If you're in Acts chapter 13,
we have begun to consider the missionary journey of the Apostle
Paul and Barnabas. As you can see up on the map,
the fundamental excursion way on the right side. And we looked
at that in Acts chapter 13 verses 4 and following. We saw all the
way from Acts 13 through out Acts chapter 14, verse 26, where
The apostles then returned back to Antioch of Syria in order
to give a report of what had been done. You guys see the map,
right? And I think you have one in your old outline as well.
You notice they went northwest. And I'm going to call your attention
just to a little side note. that at Antioch, near Syria,
where they board in Seleucia, then they go to Cyprus. Cyprus,
therefore, is a what? An island. So mentally, you wanna
keep that in mind. We're dealing with an island.
That's the first little town that they are called to go to. What's so important about that?
Well, anywhere God calls you and me to go is important because God has a purpose there.
But what I want you to do with this little island of Cyprus
is just think about how God is acutely aware of everyone on
planet earth, including people on little islands that you and
I may never visit or never know. Just think about how God would
send a missionary, send a preacher, send a missionary team to a remote
island of which you and I would not be setting our eyes on to
even vacation there. I think that's quite remarkable,
don't you? In other words, our thoughts are not God's thoughts
and our ways are not his ways. That's not always a good thing
because I think you and I should be thinking like God, would you
travel 150 miles, 200, 300 miles to witness to someone who is
part of a culture that you don't know and don't even care about?
So what we get an insight into when we think about missional
work is how precious eternity bound souls are to God. That's
what you get. I think when you think missions
through, you actually see a clearer view of the central character
of God in the redemption of sinners than any other aspect of God's
redeeming work. I think you and I can focus on
aspects of what God does in the redemption of sinners But it
really comes into pristine focus when you think about him actually
utilizing resources, implementing energy to take the gospel somewhere
for someone to hear it. That means for God, the salvation
of sinners is important. And I don't always think that
we see it that way. I don't think as the people of
God, we have that kind of mindset. So I'll ask you the question.
This is a little probing, but it's important as we work through
this first episode with the Apostle Paul in Barnabas. When was the
last time you thought, Lord, I'm ready to go somewhere that
I've never been for you in order to preach the gospel to people
I don't know, but you do. See what I'm getting at? So we
really don't think like God does in areas of missional work. We'll
talk to someone if God brings them our way, but we're not going
out of the way to share the gospel with anyone. And this really
brings to question our priorities, doesn't it? It really does. So
what do we do with that kind of introspection? Here's what
we do. We thank God for missionaries because missionaries are weird
people. They are people who care more
about the will of God than they do their own comforts. And so
these are gifts to the church. They are blessings to the church.
Without a missionary, you and I would have never heard the
gospel. And so we thank God for them. And when you look at the
excursion, here's what I would have you to mark that the apostles
are getting on a boat going to Cyprus. And then they get on
another boat from Paphos to go to Atilia where Perga, Lystra,
Derbe, Iconium, Antioch, Pisidia, Phrygia are the areas in that
little cove, that little circle of territory that we see by Antioch
up near Asia Minor where they do the largest part of their
ministry. So his first excursion, Paul and Barnabas first excursion
is Northwest and it's fairly circular. They'll return back
to Antioch, I don't know, maybe a year or so at the most, and
they will be dealing with Gentiles. But among these Gentiles will
be synagogues spread all abroad. and those synagogues will be
a challenge for the apostles. Even on Cyprus, Solomus and Paphos,
as we are about to engage in, even on Cyprus, there will be
opposition to the preaching of the gospel, which is another
reason for which we should be praying for those who preach
the gospel for our regions. Gospel preaching is never without
opposition. If you ever meet someone or know
of someone or is involved in ministry where the gospel is
being faithfully preached, do not make the mistake to think
that somehow that ministry is not under attack. You would be
grossly wrong. That the ministry doesn't tell
you about all of the opposition and the hurdles and the obstacles
that are put in its way. That's beside the fact. But that
every ministry that is seeking to do the will of God is under
attack is certainly so. And that would merit your prayers,
which brings us into a whole nother contemplation of how selfish
we are. Isn't that so? We don't even
think to pray for faithful ministries. So the night study is a little
bit probing, but it's so because I want you to value the people
with whom we are studying, who laid down their lives, hazarded
their lives for the cause of the gospel. So in your outline,
we are dealing with our first point under our proposition. So if you can pull our first
PowerPoint up, yes. Loosening the loss, we dealt
with that. That's in verse seven of our
text, chapter 13, verse seven. As we are told that they sailed
to Solomus, they preached the word of God in the synagogue
of the Jews and they had also John to minister to them. And
we developed last week, did we not? The idea that the primary
objective of the preaching is to liberate, right? Freedom from
bondage, freedom from sin, freedom from darkness, freedom from hell.
That is the ultimate objective for which Christ died to redeem
people from Hail. And then we talked about how
that what God does in this process of redeeming people is prepare
hearts to hear the gospel. There's a man in our account
who is called the deputy. And we see him in our account
over in verse seven, which was the deputy of the country. His
name was Sergius Paulus. And he was a prudent man who
had called for Barnabas and Saul and did what? Desire to hear
the word of God. So what we say in theology is
that God actually sets the stage for an opportunity to preach
the gospel. In other words, the preparation
of the heart and man and the answer of the tongue, both of
them are from the Lord, that God has to prepare someone to
communicate the gospel, but he has to also prepare the heart
to hear the gospel. You guys believe that. So God
actually, he produces circumstances where the gospel can be successful. Suppose the apostles had landed
on Paphos and there was no reception of the gospel. what would they
conclude? They would conclude that God
is not in it and that it's time to go. The reason why they would
conclude that is, is because in the ethic of gospel preaching,
and when you share the gospel with people, it's not your job
or my job to force people to hear the gospel. It's your job
and mine to be sensitive to the leading of the spirit of God.
If you and I are gonna be successful in sharing the gospel with people,
we have to be sensitive to the leading of the spirit of God.
You wanna find out one quick way to not be used of God? Be
self-willed in the matter of teaching. Be driven by your own
passion. Be committed to your own methodology
and technique at trying to win men to Christ and watch how you
fail miserably. and create conditions that will
disqualify you for the ministry. Remember what Jesus told the
disciples? He says, in what city you go, where there is reception
of the gospel, stay there, bless that place. Proclaim peace to
the home, peace to those that are hearing and stay there as
long as they are willing to hear your words. At the moment they
say, we don't wanna hear you anymore, you depart. what the disciples are taught
and what you and I are to be taught by that as well is that
God is the one who opens doors. Is that true? And as such, now
mark this now, this is very important as we're learning about evangelism,
even in our own little circles, because our Jerusalem, our Judea
is right here where we live. You and I want to be assistant
ministers of the Holy Ghost. Didn't I take about three weeks
to develop that concept? As we went through the attributes
and characteristics of the Spirit of God, you and I want to be
ministers, ministers of the Spirit. We want to serve the Spirit of
God, who is the resident Lord, directing and guiding and determining
which way we go to whom we speak and to whom we do not speak.
As we're now launching into the apostolic missional work in Acts
13 and subsequent, you're gonna see that we'll be going into
areas where the Spirit of God will forbid them to go. The Spirit
of God will say, do not go here. He will restrain them from going
certain places. What does that imply? It implies
that those who are called to the mission field of eternity
bound souls are men and women who are called to walk in sensitivity
to the Lord's leading. Does that make some sense? In
sensitivity to the Lord's leading. And when it comes to sharing
the gospel with someone, our viewpoint should be that we are
seeking to be the instrument of God to see to it that sinners
are liberated from darkness. But one of the things that's
going to give us an assurance that we are engaging in the work
that God has called us to do is that the people to whom we
are ministering are hungry. That's that second proposition.
So that's why I gave you verse seven in our account that Sergius
Paulus was hungry. He called for the apostles. He
wanted to hear the word. Something was going on and we'll
work that through because we've got some points to deal with
tonight. But getting back to this concept of the minister,
this is an interesting little side note. I wanna call your
attention briefly to the man Mark, who is called the minister
of the apostles. Do you guys remember that? I
think it's over in verse five, maybe, where we read, let's see
here. Verse five, yes. And when they
were in Solomus, when they were at Solomus, they preached the
word of God in the synagogue of the Jews, and they had also
who? John, that is John Mark, to their
what? Minister. Now, I just want to
call your attention to this concept briefly because It was a sort
of a beautiful insight that God gave me as I was just analyzing
the text. Who is John? He's a young protege,
he's a Jewish believer in Christ, and he is serving the apostles
as they go forth. He is not an apostle, he's serving
the apostles. Barnabas is an apostle with Paul
in the sense that he was sent with Paul by the Holy Ghost,
but Barnabas is not an apostle of Christ in the sense that Christ
sent Paul. I made those distinctions with
a brother that's developing, trying to develop a very sound
hermeneutic And you and I might as well understand that as well,
too, that the distinction between being an apostle of Christ and
just being an apostle in general is that apostles are sent, but
apostles of Christ are sent directly by Christ. That's the big difference. This is going to be critical
to Paul's Forging his position as the minister to the Gentiles
because he will have to deal with the hard-heartedness of
his Jewish brethren by constantly reminding them Jesus sent me
Jesus sent me I was called by Christ personally to do what
I did and what that does is it gets into the details of how
even a legitimate, authentic gospel ministry can be fraught
with all kinds of confusion because of the carnality of the brethren.
even at the highest levels of ministry. The apostles will be
tripping over the fact that multitudes of Gentiles are coming into the
kingdom of God through the ministry of Barnabas and Saul. Saul and
Barnabas, like you and I are looking at the map. The Jews
wouldn't have been traversing to go get those Gentiles, but
here Barnabas and Saul and John Mark is engaged in seeking out
lost sinners. And chapter 13 is gonna be the
chapter where you and I see a split taking place between the Jews
and the Gentiles on that level. But why did I call your attention
to that little phrase there, minister? Because a couple of
weeks ago I talked to you about the term minister as we looked
at it in verse two, right? And as they ministered to the
Lord, ministered to the Lord, ministered to the Lord, liturgeos
is the term, liturgeo is that word that is being used here
As a verb as they minister to the Lord and fasted the Holy
Ghost separate said separate me Barnabas and Saul for the
work where unto I have called them and you and I spent a little
bit of time understanding that if our relationship to God is
not largely vertical then we are trapped by a horizontal dilemma
remember that and that in horizontal dilemma is a dilemma where you
and I are viewing life purely on a horizontal level and that
the goal of the Christian is to understand that he is living
in the presence of God. And that largely you and I are
to be under the promptings of God when we think about our world
and we think about our activities. And it's within the framework
of that consciousness, that awareness that I am in your presence, oh
God, I am available for your service. I am your child, you
have bought me, you own me, I am your servant. Therefore, I am
always available for you. That's the mindset that the believers
to have and certainly. men who are called to the ministry
as Barnabas and Saul were, what would they have been doing? They
would have been praying. What would they have been doing?
They would have been studying the word of God. What would they
have been doing? They would have been communicating with that
local church in Antioch in every way necessary to make sure that
that church was built up in the faith. And they would have been
in a disposition of heart, ready to share the gospel everywhere
they went. Why do I say that? Because in
Isaiah chapter six, which we won't go there. I'm just laying
a foundation. You remember when God revealed
his glory to Isaiah in the sixth chapter and Isaiah beheld the
glory of God in the year that King Uzziah died. I saw the Lord
higher lifted up sitting on his throne in this trained field,
the whole universe. He described some things that
are just incomparable in our own mind. But then he heard a
conversation as he observed it. And one of the things that was
stated in that conversation, who will go for us? There's your
plural form again of the triune God, who will go for us? Who
shall we send? And he said, Lord, send me. Lord,
send me. Didn't he? Send me. And one of
the keys to effective ministry in the kingdom of God is one
word. Are you ready? Availability. One of the keys
to effective ministry is availability. Not ability. Availability. It's not about your abilities
or mine. It is, however, about availability.
So, Brother Carlos, why would God open the curtains and show
this man this kind of glorious vision of his sovereignty over
the universe if God hadn't first prepared his heart to be willing
to do whatever God would have him to do, having privileged
him with that revelation? Are you guys following me? So
now watch this. The secret of the Lord is truly with them that
fear him and he will show them his covenant. And I take Isaiah
6 and I'm attaching it to Acts chapter 13 to once again share
with you why the Holy Ghost separated Barnabas and Saul from the rest
of the men. He separated them. The literal
Greek term there means to mark out and separate, separate. Mark these two men out and separate
them. These two are now available for me to use in this regard.
Remarkable, remarkable, especially for the young men who are listening
to me now with regards to ministry preparation. What is ministry
preparation? Ministering to the Lord first,
making sure you walk Coram Deo, making sure that your heart is
right with God, making sure that you are available by disposition,
not making sure that you are qualified, first, but available
because the key difference between Christians and non-Christians
is not qualification, but availability. I'm going to work this out a
little bit as we go through the rough terrain of Romans chapter
seven, which is where we're going to begin this Sunday, working
through some difficult and terse language of which most people
misinterpret and have a hard time trying to understand what
Paul is saying there. But the conclusion will be this,
that what believers are in terms of their advantage over unbelievers
is this, believers are made available where unbelievers are not. And
what believers have is an availability of God's power at their disposal
that unbelievers don't have. So the key component is availability. God is available to the believer.
and all of the resources of God's grace is available to the believer.
The believer is available to God and therefore God can use
that believer at a time when God needs to use that believer.
The only difference between you and me and some unbeliever is
availability. You guys follow that? It's availability. Paul will make that clear as
we go through Romans 7. That's the key for you too. See,
I can do all things only through him that strengthens me. I can
do nothing without him. That concept underscores what
availability, availability, availability of God's resources towards me
and availability of my person towards God, because I'm walking
Coram Dale. But if I am not available to
God, he'll find somebody else. You do understand that, right?
In our lifetime, if we use the proverbial analogy of running
a race in our lifetime, I want you guys to get this now. If
we use the proverbial analogy of running a race, you'll see
a whole bunch of people starting at the starting line. Whole bunch
of people. This is the nature of the kingdom.
And everybody starts. And over time you see people
separate. Some make way more advancement
than others. The distance becomes visible
and sometimes alarming. There are some who start well
and don't ever finish. There are some who start slow
and over time in a very mysterious way, pick up, gain, and actually
catch up with those who started really quickly, but then also
petered out over time. And the race becomes fascinated
because it teaches you things about the nature of ministry
that are humbling to all of us. The final analysis of it is this,
finishing the race is the key for the Christian. Finishing
the race is the key for the Christian. The apostles are on a journey
now that we are contemplating in Acts chapter 13, the apostle
Paul and the servant Barnabas, and they have to their minister
John Mark. Interesting Greek term I want
you to capture with me, this word minister. It is not liturgail,
it's not diakonos, It's the word hooperates. It's an interesting
term. Don't be bothered by the term,
but it actually is a term that is rather humbling because it's
a servant who is called to take a place, take his place in a
ship with oars because they didn't have motors in those days and
simply roll the ship, roll the ship across the waters. A Huperides is someone that's
just available to help get the ship down the road. A Huperides is just someone that's
available to get the ship down the road. And when it says, and
Mark was given to us to our minister, What the text is saying is Mark
is humble enough and available enough to simply be a means by
which their agenda gets down the road. Now, for those of you
who know your Bibles, you do know that ships are a metaphor,
are an analogy of the ministry of the gospel. That when we are
talking about ships, we are talking about men who are traversing
the seas, both to catch wayfaring sinners who are like fish out
there to be scooped up and brought into the kingdom of God, as well
as to traverse this topsy-turvy world to get from one side to
the other. And so all through the gospels,
we have these events where the Lord is going from one place
to another on a ship. Is that not so? And then on the
ship, there are very powerful events that occur where we learn
lessons about ministry. When I was teaching about a year
ago, our N1 class, N1 for his glory, talking about the fundamental
principles of evangelism, one of the things we learned by our
master is that if you follow me, I will make you what? Fishers
of men. Well, that would necessitate
the analogy of being in boats, right? Going hither and yon,
seeking the masses that are not on land. That is in that foundationless
realm of being tossed to and fro and drowning in sin. and the gospel net being cast
out to bring them in. And what I like about the Huperates
that Luke is using here concerning Mark, is it's describing actually
ministers of the gospel. Because while Mark is a minister
to the apostles, this is the very word that the apostle himself
uses concerning ministers himself. I want to just show you a few
usage of this word Huperates. And again, this is a very humble
analogy. because take a fairly large vessel
and you can visualize these boats that are driven by oars. The Hooperates are the, the rower
is a lower galley rower who's down in the bottom of the deck
where the oars extend on the outside of the boat. You guys
see the picture, right? He's down on the bottom of the
deck and all he's doing is rowing. Now, this is a gospel preacher.
The minister of the gospel is simply rowing the boat. He's
not steering the boat. Christ is steering the boat.
Christ is the captain of the ship. The goal of the preacher
is to simply be an assistant to Christ by the Spirit of God
to go where Christ has designated him to go. And it really requires
that humble spirit in order to be, to take that position, that
position of humility before God. So I'll give you a couple of
verses that'll underscore that. In Acts chapter 26, verse 12,
here's what God says about the apostle Paul in this regard.
I'm gonna give you a few. And then I'm gonna share with
you one analogy in the Psalms around the idea of ships being
used for the cause of the ministry. And by the way, if you're with
us in our Saturday men's class, we're going to be immersed in
that analogy for several weeks around Jonah in the ship. But in Acts chapter 26, notice
what it says in verse 12, Acts 26, 12. Whereupon, let me see
here. This is not gonna be it. Let
me see here. Uh, let me leave that one alone.
Go with me in your Bible to first Corinthians chapter four, one
first Corinthians chapter four, one. This is not the one that
I want. Oh, I'm sorry. Stay back and
ask chapter 26 is verse 16. Sometimes it's good to have these
red letter Bibles, isn't it? In my mind, I knew the Lord was
already talking to the apostle Paul, but I have a brand new
Bible up here on my pew. And I've been working with this
brand new Bible for about the last year or so. In my mind,
when I'm in my study Bible, I'm visualizing texts elsewhere.
Then I have to look down on this brand new Bible and think it
through. I want you to see it in Acts chapter 26. Notice what it says
over in verse 15. And I said, who are you Lord?
And he said, I am Jesus whom you persecute us. Now mark the
commission. This is Christ commissioning
Paul, but rise and stand down upon thy feet. First clause,
right? That's an imperative. So Paul was to get up. and take
his position as a servant before Christ. Mark the next one. For
I have appeared unto you for this purpose. What purpose? To
make you a huperates. You got it? A lower alley roar. Paul, you get in the boat and
descend to the third deck, disappear, because this is not about you,
and put your hand to the row, to the oar, and be ready to roll. Humbling, isn't it? But that's
the point, to make you a minister and a witness both of these things
which thou has seen and of those things which I will appear unto
thee. My argument for calling your attention to verse 16 of
chapter 26 is the whole of my opening monologue about submission
to God, availability, the humility that's necessary for you to be
effective in God using you. God resists the proud, only gives
grace to the what? Now just imagine now you meet
the Lord of glory and he tells you, I want you to go to the
lower deck of the ship never to be seen again. Amazing. And the application
is this on a larger gospel level. Ministers are not called to be
the center of attention, but the means for the advancement
of the gospel and so therefore are privileged if God would have
them to be the folks in the back that takes the refuge and throws
it overboard. Did you hear what I just said? I'm just glad to be on the ship,
aren't you? I'm glad to be on the ship. I'll sink down to the
fifth row. And so this gives a disposition
and a frame of thinking for the minister of the gospel to understand
that it's not about him, that it's not about their shining.
It's about cooperating with God and a spirit of humility so that
he can take the gospel where he means to take the gospel and
get it done. Beautiful, they had Mark to their
minister. All right, going back to our
PowerPoint, I wanna pull this on up. There are other verses,
I'm gonna leave it there. PowerPoint number one, this point here,
loosening the loss, it begins with hunger, and then God sends
a messenger. We already affirmed that last
week. Faith comes by what? Hearing by what? And now let's
move to our next PowerPoint. Let's see what we can do with
our next PowerPoint. Binding enemies. This is gonna
take some, the larger bulk of the time that I want to work
through now, the binding of our enemies. This is an amazing concept. In verses eight through 11, this
is how it goes, going back to our text. We talk about the ministry
being largely about loosening, but in order to lose, Those obstacles
that are in the way have to be bound. We read over in verse
eight, after the Spirit of God through Luke has given us a description
of Sergius Paulus, the one they call, we read this opening statement. But Elimas, the sorcerer, foresaw
his name by interpretation, which stood them seeking to turn away
the deputy from the faith. Do you guys see that? Then Saul,
who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, set his
eyes on him. And I wanna stop right there,
that's verses eight and nine. And now I will have you to, my
sister, pull our new second set of PowerPoints up. The light
exposes the darkness because I wanna start with that right
there. This here is a new development for us, and this is consistent
with the point that you have in your outline, but I wanna
develop it from here. You notice that the text tells
us that when we are confronted with this guy, Elimus, the sorcerer,
for so his name is by interpretation, seeking to turn away the deputy
from the faith, verse nine quickly says, then Saul, who is called
Paul, what? Filled with the Holy Ghost, did
what? Set his eyes on him. See that? Set his eyes on him. So what
I wanna call your attention to now is the importance of being
sober and vigilant in the ministry. The importance of being sober
and vigilant in the ministry. Now, had Paul been living in
the 21st century and would have been seeking to be one of the
popular preachers of the day and really was going to the island
of Paphos with the objective of accruing numbers to himself,
he would have paid no attention to this man, really. Or what
he would have done was sought to facilitate a relationship
with this man so as to benefit from this man's already influence
over the masses that are there. In other words, he would have
used a business technique like preachers do of getting along
with people for the purpose of ecumenical activity. Are you
guys hearing me? If Paul was operating on 21st
century paradigmatic forms of ministry, he would not have had
within himself a sense of sober, vigilant concern. But the text
said the apostle Paul being first filled with the Holy Ghost. So
this is a prompting of the Spirit of God. What's taking place? The Spirit of God now is prompting
Paul to lock his eyes on this man and pay careful attention
to him because he's a problem. He's a problem. In other words,
the spirit of God is not gonna allow Saul or Paul to let this
man meander about among the people that they're doing ministry with
and so trouble people as to hinder their objective to preach the
gospel. Now this becomes another ethic in the ministry of the
gospel again that we don't see often dealt with. He not only
sets his eyes on him as first Peter chapter 5 says be sober
be vigilant because you're what? adversary, right Is this man
an adversary? Yes, he is If you go back to
verse 8 notice what it says But a lime is a sorcerer for so his
name by interpretation is did what which stood them? It's an
amazing concept to to withstand What do you mean he withstood
them? It means that he publicly stood over against the apostles
publicly to oppose all that they were doing. This was a hostile
position on his part. He openly disagreed with what
they were doing. Makes me wonder a little bit
about Barnabas, but that's okay. I know that God raised Paul up
to put this man in check. The man is being put in check
because they are coming to preach the gospel and he is there to
oppose that work. The text says he would stood
them, which stood them, which stood. It means to oppose vigorously,
almost like a military term of seeking to protect your goods
against an adversary. That's how this word is used.
Not gonna get into the original language with that, but the idea
is having resources and having goods. Now you are seeking to
oppose the person or persons that are attempting to take those
goods. Now, let me ask you the question.
In the preaching of the gospel, are we called to plunder? I'm gonna say it again. In the
preaching of the gospel, are we called to plunder? Is the
goal of preaching to set captives free, break open the bars of
hell, go in and take hell bound sinners out of Satan's kingdom.
Is that the goal? This is a very important military
concept that you have to grasp. And if the devil knows that soul,
is he not going to try to protect all the property he has? And it's very important, therefore,
for you and I to understand in the business of preaching how
to fight a good warfare. Am I boring you? Because I'm
fascinated by this on a lot of levels. First of all, I thank
God for Saul, who is now Paul. Because God knows how to pick
people and put them on his team and give them the grace to go
to war for him. I like Paul. See, I will choose
Paul I would choose David. I will take Joshua. Give me Caleb. I'll even take Peter. And I'll go to war with those
guys any day. You understand that? I'll go to war with those
guys anyway, because they actually believed in the glory of God. So see, if you don't believe
in the glory of God, the cost will be too much for you to stand
against evil. if you actually do not believe
that this is about God's glory. Like in our present day, many
of you have been listening to me for years and here's what
you know I teach openly, publicly, explicitly, that we are largely
in an apostate situation in our churches today, right? We are
in an apostate situation where our churches have defaulted and
defected from the cause of the gospel and have gone to playing
games. Our churches are like children
in the marketplace Playing with jacks and marbles and having
a good time instead of recognizing we are in a warfare And as a
consequence, they are not fighting the good fight of faith on the
level of proclamation first And so you don't hear the sober serious
preaching of the word of god from most pulpits They are subtle
entertainment techniques by which to make you feel good and largely
put you asleep spiritually Is that true? Right, and so when
we talk about apostasy, it's important for you to understand
the signs of apostasy. And largely the signs of apostasy
is a defection from the glory of God as the supremacy, the
primacy of motive for all that we do must be the glory of God.
Whatever you do in word or deed, do it all to the what? Glory
of God, right? So when your ministers up here
teaching, or your ministers are teaching anywhere, whether we
are teaching the two to five year olds, the six to 12 year
olds, our young adults, or us old people, they should be about
the glory of God. Children can behold God's glory
in a passionate Sunday school teacher who has bathed herself
in prayer and in study of the word can they and certainly young
people can and adults can so there should always be in the
study a sense of The presence of God and a sense of honoring
God's Word at the highest level now when that becomes the case
Being concerned about hurt feelings becomes secondary and remote.
Because you're going to always have someone in the house who
is not ready for the glory of God. You're going to always have
someone in the house who is not ready for the glory of God. There's going to always be people
coming in who are ready to be entertained by men and not meet
God. when they come in and meet God
is going to shake them up and They're not gonna like you because
they're not gonna perceive that it's God But it's you If you're
being called to serve God honestly in the cause of the gods now
watch this and when you've done ministry as long as I have what
you come to discover is that Wherever the sheep come in, they
go to goats too. Wherever the people of God are
coming in to hear the word of God, here comes the devil too.
The devil lives in the church. You guys understand that, right?
Now get comfortable with that. Get comfortable, because some
days you hug the devil and kick it with him. So don't act like
you're trying to look around and see who the devil is. Leave
it alone. Because some days you actually give him a ride to church. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. And that devil will
actually hoodwink most of the undiscerning people who are not
operating out of the sober vigilance spirit that Paul is. That's why
I'm worried about Barnabas. Silence is saying a lot to me
about Barnabas right now, but that's cool. We'll get to him
later. Okay? What happens when you and I don't
have our priorities straight is we will aid and abet an entertainment,
sort of vaudeville, sort of amusement park atmosphere when it comes
to the gospel. will entertain an amusement park
atmosphere. We will not be concerned with
eternity bounce off. We won't have an availability
in our heart to be ready for when the speaker stands up, God
is actually going to speak through him. And we all must do what
the Psalmist says. Keep silence. God is in his Holy
temple. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
Let all flesh keep silence. God is in his holy temple. And
at that point, what we're talking about is stilling our soul, right?
Just stilling our soul. Be still my soul. Be still my
soul. I'm hearing from God. And see,
that is the critical and signal presence of God when it's taking
place. And so under this particular point, the light exposes the
darkness. The apostle Paul sets his eyes
on this man. This is what our text says. And
notice what it says, having set his eyes on him, Verse 10, he
said, oh, full of all subtlety and all mischief, you child of
the devil, you enemy of all unrighteousness, all righteousness, will you not
cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? Stop right there.
See, at that point, Paul would lose his job in the church. Going back to our PowerPoint,
just show you some things that you don't have it in your outline.
It's just in our PowerPoint. I'll just call your attention
to it. What he does in point B is what?
Calls him out. He calls him out. Just calls
him out. Like we don't notice that on
this island of Paphos, they're ministering to different synagogues
and different people. There's a bunch of people around.
And this sorcerer, this magician, he's working his magic. He's
hoodwinked the man to which the apostles have been called to
go to. But the first thing that Paul has to do now is expose
this man. You guys see that? He has exposed
him. That's our point. The light does what? Expose the
darkness. He has to first call him out.
Now, when he says over in verse 11, or verse 9 rather, or verse
10, he says, Oh fool of all subtlety and all mischief, you child of
the devil. I give that emphasis because
this is a particular case in the Greek that we're not working
on. It's called the vocative, vocative case. And what it is,
is a form of speech that directly addresses you. What Saul said
was, you child of the devil. You know what he's doing? He's
doing business with that man right there in front of his face,
all by himself and got nothing to do with nobody else. This
is Saul beamed in on him, dealing with him. You know what Saul
has just done? Arrested that man in the name
of the Lord. and a divine authority is working
now to expose that man. That man is fixed. You know what
he is? He's caught. You know what he
is? He's trapped. He's trapped now
by the authority of the gospel in the mouth of the apostle Paul
under unction of the Holy Ghost, he calls him out. And then he
begins to use these terms, these nouns, but he also has these
adjectives. Notice what it says in verse
11. This is an amazing way to describe this guy. Verse 10,
rather. Oh, full of all what? Subtlety. The word full there
is Paul's common use for the word pleruo, which means to fill
up. He says, you are full of subtlety. You are full of deception. You are full of evil. You are full of manipulative
tactics. He didn't just say, oh, subtle
one. He said, you are full of it.
Full of it. In fact, this particular Greek
word here is the word that can be translated to bait or to hook. Like a fisherman that puts bait
on a hook, it means to bait or to hook. In other words, when
this cat goes out, he goes out with the objective of catching
people. You are full of tricks. You are
full of bait. You are full of lures. That's
what false prophets do. They lure you in. He has all
kinds of tactics to get people. How many of you guys have observed
and learned and seen acutely the methodology of false prophets?
I want to see how many ignorant people in the house. Good. See, 90% of you guys have said
that. You notice that when the false
prophet gets up, or false prophetess get up, or the group of them,
they start using methods, don't they? They use subtle communication
methods to kind of get you worked up and they do smoke and mirror
stuff. They might crack jokes, tell
anecdotal stories to disarm you. Isn't that right? And then they
begin to give propositions to you that often are challenging
to you because they actually want you to buy in. Now, largely
what they will do in our present day is bestow upon you a whole
lot of biblical concepts that are by nature promises. The Lord
promises this. The Lord promises that. The Lord
promises these are lures. These are baits that are hooked
to get a hold to your soul and snag you and start towing you
in. Are you guys hearing me? This
is psychology. That's all that is. This is,
he says, you are full of tricks. You are full of baits and techniques
by which you draw people in. The verse I want you to see around
this is 2 Peter 2, verse 14. 2 Peter 2, 14. Now, why am I
calling attention to this? Why am I doing this? Because
the spirit of God has allowed us on Paul's first missionary
journey. to be acutely involved in the
process of exposing false prophets. Acutely. By first calling him
out by name and then giving us these epithets of him, this here
is Peter describing the characteristics of false prophets back up to
verse 12. Let me see if I can give us a
context. Here it is. He calls, Peter says, these are,
but these people as natural brute beasts, talking about false prophets,
Now, when he uses the term natural brute beasts, here's what he's
doing. He's giving us an analogy of the false prophet's destiny
compared to brute beasts. Now, we could say they are brute
beasts in that they don't bear the image of God necessary to
glorify God in his dignity towards human beings. Like a brute beast,
Bull or some type of massive animal could come in here and
just trot us under and it wouldn't bother him So in this sense false
prophets are that way because people are nothing but prey to
them But here's what he says. These are as natural brute beasts
made to be taken in what right? This is describing the damnation
of the false prophet that false prophets are no different in
their destiny than brute beasts Now watch this They speak evil
of things that they do not understand. So what Paul is saying there,
you have to be careful about how to interpret the concept
of evil, but really what it means is they distort and pervert the
word of God because of their ignorance. And where that occurs,
they are speaking evil. Where men and women are not soundly
expounding the word of God, they are speaking evil. And so what
paul is saying or what peter is saying is because they don't
have the spirit of god because they are driven by their carnal
passions They distort and twist the scriptures and turn them
in nothing into nothing but hooks by which to deceive the masses
They are speaking evil of things. They understand now and shall
utterly perish in their own what? That's right. That's right. The
proverb says the hypocrite will be filled with his own ways Next
verse now we have a context watch this verse 13 and they shall
receive the reward of what? Right, as we're gonna see in
our text when we go back and see Paul's judgment on the sorcerer. As they counted pleasure to riot
in the what? All right, see now this particular
clause here is an argument that we have yielded many times. that if you think that your job
is to read the Bible and it's easy reading and every line in
the scripture is supposed to be availably comprehensive to
you, you're wrong. Right, so like this next line
in this clause, as they counted pleasure to ride in the daytime
becomes for us a metaphor, a seamless transition from a literal statement
to a metaphor, pleasure, rioting in the daytime. He's not talking
about physical 24 hour period. He's not saying they enjoy doing
evil in the day, but they sleep at night. To the contrary, the
false prophet does all his work at night, by and large. What it's saying is, is that
these people are so bodacious, hubris is our Greek term. They
are so bodacious is that they can actually work evil in the
presence of the church, which is supposed to be the kingdom
of light. In their wickedness, in their
avarice, they counted pleasure to riot. Do you see that? Riot. Now again, the word riot
is a sort of a, it's a hyperbole phrase that Peter is using to
describe that which is opposite of the kingdom of God. Let me
see if I can help you. The kingdom of God is stated
in Romans 14 and 17 to be what? Righteousness, what? Peace, in
the Holy Spirit, joy in the Holy Spirit. Now, those are radically
different characteristics than rioting, are they not? A riotous
situation is an unstable situation. When riotousness is taking place,
people now are, they're on an unfounded base. They're now troubled, disturbed
by the actions of these unprincipled persons. And very frequently
the riot mentality is suggested to be the attribution of the
spirit of God in the midst. We call it chaos, right? The spirit is moving in this
place. Because over here people are acting the fool, over there
people are acting the fool, over here people are acting the fool,
over here people are acting the fool. And when once people get
used to that kind of diet, that kind of pattern of behavior,
they don't know what it means to settle down and in the quietness
of their soul, hear from God. You will actually get people
who will come in, sit down and say, I don't sense the spirit
here right now. because they are foolishly believing
that the Spirit of God is a riotous spirit. Are you hearing what
I'm saying? So they're not interested in
learning about God, they're interested in chaos. Activity that moves
them, brings them into states of frenzy, where they can stop
thinking and just start feeling. And this is where the false prophet
takes advantage of ignorant professing Christians, as we'll see in the
next verse, because they are willingly ignorant. They are
not willing to learn. You know, it takes a lot of work
sitting here for an hour thinking through biblical concepts, doesn't
it? But see, your soul has to be important enough to you for
you to do that. For you to sit and listen and
think through biblical ideas and concepts and try to see whether
or not you understand where God is going. So he says, they counted
pleasure to ride in the daytime, spots they are in blemishes.
Spots they are in blemishes. The analogy there is that they
are a stain on the white garment of the believer who is in fellowship
with God on the basis of his righteousness, by which in the
fellowship of the saints, we have a pure impeccable righteousness. They are stains in that collective
righteousness because of their overtly sinful lifestyle and
their hostility towards the gospel. Can you see that? And it would
be incongruent for you and I to be wearing a white robe that's
filled with all kinds of stains. These false prophets are stains.
Do you see that? Stains. The other analogy here
with this Greek term spot, particularly when it's used, I think it's
in the book of Jude because it's used again in the book of Jude
as he condemns them. is the analogy of rocks under
the water at the base of the shore where the ships are coming
in to port. The ships have to look carefully
under the water for these rocks, these jagged rocks that can actually
puncture holes in the ship and stop the ship from actually arriving
to shore. What Peter is saying is that
these are men who bring damage to the cause of the gospel. And
if left alone, the ship will never make it to shore so that
men and women actually reach their destiny. That makes all
sorts of sense to me. Spots they are in blemishes,
sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they what?
Feast with you. Verse 14, having eyes full of
adultery. Now watch this next line. that
cannot cease from sin. Now, you and I are gonna talk
about that word back in Acts chapter 13, leave it right there
when we deal with the word mischief. Because he says, Paul says they
are full of all subtlety and all what? Mischief. That cannot cease from sin. Now,
who are their targets? Beguiling or deceiving what?
Unstable souls. You got it? So the target of
false prophets are not prudent, discerning, sober, vigilant,
careful, Bible-believing Christians. It's the people who are ignorant,
who are careless, who are emotionally driven, who just want to have
a good time, who have no sense of sobriety. They are unstable
souls. You guys got that? Unstable souls
they look for those In the in the in the in the preaching ministry
of the false prophet when they are sitting On the podium with
all the chairs in the big Senate It's amazing to me. I've been
seeing this for decades They'll have the chairs up there and
they'll all be sitting in the chairs like big old fat wolves
and with knives and forks and napkins hanging around their
neck, looking out at the audience, seeing which one of you lambs
they're gonna have for dinner. Do you understand that? And the most troubling thing
for false prophets is a room full of discerning Christians
who don't turn to the left. When they say, turn to the left
and say to your neighbor, turn to the right and say to your
neighbor, Let everybody make some noise! Like we're doing big time wrestling
or something. Those are our techniques. Those are switch and bait techniques.
This is the mass, social, psychological, manipulative techniques to disarm
people, getting them into an emotional frenzy where they,
you know what they do? They sit their Bible down. They
start putting their Bible in their purses, zipping their purses,
because we're getting ready to have a good time in the Lord.
Are you hearing me? It goes on all the time. It goes
on all the time. Beguiling unstable souls. You
want to scare false prophets? Go in and sit on the front row
like you guys are doing with your Bibles open. With your Bibles
open, looking dead in their eyes. And then bring your concordance,
too, and your lexicon. Set it on either side of you
like cannons. and aim them at them. Prop them up with the hymn
book and aim them at the false prophet. Watch how they start
declaring devils in the house and needing to get rid of you. Oh, why do I say that? Because
we are dealing with a spiritual battle. Because we're dealing
with a spiritual battle, are we not? It is truly a spiritual
battle. And unstable souls do not agree
with what I am saying. nor do they even understand how
serious this matter is because they're unstable. Beguiling unstable
souls, in heart they have exercised with covetous practices. They
are what kind of children? All right, let's go back to our
PowerPoint and let's go back to Acts 13. Let's look at a few
more points here where Paul in the vocative voice has called
this guy out and he's exposing him, the light exposing the darkness
and helping us to see who this guy is. Verse 10 says he's full
of mischief. I mean, he's full of subtlety.
The Greek term again means to bait or to hook, to use tricks,
to catch vulnerable people. It's a psychological technique.
And the next one is he is all mischief, mischief. Now, when
do we use that term mischief? When we are dealing with children,
right? When we are dealing with children.
Boy, you are mischievous. Now, most of us, we have grown
up, we have used the term mischievous. That's not the word, it's mischievous,
okay? It's not mischievous, it's mischievous,
okay? So it's mischievous. And what
it means is, I want you to get this now, the child doesn't know
how to discipline himself. And this is the characteristic
of a person who cannot cease from sin. 2nd Peter 2 14 these
cannot cease from sin That's what the term means to be mischievous
means that they don't have the discipline of restraint That
they are inclined to all sorts of curious Practices just because
they are not disciplined You meet a godly man or a godly woman
a mature person in the faith. Here's the one thing you're gonna
learn about them Are you ready? They're disciplined people One of the
things that the Holy Ghost is going to teach you if you are
under his tutelage is discipline. One of the things we need in
the church is discipline. Every child of God is called
to discipline. That's the work of the Spirit
of God. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, goodness,
faith, temperance, temperance, temperance, temperance, self-control,
temperance, self-control. A characteristic of mature believers
is that they don't waver, they don't get tossed to and fro,
they're not distracted by this, distracted by that, they're not
caught up in this newfangled idea, they're not driven by this
wind, not driven by that doctrine, they're not tossed to and fro.
They're not coming up this day even emotionally driven. You
know how you meet people one day they're happy, the next day
they're sad, the next day they're melancholy, the next day... Be
careful about all that. Because it would be indicative
that you are not walking You are not redeeming the time And
being sober as god has called you to be so so the child of
god is called to a walk with christ That disciplines him There's
a temperance in the life of christians Now what is the benefit of that
temperance? Here's the benefit of that temperance when you and
I are around temperate people They allow us to rest. When you are around mature people,
they allow you to rest. The Proverbs says, do not go
with an angry man. Do not be given to those that
are given to change. That's the Proverbs. Because
these kinds of people that are given to change, they take away
rest from everybody. Are you following me? So as a
believer, your job is to demonstrate a character of consistency, of
discipline and structure, of a kind of pattern of life that
when other people come into your space, they can rest. Your job in mind is to give people
an opportunity to rest. Cause they don't have to worry
about when they turn their back, we're going to hit them in the
back of the head. Are you hearing me? No haymakers, no punching
below the belt. We're not going to gossip on
you. We're not going to slander you. We're not going to say something
about you that we wouldn't say to your face. And we wouldn't
say something to your face that would hurt you because we're
disciplined people. When you come into our space,
you can rest. Now you may not rest in yourself
cause you may be so troubled with yourself that you can't
rest, but that's not my problem. Are you guys following that?
So know the difference between not being able to rest in yourself
and yet being able to rest in someone else's presence. Now
watch this. If you think I'm just talking
off the top of my head, I'm not. Our Lord Jesus got in a boat.
This is evangelism. And him and his disciples headed
over to the Decapolis. This is the gospel of Luke. And
the disciples was having fits, because this was out of gospel
territory for them. Because the Lord took the ship
way on the backside of the San Rafael Bridge, and he pulled
up back there at the port, back there by Richmond, Richmond Point,
back in the 70s. And he said, fellas, come on,
they're like, master, don't you know we don't ever go over here?
What are we going over here today? You guys remember that? About
Luke chapter four, Luke chapter eight. Come on, we're gonna,
and you can hear all of them saying in their head, what in
the world is the master doing? We don't go over here. We better
not tell our Jewish brother and we don't went to the backside
of Point Richmond. And then he took him to a graveyard at night. You got that? at night. Now what
is the Lord up to? Saving one sinner. Saving one sinner. That's what
he's up to. This is what he's trying to teach those knuckleheads.
One sinner. You guys remember that? Who is
bound in chains and in fetters, living and sleeping in the graveyard
with the dead, so tormented in himself, so undone in himself,
so confused in himself, he's cutting himself. And every time
the people tried to bound him, he broke the chains. He was possessed
by legions of devils. That's the scenario that we have
here. No one could bind him. No one could lose him. No one
could control him. But Christ, you guys see that? Now watch this, the account is
fabulous. I'll have to actually go there
next week, the Lord willing, when we deal with the impact
of Paul's ministry to Sergius Paulus, when Sergius Paulus sees
what Paul does to this sorcerer, Sergius Paulus becomes saved.
But the text is teaching us something inside the language as to his
response to what he sees that I actually want to work through
next week. Cause I can tell my time is almost up in 15 minutes,
but I want to work through that because what we are doing is
we are considering and contemplating the difficult nature of ministry.
The task of actually seeing people truly saved. Are you, are you
following me so far? This is the difficult aspects of ministry.
Ministry is not a play thing. And so as I, as I contemplate
with you, Luke's account of our master going to the Decapolis
to actually liberate one hell bound sinner, who himself was
a Gentile. When the Lord freed that man
from those demons, and we won't have to get into the whole account
of the demons going into the pigs and the pigs going over
into the world. What did that formerly demon Possess man want
to do stay with Jesus, didn't he? He wanted to stay with Jesus,
didn't he? Do you know why because with
Jesus was peace? With Jesus was stability with
Jesus for the first time in a long time was rest with Jesus for
the first time in a long time was quietness a sense of security
like a little baby wanting to slide up to either his father
or his big brother and just stay there. You guys remember that,
right? That's what I'm talking about.
But what I'm talking about is for those Christians who are
called to serve in the kingdom of God, the reason why you and
I want to grow in maturity. How many of you guys ever lived
in the country? How many of you guys lived in the country? Okay,
yeah. So I'm speaking to largely city folks. So in the country,
you know, this skunk smell, we smell it all the time. Get used
to it. Cause a lot of the perfume you
ladies are wearing started right there. Just in case you start
to see visions and stuff, you'll be fine. Uh, and my point is,
is that you and I ought to mature for the purpose of attracting
people to us. because people are troubled in
their souls. Do you understand that? People
are troubled in their souls and they can't really count on Christians
for being a good consolers because Christians will mess your head
up. You do know that, right? Christians will mess your head up. You think
that you are crazy as a bed bug and you go into a Christian to
get help. And when you get there, you find out they need to be
at John George faster than you. I got some brothers bobbing their
heads saying, yeah, pastor. And they still bobbing their
head. See, we got to get it together,
don't we? Don't we have to get it together? We have to get it
together and not play church. Jesus didn't act unseemly. The Holy Ghost doesn't act unseemly. You don't bombard people with
500 Bible verses. You don't hog tied them with
excessive sort of endless praises and shouts and hallelujahs and
all the old crazy religious exhibitionalism. We don't do that. You comfort
them, give them a safe place and give them sound Christian
advice. And then make, yes sir. And then
make sure that you don't turn around and countermand that advice
by crazy behavior. You guys understand what I'm
saying? right? This is the way you told people
out of the pit. This is how you tell them out
of it. So, so us Christians here at grace, we, we, we want to
be those kinds of people. We're not interested in making
people just, you know, tell us, you know what, you're so, you're
so charismatic. You ought to be in ministry.
When you hear people say to you, I think the Lord's calling you
in the ministry. Tell them you don't know what you're talking
about, sir. You know how people do that all the time? I think
the Lord's calling you to ministry. Now, this is the flattery of
our apostate church today. Rejected out of hand. Do you
hear me? Rejected out of hand. Don't let
anyone come to you and say, you know what? I think the Lord told
me that you should be in ministry. He didn't tell you that. He didn't
tell you that. He didn't tell you that at all.
Now, the Lord might tell you to go down in the bottom of the
boat Get an oar somewhere and disappear. Now the Lord will
be in that. Am I making some sense? Go down
there and learn how to row where no one sees you but the Lord. And don't come up for air until
he tells you to. Trust that he will come down
there when it's time and give you a bathroom break. And after
he gives you a bathroom break, and a cup of water, go right
back to rowing. Build up your spiritual muscles
down in the lower deck and be part of the advancement of the
gospel and not the hindrance of it because you want to be
on the top deck with Jesus. Am I making some sense? All right,
let's see if we can work through one more point. I got five minutes
here. So he set his eyes on him. He calls him out. And he calls
him full of subtlety, baits and tricks, full of mischief, all
mischief, as we had stated, that term mischief there means practically
out of control, having no sense of discipline, therefore, not
being able to restrain himself. In 2 Peter 2, 14, it says, cannot
cease from sin, cannot cease from sin. Cannot cease from sin. That's a terrible epithet for
a person He says subtlety mischief and then he calls him what a
child of the devil an enemy of righteousness What is Peter doing?
What is our Paul doing? He's exposing the darkness Is
he not our next point our next point the light now imposing
the darkness? There's a poet play on words
But the first thing that Paul does is expose him for his true
characteristics. Now he's speaking in the vocative
voice because he wants everyone around to know exactly who this
guy is. Because this guy has been hoodwinking
people for the longest. Remember back in Acts 8 with
Philip and the false prophet who was a sorcerer back then
as well? who called himself some great one and everybody thought
he was the great power of God. Y'all remember that? No, y'all
don't. Y'all don't read y'all Bibles. It's in Acts chapter
eight. We'll leave it there. I don't wanna go back there.
But anyhow, Philip was dealing with the same thing. Same thing.
Because in this matter of the gospel, there's really only two
avenues. The first avenue are people who
exalt God. The other avenue are people who
what? Exalt themselves. And so in Acts
chapter 8, you got this guy that's exalting himself, calling himself
some great one, of which Peter came down and exposed him. And
now here in Acts chapter 13, this guy is some massive sorcerer,
some magi, working tricks on the people, and Paul is exposing
him. And three things here take place
in Acts chapter 13, verse 11. First, the authority of the light
prevails against the darkness. Secondly, the darkness did not
what? Overcome it. Thirdly, The difference
between Paul and bar Jesus is election. So I'm going to touch
on these quickly and then we'll close out and we can contemplate
it. Look, look with me in Acts chapter
13 verse 11 after Paul says, will you not cease to pervert
the right ways of the Lord? That's the question he raises,
right? You guys see that over, over
in verse 10, And he said, oh, full of subtlety in all mischievous,
all mischief, you child of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness. Now, ladies and gentlemen, is
he under unction of the spirit? If he's under unction of the
spirit, he has just given a full expose of this man's manner and
method and history. He's an enemy of every form of
righteousness. That means this guy is bad. He's
an enemy of all righteousness. Will you not cease to pervert
the right ways of the world? It's an amazing question that
he's raising. Why is he raising this question? Here's why, because
Paul knows this man. He knows this man. He actually
knows this man better than he wants to. He raises this question,
will you not cease That little phrase there, will you not cease
is in what we call the future tense. Are you going to continue
to do what you're doing? That's what he said. Are you
going to continue? Are you going to just keep this charade up?
Watch this. Are you going to keep this charade
up to continue perverting what? The right ways of the Lord. Now,
why would he say that? Because this guy is a Jew. Stay with me now. He's a Jew. Is he not? Can we just read that
about it? Y'all got to wake up now. I know
it's nice and comfortable in here. Trying to show you something.
Look at verse six. I'm trying to show you something.
I'll be done in five minutes. This is as terse and short as
I can do it. I want you to get it. And when
they had gone through the aisle unto Patmos, they found a certain
magician who is also what a false prophet. You know what that means?
He goes around speaking for Jehovah. Yahweh. Now you know who's just
come to the island? The apostle Paul and the prophet
Barnabas. Paul's a prophet too. Now the
true prophets have confronted the false prophet. Have they
not? I'm going to show you the connection. The text says this
man In verse six, he is a sorcerer, he is a false prophet, but he
is also what? That's right, whose name was
Bar Jesus. How perverse can you get? We lightly touched on that last
week. Those are phrases and terms that in that era, people would
attach to themselves just to get a following. What this Jew
knew, was that the name of Jesus had been spreading far and wide
for years now. And what he was doing was exercising
tricanery and witchcraft as a false prophet, being a Jew, attaching
himself to the ministry of the Lord in a perverse way. This
is why Paul is saying, will you not cease to pervert the right
ways of the Lord? Let me show you something that's
going on here. The reason why I titled these two points is
the exposure of the light of the darkness and the imposition
of the light is because this false prophet here has deceived
all the people on the island including Sergius Paulus into
thinking he's of God. When the men who are of God have
now just come and there are parallels between the two, is Paul a Jew? Would he know something about
the behavior and methodologies of Jews? Is Paul a prophet? Is Paul one who has in his past
former life been aware of the methods and the scams of the
false prophets and the Pharisees and the Sadducees and all of
the crooks that have perverted the right ways of the Lord? Was
he part of that echelon of crooks? Yes, he was. See, in other words,
it takes one to know one. Right? So what I'm sharing with
you is in God's sovereign providence, what he does is he brings a man
who is an authentic servant of God to expose a hookster and
a fraud. The only reason he has the ability
to peer into this man's character and so fully expose him for who
he is is because he was one himself. Do you see it? Do you see it?
This is amazing. Go back to our PowerPoint because
I just want to make an observation here. So the authority of the
light prevails against the darkness. I'm going to pick that up next
week because I actually want to stay there and go through
Ephesians chapter 5 verses 8 through 13 with you to show you what
Paul teaches in Ephesians 5 about the importance of making sure
that you understand your identity as children of light, and that
you walk in the characteristics that make for children of light.
And that for you and me, darkness is not a place that we comfortably
dwell. And that darkness must be at
all times because we are children of light, something we oppose. And we oppose the darkness as
children of light because the darkness must be exposed in order
for others to be delivered. I see Ephesians chapter 5, 8
through 13 is very, very vivid, very clear the language there.
And then the second point is this. The darkness did not overcome
the what? The light. You guys remember
John chapter 1, verse 5. You guys remember that? Just
look at it right quick. John 1, 5. Just bear with me
for a minute. Because what's taking place in
the Acts account is the infusion of light into the darkness, isn't
it? The apostle Paul and Barnabas went to Bar Jesus. Bar Jesus didn't come to him.
God sent his servants who are servants of light to this dark
island, didn't he? So the light now is actually
penetrating a dark place. Is it not? They came with the
light and the lights have been cut on. And these, this guy has
been exposed for who he is. Has he not? This was an assertive,
aggressive act on the part of God's servants. Was it not? Right
now, certainly this guy was opposing them, but Paul now acts as the
servant of God to cut the lights on, expose this guy for who he
is. And is this not a gospel promise? And the light shineth
in the darkness and the darkness did not what? Yeah, that's a
bad translation. I love the King James, but this
is not about intellectual apprehension of the nature of light. The word
should be overcame. And the darkness did not overcome
the light. The promise is light will always
diffuse darkness. Will it not? We cut the lights
off in this room. All somebody has to do is take
out their little pen. This little light right here
will shine so bright. This little light will shine
so bright in here once the lights are off. Why? Because the nature
of light is that it diffuses darkness. You see that? But if
we cut this light out, the darkness prevails, does it not? And what
we see in this Acts 13 account is how the darkness that had
prevailed for such a long period of time over the people on that
island, and including this individual whom God has come to hunt down,
is no longer having that control because of the presence of the
light. Is that true? All right, go back to my PowerPoint, and
I just want to read that last line, have you think about it.
The difference between Paul and Bar Jesus is what? That's right. What makes Paul different from
Bar Jesus is that God had chosen Paul. And Bar Jesus is left in
his sin and evil and wickedness. Paul knows what Bar Jesus is,
but Bar Jesus does not know what Paul is. And just to show you
the way that the Lord works in his irony. I'm closing right here. Listen
to what this is. And you think this through with
me until we meet next week and we'll work this through. Watch
this now. I thought this was so fascinating.
Here we are in verse 11. After Paul raises the question,
will you continue to pervert the right ways of the Lord, you
child of the devil? Verse 11. Are you ready? And
now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you. What did Paul just
do? He prophesied. This was an authoritative
unction from the Holy Ghost. Now watch this. The hand of the
Lord can be upon you for good and for evil. Do you understand
that? And now the hand of the Lord is upon you and you shall
be what? Does Paul know anything about
that? Do you see it? Do you see it?
Do you see the divine irony here? We call this the contrasting
parallels. And you shall be blind, not seeing
the sun for a season. Does Paul know anything about
that? And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness.
Does Paul know anything about that? Watch this. And he went
about seeking someone to lead him by the hand. Does Paul know
anything about that? Yes, he does. Yes, he does. These parallelisms are amazing.
And so from here, we will move on into the impact of Paul's
confrontation to the men who watched the whole thing. And
you and I get to ask the question, does God have to do all this
to save a hell-bound sinner? And the answer is yes. That's
exactly what he has to do. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your time. Thank you for your word. Thank
you for the truth that's in it. Thank you for sober minds. Thank
you for people who love your word. Oh, how love I thy law. It is my meditation all the day
long. Thank you for the truth that's in it. And thank you for
the mercy that shines through it. Thank you for showing us
that your servants who submit to your will and your work, you
use them mightily for the cause of saving men and women from
every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue. May we be, uh, Beneficiaries
of this same grace may we be able to say we were once in darkness
But you have called us into your marvelous light you saved us
from the pit of hell We now walk in the kingdom of the glory of
God in Jesus Christ May we also Lord be used in the same fashion
not so much As to condemn false prophets and false teachers though
that must be the case But that we might see other people liberated
as this man Sergius Paulus is liberated. Who is Sergius Paulus
for us, O Lord? Our brothers, our sisters, our
mothers, our fathers, our husbands, our wives, our uncles, our aunts,
our children, our nieces, our nephews, our friends, people
who are hoodwinked by false prophets and false teachers, people who
don't know any better but may be hungry for the truth right
now and in need of a minister. Someone who will just go down
in the bottom of the ship and roll And let you do your work
May we be those kinds of people as we go our way give us traveling
mercy prepare us to worship you on Sunday We pray in Jesus name.
Amen God bless you guys