Alright, it's good to see you.
It's good to be back with you. Open your Bibles to the book
of Acts chapter 13. Acts chapter 13. Let me begin by reading verse
14, and then I'm going to work my way through the end of the
chapter, Acts chapter 13. Now look at verse 14, but when
they departed from Parga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia
and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down.
Let me give you a little background information. The individuals
that the Scripture's talking about here is the Apostle Paul
and Barnabas. They'd been out on missionary
journeys, and now they've come to Antioch and Pisidia. Don't
confuse this with Antioch of Syria, which was kind of the
headquarters of the missionaries at this time, but this is Antioch
and Pisidia. And they go there on the Sabbath
day. Now, you know the Apostle Paul
believed more than anybody, no longer under the law, but under
grace. So you say, why did he go there
on the Sabbath day then? Didn't he understand that Christ
is our Sabbath? Well, sure he did. You understand
that, don't you? We don't worship a day. We worship
a person. We rest in him. Do you remember
what the law of the Sabbath was? Cease from your servile work. Cease from all your labors. And
rest. Now, the Lord Jesus is our Sabbath. He did the work. The message
is not sin or do, but sin or tis done. He said on the cross,
it's finished. The Father gave him work to do.
You remember in John 17 in his high priestly prayer? He said,
Father, I finished the work you gave me to do. He crossed every
T and dotted every I. I finished that work. Sinner,
the work's done. Rest, by law of the Sabbath. Cease from your labors and rest. No works now. No words. For by grace you say through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of
words, lest any man should boast." Just rest now. Christ is our
Son. Shortly after we moved to Almonte,
one of our dear ladies, she'd come out on Sunday morning, and
she'd greet me in the vestibule, and she'd just be crying. She said, Pray for me. I'm struggling so. I said, rest. She's looking for an experience,
Pastor. Looking for something to happen. Went on that way for
a couple of years. Just about every Sunday morning,
didn't she, Nancy? You'd come out. Pray for me. I'd say, rest. Can you rest? Can you cease from your labor?
Cease from your striving? Cease from your struggling? Rest
in Christ? One Sunday morning, after I preached,
she came out. Tears still run down her cheeks.
But this time she said, I'm resting. Would you baptize me? I'm resting. Do you understand that Christ
is our Sabbath? Salvation is in a person. It's
not in a plan. It's in the Redeemer who accomplished
salvation through people on the cross. He satisfied divine justice. He did the work. It's a wonderful
message. Do nothing. Can you do nothing? Can you rest in Him? The Apostle
Paul understood that the Sabbath, they observe it, that's all past.
Well, why did he go here on the Sabbath day? That's where the
people gathered. And he wanted to preach the gospel
to the people. So the Apostle Paul and Barnabas,
they go in amongst these Jews and Gentiles on the Sabbath day,
and they sat down. Look at verse 15. And after the
reading of the law and the prophets, they read from the writings of
Moses. And they read from the writings
of the prophets. Didn't do them any good, because
they didn't understand the message of Moses and the prophets, but
they read them. And I'll have more to say on
that in a minute. It says, the rulers of the synagogue sent
unto them. There were two fellows visiting
with them that morning, you see. So they sent a messenger, evidently,
to Paul and Barnabas, and the message said this, Ye men and
brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the people,
say on, come up here and speak. It said back there in the congregation,
Paul and Barnabas, and I suspect People gathered there that Saturday
morning as they looked around, and they had a couple of visitors,
and somebody said, you know who that is? That Paul. And word
began to spread, so the roomers in charge of the service just
sent this message back, said, if you've got something to say
to this congregation, say it. Come up and speak. And now here's
what they said, if you have any words of exhortation. Now in the Bible, Words mean
in the Bible what they mean in the Bible, not what they mean
in Webster's dictionary. Okay? So you look up the word
exhortation in a concordance, you might be surprised what the
word means. It means refreshment, comfort, consolation, solace. The message was, if you have
a word of refreshment for this congregation, come up here and
speak. If you've got some words of consolation,
of refreshment, of comfort, something that will ease the burden, come
up here and speak. I want to do this morning what
the Lord God commanded all of his preachers to do. Comfort
ye, comfort ye my people, saith the Lord. I want to give forth a word of
refreshment to God's people. A word of comfort. A word of
consolation. A word that will speak peace
to your heart. You know what the Lord said when
he said, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people? He said, Speak
ye comfortably to Jerusalem. Cry out unto her. Tell her the
warfare is accomplished. Tell her her iniquity is pardoned. For she hath received
of the Lord's hand double for all her sins." Christ didn't
barely pay the debt. He paid it with more left over. He paid it in full. This is a
word of consolation. This is a word of refreshment.
The message is pardoned for the guilty. Is that refreshing to
you? Pardoned for the guilty. The message is cleansed for the
filthy. The message is a robe of righteousness
for ungodly sinners. The message is strength for those
who are weak. The message is grace for the
guilty. Anybody here interested? Or if you are, the message is
Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and if you rest in Him your Sabbath,
you'll go away from here refreshed. You'll go away from here comforted.
You see, the gospel is the only message that will speak refreshment
to the souls of God's people. And it's the only message we
won't listen to. We're not going to listen to
anything else. We're not going to abide any other message, because
all other messages, instead of refreshing us, just stir us to
turmoil and anger. Oh, give me the gospel, that's
what we want to hear. Now, the interesting thing about
this, The very men who sent word to Paul in Barnabas, do you have
any word of refreshment for us this morning? They weren't refreshed
by the message. They weren't conflicted by the
message. Look over in verse 44. This is the next Sabbath day.
In fact, you back up a little bit to verse 42. And when the
Jews were gone out of the synagogue, and by that we're to understand
they left mad. They left angry. They stomped
out. They barely let sit. And verse
44, the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together
to hear the word of God. But when the Jews saw the multitude,
they were filled with envy and spake against those things which
were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. They weren't
comforted by the message. They said, we don't like that
message. And that's too much grace for us. That's too much
Christ for us. We're not used to that myth.
They're not refreshed by it. But some people were. Some people
were. So much so, if you back up again
to verse 42, when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the
Gentiles besought that these were as might be priests to them
the next Saturday. If we want to hear the same message
next Sunday, or next Saturday, they said. This was refreshing
to us. This consoled us. This comforted
us. In this dark and weary world,
with all of our troubles and trials, with all of our sin,
sin within, sin without, all this message of the Redeemer,
who came and gave His life that we would live. This message of
sins forgiven, this message of a righteous standing before God,
oh, it's so refreshing. Would you come back next Saturday
and preach the same thing? We don't want to hear anything
else. We want to hear the same message. And that's what we say,
isn't it? Every Sunday we meet together, we say, Pastor, preach
the same thing you did last Sunday. Or you go from a different text
or scripture, but it's all saying the same person. And it's all
refreshing to God's people. To hear that God saves sinners
for Christ's sake. No wonder, you look at verse
26, no wonder Paul called it, the word of this salvation. That's
what it is. That's a refreshing message.
In verse 26, the last statement, it says, to you is the word of
this salvation sent. That's the comforting message.
Look again down in verse 32, and we decline you glad tidings. This is, these are glad tidings.
Oh, they'd be glad tidings to everybody here this morning.
Glad tidings. Well, so in being invited to
preach, the Apostle Paul stood up and he began to set forth
the gospel of grace. Now, his sermon begins in verse
16. Then Paul stood up, beckoning
with his hand, and he said, And then he goes into some history
of the Jewish nation, and he immediately gets on two of his
favorite subjects, election and redemption. Look at what he says,
The God of this people of Israel chose our fathers, and exalted
the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt,
and with a high arm, a high arm, a mighty arm, brought him out
of it. We love to talk about election
and redemption. God chose us in Christ before
the foundation of the world. He didn't look down through the
halls of time and see some good that we'd do, and then based
upon what he foresaw, then chose us unto salvation. No, but according
to the good pleasure of his will, he chose a people, then Christ,
unto salvation. Without any consideration of
us, that is, anything we do, and it's a good thing because
we never do anything good. It's an election all of grace.
I mean Paul right out of the chute. He's talking about election. God chose our fathers. Bless
God for his electing grace. And then he said, when they dwelt
as strangers in the land of Egypt, he brought them out with a high
alarm. He delivered them by the blood of a Passover lamb. Back there in the days of Egypt, Israel dwelling in their bondage,
and God said, every man take a lamb of the first year without spot
and blemish. Shed the blood, catch it in a
basin. Dad, go out there and put it on the lintel of the doorposts. Everybody for whom that blood
was shed was safe. I can just imagine that firstborn
child inside the house. Dad, you think you'll be all
right? Everything going to be all right? Rest easy, son. Rest easy. I've done the work
for you. I've done it all. Just like God
said. Now, there may have been a son
who couldn't sleep all night long. And he was just fidgeting and
worried and nervous. And then another boy may have
said, I believe you, Dad. I'll just go to sleep. But you
know what? They were both equally safe.
Because somebody else did the work. Somebody else fulfilled
the Father's will. Let me tell you something. God has taken care of everything. He shed the blood of His Son. See, God is a just God. And He's
going to satisfy His justice. And he did it in the death of
his son. And he brought him out with a
high arm. Redemption. Redemption. You who are the people
of God, hear this word of good news.
The death is paid. The Son of God has accomplished
redemption. It's over. It's settled. Now
rest easy. But a lot of times we get fidgety,
don't we? And we get to being a little
worried. You know when that happens, don't
you? That's when we start looking within. We look away from Christ. The Lord brought us out with
a high arm. His arm that did the work shall still uphold us.
It never was our arm. It's always His arm. So just
rest in Him. Well, he talked about election
and redemption. And then he said in verse 18,
About the time of forty years suffered he their manners in
the wilderness, and when he destroyed seven nations in the land of
Canaan, he divided their land with them by law. He took his
people on into the Father's land. Man, there are doubts and fears
and murmuring, all those things. You mean he still took the people
into the promised land? Yeah, because he's faithful.
He said that's what he's going to do. He did just exactly what
he said he'd do. And afterward, he gave them judges
about the space of 400 years, 450 years, until Samuel the prophet. And afterward, they desired a
king. God gave them Saul, the son of Cis, a man of the tribe
of Benjamin, by the space of 40 years. And when He removed
them, He raised up unto them David to be their king. Now,
let me stop right there. Do you think the Apostle Paul
is just giving a history lesson this morning? Is that all it
is? Shortly after I moved to Alma,
I was invited to attend the Sovereign Grace Preachers meeting. These were various preachers
from Michigan and northern Ohio and Indiana. They were meeting
in Grand Rapids, and I went over there. And when I left, I got
back home and I told Nancy, I'm not going anymore. They didn't
take their Bibles. I don't want to have my Bible. There's about
18, 20 preachers there, and I don't want to have my Bible, so I read
a paper. I told Nancy, I said, I'm not going to go back. Well,
my mind got changed because they said, would you come back and
speak for us? I said, well, yeah, I'll come back and speak for
you. And my message was Christ in all the scriptures. Preaching to preachers now. So after we had the service,
we went to the dining hall to eat. And of course, at the dining
hall, I was just about fit to be tired anyway because they
had baked some, I made some spaghetti, baked spaghetti, had a tossed
salad, had a bowl of Madame Pudding, a glass of iced tea, and at the
end of the line there was a basket that said five dollars per meal.
That ticked me off right there. Came in the third feed, 18, 20
preachers. So I was already upset. So then
they said, we have a second session, question and answer. I said,
oh. They didn't do that the last
time, so we're going to have a second session, question and answer. They said,
you answer the questions, we ask them. So I got back behind
the pulpit. And they began to ask me questions
about my message, taking me to task for the message. And one fellow stood up and he
said, I've been teaching through the history of Israel. He said,
I want to see how you can preach Christ out of that. I said, their whole reason for
existing was the Lord Jesus Christ. They had no other reason to exist
except for Him. I'm so thankful that God has
taught us Christ in all the Scriptures. Sometimes we don't have, unless
you watch television or you listen to the radio, and go to some
of these so-called sovereign grace churches, unless you just
don't have a clue what's going on out there, what's being said
out there. Teach through the Old Testament and not preach
Christ? You've just butchered the Word
of God. He's the key to the whole... You remember, when we lived... I know some of y'all remember
when we used to live on Orchard Avenue, and I was just a little
boy. And we had the keys back then, the skeleton keys. Yes, that's the only kind of
key you had. That's the key that unlocked
it. You had one key. There it was. The skeleton. Christ
is the key to the scriptures. If you miss him, you got no key. The book's locked up. They read
every Sabbath day the Law and the Prophets. Every Sabbath day. But they didn't have the key.
It didn't have the key. Well, where's Paul going with
this? Well, let me show you. Keep on reading verse 22, "...to
whom also he gave testimony, and said, I have found David
the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfill
all my will of this man's seed." And boy, he jumps over a lot
of history then. This is not a history lesson.
This is about his story. It's about the Lord Jesus. The
Lord said, I have found David. Who found who? I found David. David didn't find me. I had lost. David was lost. I have found the son of Jesse,
a man after my own heart, which shall fulfill all my will. Of
this man's seed. He's the woman's seed. He spake of Abraham's seed, singular,
not seeds, seed. And his David's seed, of this
man's seed, hath God, according to his promise, raised up unto
Israel a Savior. What's his name? Jesus. This
is who Paul is preaching. This is not a lesson in Jewish
history. Oh, I'm sure those Jews sitting
there this morning, man, they heard about, oh, God of Israel
brought our fathers out of Egypt. Amen. Amen. Got down to the judges
and got down to David. Amen. Oh, this man see. Paul
said, I'm going to preach to you of this man see. I'm not
preaching to you about David. I'm preaching to you about David's
son and David's Lord. A Savior Jesus. That's what His
name means. Thou shalt call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people. He has a people. He came to save
them. He came to save them. So the Apostle Paul has covered
all these hundreds of years of history to bring them to this
point. of Jesus Christ. And then he
begins to set forth what Christ did. Beginning verse 24. When John first preached, John
the Baptist, before his coming, the baptism of repentance to
all the people of Israel, verse 25, as John fulfilled his course,
he said, whom think ye that I am? I am not he. I'm not the Messiah. But behold, there cometh one
after me, whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to loose.
Men and women," now listen to me, Sid, "'you children of the
stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you that feareth God.'"
Anybody here who's dead says, now, to you is this word of salvation
sent? For they that dwell in Jerusalem
are their rulers, because they knew him not. Watch it. Nor yet
the voices of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath day, they
have fulfilled them in condemning him. Do you remember what our
Lord said back in John 5? He said, Search the Scriptures.
Or literally, you do search the Scriptures. For in them you think
ye have eternal life. And these are they which testify
of me. You search in the scriptures.
You think eternal life is in the scriptures. The scriptures
speak of me. Moses wrote of me. If you believe
Moses, you believe me. He wrote of me. And they fulfilled them in condemning
him. The word fulfilled is kind of
a key word down through here. It's mentioned in verse 27, they
fulfilled them in condemning him. Look at verse 29, when they
had fulfilled all that was written of him. Down again in verse 33,
God hath fulfilled the same unto us, their children. You see,
when the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for his people and
satisfied divine justice, the purpose of God was fulfilled.
Back over in Acts 4, the Jews and the Gentiles and Pontius
Pilate and all those folks gathered together for to do whatsoever
thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. When Christ
died, the purpose of God was fulfilled. When Christ came,
when Christ died, the promise of God was fulfilled. He said, God's the first one
who preached the gospel back in Genesis 3 and illustrated
the gospel. in the death of the innocent
for the guilty. And God said to see the woman's coming to
crush the head of the serpent. And then God illustrated the
gospel. He took innocent victims and
killed them for these two guilty sinners. And that sets the precedent
that goes all the way through the Bible. If the guilt is to
go free, if the guilt is to live, an innocent victim has got to
die in their place. Justice demands it, because in
the soul that's sanished shall die. God said, in the day ye
eat thereof thou shalt surely die. In the day ye, he didn't
say if ye ate, or if ye eat, he said in the day ye eat. It
didn't take God by surprise. This is the fulfillment of his
purpose. This is the fulfillment of his promise. And then this,
when Christ came and when Christ died, the prophecy of the scriptures
was fulfilled. Read Isaiah 53 again. prophecies fulfilled. That's
what the Apostle Paul said. He said, all that's happened
to Jesus of Nazareth is the fulfillment of God's purpose. It's the fulfillment
of God's promise. It's the fulfillment of the prophecies
of the Old Testament. Prophecies that you read every
Saturday morning. It's the fulfillment of the Scriptures.
And then he gets down here, and look at this. Look at verse 28. Watch what
he talks about. He talks about the life of Christ,
the death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ. Look at verse 28.
And though they found no cause of death in him, no cause of
death in his life. They examined his life. Then by examining, the law of
God examined his life. The Jews examined his life. Pilate
examined his life. Satan examined his life, and
Pilate spoke for all of them. I find no fault in this man.
They found no cause of death. That's his life. That which the law demands. The
law doesn't require you to do the best you can do. The law
says be perfect just like God's perfect. No left hands or books
about it. No leniency, no leeway. The law
won't cut you in slack. This, do and live. This, you
burn and you die. That's the way it is, isn't it?
It's cold, cold hard facts. That's why our Lord He came and
he lived a perfect life before God and before man. They found
no cause of death in him. That's his life. And then the death of Christ.
It says in verse 29, when they had fulfilled all that was written
of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a sack.
They had put him on a tree, and they took him down from the tree.
Cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree. He's cursed by God. Why? Because a boy ascends in
his own body on the tree. That's why. And the Father turned
his back on him. The Father couldn't look on him. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? We know why. And I'll tell you
what, since the Savior has been forsaken, we'll never be forsaken.
Never. He said, I'll never leave you
and I'll never forsake you. So that you may with boldness
say, the Lord is my helper. I ain't going to be afraid of
anybody. Watch this. He laid him in a
sepulcher. Verse 30, but God raised him
from the dead. And these several next verses,
they talk about the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. You
see, how do we know our sins have been put away? How do we
know God accepted all that he did? How can we be sure that
my sins, which are many, are all washed away? Look and behold,
an empty tomb! God raised him from the dead,
thus announcing, this is my son who has accomplished redemption
himself, and all the sins that He bore on the cross have been
fully and finally put away. The pastor spoke so excellently
in Romans 7 this morning, the struggles of a believer. And
boy, we do struggle with the old man. But before God, oh, have you seen? Don't have
any sin. And not only that, I'm justified.
That's what Paul said. Look at verse, he gets down here,
verse 38, being known unto you, therefore, based on who Christ
is, he's the seed of David. And he says down here, in the
lower verse, he says he's the son of God in verse 33, thou
art my son. Based on the fact that Jesus
Christ is the son of God and he's the seed of David, he's
the God-man. And he has accomplished salvation,
being known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through
this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. And
by him all that believe are justified for all things, from which ye
could not be justified by the law of Moses." The law can't put sin away. It
wouldn't give it back. It would get it exposed and show
what sin is. The law can't save you. It can condemn you, but it can't
save you. It can damn you, but it can't deliver you. But this
man, this man, by him, through him has preached to you the forgiveness
of sin. Has that comforted anybody? Forgiveness
of sin? And then justified from all that,
that's a forensic term, that's a legal, that means legally declared
to be righteous in the sight of God Almighty. Almost too good to be so, but
it is so. It is so. And then Paul had a
word of warning. He said in verse 40, he said,
you beware. You beware, therefore, lest that
come upon you which is spoken of in the prophets. Behold, ye
despisers." Boy, he had some folks there that Saturday that
despised the message, too. And wandering parish, but, I
work a work, he's quoting the prophet, I work a work in your
days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man
declare it to you. And I'm declaring it to you right
now. The work of salvation. And the Jews got up and went out mad. And the Gentiles
said, this is wonderful. That's the way sinners talk.
Oh, what a message. Would you come back next Saturday
and preach the same message to us? So next Saturday they all
came back together. And the Jews got so mad and angry. A contradicting blaspheme, Paul. Paul in Barnabas, verse 46, awakes
bold and says, well, it is necessary that the word of God should first
have been spoken to you, but sin you put it from. You're not
interested in this gospel? You don't want to hear about
grace. You don't want to hear about Christ. Sin you put it
from, you judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life? We'll turn
to the Gentiles. For so the Lord hath commanded
us, saying, I sit thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that
thou shouldest be the salvation of the ends of the earth." Gentiles
over there listening. And when the Gentiles heard this,
they were glad. And they glorified the word of
the Lord, and as many as, no more no less, were ordained before
the foundation of the world to eternal life, which is to know
God and his Son, Jesus Christ. They believed. They believed.
And the word of the Lord was published throughout all the
religions. But the Jews, they weren't confident about
it. There was no refreshment in this gospel whatsoever for
them, because they're self-righteous Pharisees. They're looking to
their own goodness. They're not worthy of this gospel
of everlasting life in their estimation. This is beneath them. That's for sinners. We'd be like
sinners. Gentiles said, we are, preach
it to us. And the Jews stirred up, watch
this, devout and honorable women and chief men of the city. They
went to some self-righteous women who'd been good all their lives,
had never done nothing wrong, and stirred them up. They lived
by the law of Moses. and cheat men of the city, and
raise persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expel them
out of it, go away, and don't ever come back. Verse 51, they shook the dust
off their feet. Well, we won't preach to you
anymore, and you don't have to tell me twice. If you don't want to
hear this message, somebody will. God's got a lot of somebodies
out there who will. They're delighted that it will
be a word of refreshment to them. And if you don't want to hear
it, fine, I won't tell it to you again. I'll tell it to somebody
else. And look at verse 52. And the disciples, these newly
made disciples, these new believers, these converts, saved by the
grace of God. Brought to rest in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Watch this. They were filled with... Do you
have any words of exhortation for us? Gay words of joy for
us. Gay words of comfort for us.
Gay words of refreshment. And you know what? These people
are refreshed. They are comforted with joy and
the Holy Ghost. The Lord got all the glory, didn't
he? Saved his people. Alright. Hope
that's a blessing to you. That's a good move. We believe
it. Even the man who declared it
to us, we believe it. Could you come back next time
and preach it? No, Marvin Stonick is going to
be here now, I guarantee you. Yeah, he's going to preach it,
I guarantee you. Okay, Brother Gabe, what number did you get
picked at? Send your postcard. We sure appreciate you coming,
Jim and Nancy. 359. M number 359, stand please. My praise looks not to Thee,
Thou Lamb of Calvary, Savior devout. Thou hear me when I pray,
take all my sin away. Oh, let me from this day behold
Thee, Thine May I with praise and heart Strain through my paining
heart And Thou hast died for me, O
take my love with Thee, Purify and change the field of living. Last verse. When in life's razzling
rain, When death's cold, sullen stream Shall o'er me flow, Blest
Savior, then in love, Fear and distrust remove, O let me say,
in the moments of glory. you. So, I'm going to go ahead and close my eyes. I don't know. I don't know. Thank you very much. Okay. I don't know. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. you you Thank you. Thank you. I don't know what to do. Thank you. Okay. you I don't know. you