Well, there's a great description
of the church here, and there's a great description of what the
church is called to do in verse 3. The Holy Spirit says, verse
2, sorry, the Holy Spirit says, separate me, Barnabas and Saul,
for the work. So I just wanted to look at the
work. It's the work that they've been
called to, the work that they are separated unto. In Acts 13,
we come to the second half of Acts. From here on in, the centre
of the Christian activities is in the Gentile world, and the
centre of the Christian activities that is recorded for us is through
the ministry of, particularly, the Apostle Paul. This is the
work of the Church, isn't it? This church, this Gentile church,
this first church that we have recorded for us in the Book of
Acts that was composed of Gentiles and Jews, but was in a Gentile
land, and it's that great church that from which that promise,
isn't it, you will be witnesses under me, you'll be witnesses
in Jerusalem, you'll be witnesses in Judea, which surrounds Jerusalem,
you'll be witnesses under me in Samaria, you'll be witnesses
under me into the ends of the earth, and from here in Acts,
The gospel goes out to the ends of the earth. It leaves that
continent and goes to an island here, the island of Cyprus. But we see We see at the beginning
of this work, we see this church in its activities. We see that
this church had certain prophets and teachers. We saw earlier
in Acts 12 that Barnabas and Saul were there teaching in that
church, and teaching for some considerable time. And in that
church were prophets. It was a sign, as we saw earlier,
of the fact that the prophetic voice and the apostolic witness
was actually being moved from Jerusalem and moved into this
area that takes the gospel to the Gentiles and to the ends
of the earth and even down to Nowra and even down to Bega. It'll go wherever God sends it.
That's the work of the church, isn't it? The work of the church
is to have these people to be taught. To be taught is to be
a disciple. To be a disciple is to be a learner. All of God's children are learners
all of the time. We keep learning and learning
and learning. We learn what God has said. We learn what God has
promised. to be a disciple, to be a learner,
is to be humbled before the Word of God. It's to be needy. It's
to be made hungry and thirsty to hear from God. And I love
the description of it. It says, that this church, which
was gathered of all these people, was gathered with Saul and Barnabas
from Cyprus, and Menaion, who was actually brought up with
Herod the Tetrarch. He and Herod the Tetrarch were
nursed by the same mother. So out of all of these kingdoms
of the world, God says, I'll have that one. He's mine. I'll
have that one. I'll have Cornelius. I'll have
Sergius Paulus, as we read on a little bit later on. He'll
have his people. He'll have the Sauls. He'll have them from all
different backgrounds. But what do they do? What does
the church do when it comes together? In verse 2, as they ministered
to the Lord and fasted. The Holy Spirit had come and
he'd revealed the Lord Jesus Christ to the believers, to this
church. and his work is going to be done.
He's going to be done by his chosen instruments. But he's
going to bring worshippers and when worshippers come together
and they minister to the Lord, they minister to the Lord. What
a remarkable thing it is that there is a ministry on this earth
that reaches to the Lord. To the Lord there are They are. This chosen people, this to do
ministry, this ministry is to do service. In fact, literally
it means to discharge a public office at one's own expense. It's going to cost. What a blessing
to have a ministry that reaches unto the Lord. There is a religion
in this world that permeates so much of this world that God
in Isaiah chapter 1 verse 14 says He hates it. He says, My
soul hates your religious activities. He hates religious activities
that doesn't honour the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified,
that doesn't hold Him up as He is, that doesn't faithfully declare
Him, doesn't faithfully declare His truth. There is, in this
world, a lot of ministry that never reaches to the Lord. But to be a minister is to be
a servant, is to do service. One of the most glorious pictures,
one of the ones that I love the most, it's a glorious picture
in Exodus of the servant. And we've been there several
times. But when God gathers his people together, And God gathers
these people together. He gathers them in places in
verse 24 of Exodus 20, where I record my name and I will come
unto thee and bless thee. And you're not to do any work.
You're not to come up to God on the basis of any steps that
you build. You're not to create something
of your activity that somehow enhances the work of God, which
he has promised to do amongst his people. And then there is,
in Exodus 21, this law regarding servants, this law regarding
ministers. And it speaks of a Hebrew servant.
If you buy a Hebrew servant, verse 2, six years shall he serve
and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came
in by himself, he shall go out by himself. If he were married,
then his wife shall go out with him. If his master had given
him a wife, then she shall have borne him sons and daughters.
The wife and her children shall be her masters, and he shall
go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly
say," this is the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, this is the
words of all of God's ministers, all of God's servants, I love
my master, I love my master, I love my wife, I love my children,
I will not go out free." The Lord Jesus Christ would not go
out free. Then the master shall bring him
unto the judges. And he shall also bring him to
the door and unto the doorpost, and his master shall bore his
ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him forever. What a great picture of ministry. If you want to read about that
and understand that that's the Lord Jesus Christ, turn to Isaiah
50 verse 5 and Psalm 46, and he shall be described to you
in all of his glory. So it's by him, by him we serve. We are servants by the grace
of God. The minister, the servant therein
that we've described in Exodus 21, there's nothing he loves
more than being a servant. There's nothing he loves more
than being used of the Lord in his service. By him, Hebrews
13, 15 is a great description of worship. And by him, therefore
let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God. This is worship,
this is ministry to God that reaches to Him continually. It's a continual ministry. That
is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. It's the
fruit of our lips. So to minister is to do service. It was a word that's used to
describe the activities of the priests in the tabernacle, to
minister in the holy place. It is the work of the tabernacle.
So only priests, only with offerings, only with the offering of the
Lord Jesus Christ, minister to the Lord. They minister to him. So to do the work, you have to
be made a minister. But the commissioning of these
two men that we see here is a commissioning that happens in the context of
church. as the church service was going
on. See, church service leads to
public activity, and public activity rebounds back to the church.
The sending of these men is a sending both by the Holy Spirit and by
the church. It's not left in the hands of
organisations as it is these days. It's a church activity,
and they are commissioned. They are commissioned here, and
the Holy Ghost said, Holy Ghost said, separate me Barnabas and
Saul. The church was there praying
and fasting and they laid hands on them. They had, this church,
they had a word from God spoken to them. I don't know why commentators
do it, but they speculate on how God managed to speak to people.
I don't know why they think he has a problem speaking to people,
and why he might have a problem speaking audibly to people. The
Lord Jesus Christ did it for three and a half years. The Holy
Ghost said, the Holy Ghost said, the Holy Ghost is God Almighty. The Holy Ghost has all of the
power of Almighty God, and he speaks personally. He says, I
separate unto me." He speaks as a person. He is a person,
brothers and sisters, just as God the Father is a person, just
as God the Son is a person, which is why when God describes himself
as having these activities that relate specifically to human
beings, he's wanting us to know that the relationship between
us and him is a personal relationship, and the relationship between
him and those who oppose him is a personal relationship, and
people are personally responsible, and they have a personal relationship
with God. But in the context of church,
they hear a word. As they are ministering to the
Lord, they hear from God. They hear from God the Holy Spirit.
and they hear a particular word about particular people and they
hear that there's a work. There is the work. Separate unto
me these people for the work. We'll talk about the work in
a minute, but I love what verse three says. And when they had
fasted and prayed, they'd already been fasting and praying. When
they had fasted and prayed, they laid hands on them and they sent
them away. God had chosen them to be sent
away. Now they were sent away. See,
what God's church does and what God's people do is they pray
back God's promises to him all the time, don't we? He says to
us, he says, put me in remembrance. He doesn't mind being put in
remembrance, brothers and sisters. He wouldn't ask us otherwise.
It's so good, isn't it, to pray God's promises back to him. Because
this is a work which is a work that was promised from the foundation
of the world. I love how David, when he was
told that he wasn't going to build the temple because he was
a man whose hands were covered in blood in 2 Samuel chapter
7, And then, and he wants to build a temple, he's living in
this palace, and he says, I'm going to build a temple for God.
And Nathan says to him, well, go ahead. What a good idea. And
then God comes and speaks to Nathan and says, no way. He's
not going to do it. Nathan comes to David and says,
you're not going to build a house. You're not going to build a house
of stone for me, your son's going to do that, but I'm building
a house for you. I'm building a house for you."
He's speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't he? He says, you'll
be my servant and he's going to build a house and he's going
to establish this house forever. And David turns and says to the
Lord, do as you have said. Do as you have said, fulfill
your promises, my great God. You've made a promise to me,
just fulfill it. He's made promises sealed with
his blood. The church heard a word from
God and then they prayed. They laid their hands on them. The message is clear, isn't it?
It says in verse 4, so they being sent forth by the Holy Ghost.
They were sent forth by the Holy Ghost, but they were sent from
the Church. They were commissioned in the midst of the Church, ministering
and serving and worshipping God. They were people who had dedicated
their lives in that church to teaching and preaching. They
had been faithful in the activities that God had laid before them.
Seemingly simple things like just taking some money to Jerusalem. They had discharged those duties
faithfully. But the point is, of course,
that God is going to honour his church. In everything he does,
he's always going to honour his church. God will do nothing in
this age, this gospel age, except through the church. He will build
his church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against us.
Man can build all of the religious organisations in the world, but
God will build his church and his church will be a living,
powerful witness to him. Man will act as if somehow God
needs his assistance to get things done. The Church of God is just
serving him, they're ministering to him, and they hear a word
from God and they were sent forth. So the Holy Spirit separates
by a word, doesn't he? He says, separate these two for
me. And he calls the separated ones to his work, to a work. The Holy Spirit speaks personally,
the Holy Spirit speaks with all the authority of God. It's God's
work. So therefore the success of this
work is in the hands of God. Holy Spirit is committing Himself.
This is the work, isn't it? He will take the things of the
Lord Jesus Christ and He will show it to His church and He'll
gather that church together and they'll do the things that Simon
read to us out of 1 John. They will be gathered together.
They will stand shoulder to shoulder. They will love each other. They
will be gathered. Unto Him shall the gathering
of the people be, is the promise of the child of Judah. And there
is a service, isn't it? It's my work. He says, the work
we're unto, I have called them. So there is the remarkable privilege
of the Church, isn't it? The privilege of the Church is
to minister to the Lord. The privilege of the Church is
to be called into His service. I love what he said to Peter,
our Lord Jesus Christ on the Sea of Galilee. He said, feed
my sheep. Feed my sheep. He owns the sheep. He bought the sheep. They were
his in eternity. He says, you feed my sheep. Don't
worry about trying to feed the goats. You feed my sheep. Find
my sheep and feed them. Feed them. There's a promise
given, there is a prayer prayed, there's an activity. He shall
send them out and they shall not fail. So what is the work?
The work is very simply the declaration of the gospel. Verse 5 it says,
and they preached the word of God. They preached the Word of
God. It is the preaching of the cross. In 1 Corinthians, Paul describes
what he was doing in those churches, what he'd done in the church
in Antioch, what he'd done in the church amongst the believers
in Damascus when he was first saved, he never had to change
a single thing. And when we come to read the
sermon, Lord willing, next week in Acts chapter 13, we'll find
that the sermon in Acts 13 is almost a replica of the sermon
in Acts chapter 2 and the sermon in Acts chapter 10. It's all
the same. Once the foundation has been
laid, we don't have to fiddle with it. We just build on the
same foundation. We say the same thing over and
over and over again. For the preaching of the cross
is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved. I love the tense of that, isn't
it? When were you saved? First Timothy 1.9. You were saved
in eternity. You were saved by the Lord Jesus
Christ unto us. unto us which are saved. This
preaching of the cross is the power of God. For it is written,
I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will bring to
nothing the understanding of the prudent. For after that,
in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased
God. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believed. this Roman proconsul,
this Roman deputy, in verse 12 of our passage in Acts 13, when
he saw what was done and believed, being astonished at the doctrine
of the Lord, being astonished at the teaching of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It comes as an astonishing thing
The people heard the words of the Lord Jesus Christ and they
were astonished at His doctrine, astonished at His teaching, for
He taught them as one that had authority. The preaching of the
cross is the power of God. It's the power of God unto salvation. So these men, Go on this work. This work is actually a history,
isn't it? There's a history of this work.
It's a history established. We are reading in Acts a history
book, but it's a history book, isn't it? It's a story of the
Lord Jesus Christ. They left Antioch, and they were
in their church, and they went to, verse four, they went to
Seleucia, which is just the port city from Antioch. And no doubt,
even though it's not mentioned, Paul, wherever he went, he went
preaching. And now they go to Cyprus, which is the home state,
the home island of Barnabas. And no doubt, like all of us,
when the gospel first comes with power to us, the first thing
we want to do, the first thing we want is for those that are
closest to us and those we care most about to hear. We want for
them to hear. And Barnabas is no different
from the rest of us. This island is just visited once.
They arrive in verse 5, when they were at Salamis, they arrived
at that town which is on the eastern side, the closest port.
to Antioch, and they preached the word of God. They preached
the word of God in the synagogue of the Jews. Now this was Paul's
custom throughout the rest of the Book of Acts. You'll find
that he first goes to the Jews. He goes to the place where there's
a door opened in the synagogues. There was a door opened for someone
who came. Is there a word of exhortation
from the Lord? He preached the word. And there's
no mention of gospel success at all. It may be. It may be that what the Holy
Spirit is showing us is that God will send his servants just
to get one, just one, one child of God. He preached the word. He preached the word to the Jews
in the synagogue. And they had John, also John
to their minister. John is John Mark. Unfortunately,
we find out in verse 13 that John leaves and goes back to
Jerusalem. I think he came from Jerusalem
with Barnabas, his uncle, and came with Paul. Now, he was keen
to go into the ministry, but if you note back what we saw
in verse 2, there was a separate me, Barnabas, and Saul. There
was a time for Mark to conduct his ministry. In fact, later
on he becomes very useful to Paul and becomes a great friend. But this is not the time for
John Mark. He was with them, but he was
with them just for this time on this island. And then they
came, verse 6, when they had gone through the isle under Paphos.
So they'd started on the eastern end of the isle of Cyprus and
they ended up on the western end. And Paphos is a city that
was famous for its worship of Venus. And Venus is the god,
the god of sexual love. In fact, a contemporary Christian
called Athanasius said in Paphos the worship of Venus was the
deification of lust. The deification of lust. They made lust their god. And someone said, neither man
nor woman could resort to the shrine of Venus without being
defiled in mind and depraved in character. They were just
religious houses of prostitution. Just religious houses of prostitution. There's the work. There's the
journey that the work causes God's people to go on. A journey
to this island, a journey from one end of this island to the
other end of this island. But wherever this work goes and
wherever this word goes, there is raised up, as Simon showed
us out of 3 John, there is always an enmity
to the gospel. There is always a reception of
the Gospel, but there is, as Paul says to the Thessalonians,
he says, the word received with much affliction. Wherever the
word comes, the enemy will be raised up. When the word came
into this world in his incarnation, the Lord Jesus Christ, immediately
there was enmity raised up and Herod sought to slay not just
him, but just to make sure that he didn't miss him, he slew all
of the children in that town. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
was revealed through his public ministry, he was led by the Holy
Spirit into the desert to be tempted of Satan. And we find
the Lord Jesus taken to Calvary's tree with those who were children
of the devil standing opposed to him. And when the gospel comes,
In the power of God, and the church is established, and the
witness of the Lord Jesus Christ is established as the resurrected
reigning ruling saviour of this world, there is, there is always
enmity raised up. And we've seen it throughout
Acts, haven't we? And the enmity is always raised up to silence
the word of God, to shut the apostles up in prison, to silence
them, to take the head of James, to shut them up. And here on the Isle of Paphos
was this man. They found a certain sorcerer,
a false prophet, a Jew whose name was Bar-Jesus. Bar means son. Jesus is the name
Joshua. He had a remarkable name, didn't
he? He's the son of Joshua. Joshua means Jehovah saves. He's claiming, isn't he? His
name highlights him as one who claims and would have claimed
to have been the true son of God. Luke won't use his name. He called himself that name,
but Luke called him Elymas, the sorcerer. And he withstood them,
verse eight. Sergius Paulus was a prudent
man and he desired to hear the word of God. To be prudent is
to desire to hear the word of God. That's wisdom, isn't it? To hear what God says. And he withstood them. When they
came, and they no doubt came, and they came preaching in the
synagogues of Paphos as they did in the synagogues of Salamis. There were a lot of Jews living
in that island of Cyprus. He withstood them, seeking. Listen to what it says in verse
8. is a sorcerer seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. So this man, this man Elimus,
was there as a powerful and influential man. We're not quite sure and
we don't know and we don't need to delve into whatever magic
tricks he had, but no doubt he used all sorts of all sorts of
the cunning and scheming of Satan with lying wonders to deceive
the very elect if he could. He was there masquerading, wasn't
he, as an angel of light, and yet he's only exposed as all
of them ever are. They're only exposed as they
really are when the Gospel comes. They're only exposed. It's not
our job to go searching them out and hunting them out. Our
job is to simply preach the Gospel. We have a work to do. The work
is to preach the gospel and we're not to get distracted from the
work by looking into all these other things. The very best advice
about all of that occultic activity, that sorcery, all of that stuff
is to stay as far away as possible. Don't have anything to do with
it. Don't even begin to have anything to do with it. You don't
need to know about it. We just look to the Lord Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. It's only the presence of God
that exposes the false. It's only the light of the gospel
that exposes what is false. All of us have been caught up
at one stage or another in religion that seemed to us like it was
sound and worthy and did great things. and we were part of it,
and we rejoiced to be part of it, and we thought that we were
ministering to God. It never went above the ceiling,
brothers and sisters. It was only when the gospel came
that we saw who the Lord Jesus Christ really was, and it's only
when the gospel came that the enemies are seen for what they
are. It's only, Elimus is only, only exposed Through the work
of the Holy Spirit, they were full of the Holy Ghost, these
men. And it was the Holy Ghost who exposed them. It's not our
job to even go searching for them. Our job is to preach the
gospel and leave God to do the things that he has done. This
man, says Paul in verse nine, He says, and Saul, who was also
called Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him
and said, O fool of all subtlety and mischief, thou child of the
devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert
the right ways of the Lord? He's the child of the devil.
And what does the child of the devil want to do all the time?
The first activity of Satan is, did God really say? The first
activity of Satan, as he's revealed in the early church, is to stop
and hinder the word of God. That's what he did, isn't he?
Sergius Paulus, in verse seven, desired to hear the word of the
Lord. And what did he do? He withstood
them, seeking to turn the deputy, verse eight, away from the faith. See, the work is to describe,
isn't it? To describe the Lord Jesus Christ,
who is the faithful one. It's the faith of the Son of
God. And here is Satan's activity,
isn't it? Stop the word of God. Wherever
there's a child of God, there is a foe. He's the enemy of all
righteousness. He was a subtle and mischievous
perverter. He perverted the right ways of
the Lord. See, the ways of the Lord are
light, aren't they? The ways of the Lord are truth.
The ways of the Lord are open. The ways of the Lord are declared
openly to all. God's ways are not hidden ways
by the children of God. We don't hide it, we just openly
declare the truth and we wait for God to do His work. Satan is aroused. Satan is provoked to action when
the Gospel is revealed, when the Lord Jesus Christ is revealed.
It has become so much evident in our history that when we find
there being people stirred up in opposition, and I met with
one yesterday, and my immediate reaction was, you're stirred
up. I'm looking around for the Lord
to come with a blessing here. Wherever the Lord is revealed,
there is a stirring up. I remind you yet again that Elymus
was not an outwardly wicked man. Sergius Paulus was a pro-consul,
which means that he was a deputy in the Roman Empire. He was equivalent
to the emperor in power. He hadn't achieved that success
by sitting around and playing games in Rome. He was a military
commander. He had seen tens of thousands
of people. He had witnessed thousands of
people dying. He was a man much experienced
in this world, and he was an intelligent man. To be deceived
by the early masses has got nothing to do with your intelligence.
It's got nothing to do with your wisdom, and it's got nothing
to do with your experiences in the world. And the only solution
for those who are taken captive by the early masses of the world
is for someone bigger and stronger to come and say, I'll have him. I'll take him, he's mine. He'll plunder, isn't it? The Lord Jesus Christ defeats
Satan. He defeated Satan on the cross and made a public spectacle
of him. And he is the strong man, isn't
he? He went into that strong man's house and he bounds the
strong man and he says, I'll take them all. I'll take them
all. Here I'll come to this Roman
Empire, this empire which is the greatest empire that man
has ever put together on this earth and controlled more people
and more territory than any other." And he says, I'll have Cornelius.
Thank you very much. I'll show you what I'll do to
the Roman Empire. I'll take out of the Roman Empire
all of mine. Thank you very much. I'll take
them out from the slaves in the galleys. I'll take them out from
the palaces of the kings. I'll have them, all of them.
Satan and his ministers are angels of light. And the Lord Jesus
Christ comes. and he exposes that light to
be darkness and that light of his shines in the darkness and
he opens the eyes of his own and he brings them to himself.
The ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the way. Elimis is a great picture
of all enemies of the gospel. A great picture of the judgment
of God upon those who oppose the word of God and oppose the
gospel. In verse 11 he says, Now behold,
the hand of the Lord is upon thee. The hand of the Lord is
upon God's servants to bring them into the light, and the
hand of the Lord is upon this man. And thou shalt be blind,
not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on
him a mist and a darkness, and he went about seeking some to
lead him by the hand. We had seen in the last chapter,
hadn't we, we'd seen Herod lived a little of hell on earth as
he lived for those days, eaten from the inside out with worms,
about to go to a place where the worm doesn't die. Elymas,
Elymas was made blind. Jude declares that there's a
blackest of darkness forever reserved, reserved for the eerie
masses of the world. It was for a season. He was blind
for a season. It appears from the history,
and I don't want us to take the history that we read to be anything
other than something that might help us a little, but the word
of God is perfectly sufficient in itself. But the history declares
that Elias received his sight again and continued on in his
wickedness. Continued on in his wickedness.
He had the light. He had the opportunity, he had
the light of the gospel come to him, and he rejected it and
stood opposed to it. It was just for a season. And when he died, he had the
light of the knowledge of what he had done before him in the
clearest daylight you could ever wish, and it stayed there forever. Elimus, who stood proud and stood
with this man, Sergius Paulus, was now brought low. He thought
he was a guide to the blind. He thought he was a teacher.
He took a position of authority. And now he's a picture. He's
a picture for us of those who turn people from hearing the
word of God. Beware, be warned. Angus Fisher,
be warned all of us about what turns us from the Word of God.
What turns us from the Word of God? The Word of God, as we see
in 1 Peter chapter 123, the Word of God is by the Gospel. It's preached, the Gospel is
preached to you by the Word of God. So what keeps us? What keeps us from coming to
church or to cause us to be greatly concerned? The church, as Simon
said, is the place where God gathers with his people and ministers
to them and they are caused by the grace of God to love each
other and to nurture each other and to guide and to support each
other into the truth. There's so much There's so much
that keeps us from hearing God's Word. We have never had in all
of history the access to the Word of God that we have today. And Spurgeon said 120 years ago,
he said, there's enough dust on the Bibles of London to write
damnation. I don't want to make rules about
reading the Word of God, but I'm just saying that Elymas is
someone who withstood the Word of God and didn't want it to
be preached and didn't want it to be heard. There is so much
that causes us to be turned from reading the Word of God and from
meditating on it and from being in conversation with people. As Malachi describes those people
who feared the Lord, they gathered together and they spoke often
about Him. We need the work of God in our
lives to remind us that in our flesh, in our Adam flesh, there
is all the subtlety of the self-righteousness of aliens. There is. In our nature,
there is a doubting continually of the word of God and we say,
did God really say? There is, there is in this world
of ours so much that perverts the word of God and we are left
wondering, did God really say so much in our flesh? There is,
in those parables that Lord Jesus Christ told of the seed that
was sown, there is that seed that just falls by the wayside
and it's taken in a heartbeat. The birds of the air take it.
There is that stony ground. the people that receive it gladly
for us this season, and it just withers away. There are the thorns,
the thorns, the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of
riches and the lust of other things, and they choke the Word
of God. Alienesses are around all the
time in our world and in our flesh. There is a withering away
because of affliction and persecution, and there is that soil, that
good soil. Lord, make me soil that hungers
and thirsts after your word, hungers and thirsts after your
word. And let's briefly look at what happened, what happened
to the enemies. Did the enemies hinder the gospel? The enemies don't hinder the
gospel. In fact, Elimus's antagonism against the gospel probably butted
Sergius Paul to say, I want to know about that. You are sitting
here, haven't you, who have been butted by the enemy of this gospel
into the arms of the Lord Jesus Christ. Butted by those who say,
no, no, no, that's not right. Follow me and follow me in this
religion. And they butt, they butt God's
people into the kingdom They're all, they're all the servants. Ultimately, Ely Mass is the servant
of Sergius Paulus' soul. He believed, he believed, he
was astonished at the doctrine, at the teaching of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Sergius Paulus. could say, I
was once but blind, but now I see. Ealing must claim to see and
then had to confess that he's as blind as a bat. The scales
fell off his eyes and he was astonished. He believed, he believed. He that believes in the sun has
eternal life. They'll be made to believe through
the preaching of the Gospel. They'll be made to believe because
God's servants will be sent to them. And we'll finish with those
lovely words in our passage in Acts 13.32, and we declare Unto you, glad tidings. We declare unto you, glad tidings. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we do thank you for the history of this man, the history of your
servants, and we pray, Heavenly Father, that you would cause
us as individuals and cause us as a fellowship to be used by
you. Cause us, Heavenly Father, to
be people who worship the Lord Jesus Christ in spirit and in
truth. We praise you, Heavenly Father,
that you seek such, and you create such, and you sustain such, and
no matter what the powers of the enemy might be, you continue,
Heavenly Father, to uphold your people by your omnipotent, powerful
hand, and point us again and again to the Lord Jesus Christ.
As we take these elements, Heavenly Father, we pray that you'd cause
us to remember Him, to remember Him with fondness and gladness
and remember Him for the glory of who He is and the extraordinary
work that He's done on Calvary Street, to take away our sins
and make us, make us the very righteousness of God in Him. Bless us, Heavenly Father, for
Jesus' sake. Amen.