Turn to Acts chapter 8. Acts chapter 8. We will look at the first eight
verses here. Before we do this, let's go to
the Lord in prayer. Our Father, we do pray that you
bless us this morning, help us to set our minds on things above
to give this our attention this morning. Help us to worship you
in spirit and in truth. Lord, we need thy help. I need
thy help in teaching, in handling your word to rightly divide it.
We need thy help to listen, and to take what we hear this
morning home with us and think upon these things. And our Father, we pray for those
in this congregation that are sick, those who are under trials,
heavy trials. We pray that you would make them
know thy grace is sufficient. Help them to continually look
to you day by day. Lord, help us to be all out committed
to lose our life for the sake of the gospel and your glory. In Jesus Christ's name we pray,
and amen. Well, we have an example of someone
who was all out committed to the point of giving up their,
or his, Stephen, his earthly life. He gave it up for the sake
of the gospel. He didn't fight them. You notice
that? This is remarkable how powerful the
grace of God is. He did not fight them. and tried
to resist their stoning him, he submitted to it. He submitted
to it without slapping back. He could have not been more like
Christ in that hour. And what a blessing to be able
to die for the sake of the gospel. We all have to die, don't we? We all have to die. And what
a blessing it would be to die for preaching the gospel. And
what a great privilege. It wasn't a tragedy. It was a tragedy to those Pharisees
that stoned him. It was not a tragedy to Stephen. It was gain. It was gain. He got to go be with the Lord
Jesus Christ. Now, in his message, and we're
going to look at chapter 8 here, but I just want to kind of recap
a little bit. In his message, Stephen preached
the purpose and the providence of God from Abraham to Christ. He walked them through history.
You know what history... proves about men, you know what
it proves? Is that they never learned from
history. That's what history pretty much proves, that men
never learned from history. That's why they keep repeating
it. They rejected the prophets that were sent to the fathers.
And now here is the Lord Jesus Christ, that prophet that Moses
said should come, and they've rejected him. They haven't, they
didn't learn a thing. And you know, men don't, men
and women do not change. Human nature is exactly the same
since the fall. You can educate it. I mean, you
can give the best education, but that human nature, it's still,
it's still totally depraved. It's totally depraved. But Stephen walked them through
all the way from Abraham to Christ, and he showed them how God raised
up the prophets, and they rejected Him, how Christ came as that
prophet, and they rejected Him. And when they heard these things,
they were cut to the heart, it says there in chapter 7, and
they stopped their ears. God didn't stop their ears. You
know, God does not stop anyone from hearing the gospel. We stop our ears. We don't want
to hear it. We don't want to hear it. We
stop them. They stopped their ears and they stoned Stephen.
And there was a young man standing there, a young Pharisee, self-righteous,
God-hating Pharisee, named Saul. And this is where
we pick up now. The book of Acts is going to
start to make a gradual transition to Paul and his ministry. But here in verse 1, and Saul
was consenting unto his death. He gave his approval to it, and
I believe he actually found pleasure in it. He found some satisfaction
in watching Stephen being stoned to death. And at that time, the Scripture
says there in verse 1, at that time, there was a great persecution. See, up to this time, you know,
3,000 were saved, 5,000 were saved. I mean, people all over
Jerusalem were being saved. I mean, really saved. Thousands
of them. Well, now, now is going to come
the test of faith. Now is going to come the test,
the trial of faith and the trial of the church. And it says, great
persecution against the church, which was at Jerusalem. Here's
the starting point. Here's the starting point of
the church now and the gospel. The gospel, here's the wisdom
of God. This is how the gospel is going to go out. There's going
to be great persecution. And you and I had the privilege
of reading about it. They had to live through it.
They had to think what's going on. We believe the gospel. I know there's no doubt some
of them were bewildered, but they were scattered and they
were scattered and God scattered them so the gospel would be preached
because you know how we get in a comfort zone and we don't leave
it. We don't leave our comfort zone.
God has to root us out of it. Those men who stoned Stephen
were bloodthirsty, and after stoning Stephen, they liked it.
They liked it, so they wanted some more. The same dogs that
compassed our Lord about, compassed Stephen about. And then they
compassed the church. And they persecuted the church.
And they were scattered abroad, except for the apostles. The
apostles stayed there and supported the church at Jerusalem, but
others had to leave. And devout men there in verse
two, they took the body of Stephen and they took it and buried it.
Devout men, they're believers. Believers. I'm looking at devout
men and women right now. Those of you who believe the
gospel, you are devout men and women. God has made you honest.
Man's not honest, a person's not honest, God saves them. Really. Not until God saves a man that
he's honest. Let God be true and every man
a liar. And we are liars by nature. What's funny, I've watched a
program, I've watched a lot of these. scientific type programs,
and they were doing a study on how long it takes to tell a lie,
how long it takes people to tell a lie. And they came up with
this thing that when two people get in a conversation, doesn't
matter who, I mean, of course, they weren't, it had nothing
to do with the church, but it's all about just naturally, two
people get in a lie, it takes about two seconds, they said,
for one of them to start lying. And you don't tell the truth,
the absolute truth, the whole truth, you start to shade it. Well, it's not truth no more.
You know, if you tell the truth and one taint of it is not true,
it's not truth no more. That's what Satan did in the
garden. He quoted the word of God, but he put a little twist
on it. Now it's not the word no more. It's gone. So these
devout men, they took the body of Stephen and they mourned,
they lamented, it's good to mourn. I think one of our problems is
we don't give people space to mourn. We don't do it. And I have to say this, when
there's someone close to me that dies, you know what I like? I
like to be left alone. Honestly, I like to be left alone,
because I'm not alone. I'm with the Lord. The Lord's
with me. But I like to give me space. And there's people who, you all
know this, when something happens, I don't call you and I'm not
there. I'm giving you space. It's not
that I don't care. I'm giving you space to deal
with it. Now, some people are different
than I am. They look at it differently than
I do. That's just the way I'm made up. I think we need to give
space to let people deal with it and mourn. And they lamented
over his loss. They didn't lament the fact that
he's dead or that he died, but it's their loss. You know, when
God takes a believer out of here, it's our loss. It's our loss
of fellowship for a while. It's our loss of that person's
wisdom for a while. It's our loss, but it's not their
loss. It's our loss. And it's good to sorrow and mourn
to a point. And you know that you and I sorrow
not as the world sorrows. We don't do that. Ours is tempered
with grace and wisdom. Now, it says in verse 3, as for
Saul, you know, he didn't sorrow. Saul was happy. He was happy. It says he made havoc of the
church. He was trying to wreck the church. And he went into
houses. He had permission from the high
priest, because they were the law in Jerusalem. He had permission
to just bust into these homes. And they would take men and women.
And put them in prison. It didn't matter. They didn't
have any mercy on the women. You know, usually we do, but
Paul, not Paul, not Paul, he's men and women, took those women
away from their children. Took the men, the fathers, away
from their homes. They provided for the home. They
took them out of there and put them in prison. Paul did this.
He hated them, but you know why? This is brought out. His hatred
right now is magnified. It's magnified. It's like looking
under a magnifying glass. We see the hate of Paul. He's breathing out threatenings
and he's putting him in prison. And it's magnified for one reason.
When God saves him, God's grace is going to be magnified. He's
letting us see that Paul spent his life, he spent his waking
moments to destroy the church. And now we're gonna see the power
of God's grace here in a little while, that he spends the rest
of his life, he suffers a loss of all things for Christ's sake
in building the church. The very thing he tried to destroy. God's grace is amazing and it's
amazing. Paul believed at this time, or
Saul believed at this time, that he could stop the growth of the
church, that he would be able to exterminate it. You know, the church here is scattered
through persecution. You ever step on a pregnant spider?
You ever done that? Thousands of them go everywhere.
You think you kill this spider, next thing you know, there's
thousands of little things running around everywhere. That's what
happens with the church when it's under persecution. It grows. It grows. But Paul, and let's get back
here to Saul, when he gets his opportunity to try to stop the
church's growth. He takes advantage of it, and
he goes house to house, puts him in prison, thinking that
he is putting a stop to it. But our
Lord said this, the gates of hell shall not prevail against
the church. The spirit of darkness in the
gates of hell cannot keep out the gospel when God sends it.
Satan can't keep a child of God when God commands life, and when
he commands Satan to leave his child, he has to go. No demon ever resists. Well, they resist because, we'll
see later, they come out with a loud voice. But no demon ever
just gives up lightly, but he still has to give up. He may
go out kicking and screaming, but he's still got to go out.
He's got to go out. And here in a little while, Paul's
going to feel and experience the power of God in salvation. He's going to experience the
power of grace. And when the Lord speaks, he
doesn't stand there and have a conversation with him. What
does he do? He falls on his face. That's
all the Lord has to do. For any lost person in this congregation,
all the Lord needs to do is speak. That centurion said, Lord, when
he wanted his servant to be healed, he said, Lord, all you need to
do is speak a word. I'm a man under authority. I know what
authority is. Whether it's saving my soul or saving the soul of
a sinner or saving me in a situation I'm in, in a trial, all the Lord
needs to do is speak the word. That's all. Just like he did when he created
the heavens and the earth. He just spoke. Can you imagine?
That's our God. That's our God. Lord, just speak
the word. Now, after this persecution,
let's get to verse 4. After this persecution has started,
it says, Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere
preaching the word. They weren't silent. They were not afraid. The persecution
did not make them afraid to talk anymore. or to preach in the
name of Jesus Christ anymore. In fact, it just escalated it. Everywhere they went, they preached
the Word. They preached the Gospel of the
Lord Jesus Christ. The glory of His person, His
work. They preached Him. They didn't
preach about Him. There's a difference. I'm telling
you, there's a real difference in preaching Christ and preaching
some things about him. Carrie, Bob Coffey's daughter, I was
preaching in Hurricane a couple weeks ago when I went into Thanksgiving.
I preached there on a Wednesday night. And she was, Doris taught
the young kids, young kids, and she had like, they were like,
what, six, seven years old? Five year old? Five year old.
She taught the five year olds. Carrie was going to take her
place, I guess, substitute for her, and she was telling me about
this story. And she said, I was trying to
think of how to explain this to these five year olds. She
said, I was going through the, you know, figuring out ways to
how to explain this verse of scriptures that she was using.
And she said, so I asked Doris, which is her grandmother, she
said, I asked her, how, how can I explain this to them? And Doris
said, well, you don't, you proclaim it to them. We're not in the
explaining business. She said that just opened her
eyes up. You don't, you're not trying to explain everything
to them. You are proclaiming to them the gospel. God will
make it known. That's what I mean. You know,
we have a real, and I have to watch this, because I get into
reading commentaries. And when you get into reading
commentaries, A lot of your commentaries, but most of your commentaries,
they are explainers. This is what this means, this
is what this means, this is what happened, when this happened. Then you
end up bringing that to the pulpit, you end up explaining instead
of proclaiming the gospel. And so, they went everywhere
preaching the Word, the gospel. Well, who's the gospel? Jesus
Christ. But here's something interesting
now, in verse 5. Philip goes down to Samaria. He goes down
to the city of Samaria and preached Christ unto them. What jumps
out at you? Anything jump out at you at this? Who did the Lord meet at that
well? That woman from where? Samaria. They just jumped out
when I read that. God sent Philip. You see, here,
this woman meets the Lord. The Lord makes Himself known
to her. She goes to the city and tells him, come see a man
who told me everything I ever did. And so the city comes out,
and then they say, well, we believe now, we believe, not because
of what you said, but we have heard Him for ourselves. Well,
the Lord Jesus Christ didn't forget Samaria. Philip is sent
down there to preach the gospel more fully to the Samaritans. They heard Christ Himself speak,
but there was a lot of things they couldn't understand that
the Lord couldn't preach to them at that time because it had not
yet happened. He had not gone to the cross
yet, and I'm sure they were a little bit bewildered because this is
the Christ. He said, is this not the Christ?
We thought, just like the guys on the road to, was it Emmaus? They said, when the Lord was
speaking to them, they said, we thought he was the Messiah.
You know, there were just things they couldn't understand. So
the Lord sends Philip down there. And Philip goes down there and
he preaches Christ unto them. You know, he can say, and this
is, I'm sure he did this. When he went down there, he said,
you remember, You remember Jesus Christ that you all came out
to hear? Let me tell you a little bit
more about Him. And He began to speak the glory of His person.
This is God in human flesh. This is the Messiah. Yes, they
look for the Messiah. But the Messiah is God Himself,
Creator of heaven and earth, in the flesh. That's who was
talking to you. He died on that cross, and He
died on that cross as your substitute. Speaking to those who believed
and others, He spoke of the substitutionary work of Jesus Christ, the glory
of His deity, His manhood, the necessity of it. Because God
is absolute. God can't die. But God-man can
die. He spoke of his blood. He took
them back to the Old Testament. And all those types and pictures. He preached Christ to them. He
preached the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't go down there and entertain
them. He went down there and preached to them. And then after preaching to them, After he preached to them, and
I no doubt he told them, he said, he's not dead. They heard about his death. Philip's
saying, yes, he died, but he's not dead. He's risen. He sees that God's right hand
make an intercession for transgressors, make an intercession for you
who believe. And the people with one accord
in verse 6, The people, with one accord, gave heed unto these
things." They listened. You don't know
how frustrating it is. You don't know how frustrating
it is as a pastor and a preacher of the gospel to preach and they're
just not listening. Some are not listening. They're
just not listening. Week after week, month after
month, year after year. And it's like they're not listening. They gave heed unto those sayings
which Philip spake. Listen, hearing and seeing the
miracle is what you did. Hearing first. You know, a miracle
is not going to save you anybody, is it? Seeing a miracle is not
going to save you. But hearing the Word, and then
seeing a miracle, and tie that in with the Word just heard?
Because they didn't have what you and I have right here. You
see, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.
And God sends the gospel to His sheep there, and they hear and
they believe. And Philip performed some miracles. Like I said, they didn't have
the New Testament, you know that. For unclean spirits crying with
a loud voice." What were they crying? They were crying in protest. They didn't want to give up their
possession. They didn't want to give it up. Satan hates giving
anything up to the glory of God. They came out with a loud voice,
but they came out. And many of them which were possessed,
they were dispossessed. And many of them who were taken
with the policies, and that were lame, were healed. But the Word was preached first.
And we're going to go over to Mark chapter 2. And we're going to see the Lord
healing a man that's lame. But before he does it, the Word
is being preached. He's in a house preaching. And
then the miracle happens. Salvation happens, but it doesn't
happen until the Word is preached. And then after this, there was
great joy, it says, in the city. Great joy. You know, I've learned
something here about this matter of joy. Great joy. is the more that you grow in
grace and in knowledge of Christ, because you can't grow in one
and not grow in the other. That's an impossibility. It's an impossibility
to grow in grace and not grow in the knowledge of Christ. Those
two go together. But when you grow in grace and in knowledge
of Christ, I promise you, your joy will grow in the Lord. Your
joy, that's where you'll find your joy. You'll not find real
joy, even though I enjoy. I enjoy some of the pleasures
I have and I'm able to do in this world, some of the leisure
time. And I enjoy these things. There are things I enjoy, but
they're not my joy. My real joy is Christ, and I
can really enjoy these things because of my joy in Him. I can
put them in their proper place. I can enjoy Him at that time
and then go home and let it go. When I was a young man, I tried
to recreate that all the time. That's something I really enjoyed.
I wanted to recreate that. I don't want to recreate it no
more. I just want to enjoy the moment. I know that's a cliche,
but there's real truth to it. Enjoy the moment. The Lord gave
it to you. All things are yours to enjoy. There's nothing wrong
with enjoying what the Lord has given you. The material things
He's given you, enjoy them. Because He may be taking them
away in a little while. And when He does, you'll be able
to enjoy still in the Lord. Because if your joy is in the
Lord and not in things, when things come and things go, that's
not so disturbed. There was great joy in the city.
And I can say this, where the Lord Jesus Christ reigns, if
he reigns in my heart, your heart, there's great joy there. There
really is. The captive has been set free. And I know that only a slave
can know the joy of what that means. You really don't know
the meaning of something until you have experienced it. You
can only imagine it. Experience is a good teacher,
but it also can be a brutal teacher. But it is a teacher. It is a
teacher. Whom the Son sets free is free
indeed. They now worship Him. Remember
what she said, this woman at the well. What did she say to
the Lord? Our fathers worshiped in these mountains. Well, now
they're not. Now they're worshiping Him in
spirit and truth. As the Lord said to her, the
Father seeketh such to worship Him. And here's what happened
in verse 12, and I'm going to close. When Philip preached to them, just the same
he did to the eunuch, and we'll see this in another week or two, But when they believed Philip's
preaching, the things concerning the kingdom of God, in the name
of Jesus Christ, because you can't have one without the other,
they were baptized. Philip had to mention something
to them about being baptized, just like the eunuch. He had
to mention something about being baptized. And that's identification
with Jesus Christ. A sinner who believes will do
what? Follow the command of the Lord.
You don't believe if you don't follow what He says. It's like,
I believe the Gospel. I believe. But you never follow
Him? You never confess Him? No, you
don't. No, you don't. Because you're
standing in rank rebellion because He said, he that believes and
is baptized shall be saved. And so when Philip preached Christ
to them, they were eager to do this. They were eager to be baptized,
both men and women. They were obedient to Christ's
command, which shows faith. Listen, you and I can say we
believe the gospel, we believe the doctrines of grace, we can
say that all day long. But faith is evidenced by action.
James says, show me your works. Show me your faith without your
works, and I'll show you my faith by my works. It's the evidence
of faith. Works is the evidence of faith.
Obedience is the evidence of faith. And they were not ashamed
to confess Him. They were not ashamed to confess
Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. They were not ashamed to confess
they needed a savior. They needed one. They dropped their rebellion
and were obedient to his command. You see, our Lord didn't go into
town there and baptize them. He preached. He made himself
known to them. He preached the word to them. But as I said,
there's a lot of things they couldn't understand. And now
being baptized, They understood what they were doing, and they
knew the one they were identifying with. They identified with the
Jesus Christ of the Bible, not another Jesus. They weren't baptized
unto another Jesus. They were baptized with this
one that's revealed in the Scriptures, the sovereign Christ of God,
the appointed of God, the victorious Christ. They followed Him. Well, the church was scattered. After the death of Stephens,
the gospel was preached and sinners were saved. And that's the way
it'll be until the Lord comes. All right.