Let's take our Bibles and turn
with me, if you would, to the book of Acts chapter 13. I'm going to. Just. Look at. A passage this morning. And deviate. I pray, according
to the good pleasure of our Lord, from the book of Proverbs this
morning. I'd like to preach out of Acts
13. I'm going to begin in just a
moment in the 13th verse. I want to just take kind of a
summary of a message that Paul the Apostle preached. And I've
entitled this, The Only Message Worth Hearing. Now you know that the Spirit of God, through the
Apostle Paul, set forth this truth. In Romans
1, verses 16-17, the Apostle speaking said, I am not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation
to every one that believeth. to the Jew first and also to
the Greek, for therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith. As it is written, the just shall
live by faith." Now, if Almighty God is pleased to call a man or a woman out
of darkness, someone will say, what do you mean, if He's pleased?
That's exactly what I meant. If he's but peradventure, perhaps
the Lord might be pleased. If the Lord is pleased, the world
would say, well, isn't He pleased to call all men out of darkness?
No. Because if He was pleased to
call all men out of darkness, He'd call them all out of darkness.
But if He is pleased to call a man or a woman out of darkness,
He's going to call that man or woman out of darkness through
the preaching of His Son. His Son is going to be honored. of redemption by the blood of
Christ to all that God Almighty is pleased to show mercy and
compassion to. Salvations of the Lord. Well,
this message was preached in this passage of Scripture right
here by the Apostle Paul. And I want us to just kind of
go through it and just listen to what the Spirit of God lay
it upon this man's heart to preach. When someone says, well, we preach
the gospel, well, I'm going to tell you something. This man
right here preached the gospel this day. And let's listen to
it. Let's just hear what God Almighty
has to say through His preachers. And ask yourself this, I want to listen to those points
and I want to ask myself, do I believe that? Is that what
I believe? Okay. Well, let's start in verse
13. Now when Paul, Acts 13, 13, when
Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in
Pamphylia. And John, departing from them,
returned to Jerusalem. But when they departed from Perga,
they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on
the Sabbath day, and sat down." Now, here's some preachers. And God sent these preachers
to that synagogue And the thing that they do is the thing that
every man that God has called does. They didn't exalt themselves. Do you notice what they did?
They walked in to that synagogue and they sat down. God's preachers
exhibit a spirit of meekness. They bow to the good pleasure
of God. If the Lord is pleased to speak
through a man, God will direct him. It's strange to me how I'll get
up there once in a while. I mean, everybody and their brother,
you know, if you or a preacher or a church or something, you're
going to get all kinds of, you know, emails and stuff like this. But it's amazing to me how many
people will send an email to just, you know, churches all
over and just say, you know, I'm available. Anybody looking
for anybody to fill in, I just want you to know that I'm available. I'm willing to step up. If you
don't feel comfortable preaching today, I'm willing to step up. I've got a message. I'm I'm sitting
on ready. Well, that's just a little bit
too ready for me. I remember this and I don't I
don't I'm not going to what I'm going to tell you right now from
what Brother Scott said one time, somebody that came out here.
I'm not saying this to be funny. It's as I've told many people,
I said, nobody likes funny games more than me, but not behind
this pulpit. Brother Scott told me one time,
he said somebody drove up and here was a guy sitting out in
the parking lot. Brother Scott pulled up, the guy said, are
you the preacher here? He said, I am. The man said, well, I'm
here to preach this morning. He said, the Lord sent me to
preach the message. I've got the message of the day
and I'm here to preach. Brother Scott told him, he said,
that's amazing. He said, I was just talking to him and he didn't
even mention that to me. That's it. What do you mean you're
here to preach? These men sat down waiting. Wait on the Lord. Wait. Scripture says, verse 15, after
the reading of the law, the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue,
sent unto him and saying, Ye men and brethren, if you have
any word of exhortation for the people, say on. That's an amazing
statement to me. No explanation could be given
for those rulers of the synagogue to make a statement like that
except that it was the will of the Lord that Paul preached that
day in that synagogue. Why would somebody standing up
reading Make a statement to somebody. If you fellas have anything to
say, any exhortation, anything you'd like to add to what we've
just read, feel free to do so. Accept that we know, Proverbs
21.1, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord. As the
rivers of water, he turneth it whithersoever he will. God's
able, God's able to raise up his preachers and he can direct
the hearts of men to give that man place and let that man preach
the gospel. Well, there's no time for foolishness
now. Here's the Apostle Paul and he's got this opportunity
right here to preach. Now, this may be the last time
that People that are sitting in that synagogue that day ever
hear the truth. This may be the last time I was
writing out these notes, and as I pen this out, this is what
I wrote. This may be the last time that
somebody hears the gospel. This may be the last time. I'd
hate to know that it was just something foolish or frivolous. I pray that the Lord might be
pleased to bless this Word to our heart. The eternal souls
that are listening. Verse 16, Then Paul stood up,
and beckoning with his hands, said, Men of Israel and ye that
fear God, give audience. Two different groups of people.
ye men of Israel, those that were Jews by natural descent,
and ye that fear God." That was a title that was given to proselyte
Gentiles. That's what it means. Two different
backgrounds of men. Ye men of Israel and ye that
fear God. Jews and Gentiles. Listen to
what I have to say. And what Paul does, he's going
to take the history Israel's history. And through that history,
he's going to preach the gospel to them. Now listen to what God
Almighty sets forth as the truth and the hearing of the gospel.
When I hear preaching, does the preaching that I hear, does it
line up with what Almighty God directed Now, this is Scripture. You say, well, I was just a Paul.
I was just Paul. He was just a man. All Scripture is given
by inspiration of God. And it's profitable for correction,
for rebuke, for reproof, for instruction in righteousness.
No, this is not just words. These are the holy Scriptures.
And Paul, the apostle, A man of like passion, just like anybody
else that's born in Adam, stood up and he preached. But you understand,
he's going to preach under the inspiration of the Spirit of
God. Listen to the gospel. Listen to the message. Listen
to the point. Listen to the tenor of that message. Is Christ honored? All right, here's the first point.
He's going to take the history now, history of Israel. He starts
off and he said in verse 17, the God of this people of Israel
chose our fathers and exalted the people. They dwelt as strangers
in the land of Egypt. Here was his first point. God
is sovereign in electing grace. The God of the people of Israel
chose our fathers, set His affection on them, distinguishing grace. Why did He not choose the fathers
out of Mesopotamia? Because He wasn't pleased to. Why did He choose you? Why did
He choose you and let your neighbor continue on in his rebellion.
Why? Because it pleased him to do so. That's in Ephesians 1.
Read that. Why did God Almighty set His
affection on anybody? Because it pleased Him to do
so. That's the only answer that you
can get. It wasn't because you're better. We were all dug out of
the same lump. Same lump of clay. I came out
of the same lump as Hitler did. Why did God show mercy to me?
Because it pleased Him to do so. And I have nothing to glory
in save Jesus Christ. Him crucified. God's will. God's purpose. Here was the second point in
that 17th verse. His first point was God's sovereign
in electing grace. His second point, God's sovereign
in redemption. And with a high arm, an honorable
and exalted, brought he them out of it. He fetched them. Just like Mephibosheth,
is there any of the house of Saul that I might
show kindness to for Jonathan's sake? Well, there is a little
boy, Mephibosheth. He's over there in the land of
Lodibar. He said, you fetch Him and you
bring Him to me. Oh, the miracle of God's grace. This is what Paul is preaching.
He said, God chose our fathers. And with a high arm, a mighty
arm, honorable, exalted. And then here's the third point,
verse 18. God's sovereign in preservation. He's sovereign in electing grace.
He's sovereign in redemption. And He's sovereign in preservation.
Verse 18, And about the time of forty years suffered He their
manners in the wilderness. God chose them. God brought them out. And God
kept them. Suffered He their manners. He bore with them. nursed Him,
kept Him. Let me ask you this. You that
know Him, you that know Him in electing, saving, redeeming grace,
you that have a heart, why does He put up with any of
us? Is there one person sitting here
this morning that could truthfully say, from the day he called me out
of darkness, bless his holy name, I've never deviated one time. You don't know him. No, this
is what you say. Jesus, thou son of David, have
mercy on me. The Lord is not slack concerning
His purpose, as some men count slackness, but is longsuffering
to us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come
to repentance. He's longsuffering before He
calls you, and I'll tell you this, He's longsuffering after
He calls you for the sake of His Son. When I see the blood,
I'm going to pass over. I will forgive them. He forgives
us. Almighty God looks upon His people
in the person of His blessed Son and sees Him for His sake,
for His honor, for His sacrifice, for His obedience. And I'm telling
you, a believer, here's that. and he does not have this attitude,
well, then it just doesn't matter. I tell you, every believer that
I know strives, strives after, strives after, hungers after
Him. Lord, forgive me. Lord, help
me. Lord, keep me. All the while
knowing He said, I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you."
And boy, that Scripture comes back to your mind and you say,
Lord, thank You for that. Oh, thank You. Thank You that
You won't leave me. Lord, when I fail and how often
I fail, Lord, thank You. Here was Paul. Here was his next
point in his message. Here was the point. God is sovereign
in mercy and providence and provision. Look at verse 19 to verse 22. And when he had destroyed seven
nations in the land of Canaan, he divided their land to them
by lot. And after that, he gave unto
them judges about space of 450 years till Samuel the prophet.
And afterward, they desired a king. And God gave unto them Saul,
the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin by the space
of 40 years. And when he had removed him,
he raised up unto them David to be their king, to whom also
he gave testimony and said, I found David the son of Jesse, a man
after mine own heart, which shall fulfill all my will. The Lord
purposed to give the land of Canaan to the children of Israel. In the book of Hebrews that we're
going through on Wednesday night, we're getting ready. We're coming
into this beautiful picture of him giving them Canaan. Canaan
was a picture of the rest, the rest of God's people. And I'm not talking about only.
It is inclusive to that heavenly and eternal rest, but it's a
rest right now. A rest that God's people enter
into now. A rest. In the midst of this
world, a rest. But that's not what I'm preaching
on this morning. He purposed to give them Canaan. Gave it
to them by lot. And he destroyed, the scripture
said, seven nations in the land. Almighty God destroyed that which
he purposed to bless his people by. Now, just in likewise manner,
he destroyed those seven nations that would stand against his
people. that would harass his people, that would kill his people
if they could. He destroyed them. And now by
the blood of his blessed son, all that opposes his people,
this world, sin, Satan, in him we're more than conquerors. through Christ, through Him that
loves us, loves us, loves us. It says He gave them judges. He gave them judges about the
space of 450 years until Samuel the prophet. He gave them a faithful
king, David. But I want you to notice something.
Before He gave them David, He gave them Saul. Do you remember
why He gave them Saul? He said, we want a king just
like everybody else. Samuel said, you don't want a
king. God's your king. No, no, no,
no. No, that's what I want. That's
what I, I think that's what I want. Yeah, I think I'll have, I think
I'll have that. He's going to take, he's going to take stuff.
He's going to take your kids. He's going to abuse you. He's
going to hurt you. No, that's what we want. Oh, may God keep me from the
things of this flesh and this world that I find myself looking
at, thinking, I think I want that. I think I want that. I struggle, if you only knew
how I struggle, with things in this world. Things that puff up the flesh. Things that cause people to say,
man, I lied. I didn't know you could do that. That is so great. I struggle with that. May the Lord keep me from that
which I know is going to be hindrance to me. We want a king, and the
Lord gave them Saul. And I'm telling you, it didn't
take them long before they realized, I don't think that's what we
wanted. I don't think that that's what I needed. May the Lord keep me from myself. I'm telling you, I'm a bad enemy. to myself. I struggle with that. Oh, may we have Him who judges
righteously. May we have Him who has justified
us freely by grace, by His blood. We want Him. They gave Him, the
Scripture says God gave Him a faithful King, gave Him King David, a
picture of our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Almighty God, He's sovereign. He chooses. He delivers. He keeps. He preserves. He provides. That's what Paul was preaching.
Then look at verse 23. Of this man's seed hath God,
according to His promise, raised unto Israel a Savior, Jesus. Almighty God, Paul says, is merciful. merciful to his people, raised
up the Lord Jesus Christ according to promise, Psalm 132.11, the
Lord has sworn in truth unto David, he will not turn from
it, of the fruit of thy body will I sit upon thy throne. And
in the fullness of time the word was made flesh and dwelt among
us. And that, his coming, that was
no secret, that wasn't a, A secret, not to God's people, not to God's,
those that he loved and purposed to preserve. His coming was prophesied. That's what the book of Acts,
Luke wrote, Acts 10, 43. To him, give all the prophets
witness. And John the Baptist was a prophet.
Look at verse 24, 25. When John had first preached
before his coming the baptism of repentance to all the people
of Israel, as John fulfilled his course, he said, Whom think
ye that I am? I am not he. But behold, there
cometh one after me whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to
loose. It wasn't a secret. That's what Paul said. This is
not a This is not a new gospel. I've heard people say, you're
preaching new doctrine. This is the oldest message ever. This was the message preached
in the garden. When Adam and Eve fell, what did the Lord do? He killed
an animal, covered their nakedness. There's the atonement. There's
the righteousness of Christ. There's the blood that was shed.
There's redemption. It's not a new message. I'm telling you, everything else
is new. This is not new. But He, the one Son of God, that
would come and redeem His people, He was rejected by this world. Listen to Paul preaching. He's
still preaching in verse 26. Men and brethren, children of
the stock of Abraham, Whosoever among you feareth God, to you
is the word of this salvation sent. For they that dwell at
Jerusalem and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the
voice of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath day, they
have fulfilled them in condemning him. And though they found no
cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be
slain. And when they had fulfilled all
that was written of him, They took him down from the tree and
laid him in a sepulcher. Did these men do what they did
because they wanted to? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Let me ask
you this. Do men today reject Him because
they want to? Yes, they do. Why will a man
or a woman not come to Christ? Because he doesn't want to come.
He doesn't want to. He hates God. He hates Christ. People say, no, I don't hate. I don't hate God. I don't hate
Christ. I just don't like the one you
preach. Well, this is the one of this
Bible. And to reject him is to reject God's salvation. To say I'll not have that man
to rule over me is to say, I hate your will. I hate your purpose. I hate your word. I've got a
better way. I've got a more plausible way. I've got an easier way. A little bit softer. It's so
dogmatic. How do I give everybody a chance? Let's go, if you want to, right
up to these surfaces. Let's all go out to a graveyard.
We'll all assemble around and I'll preach and I'll just say,
Everybody out there, exercise your free will this morning.
And anybody that wants to come up out of that grave and make
yourself alive, get out of there. If you don't want to be in there
anymore, come on out. Everybody exercise, come on now.
Everybody, I'm going to give everybody a chance. Ezekiel, can these bones live? Lord, You know. You preach to
them. And I'll cause. You preach, I'll
cause. These men, they read these Scriptures
every week. They got in that synagogue every
week. And they did just exactly what the Scriptures said they
would do. You, with wicked hands, have taken and crucified the
Lord of glory. You did that. And you did it
according to God's will and God's purpose, God's counsel. The wrath of man is going to
praise Him. And men are going to be held
responsible for rejecting Him. I'm telling you, you reject the
hearing of this gospel. You reject the Christ of this
gospel. And I'm telling you, you have no one to blame but
yourself. They did what they did because
they wanted to. But you listen to this. God raised him from the dead.
That's what verse 30 says. He died according to the scriptures,
according to God's purpose, according to God's will. He made sin. Almighty God sent him into this
world and allowed men to do exactly what they wanted to do, and God
Almighty will judge them for that. And he did it according
to the Scriptures. And he died and was buried, and
he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. He's alive.
He's alive, seated in the heavenlies, ever living to make intercession,
living in the hearts of His people. in the very midst of His people
where they are gathered together in His name. And that resurrection, Him being the surety, that was
openly known. Look at verse 31, And He was
seen many days of them which came up with Him from Galilee
to Jerusalem, who are His witnesses unto the people. And we declare
unto you glad tidings that how the promise which was made unto
the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us, his children,
in that he hath raised up Jesus again, as it is also written
in the second psalm, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten
thee. And as concerning that he raised
him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption,
he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of
David. Wherefore, he saith also in another psalm, Thou shalt
not suffer thine holy one to see corruption, For David, after
he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep
and was laid unto the fathers and saw corruption. But he, whom
God raised again, saw no corruption. His death, his resurrection,
that's the pillars of our hope. He's alive. He's alive. He's not a little babe lying
in a manger. He's not the one that men are
going to pluck his beard out and again, they're going to make
fun of him. He's not crucified afresh with a new mass every
Sunday. He's alive. He's the Lord of
glory. Interceding. Peter said in 2
Peter 1, 16, We've not followed cunningly devised fables when
we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus.
We were eyewitnesses of His majesty. And I'll tell you this, Paul
as he's wrapping up, coming to the end of this message, Paul
set forth that he's able to save all that come to him, that believe
him. And coming to him and believing
him is not by man's free will. It's the evidence of life. Look at verse 38, 39, Be it known
unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man
is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, that by him all that
believe, all that believe. Now listen
to this. Read this carefully. All that
believe are justified from all things from which you could not
be justified by the law of Moses. Those that believe, that belief
is the evidence that God's justified them. God didn't justify a man
because that man believed. Then that would be justification
by your work of faith. A man that believes is justified. By him, all that believe are
justified. Through this man is preached
the forgiveness of sin. What is that? Let me ask you
something. Have you ever thought about that? What is the forgiveness
of sins? I don't know of a better scripture
that sets forth. Let me read this to you. This
is, to me, the clearest. This settles it for me. Here's
forgiveness of sins. Romans 4, 8. Blessed is the man
to whom the Lord will not impute sin. God will not charge him
with it. That's forgiveness. Blessed is
the man. Why? Because he charged it to
his son. He didn't sweep it under the
rug. He didn't pass over it. Didn't
make it to be something that it just could be lightly spoken
of. Justified. That act of God's
free grace whereby He delivers by the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ, all for whom Christ died, justified. The law looks upon
those in Christ, seeing only Him. And here is the law of God
dealing with everybody in Christ, dealing with them in Christ,
dealing with Christ Himself. Does the law find any fault in
Him? How about all those in Him? How about bone of His bone, flesh
of His flesh? How about those that He's everlastingly
stood for? How about all those that He answers
for right now? Is there any fault in Him? Oh, no, there's no fault in Him.
There's no fault in those in Him either. He's answered. He's answered. Justified. freely by God's grace, by His
blood. Well, Paul preached the gospel
that day, and the result was as the result is often today.
Let me just read this for you, and I'm going to read a couple
more verses, and we'll be done. Acts 28, verse 24. Here's what it says, And some
believed the things which were spoken, And some believe not. That's what happened. In verse
40 to 42, Paul preaching, he says, Beware, therefore, lest
that come upon you that is spoken in the prophets. Behold, ye despisers
in wonder perish. For I work a work in your days,
a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare
it unto you. And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, Paul had preached the gospel, and that was the attitude of
their carnal heart. Well, I'm done. Some of them
believe not, but I'll tell you what some of them did. The last
part of verse 42, but the Gentiles besought that these words might
be preached to them the next Sabbath. You know, the scripture sets
forth that blessed or they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness."
You know, by the grace of God, I want to be in God's house.
Who knows? The Lord may speak today. He
may say something. Who knows? He may bless this
Word. Man, there's been times that
I've been in a congregation and somebody would
preach, and I'm telling you, that Word just Oh, I thought,
man, I I don't know if I've ever heard it just like that before.
You know what I'm talking about? Just times that we and we'll
preach. I've said before, I've got some
I got some notes right here. I've got them all written out
and tried to write them where I could read them, you know,
and and and I truly I believe they're there. They're there.
They're sound. They're doctrinal. But if God
blesses them. and blesses that word and just
ignites your heart, you think, oh, that was good. Oh, what a blessing. He told me about that conference,
Carl, you was in just a few months ago. The Lord called, I don't
know, three, four, five people. I mean, people confess the Lord
and you say, well, what's the difference? God may be pleased
to bless this message. He may be pleased to bless this
message. Those two on the road to Emmaus
did not our heart burn within us as He opened unto us the Scriptures. Who knows? God may be pleased
to just do something. What's the difference? We preach
the Gospel and we trust the Lord. Wait on Him. Some of them believe
and some of them didn't. Those Gentiles, they said, you
come back to preach to us next Sunday. You think you could find
time to come and preach to us one more time? I sure would like
to hear that. Then those that would hear, Paul preached to them and said,
he came to them in verse 43, when the congregation was broken
up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and
Barnabas, who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in
the grace of God. And the next Sabbath day came
almost the whole city together to hear the word of God. But
when the Jews saw the multitude, they were filled with envy and
spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting
and blaspheming. Paul and Barnabas waxed bold
and said it was necessary that the word of God should first
have been spoken to you. But seeing you have put it from
you and judged yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, you turned
to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord commanded
us, saying, I have set before thee to be a light to the Gentiles,
that thou shouldest be their salvation to the ends of the
earth." They preached to him, and he said, I'm going to exhort
you to continue in the grace of God, continue in the means
of God's grace. So I said, what is that, the
means of God's grace? The hearing of the gospel, study
of the scriptures, seeking the Lord in prayer. When you pray,
Assemble yourselves together. Seek the Lord. And in that message, in that
message that Paul preached that day, something marvelous happened. Verse 48, 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. You know, there's nothing like
being able to just take a few minutes, look into the Scriptures,
and see that which glorifies the Lord and magnifies His purpose
and will, and you see the effect of it. As many as were ordained
to eternal life believed. Oh, what a sweet thought. Lord,
that You ordained before the foundation of the world for me
to believe. Thank You for that. May Almighty God bless this Word
to our hearts for the sake of His blessed Son. Amen.