidence.
You remember them, the eleven disciples; you remember the story of the
gospels, their constant failure, the long story of breaking down almost at
every point. Oh, but what men they were afterwards, what a change. Defeated
before — now in victory. Unreliable before, now as bold as lions, courageous,
and you can count on them to go to death. Full of profession before, but
when put to the test unable to stand up to their profession. One saying, "I will
follow Thee to death," and in a few hours denying with oaths and curses that
he knew Christ; but that man now in face of every opposition going right on to
his death at last in the interests of his Lord.
What has happened to these men? Jesus Christ has been exalted to lordship, and the Holy Spirit has brought
the meaning of that, the power, the good of all that into the lives of these
men, and so His Lordship is not only something in heaven, it is something in
them. That is our need. What do you need? What do I need? We need something
far more spontaneous than we have. More spontaneous in testimony, in heart
outflow. So much of what we have got in Christianity is doctrine, teaching,
truth, things we believe and cherish about the Lord Jesus, for which we would
lay down our lives, but there is that lack, limitation in the spontaneous
heart-overflow. But I see the cure; the remedy is that He should be as never
before, Lord of all. That is all, but it is a big "all," it is our need!
And so we might go on for a long time speaking round this
great and wonderful reality, but oh, beloved friends, what I urged upon you,
as I am urging upon myself, is that in the case of those who are unsaved, and
in the case of those who are saved, this one great need, this one great
solution to all our problems, this one great answer to all our requirements,
this one great provision for the full realisation of all God's purpose, it is
the starting point of everything, that is, that we should receive,
acknowledge, enthrone and surrender to the Lord Jesus as Lord of all. Not Lord
of half or three-quarters or even nine-tenths, but Lord of ALL. Lord within.
Lord without, Lord of our personal lives, Lord in bur homes in so far as it
rests with us to make Him Lord; Lord in our businesses, Lord in all our
relationships and in all our interests. He is going to be that in this
universe one day. May we not be those who are abandoned from that sphere into
the outer darkness because we rejected Him, but be there in the fullness of joy
and glory of it, because here in the day which was appointed for our
acceptance of it, we made Him Lord of all. "The word which he sent unto the
children of Israel, preaching good tidings of peace by Jesus Christ (he is
Lord of all)."
First published in "A Witness and A Testimony"
magazine, May-June 1933, Vol. 11-3