The Book That Never Ends

Open the book of Acts and you will search in vain for an ending. There is no farewell, no deathbed scene for its great apostle, no "amen" to close the story. The last words Luke ever wrote are these:

"And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him."— ACTS 28:30–31

That is not an ending. That is a door left open.

Luke stopped writing at chapter 28 because the story itself did not stop. The book of Acts is the one book of the Bible that God deliberately left unfinished — because the Holy Ghost intended the church of every generation to go on living it. Acts 29 is not a lost chapter. It is our chapter. It is the record of what the same Spirit does through the same gospel in the hands of men and women who will take it up where Paul laid his part of it down.

That is what Acts 29 really means: the work is not done, the book is not closed, and the pen is in our hand.

How the Gospel Got to Rome

Consider how Paul brought the gospel to the capital of the world — because the way he got there is the pattern for how we take it anywhere.

He did not go in comfort; he went in chains. Paul reached Rome as a prisoner, not a celebrity. He had appealed to Caesar (Acts 25:11), survived a plot to murder him, a storm that tore his ship apart on the rocks of Melita, and a viper fastened on his hand — and through every mile of it he testified. The devil tried the courtroom, the sea, and the snake, and none of them could stop the mail from being delivered. "But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God." — ACTS 20:24

He did not wait for a better audience; he preached to the one in front of him. Centurions, sailors, soldiers, the chief of the Jews in Rome, Caesar's own household — Paul treated every soul in reach as his assignment. And when some believed not, he did not fold: "Be it known therefore unto you, that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it." — ACTS 28:28

He did not stop when he arrived; he opened his door and kept preaching. Two whole years in a hired house, chained to a soldier, and the record says he "received all that came in unto him." Rome came to Paul because Paul could not go to Rome. The chains that were meant to silence him became the pulpit God used to preach in the one city no preacher could have bought his way into. "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." — ROMANS 1:16

Paul's road to Rome teaches us three things about taking the gospel anywhere: the hardships are the highway, the people in front of you are the mission field, and no chain made by man can bind the word of God.

So Where Are We Going to Take It?

The risen Lord set the itinerary before He ever ascended:

"But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth."— ACTS 1:8

Paul carried it from Jerusalem to Rome — from the city of God to the city of Caesar. That was his leg of the journey. Ours begins where his record leaves off, and the map has not changed:

To our Jerusalem — our own city, our own streets, the people who walk past us every day. For us that is Seattle and every town in her reach: the gospel preached in the open air, to the lost, at any cost, where the people actually are.

To our Judaea and Samaria — the near places and the uncomfortable places: the next town, the campus, the fairground, and the ground where we are not welcome and go anyway.

To the uttermost part of the earth — the nations. The same book that ends in Rome sends its readers out of Rome. Missionaries must be raised up, sent out, and stood behind — churches planted, pastors encouraged, and the gospel carried to people who have never once heard the name of Jesus, because "How shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent?" — ROMANS 10:14–15

And the command that governs all of it has never been amended: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." — MARK 16:15

The Pen Is in Our Hand

Every generation gets the same question Paul answered with his life: where are we going to take it? The answer cannot be "nowhere." A gospel that stays inside four walls is a gospel denied by silence, whatever our creed says on paper.

That is why the motto over this work is the word God spoke to a people He was about to enlarge: "Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes." — ISAIAH 54:2

Lengthen the cords. Strengthen the stakes. Take it further than it has ever been taken from where you stand.

Acts 29 will be written — the only question is whether our names will be found in it. Paul finished his course. The two years in the hired house ended; the preaching did not. Somebody carried it out of Rome. Somebody carried it across oceans neither Paul nor Luke ever saw, all the way to a street corner in Seattle. And somebody — please God, us — will carry it from here to the next city, the next nation, and the next soul, until the Lord who began the book returns to close it Himself.

That is Acts 29. That is what it really means. And that is where we are going to take it: everywhere He sends us, until He comes.

— Grace Team University · Acts Chapter 29

Scripture: King James Version

“A Vision of the Lost” — William Booth

The founder of the Salvation Army tells what the Lord showed him: a dark and stormy ocean of lost souls, a mighty rock of safety rising out of it — and the saved upon the rock, amusing themselves while the perishing drown before their eyes. Booth’s own account, read aloud. Hear it, and then ask who is still in the water.

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1. A Vision of God

Every true preacher begins where Isaiah began: in the temple, in the year of a king\u2019s death, seeing a greater King who never dies. Isaiah saw the LORD \u201c sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, \u201d and heard the seraphims cry one to another of His holiness. Men preach small because they have seen God small. The street preacher who has had a vision of God preaches big \u2014 because God is big.

And the vision does what no training alone can do: it undoes the preacher before it uses him. Isaiah did not first say, \u201cHere am I, send me\u201d \u2014 he first cried, \u201cWoe is me!\u201d A man who has seen his own unclean lips against the holiness of God will never preach in pride, never preach for applause, and never preach another man\u2019s message. He preaches as one who has stood before the King.

"In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple."\u2014 Isaiah 6:1

"And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory."\u2014 Isaiah 6:3

"Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."\u2014 Isaiah 6:5

2. A Vision of Calvary

Take away Calvary and there is nothing left to preach. The open-air preacher does not offer the crowd a better life, a cleaner habit, or a kinder philosophy \u2014 he offers them a crucified Christ. On that cross the LORD laid on His Son the iniquity of us all: every lie, every lust, every blasphemy that the crowd on the pavement has ever committed was charged to Him, and He bore it in His own body.

That is why Paul \u2014 who had learning, standing, and religion enough to glory in \u2014 would glory in nothing else. A vision of Calvary settles the preacher\u2019s message forever: Christ died for sinners, for ALL sinners, and whosoever will may come. We do not preach ourselves, our church, or our university in the open air. We preach Christ crucified.

"But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."\u2014 Galatians 6:14

"But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."\u2014 Isaiah 53:5

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."\u2014 Isaiah 53:6

3. A Vision of Eternity

Every face in the crowd will outlive the sun. The young man laughing at the preacher, the woman hurrying past with her shopping, the old man on the bench \u2014 every one of them is an eternal soul, and every one of them will spend eternity somewhere. A vision of eternity is what turns a pleasant religious talk into a rescue. There is no small preaching when forever hangs in the balance.

Eternity also steadies the preacher himself. The reproach of an afternoon is temporal; the crown is eternal. We look not at the things which are seen \u2014 the empty hands, the hard faces, the arrest, the rain \u2014 but at the things which are not seen: a city whose builder and maker is God, and souls snatched from an eternal fire. That is the arithmetic of the open air, and it always comes out in favour of preaching.

"While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."\u2014 2 Corinthians 4:18

4. A Vision of Our High Calling

Paul counted his pedigree, his zeal, and his blameless legal righteousness as loss \u2014 dung, he called it \u2014 beside the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. A man with a vision of his high calling does the same with his comfort, his reputation, and his weekends. The calling is HIGH: it comes from God, it is in Christ Jesus, and its prize is set before us at the end of the race.

And a high calling is a pressing calling. The apostle did not drift toward the mark; he pressed. He forgot the failures behind him \u2014 the sermons nobody heeded, the ground that stayed hard \u2014 and reached forth unto the work before him. That is the spirit this university trains into its preachers: not men waiting to feel ready, but men who have heard a call too high to negotiate with.

"Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,"\u2014 Philippians 3:13

"I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."\u2014 Philippians 3:14

5. A Vision of the Lost

The last of the five visions is the one that walks out the door. When Jesus saw the multitudes, He did not see an audience, a market, or a nuisance \u2014 He saw sheep without a shepherd, and He was MOVED. Compassion is the engine of open-air preaching. Doctrine tells the preacher what to say; a vision of the lost tells him he cannot possibly keep it to himself.

And the seeking Saviour defines the seeking preacher. Christ did not wait in heaven for the lost to find Him; He came. He did not wait in the temple for Zacchaeus; He went to Jericho. The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost \u2014 and His servants go where He went: into the highways and hedges, the markets and the fairgrounds, to seek the same lost souls for the same Saviour.

"But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd."\u2014 Matthew 9:36

"For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."\u2014 Luke 19:10