Good morning. It's nice to have
live piano music back. Joy and Elvis are in town for
about a week and a half, Joy? A week, okay. Well, good morning,
everyone. Let's open this morning's service
with hymn number 38 from your Spiral Gospel Hymns hymn book,
number 38. Let's all stand. Come every sinner saved by grace,
you who by faith God's Son embrace. Tell all who hear your voice
below, the debt of love to Christ you owe. Dear Lord, I lift my
praise to Thee. All that I am, or hope to be,
I owe alone, O Christ, to Thee. He left his father's throne above
and came to earth on wings of love. For us he lived the perfect
man and so fulfilled the law's demand. Dear Lord, I lift my
praise to Thee. All that I am, or hope to be,
I owe alone, O Christ, to Thee. Jesus endured his father's ire
and died at the appointed hour. What he endured, no tongue can
tell, to save our souls from death and hell. Dear Lord, I
lift my praise to Thee. All that I am, or hope to be,
I owe alone, O Christ, to Thee. From death's dark grave our King
arose and triumphed over all our foes. Up through the skies
a victor rose and reigns on high our Savior God. Dear Lord, I lift my praise to
Thee, All that I am, or hope to be, I owe alone, O Christ,
to Thee. From heaven Christ will quickly
come and bring his ransomed people home. There we shall see his
lovely face and chant the praises of his grace. Dear Lord, I lift
my praise to Thee. All that I am or hope to be,
I owe alone, O Christ, to Thee. Please be seated. Good morning. You'd like to open your Bibles
with me to The last chapter of Acts. We're going to be in Acts
chapter 28 this morning. All that I am or hope to be,
I owe alone. O Christ to thee. What a wonderful
truth. Comforting reality for God's
elect, for the people of God. It's been such a blessing to
study the book of Acts and kind of sad that we're starting the
last chapter now, and I hope the Lord will be pleased to speak
to our hearts this morning. Let's pray together. Our heavenly
Father, truly all that we are, is by
your grace. All that we hope to be is by
your grace. And all your grace is by the
accomplished work of thy dear son. Lord, we thank you for having
a Savior that was successful in satisfying the demands of
your justice and your righteousness. We thank you for the promise
that when we gather together in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ, that he is here with us and send your spirit and power
to bless your word. And Lord, we have no place to
go but to trust your promises and to believe, Lord, that you're
pleased to inhabit the praise of your people and to glorify
yourself in their worship. Lord, are unable to worship apart
from your grace and apart from your spirit. And so we ask, Lord,
that you would open the eyes of our understanding, that you
would enable us to set our affections on things above where Christ
is seated at thy right hand. Lord, we confess to you that
we have set our affections on the things of this earth far,
far too much. Lord, we thank you for your mercy
and for your forgiveness and for the the covering of the blood
of Christ over our sin. We ask it in his name. Amen. Acts chapter 28, we'll begin
reading in verse one. And when they were escaped, they
knew that the island was called Melita. Now this is what is modern
day known as Malta. It's an island just south of
Sicily. And if you go there today, they have a bay called the Apostle
Paul's Bay, where this ship had wrecked. And at this time, this
island was, well, I say at this time, today as well, this island
is inhabited by barbarians. And the barbarous people showed
us no little kindness, and they kindled a fire and received us,
every one, because of the present rain and because of the cold."
These pagan barbarous people see the need of these 276 souls
that have been marooned on this island. They've been shipwrecked,
and they build a fire for them and take them in and try to care
for their immediate needs. And when Paul had gathered a
bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, there came a viper
out of the heat and fastened on his hand. And when the barbarians
saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they said among themselves,
no doubt this man is a murderer, whom though he had escaped the
sea, yet vengeance suffereth not to live. Bible tells us that
all men have the law of God written in their hearts. All men know
what right and wrong is. And all men know that there is
a God with whom they must do. And so even these barbarians
who had never, ever been exposed to anything that God had given
to his church in scripture, knew something about justice. And
they made this assessment, this conclusion. Surely this prisoner
was a murderer and justice is getting its due in his life. In verse five, and he shook off
the beast into the fire and felt no harm. How be it? They looked when he should have
swollen or fallen down dead suddenly, but after they had looked a great
while and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds
and said that he was a God. They changed their mind. Those who have not the spirit
of God can only make judgments based on what they see in their
circumstances. The flesh can only make judgments
after the flesh. The Bible tells us that which
is of the flesh is flesh. The flesh profit at nothing.
Romans chapter eight says those that walk after the flesh, they
do mind the things of the flesh. They can only make judgments
based on what they see and what they experience and what they
feel. And so these men, based on what
they saw, made the judgment that God was getting his way and that
justice was being served against this apostle. And when the circumstances
changed, they changed their mind and they came to the conclusion,
oh no, this man must be a God. Now the word repentance translated
means to have a changed mind. But the work of repentance is
not man changing his own mind like we see here. The work of
repentance is a work of grace done in the heart when God changes
your mind. There was a time when we thought
that God was altogether such a one as ourselves. We thought
that he made judgments and decisions and plans just like man-made. And when God, by his Spirit,
gives us repentance, we come to some understanding as to how
holy he is and how other than we are he is. That he changes
not, he's immutable. This is a work of grace that
is done in the heart when God changes the mind about himself. That God is not subject to change
like we are. He's immutable. He's the same
yesterday, today, and forever. He said, I change not, therefore
you sons of Jacob are not consumed. And so there was a time when
we thought that God had a plan, and a plan A and a plan B, and
he would work out, you know, that plan. Now we know that all
things, all things that happen in time were already ordained
and purposed in eternity. and that he is fulfilling his
purpose. Our God is a God of purpose, that he purposed a particular
people in the covenant of grace before time ever began. And he
purposed the salvation of those people through the sacrifice
of his son on Calvary's cross. Our God is not a God of plans
like we are. God has changed our mind. He
has given us a spirit of repentance. He's caused us to come into his
presence and bow in submission to him. There was a time when we thought
that God had abdicated his throne to the will of man. We honored
him with our lips and said, yes, yes, he's God. But when it comes
to salvation, he has made himself subject to the whims and will
of sinful man. Now we know better. The Lord
has changed our mind. The Lord has given us a spirit
of repentance. We're not basing our judgments
on what we see or what we feel or what we experience. We're
basing our judgments on what God has revealed in his word
by his spirit to the hearts of his people. This is repentance. What do we see with these barbarians? We see them changing their mind
based on what they see. We know now that our God is absolutely
sovereign over all the armies of heaven and over all the inhabitants
of the earth that he hath done whatsoever he hath willed. And
that no man can stay his hand and no man can say unto him,
what doest thou? Our God reigns sovereign. We
have a, we have a spirit of repentance when it comes to what we believe
about God. We didn't change our mind. based
on something that we saw in our circumstances. The Spirit of
God changed our mind when he brought the truth of the gospel
home to our hearts and opened our hearts like he did for Lydia.
The Lord opened Lydia's heart and she believed the gospel.
And so this is a This is a work of grace in the new birth, repentance
and faith. Two sides to the same coin. Cannot
divide these two things. When God gives faith, he gives
repentance. He changes our mind and causes
us to look in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ. There was a time
when we thought that we could bargain with God. I'll do this
if God will do that. Now we bow before him and know
that we have no bargaining chips. We have nothing to offer. We're
completely dependent upon him. We're not changing our minds
based on what we see. This is barbarian religion. This is man-made, freewill, works
religion where men make their judgments based on what they
see according to the flesh. The Bible says, we look not upon
that which is seen, for that which is seen is temporal. Or
we look on that which is not seen, for that which is not seen
is eternal. When God gives the spirit of
repentance, he gives sight to that which is eternal. These
men didn't have that. They saw the snake. latch onto the apostle Paul's
hand and made their judgments. He must be a murderer. Justice
is getting its way. God is paying him back. And then
when he shook it from the hand into the fire, oh, he must be
a God. Not only does the Lord give us
a spirit of repentance when it comes to who he is, but he gives
us a spirit of repentance when it comes to who we are. There
was a time when we thought that sin was nothing more than a behavioral
problem. Something that we could do something
about. I can fix that. I can change the fact that I'm,
you know, that I'm in this sin. Now, after having been given
the spirit of repentance, we understand that sin, that we
do what we do because we are sinners. Sin is a matter of our
nature. and that there's nothing about
us that's not sinful before God. Now, we don't just need help
in correcting some behavioral problems. We need a new life. We're dead, the Bible says, in
our trespasses and sins. There's no life in us left to
ourselves. Everything about us, everything
about us is sinful. Man at his very best state is
altogether vanity. Paul said, in me, that is in
my flesh, not in my spirit. In my spirit, in Christ, I'm
perfect before God. I have no sin. But in me, that
is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing. To will is present with
me. I would be perfect if I could. But how to perform that which
is good, I find not. I can't do that which is good
in the sight of God. The Lord causes us to see ourselves
for what we are. That's why the Lord Jesus Christ
said, why callest thou me good to the rich young ruler? For
you know there's none good but God. And the Lord said to Moses
on Mount Sinai, when he hit him in the cleft of that rock, he
said, I'm going to cause my goodness to pass before thee. The Lord
Jesus Christ the standards of God's righteousness, he's the
only one that's good. The Lord, when he gives his children
the spirit of repentance, they don't just change their mind
about things based on what they see. They have their hearts changed
about who they are, who God is. The spirit of repentance also
gives changed mind as to how it is that God is pleased to
save sinners. We thought that God had made
an offer of salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ and we had
to do our part in order to make what he did work for us. We had
to, you know, we had to make our decisions and whatever. The list goes on and
on and on depending on what man-made religion you may have come out
of. Now we know the salvation is
completely of the Lord, that He's the one that has to breathe
life into our hearts. And these judgments that we make
are righteous judgments. They're judgments that are made
based on a spirit of repentance that the Lord has given in faith
to the hearts of His people. These aren't judgments we're
making based on just what we see in our circumstances. These things are true and faithful. This is the gospel of God's free
grace in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ, all done
by our sovereign, immutable, holy God, who actually accomplished
the salvation of his people. He was pleased to save sinners,
those who He shows our sinners and pleased to put away their
sin by the sacrifice of himself. This is the hope of our salvation. We see in this story a contrast
to that. Outward changes and circumstances
do not change what we believe about God, about ourselves, and
about salvation. They don't. We go through hard times and
easy times. I try not to say good times and
bad times anymore because the Bible says that you know that
all things work together for good for them that love God and
they're called according to his purpose. And so even the things
that we call bad in God's purpose are always good. He's always
bringing about glory to himself and the salvation of his people,
but it doesn't mean they're always easy. So in hard times and in
easy times, these truths that the Lord teaches in repentance
don't change. They don't change. Those who don't have the Spirit
of God are left to themselves to walk after the flesh and mind
the things of the flesh. They're left to their own sense of justice, that God is going to get justice
by the punishment of a sinner. No, he's not. What did these
men say? Look, at the end of verse four, and
when the barbarians saw the venomous beast hang on his hand, they
said among themselves, no doubt this man is a murderer, whom
though he hath escaped the sea, yet justice, that's what that
word vengeance is, yet justice has suffered him not to live. As if justice could be satisfied
by the killing of a sinner. The justice of God can only be
satisfied by the sacrifice that the Lord Jesus Christ made on
Calvary's cross. He's the one that was bit by
the venomous viper and shook it into the fire. He satisfied God's justice. God demanded a perfect, sinless
sacrifice. You and I can't pay for our sins
by the hard experiences that we have in this life, but that's
what men think. Salvation, salvation by sacrifice. How many times have you had the
thought or people think, or they say, well, you know, they, that
person suffered greatly in this life. So surely as a result of
their suffering, they're going to be rewarded with heaven. No,
they're not. No, they're not. There's only one thing that rewards
God's people with heaven, and that's the sacrifice, the justice
that was satisfied when mercy and truth met together at Calvary's
Cross, where these two seas came together. We saw that in the
previous chapter. The ship finally landed aground
and the 276 souls were saved where the two seas came together. where justice and mercy met together
and righteousness and truth met together. God required a perfect
sacrifice for sin. But these men were just basing
their judgments on outward appearances. You know, you and I do that when
it comes to a lot of things. But let us be careful. that we
make not our judgments based on outward appearances when it
comes to the gospel and salvation and who God is and who we are
and how God is pleased to save sinners. We have to be very,
very careful, don't we? The church at Corinth was a very
fleshly church and they had been given gifts of the Spirit of
God in a way that the other churches had not been given and they were
using their gifts to compete with one another over who was
more spiritual. Look at my gifts. And one would
perform this act, this supernatural act, and they would pretend to
be more spiritual than another. What were they doing? They were
making their judgments based on outward appearances. And they did the same thing about
the apostle Paul. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 10,
he said, you look on things concerning the outward appearances. He said,
I know what they say about me. My bodily presence is weak and
my speech is contemptible. And you think because my bodily
appearance is weak and because my speech is contemptible, that
therefore I'm not an apostle. That's what they were accusing
the apostle Paul of. He said, you're going to find
out that I'm an apostle when I get there. Uh, no, but that's what
the, the, these were believers that were doing this. They were
making judgments based on outward appearances. They that are after the flesh
do mind the things of the flesh. The Pharisees, the Lord called
whitewashed tombs, which indeed appear beautiful on the outside,
but the inside is full of dead men's bones. Isn't this, this
is what religion does. It washes, it cleans up the outside.
It makes appearances. And men compete with one another
to see who's more righteous and more holy and more, less of a
sinner, I guess. Let us make our judgments on
what God has revealed in his word. They had no spiritual understanding.
They looked on the things that were temporal, not the things
that were eternal. Oh, that you and I could mind
the things of the flesh. Paul said in first Corinthians
chapter four, he says, I judge nothing before it's time. Know so many things in outward
appearances that we have to be very careful not to make judgments
before the Lord's finished. before it's time. I was talking to a brother this
past week. He's 43 years old, been diagnosed
with terminal cancer. They said if the treatments work,
you might have two years. He has two children, a wife,
And he said, Greg, he said, you know, all the things that we
know are true, when you experience them, then you know they're true. You know, this is what we hope for, that
the Spirit of God would cause us to believe in the core of
our being, the things that we say we believe. and that we would
not make judgments based on outward appearances. In Genesis chapter 42, Jacob had sent his sons down
to Egypt. Remember, the Lord had already
sent Joseph down there to prepare for them. And Joseph now has
been elevated to become the prime minister of Egypt. And Jacob sends it, there's a
famine in the land where Jacob and his sons are living. And
so he sends his sons down and Joseph requires Simeon to stay
behind and tells them, don't come back without Benjamin, your
younger brother. And so they go home with a grain
that Joseph had given them, not knowing that Joseph was their
brother. And they tell Jacob what happened. And Jacob is 120 years old in
Genesis chapter 42. Jacob had many experiences in
God's providence and in God providing for him and for his family over
120 years, not the least of which is when he wrestled with the
Lord at the River Jabbok after having come back from Laban's
and the Lord changed his name, Jacob knew God. And yet when
his sons come home and they say to him, Simeon had to stay behind
and the man doesn't want us to come back without Benjamin. Here's
what Jacob said, 120 year old believer. He said, Joseph is
not. Joseph's gone. That wasn't true. Joseph was the very one that
was going to save them. And Simeon now is no more. And you want to take Benjamin
from me? And here's his conclusion to
the matter. All these things are against me. Now, God had already promised
to provide for him and for his children. But he's looking at
his outward circumstances. And he's making this conclusion.
Just like these barbarians did. You see, we still have an old
man, don't we? And we still are prone to make
judgments based on what the flesh experiences. They that walk after
the flesh do mind the things of the flesh. They give attention
to the things of the flesh. And that's what Jacob was doing.
All these things are against me. Jacob didn't know that the next
17 years of his life were going to be the best years he ever
lived. He's going to live in the lap of luxury. He's going
to be the esteemed patriarch of the prime minister of the
greatest country in all the world, living in the fertile land of
Goshen the last 17 years of his life. And he made this conclusion,
all these things are against me. Now what we do? Well, he must
be a, look, the viper has taken hold of him. He must be a murderer. God's getting justice. Oh no,
he shook it off into the fire. He must be a God. What we do? The believers don't walk by faith,
not by sight. We're to believe God. He said,
I'll never leave you nor forsake you. Job was convinced that God had
forsaken him and that God was being unfair to him until the
Lord revealed himself to Job. And what did Job say? Oh, Lord,
surely I spoke without knowledge. Lord, I didn't know what I was
saying. I had heard of thee before by
the hearing of mine ear, but now mine eyes have seen thee
and I repent in dust and ashes. And here's what the Bible says
about Job. The Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than the
beginning. And Job lived to be 140 years
old to the fourth generation. the great, great grandchildren
of Job sitting in his lap, that he thought everything was against
him. Why? Because he was looking at
things that he could see with his natural
eye, rather than setting his affections on things above where
Christ is seated at the right hand, rather than believing God.
Fear is contrary to faith, isn't it? We look at our, Martha, Lord,
had you been here, my brother would not have died. Or this
is your fault. No, Martha, when I got word that
your brother was sick, I tarried two more days so that when I
got here, he would be in the tomb for four days. I'm gonna raise him from the
dead and I'm gonna be glorified in that. Lord, this man that's 38 years,
he's been blind. He was born blind. Is it because
of his sin or because of the sin of his parents? What were
the disciples doing? They were making judgments just
like these barbarians at Melita. They were making judgments based
on the circumstances, based on what they could see. And what
the Lord said, neither, neither you're making, you're, you're
using the wrong criteria to make this judgment. I caused him to be blind 38 years
that I might perform a miracle on him right now. This is all
for God's glory. And that's the ultimate end of
everything. The hard times are for the glory of God. The good
times are for the good. It's all for his glory. All for
his glory. Our God is sovereign. We're not
changing our minds every time. We're not changing our minds
about God. We're not changing our minds
about ourselves. We're not changing our minds about salvation every
time our circumstances change. You know, we're prone to think that hard times are
judgments and curses, just like these barbarians, and good times
are blessings, when oftentimes it's just the opposite. Oftentimes
it's just the opposite. Our brother who's facing death
right now, he told me this week, this is a I'm seeing things I
never saw before. God's God's blessing. You see,
the blessings of God are spiritual things, aren't they? Their wisdom and love and truth
and righteousness and peace, and these are the blessings of
God. James puts it like this when
he says, count it all joy, my brethren, when you fall into
divers temptations, knowing that the trying of your faith worketh
patience. And patience, when it is complete,
makes you perfect and entire, lacking nothing. That's the end.
to be at peace with God in Christ, knowing that Christ is all, that
he's sovereign over these things. Turn with me to 1 Peter. 1 Peter
chapter 1. We begin reading in verse six,
wherein you greatly rejoice. And we do rejoice. If God has
changed our minds, we have reason to rejoice. That's why Paul said
in Philippians, he said, rejoice in the Lord always. And again,
I say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known
unto all men. Why? Because the Lord is at hand.
The Lord's doing this. wherein you greatly rejoice,
though now for a season, if need be, you are in heaviness through
manifold temptations. Paul called his temptations necessities. God has brought these about because
they needed to be. They needed to be. Lord, if this
is what it takes for the salvation of my soul, or for the salvation
of any soul, Lord, let it be. Let it be. Our Lord said, I know
the thoughts that I think towards you, they're thoughts of good,
not of evil, to bring you to your expected end. This is why
I'm doing these things. That the trial of your faith
be much more precious than gold. People think, well, if I get
a big windfall and I get a big profit off of something, that's
God's blessing. Maybe not. Maybe that's the greatest
curse of your life. This is how men think. This is
what these barbarian people were doing. They saw what they consider
to be a judgment. They said, God's getting his
justice. And they saw what seemed to be, you know, a God. And they
said, oh no, he must be, they changed their minds. May God keep our minds fixed
on the Lord Jesus Christ and believing that God is working
these things together for good. Maybe we'd be not like the barbarians
who make their judgments only after the flesh. We have the
word of God to comfort us. And our God cannot lie. He's
true and he's faithful to his word. You're trying to view faith,
which is much more precious than gold, but perisheth. You know
why the streets in heaven are paved with gold? To show us how
worthless gold is. I mean, how worthless is tar? Not what we use to pave our streets
with. It's not that we're gonna be walking around in heaven enamored
by the golden streets. Oh, God is telling us these things
that we value here in this world are of no value in glory. They're
of no value. I'm going to pave the streets
with that stuff. It's going to perish. Though it be tried with fire, God will try the faith of his
people in order to prove it. He's not trying our faith to
destroy it. He's trying it to prove it. It makes it more resolve. It's
it tempers it. You temper steel with fire. And
God separates the chaff from the dross from the gold by fire. He knows exactly how much fire
to put to our faith. He'll never put so much fire
to it as to destroy it. But he'll never make it so weak
as to not separate the dross from it. This is, we walk by
faith, not by sight. These barbarians were making
all their judgments based on what they saw, based on their
circumstances. And that your faith will be tried
with fire. Verse seven, might be found unto
the praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. whom having not seen your love
and in whom though now you see him not, yet believing you rejoice
with joy, unspeakable and full of glory, receiving the end of
your faith." There it is. That's what it's all about. Receiving
the end of your faith, even the salvation of your soul. Lord,
whatever you do will be right. to accomplish the salvation of
your people. This is what our God's doing. He's saving his
people. And these are the, these are the real blessings
of God. Hope, that disappointeth not, faith, love, grace, forgiveness, So there's two lessons here that
we see from this story. The first one is that the unbeliever
makes his judgments based on what he sees. That's all he can
do. We look not on that which is
seen, for that which is seen is temporal. We look on that
which is not seen. Can't see Christ. You can't see
the cross. You can't go experience that.
And here's the other, you know what, Lord, let us be careful
not to make our judgments about what God has promised based on
our feelings. You know, well, I don't necessarily
feel saved. Well, you didn't feel unsaved
before you were saved. You know, it's, That's walking after the flesh.
That's what these barbarians were doing. That which is unseen
is eternal. The second lesson that we learned
from this story is that sin represented by this venomous snake always
represents Satan and sin in the Bible. When Moses made a brazen serpent
and put it on upon a pole, he was and told the people that
had been bitten by these snakes to look and they would live.
It's a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ bearing in his body the
sins of his people on Calvary's cross and suffering the wrath
of God's justice. There's the justice for sin.
Not your hard circle. You're not going to make up for
your sin by your suffering. The Lord Jesus Christ suffered
for the sins of his people to put them away by the sacrifice
of himself once and for all to cover them with his blood. And
he shook that serpent into the fire. That great dragon in the book
of Revelation is going to be cast ultimately in the lake of
fire, isn't he? So the fire of God's justice
fell on our substitute, our sin bearer, our savior, our surety,
the Lord Jesus Christ, and satisfied God's justice. He shook that
serpent into the fire. And the same thing's true for
us. Listen to what, Hebrews chapter two says, the Lord Jesus Christ
being made a man came into this world to destroy him who had
power over death, that is the devil, and to deliver them who
through fear of death were all their lifetime held in bondage.
Now Satan would use your sin and my sin to accuse us before
God. and to rob us of our blessing
and of our hope in Christ. And here's the hope that we have.
The Lord Jesus Christ has already shaken that serpent into the
fire. He's destroyed the works of the devil. He has set free
those who all their lifetime are held in bondage to sin. It's a daily struggle all their
life. And when Satan comes with the
accusations of sin and tries to rob us of our hope and of
our peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ, that very
sin drives us to the Lord Jesus Christ to be reminded again and
again and again and again that he has put away that sin and
that he sees it no more, that he separated it from us as far
as the East is from the West and he remembers it no more. That's our, he has delivered
who through fear of death all their lifetime held in bondage.
And he keeps doing that. He keeps doing that. Our heavenly father, thank you
for your word. Pray that you would bless it
to the hearts of your people. We ask it in Christ's name.