May it please the Lord to be
with us as we continue our meditation in the Acts of the Apostles.
And this evening we'll speak on the 20th chapter down to the
12th verse. And we continue to follow Paul's
journeys. We read, and after the uproar
was ceased, Paul called unto him the disciples and embraced
them and departed for to go into Macedonia. When he had gone over
those parts and had given them much exhortations, he came into
Greece. It's worthy of our notice that
the apostle here exhorts the people as he journeys and as
he went for that considerable journey from Ephesus to Greece,
We're not told exactly where, but nevertheless, it was some
distance. And as he journeyed, we read
that his great desire was that he had given them much exhortation. It wasn't just a little exhortation,
it was much exhortation. And exhortation is really, of
course, to follow the word of the Lord, isn't it? And we have
the the Bible which we have today before us. Of course in those
days they didn't really have the New Testament. They had the
Old Testament, but the New Testament was being written, or perhaps
much of it had been written, but there was still much to write.
And therefore Paul was able to speak of those things which he
personally had been made aware of by the Lord himself. And it was his great privilege
therefore to be able to preach and in that preaching we read
these words that he gave much exhortation. Well we need to
heed such statements that as the gospel is declared there
must be much exhortation to the people to encourage them to follow
the word of God, the ways of God, the examples of those who've
gone before that we may be encouraged to follow those blessed examples
that we have in the Word of God, and of course especially the
glorious example of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. So the Apostle came then with
much exhortation into Greece, and there abode three months. And when the Jews laid wait for
him, as he was about to sail into Syria, he purposed to return
through Macedonia. And we see here that Paul wasn't
just saying, well, I'm going to go on that journey, and I'm
taking that way, and I'm sure God will take care of me. Well,
we know that the Lord will, of course, take care of his people.
But all the same, the Lord does give us that ability to not run
into serious difficulties when it is obvious there are going
to be problems before us. And so here we see, the Apostle
Paul didn't follow the way that he initially thought. And there
accompanied him into Asia, Sopata, Berea, and of the Thessalonians,
Aristarchus, and Secundus, and Gaius of Derby, and Timotheus,
and of Asiatichus, and Trophimus. These going before tarried for
us at Troas. So we see there was quite a little
group of them really going along, and able men whom the Lord had
blessed, and here they were to go before Paul into a meet-up
at Troas. And so we read, and we sailed
away. from Philippi. Well one must
assume that the apostle here is speaking of, or rather Luke,
who wrote of course the Acts, is speaking of himself and the
apostle Paul. So no doubt there was at least
Paul and Luke who travelled in this way. And we sailed away
from Philippi, that of course is the capital of Macedonia,
and after the days of unleavened bread, and came unto them to
Troas in five days where we abode seven days. And we shouldn't
think that although he mentions the days of unleavened bread,
that he was now still following the Jewish tradition. It was
just a date in the Jewish calendar, the Hebrew calendar, that he
was able to refer to to give some time scale. And came into
them to Troas in five days where we abode seven days. So he was there in Trias for
seven days. And upon the first day of the
week, when the disciples came together to break bread, and
here we have the example of the disciples keeping what we call
the Lord's Day. Indeed it was referred to as
the Lord's Day in the book of the Revelation. In the first
chapter in the Revelation and the 10th verse we read, I was
in the Spirit, this is John, I was in the Spirit on the Lord's
Day and heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet. So there we see they were keeping
here what we now keep as the Sabbath, we keep it as the Lord's
Day, upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came
together to break bread. They clearly came together to
worship, and they came together to break bread. And to break
bread clearly was the communion which the Lord Jesus had instituted
on that day of Pentecost, very shortly before he was crucified. And he speaks of this, the apostle,
on a number of occasions, of course, about the breaking of
bread and the relevance of it. And in the 10th chapter of the
first epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, we read, I speak
as to wise men, judge ye what I say. The cup of blessing which
we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ. The bread
which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? So he's speaking there very clearly
about the elements that are set before us, the blood of the Saviour
and his broken body. And here they came then to break
bread on this first day of the week they came together. And
it would seem that it was the the obvious thing for them to
do. And of course, as we know, those
disciples, they were all baptised, they were all baptised believers,
and they gathered together then to break bread on the first day
of the week, on the Lord's Day. So we have here a testimony and
an example for us on this first day of the week, while we do
it once a month, normally on the first day of the month. And
on this occasion, at this situation, Paul preached unto them, ready
to depart on the morrow. So, on the seventh day, he preached
unto them, ready to depart on the morrow, and continued his
speech until midnight. Well, we can imagine, can't we? Here he is in Troas, He's only
been here really for just a few days. He was in Ephesus, as we
know, for a couple of years. He was in Greece for three months,
and here he is in Troyes for this relatively short time now. And therefore, he had a lot to
preach to the people, a lot to tell them, a lot to explain to
them. We must remember, here is the
early church, but you know, early church doesn't really differ
from those who are new believers. In their spiritual life, they're
the early church in their spiritual being. And so we can recognize
that there's a lot to speak, a lot to say, how much there
is to teach young believers in the way. And so here the apostle,
realizing he was moving on, and he therefore preached for a long
time, Indeed, we're told he preached until midnight. Well, we're not
sure when he started, but it was clearly a long sermon that
he was preaching. And we're told there were many
lights in the upper chamber where they would gather together. And
they're sat in a window because he was preaching in the upper
chamber. He wasn't preaching on the ground
floor. He was preaching in the upper chamber. And there sat
in a window a certain young man named Eutychus being fallen into
a deep sleep. And as Paul was long preaching,
he sunk down with sleep and fell down from the third loft and
was taken up dead. Well, one or two things here.
First of all, we see he was a young man and he was sat in a window
where there was no requirement to sit in a window. Perhaps he
wanted to be seen, wanted to be observed. It wasn't a normal
place to be found sitting, and yet here he was, sat in a window. So that was not a good thing.
And then secondly, although we know Paul was preaching a long
sermon, yet clearly this man was not able or not alert enough
to follow the great truths that the Apostle was preaching, because
they would have been great truths, and the effect was that he gradually
fell into a deep sleep. Well, we need to be careful,
don't we, that we don't come together to worship and we fall
into a deep sleep. We come to hear the Word of God. And so here was this man, And
as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell
down from the third loft, and was taken up dead. So it was
clear, therefore, that he was taken up as a dead person. And then we read, And Paul went
down, and fell on him, and embraced him, and said, Trouble not yourselves,
for his life is in him. And it would appear therefore
that God brought about a miracle in the life of this young man
so that he was raised from the dead. When he therefore was come
up again and had broken bread and eaten and talked a long while,
even till daybreak of day, so he departed. But again, the apostle
didn't stop, and glory in the wonderful miracle which had occurred,
no doubt they were all indeed very thankful because of it.
But here he was talking a long while, discussing, I'm sure,
the things of God, those things which are so vital and so important. And it seemed that sleep wasn't
very important to them. They were there wanting to hear
the Word of God. And they were listening to the
truths of what the Apostle spoke. And he spoke until the break
of day. Well, we sometimes perhaps complain
when preaching goes on a bit long. But you know, here was
the Apostle. He was so concerned to get the
message across to the people. He was so concerned that the
people might hear the word, realising that he might not ever meet them
again. And therefore what a privilege
it was. And he didn't want to waste the
opportunity that God had given to him. And so he taught long,
right until the break of day. And it's interesting that, just
a small point, when the apostle left Troas, after this short
time, it was there of course at Troas where he left some of
his goods. And you may remember that when
he wrote to his son in the faith Timothy, at the end of the second
chapter, we read in the fourth chapter, in the 13th verse, he
tells us, he says, and Tychicus have I sent to Ephesus. The cloak
that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with
thee, and the books, but especially the parchments." So we see when
he left Troas, he wasn't able to carry these pieces of equipment. It may be that he was really
so concerned to move on that he left them behind. Anyway,
we do read that he required them as he wrote to Timothy at a later
time. And when he therefore was come
up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long
while, even till daybreak of day, so he departed. And they brought the young man
alive, and were not a little comforted." Well, I'm sure they
were comforted that that young man hadn't lost his life. The
Lord was very gracious. and how encouraging it was for
these people, the young Christian church, to realise the compassion
and mercy of Almighty God. So as we just consider these
few verses here tonight, The principal points really are the
exhortation that the Apostle desired to bring to the people,
and then the breaking of bread. Because in the breaking of bread,
what did it do? It set forth the communion of
the body of Christ. And surely that should be central
today. As we meet together, as we especially
come together around the table of the Lord to remember the dying
love of the Saviour, and to often be reminded of it, because our
salvation depends on the wonderful sacrifice that the Lord Jesus
Christ made. Our salvation depends upon the
blood that he shed to take away all our sins, and to think that
the cost of that was his broken body. And so the Apostle brought
these things before the people in the breaking of bread. And
my friends, may we always be concerned to consider these great
issues because they should be food and drink to our spiritual
souls so that we can rejoice in what Christ has done and indeed
be able to praise and glorify and honor his great and holy
name. Amen.