The sermon titled 'The First General Assembly – The Issue' by Peter Allison explores the significant division within the early church regarding the necessity of circumcision for salvation. This issue, highlighted in Acts 15 and Galatians 2, arose when some believers, described as Judaizers, insisted that Gentile converts must be circumcised according to Mosaic Law to be saved. Paul and Barnabas strongly opposed this teaching, leading to a major dispute. In response, a council was convened in Jerusalem where apostles and elders, including James, Cephas, and John, affirmed that circumcision was not required for salvation, emphasizing justification by faith in Jesus Christ. The sermon discusses the deeper implications of this conflict, noting the change in church composition as Gentiles were integrated without adhering to Jewish ceremonial laws, thus requiring new revelation. Additionally, it addresses the importance of divisions in the church as opportunities for growth, refining beliefs, and testing faithfulness to the Gospel. Peter Allison underscores that while divisions can be challenging, they are also necessary for distinguishing true doctrine and believers, as supported by 1 Corinthians 11:19.

I'd like to read the first five verses and then turn over to Galatians and read the second chapter of Galatians. And why we're doing This will be apparent, I think, I trust. Here are God's words. Acts chapter 15, followed by Galatians 2. And certain men came down from Judea and taught the brethren, unless you are circumcised, according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.

Therefore, when Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of them should go up to Jerusalem, to the apostles and elders about this question. So being sent on their way by the church, they passed through Phoenicia and Samaria, describing the conversion of the Gentiles. And they caused great joy to all the brethren. And When they had come to Jerusalem, they were received by the Church, and the apostles, and the elders, and they reported all the things God had done with them. But some of the sect of the Pharisees who believed rose up saying it is necessary to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the Law of Moses.

And in Galatians chapter 2, Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and also took Titus with me and I went up by revelation and communicated to them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles. But privately to those who were of reputation lest by any means I might run or had run in vain. Yet not even Titus, who was with me being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. And this occurred because of false brethren secretly brought in, who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage, to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. But from those who seemed to be something whatever they were, it makes no difference to me.

God shows personal favoritism to no man. For those who seemed to be something added nothing to me, but on the contrary when they saw that the gospel for the uncircumcised had been committed to me, as the gospel for the circumcised was to Peter. For he who worked effectively in Peter for the apostleship to the circumcised also worked effectively in me toward the Gentiles. And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. They desired only that we should remember the poor, the very thing which I was eager to do.

Now when Peter had come to Antioch I withstood him to his face because he was to be blamed, For before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles. But when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the gospel, about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all, if you being a Jew live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews? We here are Jews by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles.

Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law. For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves are also found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin? Certainly not. For if we build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.

For I through the law die to the law that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain." This word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

Heavenly Father, pray that now you would open our hearts to receive your Word with meekness. May you open our ears to hear with understanding. May you equip our feet to obey, to be doers of your word, not hearers only. And I ask that you would sanctify my sinful lips, that through a vessel of clay, the riches of your grace might be spoken this morning. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Well, the history of the church is an unbroken record of division, of divisions, of factions, going all the way back to the very beginning. Sometimes in these divisions, there is a resolution leading to restored peace. And sometimes there is not leading to a church split. Sometimes there is effective discipline, church discipline, leading to the heretics or wolves being cast out of the church. Sometimes that discipline results in their restoration.

Sometimes it doesn't. On the other hand, Sometimes the heretics gain the upper hand, and it is the orthodox believers that are cast out of the church. Some divisions are doctrinal over matters affecting the Gospel. Some are personal, the result of strongly held opinions about the application of doctrine or sins, or over sins, that one or both parties are persisting in. Shortly after God established the church, calling Abraham out of Ur of Chaldees and justifying him by faith so that Abraham called upon the Lord, there was a church split.

When Abraham's shepherds and Lot's shepherds could not get along, they were quarreling with each other. And so they split and went their separate ways so that there would be peace. Though Lot was righteous, his descendants became the Ammonites and the Moabites, uncircumcised Gentiles outside of the church. There were divisions in the 40 years of wilderness wanderings. First, Miriam and Moses revolted against Moses and were disciplined by God and were brought back into fellowship.

We read about that recently. Then a little later, we haven't gotten there yet, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, they were Levite officers within the church, rose up against Moses and Aaron. And were also disciplined by God, but much more severely, and they were not restored to the church. They and their families were killed in a rather dramatic way, just like Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. The church split in the days of Rehoboam, Solomon's son.

Remember after Solomon died and he became king and alienated the people of the northern tribes and Jeroboam erected a strange altar at Bethel. Strange in that it wasn't one that God had commanded. It was foreign. He erected these calves. He established a strange line of priests outside of Aaron's descendants.

And he rewrote church history to teach that his golden calves that he set up at Dan and Bethel had delivered Israel from the land of Egypt. And that's always an important indicator of heretics. They like to rewrite history to make it conform to their dishonest narrative. Something we see a lot of today. The rewriting of history.

Jeroboam did it when he split the church and set up a false church, a heretical church in Samaria. So the fact that there are divisions in the church ought not to surprise us. We should expect it and we should prepare for them. But also, the fact that there is division in the church ought not to discourage us either. We should see it as an opportunity for growth and ultimately for our own sanctification.

And so Acts here in Acts 15, we have a division, a significant division. And we'd like to look at really two questions this morning. What was this issue that was dividing the church so strongly? And why was the issue an issue? Why was the issue such a big issue?

Well first of all, what was the issue? We see in Acts 15, the issue is stated quite succinctly, succinctly, that some people thought that circumcision was necessary to salvation. Some people, and Paul called them false brethren in the passage we read in Galatians, had come up from the Judean church, or it says actually came down. Jerusalem was high, So people went down from Jerusalem. So it says they came down Even though they're going north we like to think of north is going up But they came down because Jerusalem is high they came down and they taught they were stirring up trouble in the Antioch Church teaching that people had to be circumcised, all the Gentiles had to be circumcised in order to be saved.

So they made it a salvation issue. Now, There's a lot of background to this. This is a big issue. And the whole book of Galatians was written to address this very issue in the churches that Paul had just started on his first missionary journey. And I have included a chronology of this time period as a handout in your bulletin, because the first couple chapters of Galatians provide some very helpful historical background and context to this controversy that Luke relates here in Acts.

And so by comparing the Galatians 1 and 2 narrative with what Luke has written in Acts, I think we can gain a much better understanding of just what was going on in the church. And so if you look at your handout there, you'll see that in about year 33, so Christ was crucified in about 8030, so roughly two to three years later Paul is converted in Acts 9 and he talks about his conversion also in Galatians 1 verse 15 and 16 three years later remember so it'd be about 35 because they Jews recognized time inclusively so in about 80 35 there is the first trip to Jerusalem. It's mentioned in both Galatians 1, 18 and 19, and in Acts 9, 26 to 27. In Galatians 1, Paul says that, then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and remained with him 15 days, but I saw none other None of the other Apostles except James the Lord's brother And Luke tells us in Acts 9 that Saul came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the apostles, but they were all afraid of him, and they didn't believe in him, but Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how he'd seen the Lord in the road and how the Lord was working through them, and how He had been preaching boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus.

And so, He was there in Jerusalem, and He was disputing with the Hellenists there, and then they tried to kill him. And so that's when he left and went to Tarsus and Syria and was ministering there for a number of years. There was probably nearly a decade that he was up there before he was going on his first missionary journey. Well then in AD 46, he makes a second trip to Jerusalem. And that's Acts 11, 30, and 12, 25.

Both refer to this trip. First that he went up and then in Acts 1225 that he returned. And so this second trip, Acts tells us, was to bring relief to the poor. And this famine, we place this in AD 46, because this famine that they were bringing relief to was generally understood, I think most everybody agrees, that this is the famine that was in AD 46. And so this is the trip that is described then in Galatians chapter 2.

And we learn that on this trip that Paul has come up first by revelation. And Acts tells us about that revelation. It was the Agabus prophecy about coming famine. That was the occasion of this trip. The church in Anyok determined to send relief to the Jerusalem people and they sent it by the hands of Paul and Barnabas.

So Paul says in Galatians that he came, he went up by way of Revelation. And that he met with, he took Barnabas and he took Titus, sorry, He took Tidus, Paul and Barnabas went up, and they met with Peter, James, and John. James being the brother of Christ, not James as the brother of John who was killed by Herod. And Paul says in Galatians, he didn't get his gospel from these apostles, he got it directly from the Lord. And he wasn't made an apostle by these pillars in the church in Jerusalem, because he says they added nothing to him.

He was an apostle by the will of the Lord. They simply acknowledged His apostleship and His calling to the Gentiles. But Paul says he went up privately to see if the gospel that he had preached, that he had run or might have run in vain. He went up to see if they were in agreement with this gospel he was preaching over which there was such dissension in Antioch. And in this private, you notice it's a private meeting, he says.

He met with them privately. They were going to discuss this. Because as we see later, there were people that were coming up from the Judean church, which is where James and Peter and John were, and he wants to know, where are you on this issue? Why are these people coming from your church up to us? And what Paul communicates in Galatians 2 is that when he had this private meeting with them, they were in agreement on the Gospel.

And he says not even Titus had to be circumcised. Because Titus is a Gentile convert. He wasn't circumcised. He'd become a minister of the Gospel. And Paul brought him with him to this visit, the second visit to Jerusalem.

Because this was a case in point. What's the situation with Titus? Does he need to be circumcised? And they all agreed, no, he doesn't. He doesn't need to be circumcised.

Not even Titus was required to be circumcised. Yet, not even Titus, who was with me being Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. And he says this occurred because false brethren. So he's calling these people who have come up, they're in the church, so they're brothers, but he says they're false brothers. They're not believing because he says they're teaching something that's contrary to the Gospel.

They are bringing another Gospel. And so he goes up to Jerusalem, has this private conference with the pillars of the church there, those who were reputed to be pillars. He says they didn't add anything to him, meaning he didn't get his commission and apostleship from them. He got it from the Lord. He wanted to make sure that they were all in agreement with him.

And that they were not in agreement with these troublemakers who had come up to spy out their liberty so that they might bring them into bondage. And so he left there having secured their agreement privately that they were all in agreement on what the Gospel was and how it applied to the Gentiles, and that the Gentiles did not have to keep the ceremonial law. And so, then he goes on his first missionary journey in probably 46 to 48, somewhere in that time as we talked last week. Maybe it was a little bit later. But I think it may be a little bit earlier here, when he comes back from it, He spends a long time at the Antioch church.

And it was in this time, at the end of Acts 14 there, where he has completed the missionary journey, he's come back, he's spending time with the disciples there. And it was in this time then that Peter visited Antioch, and that these men from the Judean church that Galatians tells us were sent by James also came up to the church in Antioch and were causing a great problem. And so it was in this context then that the church decided in Anyak decided to send Barnabas and Paul to Jerusalem to to deal with this matter. And it was also in this time then that this book of Galatians was written to the very churches that he had just been ministering to because they were being affected by these false brethren who had another Gospel who were coming up and they were capturing the hearts of these churches that he had just planted. So he has this great concern for the churches that they have departed the Gospel and they've followed these other people who have come up from these false brethren whom he says have snuck into the church to spy out their liberty.

He says we didn't give them submission even for a moment because they're bringing another Gospel. So he writes this book. It's a very strongly worded book in Galatians where he strongly condemns this heresy as being another gospel, as them teaching that salvation is not by faith alone, but it's through this outward means of circumcision. So this issue was something that had already been settled. You remember in Acts 10, Peter had the vision of the unclean animals coming down, and God telling Peter, rise, kill, and eat.

Remember, Peter's response is no. He actually said no to the Lord. That's how deeply rooted his understanding of this ceremonial law was. He would actually tell the Lord no to a direct command. And the Lord did this three times until Peter finally understood that the Lord was telling him that he ought not to reject the Gentiles, but he needed to go to them.

And then it's also settled in, remember when Peter got back to Jerusalem after this trip to Cornelius, There were people there that were challenging him. Why are you eating with the Gentiles? And so Peter speaks to them about his vision, and they seem to be placated at the time. So that's the issue. Now why exactly is this such a big issue?

And the first reason it's such a big issue is because this represents a change to the sacraments of the Church. The Judaizers here were not the ones trying to change the practice of the Church. They were the ones trying to change the practice of the church. They were the ones trying to preserve the historic practice of the church. The Old Testament required circumcision.

It was a specific command in Genesis 17. God said to Abraham, As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout your generations. This is My covenant which you shall keep between Me and your descendants." Between Me and you and your descendants. You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreshadowing. It shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.

So at eight days old, they were to be circumcised. Whoever is born in your house or bought with money from a foreigner who is not your descendant, if they're born in your house, then they had to be circumcised. My covenant, God said to Abraham, shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And so these Judaizers are going back saying, look, this is an everlasting covenant. This is a command.

You must be circumcised, all your descendants. And it says the uncircumcised male child who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people. He has broken my covenant. So these Judaizers, they could cite the scriptures. They were the ones who were trying to hold to the historic practice of the church for the last 2, 000 years.

They could also point to Exodus, where circumcision was required to partake in the Passover. So somebody might argue, well, that's just the Jews. That's just the descendants of Abraham there in that command. But the Judeo-Jews could go to Exodus 12, where the Lord addresses the Gentiles. He says, And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, This is the ordinance of the Passover.

No foreigner shall eat of it. No foreigner. To eat of the Passover is to participate in the sacraments of the church. It's to participate in the privilege of church membership. But it says, every man's servant who is bought for money, when you have circumcised him, then he may eat of it.

But a sojourner or a hired servant, so in other words not a servant that's a member of your household, they can't eat of it. And it says, all of the congregation of Israel shall keep it. There is no exceptions. You can't be a part of the congregation and not keep this covenant, not be circumcised. It says, and when a stranger dwells with you and wants to keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised.

And then let them come near and keep it." So there it's addressing the stranger as well has to be circumcised. It's not just the children of Abraham. So these Judaizers are saying, look, when these Gentiles come into the church, God requires that they be circumcised. That's the law. And it says, let him be circumcised, then let him come near and keep it, and he shall be as a native of the land, for no uncircumcised person shall eat of it.

One law, Exodus 12.49, one law shall be for the native born and for the stranger who dwells among you." So you see, they could cite very clear passages of scripture that required circumcision. And so they thought that Paul is trying to change the law of God. He's trying to change the worship. He's trying to change the sacraments of the church. Now The second reason this was an issue is that this change regarding the Gentiles was not taught in the Old Testament explicitly.

The Old Testament certainly taught that the Gentiles would be converted, yes, but not that they would come into the church and remain Gentiles as Gentiles in the church, in the one congregation. That was not taught. And so Paul calls that a mystery. He says in Ephesians 3, that how by revelation He that is the Lord made known to me the mystery, as I have briefly already written, by which when you read you may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ." A mystery is something that has not been revealed yet. That's the sense in which the Scripture uses it.

He says, which in other ages was not made known to the sons of men. In other words, this was not prophesied in the Old Testament that the Gentiles would come in and stay as Gentiles. What was prophesied is that the Gentiles would be brought into the church. And what these Judaizers are saying, yes, when they come into the church, then they have to be circumcised, because that's what the law required. And so this is an issue, secondly, because this has required new revelation that hadn't explicitly been given.

So he says, in other ages, this was not made known to the sons of men as it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His Holy Apostles and Prophets. The New Testament church was built on the foundation of the Apostles and the Prophets. What was the purpose of the Prophets? Well, this was a huge issue. This was changing 2, 000 years of practice.

This is a question everybody has and God sent prophets throughout the New Testament church who could testify by prophecy to this change in revelation, change in practice. And so what is this that has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets? Ephesians 3 says, verse 6, that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs of the same body. They're not a separate body. They're going to come in as the same body and partakers of His promise in Christ through the Gospel, of which I have become a minister according to the gift of the grace of God given to me by the effective working of His power." So Paul is saying, this is a mystery.

I've been given this new revelation that the Gentiles are going to come into the one congregation and be one body. You see, and that's a third reason this is an issue. Not only was it a change to the sacraments and a change that required new revelation, but it was a change in the composition of the church. Now just think about how difficult that is. Even today, we often, churches, and it shouldn't be this way, but it often works out that churches divide along racial lines.

And naturally churches are predominantly one ethnicity or another. Now where there's a language issue, that's legitimate, But there shouldn't be any other reason why churches are divided along ethnic lines. But this has been an issue all the way back in Acts 6. Remember the Hellenist widows were being neglected in the daily ministrations. And there was some tension there that should not have been there.

When Peter, as we alluded to earlier, came back from his ministry to Cornelius, he had to defend eating and drinking with the Gentiles, eating their unclean foods, staying in their house with them. You see, that was totally contrary to all that good Jews have been brought up to do. And so the question here is, can these Gentiles join the church without becoming Jews? To the first century Jew, that would be as preposterous to them as saying to us that some non-believer could join our church without being baptized or changing their Gentile ways. That they could continue their old Gentile practices, their practices of whatever they were doing, that they could just come in that way.

Can Gentiles come into the church as Gentiles? And the answer is yes. Yes, they can. The Gentiles were grafted into Israel. They were grafted into the church.

This is not replacement theology. These Gentiles don't replace the Jews. Rather, they are grafted into the church. They're not a separate tree. And they don't replace the existing church.

They are added to it. So now the church is comprised of Jews and Gentiles. And that's a big change. Rosarie Butterfield, in one of her books, I don't remember which one, talks about the shock of her. If you don't know her background, I recommend many of her books.

She was a tenured professor of women's studies at Syracuse University as a lesbian. And she was converted by the Gospel and came to a Bible-believing church on her first Sunday, looking exactly like what she was, a lesbian dyke. And it was a shock. And this was a church with a lot of homeschooling families. And here they have this person sitting in their midst.

And somebody for whom they had been praying for two years. And I think one mother said she didn't know if she would have prayed as hard if she had realized who she was praying for. Because there's a natural aversion to some of these things. And so this is what's happening in this church. You have these Gentiles coming in uncircumcised with their unkosher habits, eating their unclean foods, and you're supposed to now have fellowship as one body.

But Paul very clearly says in Romans 11, that you, addressing Romans, addressing Gentiles, you being a wild olive tree were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree. They became legitimate members and partakers of the riches of His grace in the church." He says, don't boast against the branches because some of those branches, remember some Jews didn't believe, Many didn't. There was a great turning away, a great apostasy. Not all, but many. He says, don't boast against the branches, but if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.

You will say then, well, branches were broken off that I might be grafted in. Well said, Paul says. Because of unbelief they were broken off. You stand by faith. Don't be haughty, but fear.

You stand by faith. For if God did not spare the natural branches, He won't spare you either. The fourth reason why this issue is an issue is because it gets to the heart of the Gospel. They were saying, unless you... And there were some different factions here, but one faction was clearly saying unless you were circumcised, you couldn't be saved.

Verse 1, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. And others went even farther and said, well, some of the sect of the Pharisees, verse 4 or 5, who believe saying it's necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the whole law of Moses. It's necessary. This is a Gospel issue. But what does Paul teach?

Who is a Jew? He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, but he is a Jew who is one inwardly. And Circumcision is not that which is outward in the flesh, but circumcision is that of the heart. Not in the letter whose praise is not from men, but from God. He is not a Jew who is one outwardly, he is a Jew who is one inwardly.

Circumcision is not outward in the flesh, it is inward. It is in the heart. See, salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, with no works. It's unmerited favor. We're not saved because we're baptized.

We're not saved by our baptism. We're not saved in our baptism. Salvation is by grace alone, with no works. Nothing that we do, nothing in our hands that we can bring, nothing that we can think or do. It is only by faith, believing and trusting in Jesus Christ and resting in His work that we are saved.

So this is a Gospel issue. This is why some divisions are necessary. When there are Gospel issues, it would be wrong not to divide. It would be wrong to allow an issue that changes the heart of the Gospel to go unchallenged. So this is a division that had to happen.

This was a division that was necessary. And that's why this division was dividing the church and that's why Paul argued so strongly against it. That's why he called those who held this view false brethren. He's saying they weren't Christians. They were false believers.

And This was such a big issue that even Peter and Barnabas are led astray into hypocrisy. So what Paul explains in Galatians 2 is that Peter had come up to Antioch and he was living like a Gentile with the Gentiles, which is fine. But then when these people that James sent up, and we'll talk more about that, when these people that James sent up, these Judaizers came up, then he started living like a Jew and not like a Gentile. And it was hypocrisy. He was being too faced about it.

And Paul says even Barnabas was carried away. Why? Because there's this strong pressure to conform to their Jewish practices and to not offend these people. And Paul is saying no. We have to stand against these people.

This is a Gospel issue. And so Paul and Barnabas have no small dissension with these people. Now in most controversies, there are three factions. There are those who are teaching the heresy or false doctrine. On the other hand, there are those who see the grave error of the false doctrine.

And each of those groups is usually 15 to 20% of the total. And the third group is the largest, often the majority. They are those who don't teach or believe the heresy, but they don't see it as such a big deal. And that's the problem. Because they're the majority.

And they think, well, why can't you two folks just get along? Why can't you just accept this difference and love each other? Why do you have to fight about it? And it seems like that's maybe where James and Peter were at times in this controversy. James was unwilling, had not disciplined these people down in the Indian church.

They were allowing this faction to exist down there. And James apparently even sent these people up to investigate Paul in Antioch. And now it became clear that they misrepresented James' position. But it would appear that James and Peter initially may have been in this majority group that, you know, not teaching the false doctrine. Remember, they privately agreed with Paul, but they're not publicly denouncing it as heresy.

They're not taking discipline against those who are practicing it. And this is why churches often go the way they go. The same thing happened in the doctrinal eras 100 years ago in the Presbyterian Church when they denied the gospel. And 1, 200 ministers signed the Auburn Affirmation, Basically denying, saying you can believe if you want, but you don't have to believe in the deity of Christ, the virgin birth, the miracles, the inspiration of the Scriptures, and so forth. These are gospel issues.

And many people would say, well, it's not a big deal. You can believe it or not. You don't have to believe it. Twelve hundred ministers. A lot of people.

They'd say, well, we don't necessarily believe this, but we don't think it's a big issue. And that's always the problem. And that was the problem in this controversy as well. There was the majority, the 60%, who didn't think this was necessarily a Gospel issue. Now, what's the response?

Briefly, what's the response into church and Antioch? They responded very wisely. They had apostles. They had prophets. They might have settled this on their own and just kicked all the heretics out.

But they didn't. They didn't act alone. They could have. They had the Apostles. They had Paul who had revelation directly from God.

They didn't need the Apostles from Jerusalem. Paul says they added nothing to him. He didn't get his Gospel from them. But You see, that would have created a division, a separation from the Judean church. They could have started assuming things about the Judean church.

Or they could have even considered them enemies, because remember, this is where these Judaizers had come from with apparently the consent of James, being sent by James. But they didn't do that. They didn't do that. They recognized the need to address this issue with the entire broader church. And so they called for an ecumenical council.

They called for a general assembly. And they sent Paul and Barnabas and certain others to Jerusalem for the matter to be decided. You see, there is wisdom in many counselors. There's wisdom. And that is what a general assembly provides.

And that's why this is one of the places where we get our understanding of the church government that God commands. It's certainly not the only place and certainly not the starting place, but It's an example. Where the church has come together in a general assembly to decide a doctrinal matter, and the result is a decree, we'll see in Acts 16, it's a decree for the churches to keep. This wasn't just a collection of people who were going to have a discussion and then go their own ways. This was the General Assembly.

Churches from the entire world at that point coming together to debate the matter. And they reached a decision. And that decision resulted in a decree for the churches. We also see that they don't become bitter. This was a big controversy.

This was creating problems. Paul had planted all these churches. He'd risked his life for the Gospel. He'd gone through many hardships and trials to birth these churches. And now they are being led astray by a false gospel from these false brethren.

Paul didn't become bitter and resentful, but he went to Jerusalem. Now in closing, we can ask the question, why? Why does God allow these kinds of divisions in His church? He allows them. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 11, 19, Paul said, there must also be factions among you that those who are approved may be recognized among you.

There must be factions. And Calvin, in commenting on this verse, says, we should be so far from being troubled or cast down when we do not see complete unity in the church that even If sex or division start up, we ought to remain firm and constant. I'm paraphrasing just a little bit. But this is the way hypocrites, because this is the way hypocrites are detected, and the sincerity of believers is tried. For just as heresies give occasion for discovering the fickleness of those who are not rooted in the Lord's Word, and the wickedness of those who had assumed the appearance of good men, so the constancy and the sincerity of the orthodox are manifested.

That's why God allows divisions. But observe what Paul says, there must be. And he communicates by this expression that this state of affairs doesn't just happen by chance, but it is by the sure providence of God because God has in view to try His people as gold in a furnace. And if it is agreeable to the mind of God, it is consequently expedient. It's consequently beneficial for us that there be these divisions.

Why? To test us. To refine us. To bring out those who are heretics and those who only appear to be believers and separate them from those whose faith is in the Word of God. It's to try our patience.

It's to try our willingness to stand and to affirm the truth of the Gospel and to be willing to risk division and to be willing to risk the ire of the opponents for the sake of the Gospel. Are we willing to do that? Are we willing to stand? Or are we afraid? And unrighteously compromised?

So these trials, these divisions, should be seen as we saw earlier, an occasion for us to grow, for us to be tested, for us to be tried. May God give us His grace to stand when we ought to stand and to yield when we ought to yield. May He give us wisdom to recognize the difference between those two occasions. Let's pray. Almighty Heavenly Father, we have many such divisions in our midst even today.

And we ask that you give us wisdom to know where to stand, to know how to stand, to not be discouraged or bitter in the midst of conflict, but patient and firm. And also Lord, may You give us wisdom to know when to yield. When there is not a gospel issue at stake, when to allow room for growth, to allow room for sanctification, remembering where we have come from. And Lord, where there is a need to come alongside those who have been overtaken in a weakness, in a fault, may we be able to do so with gentleness. We ask, Father, for Your blessing.

We ask for Your truth to be made known. We ask, Lord, for your churches in our land to be refined and to come to a greater unity in the truth of your gospel. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.