Acts chapter 13, and we're going
to be reading from verse 13, and that's quite a few verses
that I want to read this morning, so I will cut my comments down
appropriately, but if we can turn to Acts chapter 13 and verse
13. Now when Paul and his company
loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia. I'm just going to take a moment
and show you this little map here while I'm reading, and you'll
perhaps be able to follow that. So we said last week that down
there in Cyprus where Paphos is, and then he's moving up on
arrow number three to Perga, and then he's moving up on arrow
number four through to Antioch. in Pisidia. So it's arrow three
and four that we're looking at today. Now when Paul and his
company loosed from Pathos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia, and
John, departing from them, returned to Jerusalem. But when they departed
from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the
synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down. And after the reading
of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent
unto them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word
of exhortation for the people, say on. Then Paul stood up, and
beckoning with his hand, said, Men of Israel, and ye that fear
God, give audience. The God of this people of Israel
chose our fathers, and exalted the people when they dwelt as
strangers in the land of Egypt. And with an high arm brought
he them out of it. And about the time of forty years
suffered he their manners in the wilderness. And when he had
destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he divided their
land to them by lot. And after that, he gave unto
them judges about the space of 450 years, until Samuel the prophet. And afterward, they desired a
king, and God gave unto them Saul the son of Kiss, a man of
the tribe of Benjamin, by the space of 40 years. And when he
had removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king,
to whom also he gave testimony and said, I have found David
the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfil
all my will. Of this man's seed hath God,
according to his promise, raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus. when John had first preached
before his coming the baptism of repentance to all the people
of Israel. And as John fulfilled his course,
he said, Whom think ye that I am? I am not he. But behold, there
cometh one after me whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to
loose. Men and brethren, children of
the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, to you
is the word of this salvation sent. For they that dwell at
Jerusalem and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the
voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they
have fulfilled them in condemning him. And though they found no
cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be
slain. And when they had fulfilled all
that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and
laid him in a sepulcher. But God raised him from the dead,
and he was seen many days of them which came up with him from
Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people.
And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise
which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto
their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again. As it is also written in the
second Psalm, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.
And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no
more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will
give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore he saith also
in another psalm, thou shalt not suffer thine holy one to
see corruption. For David, after he had served
his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep and was
laid unto his fathers and saw corruption. But he whom God raised
again saw no corruption. Be it known unto you therefore,
men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you
the forgiveness of sins. And by him all that believe are
justified from all things from which ye could not be justified
by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest that
come upon you which is spoken of in the prophets. Behold, ye
despisers and wonder and perish, for I work a work in your days,
a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare
it unto you. And when the Jews were gone out
of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might
be preached to them the next Sabbath. Now, when the congregation
was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed
Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue
in the grace of God. And the next Sabbath day came
almost the whole city together to hear the word of God. But
when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy and
speak against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting
and blaspheming. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed
bold and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first
have been spoken to you. But seeing ye put it from you,
and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn
to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord commanded
us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that
thou shouldst be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. And
when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified
the word of the Lord. And as many as were ordained
to eternal life believed. And the word of the Lord was
published throughout all the region. But the Jews stirred
up the devout and honorable women and the chief men of the city
and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled
them out of their coasts. They shook off the dust of their
feet against them and came unto Iconium, and the disciples were
filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost. So there you can
see how that journey of the apostles went. Paul and Barnabas. They took John and they sailed
from Paphos to Perga. Then John went back. We'll hear
a little bit more about that on another occasion perhaps.
But John went back to Jerusalem. It seems that he found the journey
too much, too difficult. Perhaps he was a little bit young
for this role that he had been given, but he went back to Jerusalem
and the apostles went on to Antioch in Pisidia. And then that was
where the sermon was preached. The sermon is very straightforward
and clear. It shows us how the apostle spoke. to the Jews of his age and how
the message which he preached was concerning the history of
the Jews. You might be wondering why it
is that there are two Antiochs, because if you remember, that's
where Paul and Barnabas had left. They had left Antioch down there
in Syria, They had left Antioch down there in the bottom right
corner, just above Syria. We can see that that's Antioch.
Well, that's the town that they left. And then right up at the
tip of that arrow four, up at the top left-hand corner, we
see another Antioch. So we haven't to get these two
Antiochs confused in our mind because there were two different
Antiochs. It's actually quite interesting
because I looked this up and do you know that there were 17
ancient cities in Turkey that were called Antioch? So there
was the Antioch in Syria that they left, and there was this
Antioch in Pisidia that they went to, and there were lots
of other Antiochs there as well. You might think that's a little
bit silly that anybody in the one country, in Turkey as it
now is, would have... 17 different cities all with the
same name and I thought it was a bit silly and then I looked
up Antioch in America and you know that America has 19 different
Antiochs in it? So I don't think we can complain
too much about Turkey having 17 when America has 19 in all
of the states. And I think there are three different
ones in Louisiana and three different ones in Indiana. and two in Kentucky. So they're all spread all over
the place. So there are lots of different
ones. I've read quite a long passage there to you about how
Paul and these preachers preached to the Jews, gave them a history
lesson in order to build up to identifying the Lord Jesus Christ
as the Messiah and as God's anointed way of salvation to men and women. And we read together, I think,
perhaps some of the verses that are very important in realising
that this was Paul's purpose, to lead the people of the Jews
into understanding that this man, Jesus Christ, whom the Pharisees
and the scribes, the leaders of the religion back in Jerusalem,
had slain, crucified and slain. But he says there in verse 38, And that's
a wonderful thing just to think about for a moment, that we all
are sinners. We all do things wrong. We all
do things wrong that disappoint us ourselves, disappoint those
around about us, whether it's parents, whether it's friends, whether it's husbands
or wives, whether it's brothers or sisters, we do things wrong
and we hurt people and we hurt Those that we love, we hurt the
Lord with our sin and we hurt ourselves. We hurt our own consciences
and we hurt our own souls. And what the Apostle Paul is
telling us here is that while we all sin, everybody does, There
is forgiveness with God. God forgives sins through the
Lord Jesus Christ. And if you don't remember anything
else from this morning's talk, I want you to remember that sins
are forgiven by God through the Lord Jesus Christ and all that
he did. By him. We are told, all that
believe are justified from all things. Justified just means
to be made righteous, to be made pure, to be made whole, and to
be made holy by God in God's sight. And that by faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ, by trusting him and trusting his work on
the cross and the blood that he shed to cleanse us from sin,
we can know what it is to have forgiveness of sins and the righteousness
of God given to us, a righteousness which could never be obtained
by our own good works or by the law of Moses. And of course,
we discover that the Jews largely didn't like what they heard.
While some Jews listened and some Gentiles listened, we see
that many of the Jews got angry at what the Apostle was saying
because they were envious at the fact that this message was
getting such a big hearing from the people of the city. We're told that the next week
the whole city gathered. But you know, many people think
that they are better than the Bible says they are. And many
people think that they can fix themselves. They can fix their
own soul. They can fix their own conduct.
They can fix their own righteousness. And they are what we call self-righteous. But God is never pleased with
a man or a woman or a boy or a girl's own self-righteousness. He demands perfect righteousness. And that only comes through the
Lord Jesus Christ. These Jews, they spoke against
the gospel. They didn't believe the gospel
that Paul preached to them. And we are told in verse 46 that
the Apostle Paul says, if you don't believe, then you are unworthy
of everlasting life. If you don't believe, if you
won't have the Lord to be Lord of your life and saviour in your
life, then you don't want Christ. And the apostle Paul said, if
that's your attitude, we are going to take this gospel to
the Gentiles. And we're told that many of the
Gentiles there in Antioch of Pisidia believed on the apostles'
words and trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ. And there's a lovely
little verse there in 48, which says, as many as were ordained
to eternal life believed. That is, as many as God ordered,
as many as God saw fit to give this blessing of faith and grace
and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because we cannot do it of ourselves. God must enable us to trust in
the Lord Jesus Christ. And he has a people that he has
ordained. and he has ordained them from
eternity, he has ordained them in time that they will trust
in the Lord Jesus Christ and they will be saved. They believe
the gospel of salvation by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ
and they come to a knowledge of Christ as their saviour. The
Jews, we're told, chased the apostles away and they left Antioch
and Pisidia and they went to the next town on their journey,
which is Iconium. And we see that that's the little
arrow five there at the top. And so they go down to Iconium. Someone was asking the other
day, I wonder how they did their travelling. I wonder if they
travelled by horse or by carriage or whether they just walked between
these places. Well, I don't really know the
answer to that and maybe it was a mixture of all kinds. They
would do a little bit of sailing when they could. I'm sure that
would be a good way to travel. but there were a lot of mountains
in this area as well and they would have mountain passes to
cross and some dangerous roads to travel but they took the gospel
as the Lord had commissioned them and they took it to these
various towns and cities. So thank you for listening this
morning and we trust that the Lord will bless these few thoughts
to us for Jesus' sake. Amen.