Acts 9, pick back up verse 22. Now, we're going to look at 22-31,
so that's your homework assignment. Go home and read those verses
again. I always like to do that when
I can. It helps once you hear the message
to go back and read it again. What we have here now is Saul
of Tarsus, has now been converted. The Lord has saved him, made
him on the road to Damascus, conquered him, and he has saved
him. And now he becomes a preacher
of the gospel. Now we know through Galatians
1.16-18 that he went to Arabia for three years, and this is
not mentioned in the book of Acts. So there may be a gap in
here when this went on. But anyway, we find that he preaches
the gospel. And the Jews, they are confounded. He confounds them with the message. And some of them want to kill him. They want to take his life. They
hate him as much as he hated the church. You know, there's
the old saying, you get a taste of your own medicine. Well, Paul
is now getting the taste of that hatred that he vented out. And so they seek to take his
life from him. Darkness always hates the light. Darkness will never love the
light. It always hates the light. The gospel, one of the things
we will see here is that the gospel separates. It separates. You know, our Lord said, I didn't
come to send peace on earth. I didn't come to send peace on
earth, I came to divide. Our Lord came to divide the sheep
from the goats, the wheat from the tares. It's what He came
to do, and His gospel does that. It separates sheep from the goats.
A gospel that allows everyone to get along is not the gospel
of God. You're okay, I'm okay, is not
okay. That's not okay. We can't just
get along with all these other denominations because it's a
lie. A lie and a truth can't walk
together. Darkness and light cannot walk
together. except to agree how can they
walk together. They can't. They cannot do that. They can't walk together. Walking
together shows agreement. When you walk with somebody,
you are showing that you are in fellowship with that person,
you are in agreement with that person. And the gospel separates. It separates light from darkness,
sheep from goats. It separates families. It will
separate families. and friends. These Jews that
wanted to kill Paul, they were once his friends. They once walked
hand in hand. The Gospel reveals what we are
by nature. And the Jews, listen, the Jews
were offended when they heard that they were just as sinful
as the Gentiles. That was offensive to them. The preaching of the gospel will
bring out that natural enmity that's in our old heart. It'll
bring it out. It wasn't until Paul heard the
gospel preached that his natural enmity against God came out. All that time, he would swear
that he loved God, God was his Father, that he was obedient,
but when the truth was revealed, when the truth came out, that's
when his enmity against God, the God of this Bible, not the
God of his imagination, the God of this Bible, that's when his
enmity came out, and that's when man's hatred of God will come
out, is when he's faced with the truth. It'll come out. The preaching of the gospel will
bring the attacks of Satan and the attacks of men. Satan does
not like to lose his followers to God's glory, and men do not
like to lose their followers, their supporters. They don't
want to lose their supporters. That's what the Jews, they said
at one time, and I'm going to paraphrase, if we leave Him alone,
everybody's going to follow Him. That's what they said at one
time. Everyone's going to follow Him. The whole world's going
to follow Him if we leave Him alone. Anyone lose their supporters? And because of this glorious
gospel of God, we who believe and preach it shall suffer for
it also. Sooner or later, we will suffer
for the gospel. If we stand for the gospel, we
stand up for it. And if you believe the gospel,
I believe the gospel, we will stand for it. We will stand for
it. and it'll bring out that natural
enmity that's against God, it'll come out against us. The world
as a whole is not happy to hear this gospel. Oh, they like that
health, wealth, and happy gospel that's being preached today,
but this gospel of count the cost? No. This gospel that gives God all
the glory? No. They don't want to hear that
gospel. You don't want to hear that at all. And it brings out
that natural enmity. Now before I say something about
our sufferings, I want us to look at the Lord Jesus Christ
and His sufferings. Because if we look at our sufferings,
if we understand our sufferings in the light of His sufferings,
our sufferings are what? Just light afflictions. That's
all they are. Anything you and I will ever
suffer in this lifetime over the gospel, will be just a light
affliction, that's all it will be compared to his sufferings. Now it says in the Scriptures
that his sufferings were ordained of God. We saw that back in Acts
4.26, that the sufferings of our Lord were ordained of God.
Everything he suffered was ordained of God, as well as our afflictions. Our afflictions are ordained
of God. It's not only given to you on behalf of Christ to believe
on Him, it says in Philippians 1.29, but to also suffer for
Him. Now our Lord's suffering, He
suffered the rejection and insults of men, even of His own, before
He saved them. Look at Paul. What an example.
Paul breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the Lord
Jesus Christ. And when the Lord struck him
down on the road to Damascus, he asked Paul why he was persecuting
him, himself. Because whatever you do to the
body of Christ is done to Christ. Anything that's done to a member
of the body of Christ is done to the Lord Jesus Christ. And
so our Lord, He suffered the rejection and insults of men.
They said, He's a blasphemer, He's a wine-bibber, He's a gluttonous
man. He was misunderstood, He was
misrepresented, and He was unappreciated. And that's exactly what will
happen to us also if we stand for the gospel. He felt their
insults. It is written, he groaned in
spirit. He felt their insults more than
you and I will ever feel the insults of someone else. We can feel them, but we don't
feel them like he felt. He felt the real core of that
insult. And he groaned in spirit. He
suffered injustice at the hands of men. They lied on him. It says in Isaiah 53, His judgment
was taken away. He suffered abandonment by God. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? You and I who believe will never
know what that is. We'll never know what it is to
be completely, completely abandoned by God Almighty. You know what hell is? Hell is
to be forsaken of God. Forsaken of His mercy, His kindness,
His love, is to be forsaken of God. He suffered the full attacks
of Satan when he was in the wilderness, his temptation in the wilderness.
He suffered the full attack of Satan. You and I will never suffer
the full attack of Satan. We couldn't handle it. We couldn't
handle the full attack of Satan. But our Lord suffered the complete
full attack of Satan. Now listen to this, this is beyond
comprehending. He suffered Himself to be made
sin. He who knew no sin suffered Himself
to be made sin. And that being so, he suffered
the full wrath of God against sin. Whatever that is, I can't
imagine that. But the full fury of God's justice aimed on that
one person. And know this, he took all our
sins. The sins that we will commit
before we leave this building, Jesus Christ suffered for. That's why God's grace can continually
come to us. His grace continually reigns
through the righteousness of Jesus Christ, the righteousness
of His life and of His death. I was thinking, sitting in the
study as I was going over this, I thought, the very sinful thoughts
that will go through my mind even before I get out here, He
died for them. He suffered for them. You sitting there right now,
you will not, you will not, and I will not, we will not, let's
put it that way, we will not give our full attention to what's
being said today, will we? Christ died for that. Can you
imagine that? He died for the fact you can't
even give your full attention to this. He died to put that
away. I can't even begin to touch and
scratch the surface of what our Lord accomplished for us. Even in my weakness of preaching,
even in my sinfulness as I preach, yeah, there is sinfulness in
me and it comes out. I look back at times and I think,
well, why did I say that stupid remark? Why did I make that stupid
remark? I mean, I've made a lot of stupid
remarks. He died for that, too. I thought about this. I thought
Rahab the harlot lied. You know what? A lie is a lie.
He died for that, too. You say, well, that wasn't a
bad lie. A lie is a lie to God. And he died for that lie, too. He died for all our sins. All
our sins. And the full wrath of God was
taken out on Him. He knew suffering because He
knew us. Because of His union to us. And
the purpose of His suffering is this, that He might purge
us from our sins. You have been purged from your
sins. Now you who've been saved, you
know something of the guilt of sin. You know something of what
sin is. And you've been purged from it. You know what that word... I
mean, purged? You don't have it no more. It's gone. You've
been cleansed of it. It's gone. It's gone. It's hard for us to get a hold
of that, isn't it? See, faith has to lay a hold of that. Faith has to lay hold of that
because we don't feel that. We don't feel that. We feel our
sins. David said, my sins are ever
before me. We feel the guilt, we feel the
filthiness of it. But they've been purged away.
And I have learned this as I've gotten older. that by faith you have to take
hold of the Word of God. And believe that. Trust Him.
Trust the Word of God. He suffered the just for the
unjust, that He might bring this to God. That's what His sufferings
also did. He suffered, the just one suffered
for our injustice. Now when God's law begins to
mean something to you, which His law won't mean anything to
you until God means something to you, because God is His law.
Now, when He really begins to be real to you and mean something
to you, His law means something to you, and then being justified
means something to you. And then you realize this, the
just, the just one, the one who knew no sin, died for the unjust,
the criminal. You know, you realize you and
I are a bunch of criminals? I'm telling you the truth. As
far as God's law is concerned, you and I are criminals on death
row. You say, well, I haven't done
anything that bad. Well, every one of you who believe, you know
you have. You say, what have I done that bad? You sinned against
God. Against thee and thee only have
I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. That's the greatness
of sin, is who it's against. It's against God. And He suffered these things
so that God could be a just God and have anything to do with
people like me and you. That in the ages to come, He
could show us off as trophies of His grace. And the result
of his suffering is this, the people for whom he suffered,
they shall not suffer the wrath of God's justice. He has purged
them from their sins, and they shall stand before God faultless,
without blemish and without blame. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them who are in Christ Jesus." There's no condemnation hanging
over my head. Am I condemnable? I am in myself. I am in myself. There'll be things
we'll think of or do that we ought to be condemned for, but
Jesus Christ was condemned for us. He shall present us faultless
before the throne of His grace. And the result of His suffering
is this, we now have a high priest that can be touched with the
feelings of our infirmities. It says in Isaiah 63, 9, "...in
all their afflictions he was afflicted." "...in all their afflictions
he was afflicted." And now a word about our sufferings. And after
talking about his sufferings, and I pray, and I do, I pray
that God will give us a fresh sense of Calvary. Christ and Him crucified." You
see, that's what's missing so much. Well, everything's missing
in today's preaching, but they want to just talk about Jesus
the miracle worker and the one who fed the 5,000. When Paul
said, I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and
Him crucified. Let's not separate the cross
from Him. Let's preach Jesus Christ, His
person, and His work, the cross. Now, a little note on our suffering.
Not all suffering is for Christ's sake. Scripture says, Man that
is born of a woman is a few days and full of trouble. Sin brings
trouble to every person on this earth. Every person on this earth
will sooner or later be sick. You get sick, you get cold, you
get this, you get that. Sin gives us trouble, whether
you're a believer or an unbeliever. He says, man is born to trouble
as the sparks fly upward. Let me say something about our
sufferings here. Get into it. Our sufferings are
measured out. This is important. Our sufferings
are measured out like medicine. You know, you go to the doctor
and he gives you a prescription and you take so many milligrams
of this a day. You know, it's measured out.
The sufferings of Christ were not measured out. They were full
force. And I don't know if I can say
this right. I don't know if they see this
statement, but when I think of it, I think of it. It's God wore
himself out on Christ. Does that make sense? It's just like he exhausted,
he exhausted the wrath of justice. He exhausted it. Our trials and
sufferings are just measured out. We just get a few milligrams
of it. We get just a few milligrams.
Christ didn't get a milligram of suffering. He got the full
blow. Completely. Completely. And our sufferings, now listen,
our sufferings, and this is important, our sufferings are not punishments. He suffered punishment. He suffered
the law. Our sufferings are chastenings.
Even when we suffer for the gospel's sake, it's still just measured
out. It's still measured out. Now,
as our Lord was misunderstood and mistreated and misrepresented,
we will be also. The servant is not greater than
the master. You see over in verse 6, the
believers, when they heard about Paul, they didn't want to receive
him. Barnabas had to bring him in
and introduce him. They didn't want to receive him. They said,
we heard about this man. This man's evil. I know what's
going on. He's pulling one on us now. He's
slipping in here to find out who the believers are, and then
he's going to jump on us. He's going to pounce on us. Sometimes we will be misunderstood
and misrepresented. And then we will suffer the hatred
of men for the gospel's sake. If we stand for the truth of
the gospel, we will be separated. We will be separated. Our Lord
said, if they have hated Me, you can mark this down. You can
just write this down. If they have hated me, they will
hate you also. That is a fact. They will hate
you also. And we shouldn't be surprised
or offended when this happens. And I've told you this story
before, but when I very first heard the gospel, I went back
to the place I was attending, and they were upset. They were upset. They wanted me to leave. They
honestly wanted me to leave. I had no problem. I had no problems
attending there until I heard the gospel and I started talking
about the gospel, the true grace of God. And they didn't want
to be around me no more. So don't be offended or surprised
when you stand up for the gospel, you are going to be hated for
it because Jesus Christ was hated for it. Paul told Timothy, he said, be
a partaker of the afflictions of the gospel. Be a partaker
of the afflictions. Afflictions come with the gospel. And then we will suffer loss.
You know, Paul said he has suffered the loss of all things for Christ's
sake. We will suffer loss. We cannot
love the Father and love the world. He said you can't do that.
Over at 1 John, he said you can't love the Father and love the
world. One of them has to go. Now, you
say, what's he talking about? Because he says, love your enemies,
pray for those who despitefully use you. He's talking about the
very principles by which the world operates. You can't love that. You can't
love the world because the world is darkness and God is light.
You can't do that. Our Lord said this, He that loves
mother, father, sister, brother more than Me is not worthy of
Me. Now you and I, now listen, we ought to love one another
as we love the Lord, shouldn't we? But not more. Not more. Wouldn't you have your children,
would you have your children to love each other as they love
you? Wouldn't you want them to do
that? Well, yes. But our Lord is saying, you don't
love them more. Because whatever you love more
is what you idolize. What you love more is what you
worship. You will put that before Christ. Whatever you love more. He that loveth mother, father,
sister, brother more than me, not worthy of me. He said to
that rich young ruler, Go sell all that you have, and come follow
me. And it says he went away sorrowful. Sorrowful. Do you know how rich he would
have been if he had sold all that and followed Christ? You
and I who believe the gospel are the richest people in the
world. We're the richest people on this
earth. There is no one on this earth more rich than I am, and
you who believe. That's the truth. Those are the
things I think of now. Those are the things I set my
mind on, the things above. Now, I still do things on earth,
but I try not to. But they do grab our attention
as they whiz by, don't they? They do grab our attention. Our Lord said this once before. He said, before following Him,
sit down and what? Count the cost. Count the cost. You know, our Lord doesn't just,
He doesn't say, well, join up and this. He doesn't make it
look like this glamorous life. He says, count the cost because
it's gonna cost you your life. He that saves his life shall
lose it. It's gonna cost you your life. This earthly life
that we've been living, it'll cost you that. And you don't
care to give it up, do you? You don't care. We are to lose our ambition.
You know what the believer's ambition is? Oh, that I might
know Him. and the power of His resurrection.
That is, the power of His resurrected life in me, that I would know
that. Lord, make that evident in me. Make Your life evident in me,
in my life as I live out this life. That's my ambition. And that's the believer's ambition.
That's our ambition. And then we will suffer inward.
There's a war raging in every believer. You know that? There's a war raging in the heart
of every believer because of Christ in you. Christ in you. There's a war going on in you.
That old nature is never better. Our Lord didn't renovate the
old nature, He created a new one. And there's a war between
the two. Now here's the purpose of suffering.
Let me get to this. Here's the purpose of suffering.
Now the purpose of it is not to save us. Jesus Christ is our
Savior. Suffering doesn't save me. It's
for God's glory. Our suffering is for God's glory.
Listen, it's also that you and I would know something more of
the depth of God's love and grace. It's also good for the body of
Christ. He purges every branch that it
might bear more fruit. You know what He does over in
John 15? Does He not purge every branch? You take, if you want grapevines,
as Doug grows, if you want grapevines, you prune those things back till
they look like they're about dead. And why do you do that? That they bear more fruit. And
our Lord purges us. He prunes us. He prunes, He cuts
us back. Why? That we might bear more
fruit. That's why. And then to teach
us how frail we are. Oh, what a lesson we need to learn.
We need to learn that we're not as strong as we think we are.
We're not as fast as we think we are. We're not as smart as
we think we are. We're not as good looking as
we think we are. We're just not what we think
we are. We're not. He teaches us how frail we are.
You get a little germ, you get sick, a germ you can't even see.
The next thing you know, you're in the bed and you can't even
get up. I was dreaming before I woke
up this morning, clock goes off, and I was at the hospital and
I was on the floor and I couldn't get up. I was trying my best
to get up. People wouldn't even help me.
They're sitting there watching me trying to get up. I'm like, and I remember
thinking, what's wrong with you people? I can't get up. And I
got my arms up on the chair, and I still could not get my
legs to work. Teach me how frail I am. Even
in that dream. That's weird, but that dream
was so real. When I woke up, I was like, I
can move. I can get up. But I realized
how frail you and I really are. Our bodies are what? Made of
clay. It's made of clay. Drop a clay
pot and see how fast it breaks. They teach us how frail we are.
As someone said, God has no sons without suffering. He had one
son without sin, but no sons without suffering. And then we suffer, suffering
may help to encourage others to suffer the same things. You
know that we are all, all who believe God, all who are born
of God, we are all brothers and sisters born for adversity. Your
adversity, your adversity in a little while will help somebody
else. It will help someone else. They watch you go through it.
I can tell you, I can look back, and the things I watched my pastor
go through has helped me to go through some things that I've
had to go through. It's been a big help. They encourage others
to suffer the same things. And on the note on this matter
of suffering and what they produce, we need to remember this. And
it'll encourage us that all our sufferings are appointed, just
as the sufferings of our Lord were appointed. You know, I don't
know what is meted out for me today. I don't know. I don't know what you're going
to suffer today. But it's appointed. And that's such good news. I'm
just so glad we're not willy-nilly just rolling along, aren't you?
It's all appointed. Our God is a God of order. They
all have their purpose. I've got to show you, I'm trying
to get along here real quick, but we got to go to Psalm 119. I got to show you this. In Psalm 119. In Psalm 119, look in verse 67. Psalm 119, verse 67. Before I was afflicted, I went
astray, but now have I kept thy word. Look in verse 71. It is good for me that I have
been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes. Look in verse
75. I know, O Lord, that thy judgments
are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me. They're good
for me. Now what did Paul learn? Let
me quickly say this. What did Paul learn and what
do believers learn through suffering? Paul said in Philippians chapter
4, I've learned in all things to be content. There is nothing
under heaven that will make you content or learn contentment
like trials and suffering. This is what you and I are going
to learn, to be content. To be content with the Lord and
to be content with where He has put us and what He's given us
and what we're going through. I have enough. You have enough?
I have enough. I was telling somebody the other
day, I said, I'm comfortable. I'm comfortable. You know, the
worldly man says, more, more. You know, it's like the sea,
it can't be full. But the believer, You do come to this point, I
have enough. If I have Christ, I have all.
And if I have all, I don't need any more, do I? If I have all,
there's no more to need. I mean, that covers it all. I
have all. I have it all. And then God knows how to listen.
God knows how to deliver His children, His children through
all temptations. He knows how to deliver them.
You know, they were going to kill Paul. They were going to
take his life there in verse 23. The Jews took counsel how
they might kill him, so they laid in wait to get a hold of
Paul. And then the disciples took him
by night, led him down by the wall in a basket. God took their
elaborate plan. Now, this is almost, well, I'm
going to say it's almost funny, but it's not. They've got this elaborate plan
to kill Paul. They're going to get him. And
so there's this basket. This basket's been around for
years. And it's a good-sized basket. This basket's just the
right size. It couldn't have been a little
old basket like this. I mean, it has to be a basket big enough
to put a man in. And Paul was supposedly a little man, so this
basket fit Paul. And here's this basket sitting
there for years. And one of the disciples looks
over and says, Hey, you know what? Paul, let's use this basket. We'll let you down. And God delivers
Paul from their wicked intent by a basket, down by a wall,
and he escapes. Our Lord said that no temptation
shall overtake you, but that he will, with the temptation,
make a way out. It might be a basket. It might
be a basket, but it'll be whatever God uses, and it'll be something
simple. to confound the wise. All right. That's enough. th th th th