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The Ascension of Christ part 4
May 31, 2019
Then the Bible said after that He appeared in another form unto the two of them as they walked. He went into the country, and the Bible tells us that He would appear and disappear.
When Jesus would appear to His followers, He would do one of four things every time He would appear:
(1) He would show himself alive by many infallible proofs. How would He prove himself alive? He would talk to them. He would allow them to touch Him. He would eat with them. He would walk with them. He would speak with them. He would allow himself to be touched. He ate with them; He showed himself alive by many infallible proofs.
(2) The second thing, He talked about the kingdom of God. Notice that. In Acts 1:3: “To whom also he shewed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.” So when He would appear to them, He would talk about the kingdom of God.
(3) The third thing I see in Scripture that He would do is He repeated the commission. The Bible says in Matthew 28:18-20: “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” So that’s another thing that Jesus would do when He would appear. He would commission them; He would re-commission them, each time that He would appear to them.
(4) The last thing I find in Scripture, when He would appear to His followers, He would say this, in Acts 1:4, “And, being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.” So He was telling them, I’m going to send another Comforter: Tarry in Jerusalem and wait on the promise of the Father, which is the Holy Ghost.
So every time that He would appear, He would do one of four things, and sometimes all four. Tarry in Jerusalem and wait for the baptism of the Holy Ghost. He would show himself alive with many infallible proofs. He would re-commission them about what to do after He ascended back to the Father. He would talk to them about the kingdom of God.
Again, Jesus had forty days to prepare them to walk by faith. He was weaning them from Him to the point that they could rely on the Holy Ghost. I want to say that again. He was weaning them from walking by sight where they could have faith, and they could operate and minister through the Holy Ghost.
Now, many years ago, my wife and I had two children – both girls. During that time, we lived close to my mother-in-law, and she could visit us about every day. But there came a time that we moved away about an hour or so. Almost every weekend, my mother-in-law would come and visit us. How would you like that? And this is on video, but she visited nearly every weekend. It wasn’t too long that I talked to her about that. Now I’ve got a precious mother-in-law -- I’ve got the best; I do; hands down; a godly mother-in-law -- but some time back I was talking about those early years of marriage and recalled those times that she would come down about every weekend. She said, “You know, I had to wean myself from being around my grandkids and the family.” So her visits became less and less. When I thought of that, I was thinking of this right here. Jesus had forty days to prepare them – speak to us, Lord – to walk by faith.
Now, I see there are so many examples of when the followers of Christ, the disciples, would get in trouble. They’d wait on the Lord. They’d wake Him up. Like in Mark Chapter 4, they got in trouble, and when they could not bail out enough water, and they couldn’t take care of the problem, they woke Jesus up, and they learned, if we get in a problem, we can call on Jesus. “Carest thou not that we perish?” Jesus arose, “Peace be still,” and there is a great calm. Just like in Mark Chapter 6 – wow – in Mark 4, He was there on the boat, and in Mark Chapter 6 He wasn’t. They were there again, trying to figure out how they were going to get through this. They were toiling in their rowing, and they were not going anywhere. There was a struggle, but in the fourth watch of the night, here come Jesus walking on water. He would have passed by them, but they thought it was a ghost and they cried out for fear. Jesus said, “Be of good cheer, it is I, be not afraid.” Wow! He got them out of this situation. Now not just the followers were living like that, living by sight. You think of Mary and Martha. When their brother Lazarus died, what did they say? What did they say when Jesus finally came four days later? “If you would have been here, my brother would not have died.” So they were at a point of walking and living by sight. Do you see what I am saying? So now, before His Resurrection and Ascension, there was sorrow. They lived in a way if we get in trouble, we’ll wait on Jesus. Something like when they could not cast out the devil. “Why could not we cast him out?” Jesus said, “This cometh out only by prayer and fasting.” Jesus cast out the devil. Understand that. But something began to happen early after the Resurrection. Praise God. Jesus had forty days to prepare those followers. We must walk by faith.
The first day He was Resurrected, He appeared first to Mary, then to the two on the road to Emmaus. Later that day, He appeared to His disciples in as recorded in John Chapter 20. The same day in the evening, being the first day of the week, the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood in the midst and said unto them, “Peace be unto you.” That was the day of the Resurrection. He had forty days to train His followers to walk by faith.
That day somebody wasn’t there. Oh, what a great day that was when Jesus stood in the midst, showed them His hands, His scars, His wounds, said so many great things to them. The Bible says in Verse 24, “But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.” What does the Bible go on to say? “The other disciples, therefore, said unto him, We have seen the Lord.” But he said unto them, “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.” And after eight days again His disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace be unto you.” Then saith He to Thomas, “Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” Praise God.
So when I think about the Ascension, I remember how Jesus had forty days to prepare them to walk by faith. I believe this is the greatest challenge for me, and possibly you. I’m trying to work for the Lord. How many here are trying to work for the Lord? It takes faith. I want to tell you that I have faith to believe in all kinds of things. I think the Lord helps me with faith to believe in what we are doing in this ministry. But the truth is a lot of times, if we are not careful in our pastoring, in our evangelism, in our missionary work, in what we do for the Lord, we’ll let our eyes operate to live by sight. We’ll look at the crowd, and we’ll look at a budget, we’ll look at a bank account. We’ll begin to try to think, “What’s my family thinking?” Brothers and sisters, Jesus had forty days to prepare His followers to carry on the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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