Acts 1 — Bill Gallatin

This Bible study was recorded at Calvary Chapel of the Finger Lakes and was taught by Pastor Bill Gallatin. This evening we begin with the Book of Acts, Chapter 1, Verse 1. The Book of Acts. Let's bow our hearts before the Lord.

Father, we ask that by the Holy Spirit you would enable us to receive those things that you have for us tonight, Lord, that you might speak clearly through your word, that we might be able to share in such a way, Father, that you could touch every heart here tonight.

Lord, that it come of their own will, because of their love for Christ, a desire to grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and an understanding of the love of Jesus Christ and the work and the power of the blessed Holy Spirit in the church and in our lives.

So, dear Lord, we invite you now to be glorified, to minister to our hearts by the power of your Holy Spirit as you study the Book of Acts together. May Jesus be glorified in your name be magnified, Father.

In Jesus' name, Amen. I've got...you're going to have to bear with me...the pollen is so high, it's affecting the microphone. It never ends with me, does it? I've never, in all the years I've been living in New York, had gotten a sinus infection from allergies.

So there's a first here. It really must be quite high. OK, the Book of Acts. We know, without a doubt, it's written by Luke. Tradition has it that his reference to Theophilus here in the first verse...Theophilus means loved of God.

Now, it could be a general reference to whoever's reading this, O loved of God, and that is wonderful to know that we are all loved of God in the New Testament and the epistles in the New Testament are all written to those that are loved of God, that's you and I.

Luke’s Authorship and the Meaning of Theophilus

But the general consensus, and I agree with it, that Theophilus is a person and tradition has it that he was an extremely wealthy man and that Luke, the only Gentile writer of the New Testament, was his slave and he purchased Luke's freedom.

And Theophilus was also a very dear friend of the Apostle Paul, and because of the Apostle Paul's ministry and travels and constant infirmities and sicknesses and problems, Luke being a physician, Theophilus gave him his freedom and then allowed him to travel with Paul in his ministry to care for him and to watch over him.

It's interesting also that Paul having the power of the Holy Spirit and the miraculous working in his life, but in his own personal life as he prayed for others in a dynamic way, and we have the record of it, in his own personal life it caused him to depend upon God.

There are many times when God supernaturally did not heal him and he needed Luke. We also know that these accounts are very descriptive and accurate. Luke writing one of the Gospels, not being an eyewitness, it's interesting God did choose him because being a physician and a doctor, he would be very exact in writing down facts and receiving facts, and so Luke probably did much interviewing of eyewitness accounts of the things that took place in the Gospels, and being a physician, having a very clear mind and a mind that would be very careful in writing down the facts, did write them down in the Gospel of Luke.

And then he's writing here, making reference to it. It's interesting he ends it by, in Luke, you know, he makes the reference where Jesus tells the Apostles to carry in Jerusalem until they be endued with power from on high, and now he carries right over into the book of Acts in this treatise that he writes, and he begins it by saying that this is going to take place, or he gives us the record of this outpouring of the Holy Spirit which takes place on Pentecost, or the baptism that we refer to as the Holy Spirit.

He begins by saying, the former treatise, have I made O Theophilus, or O Beloved of God. Now, you can insert your name there. Now, stop and think of this, that God loves you so much that he's written all these letters.

These are love letters of God's grace, mercy and assurance to you. You're just as beloved as Theophilus. Jesus loves you just as much. And so, he's had the Holy Spirit write these things for your edification, for your encouragement, for your hope, for your assurance, and especially when he brings out the beauty of the work of the Holy Spirit that's going to work in your lives.

Something that we have that's such an advantage over the Old Testament saints. The indwelling person of the Holy Spirit to enable us to obey the commandments of God, to give us the power over sin, to give us the power that we naturally don't have to resist temptation, to flee the temptation, to live the Christian life, having God Almighty living within us, the person of the Holy Spirit, enabling us to live the life.

And so, this wonderful letter to bring out the work of the Holy Spirit in the apostles after Jesus Christ rose from the dead. So, O Theophilus, I'm writing to you of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach.

And there he's making reference, naturally, to the book of Luke because he was bringing out the accounts of all the things that Jesus Christ did and did teach in the Gospel of Luke. Until the day in which he was taken up after that he, through the Holy Ghost, had given commandments under the apostles whom he had chosen.

Apostolic Calling and the Sovereignty of God

Now there's a direct reference here that there must be some specific level of apostleship of the original eleven. We will exclude Jude because he betrayed Christ. Even though Jesus handpicked him. Now, it tells us in Ephesians that one of the gifts of the church is an apostle.

And then it goes on to list people that are gifted by God, given to the church during the church age for the edifying of the saints. And it's interesting when it says apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, it doesn't say that they're given for the salvation of souls.

Even evangelists are given to the church for the edifying of the body of Christ. God does the saving and these gifted men. But even though there are apostles, and I believe there are apostles in the church today, there are apostles that don't make American newspapers and the denominational monthly magazines because of healing services and large crowds and stadiums with praise bands and publicity programs and great, you know, organizations behind them.

There are men that are probably walking around the jungles of South America and Africa. You know that we'll never hear of until rain glory doing the same thing, raising people from the dead through prayer and doing the things of the book of Acts.

But I do not believe that there are any men that come to the same level as the original apostles, because Luke here makes mention of these eleven men that Jesus handpicked. And I will bring out something out later to give you the reason why I think that no one will equal those twelve men, even though there are apostles.

Now, the word apostle means one who is sent out. But clearly, I don't believe today there are any men that have the anointing or the ministry that these original men have. And here's a reference that he had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen.

So remember, he had many disciples and he went up into a mountain to pray. Remember, before he picked these twelve men, he spent all night in prayer. You remember, alone on one of the mountaintops overlooking the Sea of Galilee.

Out of all the disciples, he came down off that mountain, you remember, and multitudes gathered around him. But then he drew aside and he picked his disciples, or his twelve apostles, Judas being one of them.

Amazing, isn't it? Because he knew what Judas was and what he would do, but it just shows you again the sovereign power and control of God over everything, that it wouldn't, it didn't hurt the glory of God or hinder the kingdom at all to have someone like Judas in the original twelve.

Didn't hurt at all. Nothing really upsets God's agenda. Nothing can set aside God's program of redemption in the coming kingdom and the finalization of everything in time, and Jesus Christ returning and setting up his kingdom, and nothing can really hinder the work of God in your life, as you submit your life to Jesus Christ, no matter what Satan may attempt, no matter what kind of a Judas the enemy may bring into your life, Jesus Christ has it all under control.

That's how secure you are when you put your trust and your faith in Jesus Christ. And then, after he had chosen them, Luke shows us that Christ gave the commandments, gave his life, rose from the dead, and then he goes to verse three, to whom also he showed himself alive after his passion by many infallible proofs.

The Resurrection and Its Infallible Proofs

In other words, it cannot be refuted. Being seen of them forty days, in other words, appearing in his resurrected, glorified body for forty days. Many times, you remember, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene and Mary at the tomb, then he appeared to Peter, he appeared to the two disciples walking along the road to Emmaus and gave them a magnificent Bible study and then had a meal with them.

He appeared to a handful of the disciples of the Sea of Galilee and cooked breakfast with them and ate breakfast with them, had some fish and bread with them, showing that he wasn't a ghost or a phantom or a spirit, that he had a glorified body and he ate food.

We know that he appeared, as Paul tells us in the end of 1 Corinthians 15, to above five hundred people at once. Now in our system of law, to convict a man of a crime, you only need two eyewitnesses of an event that are in agreement, two or three at the most, and you can convict a man of a crime if they are eyewitness and they line up.

And it's amazing, the eyewitness accounts, the many infallible proofs and records that we have on hand of the risen Christ, and yet today people doubt the resurrection. And again, it's the act of the will.

There are more documents verifying the resurrection of Jesus Christ, him being seen by credible witnesses, eating meals, conversing, scholarshipping, and even when he appeared to Thomas, you remember, he came out of the fifth dimension into our dimension and passed through the wall and manifested himself and he told Thomas, you know, put your fingers in my wounds, put your hand in my thigh, because Thomas, you know, had doubted and said, I will not believe unless I see the wounds in his side.

And Jesus was there in his invisible form listening, you remember, and so then he stepped into the room and then he had a meal with him and he told him, he said, you can feel my body. Does the spirit have flesh and bone?

And if you remember, he didn't include blood, because in the glorified body, blood won't be the life. We will be spirit. You won't need blood in your glorified body, and there was no blood in Christ's glorified body.

He said, does the spirit have flesh and bone? But he has a body, a glorified body, as Paul lays out clearly in 1 Corinthians 15. We will be given a glorified body fit for the heavens that will live eternally, never to grow old.

I looked at a brother today, you know, he's been fellowshiping with us. We have kind of grown together here at Calvary Chapel for the past fifteen or sixteen years. I said, we're growing, you know, we're growing old, getting great together, Jim.

He says, yeah, and we don't even use ingression formula. Well, no need for that up there. Just a body that will never age or weaken or be fatigued, and these mortal bodies, sometimes, you know, just this sinus infection, just, I don't know what it is, but your immune system fighting it and you're sneezing and your nose is running and stuff pouring out of the, you know, rot in your eyes, and at the end of the day, you're just exhausted just from sneezing and sniffing.

I said, boy, there won't be like that in glory. I'll be able to smell flowers up there. It's going to be wonderful. Glorified mold and it won't bother me. It's just going to be great. But many, many infallible proofs.

That's an act of the will, isn't it? People don't believe because they don't want to. It's not that you can't. It's a choice. I mean, every single person in this room, if you've gotten to high school, has been given some sort of a course in history and you've been given some facts about some great historical figure, whether he's been a good person or a bad person, he's been great or she has been great and he's made or he's made his mark on history, right?

And it's so old in history, you don't even have a photograph. All you do is have what someone says. Well, this is what a large study looked like in those days in the 1600s. And you believe that they existed, don't you?

You accept it as fact. You incorporate it into your life and you go on with your older life and you're with your education, believing that Napoleon existed, that the king of whoever existed, that a kill of the hung existed.

Yet there's no photograph. You've never met anybody that had dinner with him. Why do you believe that they existed? Because somebody said they existed, wrote some evidence that it's in a book somewhere and there's a witness that said, yes, he existed.

And somebody drew some kind of a character or a picture that said he lived, got him on a horse or something. And it's in your history books. And you accept it as fact. And he's not even the savior of the world.

He may not even be good. He may be a despot, a horrible but a powerful man, and he's in your history books. You accept that man is living, that woman is living as a very fact of life. And yet there's more infallible proof of the living Christ, that Jesus Christ conquered death, the savior of the world, he can save your soul, and people wrestle with it and doubt it.

They say, I need more facts. It's unbelievable. Now, why is that the case? Because with Jesus, there's a sin issue. I can believe that Horus, the great Greek, or Pluto, or Caesar, or Attila the Hun, or Napoleon.

You see, it's not a sin issue. When it comes to Jesus, there's a personal sin issue. I have to reckon with that. And so other than face my personal sin in dealing with Jesus Christ, I just say, I don't believe it.

I believe that Napoleon's real. I even believe that Santa Claus is real. So many infallible proofs, being seen of them 40 days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. Jesus Christ laying out that one day he's going to return and set up his blessed kingdom on this earth.

The Kingdom of God and Christ’s Return

Right now, Satan's ruling this earth, and as you look at the world today as he's trying to draw the world together economically and politically, you know, it's interesting to watch the stock market and see that America is being sucked into Europe and Asia, and we can't let go or we'll collapse.

You know, they're talking about, you know, the great economy, but the only reason the stock market is exploding above 8 ,000 is that we are now so inclined with Asia and Europe that we can't isolate ourselves.

We're not great enough to get out of that market now and survive, and the greatness of the stock market is because of money from Asia and Europe, and we're being caught right up into it, and we can't afford to let go.

We're part of it. This new world order, a unified world and a new economy, and everything being tied together. You see, if Satan, at one day, through electronic funds transfer and computer technology, he'll just start throwing switches and you won't go anywhere.

You won't get money out of the bank. You won't have your heat in your home. You won't get in the hospital. He's going to control the whole world. I've got a... I'm circulating it through the pastors. There's a new patent in the patent office in Washington, D .C. of a microfilmed, or actually it's so thin, you can almost see through it, it's so thin, a chip that they can now implant in the hand, a computer chip, that wherever you go now, they can take your blood type, your body temperature, your pulse, and your medical record, and you can show it and get in any hospital in the world.

You won't even know it's under your skin, and it's in the patent office now in Washington, D .C. We are rapidly approaching that, and Satan's going to control the world that way. Jesus said, you remember when Satan offered him all the power and the glory and the money and wealth of the world, if he bowed down and worshipped, you know, you know, get thee behind me, Satan.

Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only. And what he was telling Satan is, you should be worshipping me, the Lord your God. And he rejected Satan's kingdom, Satan's offer. But it's coming to an end.

Jesus gives this marvelous, wonderful hope of the kingdom that when he returns, that he establishes in righteousness, in peace, in joy. Oh, it's going to be glorious, this marvelous kingdom that Jesus Christ will establish as he fulfills his promises to Abraham, the Mosaic Covenant, and the Davidic Covenant.

The Promise of the Father and Baptism in the Holy Spirit

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, you have heard of me. Now, that's not the promise of salvation.

Jesus had already offered that through himself. They'd already experienced their salvation. The promise of the Father, you remember in Luke 11, was the promise of the baptism and the power of the Holy Spirit.

The promise that Joel spoke of in Joel chapter 2, verse 28, in the last days, he would pour out his Spirit upon all flesh, this promise of the Father that they needed to be the witnesses that they needed to be.

It was a promise from the Father. That's a wonderful thing to know that God has made a promise to you that you can receive the power of the Holy Spirit, and you just receive it by faith. For John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.

So, probably just about ten more days until Pentecost, they've already, Jesus had been showing himself forty days, and ten more days would be the day of Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the formation of the church, every believer having that opportunity to receive the power and the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

Now, John gave the baptism of water, you remember. In fact, John himself, when he spoke of Jesus, said, you know, I baptize in water. But there's one coming. It was a baptism of repentance. You're burying the old life.

We're going to have that water baptism shortly, down at Canaan, Jagua Lake. It's the burying of the old life, doing away with the old, putting it to death, and then coming up out of that water in the new, a signal of that new life and typifying the resurrection that Jesus Christ promises.

But he said, there's someone coming that's going to baptize you with fire. I'm not even worthy to unlatch his sandals. I can dunk you in the water. I'll baptize you with water, but I don't have the power to baptize you with this fire, this Holy Ghost.

Jesus is the baptizer. He's the one that will do that, and it's through the promise of the Father. And isn't it wonderful to know, as we go through this, you can receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit simply by faith, receiving it the same way you do your salvation, by faith.

In just a few days coming, they received the very promise. They didn't know what was going to happen. They were just told away. They had no idea, and so by believing what God said, they applied it to their lives, anticipated, and they waited upon it.

And he didn't say exactly how many days. That's another wonderful thing. Thank God they didn't get frustrated after two or three days. They didn't say, Ah, the promise isn't coming, and then just build their way.

They wanted it bad enough that they waited on it until they received it. Now, remember, they had already had the indwelling spirit in John chapter 20, before this time, before Jesus Christ brought them to this point.

You remember, he breathed on them and said, Receive ye the Holy Spirit. So they already had the spirit dwelling within them. Jesus said in John chapter 7 that when you drink of this well, remember, that I offer you this living water, it will be like a gusher coming up inside of you, and you can be filled with this spirit.

The filling of the spirit from the inside is to conform you into the image of Jesus Christ, to give you that ability to have the grace of God in your life and the attributes of God. When you fill a vessel with a liquid, and whatever stain or color it is, and you look at that liquid and that vessel, you can see what's in it.

Okay, you're filled with the spirit of God. Then you see the fruit of the spirit in your life. Remember, receive ye the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 1 .13, Paul said, After you believe on the salvation of Jesus Christ, the spirit of God comes within you and seals you until the day of redemption.

That has already happened to the apostles. But now, they need to be totally immersed from the outside. Power from on high. The spirit has to come upon them. Now, what's he mean? What's baptize mean? It means to immerse.

When you're water baptized, you're totally immersed in that water, a type of a grave. You're going under, you disappear. The old man's gone. You're buried. You come up anew out of the water. You've been totally immersed in it, and you're changed.

It's from the Greek term where they dye garments, and they would baptize the garments when they give them the color. They take a garment, maybe it's bland with no color whatsoever. They totally immerse it in a vat, a certain color.

That's called, they baptize it, and they put it down in underneath the liquid. Totally immerse it. They bring it out. It would be different. When you're water baptized, you're burying the old man. But now, God wants to totally immerse you in the Holy Spirit.

Totally immerse you that when that's taking place, you're a different person. It gives you the power to be a witness. When they therefore were come together, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?

See, that was their concern. You remember, even before Jesus Christ was crucified, they thought he was going to restore the kingdom then. They were looking for the promise of Abraham. They knew some of the scriptures, and when Jesus was announcing to them who he was, they thought right then the kingdom was going to be restored.

They wanted it then. Well, who wouldn't? I want it now. I don't want to wait. God only knows who's going to be the next president. It doesn't matter what party they are, whether they're a conservative or a liberal socialist.

You know, they can label themselves whatever they are, but we're almost now the United States of the world. We're no longer just the United States of America. We're going to, in the next few years before the rapture of the church, mark my words, you might even see different terminology for America.

With this new educational system, outcome-based education, you can't just be a black man or a white man or have a German background. You've got to be an Afro-American or a Spanish-American or a German-American.

Why can't you just be an American? You see, because they want to do away with America. With all real nationality and pool the whole world, the brotherhood of man. That's the last age before the rapture of the church.

And what they're doing is dumbing down the United States to sweep us all up into this new world order, the brotherhood of man. There's no nation, no identity anymore. We're just all pooled together in the new world order, one big massive government under a social system with one number to buy and sell for passport, insurance, car rental, air travel, automobile, gasoline, food, hospitalization.

It's right around the corner. I wouldn't mind Jesus coming back today. Just think. Look how glorious it is living in that kingdom that no one knows about now. Just being directed by the Holy Spirit now.

Having his will done on this earth in my life. My life's not out of control anymore. It's not chaos anymore. The will of God's being done in my life. It's not perfectly. Far from it. But so much, oh, it's so glorious and so restful, so wonderful to be in the Lord's kingdom, to be directed by his spirit.

I love it. So they said, Lord, are you going to restore the kingdom now? Now that you're risen, is this it? You know, they want it. He said unto them, well, it's not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power.

You see, that was almost 2 ,000 years ago, and they were nowhere near the second coming. They had no idea what God had planned for the future with their lives and many generations afterward. They had no concept.

Occupying Until Christ Returns

You remember Jesus taught, I think, in Luke, also of the man in his parable where he went away and he assigned talents to certain individuals that they would trade. And he said, Occupy until I come. Make busy.

Be a wise steward over the things that I've given you and bring an increase until I return again. Stay busy. Even though he gave the truth of the second coming, he didn't say, now just sit around and try not to sit and wait for the rapture.

He gave each individual in the parable a certain responsibility, an amount of money, and he said, now I want you to increase it. I want you to deal with it in such a way that it's for my kingdom. It brings glory.

I'll meet your needs. I will bless you. Occupy. Make busy until I come. Jesus Christ is not slothful. In fact, in Jesus Christ's kingdom, it is different from every religion on earth. Did you know that in many religions on the earth, it's actually spiritual to be a beggar, especially in Hinduism?

There are men that are almost worshipped and are nothing but beggars. They wander around India begging. Jesus said, there's no beggars in my kingdom. Work. Occupy until I come. You glorify God by working and serving and being busy with active faith, being a productive person in your society.

In fact, he wrote the Paul of Second Thessalonians, chapter two. He said, if a man doesn't work, he shouldn't even get food from the church. If he doesn't work, he calls himself a brother he shouldn't eat.

God doesn't want lazy people. He wants people bringing in glory, and he gives the power. So, he said, don't be thinking, you know, of the second coming all the time. Don't be just sitting around waiting for the rapture of the church.

It's coming in God's time, but there's other things that are important. There are people that are perishing. There's a darkened world that needs to see the light of Christ in your life in an active way, in a normal, everyday situation.

Someone who will be responsible with love and responsibility and integrity. So, occupy. Don't worry about that right now. That day will come. And then he goes on to say in verse eight, you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.

And you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. It's going to start in your own personal life, your own community in the city of Jerusalem.

It's going to spread out. He knew that persecution was coming. As they began to express their faith, their persecution would come from the Pharisees. They'd be driven to Judea, to Samaria, and then the uttermost parts of the earth as the apostles were driven further and further away from the land of Palestine.

The Power of the Holy Spirit Is Love

Now, what is the power that Jesus Christ is speaking of? What is the power of the Holy Spirit? It's love. That's the greatest power, you see, of the church. That's the power that holds things together.

You know, I haven't seen a supernatural healing save a marriage, but I've seen love save a marriage. I've seen people that both have the gift of tongues and it hasn't saved their marriage. But love saves a marriage.

See, that's the greatest power we need. And the power to be a witness, and the word witness there is martyr, or you have so much love in your life from Jesus Christ that you're not afraid to die for Jesus Christ or for the sake of love.

And I think again, as I look at the church, I look at some lives, I look at the failures in my own life in the past, going after the wrong kind of power, not understanding the mistakes that I've made.

I thank God that I realize now the greatest power that there is is the power of love through the Holy Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit. And that's what Jesus Christ is interested in. You see, Satan can't combat that.

He's always trying to destroy. He cannot destroy the love of Jesus Christ. Nothing can separate you or us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Many of you have had some real hard times in your life, had some real crises and some powerful experiences that have been satanic and negative.

If it wasn't for the love of Jesus Christ, we wouldn't have survived, would we? You know, I love miracles. I've seen miracles. I've had miracles in my own life. I've seen a lot. But as I measure it all now, the greatest power, and it's exactly what Jesus says, you're going to need the power of love to go on.

Because love stops you from quitting. From giving up. In the beginning of Jesus Christ's ministry, there were miracles that you couldn't even chasm. I mean, some of them are recorded here. And the multitudes went running after him.

The sensational. The crowds wanted to see food multiplied. Lame walk. Blind get their sight. They heard about him. They run around to see a Galilee. It's just like you see today when so-and-so may have some dynamic ministry and do no fault of his own.

They'll go for miles to fill the auditorium to see something sensational. And yet some of these very same people, after they've seen those miracles a couple years later, you find out they're divorced.

They're not living together. They're drinking again. They're back into whatever. So you see, miracles are great. But without love, without that power, you can't continue. You can't go on. So he said, now this is very important.

Get that power of the Holy Spirit that will fill you with the love of Jesus Christ. And you shall be witnesses. Not only in Jerusalem, you'll be a witness in Judea. If you lose your job again and you're forced to move to Samaria, you'll still be a witness for me.

If you even have to go to another country, you'll be a witness for me. You'll be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. No matter where you go, because of the love and the power of the Holy Spirit, you'll continue.

Remember, Jesus said, continue ye in my love. I think we have to ask ourselves, some of us, we reflect back when we got saved. Are we apprehending more of the love of Jesus, the purity of Jesus? And our actions toward each other.

How quick we forgive. The tone of our voice in an argument. Our attitudes. Are we really continuing in the love of Christ? Are we growing in the love of Christ? Can we just speak in tongues now? Have we got some doctrine under our belt?

I've been on a mission trip and it's exciting. Now I'm back now, what do I do? You see, the love of God is so wonderful. When he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight.

Christ’s Ascension and His Promised Return

Just as he was there, sharing these last few things with him, the importance of love, and the power that just immersion of the Holy Spirit will do for you, the Shekinah presence of God came down and up he went back to the Father.

You remember in Exodus chapter 40 verse 34, when Moses erected the tabernacle in the wilderness, it said the Shekinah cloud of God came down upon the tabernacle, the presence of God in all of his glory.

It says Moses couldn't even enter in. He had to wait for a while until God's Shekinah had settled. He couldn't enter in as the cloud came down upon him. In 1 Kings, I think it's chapter 8 verse 11, when Solomon dedicated the temple, the Shekinah cloud of God came down, approving of his presence, God the Father in all of his fullness.

It says the priest, they just had to sit and wait. They couldn't get up and go in to begin the ministry. They had to just sit and wait because of the cloud. Luke earlier in his gospel said in Luke 21 verse 27, it says when these things begin to take place, you look up, you remember earlier in that text, and then he speaks of this coming of Jesus Christ, that he will come in a cloud with power and great glory.

Revelation 1 says, tells us the same thing, that he's going to return in a cloud of glory and all the tribes of the earth will see him and mourn. Just as he is taken up in the Mount of Transfiguration, you remember Peter, James, and John were given the privilege to be there with Moses and Elijah, and they appeared briefly as Jesus invited them into the kingdom and they saw the living Elijah and Moses and they didn't need an introduction.

They'd been dead for hundreds of years, but they knew who they were because it's the fulfillment of 1 Corinthians chapter 13, that we were in glory, we will know as we are known. No introduction is necessary.

We will know everything. And so they knew it was Elijah and Moses and they were so enamored, you remember. Oh, Elijah and Moses, let's build some booths here and let's just fellowship and stay here. Let's not come off the mountaintop.

There's demons with those people down there. There's trouble down there. I mean, we have to witness down there. I don't want to do that. We've got to go back to work. Let's just stay up here at the retreat.

And if you remember, all of a sudden, Moses and Elijah disappeared and the cloud overshadowed them. And God the Father said, This is my beloved son. Hear ye him. Don't be enamored with Elijah and Moses.

Jesus is here now. My son. If you want to be excited about somebody, you want your life and your ministry to be like something, look at the life of Jesus Christ. This is my beloved son. Hear ye him. Don't be enamored with Moses and Elijah.