Fake Apostles, Female Pastors & The New Apostolic Reformation (NAR)

I would argue that if there is this group of men today who are claiming to be apostles and prophets, people end up looking to them more than they look to Paul. What are they doing? They're replacing the church with a false church.

They're replacing the true apostles with false apostles. So we're getting into lesson number two of the book, Forerunners of the Faith. And if you have this chart, does this look familiar? Mine's on page 26, yours?

19. Okay, so just to look over the chart, it says an overview of church history. And of course, the foundation of the church, which we talked about, is Christ and the apostolic witness to him. And then we also looked at the three pillars, which are the word of God, the work of God, and the worship of God.

And you can see that with these pillars, if you look as time goes on, the word of God starts to get either replaced or obscured with what? Tradition. Right. So especially in the 7th, 6th, 7th, 8th century, as the Catholic church is growing, you get tradition over scripture.

The work of God starts to get replaced or obscured through the sacraments. I mean, that's how people thought you were saved because I'm eating this bread and I'm drinking this cup. I was baptized. So, of course, I'm going to heaven.

I mean, that was the attitude among some, and it's still the attitude among some today. And then the third pillar, the worship of God. Over time, God started to get replaced because instead of worshiping the Lord, people started worshiping or, you know, venerating Mary and praying to the saints.

So instead of praying to God, you're praying to St. Anthony or whoever. And unfortunately, over time, false teaching starts to really cloud the truth of scripture. So also in that chart, once the Reformation started, there was, you know, there were flaws.

You know, the Reformation had its. It's not like these men were perfect either, but there was a return. Thankfully, there was a return to sola scriptura. You know, scripture alone is our authority. Sola gradia, that you're not saved by works or through the sacraments.

You're saved by grace alone. So it's scripture alone, grace alone. And then you're saved by Christ alone. And it's all to the glory of God alone. And the saints and Mary should not receive our our worship, certainly.

And veneration really is ends up being a fancy word for worship is is what I've noticed. So any comments or questions on that? All right. And as you go on, there's like four stories in the building. The first story is the anti-Nicene fathers.

So anti there means before. So around the time of. So the first century, you had the day of Pentecost, the apostles. We looked at this. The second century, you had men like Ignatius and Polycarp and Justin Martyr.

The third century, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian. Any of these names sound familiar? Most Christians, this is not an area that they really know a whole lot about or focus on. The early church fathers is how we regard these men or how some people regard them.

Yes. I have a hand. No. OK. The fourth century is the Council of Nicaea. This is important. So who's heard of the Council of Nicaea? Right. And that was a count church council where they defined officially defined who Christ was.

Now, the skeptics and, you know, the Da Vinci Code. Remember that book? And there is the movie. So there's the conspiracy theorists who say that, no, the church created the deity of Christ at the Council of Nicaea.

That's not true at all. But that is when they officially recognized it in the council. Why? Because there were heretics teaching that Jesus was not divine, that he's not Lord or he was just a lower created being.

So whenever there's heresy, the church should come together and oppose the heresy. Right. And that's kind of the problem we have today where people don't want to do that. So heresy runs wild. But the heresy denying the deity of Christ was dealt with at the Council of Nicaea.

So that's very important. And then John Chrysostom, St. Augustine. Then there is the Council of Chalcedon. So that was all from, well, the patristic age. This is from 33 A .D. up until, I guess, about the fifth century.

OK. And then the next level, the sixth century, you saw the Council of Constantinople. And we're going to go over all this. I mean, I haven't read that far ahead in the book, but I'm assuming we're going to cover all this.

The seventh century, the rise of Islam. Obviously, this really changed the Middle East forever because you had this new religion that was growing in the eighth century. Who's heard of the donation of Constantine?

I admit I had to look this up. Apparently, the donation of Constantine was a document. It's regarded as a forgery. But if you know anything about the Roman Emperor Constantine, he moved the capital of the empire from Rome to where?

Yeah. Constantinople, which is now Istanbul. Right. But it was formerly Constantinople. And this letter, supposedly Constantine wrote, OK, I'm moving my capital to Constantinople, which was in the east.

And I give all full authority to the pope. He's going to the pope is going to rule over the western part of the empire and all rule in the east. Supposedly, Constantine declared that, but that is regarded as a forgery, that sort of revisionist history.

So the ninth century, Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Empire. This is what replaced the Roman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, which some have said it wasn't holy. It's totally corrupt. It wasn't even really Roman, not in the way it was before.

And it wasn't an empire like the way it was before. And then the 10th century, papal corruption. And, you know, now you're entering into the Dark Ages. Right. So the high Middle Ages, starting in the 11th century, this would be the third level of the building.

You saw the east west schism. Who knows what happened during that time period? If you're here for Wednesday night for church history, you should you should know all this. What happened in the 11th century?

Yeah, the church split. So you add the Catholic Church was in the West and the East was and still is Eastern Orthodox. Right. So that schism happened in the 11th century. And then you have other men Anselm in the 12th, 13th century.

You have the Crusades, Fourth Crusade, St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Thomas Aquinas was Catholic. 14th century, the papal schism. A lot of people are aware of this. There is a time where the Catholic Church had three popes.

And it wasn't like a year ago where there were two living popes because one of them was well, had resigned. So there was really only one pope in office. But at this point, there were three men claiming to hold the office of the papacy.

So the point being, this whole idea that the Catholic Church says we are one unified church. We're united and have been united since Peter. And it's not really accurate. The 15th century, John Huss, the Council of Constance and the rise of the philosophy of humanism.

And then the fourth level of the house, which technically where it's we're in this time period, the modern age, the 16th century. You have the Reformation. So the major players were Martin Luther, John Calvin and John Knox.

But you also had the Anabaptists, which again, if you were here Wednesday night, that's part of church history that often gets ignored. What about the Anabaptists? Well, people don't talk about them. It was the Catholic Church versus the Protestants and the Baptists kind of get left out sometimes.

But they were there as sort of a separate group. The 17th century. There's the rise of Puritanism that happened here in New England. So it's interesting to know that New England was really a hotbed of Christianity on this continent.

And, you know, men like Jonathan Edwards. Well, that's the 18th century. Jonathan Edwards was. Yeah, he wrote probably other than the Sermon on the Mount. He wrote what is the most famous sermon of all time that still gets studied in college classes today.

Sinners in the hands of an angry God, which I think Joel Osteen just preached a sermon like that last week at Lakewood. Do you remember? No, I'm just kidding. That would never happen. But I'm sorry. I just couldn't help myself.

But but it does kind of show you the change that that was the type of preaching that you had back then. It was defined by what hellfire and brimstone preaching. Right. That was common. And the Methodists were the same way.

And of course, the Methodists today, you know, if a Methodist preacher try and Edwards wasn't Methodist, but the Methodists did that type of thing, too. If the United Methodist preacher preached that way in a church today, they'd get tossed out.

I mean, there's just no tolerance for that. But that kind of thing happened. Anyway, where I was going with that, Jonathan Edwards, world famous preacher. And, you know, where he ministered in Northampton, which today is known as the lesbian capital of the world.

So things have radically changed, obviously, in the 19th century. You have the missionaries, Kerry and Judson, and then, of course, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who is probably right now. He's he's one of those figures in church history that people just seem to revere.

Charles said everyone loves Spurgeon today. He's quoted people. But back then, people didn't like him. He was despised. And that's sort of the way the prophets were. You know, while they were alive, everyone hated them.

But a couple hundred years later, they were these great men of God. And we just wish we had men like that in the church today. Well, actually, you do and you don't like them. But once they're dead, then people, everyone loves them.

That's the way that goes. And the 20th century, this is where we're at now. You have the modernist versus fundamentalist controversy, which we again, we talked about on Wednesday night. And that's all online.

If you want to look at the church history series, what was the modernist versus fundamentalist controversy? There was one main issue that really started it and that fueled it. And that was the issue or the teaching of it's taught in schools today everywhere.

Evolution is really over evolution because everyone was adopting it. Christians didn't believe in evolution. But today, it's very common to find Southern Baptists and evangelicals believing in evolution.

Or they make this compromise of theistic evolution. OK, well, evolution is wrong. Darwinism is wrong. But God may maybe God used evolution to bring about. OK, so that's the divide that's still in evangelicalism today where there are modernists.

Men like Billy Graham was a modernist. You know, Billy Graham. I don't know that he ever admitted he believed in evolution, but he did. You know, he was pro choice and he started to change his. He started out as a fundamentalist and he sort of changed his position to be because the idea of evangelicals.

We want to be to get the world to love us. We want to be like the world. So we want to make compromises so that people will like us and accept us. And the fundamentalist said no. So a fundamentalist will say no compromise with the world.

But a modernist will say, OK, we're going to preach Christ. We're going to preach the gospel. But all these secondary issues we can sort of. Maybe they wouldn't use the word compromise, but that's what the fundamentalists said.

So anyways, the point is, you had these two opposing factions within evangelical Christianity. We're Bible believing Christianity where you have modernists and fundamentalists. OK. Any questions on that?

And that's sort of a brief overview of church history.

Yes, Aaron. Right. Yeah.

There was the first Great Awakening, which happened. I don't have the dates memorized. So that would have been, I think. In the maybe the early 1800s or maybe the late. I think the first Great Awakening was late 1700s.

Yeah. So the first Great Awakening was was exactly that. It's what it sounds like. And there is very good theology in the first Great Awakening. The second Great Awakening is when you have the Mormons in those groups.

So there is some good things happening in the early 1800s and beyond. Some good things and some bad things. And then the third Great Awakening. You know, some people deny whether that was even a thing.

There are some people who claim there was a fourth Great Awakening from 1960 through the 1980s. This would have been the seeker sensitive. Remember the Jesus people movement? A lot of people say that was the fourth Great Awakening.

But again, some people say, no, that was not a real revival. So you're good with church history. You always have two opposing sides.

Yeah. Right.

An awakening would be when there is great religious fervor or noticeable, a noticeable uptick in religious fervor. Right. Right. It's it's it's a profession of faith in God. But there were heretical groups mixed in, obviously.

Yeah. Yeah. It was a revival, basically an awakening. And one thing everyone agrees that we are not in an awakening right now. Actually, that's not even true. There are charismatics who claim that we're in one right now, but I don't I don't think that's the case.

Any other. Yeah. Right. You know, they're not really they're another group that sort of gets left out. There's the Coptic Church and. Yeah, that's it's separate. It's within the realm of Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, but it doesn't really fall into either category.

So but there were there was Catholic and Orthodox influence in northern Africa. But like the Coptic Church in Egypt, I don't I don't ever remember that getting talked about in church history.

Courses, so. Yeah.

I mean, there's all sorts of different churches that say we are the one true church. Matter of fact, that's what the Mormons said. And the church, you know, the Church of Christ is not the United Church of Christ, but the Church of Christ dynasty.

You know who they are. They're part of the Church of Christ. So them, the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses, they all said we restored true Christianity to the earth in the 1800s. So we are the true expression of Christianity.

And of course, the Protestants slap a label on groups like that as what cults, which, you know, there's varying degrees. Mormonism is definitely a different religion and a cult Church of Christ. You'll get people who think that they're within orthodoxy and they're save people.

Others take a more hard line approach. But yeah, just one last thing, because I don't want to get too. Well, hey, this is this is on topic. That's OK. We can talk about all this. Those churches that claim to be the one true church.

To me, this is just a red flag when there's one group that says, hey, we're it. It's it's not that simple. It's just not that simple. I believe that true believers are in every or maybe not every, but most every of all the denominations, the major Protestant groups, some of the independent groups.

They're save people in many of these different institutional churches. So I don't think there's one true church. But some people will say that, OK. Can you imagine if I said, OK, I have restored true Christianity.

Morris Corner Church is the one true church. You'd be like, wow, this is gone off the deep end here. But there's groups every year that pop up who say that type of thing. People view the Catholics and the Orthodox.

They view that as a little more legitimate because they're so big and they're so old. But you really can't trace them back to the beginning and say that, you know, the the apostle Paul was a Eastern Orthodox believer.

I mean, come on. I think that's that's not something that you could prove. All right. Any more comments on any of this before we move on to lesson two? I'm not sure if this is part of lesson two or not, but.

All right. No other questions. Good. Let's look at lesson number two. The key passage is Acts chapter one, verse eight, where it says Jesus told his apostles, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses in both Jerusalem and all of Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth.

So, number one, the Acts and the Apostolic Age, it says the book of Acts was written by. And this is what you needed to fill in. Who wrote Acts? Luke. OK, so actually, if you look at it, the book of Acts is like the gospel of Luke part two.

It starts out the same way. So the book of Acts was written by Luke. It is a sequel to his gospel and began shortly after the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The word acts A .C .T .S. refers refers to the acts or the deeds of the apostles.

The book of the acts focuses on the work of God accomplished through the apostles during the first few decades of the early church. And it's very important that you understand about the book of Acts. It is a transitional book.

If there's anything you need to know about acts, it's that there's a transition happening from old covenant to new. OK, so what? And the point is what you see in the book of Acts is not normative. You shouldn't read the book of Acts and see all the miracles and healings and everything that's happening and then say, how come I don't see that today?

How come these same things are not happening right now in Western Mass in 2023? Well, you shouldn't expect to see it. I mean, could God do the same works? Well, of course he could. But this was a unique time period in history.

So it's a transitional book. It is not normative. OK, I can't walk by somebody who's sick and my shadow falls on them. And all of a sudden they're healed miraculously. Not only can I not do that, nobody on Earth can do that.

Because why? There's no apostles. Even that with Peter, it was kind of a unique thing. So you shouldn't expect to see that reoccurring. Acts covers approximately how many years? 30 years of the history of the early church from about 30 to 62 A .D.

It is the first book of church history ever written, though, unlike any other church history book, Acts was inspired by the Holy Spirit. So if somebody is going to do a study on church history, you need to start with the book of Acts.

Everything else is just supplemental. In Acts chapter 1, verse 8, just before he ascended to heaven. This is not in your book, but Acts 1, 8, before Jesus ascended to heaven, Jesus instructed his disciples to be his witnesses from Jerusalem and Judea to Samaria and to the ends of the world.

Those geographic locations serve as an outline of the book of Acts. In Acts 1 through 7, the gospel of Jesus Christ is preached in Jerusalem and Judea. That's what you see in the first few chapters. In Acts chapter 8, the good news then comes to Samaria.

Then starting with the conversion of Paul in Acts chapter 9 and Cornelius in Acts 10, the gospel is then taken where? Throughout the rest of the world. So it totally fits what Jesus said and it fits what he said about the Great Commission.

When we read about Jesus' disciples in the four gospels, they often lack faith and courage. In the book of Acts, they have undergone a radical change. Peter and his fellow apostles boldly proclaim the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

They are willing to do so even when it results in persecution and suffering. Who's noticed the great difference, especially with Peter, in denying the Lord three times towards the end of the gospels? But then in the book of Acts, he's standing up and he's preaching with great boldness.

And then when he gets arrested, they're threatening him to keep him quiet. And he's like, listen, who should I obey? God or you? You tell me. Which is a rhetorical question. So Peter went from being fearful to being fearless.

Why? Two main things. Yeah. Okay. So it says this is in your book. The radical transformation of the disciples is the result of two history defining events. Number one, the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Once Peter saw Jesus risen, it's like, okay, that's what he needed to see. And number two, the coming of the Holy Spirit. So the boldness comes from the Spirit of God. As eyewitnesses to the resurrected Christ, the apostles boldly testified to the truth about him, doing so through the Spirit's power.

Here's the next question. Because the disciples had been sent by Jesus as witnesses, they are known as apostles, which means what? Two things. Sent ones. And ambassadors. And I think you've heard me repeat that enough times, you know, going through Matthew's gospel.

Apostle, apostolos in Greek means one who is sent. Of course, not everyone who is sent was an apostle of Jesus Christ. Because that word was used back then for other things. But they were ambassadors.

They were apostles of Christ. So they were his official representatives. They were ambassadors. They spoke with his authority. Okay. And that's why I say, you know, when somebody today says something like, oh, I just love Jesus.

Jesus, I love that apostle Paul. I just can't stand him. I heard on the radio. It sounded like to me a woman on the radio was calling the apostle Paul a sexist. I mean, she didn't come right out and say that.

But that's what it sounded like to me. You say, well, that's outrageous. I've heard that from professing Christians more than once, more than twice, more than ten times, more than 20 times. But the idea is if you say that the apostles were, you know, what they wrote was not true, by rejecting them, who are you rejecting?

Right. You're rejecting the one they speak for. So and we covered that, I think, last week in Matthew 10. Any questions or comments, Marcus?

Is that woman a member of one of our evangelical churches in the area? Yes. Yes, she is. Which is a significant point that we have such influences. Right.

Infiltrators. Yeah. And, you know, I think she's, you know. We've all probably said that to me. That seems like at another level. But we've all probably said things that we regret. And then you should receive the admonishment.

You should receive correction. But the problem is you come from these, you know, speaking of the word of God over time, it gets obscured by tradition. So if there is a denomination that has a tradition that contradicts the Bible, which is the case with her and her church.

Yeah. You're sort of forced to. Okay. Here's what the scripture says. Now. I sort of have to argue against it in their mind. That's not what they're doing. But when you have traditions put ahead of scripture, that is what you're doing, whether you recognize it or not.

So, you know, we want to be patient with people and and hopefully bring correction. But, you know, people are people are people. This is this is sort of the way it is. And it's always been that way. Meg, you had a hand up.

Yeah. Andrew and I are actually reading the gospel of Luke at home. And we read last night the passage where it was listing all the apostles names. And Luke's not in there. Right.

Yeah. Well, Luke is not an apostle. So Luke was under the supervision, we could say, of the apostle Paul. Actually, this comes out in this study somewhere. I was just reading it this morning. Another man, Mark, Mark, John Mark was not an apostle.

But he did write a gospel. So the idea is that the apostle Peter Mark was under him and Luke was not an apostle, but he was under Paul. So the New Testament epistles were either written by an apostle or they were under the supervision of an apostle.

That's that's the idea. Yeah. Yeah. And Mark was a disciple of Christ. And I mean, Luke came later. So Luke didn't get to see these things. But Luke is a historian. It doesn't matter if Luke never saw the resurrected Christ.

He's still inspired of the Holy Spirit. God can do that with anyone. Yeah. Aaron. Yeah. No, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. Well, Theophilus, I guess, would have been a Greek. He might have been a Roman citizen, I suppose.

But yeah, Luke was a historian writing to Theophilus. And it's an account. Book of Acts. It's church history, but it's inspired by God. But again, he was under he was under Paul. So he would have got much of his teaching.

We assume from Paul.

Larry, you had a handout. Well, I was commenting on the, about the woman that almost called Paul sexist. Yeah. You know, the, according to Scripture, there's an order headship. You know, or Jesus Christ is the head of the church.

The husbands are the head of the home. Yeah. The wife is under him, just as in military. Right. You know, there's a chain of command. Yeah. And in Scripture, there's a chain of command. Yeah. To where the men are the head.

Right. Of the family. Yeah. The head of the local churches. Right. At least they should be. Right. And that's how God did it. And so by claiming, you know, women ought to be pastors or, you know, I mean, I'm sure women are excellent leaders, but they're not to be in an authority over a man.

And this is, and this is obviously so out of step. The biblical teaching on this is so out of step with the culture. It goes back to the modernist fundamentalists debate. The fundamentalist says, well, that's, that's the way it is.

That's what the Bible teaches. And we're not going to compromise on it, but the modernists will see this as a secondary issue and it makes unbelievers so upset, make some Christians upset. So let's, let's kind of give this one to them and we'll ordain women.

And the problem is if you follow that logically, it goes back to if Paul is a sexist, if the Bible is, that makes God a sexist, like logically. But again, there's happy inconsistencies to some of their arguments.

Yeah. Aaron.

The thing that I've always been taught with command, that's a great word, but there's another side to it is responsibility. And I've always looked at Aaron's role is that's the chain of responsibility, which means that it's a bad way of protecting us women from taking on way more than he ever intended us to take.

And we tend to just step in and do what he's doing, regardless of whether we were built for it or have that ability necessarily. And I, I believe that God literally said, I need to put something over you so that you don't run yourself ragged and depend on yourself.

Sure. And when Eve was created, she was created as what? A help me. I mean, the idea is that you're, you're, you're partners. We're, we're all on the same team. It's not the man because he's a man gets to just dictate everything.

And the woman's just subservient. And I mean, I'm sure there, there are abuses where that's happened, but a godly man is going to consider the woman beside. Women are involved in ministry, every area of ministry women are missionary.

They can do anything and everything. It's just that one office. So the way she was characterizing it, say women can't be in ministry. And that's, well, that's, that's just not true. So, okay. A lot of hands on this.

Marcus. Just to Megan's point, you'll, you'll be, I hope the word isn't confused, but you'll notice as you continue to read that there are other apostles than the 12. Of course, the 12 Judas was one of those and not, not one that we can give any apostolic authority to.

And the other thing, of course, the one that was chosen to replace him, we never hear anything of Matthias again, but we do hear of Barnabas, some others, and I keep running across them and I wonder if they might have that qualification of being an apostle.

But the important point is there are no more apostles. Right. One of the qualifications, I believe, and correct me if you feel I'm wrong, is that they needed to have been an eyewitness in the same way that, you know, someone giving testimony in a, in a court of law has to be an eyewitness.

In Acts chapter one, Matthias was an eyewitness and that's, that was part of the criteria that Peter set forth. Paul was not an eyewitness in the same way, but he did experience the risen Christ on the road to Damascus.

And Barnabas Barnabas, Barnabas, I would say we've, we've covered this before. There's apostle with a capital a and apostle with a lowercase a Barnabas. I see Barnabas as an apostle of the church. He was sent out by the church.

He was not an apostle of Jesus Christ in the same way that Paul was.

So that's how I would. So are you saying then the capital a apostles or just the 12? The 12. Yes.

Paul would be 13. Judas gets replaced and there's a whole debate with Paul and Matthias, but I would, yes, Paul is one. It's, it's 12.

Yes. That's what I would. So, but to be 12, then you have to say Matthias was not.

I guess that, that would be, yes, that would, that would make sense. It is 13. Right. Yes. I teach fourth grade, you know, but it's like the 12 tribes of Israel, but actually there were 13. Right.

So Mark, I think Matthias is almost the, uh, a guard son was, yeah.

Yeah. And there's a whole debate about whether Matthias was a true apostle. He didn't write a new Testament letter. We know that. So I've people even, I've kind of swapped back and forth what I thought about that.

I'm not really sure, but Paul definitely is, is an apostle in the most true sense. Uh, did I see another hand?

Okay. Well, if, if, if small, a, if the only requirement is to be sent out by the church, then, then we do have modern day ones.

So there's gotta be some, right. When people say, well, then that means a missionary is an apostle because he's being sent out. Well, that's fine. It's just, if you use the term apostle, you're going to confuse people.

Well, that's what incident incidentally, the one incidentally, the person we were talking about and how she attended a local church that has tradition above script, their church actually does teach. There are capital a apostles in the church today.

So, I mean, it's, it's just, you're going to get with church history. There's people who are just kind of on opposite sides of the spectrum and you look at what another church believes and you're like, this is so, I can't understand where you're even coming from with some of this stuff.

But typically we've looked at this. Do you believe the true gospel? Do you believe in the essentials of the faith? Okay. Then I regard you as a brother. If we disagree too much on the secondary issues, it makes it hard or difficult to have real fellowship or close fellowship into work together.

Those are obstacles. But, you know, we're saved by the gospel, not whether or not you think Matthias is or isn't, or even the female pastor thing. Somebody left a comment because I talked about it in another video and they said, well, you know, what does that mean?

That people who disagree are going to, you're saying they're going to hell or something like, no, nobody's, nobody's saying that at all. Like we can disagree with people without condemning them. Right.

And I, I assure you there's things I'm wrong about. Right. Huh? Yeah, that's true. And there's things you're wrong. Nobody. No, this is the problem. It's like saying we're the true church or as a pastor thinking they're infallible.

You're just setting yourself up for failure. Hopefully we learn that we will see what we're wrong about. We'll change. So that's why we should be gracious because we all need correction at some point in our life.

If somebody thinks they are beyond correction, that that is really more of a problem. But anyways, the apostles of Jesus Christ, right? So the two things they're sent and they are ambassadors. The apostles of Jesus Christ were a select group of Jesus's disciples limited to those who had been physical eyewitnesses to the resurrected Christ, as you mentioned, and who are directly appointed by him, which is something you do not see with Barnabas.

And technically you don't see it with Matthias. Jesus did not handpick Matthias unless you say he did it through the casting of lots. But Paul says he was the last person. This is more important. Let's focus on this.

Paul says he was the last person to see the resurrected Christ. Let's turn to first Corinthians 15. This is a very important point. And I want all of us to see this in scripture instead of me just giving you the reference and you taking my word for it.

I'd rather us look at it. But Paul in first Corinthians 15, he says, the book says that he was the last person to see the resurrected Christ, meaning 15, eight. But we'll look at versus before and after.

So that means, according to forerunners of the faith, that means that nobody after Paul could meet the criteria necessary to be an apostle. And I do believe that. I do not believe there were any apostles.

Capital A that were appointed after Paul, which is sort of the whole argument that there's not apostles in the church today. Look at first Corinthians 15, starting in verse. Well, let's just start in verse one.

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel, which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which you were also saved or by which also you are saved. So how are you saved?

Not by doing good works, not by partaking of the sacraments, not by any of that stuff. You are saved if you hold fast to that word, which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. So what's the word?

What's the gospel? This is the most clear passage in all of the Bible that gives you a definition of what the gospel is. Verse three, for I delivered to you. First of all, that which I also received, that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, that he was buried and that he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures.

A person is saved when they believe that when they place their trust in that message. And I'm forgiven. I'm saved. I'm going to heaven because I believe Jesus did this for me. That's how a person is saved.

Nothing else. Faith, grace alone, faith alone. Okay. And he was seen verse five by Cephas, who Cephas Peter, and then by the 12th. Okay. So they're still using the term the 12th. After that, he was seen by over 500 brethren at once of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep.

So Paul's saying, you know, you could go ask 500 people saw this. You could go find them today and ask them their eyewitnesses. Some of them have died, but most of them are still alive today. Verse seven.

After that, he was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then what? Last of all, you might want to, even if you're one of those people who doesn't mind writing in your Bible, you might want to underline this.

Then last of all, he was seen by me. Does it sound like there is anyone else? No. When was first Corinthians written? What? 54, 8, 56 AD, something like that. So over 20 years had passed. And Paul says I was the last one.