Open up your Bibles, if you would,
to Acts chapter 17. We're going to start a new chapter
today in our journey through the book of Acts. Last week,
we looked at how Paul and Silas, after being released from prison,
in which they were unjustly condemned and beaten, after that, they
didn't leave the city. They went to Lydia's house, and
they comforted the brethren there at Lydia's house, which we saw
at the very end of Acts chapter 16. So now, and it says at the end
of that verse in Acts chapter 16 that they departed. Well,
we're going to find out where they went to. They went to Thessalonica.
Let's stand up today and read together verses 1 to 4 of Acts
chapter 17. Let's stand up and read it together.
This will be our text and a little bit further down too. Let's just
read 1 to 4. When they had passed through
Amphilus and Apollyona, they came to Thessalonica, where was
a synagogue of the Jews. And Paul, as his manner was,
went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them
under the Scriptures. opening and alleging that Christ's
must needs have suffered and risen again from the dead, and
that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. And some
of them believed and consorted with Paul and Silas, and some
of the devout Greeks, a great multitude, and of the chief women,
not a few. Praise be to God. My, oh, my. So after Paul and Silas comforted
the saints in Lydia's household in Philippi, Paul and Silas and whoever was
traveling with them, they left. They departed out of the city
of Philippi, continued their missionary journey, and we see
they passed through Amphipolis and Apollyona, and then they
came to Thessalonica. Let us remember, too, the name
of the message is God's eternal purpose. Let us remember that
everything we've seen is all happening according to God's
eternal decree, according to God's eternal purpose. That's
still going on today, isn't it? It will until the Lord comes
back. And then it's all over, isn't it? Then it's all over. But the name of the message,
again, is God's eternal purpose. Do you know? that if you're born
again, if you're sitting here and you're
born again, it's all according to God's eternal purpose? Do
you know that if you're sitting here and you're not saved, that
you're here hearing this message all according to God's eternal
purpose? Isn't that wonderful? So here
we are gathered together today all according to God's eternal
purpose. We made choice to be here, didn't we? Yeah, oh yeah.
We wanted to be here. But it all happened according
to God's eternal purpose. Nothing catches God by surprise. Our God is absolutely sovereign. That's the God of the Bible,
isn't it? He's sovereign. My oh my. I'm thankful he never
changes. That means his love towards me
never changes. Isn't that wonderful? Oh, my. My, oh, my. So they come to Thessalonica
now, and we see in verse 1, there was a synagogue of the Jews.
Verse 2, and Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them. And three
Sabbath days, three weeks, he reasoned with them out of the
scriptures. And here's what he did. He opening, and alleging
that Christ must have suffered and risen again from the dead,
and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ. He is the
Messiah. Okay, there's no New Testament,
right? He's preaching Christ from the
Old Testament. They all are at that time. Preaching Christ. So Christ is all through the
Scriptures. When I was When I was a dispensationalist, I used to
believe that the Old Testament was for the Jews and the New
Testament was for Christians. I was so wrong. I was so wrong. The scriptures speak all about
Christ. He says, in the law and the prophets, they testify of
me. They testify of our King. Do
you know that all the promises of God are ours as born-again,
blood-washed believers? All the promises. Spurgeon used
to say, you see a promise in the Old Testament, lay hold of
it, beloved, because it's ours in Christ. Because all the promises
of God are yea and amen in Christ. Isn't that wonderful? That's
absolutely wonderful. Fills your heart with joy, doesn't
it? My, it's wonderful. So here Paul is, he takes the
Old Testament and he's opening them and alleging that Christ,
the Messiah, right, must have suffered and risen again from
the dead. And then he says, this Jesus,
this Jesus is the Christ. He's the Son of God. He's the
long awaited Messiah, come. Oh my, same message that every
gospel preacher who preaches the gospel stands up and preaches
and proclaims. Christ is the only Savior of
sinners, the Lord Jesus Christ. And let us remember too, they're
on a divine mission, right? If God has purposed and planned
this, then they're on a divine mission. They don't necessarily,
they're on a mission trip, but God sent them, hasn't he? Isn't that amazing? God sent
them. And they're being led by God,
the Holy Spirit. We've seen that in a couple of
our studies before, where they wanted to go into Asia, remember?
And they were held back. And they had to go into, they
had to go into Philippi. Well, because Lydia's there. One of
the Lord's sheep. And Lydia's from Asia. But she
doesn't happen to be there right now. She happens to be in Philippi.
So God sends them into Philippi. And there's not just Lydia there.
There's a jailer and his family. Isn't that amazing? And that's the beginning of the
Philippian church, who were studying in Sunday school that Paul's
writing to. It's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. So this
is all falling out according to God's eternal purpose. And
we see again that Paul and Silas, they're in Thessalonica. And
where do they go? Well, they go to the synagogue.
They go to the synagogue. Paul's going to go there and
preach Christ. Look at verse 2. And Paul, as
his manner was, went in unto them three sabbath days, and
reasoned with them out of the scriptures. I love how it says,
he reasoned with them out of the scriptures. He didn't get
caught up in side arguments. He reasoned with the scriptures
with them. He pointed them to Christ in the scriptures. reasoned with them. And he's
there for three consecutive Sabbath days, again, all according to
God's eternal purpose. You're going to hear me say that
a lot through this message. This is all happening according
to God's eternal purpose. And Paul was proving to them
from the Old Testament scriptures that Jesus, whom he preached,
was the Messiah. was the Messiah. He's the Christ,
the true Christ of God. And again, He's there preaching
to them, to those who are there, according to God's eternal purpose.
Now it's going to be a time of love for a bunch of people. A
time of God's love, right? That's what we call when the
Lord says something. It's going to be a time of love
for a bunch of people. They have no idea. They went in there.
They went in the synagogue that day thinking, oh, we're just
going to go and do our normal thing at the synagogue, and then
we're going to go home, and we're going to feast. But there's a divine appointment
for them, wasn't there? Isn't that amazing? Some of them have
a divine appointment. Some of them, it's their time
of love. They're all divinely appointed to be there, but for
some, it's their time of love. Oh my, God, the Holy Spirit's
gonna reveal Christ to them. And notice, he was showing them
that the writers of the Old Testament plainly taught that the Christ
of God must, needs have suffered. Look at verse two, and Paul,
as his manner was, went in, and three sabbath days reasoned with
them of the scriptures, and in verse three, opening and alleging
that Christ's must needs have suffered and risen again from
the dead, and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ.
So he took the scriptures, and he preached Christ to them. He
took the Old Testament, and he preached Christ to them. Three
sabbath days. wonderful. It's wonderful. He preached that Christ must
need to suffer, that he must rise again from the dead, and
that this was all according to God's eternal purpose. We see in verses 2 and 3 that
Paul and Silas' preaching included three things. I thought this
was interesting. Number one, he reasoned with
them out of the scriptures. He reasoned with them out of
the scriptures. Number two, he opened or explained the message
of the scriptures. And number three, he alleged
that Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, had to suffer and rise from the
dead. Those are three aspects of his
preaching. Paul's first technique in preaching
was reasoning. And remember, Paul knew, as well
as all of us know, that our words can't save anyone. We present
the truth. And it's the Holy Spirit that
takes those words, right? Somewhere between my mouth and
your mouth, and he takes them and he blesses you with them.
That's amazing. That's incredible. I'm blessed putting the message
together, and then it blesses you guys, because the Holy Spirit
moves and blesses you with the message. And God gets all the
glory, doesn't he? It's wonderful. So Paul knew,
he knew that he couldn't save anyone, so he's presenting the
one who can save anyone who comes to him. That's the Lord Jesus
Christ, who saves sinners. It's wonderful. Look at this. His first technique was reasoning.
The word translated reasoned here is from the word where we
get the English word dialogue. It has a idea of a give and take
conversation. I go over on Mondays and I talk
to the guys, my friends, they're all in religion. One guy's really
coming around, but they're in religion. But we do have a give
and take. I present scripture to them and they present their
views to me and we talk about them, we reason over them. That's
what Paul was doing. He was having a give and take
with them. Oh my, the sense of The sense
of Luke's word is using the Old Testament with which the Jews
were thoroughly familiar. Remember, the Jews were familiar
with the Old Testament scriptures. And so Paul reasoned with them,
and he listened to their arguments, and then he patiently refuted
their words with the word of God. It's wonderful. That's why we're
always to use the scripture. not our own reasoning, or to
use the scripture. This is what the scripture says.
Right? That's where the truth is. His
second tactic we see here was opening, which is explaining
the word of God. Explaining the word of God. It's
translated opening, it's very strong, it means to expand or
to force open. Isn't that amazing? And Paul
was a master, wasn't he, with the Jewish religion. Remember
that. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. Do you know he knew their own
laws better than most of them knew it? He knew their religion
better than most of them knew it. And here he is, humbly, just
opening the scriptures up and reasoning with them, that Christ
is the Messiah. Remember he said he didn't come
with words of wisdom? He's just preaching. He's just
preaching to them. It's wonderful. When the scriptures
were read, Paul opened up and explained their meaning. That's
what preaching is. Right? We preach Christ. Preach
what the scriptures say. Opening up the scriptures and
placing it before one's hearers. And what do we do as preachers?
We take the scriptures, we place it in front of our hearers, and
we say, it all speaks of Christ. What did the Lord say? The law
and the prophets, they testify of me. That's the Old Testament
scriptures he's talking about. And we know the New Testament
scriptures testify of Christ. He's the only savior of sinners,
right? He's the Messiah. He's the Christ. The anointed
one, the sent one. The sent one. It's wonderful.
It's absolutely wonderful. Turn if you would to Luke. Luke
chapter 24. Remember the Lord's on the road
to Aramaeus with the two disciples? They don't have any clue who
he is. And he's talking to them. And think of this, too. Unless
the Lord opens the scripture for us, we have no understanding. When you're at home reading,
pray that God, the Holy Spirit, will illuminate the scriptures
for you. Before you read, just say, Lord,
please, Holy Spirit, illuminate the scriptures for me, that we
might understand your word. Think of this. Do you know everything
we know has been revealed to us? Everything we know about
Christ, it's all being revealed to us. I was mentioning this
in Sunday school this morning. Here we were before the Lord
saved us. We were just rebels. I didn't want nothing to do with
God. I wanted nothing to do with him. And then when I was 27, the Lord
arrested me. But before that, I wanted absolutely
nothing to do with him. And then he takes, what we were
talking about, sister, he takes one who didn't praise him and
turns him into someone who rejoices in him. That's a miracle of grace. Isn't it wonderful? Oh my gosh. God is so good. And we're monuments,
beloved. We're monuments of his grace
and mercy towards sinners. Monuments of his everlasting
love. It's incredible. Absolutely incredible. Look at
this in Luke chapter 24, verse 27. In beginning that Moses and
all the prophets, this is speaking of Christ, to those two, he expounded
unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. The scriptures, they proclaim
Christ. They proclaim the Messiah. Now let's read verses 44 to 47,
a little further down, Luke 24, 44 to 47. Look at this. And he said unto them, these
are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you,
that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law
of Moses and in the prophets and the Psalms concerning me.
Look at that. In the law of Moses, the Pentateuch,
in the prophets, in the Psalms concerning me. Prophets is minor
and major. Concerning me, he said. Concerning the Messiah. I love this. I love this. Because this shows us that we
don't know anything unless he opens our understanding. Brother
Tom, you and I have talked about that. He must be revealed to
us. He must be. He must be. Look at this. Then
opened he their understanding that they might understand the
scriptures. That's what the Holy Spirit does
for us. Isn't that wonderful? It's wonderful. And he said unto
them, thus it is written, and thus it behooved, Christ to suffer,
to rise from the dead the third day. That's what Paul's preaching
over there in Acts chapter 17. In verse 3, it says, opening and
alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen again
from the dead. and that repentance and remission
of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning
at Jerusalem. When God gives faith, we also
receive repentance, because repentance and faith is like this piece
of paper. On one side is faith, and on one side is repentance,
and it's a gift from God. I never repented of my sins until
the Lord saved me. I didn't even think I was sinning. We got a big surprise, didn't
we? But praise God, there's a Savior from sin, and His name is the
Lord Jesus Christ. And all who come to Him, He shall
save. He not cast one away. Isn't that
wonderful? And all that the Father given
Him shall come to Him, and He'll not cast one of them away. Oh,
how that warms my heart. Does it warm yours? It's wonderful. It's wonderful. So the Lord must
open both the preacher's understanding and the hearer's understanding.
Right? And think of this, too. I can't
tell you about something unless I experienced it. My hometown
in Canada, Bolton. You couldn't, Brother Travis,
you couldn't tell me about my hometown, because you've never
been there. And I couldn't tell you about
your hometown, because I've never been there. But we can tell each other
about our hometowns, can't we? I can't preach Christ unless
he saved me. I can't proclaim salvation in
Christ unless he saved my soul. Praise God he did. And I'm just
one sinner telling other sinners where to find bread. You want
to find bread? It's only in Christ. You want
to find forgiveness of sins? It's only in Christ. And let
me tell you, we're all a bunch of sinners and we all need to
be saved. People say, well, I don't believe
it. I'm not a sinner. Don't change the fact that you're a sinner.
Whether you believe it or not, you're still a sinner. I had someone tell me that with
what we believe, they said, well, there's nothing there for me.
Broke my heart. Said, there's nothing there for
me. And I said, there's everything you need. Christ. The only Savior of sinners. The only Savior of sinners. My,
oh my. The gospel speaks of Christ.
It's good news for sinners. Christ bled and died for sinners. Chosen sinners. And I don't know
who those chosen are, so I preach to everyone. But God knows them. And He's going to get every one
of them. Isn't that wonderful? Oh my, it's wonderful. Third
we see, the third tactic of Paul's preaching, or method of Paul's
preaching, was alleging. He alleged, or proved, from the
Old Testament Scriptures, the necessity of Christ's sin-toning
work. The only way for a sinner to
be saved is through the perfect sin-toning work of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's it. not by anything we
do, not by anything we say. People say, well, I prayed a
prayer way back. You know, I prayed prayers before
the Lord saved me. It didn't do nothing. You must be born again. And I'll
tell you, if God gives you faith, a team of wild horses couldn't
keep you from coming to him. If God regenerates you, Isn't
that right, Brother Zane? A team of wild horses won't keep
you from coming to Christ, because it's all by His power. Isn't that wonderful? Oh, I'll
tell you. It's wonderful. So, allege means
to put alongside. In preaching at Thessalonica,
Paul compared spiritual things with spiritual things. I remember
Brother Donnie always telling me, that you find a scripture
and find a match in scripture. And he actually said this, you
find a scripture and you start throwing other scriptures at it and see
which ones stick. I liked that one. I thought that was kind
of neat. But scripture will always back up scripture. Always. Always. And the answer for anyone
who's asking us questions is always found in the scripture.
I can, I love theology. I could sit and talk to someone
about theology, but theology, me talking about theology is
not going to change a person's heart. I love it though. I love talking about it. But
we need to preach Christ. Present Christ. Right? He's our savior, isn't he sister?
Now, do we learn? Yeah, I'm going through a study
with four guys right now, going through a systematic theology
book. It's wonderful. Online. It's wonderful. But I
told them, I said, I can't preach the way this text in the book
is. I have to take it and break it
down. I love it though. But preaching Christ, we see
Paul, he alleged with them. He compared scriptures with scripture,
didn't he? Isn't that wonderful? That's
what we're to do. Take one scripture and say, look
at this scripture. Look at this one. Like we did in Philippians
this morning. We took where Paul says, we're
the circumcision, who worship God in the spirit. We took that,
as opposed to the verse before that talked about the dogs, beware
of dogs and all that, which is false teachers, and we went to
Galatians 4, and we showed the child of the free woman versus
the child of the bond woman, right? And then we went to Genesis
and saw the seed of the woman as opposed to the seed of the
serpent. Scripture was scripture. It's
wonderful. It's wonderful. You know, God will always have
a remnant. He'll always have a people. It's wonderful. So
this is wonderful. This is a good way for us to
bring forth the scriptures to people, isn't it? It's wonderful. It's simple. And yet it's profound. An example of this, what he would
do would be if he took a text from Isaiah and compared it with
a text from Daniel. And then he took that and he
put it beside a text from Psalms, just comparing scripture with
scripture, showing how they lined up together. So we see here now the reason
that God sent Paul and Silas on this missionary journey was
for the purpose of preaching the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ, for the salvation of God's chosen people. his born-again
blood-washed children. Paul preached that Jesus Christ
by himself purged our sins. We can't save ourselves, can
we? There's no one in this room and there's no one in this world
that can save themselves. We tried, didn't we, when we
were in religion? Not one of us can save ourselves. It'd just
make us miserable. I remember going to a church,
a Calvinistic church. But there were so many things
you had to do all the time. And I'd leave there, I'd leave
there feeling worse than when I went in. And I knew I was a
failure before I even walked out the door. But you know what?
I can walk out the door here, and I can leap for joy, because
Christ saved my soul. And it's not dependent upon my
works. It's all dependent upon Christ. Now, I'm not going to go crazy.
We're not antinomians, are we? We're not going to go out the
door and go crazy. No, no one would ever preach that who's
a gospel preacher. But isn't it true, Tom? We can
go the rest of the week and rejoice in the fact that Christ saved
us and is not dependent upon us. And those he saves, he's
going to keep, isn't he? Isn't that wonderful? And so
the hardest thing for us to do as we go through this world is to look to Christ and Him
alone. But that's what we're to do. We're to repose in Christ,
aren't we? We're to rest in His finished
work. You know, it's wonderful. I'll tell you why. It's just,
it's wonderful. So He purged our sins by Himself. He obtained
eternal redemption for his people, right? He came to save his people
from their sins. He shall save his people from
their sins, remember? That little word, shall. Matthew
121. And do you know that? Jesus Christ, by the supreme
sacrifice of himself, sanctified and perfected forever those who
believe. I don't understand all that.
I know I'm perfect in God's eyes, I know that. I know I'm sanctified
and made holy in Christ. I know that I grow in grace,
right? A lot of people say you're sanctification. I personally believe that's just
growing in grace. Because we're sanctified in Christ.
We're set apart in Christ. We grow in grace. We grow in
the knowledge. We're being conformed to the image of the son. My, oh, my. I said that one time
I was talking to someone about being predestinated, and the
scriptures talks about being predestinated to be conformed
to the image of the sun, and the person was saying, well,
I don't like that verse. I said, you don't want, you're
professing to be a Christian, and you don't want to be conformed
to the image of Christ? Well, wait, wait, I didn't say
that. No, I didn't think you did. We want to be, we said this in
Sunday school, I asked you guys, do you sin more than you want
to? Yes, we do, don't we? Yeah, we
can't wait until, we can't wait until we're home in glory and
never sin again. Never sin again, but praise be
to God, we have a full pardon, a full salvation. And Paul, we know Paul preached
this. How do we know? Well, because he was moved by
God the Holy Spirit to write these very truths in his epistles.
He said Christ obtained eternal salvation for us. He said Christ
by himself purged our sins. My oh my. My oh my. Paul would not have written what
he did not preach. And he would not have preached
what he did not write. And it's the Holy Spirit who
is the true author of the scriptures, isn't it? The same author of
the Old Testament is the same author of the New Testament.
It's God, the Holy Spirit. Holy men were moved to pen these
words. My, oh, my. Let's read verse
four now. And some of them believed, and
consorted with Paul and Silas, and of the devout Greeks a great
multitude of men and women, not a few. Look at that. That's a
miracle right there. And some of them believed. These guys, they went to the
synagogue that morning, and they were Jews. And then the Greeks
there were proselytes. So they were caught up in Jewish
religion. And they're leaving, some of them are leaving, rejoicing
that salvation's in Christ alone. Isn't that wonderful? And you
know why them Pharisees got so mad? Because they were losing
money. Oh my, I just read this morning
about some, I shouldn't have, televangelist selling his apartment
for $14 million. That guy's not a preacher, he's
a crook. Come on. My oh my. Oh my. But this is a miracle. And some
of them believed, by the grace of God, they were born again. They went in there with no faith
in Christ, and they walked out with faith in Christ. Who made
them to differ? Amen. That's right. And God alone. Just like we saw on Sunday School,
right? God and God alone. He's the only one who made them
to differ. And then we see, marvel at this, it said before us, the
Lord opened the hearts of some of the Jews and they believed
the gospel that Paul preached, which is salvation's in Christ
alone. They embraced Christ as their
Savior. And then we see also a great multitude of Greeks believed. We don't have numbers, that doesn't
matter. Just means there's a whole lot of them. Can you imagine half the synagogue
walking out praising Christ? Oh, isn't that wonderful? It's
amazing. God's grace is amazing, beloved.
And again, they've been translated from the kingdom of darkness,
just like that, into the kingdom of God's dear son. And all this
is happening according to the eternal purpose of God. What
we see unfolding here is unfolding according to the eternal purpose
of God. Isn't it wonderful? Isn't it
spectacular? It's absolutely amazing, isn't
it? My, oh, my. It was their appointed time to
be delivered from the power of darkness and to be born again
by the Holy Spirit of God and given faith to believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. And many of the chief women were
given true saving faith, we see, to believe the gospel preached
by the Lord's apostle. Oh my, there were Gentiles again
who were Jewish proselytes, the Greeks. Lord was pleased to save some
of them. If we believe the word of God,
it cannot be denied that salvation of these Jews and Gentiles at
Thessalonica was all according to the eternal purpose of God.
God's absolutely sovereign, isn't he? If you're sitting here and
you're a born-again blood-washed believer, rejoice. Rejoice, beloved. Let that fill
your heart with joy that it all is according to God's eternal
purpose. I'll tell you what. Make this Baptist want to shout.
I'll tell you that. My, oh, my. Listen to 2 Timothy 1.9. It's God that saved us and called
us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. 2 Timothy 1.9. Look at that. Just let that flood your soul,
beloved. The glorious God-honoring truth of God's eternal purpose
at work applies to the salvation of all of God's elect, every
single one of us. That's amazing. When you and I were little tykes
running around, did we think? We didn't think anything of that,
did we? We got older. May have been in
church or not, didn't matter, didn't think a lot about that.
One day we found out that we were one of the Lords from before
the foundation of the world, and we had no clue. Actually,
when the Lord first saved me, I didn't know hardly any doctrine.
I just knew I needed the Savior. Now, I've learned a few things,
just a little bit. And I marvel at that. But like
Sister Diane and I were talking one time, the Lord showed us
our need, didn't he? And no one will be saved until
God shows you your need for Christ. And when He shows you your need
and He gives you faith to believe and you're born again, you will
run to Christ. Nothing will stop you. And you
will willingly come to Christ. People like to be, you know why? Because you got a new nature
now. And your nature is what controls your will. If you have
a dead nature, you don't want to come to Christ. If you have
a new nature, you want to run to Christ. It's amazing. It's amazing. Here's a very important
truth for us not to overlook. When Paul preached the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ to those who were in the Jewish synagogue,
he reasoned with them out of the scriptures. Take note, he
didn't use human wisdom. He didn't use human reasoning. Human logic. He preached Christ. He didn't
use enticing words. We know that from Corinthians. He said, the word of God says,
thus saith the Lord. Turn, if you would, to 1 Corinthians
chapter two. We'll look at verses one to five
here to see this truth brought forth. This is amazing. The gospel doesn't need the wisdom
of man. The gospel doesn't need the wisdom of man. It's far above
the wisdom of man. It's far above the wisdom of
man. It's made known to man only by the Holy Spirit of God. And it can only be known by and
discerned by spiritual men and women. That's why you must be
born again. Look at this in 1 Corinthians
2. 1 Corinthians 2. Verse 1, and I, brethren, I came
to you not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring
unto you the testimony of God. Now, Paul, he could have went
toe to toe with anyone. I believe he was a genius. He knew the Jews' religion. He
knew things of the world. He sat under one of the best
teachers of the day. Look what he says here. I, brethren,
when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or
of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. Paul came
to the Corinthian church to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ.
He came to preach the gospel, called the testimony of God in
that verse, because it bears testimony It's called the testimony
of God because it bears testimony to God's love and grace and mercy
in giving his beloved son to be our Savior and our Redeemer.
He's the only Savior and Redeemer of sinners, and he's sent from
God the Father. So note in verse 1, we see that
Paul did not preach his message in lofty words or of eloquence
or human philosophy or man's wisdom. No. Then look at verse
2. This is wonderful. For I am determined
not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified." My, such a simple statement. Though Paul was well-educated
in Jewish learning, he had a good knowledge of Greek literature,
he was capable of conversing with almost anyone on current
events. I guarantee you he could have
talked about anything. Any thoughts and issues of the
day? We see that he was resolved to
make nothing, to make nothing except preaching
Christ, the subject of his ministry, the subject of his ministry and
his message. Look what he says, I am determined
not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified. Preach Christ. And this was the greatest offense. This that was a great offense
to others was most delightful to him. He loved it. He didn't want to
preach nothing but Christ. Isn't that wonderful? I know how he felt. Just preach
Christ. Because salvation only comes
through the obedience and the work, the perfect work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn't come through what
I do. Now, do I want to love and serve God? Of course. Do
I exhort you and I to serve the Lord with joy and gladness? Of
course. But I am so thankful that salvation
is not dependent upon me. It's all dependent upon Christ.
I'll tell you what, what a Savior, what a Redeemer. That's why Paul
says, I'm not going to preach anything but Christ. Then look
at verses 3 and 4. And I was with you in weakness,
and in fear, and in much trembling. Paul's a real person. Look at
that. He suffers from the same things
we all can suffer from. Look at that. Oh, weakness? Are you weak? When I'm weak, he's strong, right?
I can't do nothing without him, he told me, right? And then fear. Don't know if this was fear for
his life or just fear in general, but he trembled. You ever get shook up about things
in the world sometimes? We're all human. And then much
trembling. Trembling, not the word of God.
He's preaching the gospel. He's preaching the gospel. And
my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's
wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power. That's
important. It's in the power of God the
Holy Spirit. Paul determined, as he determined, so he acted.
We see that his subject matter was not nature or arts or science
or philosophy or dry morality, but salvation from sin through
the crucified Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. So his style of preaching, his
language, his message, we see were not delivered with human
logic or wisdom or persuasion, but in the power and demonstration
of the Holy Spirit of God. See, before I come up here, I
always pray. I always say, Lord, go before
me. I don't want to get in the pulpit
with you not going before me. and prepare my heart and the
hearts of the hearers. Because otherwise, my words are
nothing. Right? Again, as I said, somewhere between
my lips and your ears, God blesses it. He takes it and blesses it.
Isn't that amazing? Does the same for me when I'm studying.
It's incredible. It's absolutely incredible. So it's not by human wisdom or
wit or will that the gospel is believed and received. No, it's
by regeneration, by revelation of the Holy Spirit, by the power
of the Holy Spirit of God. And then look at verse 5. I love
verse 5. This is wonderful. That your faith should not stand
in the wisdom of man, but in the power of God. See, let our
faith not stand in something we did or something we continue
to do, because that's the wisdom of man. Right? Well, if I do this and I don't
do that, then God will show me favor. Well, don't we want to
do those things that please God? You know what? Here's something
for you. When you fall into sin, and it may be gravious sin or
it just may be sin-sin, right? Here's some advice that I learned
from a preacher a long time ago. Repent and carry on. Repent and carry on. Proclaim to the Lord, I'm sorry,
Lord. I did it again. I blew it again. Help me. Help me. And carry on. Isn't that wonderful? Has God's
love toward us changed? No. See, our faith stands not in
the wisdom of man, but in the wisdom of God. He forgave me
for all my sins. I mean, every one, even the ones
I don't even know about. Do you know there was an offering
for unwittingly sinning? Norm and I found that this week
in the Old Testament. There was an offering for when
you unwittingly sin. And you know what Norm said? Probably wasn't a lot of people
doing that one. Because they wouldn't think they
did. Sins of omission and sins of co-omission. And people said,
wow. I don't sin that much. I had
one fellow tell me one time, he says, well, I only sin a few
times a day. And I had to laugh at him. He's
a good friend of mine. I said, what are you talking
about, man? You sin all the time. And he puts me, oh, you're right. Yeah, that's why we need a savior. That's why we need a savior. Oh my, look at this. That your
faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power
of God. This is a key verse, a key statement,
because the conclusion of the whole matter is, Paul knew, that
conviction of sin in a revelation of Christ crucified and risen
and enthroned and saving faith in Christ alone, apart from from
merit or works, and living vital union with Christ are hard works
that the Holy Spirit must work in us. You ever think of this? You ever think of this? Before
you were saved, did you repent of your sin? Maybe when I got caught, but not really. Why do we repent now? Because we have a Savior. Because
now we know what sin is. We're born again. Now we struggle
with sin. My, oh, my. And the Holy Spirit
has regenerated us. Now we know what sin is. I used
to drink sin-like water. Did you? Didn't even bother me. Now it bothers me. My, oh, my. And notice what Paul
didn't do. He didn't debate with them. We
don't debate the Word of God. We don't need to debate the Word
of God. We just present. Paul reasoned with them. He said,
okay, well, look at this scripture and this scripture and this scripture. We don't have to debate the Word
of God. Now, if someone wants to do that, I'm going to leave
it to someone who's a lot smarter than me. And that's fine if you have the
capability to do that. I'm just going to go out and
I'm just going to be on the streets or talking to people about Christ.
That's what I want. But hey, if someone can do it,
go for it. My oh my. But as for when I present the
gospel, I don't debate with people. I just present. Just present
the gospel. And do you know it's an honor
and a privilege to preach Christ? If you have the opportunity,
Brother Travis will be teaching for me in May when I go to Oregon. It's an honor, isn't it, Brother
Travis? It's a privilege to preach the gospel. It is. To brag on the king, to tell
about the one who's sovereign, to tell about the one who's has
everlasting love for his people, so much so that he manifested
it by coming down to earth to save us from our sins? He who
is God in the flesh? To tell of the one who saved
my soul? It's wonderful. It's wonderful. And wherever the Gospels preach,
the true Gospels preach, there will always be opposition to
it. Always. No matter what. No matter what. Let's read verses 5 to 8 here
in Acts chapter 17. But always remember that even
amidst the opposition, God is in full control. He's in absolutely
full control. Acts chapter 17 verses 5 to 8. But the Jews, which believed
not, moved with envy. Oh, they were mad and wet hornets.
Look at this. And took under them certain lewd
fellas. So look what they do. They go get, those lewd fellas
was the guys I probably hung out with before the Lord saved
me. Guys who just get in a fight
for the fun of it. I used to hang out with a bunch of guys
like that. That's how it was. They're the low of the low. Look
at this. took another certain fellows
of a baser sort and gathered a company and sent all the city
on an uproar. They are getting people stirred
up and assaulted the house of Jason and sought to bring them
out to the people and when they found them not, they drew Jason. So Paul and Silas are staying
at Jason's house and they go to get Paul and Silas and they're
not there so they haul Jason out. and certain brethren unto the
rulers of the city. So whoever was with Jason, they
brought him out, too, crying, These that have turned
the world upside down are come hither also, whom Jason had received. And these all do contrary to
the decrees of Caesar, saying that there's another king, one
Jesus. And they troubled the people and the rulers of the
city when they heard these things. So the opposition from these
unbelieving Jews at Thessalonica, again, was all according to God's
eternal purpose. We've seen that in our studies,
haven't we? Remember how they treated Paul and Silas in Philippi? They beat them unjustly, all
according to God's eternal purpose. And we see these Jews are moved
with envy. So much so they try to apprehend Paul and Silas,
and they can't get him, so they grab Jason and whoever's with
him in the house. These self-righteous, unbelieving
Jews, they're losing control over those who they, they, those
who were converted to the Christian faith, they lost control over
them. Let every preacher remember that
the flock who we preach to is God's flock, not ours. It's God's flock. This is God's
church, right? Yeah? It's his church. It's not mine. It's God's church. And so let us remember that.
But these folks, they're getting, they're ticked off. And they're
filled with ungodly, envious hatred towards God's people. My, oh, my. And they want to
put a stop to this God-honoring movement that's going on. The
Lord's moving and saving. And so what do they do? They
go get some lewd fellows of the baser sort. They can influence
these guys with money. Oh, yeah. And they see they gather
the company of them. Not just a few, they gathered
a company of them and set all the city on an uproar. And they
assaulted Jason's house. And when Paul and Silas weren't
there, they drew Jason and certain brethren to the rulers of the
city. And look what they said. These
have turned the world upside down, or come hither also, who
Jason hath received, and these all do contrary to the decrees
of Caesar, saying, there is another king, one Jesus, and they troubled
the people and the rulers of the city when they heard these
things. So Jason, he's a born-again,
blood-washed believer. He's believed on the Lord Jesus
Christ and the saving of his soul. My, oh, my. And there's other Christians
in this house. And those unbelieving Jews just
haul them all out. They weren't able to find Paul and Silas,
so what did they do? They got the nearest ones to
them. Notice, too, what they cried
to the rulers of the city. And there's a word in here. And I ask you, does this word
mean everyone or the whole world? No, this word is used in the
same context John 3.16 is used. Look at this. These that have turned the world
upside down are come hither. Did they turn the whole world
everywhere upside down? You see, it's used in a context. It doesn't mean the whole world. It doesn't mean the whole world.
And we know that when it says, well, God so loved the world
that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth
on him should not perish but have everlasting life. There's
a clause in there. Do you believe? Do you believe
on Christ? You won't perish. Isn't that
wonderful? Oh, my. We know not everybody believes.
But those who do, they shall never perish. So that's just
a little thing there where the world is used in a limited sense. So they take these men, Jason,
and they haul them before the city leaders. And isn't it amazing? You know, when men and women,
when the Lord saves men and women, this has been my experience with
seeing people who the Lord saved, the change is good. They become better citizens.
They become better husbands or wives, right? The change is good. They become better neighbors.
They don't trouble anyone. We don't seek to trouble anyone,
do we? So let us worship God. And we'll pray for your salvation,
praying the Lord will save you. But these unbelieving Jews, they
deceive the rulers of the city by saying, these have turned
the world upside down and come hither. Jason's in his house
with his brother and probably talking about the Lord. They're not turning the world
upside down, are they? Oh my. Listen to what John Gill
said. Because all Christians, the followers
of the Lord Jesus Christ, own Christ as king. And look what they said. It says
here, John Gill said, But though they said Jesus was a king, yet
not a temporal one, but one whose kingdom was spiritual and not
of this world, and therefore asserted nothing contrary to
the decrees of Caesar or what was at least prudential to the
worldly interest in glory. They preached Christ. He is another
kingdom. It's not of this world. And they lifted up Christ. My,
oh, my. Look at verse 9. And when they
had taken security adjacent to the other, they let him go, all
according to the eternal purpose and plan of God. Isn't it wonderful? Amazing. We are watching the
unfolding of God's eternal purpose as we go through this book. And
remember, it's still unfolding today. God's still saving, isn't he?
He's still moving. Oh, my.