Good evening let's all stand
together we'll sing hymn number 485. 485. We praise Thee, O God, for the
Son of Thy love, for Jesus who died and is now gone above. Alleluia, Thine the glory. Alleluia, Amen. Alleluia, Thine the glory. Revive us again. ? We praise thee, O God, for thy
Spirit of light ? ? Who has shown us our Savior and scattered our
night ? ? Hallelujah, thine the glory, hallelujah, amen ? ? Hallelujah,
thine the glory, revive us again ? All glory and praise to the
Lamb that was slain, Who has borne all our sins and has cleansed
every stain. Alleluia, Thine the glory! Alleluia, Amen! Alleluia, Thine the glory! Revive us again! Revive us again, fill each heart
with thy love. May each soul be rekindled with
fire from above. Hallelujah! Be seated we'll sing worship
him we have come into this house There's some copies of the words
out there most of us know it We have come into this house
and gathered in his name to worship him. We have come into this house
and gathered in his name to worship him. We have come into Gathered
in His name to worship Christ the Lord. Worship Him, Christ
the Lord. So forget about yourself and
concentrate on Him and worship Him. So forget about yourself
and concentrate on Him and worship Him. So forget about yourself
and concentrate on Him and worship Christ the Lord. Worship Him, Christ the Lord. So let's lift up holy faith and
magnify His name and worship Him. So let's lift up holy faith
and magnify His name and worship Him. So let's lift up holy faith
and magnify His name and worship Christ the Lord. Worship Him, Christ the Lord. He is all my righteousness, I
stand in Him complete and worship Him. He is all my righteousness,
I stand in Him complete and worship Him. He is all my righteousness. I stand in Him complete and worship
Christ the Lord. Worship Him, Christ the Lord. We passed him out a couple times. Acts chapter 20. Got through
19. Let's start in Acts chapter 20. I'm going to deal with the first
12 verses. I thought that I might deal with
a whole chapter tonight, but I thought I'd better of it. Thought better of it. Don't want to feed you too much
at one time. All right, let's read these first
12 verses. After the uproar was ceased,
Paul called unto him the disciples and embraced them and departed
for to go into Macedonia. And when he had gone over those
parts and had given much exhortation, he came into Greece. And there
abode three months, and when the Jews laid wait for him as
he was about to sail into Syria, he purposed to return through
Macedonia. And there accompanied him into
Asia, Sopater of Berea, and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus,
and Secundus, and Gaius of Derbe, Timotheus of Asia, Tychicus,
and Trophimus. These going before tarried with
us at Troas, and we sailed away from Philippi after the days
of unleavened bread, and came unto them to Troas in five days,
where we abode seven days. And upon the first day of the
week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul
preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow, and continued
his speech until midnight. And there were many lights in
the upper chamber, where they were gathered together. And there
sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen
into a deep sleep. And as Paul was long preaching,
he sunk down with sleep and fell down from the third loft and
was taken up dead. And Paul went down, fell on him,
and embracing him, said, Trouble not yourselves, for his life
is in him. When he therefore came up again,
and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even
till break of day, so he departed. And they brought the young man
alive, and were not a little comforted. Our most gracious God in heaven,
our blessed father, our Lord Jesus Christ, we come into your
presence, Lord, so thankful, so blessed, so privileged to
be able to speak unto you, to be heard of you, be received
of you, be accepted of you because of your blessed son, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who lived for us, died for us, put away our sin,
rose again for us, sat down at your right hand with all power
and majesty vested in him. And Lord, now he sits there to
make intercession for us. And we look for the blessed day
when he'll come again, receive us unto himself, that where he
is, we may be also. Lord, meet with us tonight. Please
meet with us. Enable me to speak. enable the
dear saints of God to hear. Lord, we need the Holy Spirit
to be among us. Lord, we got this old tired flesh
and old rotten flesh to deal with, the weariness of it, the
deadness of it sometimes. But Lord God, you can quicken
us in the blink of an eye. And we ask that you will tonight.
And for those that are not with us through their sickness and
providence, we pray for them. And we especially pray for our
families. It's undone without God, without
Christ in this world. Lord, our children, our grandchildren,
sons and daughters, husbands and wives, Lord, you know every
heart, you know every home, you know every need. Please, for
Christ's sake, meet their needs and convince them of their great
need of Him. Meet with us, please, for Christ's
sake. Amen. M number 357. 357. Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer
to Thee. Even though it be a cross that
raiseth me, Oh, my soul shall be nearer,
my God, to Thee, nearer, my God, to Thee. ? So like the water ? The sun gone
down ? Darkness be over me ? My rest a stone Verse four. Then with my waking thoughts,
cry with thy praise. Out of my stony griefs, Bethlehem
I raise. So by my woes to Thee, Nearer,
my God, to Thee, Nearer, my God, to Thee, Nearer, ? Or if on joyful wing ? ? Cleaving
the sky ? ? Sun, moon, and stars for God
? ? Upward I fly ? All my song shall be nearer,
my God, to Thee, nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee. Now look back here with me in
Acts chapter 20. Just go over a few things, a
few verses down through here. And I forgot to tell you that
Shirley's brother-in-law and sisters here, Mark and Glinda,
they come to visit us. And Shirley said, I bet they
show up at church. We thought they'd show up at
the house. She said, I bet they show up at the church. And they
did. They come walking in. We're just delighted to have
them. Delighted to have them. And it says here, the first thing,
now they, you got a preacher that starts preaching early in
the evening and don't get done till daylight. Now I'm not gonna
pull that on you. I'm not gonna do that. But anyway, that's what happens.
But it says after the uproar was ceased, Y'all remember the
uproar last week, you know, when they, Demetrius and all those
silversmiths got so upset with Paul's gospel because they, he
preached that there's no gods made with hands. and they thought
they were going to lose all of their LIVING because, you know,
great is the goddess of Diana. And they went on for two hours,
hollering and hollering and hollering, and, you know, and they accused
Paul, and it's true, there is no gods made with hands. There
is not. God Himself said, Don't make
no image of Me in heaven, in earth, in the sea, DON'T MAKE
NO IMAGE OF ME. He said, I'm a SPIRIT, and so
you can't make an image of God. And so that's what they did,
and after the uproar, and there was a big uproar. And finally,
it was all dismissed and all done, and after that uproar,
Paul called unto him the disciples. He always, you know, here's a
man, he loved these people. He's in Ephesus now. He loved
these people, called them all to himself, and he really loved
them. Look what it says. He embraced
them. He embraced them. I don't know
how many gathered around him, but he loved his brethren. That's
why we know we've passed from death unto life, because we love
the brethren. And Paul, he said, and he departed
to go to Macedonia. He had already said that he purposed
to go to Macedonia. And I tell you always, this is
a man who had a purpose. He's not like preachers today,
just here and yonder and about and all that. When Paul, he had
a purpose, he had an aim in his ministry. He didn't just say,
I'm gonna go here, I'm gonna go there and wait for somebody
to invite me. No, that's not what he is. He said down here
in verse three, as the Jews laid in wait for him as he was to
sail into Syria, listen to this, he purposed to return through
Macedonia. He always had a purpose, and
He always had a name in His ministry. And I know this about Him, I
know this about Him, and you do too, that wherever He went,
He had one message, one message, and that was Jesus Christ, the
Lord of glory, and Him crucified for the sins of sinners, and
that Christ, He came into this world not to live for Himself,
but to live for a people given to him. Not to die for himself,
but to die for a people that was given to him. And the reason
that he died, first and foremost, was to honor and glorify God
himself. That's the first thing that Christ
come into this world to do. Father, I've glorified you on
the earth, and I've finished the work that you gave me to
do. Now glorify me with the glory I had with you before the world
ever began. He finished that work, and that work was to put
away our sins by the sacrifice of Himself. And that's what Paul
preached. He preached it, and he started
in Genesis. He started in Genesis. He started
about the promise made of Christ, the woman's seed. And he went
through all the Old Testament because that's all they had.
But he had one message wherever he went. He's not like preachers
today, you know, you don't know where they're going to hit or
going to miss. So when you know what your message is, you don't
have to always, you know, I'm going to go down and preach for
a billiard geropolis. I go preach different places,
and I never have to worry about what I'm going to preach. You
know why? I'm going to preach the gospel. You don't have to
say, well, I need to find something. I need to find something. No,
no, we know exactly what we're gonna say, know what we're gonna
say. And he loved his brethren and he embraced them. And then
in verse two, in verse two, it says, he went over those parts.
And when he had gone over those parts and through going to Macedonia
and had given them much exhortation, exhorted them to continue in
the grace of God, exhorted them to trust Christ, exhorted them
to continue in the grace of God. And when he had gone over those
parts, given much exhortation, he came into Greece. He d been
in Greece before, he d been there before. Corinth was in Greece,
and there about three months, he stayed in Greece for three
months, And when the Jews, while he was there, these Jews, and
they'd done this several times, they hated him so bad, they hated
him so much, they laid in wait for him. They said he was intended
to go to Syria, and they laid in wait for him. And they was
gonna hijack him, they was gonna take him, and they was gonna
beat him, and hopefully they would kill him and put him out
of business. They tried that so many times. And yet he got
wind of it, and he purposed to run a turn through Macedonia,
Macedonia. And he had some people that accompanied
him, this is his travels, and they accompanied him into Asia,
where Ephesus was, Galatia was, Soperter of Berea, more of them
noble Bereans searched the Scriptures, and of the Thessalonians, Aristarchus
and Secundus, and Gaius of Derbe, and Timotheus, his dearly beloved
son of Asia. And these two fellows here were
twins, Tychicus and Trophimus. And these going before, tarried
for us, waited for us, they went before us, and they waited for
us at Troas, at Troas. So he went to Troas, and look
what it says there in verse six. And we sailed away from Philippi
after the days of unleavened bread. Now they stayed there
when the Passover, seven days, to have the seven days of unleavened
bread. And he stayed there, and you
know the story about Philippi. You remember Philippi very much.
That's where the Philippian jailer got saved. God saved that Philippian
jailer. You know, Paul and Silas was
in jail, and they was in stocks. And they'd been beaten even.
The fella beat them. And they started singing. They
started singing and all the songs they had to sing was the Psalms. They didn't sing Amazing Grace
because they didn't know it. All they had to sing was Psalms.
They might have sang Psalm 23, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. He leads me beside the still
waters. They might have done that. They
might have sung Psalm 146 or 46 that said, though the mountains
be moved and the waters run into the sea, and though they oughtn't
a thing be tore down, he said, yet I will trust in him. I don't know what song they sung,
but they sung, and God, remember this, that God sent an earthquake
to one building in that whole town. Philippi is a big city,
but the only place that had an earthquake was at that jail. Nobody else's house was tore
up. Nobody's windows were busted
out. Nobody's foundation was destroyed. You know why God sent
that earthquake just to that jail? Get these two preachers
out of there. And why'd he get his two preachers
out there? So that Philippian jailer could hear the gospel.
That Philippian jailer and his family could hear the gospel
and be priest of the gospel and preach Christ to them. And then
they got up that night. He washed them off and then he
fed them. And then he took them into his
house. He heard the gospel and him and
his whole family got up and was baptized that night, confessing
Christ. Remember, so whenever you hear Philippi, Rich, remember
that, that's what happened at Philippi. And oh my. And so he goes on down there,
and as we sailed away from Philippi, verse six, and the days of unleavened
bread came unto them to Troas in five days. They wait there
five days, and we're about seven days. They were there seven days. And look what it says. Upon the
first day of the week, First day of the week. You know, here
we are, first day of the week. You know what's so significant
about the first day of the week? Sunday. Jews worshiped on, the
Sabbath was for them on Friday evening to Saturday evening.
Sunday, this is the first time we find them breaking bread on
the Lord's day, what we call the Lord's day, on Sunday. First
day of the week, that's what it was, first day of the week.
Christ rose on the first day of the week, on Sunday. That's
what Sunday was to the Jews, first day of the week. And this
is the first time you mention them breaking bread, and that's
breaking of bread is not like you and I sitting down and having
a meal together. When they broke bread here, they're
talking about taking unleavened bread like we do, and taking
wine like we do, And these fellas took unleavened bread and they
took wine, and they broke bread together and they enjoyed the
fellowship of the Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, they remembered
that He rose from the dead. And you know why we take the
Lord's table and why they broke bread this time? Our Lord Himself
said, as often as you do this, do it in remembrance of Me. What
are we supposed to remember about Him? He said, take heed, this
bread is My body, My body broken for you. my body bruised for
you, my body broken for you, my blood shed for you, beaten
for you, my beard plucked out for you, as my body was broken
for you. And then he said, take eat. And
then he took that wine and said, this wine, this is the New Testament
and in my blood. And as often as you do this,
you remember me, remember my body. and how it went through. Remember my blood and how it
was shed. And that's what it's for. That's
what it's for. And I'll tell you, and there's
a lot of, you know, some people, Paul had this ministry and he
got there and he just stayed seven days. And many priesthood
people are saved to serve. They're saved to serve. But let me tell you something. I don't believe that a bit. No, no, I tell you what, the
Scriptures tells us that we're saved to the praise of the glory
of His grace. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that not of yourselves, it's the gift of God. Now, we're
bond slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ. We love Christ, and we'll
submit to Christ, and we'll obey by God's grace Christ. But I'll
tell you, God saved us to the praise of the glory of His grace.
Listen, how much have you served the Lord today? Let me ask you.
What have you done for the Lord today? Anybody want to stand
up and talk about it? No. You know why we don't? He serves us. He takes care of
us. What do we do? We bless Him and
praise Him and thank Him for it. Oh my, but anyway. He goes down here and in verse
seven, on the first day of the week, when the disciples came
together, that's one thing they always do, they come together
to break bread. Well, let's look at the preacher.
Let's look at the preacher. I've got five things I want to
go through here this afternoon. And I tell you, Paul preached
unto them. Who's the preacher? Who's the
preacher? It says, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on
the morn. And his speech continued unto midnight. He preached unto
them. He said, I got to leave tomorrow.
So you'd have thought that they'd want to get to bed early, because
he's going to get up and start traveling the next day. And they
didn't have nothing traveling. They had to walk wherever they
went. And I'll tell you, he stayed there for seven days. And can
you imagine what it was like to hear this man preach? I would have loved to hear the
Lord's voice. And one of these days, I'm going
to hear it. I HEAR IT BY FAITH, I HEAR IT IN THE GOSPEL, I HEAR
IT IN THE WORD, BUT ONE OF THESE DAYS WE?RE GOING TO HEAR IT WITH
NEW HEARERS! WE?RE GOING TO ACTUALLY HEAR
HIS VOICE! WE?RE GOING TO HEAR IT! AND I BELIEVE, I BELIEVE
IT?LL BE THE SWEETEST VOICE YOU?VE EVER HEARD! I?LL BE THE MOST
BLESSED VOICE YOU?LL EVER HEAR! Oh, what a blessed voice it is!
But oh, listen, they got there, and who could ever, ever, can
you imagine And I mean, a whole crowd of people got around and
Paul started preaching. He didn't say he, you know, I've
heard people say sometimes, and this happens every once in a
while, you have a funeral or something, people say, boy, that
preacher gave a good talk, didn't he? But Paul preached. He preached. He didn't say, I'm gonna share
the gospel with you. I'd like to share this with you.
No, no, he said he preached. He preached. And I tell you what,
a sermon. And I tell you, let me tell you
something. He preached from his heart. Paul was a man that was,
I mean, he preached from his heart. He had great affection
for the people he preached to. He had great affection for them.
He would weep over some of them. And I tell you what, he would,
like you said, he embraced these people, called the disciples
to him. He preached from his heart. I
mean, he knew the Bible. I mean, he knew the Old Testament
scriptures, frontwards and backwards. I mean, he seen Christ everywhere,
and he preached there. And I'll tell you something else
he didn't do. Now, I've got an outline. I've
got an outline. Paul never had an outline. Well, what did he preach? Well,
he'd start in such a place, and he'd go on to there, and he'd
talk about Christ before he'd come into the world, then he'd
talk about Christ who did come into the world, and how he'd
come into the world, and why he'd come into the world, and
who he came into the world for, and what he accomplished while
he was in the world, and who he did it for. And he'd go through
there, so he didn't have an outline, but I guarantee you could follow
him, and he had some logic to what he was doing. He didn't
get up and say, well, let me tell you this, let me tell you
that, and let's go here. No, no, that's not the way he done.
No, he didn't have to have an outline, and he preached from
his heart, preached from his heart. I'll tell you, I'd rather
have a man preaching. How many times did you all hear
Scott Richardson say, Don't preach to my head. My head, you know,
get past my brain. Get past my brain. Get to my
heart. That's where I need to be spoken
to. My heart. God moves on the heart. My son,
give me your heart. And I'll tell you, then look
at the time. It says the time. And verse seven was up on the
first day of the week. I done talked about that. The
first day of the week, the disciples came together to break bread,
to break bread. You know, you keep back here
and look over with me in Acts chapter two. I want you to see
this in Acts chapter two. When they first started gathering
together after our Lord's ascension, every time they'd get together,
pretty often they would break bread. They would break bread. When Don Fortner, he used to
have the breaking bread. He took the Lord's Supper every
Sunday night. They took the Lord's Supper every
Sunday night. Spurgeon would be on vacation
and he'd take the Lord's Table. We saw a lady, Shirley will tell
you about her. Janet, what's her name? Yeah,
yeah. Well, she was taking, you know,
she don't get to go to services very well. She lives out in West
Tennessee. And she had her bread out there and she had her wine
out there. She'd go take the Lord's table by herself. By herself. Huh? By herself. Go take the Lord's table by herself.
She didn't have no preacher there to help her. But she knowed what
it was, and she felt like it's the time for me to take the Lord's
table. And she had her own, she had
her bread there, she had her unleavened bread, she had her
wine, and she took the Lord's table by herself. You find anything
wrong with that? I don't, I don't. If I get invalid and have to
stay at the house, one of y'all come surely, bring the wine and
the bread to my house, wouldn't you? But look what it said here
in Acts 2.42. And they continued steadfastly
in the apostles' doctrine. I love that, apostles' doctrine.
And fellowship and in breaking of bread. Taking the Lord's table
together in prayers. And look down in verse 46. And they continuing daily with
one accord in the temple, and breaking bread, going from house
to house, and having the Lord's table from house to house. And
oh, they ate their food with gladness and singleness of heart.
So they started right off the bat remembering our Lord Jesus
Christ. And I already told you about
what the bread and the wine means. Unleavened bread and wine. Not
crackers. Not crackers. Not grape juice. Our Lord didn't turn water into
grape juice. He turned it into wine. And I'll
tell you, he said, do this remembrance of thee. And let me say this
before I move on to my next point. There are some people that call
Sunday, the Christian Sabbath. They call it the Christian Sabbath.
Well, our Sabbath isn't on a day. Sabbath means rest. Rest. God finished His work and rested. Sabbath means rest. That's what
it means. And we don't have a day of rest. Wouldn't you like to have a day
that you didn't do nothing whatsoever? You'd get so bored you'd go nuts.
But here they was, and here he was, you know, they call it a
Christian Sabbath. Our Sabbath isn't a day, our
Sabbath is a person. Our rest is a person. Christ
is our peace, Christ is our rest. We rest in Him. We rest our souls
in Him. Rest our lives in Him. Rest our
families in Him. Rest our whole, our eternal souls
in our Lord Jesus. Just rest in Him. I ain't got
no work to do. He did it all. That's how I can
rest. Oh my. All right, here's the
third thing. So we had the preacher. We had
the time. Now let's look at the place.
Let's look at the place. There in verse 8. Well, he continued
his speech until midnight. We'll get there in a minute.
And there were many lights in the upper chamber where they
were gathered together. They were in the upper chamber. You know the upper chamber holds
a lot of significance in the scripture, huh? Ever since the
day of Pentecost, they liked to meet in the upper room. You
know why the Lord took his disciples to take the Lord's Supper, the
last supper he had with them? The last time that they had the
Passover together? The last time that they ate that
lamb and broke that bread and had that sop to dip it in? You
know where it was? It was in an upper room. Upper
room. an upper room. That means, beloved,
that things are not way down here. Christ's up here. This
is where we worship, up here. And I tell you what, and they
all meet in the upper room. The first time they met after
Christ ascended back to glory, you know where it was? It was
in an upper room. He was in upper room. Mary was there. Peter and John and James was
there. All the 120 people was gathered in that upper room at
that particular time. 120 people in an upper room.
Oh my. And I'll tell you what. And being
an all night, look what it says there were many lights. Many
lights. Why'd they have many lights?
Well, it must have been really, really dark outside. Well, they
wouldn't need a whole lot of light. Moon wasn't full, that's
for sure. But they had a lot of lights.
Everybody who had a candle brought it, I reckon. But they come and
they had lots of lights. And I tell you, that means that
all of us, we need light. Oh, how we need light. And oh,
Christ has to be our light. Huh? They provided abundance
on this occasion. And so the place was an upper
room, the upper chamber. And that's where Christ met with
His disciples. That was the last place He met
with them until they went to the Garden of Gethsemane. Peter,
Johns, and James went with Him over the Garden of Gethsemane.
After He left that upper room, that's where He went, to the
Garden of Gethsemane. Now watch what happens here.
Look at His preaching there in verse 7. And Paul preached unto them,
ready to part on the morrow, and continued his speech until
midnight. Do you know anybody, anybody
that would sit and hear a preacher preach till midnight? I mean, he would have to be really
blessed of God. And these folks would have to
really be hungry. Really. You know, I get stressed
out if I go 40, 42 minutes, 45 minutes. I keep saying, well,
I'll be done here in a minute. I'll be done here in a minute.
And everybody tells me, quit worrying about time. Listen, if I take too much time,
one of you will quit telling me, quit worrying about time.
If I take too much time, you'll stop doing that. If I take an
hour and 15 minutes, every one of you will say, you won't say
a word. You'll say, we'll not mention
to him, you know, don't worry about the time. You'll stop that,
won't you? Now, you know, when I go, I said,
I need to quit. And you'll say, no, no, don't worry about time.
Let me preach till midnight. Then you'll love one of you,
you know? Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. I remember a
dear preacher. I mean, Shirley was talking about
it this afternoon. Preacher got up. We was in a
meeting one time. up in Kentucky, and he got up, and he was famous
for preaching long, long, long sermons. Oh my goodness, if he
had a manuscript, you know, of 15 pages, he gonna go through
all 15 of them. But he got up and said, I got
17 points. Everybody in that building go,
huh? 17 points. Oh, my goodness. But we got a
kick out of it. And he got through them. He got
through them. But I mean, you know, it'll hit me. You hear
somebody say 17 points, you say, ooh. But oh, my. But this Paul, he
preached them midnight. He started preaching, I don't
know what time it was. It was probably pretty early.
And he kept preaching, and preaching, and preaching, and preaching,
and preaching. He preached for hours. And when midnight rolled
around, he was just getting wound up. He just got through his introduction. But anyway, these people, oh
my, he talked to them, and down here in verse 11, It says that he talked a long
while, last part of verse 11, even till the break of day. They
took a break, you know why? Because a fella got killed. It's
time to take a break, a fella got killed. Let's take a break
and deal with this fella. But oh my, the people, I tell
you, you know, as long as the gospel, Henry Mahan used to say
all the time, the gospel It's good, and it's wonderful, and
it's blessed to preach, but don't preach longer than people can
sit. And I think that's right. I would
never try to attempt to preach longer than that. But anyway,
there's people who, they want a little sermonette. There used
to be a little saying everybody had. Little Christianettes want a
sermonette so they can go smoke her cigarettes. Dress her. Oh, I don't know. Preachers used to say stuff like
that all the time. They could preach against things,
and then that would let them laugh a little bit. But oh my,
just like Major S, that was another one of them, just like Major
S. But oh my, they want these little
sermonettes, but I tell you, Paul wasn't a sermonette preacher.
He wasn't. And I hope I never get to be
one of those. And these folks gathered here,
gathered together, disciples, to hear the word of God. Hear
the word of God. They gathered to hear what God
had to say through this man, this preacher, this preacher.
And I tell you what, what would you do if I preached longer than
that? But anyway, look what happens. Look what happens in verse nine. And they're sitting in a window.
Now, you know, it was hot up there, so they had the windows
open. You know, I don't know if they were wooden windows,
I really don't know. But they had the window open, and there's
a young man named Uticus. He was sitting there in that
window, where the wind would be, where he could stay cool,
I would think. And as he's sitting there, and
how many times have you been Uticus? And have you fallen asleep? Have you ever been Eutychus?
That's what some people say. Oh, Eutychus is here today. But
look what it says, Eutychus being fallen into a deep sleep. He
didn't just nod off. He fell into a deep, deep sleep. And look what it says next. And
as Paul was long preaching, Long preaching. He sunk down with
sleep and fell down, fell out of the window, three stories
up. He's in the third loft now. They're
down here in this upper room, there must have been a loft above
that, and he's sitting up there looking down, and he fell off,
and down he goes. Down he goes. And look what it says next. and
was taken up dead. They run down there and said,
he's dead. He's dead. He's dead. You know how he died? From a fall. You know how we
died spiritually? From a fall. You know, we was in a deep sleep
till God in his sovereign mercy woke us up, saved us. We was dead too. We fell too
through our father Adam. And then look what happens now.
They said, well, he's dead. Paul preached along and the fellow
fell sound asleep. He was a young man, probably
in good shape. And Paul went down. Paul went
down. He walked down the steps, whatever
it was, he got back down on the ground. And Paul went down and
fell on him. I believe he fell on him with
his whole body across him. I believe he had him stretched
out, and you know that's like Elisha did, he stretched out
on the body of this young man. And then he embraced him while
he had him, put his arms around him, embraced him, put his arms
around him, embraced him. And then look what he said, don't
trouble yourselves. Everybody was probably crying,
there was all kinds of trouble. He said, trouble not yourselves,
listen to this, his life's ending. My I Tell you this The Bible
is so strange. I mean it just gives us such
details of some things and When he was therefore come up again
the fellow went right back up back upstairs He was good enough
to walk back back upstairs. He went right back up there with
the Apostle and And when he was therefore come up again, and
listen then, and they took bread, this time this was eating, took
bread, they'd broken bread and eaten, and oh my, so they had
this little interruption, and Paul talked a long while, even
till the break of day, and then he said, I gotta go, gotta go,
gotta go. And listen, and this is the last
thing, this is wonderful. And they brought the young man
alive. Brought the young man alive. Brought him alive. He's dead. How'd he live again? Same way
you and I live again. By the power of God. By a miracle
of the grace of God. And that's what happens. And
they brought the young man alive. And listen to what it says. They
was really comforting. Huh? Oh my, they was really comforted. And you all remember the story
about Elisha. This woman had a little room
set apart for him because he traveled. And she set a little
room apart for him and he'd come in that room and she had a table
and things there for him. And one day her son just up and
died, got sick and died. And Elisha come back by the house,
and he was scared at the house. He was gonna spend the night
at this lady's house. And she said, Elisha, have you
ever come to remind me of my sin? Said, my son has died. Have you come just to remind
me of my sin? He said, where is your son? Where
is he? She said, he's over there. You
know what Elisha done? He went over there, and he laid
down on that young man, He laid down on him and breathed into
his mouth, and he got up and he done it again. He said, Oh
Lord, God, give this young man's life back to him. And he got
on him a third time. God the Father, God the Son,
God the Holy Ghost. Takes all three of them to give
life. And when he done it the third time, that young man got
up, and his mama was so happy. Is mama so happy? Don't you think
this boy's mama was happy? And all the believers there were
happy. He's dead. No, he's not. No, he's not. Our Father, thank you for meeting
with us tonight. Thank you for your precious word.
Oh, what a blessed word it is. How we thank you for meeting
with us. Thank you for your presence.
Thank you for the dear saints of God and their good attention.
And Lord, bless the word to the hearts, the minds, and the understanding.
It's your word. You do with it as it seemeth
good in your sight. Bring glory to yourself through
this message, through us as believers here, and do it for Christ's
sake. Amen. Amen. Oh, how merciful. How merciful, blessed Lord, how
merciful thou art to me. Oh, how merciful, how merciful,
Blessed Lord, how merciful thou art to me. And he is, ain't he? See you Sunday, God willing. Oh, my goodness. I'll turn this off.
About Don Bell
Don Bell is the current pastor of Lantana Grace Church in Crossville, TN.
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