9. “And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.” This Scripture settles forever the fact that the hearts of the apostles on the day of Pentecost were purified by faith, in order to be filled with the Holy Ghost. It also settles the matter beyond the possibility of cavil that the plan of salvation is the very same for Jew and Gentile, at Jerusalem and in the uttermost parts of the earth. All hearts must be purified by faith after conversion, as in case of the apostles, and then filled with the Holy Ghost.

13. Now James, the brother of our Lord and pastor of the Apostolic church at Jerusalem, rises after Peter and proceeds, delivering a number of focalized statements, which speak volumes appertaining to the gospel, church and human destiny.

14. “Simeon hath expounded how God in the first place interposed to take a people from the Gentiles in his name.” It is a great mistake to suppose that the gospel is to save the world. They will not have it, though it is free for them. This old fallen world is like a ship in mid-ocean, unseaworthy, irreparable and destined to founder; while the gospel is the lifeboat, not to save the old wrecking ship going down with her drunken crew and frolicking passengers, but to rescue every earnest fugitive, who will leave the ship, with all his fortunes to sink to the bottom of the ocean, escape for life, get aboard the old ship of Zion and sail away for glory. Here you see from James’s statement that the work of the gospel is simply “to take from the nations a people in his name,” i. e., the elect, as none others will receive the gospel.

15. “To this correspond the words of the prophets, as has been written:

16. “After these things I will return and build again the dynasty of David which has fallen into decay, and will build again the ruins of the same and set it up” (Amos 9:11-12). James quotes this prophecy in the Jerusalem council, of course giving it full New Testament endorsement, plainly and positively stating that our Savior will return to the earth after we shall have preached the gospel to every nation, thus calling out the elect and getting the Bride ready for the return of her Divine Spouse. James here positively certifies, in harmony with the old prophets, that, after we have preached the gospel to every nation, our glorified Savior will return to the earth and restore again the temporal kingdom of David, which at that time was in dilapidation and so continues to the present day. “Tabernacle,” E. V., is skeenee in the original, and means dynasty, or the royal line of David. [See Robinson’s New Testament Greek Dictionary.] David’s kingdom was not human, but divine, i. e., the theocracy extended down on the earth, but centralized in heaven, on which our Lord was crowned when He ascended (Acts 2:30), the lineal heir of David, and which He will encumber till His Father shall make all of His enemies on the earth, i. e., royal rivals, political and ecclesiastical, His “footstool” (Acts 2:35). Then He will return according to these prophecies of both Testaments, restoring the interregnum of David’s kingdom on the earth and extending it throughout the inhabitable globe, Himself crowned King of kings and Lord of lords to reign forever.

17. “In order that the remainders of men may seek out the Lord, even all the Gentiles, on whom my name has been called, upon the same, saith the Lord, who doeth all things known from the beginning.” Here we see the great and glorious harvest of souls, all saved during the preceding dark ages of Satan’s reign, being but the “first fruits” adumbratory of the glorious millennial harvest when our Lord returns. This is quite feasible, when we remember that the unsavable millions will fall in the great tribulation (Daniel 7:9; Acts 3:23; Revelation 11:18) and Satan will be cast out (Revelation 20:2). Consequently with no devils on the earth to hold them back, millions of transfigured saints, moving with the velocity of lightning, will return with the glorified Savior to preach the gospel to “the remainders of peoples” who have survived the great tribulation, because God knows they will not reject the salvation of His Son in the absence of the devil on the earth. No wonder they will “seek out the Lord,” i. e., seek Him effectually till they find Him, and all get saved. That is the good time coming, “when a nation shall be born in a day.” Do you believe in second probation? We are all living in a second probation, which supervened on the inauguration of the redemptive scheme after the Fall, the first probation having been forfeited in the Fall. The same probation in which we live will continue through the millennium down to the end of the mediatorial reign
(1 Corinthians 15:24-28), i. e., to the end of time, when our glorified Savior, having wound up His mediatorial reign in the final judgment, will surrender up the kingdom to the Father. A materialistic heresy, teaching a future probation for the wicked, is going abroad, but flatly contradictory of the inspired Word. Satan propagates heresies on all lines of truth, to cover it up so the people will not see it and be saved. Some of the devil’s heresies along these problems we are now discussing are so occult that none but spiritually-illuminated eyes will detect them.

19. “Therefore I judge that we trouble not those from the Gentiles turning unto God,

20. “But to command them to abstain from things offered to idols, from fornication, strangulation, and blood.” We see here that the Jerusalem council of apostles and elders, i. e., the highest tribunal this side of heaven, eliminated everything out of the gospel dispensation but pure spirituality; nothing but entire sanctification saves people from idolatry. Israel carried their idols in all their wilderness peregrinations. Modern churches are full of idolatry, worshipping watergods, day-gods, creed-gods, and sect-gods and many others. Thorough sanctification is the only remedy for idolatry. Why is fornication here specified alone among all the vulgar vices? It is because if you would be a member of the bridehood you must get married to the Lord Jesus Christ, thus forever discarding all other lovers, delighted with Jesus only, your Savior, Husband, Friend. This spiritual wedlock takes place in entire sanctification. Why is the blood specified? Because we are redeemed and sanctified by the blood of Jesus, of which all the blood in the world is symbolic. Hence in our abstinence from eating the blood and thus brutalizing it, we are constantly to realize the great fundamental truth that we are saved by the blood, and go shouting night and day,
“The blood, the blood is all my plea; Hallelujah! it cleanseth me.”
Oh, the transcendent wisdom and the fundamental truth flashing out from this Jerusalem council, revelatory of the pure spirituality of the gracious economy, unencumbered by ecclesiastical rites, ceremonies and institutions! The work of the gospel herald is to run to the ends of the earth and cry, “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” We have nothing to do but preach Jesus and get people saved.

21. “For Moses from ancient generations has those preaching him in every city, being read every Sabbath in the synagogues.” At that time the Jews had synagogues in all the prominent cities of the known world. Those apostles expected to fulfill this commission and remain on the earth till the gospel was preached to every nation and actually hail their descending Lord, and in the transfiguration glory fly up to meet Him in the air. Hence that wonderful flying artillery scheme, utterly disencumbered of all human ecclesiasticism and local church machinery, running to the ends of the earth preaching the gospel to every nation, calling out the elect, and thus with all possible expedition preparing the world for their Lord’s return on the throne of His glory, to revive and establish the theocracy of King David in all the earth, thus bringing the Jews again to the front, the custodians of the universal Millennial Kingdom, for which they recognize the universal prevalence of the Jewish theocracy, as at that time adumbratory and preparatory. They had on them the true spirit of prophecy, but little dreaming of the long rolling centuries destined to intervene before the glorious fulfillment, the day of His coming being known to the Father only.