Let's turn now to Acts chapter eight.
Acts chapter eight. Now let's turn back to chapter
six first of all. Let me just refresh your memory.
about who we're talking about. When you begin chapter eight,
he's talking about Stephen. You remember Stephen was a precious
man, a very faithful man. Look at verse five of chapter
six. It says that the people were pleased by the wisdom given
to the apostles to pick out deacons, and they were pleased with the
same, and they chose the first one they chose. So evidently
he was held in highest esteem among the people. It says they
chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost. In verse 8, Stephen was full
of faith and power and did great wonders and miracles among the
people. And it says in verse 10 that
the enemies of the gospel, the Pharisees and Jewish people,
they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by
which he spoke. And he was a wise man, too. I'm not sure how old he was,
perhaps a young man, I don't know. Verse 15, look down there,
and it says, when he stood before the Jewish council, all they
that sat in the council They saw something in this man. Even
these unregenerate people saw something very special about
this man. They looked steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had
been the face of an angel. He just looked like Christ, is
what it was. He had the countenance of Christ. I've seen that same
countenance on some other people, some people I know. I've seen
it in faces I'm looking at tonight. I'd love to call some names,
but I wouldn't. But I firmly believe that about this man.
Some people here look over chapter seven. Chapter seven, verse fifty
nine, and this precious man. It's precious, precious chosen. Choice servant of God, this man
who was. Was just a member of the church,
really, he wasn't a pastor, an elder. They called him as a deacon
later on. But this precious well-beloved
man, verse 58, says they cast him out of the city and beat
his brains out with rocks. Stoned him. Now chapter 8. Now this is where
we pick up our story in chapter 8. Read verses 1 through 4 with
me. And Saul says they laid down
their clothes, the people who stoned. In other words, why did
they take their coats off? Because they really wanted to.
This was a brutal scene. They took their clothes off so
they could really do it right. Took their coats off so they
could really gather stones and just crush them. And they lay
their coats at the feet of a young man whose name was Saul. How
young? It says a man, so he was at least in his early thirties.
And they stoned Stephen in verse one of chapter eight, and Saul,
this young man named Saul, was consenting unto his death in
agreement to it. And at that time there was a
great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem.
And they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea
and Samaria, except the apostles. Evidently they hung around in
that immediate vicinity. And devout men carried Stephen
to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for
Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house and
hailing men or dragging men and women, committing them to prison. Therefore they that were scattered
abroad went everywhere preaching the word." Now the book of Acts, the book of Acts could be dissected
into many gospel messages. We saw that in chapter seven,
didn't we? You could have easily spent a great deal of time in
just chapter seven alone. We could have spent a dozen,
a dozen messages on chapter seven alone. But I believe the book
of Acts, if you'll notice the way it is, the heading of the
book of Acts, it says the Acts of the Apostles. That's where
the name came from, the Acts of the Apostles. And this is
a history or an account of the history of the early church,
the Acts of the Apostles, and how God, his sovereign hand,
was moving in the saving, the leading, preserving and the providence
of his special people called the church. And it's for that
reason I don't want to be bogged down. I don't say bogged down.
That's a poor choice of words. You wouldn't be bogged down if
you took each verse at a time. But yet I don't want to take
so much time like that. But I want to look at it summarily
or on the whole as a whole picture. Because I want to see God's providence
in a story, in a story, as to take a bird's-eye view of the
whole thing, in other words. And I jotted this down. It must be important. If we over-spiritualize,
sometimes we lose sight of the lesson to be learned in a particular
passage. How do you want to say it? Spurgeon
was bad about that or Spurgeon was good about that? I don't
know how you want to say it. He did more topical preaching
than expositional. He'd take a verse out of context. He wouldn't abuse it, per se,
but he'd take it out and just, man, he'd fly off with it. And
it'd be a good message, but I want us to see the story, the whole
story. And there's a story to be seen
in the lives and everyday happenings of people just like you and me.
I don't want to lose sight of the fact that this was a story
about people like you and me. All right. Now, this was a time
and this is the way I want to approach these first four verses.
This was a time of severe trial and testing for these people
in this early church. And I say the church, I'm talking
about people like you and me. We're the church. These were
our brothers. Joe, these were our forefathers, per se, our
brethren. people know different than you
know it could have been some long-distance wagon drivers.
Seriously in the I know there was I know there were some people
just like there were some money changers just like their guarantee
publicans as well publicans were musicians from car and so forth
yes on and on they go. Cabinet makers guarantee there's
a bunch of people just like you and me and this was a time of
severe trial and testing for them and that but it was they
were young and weak believers. Early church young and spiritual
age they're all ages but they were young and spiritual age
very young the church had been established long. And they were
subjected to grievous trials and terrible persecution. Unlike
we've ever seen, we can't really relate to what's going on here
because it's so severe. It's just like a bad dream to
us, isn't it? But if we didn't see it in God's
Word, we wouldn't believe it. Grievous trials and terrible
persecution, and the reason God recorded this to show us was
to show us his almighty hand, his providence, his care, that
he's a very real and present help in time of even the greatest
of trouble. We're going to go through some
trouble, but Joe, I don't believe he's going to reach the magnitude
of what these people went through. They could, but they haven't yet. And God is showing us that no
matter how severe the trial, how severe the test, he is a
very real and present help in time of trouble, and he is He
is accomplishing his purpose. His purpose is not being thwarted,
it's being accomplished. Not by ways that we would think,
but he is accomplishing his purpose. Stephen. Take this man, Stephen. He was the, as I said, he was
the first chosen among these people. He was the most loved
and respected, one of the most loved and respected of all the
church leaders. He was a deacon. He was a member
first, a deacon later. He was a friend. He was a brother. He was, we don't know, but he
might have had a family. It doesn't say it. He could have
been a husband. He could have been a father, right? A man. And he was brutally killed right
before their eyes, right before the people, because of his, just
for his stand for Christ. because he believed Christ in
the gospel, and he dared to go out one day and publicly proclaim
the gospel. And he got his brains beat out.
This is a real story. Look at verses 1 and 2 again.
It says, and there was a great persecution against the church
at Jerusalem. They were scattered abroad. Verse
2, and devout men, devout or believers, that is, real believers,
carried Stephen to his burial. and made great lamentation over
him. Now, they were sad. They were in great lamentation,
weeping and wailing, just like happened a long time ago when
the firstborn of Israel was killed. Weeping, wailing, great lamentation. What if this were us? Let's just
put ourselves in this place. What if this were us? What if
this were Joe here, a deacon, a member first, a deacon. What if Joe Parks, what if Joe
Parks were down at the post office one day, or down at work one
day, and began talking to some people about the gospel, and
just began telling the truth. Hey, Christ is Lord. God is God. He's not this puny failure by
talking about. He's God over all forever. He we he doesn't have to save
anybody. What if he just started telling
the truth and Christ is his son and God sent him down here to
accomplish the purpose and he got the job that he has an elect
people and everybody in the scripture says in Psalm two that you better
kiss the sun or you'll be angry and they accept him as his kissing
about his feet. worship him, repent, leave the...
and the men and women where he worked or wherever downtown got
just furious with Joe and beat him to death. Same thing happened. Took rocks
and beat, er, baseball bats and beat his brains out for testifying the gospel. Hey,
it would devastate us, wouldn't it? Huh? What would we do around
here? We would. Oh, my. What a funeral
that would be. It would be devastating, wouldn't
it? Devastating. And it would scare
us. Wouldn't it? Huh? Sure it would. It would
scare us. Look at verse three. As for Saul,
it says he made havoc of the church. It says he started entering
into houses and hailing. The word hailing doesn't mean
hello. I looked it up, it means dragging
men and women. What if now, this happened to
Joe, now what if one day Rick was off to work and people, a
bunch of religious people, bust in his house and grabbed his
wife, a woman. It doesn't say that they put
the children in orphanages and took care of the children, it
says they grabbed the women. grabbed his wife and took her off and
threw her in jail, because they heard that she was down at the
store one day telling somebody about the gospel. The same thing
happened. Put this in terms that we can
understand it. The same thing happened. Real people, real lives,
real stories. You can imagine what terror we'd
be in, wouldn't you? We'd be shaking right now. That
door back there would be locked, wouldn't it? Might have somebody
standing at it. And downstairs might all be huddled
together. It'd be terror. There'd be fear.
There'd be anguish. Right? Well, these people were
going through the same thing, and they loved Christ. They believed
the gospel. They loved to get together like
you and I. The early church, church, they
loved to get together and worship. They'd heard the gospel. They
rejoiced in it, believed Christ, loved to get together, sing the
song and fellowship and all that, and now they were under threat
because of that. They were afraid to meet together
publicly, and so they might have started
meeting privately like us. run up to check meet in Terry's
house or over to Charles or whatever. It says that they began to leave
town, they were scattered, they began to be scattered. They'd
go stay with relatives, they'd go stay with relatives up in
Stanton or they'd go stay with wherever, you know. They'd move
off in different directions. Now, by this time in Jerusalem,
you remember at Pentecost, there were 2,000 people, 3,000 people
saved, wasn't it? At Pentecost, later on, five
at one time. There were thousands of people
at Jerusalem. This was a large church, and
perhaps there were various meeting places. But the church began
to be just absolutely split and torn asunder and broken up and
separated, just absolute havoc. Confusion, madness, terror reigned. Fright, fear, really? And people began to be scattered.
Isn't that terrible? No. It's the glory of God. We've been looking at this from
the standpoint of a man, a human being. Isn't this awful? What's
happening to the Church here? God's scattering the seed. This
is God's wise decree. God sent these things. God sent this trouble. God sent
these trials. God did it for the spreading
of the gospel, for his greater glory. Look at verse 4, and it
says, Therefore, after they were scattered everywhere, they went
scattered, and they went everywhere preaching the word. See, it was
confined to Jerusalem, right? Now, you see, there was no TV
back then. Apostle Paul couldn't go on TV and preach to the world.
He couldn't get on the telephone. People couldn't get on the telephone.
There were no newspapers. Right? He couldn't write articles
in the newspaper and mail them off to other countries. There
was no printing presses. They couldn't get books scattered
out like we get them. The only way to get news out
was how? Back then. Word of mouth. Word of mouth. You say, these are severe means,
though. severe means with which to scatter the people, maybe. But think about this. How else are you going to uproot
people from their homes and their jobs who have been there all
their lives, huh? How else are you going to get
now? We're setting our ways, aren't we? What if we've got
a good job, a nice little house, a nice little nest egg in the
bank, and we're just going to church and everything just as
sweet and kind? And so we need to get the gospel
to the Gentiles. Well, yeah, we do, don't we?
Somebody take it, right? Not me. God says this is how
I'm going to do it. I'm going to bust everything
up, just bust it up. That's what he did. God works
in mysterious ways, doesn't he? Mysterious. He sovereignly works
in ways that are not our ways. Ways that are not our ways. He
said over one of my favorite passages, Isaiah 45. And I know
the church or the false church out there has a real problem
with these verses. Where the Lord said, I am the
Lord, there's none else. I form the light and create darkness. The other verses that say God
enlightens the mind, God darkens, God hardens the heart, God sends
strong delusions that they believe a lie and so forth. It says that
God does that. They have trouble with those
verses, don't they? He says I make peace and I create. Was it said. Evil that's Isaiah forty five
seven. Now that's not talking about
evil in a sense of seeing or moral evil. It's talking about. Calamities disasters bad things
that seem to happen that everybody everywhere passes off as being
the devil. Right. God uses everything and
everyone to accomplish his always immutable purpose. Everything
and everyone he uses devilish. Now the world, oh my, they would
be gnashing their teeth right now, wouldn't they? But this
is our God. You've seen it. 1 Samuel, turn
over to 1 Samuel chapter 16. How do they deal with passages
like this? They don't. They just don't read it. They
don't. Or they give them a translation that doesn't say it. Right? They
make them up a translation, a perversion. It's not a version of the Bible.
It's a perversion of the Bible that doesn't say it like that.
One of the young men was asking me about different translations
of the Bible. I said, test every one of them by Acts 13, 48. Test
them all by that. You can try them all. Which says
in the Gentiles gladly receive the word and they that were ordained
to eternal life believe. Acts 13, 48. They that were ordained
to eternal life believe. I said you check every version
you see by that verse. The false ones, every one of
them, without exception, will change it around. They'll change
it around to say they that believe were ordained to eternal life.
Every one of them. All right, look at 1 Samuel 16.
You see, God Almighty, like I said, He uses everything and everyone
to accomplish His all-wise, immutable, or unstoppable, unchangeable
purpose. Even devils. Even devils. 1 Samuel 16. Now, David, David
was God's king all along, wasn't he? Huh? God never did choose
Saul. He allowed the people to. The
people weren't satisfied. They had Samuel, who was a prophet
and a priest and served the purpose as a king. Samuel was a fine
man. Samuel was a type of Christ,
wasn't he? Beautiful story of Samuel. What a man. Wouldn't
you like to have Samuel reigning over this country? Would you
want Bill Clinton in his place? That's what the people said.
We're tired of Samuel. Tyrol is religious right. Exactly. And they say, give us a king.
So God said, all right, I'll give you a king. He's not my
king, but he'll be your king. And he reigned evilly over them. It was Saul, right? But God all the time had David
as his chosen king. Oh, what a type of Christ that
is. There's never been one, but one king that Christ has He's
been God's chosen king from the very beginning, and it's been
a lot of usurpers down through the years, but Christ has always
been king. He's always been Lord. He's always reigned and ruled.
It's just in the fullness of time has come and God finally
brought his king on the scene. Well, here is, this is when God
begins to remove Samuel and set up David. Verse 14, the Spirit
of the Lord departed from Saul. Now that doesn't mean that I
don't want to get into all this. I'm getting bogged down here.
Saul never had the Holy Spirit of the Lord in the sense that
he was a saved man. He had the Holy Spirit in the
sense that he restrained him from too much evil because the
Israelites were God's people. You understand that? The Spirit
of the Lord led and guided Saul on behalf of his people to keep
them from falling into the hands of enemies and so forth. But
Saul never had the Holy Spirit in his heart. All right. And
look at it, verse 14. That's what I want you to see.
An evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. You see that, Violet? And even the people recognize
it. Verse 15, Saul's servant said, Behold, an evil spirit
from God troubled with him. How do they deal with that? Huh? They don't. Job. I told you about
that man I worked with one time. He was a charismatic, you know,
talking about how Jesus wants you to be healed and God's not
responsible for sickness and all that. I said, what about
Job? What about where it says God allowed all that, decreed
all that to come on Job and let the devil have him? But the devil
could only do what? He said, Job, Job. Everybody
wants to talk about Job. Well. God talked about him as
good enough for me and. God talked about him I better
do some talk I've been considering. And I gave him some scriptures
talking about a papyrus died of sick and so forth though he
said. Listen to this you say God uses
devils. And I've given you these things
before but they're very good they're worth remembering. Thomas
Watson, a man who could put more profound profundity in one sentence
than any of the old writers I have. He said this, God has a hand,
God has a hand in the action, in the action where the sin is, but never a hand in the sin of
the action. God has a hand in the action,
or what's going on, where the sin is, the evil is. But never
a hand in the evil that brought about the action. Let's see if
I can clear this up for you. God Almighty knows perfectly
all the laws of cause and effect. If I do this, this will happen. and stand cause and effect. If
I do this, this will happen like we know the law of gravity. If
we drop something, what will it do? It will fall every time. That's the law of gravity. God
knows all the laws of cause and effect. He knows the natures
of men and devils. He knows the natures of men and
devils. He can create circumstances which
will naturally cause people to act according to their nature. You say. He will create circumstances
which will naturally cause people to act according to their nature.
Are you with me? Come on. This is you got it. You got to listen. And thus he
fulfills his purpose, but he's not to blame for what they did.
Right. This may be a bad illustration,
but we used reverse psychology with our children all the time.
So don't do that, don't you dare touch that door. We'll say something
like that, we'll leave every door in the house open but once,
and don't open that door, I don't want you to go in there. What
are they going to do? What's that kid going to do?
Especially if it's a boy. What's he going to do? It's going
to kill him until he goes in that door. Right? Adam. The weakness of the flesh. And
God created a tree, and this was a proof of his lordship,
his godhood over Adam. Now, he wasn't trying to trick
Adam. No, God doesn't do that. He doesn't tempt with evil. But
he created circumstances knowing the effect that it would have. He's not to blame for Adam's
sin. Not at all. Don't touch that tree. You can
have any tree you want, Adam, but not that one. Which one did
Adam want? You see, and people always blame
every calamity and disaster and evil occurrence on the devil.
The devil never acts independently of God. He can only do what God
allows him to do. The devil. Now, the world would
call this the most blasphemous heresy ever been preached, wouldn't
it? It's so. Because if God, if the
devil could do anything independent of God, if the devil could do
anything, if anybody could do anything independent of God,
God's not God. Right? What does God mean? Absolute
ruler and controller of all things? Lord? What does Lord mean? If
he's Lord, you can't make him that. Huh? Huh? If he's Lord, you can't make
him that. I have given you that illustration
too, and I want to refresh your memory. It's the best I've ever
heard about God's sovereignty and the use of even evil things. That old woman that was praying
in her house that day, she was praying before an open window,
praying to God. She was poor, destitute, no food. She began praying to the Lord,
send me some bread, send me something to eat. There were two rascals,
two ornery Franklin County boys outside the window. And they
heard her praying and said, we're going to trick this old woman.
And so they went to the store and got a loaf of bread while
she was still praying. And they put that loaf of bread
on her window sill. And she opened her eyes after
praying a little while and saw the bread and began to thank
you, Lord, for the bread. Thank you for the bread. Oh,
Lord, you're so good to me. You're so merciful to me. And
those boys popped up in the window and said, oh, you silly old woman.
God didn't bring that bread. We did. We brought you that bread. And she said, well, the devil
may have brought it, but God sent it. You see, that's a perfect illustration. He may send devils to bring bread.
The devil may have brought it, but God sent it. God's the first
cause of all things. And people, that's your only
comfort. If they take that away from you,
you have no comfort. You see, thou wilt keep them
in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, the scripture
says. On who? God, who reigns and rules
and does all things according to his purpose, worketh all things
for good according to that purpose, for the good of his people. And
somehow behind even the most terrible and horrible of events,
I mean the most horrible, horrific, could anything, can you think
of a worse thing to happen in our midst? Can you think of a
more horrible and terrifying event? Like I said, Joe Park
having his brains beat out. It would scare the daylights
out of us. Nancy would be beside herself.
The men, we would have to be over there consoling her. God Almighty did that, didn't
He? God Almighty is sovereignly working
out His purpose for His glory and for the eternal good of His
people. Let me give you the greatest example of that of all. Can anybody guess what I'm going
to say? The cross. Huh? What about the cross? Scripture
says that men took with wicked hands and crucified the Lord
of glory and has never been in all of history a more grotesque,
evil, wicked, horrible. The sun refused to shine. The earth did quake. Man at his worst state, killing
God. That whole scene at the cross
when Christ was killed was the most horrible scene ever in the
history of mankind. Men and devils were unleashed,
and even God was absent. Turn just back. It's horrible,
wasn't it? Wasn't that terrible? The glory
of God shone forth there as never before against the black backdrop
of sin. Under the jewelry store, or used
to, you'd bring out a black piece of velvet or a dark blue piece
of velvet for a background. Why? To make that jewel shine
the brighter. And Christ's glory was displayed
on the backdrop of man's sin as never before. Never before. Oh, that was predetermined. It
said, You have taken with wicked hands and taken and crucified
the Lord of glory, but God said he'd He did it by the determinant
counsel of his own foreknowledge. He did. Now, I've got to hurry. I've got to quit. The more detailed and intricate
the plan is, like a blueprint, you men that know how to read
a blueprint, the more detailed and intricate that plan is, the
more skill is required to carry it out, right? Rick, you and
I could draw us up on a piece of, on a scratch pad, a little
drawing of a doghouse. And we'd build that. Nobody's
going to say much, you know. Good doghouse. You know, but
if now a man, what about the Empire State Building? The blueprints
that went in there. Would you tackle that? Do you
think you could handle that? we wouldn't touch, we couldn't,
we don't have the skill. The more detailed and intricate the
plan, the more skill is required to carry it out, and after it's
all done, and after it's all completed to every point and
detail of that plan, the more honor will be had by the man
who did it. You follow where I'm going? For
this reason, God Almighty wrote a book. It's a blueprint. and more mysterious, more detailed,
more complex, more difficult, impossible for the wisest minds
on earth to figure it out. It says he hid it from the wise
and the prudent. And this detailed and intricate
book, mysterious book, God Almighty wrote it And therefore, in the
fulfilling of it, to every jot and tittle to bring out that
glorious end that he brings it to will bring him the greater
glory. And it requires a greater skill. God will get the greater
glory for it. You see, signs and miracles—I'm
talking about the Bible—signs and miracles are soon forgotten.
Children of Israel in the wilderness, they soon forgot. I mean, Nancy,
do you think that if If we went down to the New River, we were
all going up, and we were going to cross the New River, and all
of a sudden, ooh, it parted. Somebody was chasing us, and
it parted, and we walked up. I think you'll never forget that.
Yeah, you would. Yeah, you would. The general
visitor did. Hey, a bird came down from heaven,
and a rock fallen on it. What's that rock? A rock. That's what happened, people.
A rock followed up. A pillar of fire. Huh? The shoes never wore out. Things like that. Think you'd
ever forget that? Oh, I'd be praising God, blessing
God from now on, sure. Don't believe. They didn't believe. Peter said
we have a more sure word of prophecy. A more sure word of prophecy. Knowledge learned from this—this
is the point I'm trying to make. I'm not doing a very good job
of it. But knowledge learned from this, from a careful study
and a diligent comparison of prophecies and the fulfillment
of them, and eventually experiencing the truth, that God's Word says
something and later on you experience it in your own life. You say,
well, it said that. It's indelibly printed on your mind and heart.
You'll never forget that. When we read the scriptures and
later on experience the truth of what we read, it confirms
it in our minds and our hearts. And plus, it teaches us to walk
by faith. Faith. God honors faith more
than anything else. With proof later on. He says,
walk by faith, not by sight. Walk by faith. Faith in what?
Faith in God's word, the promises. He said, I promised this. Now
go. And we go and the promise is
fulfilled. And God gets the glory, and we
are confirmed. We say, he promised it, now I
can take another step. Take one step by faith, God blesses
it. We see that, it's proven, he said, he did what he said
he'd do. We take another step, he said.
He fulfills it, we say, he did what he said he'd do. Then we
start running. Miracles, signs, and wonders,
unexplained phenomena, are no basis for believing anything.
You can't believe your eyes. The Egyptian sorcerers. Remember
when Moses went in before Pharaoh and threw his rod down and became
a snake. You thought everybody repented right there, wouldn't
you? Pharaoh and all of them. They did. Chief sorcerer's trip. Pharaoh said, I can do that.
And he brought in his wise men and they threw their sticks down
and they become snakes. It really happened. Scripture
says God will send strong delusions that people believe a lie. He'll
send things that people actually see. Miracle, whatever. God will send them. It says God
sends them strong delusions. Why? Why does it say that over
in 2 Thessalonians 2? Because they receive not what? This right here. It's not good
enough. Show us a sign, all the time.
Show us a sign. Show us a sign. That's what the
children of Israel, show us a sign. God said, I'm going to be with
you. I'm going to be with you. I'm your God. But show us a sign.
All right. You want a sign? You get a sign.
You want truth? You get truth indelibly printed
on your heart. And you know the truth. And what? What does the truth do for you?
set you free from time and one from sites to use even say some
I look look at these things on TV sometimes. I don't believe
it. I saw it but I don't believe
it. I believe that's what that goes against God word and I don't
care how clear it appears to be how plain it appears to be
that's a lie. This is true. And always it turns out to be
a lie. Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. This will
always prove to be true. Back to Acts 8 now, and I'll
hurry. So in spite of all this terror and this trouble and pain
and suffering and death and persecution, God was working out his purpose.
He was spreading the gospel. And I wanted to read these. Look
at verse 4. God was spreading the gospel
through all of these And the point I was trying to make there
is that God did it. God brought up these terrible
calamities in order to spread the gospel. Why? Why did God
do it this way? Because thus it was written. Huh? The people later on, they
look back at the Word after the priesthood and say, Ah, God said
that would happen. And we wondered, although we
couldn't understand, now we know. The word went out, preaching
the word. Let me show you this. I want
you to read these with me. Glorious. Read them. Isaiah 60. Isaiah chapter, well, Isaiah
49 first. And you can read some of these
in your spare time. I'll jot them down. I won't read them
all. I want to. I'm not going to, I'm going to
spare you. Isaiah 49, jot these down if you want to read them
later on. Isaiah 49, let's do read this, verses 1 through 6.
Paul quoted this when he said to Jews, when the Jews rejected
the gospel in one place, and he said, well, I'm going to the
Gentiles. Remember that? This is what Paul quoted, Isaiah
49, "'Listen, O wiles, unto me! Hearken, ye people, from far!
The Lord hath called me from the womb, from the bowels of
my mother, hath he made mention of my name?' That's Christ, isn't
it? He hath made my mouth like a
sharp sword, and the shadow of his hand hath he hid me, made
me a polished shaft, and his quiver hath he hid me, and said
unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified.'"
Prince is what Israel means. Then I said, I have labored in
vain, I have spent my strength for naught, and in vain, yet
surely my judgment is with the Lord, and my work is with my
God." People say that Christ died in vain, don't they? No,
he didn't. It's not as though the word of God had no effect,
Paul said. He went to the Gentiles, verse
5. Now saith the Lord, that form me from the wound, to be his
servant, to bring Jacob again to him. Though Israel be not
gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and
my God shall be my strength. And he said, It is a light thing
that thou shouldest be my servant, to raise up the tribes of Jacob.
That is not enough, he said. And to restore the preserve of
Israel, I give you a light to the Gentiles, that you may be
salvation unto the ends of the earth. Every eye will see you
and behold you. Now, we're not going to limit
this thing to that little bitty speck of land over in the middle
of the Middle East. The whole world is going to see
your glory. Now, it's not as though the Word of God has no
effect and Christ died in vain on a little cross, an obscure
cross over in Israel. The world is going to come to
Him. And that's what it says in Isaiah
66. Jot this down. Isaiah 66. You can just browse
through that whole chapter and read that. Jeremiah 16. I wish
I had time to read those. I was so blessed. Jeremiah 16,
19 through 21. Romans 11, Paul deals with it
through Romans 11. Let me just quickly read you
a couple of those from Romans 11. Paul said in verse 11, "...have
they stumbled that they should fall, that Israel out they have?
God forbid, but rather through their fall salvation has come
to the Gentiles." Verse 22, he says, the goodness and severity
of God, on them which fail, that is, Jews, severity, but toward
thee, Gentiles, goodness." In verse 25, he says, I wouldn't
have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery that blindness
in part has happened to Israel to the fullness of the Gentiles
coming in. Let me give you a modern-day
example of this thing, of what happened here. Back years ago
back in nineteen fifty. Three or four up in Ashland Kentucky. There was a large church so-called
well it was a church the beginning of one and one called the Pollard
Baptist Church in Ashland Kentucky there were over there were over
a thousand members in that church so the map. And they led the
association and baptism all this stuff for the big church you
know. There's no church in Roanoke or anywhere that comes close
to what that church once was. Your granddaddy was a part of
it at one time, wasn't it? And there were a thousand members. They weren't all in church, but
there were that many members. When they got ready to vote the
pastor out, they were all in church. That's the way it is,
isn't it? But at any rate, there was a An old hitchhiking
evangelist what they call a hitchhiking evangelist came through named
Ralph Barnard and he preached the gospel. The gospel I preach,
the gospel of the gospel, the gospel there is. He preached
that gospel to that church and there was the biggest split,
you could have heard it, down through the middle of that church
and forty men and their families split off of that huge church
and formed another one which today is called the 13th Street
Baptist Church. And as a result of that, as a
result of that, there's just no telling how many thousands,
thousands of people all over the world have been affected
by that split that happened. It was a terrible thing. He is
granddad can tell you about it when they had when this happened
on the gospel and people were. The Lord was speaking to some
people and they were boasting a preacher which was my father
at the time he began to preach it and people rose up in arms
and they had me and they had business meetings like churches
love to have you know so they can voice their opinion and I'm
not getting business done so they argue they literally get
up and walk. You know. You've seen how mean
religionists can be. They're the meanest people on
earth. And they'd get up and literally have a fistfight. One
time, I forget who it was, one old fella, who was it? I forget. May have been related to you. Sounds like something you'd do.
One old fella threatened the pastor and this faithful friend
and believer said, now you sit down or I'm going to whoop your
you-know-what. And he was big enough to do it and that fella
sat down. But that's what the business meeting turned into,
you know. As a result of that terrible, what a terror, if you'd
have walked in on that and thought, are these Christians? Is this?
God's not anywhere around this, wouldn't you? You walk in and
say, God's not anywhere within a mile of this place. This is
awful. This is how Christian folk act?
No, it's how unbelievers act toward Christian folk. But there
was a split and the ramifications of that are, I can't begin to
tell you. I can't begin to tell you. Of
all the churches there, of all the men that have gone out preaching,
pastoring churches and missionaries, Walter Gruber, Ken Weimer, Milton
Howard, David Pledger, all these men, me, Don Fortner, Danville,
all these churches are a direct result of that split. That's the best thing that could
ever happen to one. Split. And the world of Bill Clark,
you know? Well, it's like the Pharisees. You know, they tried to start
it back there. The Pharisees said, let's put an end to this
Jesus Christ. We'll kill him. That gets the whole thing started.
That'd be like me saying, and this happened to me recently,
I'm going to throw this watermelon out and I'm done with it. I'm
going to throw these seeds out, you see. What am I going to do? I'll throw them away. I'll bury
them and be done with those. I had a watermelon patch grow
up in my garden, Joe, and it was everywhere. It took over
my garden. The Pharisee said, just be done with this Christ,
let's kill him, put him in the ground. That fruit from that
spread all over the world. So in spite of all the trouble,
and this is the moral of the story, in spite of all the trouble,
confusion, God Almighty is in control. And he's working it
all out according to his purpose. And it says that they were scattered.
And I immediately thought of 1 Peter 1. Did you, when you
saw that word scattered? One of my favorite passages.
Let's read that in closing. 1 Peter 1, in closing. You see, these people were scattered,
and like I said before, they were scared. They were scared
now, people. They were. They were human beings
like you and I, and they were scared. God gave him strength,
God gave him grace. He always gives grace. But they
were scared. And I guarantee you, they prayed
like they'd never prayed before. They cried like they'd never
cried before. They sought the Lord like they'd maybe never
sought him before. And 1 Peter, and so they were all scattered
all over the place. And lo and behold, later on,
when they were all not knowing what was going to happen of them,
a letter comes in, a general epistle. General epistle means
it was given to everybody. It wasn't written to the Thessalonians,
the Philippians, and so forth. Galatians, it was
general. Everybody got this letter from Peter. And what does he
say? Peter, I'm an apostle of Jesus Christ to the strangers
scattered. Hey, y'all, you're scattered
everywhere, I know. Listen to me. your God's elect,
according to the foreknowledge of God, through setting apart
the Holy Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood.
Grace is unto you, peace is multiplied. Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his abundant mercy, who has
begotten us again to a lively hope, born again by the resurrection
of Jesus Christ from the dead. to an inheritance incorruptible,
undefiled, that fadeth not away. It's reserved in heaven for you.
You're kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation,
ready, waiting to be revealed in the last time, wherein you
greatly rejoice. But now for a season, if need
be, according to God's purpose, you're in heaviness through many
temptations. The trial of your faith Oh, it's
precious. It's much more precious than
that of gold that perishes, though it's tried with fire. It's a
fiery, painful trial, but it's going to be found under praise
and honor and the glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. And
you've never seen Him, but you love Him, in whom, though now
you see Him not yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory. Look down at verse 13. Wherefore,
gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, hope to the end. for
the grace that's going to be brought unto you at the revelation
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Strangers? Scattered? Remember that. I know you're
in heavy trials and troubles, but remember that. And do this. Paul said to the Hebrews, we're
encompassed with a great crowd of witnesses, Stephen. Let's look unto Jesus Christ,
the author and finisher. Let's not be Lay aside every
weight and sin which doth easily beset us, but let us run with
patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus
Christ, the author, finisher of our faith, who for the joy
that was set before him endured the cross, and despised the shame,
and thought nothing of all the shame and reproach, and sat down
at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him now. Keep
him in mind. that endured such contradiction
of sinners against himself, lest you be weary and faint in your
own mind and want to quit. We've got a great cloud of witnesses.
Stephen was the beginning of the new church, a witness to
the new church. He was the first martyr to the
new church. And that was the means, as terrible
as though it was. He was the means of God raising
up a man like Saul to give him courage to wreak havoc on the
church and then spread out and the gospel spread everywhere.
Churches sprung up everywhere. And in Saul, we don't want to
hear the end of him. That's not the end of him. God
raised him up for one thing and used him for another. That's
the way he does, doesn't he? The Lord moves in mysterious
ways. Mysterious ways. To kill people and then to give
them lives. Tell them about our lives. All
right, stand with me. Our Lord, this book is just too
big for us. But we thank you for little nuggets
we glean here and there. It increases our faith. It's a nail, drives a nail home
in our heart, a nail in a sure place. This word is truly a sure
thing. It's a sure word of God, a sure
promises of God. We thank you for it. Thank you
for opening it to us. We ask that you'd further open
it unto us. again as we gather together. And we ask for the
things we prayed for before, that you grant our requests and
our petitions according to your riches and glory in Christ. Just
like the early church, Lord, we're no different. We're scared,
we're troubled, we're in trials, heartaches, heaviness through
manifold temptations. You said you'd be an ever-present
help, and you were to the early church, and we fully expect you
to be so with us. So, we rest in on your promises.
In Christ's name we pray and ask and give thanks. Amen. You're
dismissed.