to read that psalm because that's
Brother Mahan's favorite psalm, Psalm 143. If you have an opportunity
to reread it later this afternoon or this evening, read that. He's in very poor condition. And yet he asks everyone who
comes to visit him to read that scripture to him. It seems to
soothe his soul and bless him. And it's amazing how the word
of God will do just that. And so we're thankful for him
and his faithfulness for these many years to the gospel and
these, Apparently his last days upon this earth, we pray for
him that all pain and that sort of thing will be relieved. And
as the family has asked us to just pray that God would take
him home to glory. If you would go with me to Acts
chapter 16. again today. And last Lord's
Day, we spent some time at least introducing Acts chapter 16. What we have this morning in
the scripture that I feel led to give to you from verses 9
through 18 is a message entitled, The Way of Salvation. Here we find way of salvation. And these are the words of a
woman who actually was a witch. And she was speaking of the preachers
and he said, these men, they're the ones who show us the way
of salvation. Now let me show you how this
develops. The Apostle Paul and Silas and
Timothy Luke will also join them. They're preaching the gospel.
And they wanted to go into Asia and preach, but the Lord wouldn't
let them go there. And so they weren't exactly sure
what to do. And when you're not sure what
to do, you don't do anything. They just waited for God to give
some indication of where they needed to go. And we know that
the Apostle Paul had a vision. And if you would, look down at
verse 9. And a vision appeared to, Acts
16, 9. A vision appeared to Paul in
the night. There stood a man of Macedonia.
Macedonia was a province of Rome. Of course, these are Gentiles.
And here's what the man said. And I feel like this is an angel
who took the form of a man to give a message to this, the Apostle
Paul. And here's what he said. He said,
come over into Macedonia and help us. And that expression
of desire to help us means render aid to us. We need aid. A-I-D. We need someone to come
over and render aid. Well, what kind of aid would
he render them? Well, he didn't have money. We
know that. He was very much like Simon Peter
back in Acts chapter 3. You remember when Peter and John
went to the temple and there was a man begging there? He had
his little cup out or whatever. And he was asking for alms. He was asking for money. And
you remember what Simon Peter said? He said, silver and gold
have I none. I can't aid you financially. I don't have the means to help
you financially, but I can aid you in a much better way. In
a way that you never dreamed of. He said, in the name of Jesus
Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And later we find this
man, he's praising God. The Lord did something to him
physically and the Lord did something for him spiritually. He was made
to be a recipient of the grace of God. God dealt with him in
mercy. And he was brought to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ, that One who is such an amazing person,
who has such authority that in His name, this man was able to
walk. And that's how Peter rendered
aid to that man. And so here's a man of Macedonia
who says in a vision to the Apostle Paul, come over and aid us. Render
aid to us. We need you to help us. And they
were anxious and willing to go. You know, I want to render aid
to you this morning. Now, the aid that I can render
to you is not financially, although I've got a couple of bucks and
if you're really in a bad way, I'll help you out as best I can.
But I'm not here this morning to render aid to you any other
way except in this way, to set before you the things of God.
To set before you the Lord Jesus and Him crucified. The best thing
I can do for you is to simply declare unto you
the Lord Jesus Christ and His work of redemption. My friend,
you need the Savior. And many of you know that and
many of you have the Lord Jesus Christ. He's been revealed to
you by the efficacious grace of God. Efficacious. What does
that mean, preacher? Gets the job done. The Lord has
done a mighty work within you, and if you rejoice in Christ
crucified, if you rejoice in God's free salvation, if you
see the necessity of the blood redemption of the Son of God,
if you understand that He died that God might be just and justify
the ungodly, God has indeed done a work of grace within your heart. And I don't know who the minister
was who preached the gospel to you, and really that doesn't
matter. What does matter is that God sent you somebody to render
aid to you. Now, he's going over, the apostle
Paul and Silas and Timothy and Luke, they're going over into
Macedonia. And specifically, they're going
to the city of Philippi. Look at verse 10. And after he
had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia,
and we assuredly gathered that the Lord had called us for to
preach the gospel unto them. The Lord opened a door. The Lord
opened a door. You see, if God calls a man to
preach the gospel, he'll give him somewhere to preach the gospel. He'll give him a people to preach
the gospel to. Now, we've noted last week there
were several locations where Paul and Silas and Timothy wanted
to go and preach, but the Lord forbade them. They couldn't go. The Spirit of God said no. And
the reason was because there was another place that the Lord
would have them go. You know, the Lord can send His
messengers anywhere He wants to. There were many, many villages,
cities in Asia, in Europe, within traveling distance of the Apostle
Paul, and he traveled hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of
miles. He could have sent, the Lord could have sent these men,
these preachers of the Gospel, men who knew the truth. Men who
understood how God can be just and justify the ungodly. The
Lord could have sent these men to any number of locations, but
the Lord in His sovereign mercy directs them, go to Philippi. Go to Philippi. I'm going to
open a door for you to preach the gospel. As far as Philippi
is concerned, it seemed to be the most unlikely place for a
man to go and preach the gospel, for God to send his great apostle
to preach there. It was like, the writers say,
like a miniature Rome. It was full of paganism. It was
a military city. A very, very strong military
city. And these soldiers, ungodly,
unruly, rough guys, representing Rome, keeping law and order there
by whatever means they chose. The soldiers always carried with
them some rods that were bound together, and right in the middle
they kept an axe. And if they needed to, they'd
just kill you. If you were breaking, if they
considered you breaking the law, they'd pull the ax out and kill
you. If you weren't worthy of death, in their estimation, they
took the ax out, then they'd just beat you nearly to death.
In fact, sometimes they did beat people to death with the rods.
They were birch rods, and they bound them together. And these
guys were rough. This is a kind of situation where
God sends his preachers. He could have sent them anywhere,
but he sent them there. Which leads me to say this, God
can send his message of grace wherever he wants to. And look
how he's blessed this city, this location. I have many people
who contact me and they'll tell me where they live and some of
them watching by way of internet this morning undoubtedly. And
they'll say to me, do you know of anybody in this area who preaches
the gospel? I had somebody from way out west,
a couple. A couple wrote to me and they
said, is there anybody out here preaching the Gospel that you
know of? There may be, but I don't know. I don't know of anybody
out there in the particular state that we're talking about. It's
a very barren area. Well, why is it that some areas
are privileged to have the Gospel? They hear of Christ and Him crucified. They hear of the grace of God.
They hear of the mercy of God. They hear God identified in His
rightful character as sovereign and holy and just. They hear
of man's awful depravity, of man's sinfulness and ungodliness. And they hear the good news of
redemption fully accomplished by Christ Jesus at the cross
of Calvary for the people of God. Why is it that some people
are privileged to hear that message And other people, they don't
have that privilege. It's because God sends His preachers
wherever He wants to. Wherever God sends His preachers,
there's sure to be somebody there that God intends to listen to
the Word. In fact, hold your place here
in Acts chapter 16. Look over in Acts 18. This is
where Paul went to the city of Corinth. He's left Athens, he
goes to the city of Corinth. And he met a lot of opposition. In fact, he was blasphemed and
people opposed him. In fact, in verse six he said,
your blood be upon your head, I'm clean from henceforth I'll
go to the Gentiles. There was the Jews, he's preaching
in the synagogue. Look at verse 7, and he departed
thence, he entered into a man's house named Justice, one that
worshipped God, whose house joined a hard to the synagogue and Crispus,
who was the chief ruler of the synagogue, he believed on the
Lord with all his house and many of the Corinthians hearing believed
and were baptized. Then spake the Lord to the apostle
Paul in the night by vision. He said, be not afraid, but speak
and hold not thy peace. Apparently he was afraid. I mean,
the Lord wouldn't say don't be afraid if the man wasn't afraid
for his life. And the Lord said, go ahead and
just preach. Just preach, don't hold your
peace. Verse 10, he says, for I'm with you. I'm with you. I told you one time, Scott, I
was going through a little rough spell and Scott Richardson called
me up. He said, I want you to know I'm
for you. I'm for you. And the Lord says,
I'm not only for you, I'm with you. I'm with you. He says, no
man, no man shall sit on thee to hurt thee. And here's the
reason He wanted him to stay. He said, I have much people in
that city. Well, they had never heard the
gospel, but they were already the Lord's people. They were
the Lord's people from old eternity. The Lord had chosen them unto
salvation, and the Lord Jesus had already redeemed them. He
had already paid their ransom price, but they got to hear the
gospel. And the Lord said, you just stay
right where you're at, doing what you're doing, and don't
be afraid. I've got much people in that
city. And even so, over here in Acts
chapter 16, who would have thought that the Lord had much people
in Philippi? Why, it seemed the most unlikeliest
of places to send His preachers. A rough city, a godless city,
a city given to a pagan idolatry. And yet, that's where the Lord
sent Paul and Silas and Timothy and Luke. Notice he says, so
immediately, verse 10, we endeavored to go into Macedonia, assuredly
gathering that the Lord had called us for it to preach the gospel
unto them. This is the way he's going to
render aid to them. The man of Macedonia had said,
come over and help us, aid us. Well, what kind of aid will they
render to the people of Macedonia, specifically to the people in
Philippi? Will they build hospitals? A
lot of people, a lot of... So-called missionaries say, we're
going to render aid to these nations, third world nations
or whatever, but we're going to go over there and we're going
to build them a hospital. Well, hospitals are good things.
But God's preachers don't render aid that way. Well, how are you
going to render aid? Build orphanages? Orphanages
are a wonderful thing, but God's preachers, you see, People who
don't know the gospel can build hospitals and they can build
orphanages and those are good things. They can render financial
aid. Well, then what kind of aid are
these preachers going to render to the people in Philippi, in
the Roman province of Macedonia? Here's the aid they will render.
They'll tell them about everlasting salvation for their souls. That's
the aid they're going to render. I can't do much for you physically. I can't do much for you in this
life as far as your body's a concern. I give you a little advice if
you want it, but hey, my advice is, I got opinions about everything
just like everybody else does, but I can give you this. I can
tell you about the Lord. I can tell you about salvation. I can tell you about how you'd
be right with God. I can tell you about how that
you can have confidence and assurance. And when you leave this world,
which all of us will, you go directly to be with Christ Jesus
and you see Him face to face. I can tell you about that. I
can tell you about Him whose glory is Higher than the heavens. Deeper
than the sea. I can tell you about His honors.
I can tell you about His majesty. I can tell you about His person.
He's God and He's man. I can tell you what He did. He
lived under the law of God to perfection. I can tell you why
He did it. Why He did it. He did it to honor
God. And He did it in our stead. And
I can tell you what He endured at the cross of Calvary. The
wrath of man and then all of the wrath of God that should
have fallen upon His people and would have fallen upon us forever
had not Christ been our substitute. I can tell you about Him. This
is the aid I can render to you. I can tell you about the bloody
death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I can tell you that His blood
washes away all sin. I can tell you this, He never
turns anybody away who comes to Him for mercy and grace and
salvation. I can tell you that. I can render
aid to you that way. And that's what Paul, he goes
into Macedonia. He said, I'm absolutely sure. the Lord has called us to preach
the gospel. So immediately, verse 11, they
loosed from Troas, they boarded a ship, they came with a straight
course to Samothrace, the next day to Neopolis, and verse 12,
and from thence to Philippi, which is the chief city of that
part of Macedonia in a colony, we were in the city abiding certain
days. And on the Sabbath, We went out
of the city by riverside. Now, those of you who are very
familiar with the book of Acts, and especially the ministry of
the Apostle Paul, let me ask you a question, and don't answer
out loud, but answer it in your own mind. Whenever this man went
to a city, where's the first place he'd go to preach? A scent
gawk, right? That's what you find through
his missionary journey. First missionary journey, second
missionary journey, and third missionary journey. He would
go and find a synagogue. He'd find some Jews who were
meeting on the Sabbath. But evidently, there wasn't a
synagogue there. There weren't many Jews there.
You had to have so many Jews in a city for a synagogue to
be built, and so there weren't enough Jews. And so on this Sabbath
morning, they just set out walking. Now you've got to understand,
Philippi is a big city. A big city. With a main river
running through there for navigation. Goods were shipped in through
the river. A big river. And there was by riverside some
women meeting to worship God. Now they didn't know the gospel,
but they did have some idea there of God and God had to be worshiped. But they're meeting by riverside. Look at verse 13. And on the
Sabbath, we went out of the city by riverside where prayer was
wont to be made. What are the odds? In a big city,
by a riverside, trees overhanging. What are the odds that here are
God's preachers walking along, that they would come upon these
women meeting together? I'm gonna tell you something,
this is by divine appointment. That's what this is. This is
due to the appointment of God. He sends his preachers where
they're needed. These women are meeting, but
though they're meeting with a good intention of worshipping God,
there's a lot of ignorance there. They don't know the Gospel of
Christ Jesus. But they do believe there's a
God, this God needs to be worshipped, and they're doing the best they
could as far as worshipping Him. And here comes the Apostle Paul
and these other preachers. And he says in verse 13, Luke
says, we sat down. And we spake unto the women which
resorted thither. We began to speak to them. And
I don't think there's any question about the fact that it was the
Apostle Paul who would do the preaching. He's the chief spokesman
of the group anyway. And a certain woman, not just
any woman, a certain woman, A woman God
knew. A woman God loved. A woman God
ordained to be there that day. A woman who needed to hear the
gospel of Christ Jesus. A woman whom the Lord chose unto
salvation before He ever made the world. A woman whose sins
had already been remitted through the blood of the Lord Jesus.
Is there a certain woman here this morning? Is there a certain
man here this morning? A certain boy or girl here this
morning? And the Lord intends for this
message to go to your heart? You see, as the message went
out in verse 14, It says, of Lydia, a seller of
purple, God opened her heart. Now here's the order. She was
there, verse 14, she worshiped God, she's in the right place. She's in the right place. And
I can tell you this this morning, I don't know why you're here,
don't know what brought you here, what the divine providence did,
but you're in the right place. If you're watching by way of
internet, you're tuned in to the right location on Sermon
Audio. Because this is where you're
going to hear the truth. And it says, not only was she
in the right place, She heard us. Listen, faith comes by hearing. Hearing by the Word of God. You've got to hear. How shall
they hear without a preacher? You've got to hear the truth.
This old adage, well, I can worship God, I can learn about God anywhere. Well, there's a little bit of
truth in that. The heavens declare His glory. You can find out about
the glory of God there. And as these women looked at
the river and saw the trees growing along the river and maybe the
wildflowers, they could admire the beauties of the Lord and
the creative glories of the Lord. But I tell you, those things
won't teach you how God can be a just God and a Savior. He said, she heard us. She listened. I don't know whether God will
do anything for you in your heart or not. I don't know whether
God be pleased to show you mercy or not. That is His business.
But I will tell you this, if He's going to show you mercy,
If He's going to give grace to you, it will be as you hear the
Word of God. It will be as a result of the
Word of God coming into you through the ear gates. If you don't come hear the Word
of God, there's no possibility. Faith comes by hearing and hearing
by the Word of God. You've got to hear God's Word.
So she's in the right place, she's doing the right thing,
and then the Lord opened her heart. She didn't open her own
heart. Had no ability. The Apostle Paul
didn't open her heart. Hey, Luke was a physician. Somebody
recruited him. He was a doctor. And he was recruited
to be Paul's physician, undoubtedly his personal physician because
Paul had some physical issues. But Luke, who could maybe perform
some kind of rude or crude heart surgery back in those days, he
couldn't do this kind of heart surgery. It's the surgery on
the mind, on the intellect, on the inner man. opened her heart. And as a result,
she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul. She
gave heed. You know what that means? She
believed. She believed the message. She believed the message. The apostle Paul, he believed
that God was sending him into Philippi, and here's a woman
who is privileged to hear him, said under his preaching, and
under that preaching, she attended to the things that were spoken.
Now look at verse 15. She confessed Christ. She was
baptized in her household. The rest of them believed. Now,
the Lord arranged this meeting. As we stated last week, and you
can read in verses 6 and 7 and 8, the Apostle Paul wanting to
go to these various places, and the Spirit of God said, no, you
can't go to those places. Because there was a specific
location the Lord wanted him to reach right then. Now as far
as, and I'll back up just a little bit, in verse 7 it says, they
are said to go to Bithynia, Did you know in 1 Peter chapter 1
and verse 1, Peter writes to the strangers and the sojourners
who were at Bithynia. Guess what? God established a
church there. But this wasn't the time. There
was another location where the Lord would use His servants. And so, this woman, she was baptized
and her household believed. And he says, if you judge me
to be faithful to the Lord, if you have determined I'm a true
believer, I want you to stay with me. Evidently, she rented
a house there, and she constrained us. Now look at verse 16. And
it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed
with the spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters
much gain by soothsaying. She's filled with the devil.
She's a fortune teller. She's a witch. Evil woman. She had power. The power of the
devil. Verse 17, the same followed Paul
and us, and here's what she cried out saying, these men, these
men are the servants of the Most High God, which they show unto
us the way of salvation. And this she did many days, always
saying the same thing. These men are the servants of
the Most High God. That's true. which show unto
us, which manifest unto us, which they speak to us of the way of
salvation." And that's true. But she was mocking them and
she did this many days. Over and over and over again. These men show us the way of
salvation. The way of salvation. The way
of salvation. Over and over and over again
she said that. Finally, in verse 18, Paul got
tired of it. Being grieved, he turned and
said to the spirit, to the evil spirit, I command thee in the
name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. Hey, he had apostolic
gifts. He was an apostle. And he said,
I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her,
and he came out the same hour. You know, here's something to
lay hold of. It is very possible that even
an agent of the devil can tell the truth sometimes. She's demon
possessed. But the words that she spoke
were accurate. The words that she spoke were,
these men are the servants of the Most High God. The demon
within her knew the Son of God. It's like those demons our Lord,
remember our Lord cast the demons out of the wild man of Gadara? Cast them out. And when He came
to them, they said, are you come to deal with us, to judge us
before the time? They know who He is and they
know what kind of power He's got. And here is the Apostle
Paul commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ and empowered, and
he commands this demon to come out. But this woman, though filled
with a demon, she spoke the truth. These men are the servants of
the Most High God, which show unto us the way of salvation."
The way of salvation. The way of salvation. She didn't
even realize what she was saying. They show us the way of salvation. But that's an accurate statement,
and that's exactly what God's preachers do. They show us, they
manifest to us, they set before us the way of salvation. And listen, the way of salvation
is somebody. Christ said, when one of His
disciples, Thomas, Thomas said, Lord, you're talking about going
away. We don't know where you're going. We don't know the way.
Our Lord Jesus looked at Thomas and the rest of the disciples.
He said, I am the way. I'm the way of salvation. I am
the way. I'm the truth. I'm the light.
No man cometh unto me, to the Father, but by me. These men show unto us the way
of salvation. I tell you, I don't know a preacher
of the Gospel anywhere who wouldn't want it put on their tombstone
or their grave marker, He showed us the way of salvation. That
would be a pretty good one. He showed us the way of salvation. Well, what did your preacher
preach yesterday? Somebody asked you that, say
this. He showed us, He told us about the way of salvation. Our
Lord Jesus said in John chapter 10, I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he
shall be saved and go in and out and find pasture. I show
you, I sit before you, I manifest to you as best I can the way
of salvation. And the way of salvation is the
way of the crucified Christ. So I don't want you to leave
here this morning in ignorance, and I know you won't. What does our pastor preach?
He preaches the way of salvation. And the way of salvation is Hebrews
chapter 10 says, a new and living way. A new and living way, not
a dead way. Oh, our Lord Jesus, He did die,
but He ever lives. He arose, He lives to make intercession
for us. It's a new and living way. These
men show us the way of salvation. And this evening, we're gonna
get into this a little bit more beginning with verse 19, because
after this happened, these men get arrested. especially Paul
and Silas. I'm not sure what happened to
Luke and Timothy. But Paul and Silas, they get
arrested on account of this. And the reason they got arrested,
because the men who had the rights, as it were, to this woman and
her gifts of divination, her gifts of soothsaying, They were
losing money, and you and I both know this is, the bottom line
is money. And they were losing money, and
well, who'd they go after? They went after the preacher
who cast the demon out of her. These men are the servants of
the Most High God. That's a good title, a servant
of the Most High God. And these tell us the way of
salvation. May God bless us all with the
knowledge of Christ and Him crucified.