Well, it's good to be home. It's
always good to go somewhere. I've said that before, but I
think it's better to come back. Let's take our Bibles and turn
with me to the book of Acts, chapter 19. Acts 19. We're going to begin. this evening
in the 18th verse. Look at 3 verses, 18, 19, and
20, Lord willing. But in our last study, a man possessed with an evil
spirit, the Scripture says leaped on a group of brothers, seven
brothers, and they had it in their mind that they had watched
the Apostle Paul or someone had cast out demons, had performed
some miracles. And they thought that they would
make a name for themselves. And so they said, we assure you,
command, we demand you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. And Scripture says that that
demon spoke to him and just really got down to the brass tacks.
He said, Jesus I know and Paul I know, but who are you? Who do you think you are? Men think they're something,
and they're nothing, nothing. Traveling preachers, that's what
they are. Without Christ, the Lord said,
John 15, 5, I am the vine, you are the branches. He that abideth
in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For
without Me, you can do nothing. Nothing. You can't think right,
speak right. You can't come to Christ unless
the Lord gives a man the grace and the power to come. He can't come. He's impotent. Now, when this evil spirit jumped
on these fellows, ran them out of the house. The Scripture says
that fear, verse 17, fell on them all. And as I said last
time, that word actually has two meanings. It either means
fright or alarm. They were just scared. They saw
something and it just scared them. Or it can also mean reverence. So all of them feared. Some of
them were just scared. They were alarmed. They were
confused. But some of them reverenced the
Lord when they beheld that it is Almighty God and Him alone
that keeps a man or a man not kept. Now, the Scripture Beginning
in verse 18, I want to look at this and I want to look at actually
the evidence of a new heart. Four things actually in the 18th
verse that evidence a new heart. And every one of these evidences
is found in a believer, every one of them. The evidence of
a new heart. Now, you know, we talk about
conversion, regeneration, salvation. We talk about being born again. A lot of people talk about that.
A lot of people, a lot of places talk about new life, new joy,
new peace in the Lord. I said before, though, I want
to know what the Scripture has to say about life, true life. This is something that pertains
to me and pertains to you. Evidence of God's grace, God's
power, evidence of regenerating grace. What is it? Now, the Scripture
said in the seventeenth verse, it was known to all the Jews
and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus, and fear fell on them all, and
the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified." Now, here is verse
18. Four things that was evidenced
by some of them. It says in verse 18, "...and
many that believed." There is the first evidence of regeneration. They believed. Now, it's not that a man believes
in God. Now, I'm going to make a real
distinction here. It's not that a man believes
in God. As I've said before, the devils
believe in God. The devils know, the demons know
that there's a God. To believe God is an entirely
different thing. Abraham believed God, and it
was counted unto him. Not his belief, but his belief
evidenced that Almighty God had done something for him. Believing
God. You remember the Philippian jailer.
Sirs, what must I do? to be saved. Now there's a question
that a man could take and try to twist and try to make that
verse say that the Philippian jailer was asking, what must
I perform in order to be saved? And that's not what he asked.
What he asked was, sirs, what is the evidence of salvation?
What must I do? What will I do? What will actually
be performed as an evidence that God has done something for me.
And Paul answered him and said in Acts 16.31, Believe on..."
I wanted to see. I wanted to go
back and see exactly because I remembered that Scripture.
And I wanted to go back and see what it said. Believe on, Neal. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. as touching." That little word,
on. Believe as touching the Lord
Jesus Christ. I think about that woman that
had the issue of blood. She said, I know some of you
thought about that scripture. I said that. She said, you know,
she had an issue of blood. She'd spent all of her money.
She didn't have anything. She was none the better. And
then she said to herself, if I could but touch the hem of
His garment, I'll be made whole." She believed on Him. A lot of
them believed that He was Jesus of Nazareth. But to believe Him
as the Messiah takes a new heart. They believed. Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in thy house. The Apostle
Paul wrote a letter to the church at Thessalonica 2 Thessalonians
2, 13, we quote so much, but we're bound to give thanks all
the way to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because
God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification
or by sanctification, that is, by the Spirit of God setting
you apart and belief of the truth. It is a marvelous work of God's
grace that a man believes God. That a man believes God. That
a man rests and trusts and hopes in Christ. That his hope is Christ. The object of his faith is Christ. To believe. When you first think on that,
it's the simplest thought to believe. But I'm telling you, it takes
a new heart. It takes a new man, a new creature. It takes a work of God's power
for a man to believe. It's honorable unto the Lord
that a man believes Him. It's respectful that a man believes
God. Brother Scott tells me something.
I believe him. Why? He never gave me any reason
to not believe him. Why? I just don't believe he'd
lie to me. Not knowingly. God's not a liar
for a man to believe God. That is respectful. Believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ gives Almighty God all the glory for
our salvation. Why? It is given unto you in
the behalf of or for the sake of Christ, not only to believe
on Him, but also to suffer for His sake. It is given to you.
A man that believes God, a woman that believes God, God Almighty
has bestowed upon them power. They believe. God has promised
to be merciful and compassionate to His people. taking Him at
His Word, believing His gospel. That's the first. There's the
first evidence of God's regenerating grace. A man believes God. He
believed. He said they believed. And many
that believed. Here's the second one right here.
They came. They came. They showed themselves. They found their place. Now,
obviously, they came to the place where the gospel was preached.
That would be obvious. They came. Many that believe
came. They came where Paul and the
other apostles were preaching. They came where Christ was honored. They came where God Almighty
was set forth as being God Men were not being honored, or men
were not being exalted and puffed up. They came where there was
some hope. They came when there was some
truth. They came. So I know that they did that.
But, primarily, they came to Christ. You know, a man that
comes to Christ where Christ is honored. Turn with me to John
6.37. John 6.37. I got to thinking
about this scripture as I was jotting down these notes. It
says they came. Many believe and they came. I thought about coming to Christ.
John 6.37 says this, "...all that the Father giveth me shall
come to me. And him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out." You know, we quote so many scriptures. We quote scriptures so much that
sometimes it's very easy to miss the beauty of what is being actually
said because we're so familiar with it. And that's a Scripture
we quote, we hear all the time. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And I got to thinking about that
truth that the Lord set forth, coming to Christ. And I thought, you know, if someone
were to ask me, What does it mean to come to Christ? Well, it means this. To fall upon. To grow upon. And to rest presently
for help and support. I thought, boy, that's a good
explanation. To come to Christ. to fall, to
grow, and to rest presently for help and support. There'll be times I'll wake up
in the morning, early in the morning, and this Scripture has
come to my mind more than once. This is the day that the Lord
has made. I will rejoice and be glad in
it. Now, it's early in the morning. I don't know what's going to
happen. There have been days that I'd go through that day
and somewhere, Gary, along the way, during the day, I found
out something. I heard something. Something
happened that maybe didn't really, you know, it went against the
grain of my flesh, Bob, and I didn't want to hear that. Oh, I wish
I wouldn't have heard that. That's my first reaction. But
you know, it doesn't change the fact that this is the day the
Lord has made and He ordered all these things according to
His will and purpose. This is His day. He made it this
way. He made all things for Himself.
And that He made this day and allowed this day to be the day
that I would find Something or something would cross my path. And in that moment, coming to
Christ becomes blessedly cheerful. To come to Him, to fall upon
Him, to rest on Him for help and support. Lord, I need You. I need You. We come to Christ
all the time. It's a shame, but this is the
way it is. Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth.
He sends these things often, and they're always for our good.
You know, I don't need the Lord until I realize I need the Lord.
As long as everything's going fine, I'm doing fine. Yeah, how
you doing? I'm doing great. Doing great.
Everybody doing well? Doing well. Doing well. But you
know, you let somebody in my family not be doing well. And
I feel it very personally. Come to Christ. Believers, come. The Lord said in Matthew 11,
28, Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden. I'll
give you rest. That's what it is to come to
Christ. Rest on Him for support. Lean on Him. Fall on Him. Grow
on Him. The third thing, back in Acts
19, verse 18, and many of that believe, They came, look at number
three, they confessed. The way that we confess the Lord
Jesus Christ is by baptism. That's how we confess. This is
the Lord's prescribed way of confessing our belief and trust
and rest and coming to Him. It was a public confession of
their faith in Christ. It's an outward act of an inward
work of God's grace. Baptism. That's what it is. What
are we doing when we're baptized? We're saying, I trust Him. I believe Him. I lean upon Him. I've come to Him. That's God's
way. Matthew 28, 19, Go ye therefore
and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This baptism is a dedication
to the glorious triune God, the Father who chose. We're baptized. What are we doing? We're saying,
I believe that God Almighty sovereignly chose me and put me in Christ. I believe that the Lord Jesus
Christ died for me as my substitute. that He was made what this wretched
sinner is. He was made sin. And I believe
that the Spirit of God powerfully, effectually, in particular, called
me out of darkness. I confess that. They came. They believed. They came. They
confessed. And here's the last thing. They
showed their deeds. Of all these four things, a man
believes God, and he believes in his heart. Now, that man knows
that. He knows he believes God. And
then the Scripture says, they came and they sat and they came
to Christ. They leaned on Him. That man
knows that. And they confessed. They were
baptized. But here is the most revealing
thing to other believers, to the brethren. They showed their
deeds. They publicly denounced their
former religion of works, free will, superstitions. Look at
verse 19. I'll say a little bit more about
this. It says, "...many of them, when it says they showed their
deeds, many of them also, which used curious arts, brought their
books together and burned them before all men, and they counted
the price of them and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver."
Turn to 2 Corinthians. I'm going to show you something.
What happens when a man is called out of darkness? He believes
God. He comes to Christ. He confesses
the Lord in baptism. And look at 2 Corinthians 5.17. Therefore, if any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold,
all things are become new. that is called out of darkness,
spiritual darkness, by the regenerating grace of Almighty God." Old things,
old opinion, old religious thoughts, old religious desires and principles,
old companions. I've got a lot of people that I've known for years
and years and years. And I mean, at one time I could
I could just back when I was in college, I could just very
freely, you know, we could just hang out, you know, do whatever
we wanted to do. And, you know, it's just it's
just impossible for me to old companions that don't have a
love for the God that I serve. Old companions, old relationships
that doesn't love the Christ of this Bible. And somebody said,
well, you know what, we work. I understand that. You've got
to work. Gary, you work with people every
day. A lot of you. You work with people every day
and you've got to be there. And I'm telling you, I know it's
hard. There's times. You have to listen to stuff that
is most disrespectful. Somebody will come up to me and
I guess it's because they know that I'm a preacher. And that'll
be the last thing I'll tell them. If you ask me, what do you do?
First thing I'm going to tell you is I'm an artist. That's
the first thing I'll tell you. And if you find out, then they
all get religious. Or then they've got a joke. Golden
Gate. You know what? I'd rather you
tell me a joke about anything else. Not that. Not that. You know, let's don't make a
mockery of this thing. Old things pass away. Behold, all things become new. There's new truth, new purpose,
new fellowships. They showed their deeds. You
know, what a man does is a good indication of his heart, what
a man does. A man is known by what he does,
not necessarily by what he says. Turn to Matthew 7, verse 15.
Matthew 7, verse 15. Beware of false prophets. Oh my, how do you know them? A lot of men standing in pulpits,
how do you know them? Well, they come to you in sheep's
clothing, but inwardly they're ravening wolves. How do you know
them though? I mean, they're preachers, you
know, they're preachers. How do you know them? Well, verse
16, you should know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes
of thorns or figs of thistles? Even so, every good tree bringeth
forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt
tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not
forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. Wherefore,
by their fruits you shall know them. Galatians 5.22 says, But
the fruit of the Spirit is love, Love for Christ. Love for God's
honor. Love for Christ. Love for the
sovereignty of Almighty God. Love for that message that glorifies
God Almighty in creation and in providence and in salvation. Love that says salvation is of
the Lord. Salvation is not a combination
of God and men trying to work together and work out. Salvation
is of the Lord. God saves a man and then tells
him about it. Joy, peace, peace with Christ,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. A man who claims to believe grace. A man, a woman that claims to
believe the gospel, of God's free grace and will not forsake. What these guys did back then,
it says they had some old curious arts, brought their books, witchcraft,
just evil, evil, disrespectful, and they burned them. A man or
a woman that claims to believe the gospel of free grace and
will not forsake an old profession of free will religion, believing
that a man is saved by his own free will, by his own power. A man that says that he believes
the gospel and he will not forsake that idolatrous free will religion
has not been regenerated. He's going to leave. He's going
to quit. He won't go back to that. He won't. He will not. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4,
verse 1 and 2, Therefore, seeing we have this
ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not, but have
renounced The hidden things of dishonesty. Shame. Not walking in craftiness, not
handling the Word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth,
commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight
of God. Paul, by saying that he renounced the hidden things
of dishonesty, not only in the pulpit, but out of the pulpit.
Now listen. In closing, I want you to understand
something. A man may speak the right words
from a pulpit. I'm telling you something that
I know is so. A man may say and speak some
right things from a pulpit. And you may listen and hear what
he's saying. And it may sound just right. You may not find anything wrong
with it. But if that man's life is not consistent out of that
pulpit with what he preaches in that pulpit, he doesn't believe
it. That's what Paul meant when he
said some men preach Christ of envy. They envy. They knew what to say. I had
a friend of mine down in Alabama one time. He was talking to me.
I told him, I said, look, I said, a parrot can be taught some scripture. You teach a parrot to mimic a
scripture, but you can't teach a parrot how to act like a believer.
These people forsook their old way. They quit. They quit. They left it. A believer does
not act in a scandalous, are a reproachful way toward Christ
in His gospel. They forsook their way. And because the Lord was pleased
to bless that word to the calling out of some sheep in that place,
the last verse for this evening, verse 20, it says, So mightily
grew the word of God, and it prevailed. It grew. God blessed it. It prevailed. It powerfully conquered, penetrated
every object of God's mercy. Every one that God had been pleased
to set His affection on, it prevailed. Boy, you know, that's the good
news. That's the wonder of this truth. What's the Lord going to do?
Whatever he's pleased. Who is the Lord going to call
out of darkness? Everyone that he's everlastingly loved. When
is a man going to be saved? When he pleases God. He's separated
him from his mother's womb. What did the Lord call preachers
to do? He said, you preach the gospel.
You preach the gospel. Preach the gospel. And the Lord Himself had promised,
He said, My word is not going to return void. It's going to
accomplish the purpose for which it was sent. I've said before,
I was talking about God's providence and while we were on vacation, one of my son-in-laws asked me,
This question, he said, you know, sometime, he said, I just began
to wonder, he said, why the Lord kept me where I was for so many
years. He lives down in Virginia and
married my middle daughter. And he said, I went for years
not knowing why I had not found someone. He said, I thought I
wanted to get married. And he said, I just, I didn't
know why. I wasn't real happy. I just,
you know. And he said, I've dated different
ones. But he said, I never did really
settle down. He said, it wasn't until I met
Hannah that I knew this is the one for me. And he said, I wondered,
why? Why did I have to wait so long?
And he says, then for us to wait a few years. He said, I didn't
even think I wanted kids. He said, now I wouldn't take
anything for these little girls. And I said, well, but Sammy,
here's the deal. I said, I don't know the end
from the beginning. The Lord does. And I said, in
God's good timing, I said, I don't know who this little girl, one
of these little girls will grow up. And I don't know. What if
one of these little girls, is to be the wife of some man, some
preacher. But God Almighty had purposed
that this man wasn't going to be born yet. And he waited until
the time was right. And then you had to wait a few
extra years, and then you had a little girl, and then that
little girl will grow up. And in time, God's purpose will
be shown and revealed. I said, the Lord does all things
well. Why do certain things happen
the way they do? It's because God has ordained
them to be that way. These that saw this, what happened? Well, for some, they believed,
and they came, and they confessed, and they showed their deeds.
Four evidences of God's grace in regeneration. And do you know,
it's never changed. It's the same way. God Almighty
calls men out of darkness, and that's exactly the same way that
you see it happen. Now, I pray that this has been
a help to you. It has been to me. It's a good
study. Let's stand together. Brother Gary, would you lead
us in a closing hymn, and then I'm going to ask Brother Scott
if he'll dismiss us.