May the Lord be pleased to bless
us together this evening as we meditate in his word. Let us
turn to the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 28, and we'll read the
last two verses. The Acts of the Apostles, chapter
28, and reading the last two verses. And Paul dwelt two whole
years in his own hired house. and received all that came in
unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things
which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence,
no man forbidding him." In the Acts of the Apostles we
read a lot about the Apostle Paul. his journeyings, his missionary
journeyings and of course we also read about his conversion
when he was travelling on that road to Damascus and the Lord
wonderfully and gloriously appeared to him and converted him and
there was an amazing change in that man from a person who had
been very anti to all the Christians and did all he could to persecute
them and cast them into prison. But then the Lord came and struck
him down and there he was then, a changed man. And it's so fascinating
really to read that from that time he then began to preach
Jesus, to preach the gospel. A wonderful, wonderful change
really. in that man. But then as we read
through the Acts of the Apostles, we read of his many journeys,
the many hardships he encountered, until we come down to this last
chapter in the Acts of the Apostles, and there we read about the last
days that are recorded in the Bible about him. The reality
is of course that we don't know what happened to the Apostle
Paul after this, apart from what historians tell us and we believe
that he was in fact martyred, but just when and how we're not
actually told. So we have here this statement
that he dwelt two whole years in his own high house and received
all that came in unto him. We might think, well, that was
a very wonderful time, a very wonderful occasion. Well, I'm
sure it was a very wonderful time and a wonderful occasion,
but we mustn't forget that he wasn't really a free man. He still had a soldier that looked
after him. He was still in chains, although
he was in his own house. So his freedom wasn't perhaps
what we might expect. And yet, you see, he was wonderfully
favoured during this time. It was during this time that
he actually wrote the epistles to the Galatians and the Ephesians
and the Philippians and the Colossians and the Hebrews and the second
epistle to Timothy. So he wasn't idle, although it
would appear that, of course, epistles that were written by
him, he wrote as he was moved by the Holy Spirit of God. So although they may seem an
enormous amount of work to us, perhaps he sat and wrote very
readily or very easily, or a scribe sat and wrote very easily as
the Apostle dictated to him. So we see there really that's
the background to these last two verses. And Paul dwelt two
whole years in his own hired house, and received all that
came in unto him. Really what I want to speak about
tonight is the last verse. Because he received all these
people, they came in unto him, and what did he do? Well it's interesting isn't it, we
have a very terse statement. preaching the Kingdom of God
and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ,
with all confidence, no man forbidding him." So he had freedom to speak
and to teach. And from these simple statements,
you know, it is instructed to us because he didn't speak about
things which were of no profit, or of no benefit. He didn't speak
about what the people were doing. He didn't speak about the weather. He may have mentioned it, but
we are told here what he did. He preached about the Kingdom
of God, which really means he preached the Gospel. And of course,
there's nothing more important, is there, than the Gospel of
our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I mean, I hope that we've come
here tonight, not just because it happens to be Tuesday evening,
and it just happens to be the evening when we preach the Gospel,
but we've come here to hear the Gospel. We've come here to hear
something for our eternal souls. And therefore, we can imagine,
here's the Apostle then, preaching the Kingdom of God. to those
people that came to his house. We know that the Apostle loved
to preach the Gospel. We know that the Apostle took
every opportunity to preach the Gospel. I often think that's
a lovely account in the 17th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles
when he's found in Athens. And he was alone. He hadn't got
all his friends with him. And what did he do? Well, every
day he went into the marketplace. He went into the marketplace
to do what? To preach the Gospel. It's a
good testimony, it's a good evidence for us. And the Apostle Paul
was never worried. about the ills that came upon
him, the beatings that he endured, the imprisonments that he endured.
No, his great desire, his great cause for blessing was to preach
the Gospel. What a mercy, no, if you and
I have a similar desire in a day and age in which we live. Well,
it's a privilege, isn't it, for us as we're able to go down on
that first Saturday each month into the Redhill Town Centre
and to have a market stall. We don't physically preach the
Gospel, but we do distribute the Gospel, and that is a wonderful,
wonderful blessing which God has provided for us. And we should always be very,
very thankful for such an occasion. You know, these times, like with
the Apostle Paul, without any doubt, he could have been doing
other things. He could have perhaps been enjoying
the scenery. He could have been going around
to see this scene and that scene, and to perhaps eat in the various
taverns which were in existence, but it would seem very clear
the Apostle's great concern was for the Gospel. And that meant
his great concern for the salvation of souls. We live in a sad day,
really, when there's not very much concern for the salvation
of souls. There's a concern to be able
to do everything else, rather than come and hear the preaching
of the Gospel, rather than to read the Word of God, wherein
is contained all the Gospel. I mean, it's a blessing when
reading the Bible is the predominant book or media that we look to
each day to read and to consider and to meditate upon. Of course
these things are naturally not easy because we all have a sinful
nature, a fallen nature which prefers to do everything else
and produces many reasons. why we should do everything else.
Well that wasn't the example that the Apostle Paul set before
us. Again and again we read in the
Acts of the Apostles how he was blessed and how he was so concerned
to declare the great truths of the Gospel, every opportunity.
And so here we have this statement, preaching the Kingdom of God
and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ,
with all confidence, no man forbidding him." It's a good thing when
we have confidence in believing the truth of the Word of God. It's not easy at all to speak
the things of God or to teach the things of God when we don't
have a confidence in the things of God. I remember when I was
a student that was one of the problems I had. I hadn't got
confidence really in the knowledge and understanding of the truth
of God and therefore I was very careful to avoid any questions
or anything that I might have to face, knowing that probably
I wasn't able to answer them. What is a good thing, especially
you youngsters tonight, to believe and to have this confidence in
the great truths of God and be able to speak well on the truth
of Scripture, to speak well on the great and glorious plan of
salvation? Any apostle here was teaching
those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ. That, of course,
is a well that has no bottom. It's a great deep. It's a great
depth. And as I believe we know, and
I've told you all, we go back to Genesis. Genesis 3.15, which
sets before us In those days of Adam and Eve
when they so disobeyed the Word of God, the Lord came and spoke
to Adam and Eve and told them that the seed of the woman would
indeed be that which was to squash or defeat the serpent. What a blessing then to look
right back and then as you go right through the Word of God
and I'm sure the Apostle Paul in this glorious time of teaching
would have spoken of the Lord Jesus Christ. You may remember
that the Lord Jesus said about Abraham, Abraham saw my day and
was glad. He hadn't of course seen the
Lord Jesus physically, but by faith he believed the glorious
prophecies contained in the Old Testament which speak so clearly
of the Lord Jesus Christ and how wonderfully instructive it
is to read the Old Testament and to find those prophecies
which speak in detail of the Lord Jesus Christ. They speak
of his birth, they speak of the virgin birth, they speak of where
he would be born. They are all prophesied and that
is very confirming. to our souls to have such statements
in the Word of God that you and I may be able to follow and to
have a right understanding. He did desire therefore to give
them, to teach them, the things which concern the Lord Jesus
Christ. That was so relevant then and
it's so relevant today. that people are taught the things
that concern the Lord Jesus Christ. People sometimes pass over the
simplicity of the Gospel and yet the simple Gospel is good
news to every soul. And what is the good news of
the Gospel? It's really this, that Jesus
Christ came into this world to save sinners. And if the Holy
Spirit has convinced us that we are sinners, and by that I
mean this, we've disobeyed the Word of God, we haven't followed
the Word of God, none of us have, we've all been guilty, and therefore
we all need to have a Saviour and there's only one person that
can save our souls and that is the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a line which says, what
think ye of Christ is the test. That's really the test of our
religion. What do we think of the Lord
Jesus Christ? not just as an historical figure,
which he was, and which we can be very thankful for. But what
do we think of him? I sometimes refer to the book
written by Solomon called the Song of Solomon. And in the fifth chapter, what
we refer to as the Bride of Christ, because It's really an account
of the Bride of Christ and the Heavenly Bridegroom, who of course
is the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Bridegroom, as it were,
lost her way. Well, in actual fact, she'd been
too lazy. You know, she'd been seeking
the Lord, and then there came a time when, well, she got washed
and she got into bed and she was pretty comfortable. And then
the Lord came and knocked at the door and she wouldn't get up. She
wouldn't get up to let the Lord in. She was just too comfortable. Then you see, when she did decide
to get up and open the door, the Lord had gone. He had withdrawn
himself. He wasn't there. And that's a very instructive
lesson for us today. We're not to pick and choose
our time. The Lord knows what we need. What a blessing it is if he knocks
at our door and we're ready to receive him whatever time it
may be, whatever day it may be, day or night. to be ready to
open to him. Well, she was distressed because
the Lord was not there. She went about the town and asked
the people, the church people, had they seen her beloved? No,
they hadn't. And then they asked her a very
important question, very simple, And the question was this, what
is thy beloved more than another beloved? That really means, how
much more important was the Lord Jesus Christ than everyone else? Well, that's a good question,
isn't it? For us today. How important is Jesus to us
today? You know, We're dependent upon
Him for our salvation. He should surely be the most
important person. Well, the bride of Christ was
asked the question, what is thy beloved more than another beloved?
Well, she was able to give a very good answer. And if you read
the fifth chapter in the Song of Solomon, I won't go through
it tonight, you can go home and read it. And you'll find there
she tells what he means to her in all his various parts, his
feet, his hands, his head. She goes through it, she itemizes
all the various parts. And then she comes down and she
says, and this is my beloved, and this is my friend, O ye daughters
of Jerusalem. who were of course the Church
of God. So the blessing is that she was able to refer to the
Lord Jesus Christ as her friend. It's a lovely term, isn't it?
We know what a friend is, don't we? We're pleased to have friends,
aren't we? We're thankful to have friends.
But Jesus Christ is the chief friend. And what a mercy for
us today if we can come and say, yes, he is my friend. You know what the bride said? She said, he is the cheapest
among 10,000 and the altogether lovely. There was no one really
that exceeded the Saviour in beauty to her. Well, as we might
think of the Apostle Paul, receiving people into his lodgings and
explaining to them the beauty and the glory of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Must have been wonderful occasions,
mustn't it? We're not given the details.
There's many things sometimes we're not given details of. We're
not given details of that occasion when the Lord Jesus met those
two on that journey to Emmaus. where he preached it out of all
the Scriptures. We're not given any details.
We're not given any details here. But my friends, there's room
isn't there for you and me to go home and to study the Scriptures
and to find the Saviour, to find the Lord Jesus Christ. And in finding Him, to find there
in our own heart, in our own souls, the beginning of the new
birth, the beginning of the life of God in our souls. Whereas
to know that on one occasion, or put it this way, on the truth
that before we were born again we were dead, spiritually we
had no life, We had a natural life, we didn't have a spiritual
life. What a blessing when God has begun a good work. Here, with all confidence, it
reminds me of that verse in the Philippians that
the Apostle Paul wrote to the Philippians. I remember he wrote
it when he was in this house in Rome. He says this, being
confident. Again, it's good, isn't it, to
be confident of the things of God. Sometimes people seem to take
joy in not being confident, in doubting the work of God. The Apostle Paul didn't doubt
the Word of God. So he says, being confident of
this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you
will perform it. until the day of Jesus Christ. There's no doubt the Apostle
would have gone through his own conversion and gone through perhaps
many other people's conversions. The beginning of the work of
God in the soul, the beginning which testifies of our need of
a Saviour, when we feel guilty before a holy God. We realise
our sins, that we're not as good as we thought we were. And if
you ask somebody today, are you a sinner? They'll say, well,
yeah, perhaps I've done one or two things wrong in my life,
but on the whole I've been a pretty good person. Well, that's not
the testimony of the Word of God. The testimony of the Word
of God is outlined in the Apostle Paul's life himself, where he
tells us that he was, in his own eyes, the chief of sinners. That means he was the biggest
sinner, he wasn't a little sinner, and yet Paul was a wonderfully
blessed man. Well, the more the Holy Spirit
shows us of our sin, the more glorious and the more precious
will be our salvation. To think that Jesus came to save
our souls, the price required by God was the life of the Lord
Jesus Christ. It was His death. He became a
sacrifice you read through the Old Testament and you see, from
beginning to end, sacrifices, sacrifices, sacrifices. And those sacrifices, they set
before the people the need there was for a sacrifice for sin. And so often that was set forth
in, of course, lambs or bullocks, sometimes in lesser things, sometimes
doves, but generally speaking it was an animal and that had
to be slain and then offered up on the altar to God as a sacrifice. And what that meant was this.
The people that offered those sacrifices, the sacrifice cost
them something. Because it couldn't be some scruffy
old animal. It had to be as near perfect
as possible, possibly the best in their flock, and they had
to take it and they had to offer it up to God, an offering, a
sacrifice. Well, the Lord Jesus Christ,
he offered himself as that great sacrifice to take
away our sins. You can read through, again I
won't go through it tonight, especially the ninth and tenth
chapter in Hebrews, which speaks so very beautifully of this sacrifice
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It was that which was acceptable. You see, every good thing that
you and I could do, would never be perfect and therefore would
never be acceptable to God the Father. We would always come
short, would never be acceptable. So the only way that you and
I could be saved is through the sacrifice, a perfect sacrifice,
and the only perfect sacrifice was the Lord Jesus Christ giving
himself. That was a perfect sacrifice
and that was acceptable unto God the Father on our behalf. Well, I believe that surely directs
us. And I'm sure the Apostle Paul,
when he spoke to the people that came to him again and again,
he taught those things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, he would
have come to Calvary, wouldn't he? Would have come to Calvary. And there he would have pointed
out the Blessed Saviour, giving his life for sinners, giving
his life for the Apostle, giving his life for the whole Church
of God. Because what that meant, when
the Lord Jesus Christ gave his life, he shed his blood, his
precious blood, as it's termed by the Apostle Peter, and how
true it is. You see, Christ's blood was so
precious. Without shedding of blood, there's
no remission, there's no forgiveness. That blood had to be shed. It
was pictured through the Old Testament, through all those
slain animals, but it culminated at Calvary. My friends, never,
never tire of coming to Calvary. Never tire of looking there to
see the Lord Jesus Christ suffering, all that incarnate God could
bear, with strength enough and none to spare. And remembering
that the Lord Jesus Christ spoke those wonderful words when he
gave up his spirit, it is finished. The great work, the vital work,
the important work that the Father had given his only begotten Son
to carry out the Son, and faithfully completed it." It is finished. What words they were. What wonderful
words they were. What glorious words they were.
And your salvation and my salvation depends on the adequacy of those
great and precious words uttered at Calvary so many years ago.
Well, tonight, do we come Do we come to the cross? Do we look
up to the Saviour? Do we view Him suffering on our
behalf? And do we believe that we are
complete in Him? Do we believe that we are saved? through his great and glorious
sacrifice. In this chapter we read those
words and Jesus spoke concerning both out of the law of Moses
and out of the promise from morning till evening. Yeah, he didn't
tire, did he? He carried on, didn't he? You
remember we spoke last Lord's Day on Nehemiah. Again, that
was a tiring time for the people. But he didn't tire. It was wonderfully
good news. And we're told, and some believed
the things which were spoken and some believed not. And that is the solemn truth
of all those who hear the Gospel preached. There are some that
believe and some that believe not. Those who believe are eternally
saved. They are saved through that glorious
sacrifice of the Saviour. They are complete in Him and
by the grace of God one day they will be found in glory, rejoicing
in that great and wonderful love. We sung about it, didn't we,
in that hymn 766. Very beautiful words. On such love my soul still ponder. Love so great so rich, so free,
say whilst lost in holy wonder, why, O Lord, such love to me? Have we received the wonderful favour
of God, the evidence of the work of God in our heart, that we
are amongst those who believe this glorious Gospel message. It's good news. It's wonderful
news. Yes, and the Apostle loved to
declare it. The Apostle loved to speak of
it and he loved to preach it. Well, may we all rejoice in it
tonight. Preaching the Kingdom of God
and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ,
with all confidence, no man forbidding him." May we have a wonderful
confidence in all that Jesus did. Go home tonight and praise
God for it. and search our hearts to find
there the wonderful evidence that we read in that verse to
the Philippians in the first chapter and the sixth verse. He which hath begun a good work
in you, if he has, he will perform it in the day of Jesus Christ. Well, rejoice tonight. There's
so much to rejoice, isn't it? You know, when you think of our
favoured position tonight, to be able to come together on a
week evening to hear the Gospel, many people in the world would
love to do so, are prohibited and inhibited. Ours is freedom. Bless God for it. Preaching the
Kingdom of God and teaching those things which concern the Lord
Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him. Amen.