This morning is the 1st in our series examining the TWELVE, the Master’s Men.
Who were THE TWELVE, as they are called in the Gospels?
1. The Master’s Men WERE LOYAL to Christ to the end of their lives. Faithful to Christ as their Emperor, to whom they gave an oath of loyalty.
This morning, the lyrics we heard remind us of Christ’s call to those first disciples. Their Pledge of Allegiance reflects how we are to operate as Christ’s followers today.
Jesus calls men and women, boys and girls, to pledge to follow Him at all costs, never looking back, never turning back, always seeking Him more than anything else.
Daily, the Early Church met in Acts to renew this pledge. They called the Lord’s Supper a Sacramentum, or oath of loyalty. And as they celebrated His Table each day or week, it was a renewal of that oath. The History of the servants God has used shows the incredible price a pledge of allegiance to Christ’s name has cost. Listen to just the Twelve.
Peter was crucified in Rome with his head down because he felt he was unworthy to die in the same manner as Christ;
Andrew was crucified at Edessa;
James, brother of John, was (Acts 12) slain by Herod’s sword;
John is now being exiled to Patmos (and some records indicate he was horribly martyred by being cast into boiling oil);
Matthew was beheaded in Ethiopia;
Thomas was thrust through with a spear in India;
Simon the Zealot was crucified in Briton;
Thaddeus was crucified at Edessa;
Bartholomew was beaten and crucified in India;
Philip was crucified at Heliopolis in Phrygia;
James the Less was clubbed to death in Jerusalem;
Who were these men? The twelve ordinary fishermen, tax collectors, and zealots of the day. Let’s meet these men this morning and see the Lord call them in Mark 3:13-19.
But what led them to such levels of loyalty? Most of us feel they were so unique and empowered we could never be like them. But if we consider what our Master and Savior asks of us, offers us, and pours upon us, we will see that we also can deny ourselves and follow Him. An early way the 1st century Christians described the Lord’s Supper was by a Latin term “Sacramentum”. Before religion obscured that word with various and confusing meanings, they took it in its original and purest form.
Sacramentum was the Military oath of Roman soldiers of Caesar’s Legions, the most powerful institution of the 1st century. Spread across the ancient world, they were the personal representatives of the Emperor. Bound together with a life-or-death allegiance, they were invincible. They were known and seen daily in Israel, an occupied country, and in all the New Testament cities of Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse, and so on.
(WWJ-34; 001022AM)
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