Acts 11:1-13

PETER'S REPORT AT JERUSALEM

1-13. Immediately after Peter's glorious revival at Caesarea he goes straight to Jerusalem, accompanied by the six Joppa brethren who had witnessed the new departure and the mighty work of God at the house of Cornelius. The news is already flown on the wings of the wind to Jerusalem, stirring apostles, prophets, elders and brethren with the momentum of an earthquake. This departure from the time-honored institutions of their fathers, so sudden, radical, decisive and significant, must receive summary attention at headquarters and be settled at once and forever. So bold Peter faces the grave council in the mother church at Jerusalem, rehearses to them his vision at Joppa, and testifies to the outpouring of the Holy Ghost on the Gentiles at Caesarea, proving it all by those six faithful witnesses who had accompanied him throughout and now stand by his side in presence of all the apostles. Of course no trouble whatever arises from this radical, downright and outright revolution, though undreamed of hitherto; and why? Simply because all of the apostles and primitive saints fully recognized the leadership of the Holy Ghost. They are acquainted with Him. He dwelt in them, and they knew His voice and His works. For this reason there never was a schism in the Apostolic church, so long as they were true to Pentecostal experience and the Holy Ghost. When former generations went up to heaven and others succeeded who knew not God, then they founded human ecclesiasticisms and established church government to suit themselves, ignoring the sole right of the Holy Ghost to rule the church, and relegating Him back to the Apostolic age, and congratulating themselves that the days of miracles were past and they can make laws and manage the church to suit themselves. Right here is where human and Satanic usurpation of the divine right to rule the church came in, with the roll of ages developing into all the complicated machinery of priestcraft, prelacy and popery.