In our previous message we have considered how the writer of Acts took a turn from their missionary journey of Paul and focus on a new individual, a new gospel labourer, and that was the person Apollos. So we have learned some things about Apollos in our previous message. Now he turned his attention back to Paul's missionary journey again. The Apostle Paul had returned to Antioch, the sending church, therefore the second missionary journey had officially come to an end. So this will be the third missionary journey. I've titled our message as ‘The Beginning of the Third Missionary Journey.’
I. A Follow-up on the Ministry of Apollos
Our first point is a follow-up on the ministry of Apollos. Let us begin with verse 1, chapter 19. "And it came to pass, that, while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul having passed through the upper coasts came to Ephesus: and finding certain disciples”. Remember Paul had promised the people at Ephesus that he would visit them again, so here he made good of his promise while Apollos was at Corinth. Paul went to Ephesus; apparently, he approached Ephesus from the north which was a more direct path. Once he arrived at Ephesus, he found certain disciples.
There's a lot of controversy regarding these disciples, whether they were Christians or not. Basically, there are only two views: either they were believers or unbelievers, but the issue is that the subsequent verses tell us that these people did not have the Holy Spirit. Anyway, there are some people who believe that they were believers or Christians because they were called disciples, and they will use this passage to support the teaching that receiving the Holy Spirit is something that occurs after salvation. In other words, you will receive the Holy Spirit after salvation, opposed to salvation. Sounds like the charismatics or the Pentecostal churches would use phrases like "second blessing." I do not know whether you have heard of this "second blessing," which means the baptism of the Holy Spirit is called the second blessing of salvation because it comes after salvation. This is a false teaching.
Previously we have learned the difference between indwelling with the Holy Spirit and feeling of the Holy Spirit. To be indwelled or baptized with the Holy Spirit is a one-time event; it occurs at the point of our conversion when you believe God, you were baptized with the Holy Spirit, indwelt with the Holy Spirit. The feeling of the Holy Spirit is an ongoing event, and that happens when you and I walk in obedience to God and His Word.
Let me briefly explain why these people were unbelievers at this point in time. Firstly, the Bible clearly teaches that no one can become a Christian except when he or she is indwelled with the Holy Spirit. For example, 1 Corinthians 6:19 says, "What! know ye not that your body is like the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, or Holy Ghost which is in you which you have of God, and ye are not your own?" Romans 8:9 says, "Now if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his." If you do not have the Holy Spirit, you do not belong to Jesus Christ; you are none of His.
Secondly, the word disciple simply means a learner or a follower, and in the New Testament, it does not always refer to the Christian. For example, the Bible speaks of the disciples of the Pharisees, the disciples of the scribes, the disciples of John the Baptist. That is a general word for follower or learner. Even those who were called disciples of Jesus Christ were not all Christians, not all true believers. All of us are very familiar with John 6:66. Do you remember the verse that says, "From that time onwards many of his disciples," whose disciples? Jesus' disciples, "they walked no more with him." They were Jesus' disciples, and yet they no longer walked with him, they no longer believed in him. That is a clear reference to them being unbelievers.
Jesus himself said emphatically, "Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven" (Matthew 7:21). So although every Christian is a disciple of Christ, but not every disciple is a Christian. Hope it makes sense. I repeat again, although every Christian is a disciple of Christ, but not all disciples are Christians.
Thirdly and most importantly, Paul asked this most important question. Look at this, he said unto them, "Have ye received the Holy Ghost since he believed?" And they said unto him, "We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost." They knew that the moment the person received the Lord Jesus Christ into his or her life and had salvation, he or she would be endowed with the Holy Spirit. Therefore, he asked this most pertinent question. Since you profess that you believe, have you received the Holy Spirit? And the response was, "We have not even heard of the Holy Spirit," confirming that they were not yet Christians, they were not believers.
Now just to refresh our minds on what we had learned in the previous chapter, Apollos was the one who preached to the people at Ephesus, right? We learned that in our previous message. He was an eloquent man, mighty in the Scriptures, instructed in the way of the Lord, and fervent in the spirit. But what did Apollos teach the people? He only knew the baptism of John, which was about repentance, preparing the people for the coming Messiah. Surely the people's hearts were stirred by his message because Apollos was very eloquent, articulate. But instead of looking to the Messiah, they were looking to John the Baptist.
Prior to Apollos teaching at Ephesus, another great man also taught at Ephesus, and that was Paul. Paul also taught at Ephesus. They loved his teaching. In fact, they loved his teaching so much that they even persuaded him to stay a little longer at Ephesus. But he had other plans. He wanted to join the feast at Jerusalem, and he promised the people that he would return to them again. That was why at this particular passage he returned to Ephesus. But if you read the entire passage from Acts 18 verse 19 to 25, there was no indication at all that the people at Ephesus had believed in the gospel, not during Paul's preaching and also not during Apollos' teachings.
What does that teach us? It is possible to be impressed by the message. It is possible to be stirred in our hearts. It is possible to have a sense of heaviness, to be remorseful, to have a sense of regret, to even shed tears of guilt. But all that does not equal salvation. The other day I was speaking to a pastor friend of mine, and I asked him about a certain member in his church whom I knew quite well. I remembered that person was very regular in Bible studies. He was always excited about spiritual things. Sometimes he would even shed tears during the worship service when the message was preached. He'd be serving in the different ministries of the church. But today, I was told that he no longer attends church anymore. He professed that he no longer believes in God. In other words, he had never believed in God in the first place. If going to church, attending worship services, serving God, being interested in the Bible and spiritual things is no guarantee that we are true believers, then what can assure us that we are true believers? The Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 1:13 says, "After you have heard and believed in the gospel of salvation, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise." The Holy Spirit is the seal, the mark, the guarantee, the confirmation, the assurance of our salvation, that we are true believers. That was the reason why Paul asked this pertinent question, "Have you received the Holy Spirit?" Then he went on to ask the second question in verse 3, and he said unto them, "Unto what then were ye baptized?" And he said unto them, "Unto John's baptism." Notice, they did not say, "We were baptized in Jesus' name," but, "We were baptized into John's baptism." If they had already believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, they would have been baptized in His name. They would not have said, "We were baptized in John's baptism." In other words, they were just disciples of John the Baptist.
And that John the Baptist was a great man. In fact, Jesus said in Matthew 11:11, "There hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist." The problem is, John the Baptist cannot save anyone. No one on the face of this earth can save anyone. We all know that no organization, society, association, denomination, church, or any great man of faith can save anyone. But yet people would still like to associate themselves with prominent churches, denominations, even pastors, why? To prove that their salvation is genuine. They will say things like, "Well, I'm a member of that church, a very popular church, a mega church, a prominent church, a church that has thousands of members, so it must be a real church, a true church, and my salvation must be real and genuine. Or, I was baptized by that pastor, I was married by that pastor." My friends, that is the attitude of many in Christendom today. Even the Bible Presbyterian churches are not spared from this kind of mentality. Do you know that there's a Bible Presbyterian church which is known as an elite church? Can you imagine a Bible Presbyterian church known as an elite church? And some of their members have this attitude of being holier than thou. It's very sad. We must never have that kind of attitude. But I have to teach the people at Ephesus that it is not your association with the person...
No doubt, the Baptist was a great man, but you need to understand his message. John's message was not that he could provide salvation. He could never do that. He was preaching repentance, preparing the people to receive the Messiah. He was preparing the people for the coming Messiah. That is why Paul explained in verse 4. Look at this, Paul then said, "John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is on Christ Jesus." John was pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ. "Then believe in Me, believe in Him who comes after Me. I'm just the forerunner, He's the Messiah. You should not believe in the forerunner, you should believe only in the Messiah."
Again, this is a strong proof that these people were not Christians because apparently they did not know that Jesus was the promised Messiah. Notice Paul did not teach them about how to receive the Holy Spirit, but rather he taught them about Jesus Christ. To be baptized or to be endowed with the Holy Spirit is a supernatural work. It is a divine work. It cannot be taught. Paul could not teach how to receive the Holy Spirit. He could only preach the Messiah. And once they received the Messiah by the wonder-working of the Spirit, then God would enable them to be indwelled with His Spirit. It is a supernatural work, not something that men can want.
So you can only preach the Messiah that they would believe in Him. The reason why I titled the first point as a follow-up on the ministry of Apollos was because Paul did not contradict Apollo's ministry. We noticed that he did not speak against the ministry of Apollos. He did not make any unkind remarks about Apollos' ministry. He did not say things like, "Oh, that is the problem with Apollos, he may be eloquent but he's so lacking in his Bible knowledge. He only knew the baptism of John, that is why he is not able to teach you." Paul did not do that. Instead, he enhanced upon Apollo's ministry. He supported his ministry. Whatever Apollos lacked in teaching the people, Paul followed up. He complimented.
My friends, that is the right attitude we should have, direct one another's ministry. We must never destroy other people's ministry. We must never put them down and then make ourselves look great. Of course, if they teach the wrong thing, we need to correct them if we know the truth, even then we have to do it gently. But otherwise, we must always complement and supplement one another's ministry. We are all fighting the same spiritual pattern, we are all serving the same Lord. We must bear in mind this truth.
The sad reality is that some churches look at other churches like a competition. When other churches are doing well, they are jealous and they are proud. When they are better than other churches, there are some pastors, preachers who go around to destroy ministries, not to support other people's ministry. You and I must never do that. We must always remember that we are serving the one living and true God. We ought to rejoice when other believers are performing well, when other believers are growing spiritually, we ought to be very happy when other believers are serving the Lord, investing their time, their resources in the Lord's ministry. We ought to rejoice together with them, not to be jealous, envious, or be proud when we are doing well and others are not doing good or not doing well.
Surely, at this point in time, Paul would have preached the gospel of Christ to them. Therefore, verse 5 says, "When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus." Baptism is the outward sign of an inward faith. To be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ signifies the spiritual union they have with Him by faith. Paul would never have baptized anyone if that person has not truly believed in Jesus Christ. So he knew that they had truly believed, professed their faith in Him and based on that, they were baptized in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Verse 6: "And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them, and they spake with tongues and prophesied." The laying on of hands was a gesture of his apostolic affirmation. In our previous messages, we have learned that tongue-speaking is a sign gift or a miraculous gift. It is the ability to speak in a non-foreign language which you have never learned before. The gift of tongue-speaking, healing miracles were all called sign gifts because they were pointing to something. And once they had served their purposes, they were no longer required anymore. That is why they were called sign gifts.
By way of illustration, if you are driving to Canberra along the way, you will see signs that will tell you 200 kilometers to Canberra, and then subsequently 180 kilometers to Canberra, and then 120, 80, or 40 kilometers to Canberra. But once you pass Canberra, you will no longer see any more signs because it is no longer required. In a similar fashion, sign gifts were used to authenticate the authority of the apostles. Once the Bible was completed, the apostolic era had ended. There were no more reasons for sign gifts to continue anymore. So today, sign gifts like tongue-speaking have ceased. No more tongue-speaking, no more ability to speak in a non-foreign language which we have never learned before because it is unnecessary. We have the Bible. When you look at the different occasions whereby the people spoke in tongues in the book of Acts, it was always for a purpose.
The charismatics like to quote tongue speaking in the Bible. If you read through the book of Acts, we were always for a purpose. It was for the purpose that the Jews, Gentiles, and Samaritans were all equal in the church of Jesus Christ. In Acts chapter 8, the Samaritans were the first group to speak in tongues. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and they spoke in tongues. The Samaritans were never accepted by the Jews because they were considered impure. But when they saw the Samaritans spoke in tongues, filled with the Holy Spirit, they realized that these were believers just like the Jews themselves.
The next group was in Caesarea, the Roman centurion Cornelius. Remember, he was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues together with his household. He was a Gentile. The Gentiles were not accepted by the Jews. And the final group is here in this passage. The last group to speak in tongues were the disciples of John the Baptist. Apparently, the disciples of Jesus and the disciples of John the Baptist did not accept one another. But when they saw the disciples of John being filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues, they willingly accepted them.
Apart from those few occasions, all the rest of the New Testament records of believers being filled with the Holy Spirit, they never spoke in tongues. Only these three prominent, important, purposeful occasions: the Samaritans, the Gentiles, and the disciples of John the Baptist.
The Bible says the disciples of John also prophesied. The word "prophesied" can mean forth-telling as in preaching or foretelling the future. When the Bible was not yet completed, there was still this sign gift to foretell the future. But once the Bible was completed and the final book Revelation was written with this warning not to add nor subtract from the book of the Bible, and there was this very strange warning that God would add the plagues, God will remove the names from the book of life. The Bible was completed, there's no longer any need to foretell the future because everything was written in this book.
So once the Bible was completed, we only forth-tell as in preaching, declaring what the Bible says. The only way we fulfill the future is what was already prophesied in this book like eschatology, the events of the last days. Other than that, we do not add any more to the word of God. Here the disciples of John could either be foretelling or foretelling because the Bible was still being written. Most likely it was connected with tongue speaking. In other words, they were speaking, declaring the truth in a non-foreign language which they had never learned before.
So it was an amazing sight to see these people declaring the truth of God's word in a learned foreign language which they had never studied before in their entire lives. And how many of John's disciples were they? According to verse 7, there were a total of 12 men.