Here in Acts 13, I had about three different titles
before I made it out here this morning. I had, I Stand Amazed,
A Call to the Ministry. So I finally settled on this,
a story of a call to the ministry and the trouble that we'll be
met with. In this world you shall have
tribulation. You'll have trouble preaching
this good news. That's amazing, but you'll have
trouble preaching this good news. I'm going to read the first 13
verses, then we'll look at this. Now there were in the church
that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers as Barnabas and
Simeon, that was called Niger, and Lucius, Cyrene, and Mannion,
which had been brought up Herod the Tetrarch. and Saul, that
is Paul. As they ministered to the Lord
and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, separate me Barnabas and Saul
for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had
fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them
away. So they being sent forth by the Holy Ghost departed unto
Seleucia, and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. And when they
were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues
of the Jews. And they had also John, that
is John Mark, the one who wrote the Gospel of John, to their
minister. And when they had gone through
the isles of Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet,
a Jew, whose name was Barjesus, which was with the deputy of
the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man, who called for
Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God. But
Elymas the sorcerer, for so was his name by interpretation, withstood
them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. Then Saul,
who also is called Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, set his
eyes on him. and said, O fool of all subtlety
and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all
righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways
of the Lord? And now, behold, the hand of
the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the
sun for a season. And immediately there fell on
him a mist and a darkness, and he went about seeking some to
lead him by the hand. Then the deputy, when he saw
what was done, believed, being astonished, that's where I got
the first title, astonished, I stand amazed, at the doctrine
of the Lord, of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now when
Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga, in
Pamphylia, and John, departing from them, returned to Jerusalem.
John Mark, This is where Paul and Barnabas fell out over John
Mark. John was Paul's cousin, or I mean Barnabas' cousin. And they fell out over John Mark
leaving the ministry. He didn't want to go with them.
And Paul and Barnabas had words over this. And it's interesting,
after that happened, Barnabas fades out of the picture. You
don't hear much of Barnabas no more. Then later on, Paul says,
John Mark is profitable to me in the ministry. Whatever it
was, got corrected and then he said John Mark is profitable
to me. Now let's look at this. We're now going to come to a
turning point in the church. Up till now, the gospel had been
preached mainly to the Jews. And Peter had been the chief
spokesman. But now it's going to turn the focus to us, the
Gentiles. And the Apostle Paul is going
to become the chief spokesman from here on out. God had greatly
blessed the church at Antioch, this Gentile church. The men
that were in this church, they were powerful, powerful preachers. And they had prophets, they had
teachers, they had men gifted to preach the gospel to them.
Barnabas and Paul were among that group for a while. They
were there for about a year. And there's something I want
to point out here in verse 1, which if you're just
reading it, you kind of overlook it, but it says toward the end
of that verse that that Mannion, which had been brought up with
Herod, this is the foster child that Herod's parents had adopted,
and he grew up with Herod, and God saved him. out of that house. God saved this adopted child,
this one who grew up with Herod. God demonstrated His sovereignty. Here is Herod, which is against
the church, and here is this foster brother, this foster son,
adopted son. God saved that man. God reached in there and demonstrated
His divine sovereignty. He left Herod alone, but He saved
that young man. That was just interesting to
me. And it says here in verse 2, they ministered to the Lord.
How do we minister unto the Lord? How do we minister to Him? Well,
they went about preaching the gospel and serving the church,
and in doing so, they ministered unto the Lord. Do you see? Do
you see? And this will help us tremendously.
Do you see that what you are doing, where you are at, is a
ministry unto the Lord? Do you see that? It is. I tell you what, that'll stop
a believer from complaining about his job or her job. There's nothing
that'll stop you from seeing that your job is terrible when
you see that it's a ministry to the Lord, right where you
are. It's a ministry. to the Lord. Our Lord said this,
whatsoever you do to the least of these, my brethren, you've
done it to me. It's a ministry to him. Now,
these men were not lazy men taking advantage of new and untaught
converts. They didn't do that. They were
laboring men. They labored in the Word. Whatever
we do, we do as unto the Lord and not unto men, and we do it,
it's a labor, but it's a labor of love, isn't it? What we do
for one another here and what we do in supporting the gospel,
it's a labor of love. Now here's the call. Here's the
call to the ministry. The first missionaries were sent
out from Antioch. The first missionaries were sent
out from a Gentile church. But I want you to notice this,
the church did not choose them. It is so often, it's so often
that a church, a young man will come in. So let's say a young
man comes in, he makes a profession in these Armenian churches especially. This happened to me when I was
just a young, 20 years old, 20, 21 years old. You come in and a young man has
some talent. He has some maybe gifts to speak
a little bit. What do they do? They grab him.
This is good for the young people. They'll listen to me. I tell you what's good for the
young people. Sit under a seasoned man of the
gospel. I thank God, I do, I thank God
that when I was 23 years old, God sat me down. He sat me down
under a seasoned man of the gospel. And God does call young men. He called Henry when he was just
in his 20s, but I thank God I got to sit under him when I was in
his 50s, when he was around 50 years old. He told me one time,
he said, I didn't become a pastor until I was 50. He said, I really
didn't learn what it is to be a pastor until I was 50 years
old. Dude, I was around 50 years old. I say to any young believer,
I say this, if the Lord enabled you to, and you've got to go
somewhere, you know, you've got to go somewhere for a job or
whatever, but look for that man, that seasoned man that preaches
the gospel of Jesus Christ and sit down and learn. Just sit
down and learn from that old man of wisdom and experience.
The best teacher, the best teacher. The church did not choose them,
God chose them. The Holy Spirit said, separate
me Barnabas and Saul. The man whom God separates to
the ministry is separated to God. That man is not to entangle
himself again with the affairs of this life, that's what Paul
told Timothy. He's to give himself to study and prayer, and he is
to give himself to pleasing the Lord, the one
who called him." And he says here, "...separate them to the
work whereunto I have called them." Preaching and ministering
is a calling. This is a calling. This is a
calling. I told you this before that a
man that I did business with, he was a vendor, and I bought
stuff from him, and he was a very religious man. I mean, I liked
him a lot, but he was, you know, just very religious, lost, but
religious. And he told me that one day he
was there, he said, I've got to go have a meeting tonight.
We vote on whether to give our pastor a raise every year. whether
to keep him. You're going to vote on God's
man every year whether to keep him or not? You might want to
think about that because this is a calling. This is not a job
interview. It's not a job. It's not a job.
It's a calling. Someone called me not long ago.
It's been a couple of years ago. He asked me when I was here.
He asked me how I like my retirement. He said, how you enjoying your
retirement? What are you talking about? It's
not a retirement. Plowing, sowing is a work. It's
not a retirement. Caring for the garden is a work. It's a labor of love, but it's
still a labor and it's still a work. It's a work and it's
a labor in the Lord's vineyard. You know you are the Lord's vineyard
here in Spring Lake, Bethel? And he says there in verse two,
whereunto I have called them. I called them to this work. And
I can say this, the Lord better call the man and not the people.
Now the people will do it later, but the Lord better do it first.
It better be of the Lord first. It better be of him first. And
this matter of preaching is a calling. It's not an occupation, it's
a calling. But you know what? All that the
Lord has given to you, to what you're doing, you know that's
a calling? Paul said this, concerning those
whom the Lord saves, abide in the calling wherein you were
called. When the Lord saved you, He said,
you stay in that work, in that whatever it is you're doing,
If you're a thief and you're robbing houses, you got to change
that one. But he says, abide in the calling
wherein you recall. Stay with what you're doing when
God called you by His grace. And if He opens the door, if
He opens the door for public ministry, He'll put you in it.
That's what He's telling us here. He'll put you in it. Paul said,
God put me in the ministry. You don't want in the ministry.
No man, no man. And I say this to any young person
that hears this, you don't want in the ministry. You want God
to put you in the ministry. You want God to put you in the
ministry. A desire to preach does not constitute a call to
preach. That's what Henry wrote to me
when I was just a young man. I was writing to him about it.
I should have got the letter brought out here and read it
to you. I still have those letters he wrote to me. Every now and
then I pull them out and read them. They're very profitable. But a desire to preach does not
constitute a call to preach. All the Lord's people, Henry
wrote to me, he said, all the Lord's people want to make Him
known. All of you want to make Him known. And being able to
say the right things does not constitute a call to the ministry.
Knowing the five points of Calvinism does not constitute a call to
the ministry at all. When God calls a man to the ministry,
He gives him gifts for that ministry. He gives him a hearing. The church
wants to hear him. They want to hear him. The church
will recognize, and I believe this, in a true call, the church
will recognize that calling before the man himself will recognize
it. I think the people will recognize the gifts and the talents before
the man recognizes. There was one man, I'm not gonna
say the name, this is an old, old, old guy, gone years back
in the 1800s, 1800s, 1700s. When they called him to the ministry,
he went in and locked his door for days, scared to death, scared
to death, weeping. I wish, I wish, oh, that, Any young man hearing this, I
would to God, I would to God that he would be scared to enter
the ministry. I mean, have a fear of entering
the ministry. That if he's gonna be in it,
God's gonna have to put him in it. God's gonna have to put him
in it. He's not trying to put himself
in it, but God's gonna have to put him in it. A.D. Mews said this, he said
that God would have to kill our natural talents before he could
use us for his glory. He'll have to kill our natural
talents. He'll make us realize we can't preach. A man will never
be able to preach until God makes him realize he can't do it. He
can't do it. Moses said, Lord, send somebody
else. I can't speak. I can't speak. And then the church here, listen,
the church recognized Paul and Barnabas. The Holy Spirit made
it evident that Paul and Barnabas were the ones to be sent. Now
the church did not equip them. No seminary, no seminary, however
sound it may be, can equip a man for the ministry. God has to
do that. God has to do that. The church
didn't equip them, the church didn't call them. But they did
recognize, they did recognize that God had called them. God called them to be his ministers.
The church didn't give them the powers that they had, nor the
message. The church didn't give them the
message. God did. God burned the message in their
heart. Henry said this one time to me,
and it was a high, high compliment. He said, you got the message.
After I preached one time, he said, you got the message. You
got it. You understand it. God's given
you the message. When I look through the scriptures,
and I hold to the five points of Calvinism, what we call that.
I don't look for the five points of Calvinism in the scriptures.
I look for Jesus Christ in the scriptures. And whatever doctrine
is being dealt with at that time concerning Christ, that's the
message. And I always pray when I'm looking
at a portion of Scripture, Lord, give me the message in this portion
of Scripture. Because sometimes in the same
portion of Scriptures, you can go different areas in Christ. But God has to give that to me. You've said to me several times
going out the door, I've never seen that before. Well, neither
did I. I have stood here preaching in
other places many times, and for the first time, for the first
time preaching, while I'm preaching, for the first time, I saw it.
I didn't see it until I was preaching. And that's, I know, that's when
I know that's of God. That's of God. When He makes
it known to me, and it becomes evident to me, and it becomes
evident to you, The message is of God. And then verse 3, there was much prayer, much prayer. Let's not make little of prayer,
let's make much of prayer. And let's make much prayer. Much
prayer was given over them, and they sought the Lord's will in
this matter, so much so that they fasted." They denied themselves. Oh man, I tell you, I wish prayer
would become like that to us. That we would just be so concerned
about a matter that we would deny ourselves and beg God for
light, for understanding. Give us understanding in this
matter. And then it says in verse 4,
they were sent. Now what you notice is, they
were sent by the Holy Ghost. After prayer, after much prayer
and fasting, it became evident to them that Paul and Barnabas
were the ones to be sent. And then it says, they were sent
by the Holy Ghost. The scripture says, how shall
they preach except they be sent? And not by me and you, it's sent
by God. God the Holy Spirit. This is
the only way to go. Called of God, equipped of God,
and sent of God. Sent of God. Sent to the work. The work will call its man, and
the man must be prepared for the work, and God will prepare
him for the work. But he'll be called to it, just
like Moses. You know, Moses... I'm not going
to get through this. When Moses, it was made known
to Moses that he was going to be a deliverer, and he killed
that Egyptian, and he thought they would understand that he
was going to be the deliverer, what happened? For 40 years, God put him on
the backside of a desert. And you know what happened then?
He said, send somebody else. He was ready when he was 40 years
old, but when he was 80 years old, he said, send somebody else. Send someone else. Now you're material for God to
use. God has to break all of that.
All of that, I can do it. Moses was raised up there at
the feet of Pharaoh. You know how arrogant he had
to be walking around as even the adopted son of Pharaoh. But
people looked up to him. This is the son of Pharaoh. And
God had to break that in him. God had to break it. And then
God sent him. God sent him. You know, one of
the things I've learned, when God lays your face in the dust,
If your face has been laid into dust, it is absolutely impossible
to look down on anyone. Ain't nobody a blower than that. If your face is in the dust,
you can't look down on anyone. And he had to put Moses in the
dust. And God has to put his preachers in the dust to make
gospel preachers out of them. A man told me one time he had
a real desire to be a pastor, and I thought, oh, buddy, You
have no idea what God will have to put you through to make you
a pastor. You don't know what he'll put you through. To make
you a pastor, a real pastor of his flock, he's going to have
to put you through some difficult times in order for you to minister
to that flock and identify with them. You can't identify with
somebody if you haven't been through anything. And this is
what has to happen. And it says in verse 5, they
preached the word to the Jew first, because that's what they
were given to do, to the Jew first and then to the Gentiles.
God left that Jewish nation without excuse, everywhere they went,
He left them without excuse. But here's a summary, here's
a summary to the call to the ministry. Call of God. Now we know this,
called of God first in salvation. Called of God, taught of God,
laid in the dust. You're called of God, you're
recognized by the church. The church recognizes a man's
gifts and that God's called him. You're separated unto the work
by the Holy Spirit. Nobody else separates you to
it, but God does. And you're filled with the Holy Spirit And
when you go out, you go out preaching the Word. They weren't trying
to make converts out of those Gentiles. They went forth preaching
the Word, and God did. God did the saving. God made
the converts. God applied the Word in power. And sinners were saved. Sinners
were saved. God uses means, He uses men in
preaching the gospel and in saving sinners who believe God's eternal
purpose is being fulfilled in His church every day. And He's
still calling, He's still. And I thank God for this. We
look at the landscape of the church and we say, there's no
young men coming up. There's no young men being called.
Well, we don't need them apparently. When the need is there, the call
will happen. God will equip the man for the
hour and for the work. Now, they meet with Mr. Trouble. They go out preaching.
But I'm telling you, Satan is always on the heels of God's
preachers. I'm telling you he is. He lives
in every community. He lives in every community.
In verse 6, they preached in the isles of Paphos and ran into
a sorcerer named Bar-Jesus, that is, son of Jesus. That's what
he called himself. That's what that means. A false
prophet. He claimed to speak on behalf
of God. He claimed to tell the future. He didn't see this one
coming, did he? He claimed to be able to tell
the future, but he didn't see Paul and Barnabas coming, he
didn't see the Gospel coming and sinners being saved. And
he was with the deputy, in verse 7, he was with the deputy that
is the governor of that country. You know, false prophets always
try to get close to the most influential people for their
benefit. Satan does it for the most damage.
He does it for the most damage. Now this Sergius Paulus was a
prudent man, a wise man, this governor. He had some understanding
about it. And God gave him an interest
in the gospel. And he called for Barnabas and
Saul. He wanted to hear the Word of
God. God created an interest in him. This is the providence
of God here. Here's the providence at work.
God saved this governor, and you know what that did? It opened
up the door to the whole area. God saved that governor and it
opened the door up to that. That's the providence and wisdom
of God. God put that man in as governor
years earlier. He had no idea it was for the
fact of God's gonna save him and he's gonna open up that whole
area for the preaching of the gospel. God creates an interest in the
heart of his sheep when he begins to work in them. And they become
interested in how God can be a just God and a Savior. They
become interested in how God can put away their sins. They
become interested in this man named Jesus Christ. They become
interested in Him. And they become interested in
this matter of judgment and eternity. Before, they were just oblivious
to it. And all of a sudden, there's an interest, a real interest. That is the work of God. That's
the work of God. They find in Jesus Christ what
they cannot find in false religion. Peace and rest and joy and forgiveness. But this Elimus withstood them. They were a threat to his income
and his popularity with the governor. You know, he can see his prosperity
going down the tubes. And he's not going to leave this
alone and Satan's not going to leave it alone. And Paul, filled
with the Holy Ghost, in verse 9, the Holy Ghost is the one
who's going to reveal this man for what he is, and he's going
to reveal who this man is and what he is to Paul, and Paul's
going to tell him. Paul's not acting here on his
own. He's not acting by some fleshly impulse. Spirit of God,
and I know this, when God calls a man as a pastor, and he's gonna
use that man as a pastor, he gives him some discernment now.
He gives that man some discernment. There's times that you can, and
I've known this, there's times there's something not right.
Remember this woman, we'll come across this later, this woman,
She goes running along Paul and his companions saying, these
men bring us salvation. These men are preaching the gospel.
These men are telling us the truth. What she was saying sounded
good, but Paul was disturbed by it. Paul said, it's not something
right. And he turned and she was possessed
by a devil. And she was out there just saying,
these men are preaching the gospel. And Paul said, oh, there's something
not right about this. Something not right. Sometimes
it takes a little while to see what's not right, but there's
something not right. And then Paul here, he says,
in Paul verse 10, he said, all full of subtlety and all mischief. His true character was One of
subtlety. You know what that means? Elusive.
Elusive. Like the chameleon. He changes
color. The chameleon changes color with
its background. You can't pick him out. With
that being so, how does prudent government not see him? This
prudent governor. How do you not see him? Well,
first of all, he never revealed himself. And secondly, that governor
was spiritually dead. And when you are in the dark,
you can't see anything. Not spiritually. When you're
spiritually dead, you can't see. You can't see these things. You
can't see them, but you can see them when God opens your eyes. You know, false prophets never
come in with a sign on their back saying, I'm a false prophet.
They don't come in with a lapel pin that says false prophet.
You know how they come? Here's the danger of it, right
here. They come in sheep's clothing. What does that mean? Here's what
this means. They dress themselves in gospel
language. They dress themselves in gospel
language. Not the truth, but here, now
listen. They dress themselves in the
language of the people they are deceiving. That's how they come in, sheep's
clothing. And then Paul said, thou child of the devil. This
is who he really is, even though he didn't even realize it. I
think many, many, many, many of the children of the devil
don't realize they are children of the devil. He told the Pharisees
that. They said, God's our father.
He said, no, the devil's your father. They didn't know that. They made him mad. They made
him mad. Thou child of the devil. This
is how dangerous this is. Satan always has his sons among
the sons of God in this world. You know that? In the book of Job, in Job chapter
1, when Satan comes, you know what it says? The sons of God
came. It says the sons of God came
and Satan came with them. He always mixes him with them. And he calls them an enemy of
all righteousness. This is why God's preacher meets
with trouble, because they are enemies of all righteousness.
They're against God who is righteous, against Christ who is our righteousness,
against the gospel that reveals His righteousness, and against
everything that's right. They're against it. He said,
will you not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? The
right ways, the way God saves sinners, turn truth into a lie,
pervert mercy, truth, righteousness, and judgment. Will you not cease
from that? Absolutely not. They will not cease from it.
Not. The most dangerous false prophets
are the ones that are so close to the truth, the Scripture says,
that they would deceive the very elect of God. They would deceive
it. Deceive them. I've seen it. I've
seen it. And the Holy Spirit brings judgment on him. He makes
him blind. And then when the deputy saw
that, he said, when the deputy saw what was done, he believed. But now, it's not the miracle
that he... it's not what this being... him being made blind
that caused him to believe. It's the message. It's God. God caused him to believe. But
God got it. Here's what happened. Now listen. Here's what happened.
God got his attention. God got his attention. And he
paid more attention to what Paul was now saying. He really started
to listen. And God saved him. God saved
him. And he was amazed, verse 12,
he was amazed at the doctrine of the Lord. He was amazed at
the gospel of grace alone in Christ alone. And probably more
amazed that God saved him. That God saved him. We used to
sing a song, I Stand Amazed. I Stand Amazed. All right.