Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number 199 from the hardback hymnal
199. Let's all stand together. sinners Jesus will receive sound
this word of grace to all who the heavenly pathway leave all
who linger all who fall Sing it o'er and o'er again, Christ
receiveth sinful men. Make the message clear and plain,
Christ receiveth sinful men. Come and He will give you rest. Trust Him for His word is plain. He will take the sinful rest. Christ receiveth sinful men. Sing it o'er and o'er again. Christ receiveth sinful men. Make the message clear and plain,
Christ receiveth sinful men. Now my heart condemns me not,
pure before the law I stand. He who cleansed me from all spot,
satisfied its last demand, sing it o'er and o'er again. Christ, receive a sinful man,
Make the message clear and plain, Christ receiveth sinful men. Christ receiveth sinful men,
even me with all my sin, purged from every spot and stain. Heaven with Him I enter in, sing
it o'er and o'er again. Christ receiveth sinful men,
Make the message clear and plain, Christ receives sinful men. Please be seated. Good morning. I hope this morning
that that message is clear and plain, that Christ Jesus the
Lord receives sinners. Every one of them. And God be
pleased to make us a needy people that we find all our hope. In the Lord Jesus Christ. Will you bow with me as we ask
the Lord's blessings on our time together? Our merciful Heavenly
Father. We come before thy Holy Presence,
thanking you that we have an We have a sin bearer. We have
a substitute. One who stands in our stead and
pleads our cause and presents to you his righteousness. Lord,
what great comfort and hope we have in knowing that we are accepted
in the beloved. We asked father that you would
send your Holy Spirit in power. that you would give us clarity
of speech, that you would give us, Lord, clarity of hearing,
that you would give us ears to hear what the Spirit has to say
to the churches. That our hearts will be drawn.
Our faith would be. Strengthened and. Lord, those
who are strangers to your grace. We pray especially Lord for our
children and grandchildren and we ask Lord that you'd be pleased
to give them ears to hear and cause them Lord to rest all their
hope. On thy dear son. The Lord Jesus
Christ. For it's in his name we pray.
Amen. We've been studying now for a
few weeks through the Book of Acts and we find ourselves this
morning in Chapter 5. If you'd like to turn with me
in the Book of Acts to Chapter 5. I've titled this message,
Two Opposite Responses. Two Opposite Responses. To one group, we will find that
the gospel was of infinite importance. To the other group, we will find
that the gospel was worthless. To one group, it is the one thing
necessary. To the other group, there was
nothing necessary about it. To one group, it was their greatest
joy. It was their rest. It was their
hope. It was all their happiness. To the other group, it was nothing
but a source of contention. To one group, it was their deepest
love and their greatest need. To the other group, they had
no interest, no need, and all they had in their heart was hatred. Now someone is saying or thinking,
those two positions are too extreme for me. I'm somewhere in the
middle. And I would say to that person,
you haven't heard the gospel. You haven't heard. Ask the Lord
to give you ears to hear. Because the gospel offers no
opportunity for indifference or for a slight interest. You
either hate the gospel or you love the gospel. That's the only
two positions that the gospel provides. And the Lord said in
Matthew chapter 12 verse 30, he that is not with me is against
me. And he that gathereth not with
me is scattered abroad. My hope this morning You know,
every time I preach, I think, you know, get mad or get glad,
but don't just sit there and think that, you know, this is
not important. I like it. I like it. I'm somewhat
encouraged when someone goes from being indifferent to becoming
angry. At least at that point, I know
that they've heard something. My prayer is that they'll go
from indifference to being happy and being glad and rejoicing
in what they're hearing. That's always our prayer, isn't
it? And so, but that's the, that's the two positions that we see
in our text this morning. And it's the only two positions
that there ever is. And it's the only two places
that the Lord gives us this morning. Either we will love what we're
hearing or we'll hate it. Those that are sick, sinners,
as we just sang about, love the gospel. They love it. The Pharisees said, why do you
eat and drink with publicans and sinners? And Jesus answered
and said unto them, they that are whole need not a physician.
They that are whole need not a physician. But they that are
sick, I came not for the righteous, but to bring centers to repentance. The gospels for centers. This
is a faithful saying. And worthy of all acceptation,
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am
chief. If the Lord is ever pleased to
make us a sinner, we'll find the gospel to be our only hope.
We'll find ourselves in need of a savior, one to present himself
on our behalf before God that we might have acceptance and
righteousness and justification before a holy God. Now the beginning of our text,
beginning at verse 12, and by the hands of the apostles were
many signs and wonders wrought among the people. Now, well let's
just read the next two verses so we can see this. And they
were all with one accord in Solomon's porch and of the rest there's
no man joined himself to them but the people magnified them
and believers were the more added to the church multitudes both
men and women now we know that there were at least eight thousand
men already say the scriptures make that clear there were three
thousand on the day of pentecost in a few days later five thousand
more uh... now the scripture says a multitude
small were being added we're talking about a congregation
of believers here that's probably 20,000 people that have heard
the gospel and have rejoiced in what they're hearing. Verse 15, in so much that they brought
forth sick or the sick into the streets and laid them on beds
and couches that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by
might overshadow some of them And there came also a multitude
out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick
folks and them that were vexed with unclean spirits. And they
were healed. Everyone. This is the fulfillment of that
promise that the Lord made to the disciples when he said greater
works will are greater works than these will you do because
I go to my father. The Lord performed miracles in
his earthly ministry, healing people and raising people from the dead
and told the disciples, you're going to do even greater works
than these. And this is the fulfillment of that. There was never in our
Lord's ministry an indiscriminate healing of masses of people Scripture
says he always chose an individual, a certain person, a certain man.
But here we have all the sick people in town coming to the
streets in hopes that the shadow of Peter might fall on them.
And in doing so, they were all healed. They were all healed. This is a sign gift. that was given to
the disciples. I remember we had a lady come
here a few years ago and she was trying to convince me that
she knew someone who didn't have an arm and the preacher prayed
for him and he grew a new arm. And I thought, you didn't know
anybody like that. These miracles were reserved
for the apostles. These were performed by the apostles
in order to authenticate the message that they were preaching.
Someone might say, well, why don't we need those miracles
today in order to authenticate the gospel? Because we have the
whole canon of scripture. They didn't have the New Testament.
All they had was the Old Testament. And God was giving proof that
this Jesus that they were preaching was the fulfillment of all the
promises that God made in the Old Testament of the coming of
the Messiah. Now we have the testimony of
the apostles given to us in Scripture. We've got the Word of God, and
the Word of God is all we need. If we don't believe God's Word,
you remember the man that went to hell? and the rich
man and Lazarus. And he said to Abraham, he said,
go and tell my brothers that they don't come to this place.
And what did Abraham say to them? To him, the man that was in hell,
what do you say? They have Moses and the apostles. Even if one was to raise from
the dead, they would not believe. In other words, they've got the
testimony of the scriptures, and they've got the testimony
given by the eyewitnesses of the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And if you don't believe that,
there's no other sign, there's no other miracle, there's no
other outward evidences that this is The gospel. This is the truth. This is God's
word. This is the salvation that he's
given for sinners. It's all we have. It's all we
need. It's all we need. For all scripture
is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine
and for reproof and for correction and instruction in righteousness.
that the man of God may be thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
And no scripture was given by private interpretation, but holy
men of God wrote as they were moved by the spirit of God. So
we have the miracles recorded here in God's word. And, uh,
that's all we don't need to see it with the physical eyes. We
don't need to experience it in a, in a physical, uh, inexplicable
demonstration of, of power. Uh, we have the power of the
spirit of God. Uh, Paul, in another place that
I did not come to you with enticing words, but with the word of God,
with power and with the Holy ghost. And that's how we preach
now. And God's people hear what God says. And faith believes
God. It just believes God. Believes
everything that God has said. What made the difference between
this group of people and the next group we see in verse 17? Then the high priest rose up,
and all they that were with him, which is the sect of the Sadducees,
and were filled with indignation, with envy, with anger, with disgust. They were enraged. That's the
word here. The word is zealous in the original
language, and it's the word from which we get our word zealous.
And it means a passionate hatred. And that's what they're experiencing
here. just wanted to get close enough,
you know, for the shadow of Peter to fall on them. And the Lord
healed every one of them. You know, I thought, I'm sorry
about the mask. I really, I hate it as much as
you do. But I thought, you know, what if one of these sick folks
were told they had to wear a mask before they could come? And probably most of them were
wearing masks. They were sick. They had communicable
diseases. They knew that they were unclean. Nobody would get near them. They would have said, give me
the mask, I'll wear it. Somebody told me I had to wear
a straitjacket in order to be able to come hear the gospel.
Where's the straitjacket? Let me have it. It's an inconvenience,
but it's not. Lord, whatever, whatever we have
to do to be under the sound of the gospel, I've got to have,
I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm a sinner. I'm in
need of Christ. I'm in need of a savior. I'm
in need of him to put away my sin. Lord, I've got no other
place to go. Blind Bartimaeus had no place
else to go. Did he? Jesus, son of David,
have mercy upon me, kept crying. Oh, be of good cheer, Bartimaeus,
the master calleth thee. Bartimaeus, what would you have
me to do for you? Oh, Lord, that I might see. Lord, open the eyes
of my understanding. Enable me to see who I am. Enable me to see who God is.
Enable me to see the truth of the gospel. Cause it to be a
message of hope happiness and truth and salvation and peace
and comfort to my soul, or put away my sin. I've got to have
Christ. A woman with the issue of blood,
crawling through the crowd on her hands and knees. Oh, if I
could just touch the hem of his garment, I'd be made whole. She wasn't worried about, she
wasn't listening to the gospel with indignation, was she? She
was sick. She was sick. Sick folks always are drawn,
aren't they? I came not for the righteous,
but to bring sinners to repentance. The well need not a physician. He's the great physician. You
and I are sick. We're born into this world that
way, aren't we? You remember the story of the the friends
who brought their sick friend on a bed and they couldn't get
to Jesus for the scripture says for the press the crowd was so
thick that they couldn't get their friend to where the Lord
was to have him healed and so they went up on the roof of the
house and they started moving tiles off the roof and they lowered
him down on ropes. Oh, there was no barrier to keep
a sick person from Christ. They have a need. Sinners are
looking for a savior. The self-righteous are just looking
for someone to affirm them. That's all they're looking for.
And the gospel was an offense to these Pharisees and Sadducees
because it did not affirm their righteousness. Now occasionally
I'll have someone tell me, you know, you need to preach more
responsibility. And you need to be telling folks
what they need to be doing. And I have come to understand
when a person says that what they really mean. What they really
mean is you need to tell other people how they should live so
that I can glory in how I'm living. Person that makes that statement,
that's exactly what they're saying. You need to tell other people
how they should live so I can glory in how I'm living. That's the only reason a person
wants to hear the law in preaching. You see, we've come to preach
what has been done, what has been accomplished by the Lord
Jesus Christ. And I am fully confident that
if God gives you and I ears to hear what the Lord has done and
he's pleased to make us whole, Responsibility to take care of
itself. It will. These men were indignant, they
were irate, they were angry, they were jealous. The word here
is jealousy is what it is. What were they jealous of? They
were jealous of Christ. They had been promoting themselves
as the standard of righteousness. Putting circumcision off on men
and the scripture says that they require you to be circumcised.
but they themselves are not able to carry the burden of the law,
that they might glory in your flesh. That's why they do it.
They want a following so that they can take credit for your
salvation and hold themselves up as a standard of righteousness. This is especially true with
the religious. The religious don't care. They're
not interested. To them, the gospel is just foolishness.
but to the religious, to the self-righteous, it's an offense. It's the offense of the cross.
Turn with me to Acts chapter 13. Paul and Barnabas are in Antioch. And verse 44 of Acts chapter
13, and the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together
to hear the word of God. And when the Jews saw the multitude,
you know, we don't, we don't get a lot of every once in a
while I'll get hate mail. It's no big deal, but we don't,
we don't suffer persecution or really a lot of, a lot of animosity
from our community. What would happen, though, if
10,000 church members from the various churches in Apopka left
those churches and came here to hear the gospel? What would
happen? You know what would happen. The
religious leaders of this city would turn against every one
of us and do whatever they could to shut us down. We wouldn't
be building this building out here. Verse 44, the next Sabbath day
came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God. And
when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy. They were envious. That's the
same exact word translated indignation in our text in Acts chapter five. Envious. They were envious because they
were having their righteousness taken from them. And they spake against those
things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed
bold and said it was necessary that the word of God should first
have been spoken to you, but seeing that you put it from you
and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn
to the Gentiles. We're going to The religious
weren't interested, so we'll go to the pagan, the irreligious,
the Gentile. We'll tell them about Christ. For so hath the Lord commanded
us, saying, I have set thee to be a light to the Gentiles, that
thou should be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. And
when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified
the word of the Lord, and as many as were ordained to eternal
life believed. as many as were ordained to eternal
life, believed. I told you all the story about
talking to a deacon of a Southern Baptist Church one time years
ago. And I brought out this verse.
I was trying to share the gospel with him. I brought out this
verse and he said, he said, you know, it was on a Sunday afternoon.
He said, you know, it's interesting to me that you should bring out
that verse. I teach a Sunday school class in my church and
And we looked at that verse for an hour and we discussed it and
we never could understand what it meant. It means what it says. As many
as were ordained to eternal life believed. That's it. Faith is not the cause of our
salvation, it's the result of it. It's the result of it. The cause of our salvation is
God ordaining his people to eternal life. You did not choose me,
I chose you. It's like I said last Sunday,
everybody believes in election. Everybody. I don't care what
their religious persuasion is, everybody believes in election.
The question is, who elects who? That's the right way to say that.
Who does the electing? Do I choose God or does He choose
me? That's the only difference. Who's
in control? Who's in charge? Who's got the
authority to make the choice? We believe that God does electing. And the word of the Lord was
published throughout all the region. But the Jews stirred
up the devout and honorable women and the chief men of the city
and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled
them out of their coast. And they shook off the dust from
their feet again and came to Iconium. And the disciples were
filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost. You see, that's always
the response. The sick love the gospel. The sinner needs a savior. It's
the one thing needful. It's the, it's, it's, it's not,
it's absolutely infinitely essential to the salvation of their souls,
to the self-righteous. They have indignation and envy. Go back with me to our text.
Paul said this in Romans chapter 10, he said, he said, I bear
them record, speaking of his brethren according to the flesh,
the Jews, he said, I bear them record, they have a zeal, that's
the same word, zealous, they have a zeal for God, but not
according to knowledge. They're very religious, they're
very zealous about their religious persuasions, but it's not according
to knowledge. For being ignorant of God's righteousness,
they go about to establish their own righteousness, not knowing
that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believeth. See, men won't believe on Christ
for all their righteousness. Why? Because that means they've
got to get rid of all their own righteousness. They've got to
lose all the hope of their salvation. Those things which they thought
were gain to them, they now know are loss. And yea, count all
things but loss and dung for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus, that I might know him, fellowship of his suffering. Go back with me to Acts chapter,
Acts chapter five. So the high priest with indignation,
verse 18, laid their hands on the apostles and put them in
the common prison. But the angel of the Lord by
night opened the prison doors and brought them forth and said,
go stand and speak in the temple to the people, all the words
of this life. And when they heard that they
entered into the temple early in the morning and taught, but
the high priest came. and they were with him and called
the council together and all the Senate of the children of
Israel and sent to the prison to have them brought. You see
the contrast here between what the disciples did and what the
Sanhedrin, the Sadducees and the Pharisees did? The disciples
went out in Solomon's porch, which was a large covered colonnade
down the entire eastern side of the of the temple complex
overlooking the Mount of Olives and the valley, Kidron Valley.
It was the pace of gathering. It's where all the people of
the city came together to do business and to socialize. And they went to where the people
were and publicly stood. and preach the gospel and now
they go right into the heart of the temple which is right
there the gate called beautiful we saw that earlier in the book
of Acts remember the man that was at the gate called beautiful
that was begging for alms that's right there at Solomon's porch
and now they go into the gate called beautiful into the very
heart of Judaism where all the religious practices are taking
place and they preach the gospel without fear, without compromise,
without hesitation. And in contrast to that, what
do you see the religious leaders doing? Gathering together in
a, in a room, having a secret meeting, trying to figure out
what are we going to do? How are we going to control this
thing? How are we going to shut these men up? Brethren, we don't have anything
to be ashamed of. We don't have to compromise the message. We
don't have to change the message. I charge thee, Paul said to Timothy
before God, who shall judge the quick and the dead in the day
of his judgment, that you preach the gospel. Preach the word of
God in season and out of season. Reprove and rebuke. For the time
will come when men will not endure sound doctrine, but will gather
to themselves teachers having itching ears. Isn't that what
they do? They just secretly discuss their little things here and
there. We declare the same message every time, all the time, regardless
of who it is. Our message doesn't change. Our
message demands that the hearer be changed. That's what our message
does. We don't adapt or conform our
message to our audience. No, this is God's word. We preach
in season, in other words, when it's convenient and people are
rejoicing in what they're hearing and out of season. I was telling
somebody recently, I'd go anywhere and preach the gospel. I would. But I'd make it the
same message that I'm preaching right here, right now. And if
there was something among that, I've done it before. I've preached
the gospel to groups of people that, you know, invite into preaching
churches that weren't gospel churches. And they hated it. But we made clear the message
so that they knew what we were preaching was not what they believed. I had a man write me one time
a letter and say, you know, you weren't very professional. I
invited you to come preach in my church and you didn't adhere
to our doctrine. You knew that what you were preaching
was contrary to what we believed. That was the pastor and I wrote
him back. And I said, he said, oh, he said in his letter, he
said, if you invited me to come preach in your pulpit, I would
respect your doctrine and I wouldn't contradict what you believe.
I wrote him back, I said two things. Number one, you never
have to worry about being invited to preach in my pulpit. Number two, you need to guard
yours a little bit better. We just preach the same. People
either love the gospel or they hate it. They either rejoice
in the finished work of Christ or they with indignation and
envy, hate the fact that this gospel message strips them naked
of all their righteousness and gives all the glory of their
salvation to the Lord Jesus Christ. The same message offends one
group and encourages another. The obvious implication to all
of this is. How does? How does how do you
receive it? How do you hear the gospel? Is
the message of salvation in the finished work of Christ? All
the hope of your salvation? Or you trying to add to? What
Christ has accomplished? He didn't die in order to make
salvation available. He didn't die in order make it
possible for you to do something in order to make what he did
effectual. No, when he hung his head on
Calvary's cross and said, it is finished, everything necessary
for the salvation of everyone that he died for was accomplished. God's people were saved. And
when we're called, out of darkness into his marvelous light, we're
discovering for the first time in our lives what the Lord has
done. That's what we're doing. Look at verse 20. Go stand and
speak in the temple to the people All the words of this life. All
the words of this life. Paul said in Acts chapter 20,
when he met with the Ephesian elders, he said, I have not shunned to preach unto
you the whole counsel of God. And then Paul told Timothy, he
said, Timothy, you study to show yourself approved, a workman
that needeth not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of
truth. Now, what is it to rightly divide
the word of truth? It's to find the Lord Jesus Christ
and the gospel of his grace in every passage of scripture we
preach from. That's why we just keep preaching the same message
regardless of where we go. Verse by verse, preaching the
whole counsel of God's word. And we ended up in the same place
every time. Isn't that glorious? Comparing the spiritual to the
spiritual scripture to scripture. Tell the people. all the words
of this life. This is a life and death message,
isn't it? This is not take it or leave
it. You know, it might be important,
but it's not essential. No, no. No. If you've heard the message,
you either love it or you hate it. And if you're in somewhere
in between, you just haven't heard. You just haven't heard. In Him was life, and the life
was the light of men. And the light shined in the darkness,
and the darkness comprehended it not. But as many as received
Him, to them gave He the power to become the sons of God. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
life. He said, I am the way, I am the truth, and I am the
life. No man can come to the Father
but by, outside of Christ we have no life, we're dead. We're
spiritually dead. And if we depart from this world
in a spiritual dead condition, we will spend eternity separated
from God. That's how, this is, this is
life and death. This is life eternal that they
might know they the only true God in Jesus Christ whom thou
has sent. Now I love that passage in John
chapter 10. I have come. That they might
have life. And. Have it more abundantly
now. Don't misunderstand that pastor
scripture. The Lord's not saying why you could have life and not
have abundant life. That word abundantly means to
grow. In other words, I've come that
they might have life, and in having life, that life will grow.
And without my life, they have no growth. They're dead. Genesis chapter 2, verse 7, the
Lord formed man out of the dust of the earth and breathed life
into his nostrils, and man became a living soul. You see, until
the Lord sends his spirit to breathe breath into our nostrils,
we're not living souls. Our soul's dead. When my bodies
might be alive, but our souls are dead. Why? Because of sin.
The wages, that's the problem. The wages of sin is death. You who were dead in trespasses
and sins, has he quickened together with Christ? I love what the Lord said to
Martha when he said, I am the resurrection and the life. He
that believeth in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. Believest thou this? Do you believe
this? Revelation chapter 20 verse 6
says, blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection
for on such the second death hath no power. Blessed of God
and holy separated Are they that had part in the first resurrection? When was that? It's when Christ
raised from the dead. We're going to observe baptism
this morning. It's a picture of the death, burial, and resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And what Daniel is going to be
testifying to is that when Christ died, I died. When he rose from
the dead, I rose from the dead. He is my life. Blessed and holy
are they who had part in the first resurrection. For the second
death hath no power over them." What is the second death? That's
the death that comes after you die physically. That's the eternal lake of fire. That's eternal separation from
God. That's the second death. And
the second death has no power over them who had part in the
first resurrection. And the truth is, if you're born
once, physically, you die twice. Physically and spiritually. If
you're born twice, physically and then spiritually, you only
die once. Now, how important is the gospel
to you? What's your response? Oh, the sick came. Just let the
shadow of that preacher fall on me. That's all I need. I just,
Lord save me. And then there were the self-righteous
who heard this message with indignation and they were jealous. They were
jealous. Our merciful Heavenly Father,
add your blessings, we pray, to the audible speaking of your
gospel that we might hear from you in our hearts. We ask it
in Christ's name. Amen.