Acts chapter 13, and I want to
read from verse 1. Acts chapter 13 and verse 1. And this is about a very important
journey that was made. Now, there were in the church
that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers as Barnabas and
Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaean,
which had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord
and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul
for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had
fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them
away. So they, being sent forth by
the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia, and from thence they
sailed to Cyprus. And when they were at Salamis,
they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews,
and they had also John to their minister. And when they had gone
through the isle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer,
a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Barjesus. which was
with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man
who called for Barnabas and Saul and desired to hear the word
of God. But Eliamus, the sorcerer, for
so is his name by interpretation, withstood us, seeking to turn
away the deputy from the faith. Then Saul, who also is called
Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him, and said,
O fool of subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou
enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the
right ways of the Lord? And now, behold, the hand of
the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the
sun for a season. And immediately there fell on
him a mist and a darkness, and he went about seeking some to
lead him by the hand. Then the deputy, when he saw
what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of
the Lord. Well, amen. May the Lord bless
to us this reading from his word. This is, as I've mentioned, an
important juncture in the life's experience of the Church of the
Lord Jesus because Here we discover in Acts chapter 13 that in addition
to the Lord's commission to his disciples, the 12 apostles, the
Holy Spirit also commissions these two men, Barnabas and Saul,
and sets them apart for going out with the gospel as well. And these two men were principally
charged with taking the gospel to the Gentile world. It does
appear as if in realizing that the gospel was being spread amongst
the Gentiles, this little church at Antioch grasped quickly the
usefulness and the importance of taking the message to the
Gentiles as well. And the Holy Spirit confirmed
this burden that was in the church to speak to Gentiles and bring
them to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ as their saviour.
And he called for Barnabas and Saul to be set apart to take
that message. It seems that the church at Antioch
had a number of able preachers and teachers. They're called
prophets here and they were declarers of the truth of Jesus Christ. We learned before that Barnabas
and Saul had been to Jerusalem with a gift that the church at
Antioch had sent to them and now they had come back and they
were in the church here at Antioch as well. And we're told that
the members of the church, they fasted, they prayed, they laid
hands on these two men and they sent them away. That fasting
probably meant that they went without food. for a period of
time while they were seeking the Lord's direction and the
Lord's will and that had been traditionally a Jewish practice
and it seems as if this was an old habit in a sense that was
dying hard and it showed that they were dedicated and serious
about seeking the face of the Lord in their prayers. And they
prayed and asked God for wisdom. They asked God for help for the
mission that was about to take place and that he would support
and go before and direct Barnabas and Saul. They laid hands on
them, which is a picture of identification and encouragement and suggested
that they were supportive of the work that these two men were
being sent to do. and then they sent them away
with that united commitment to the work of preaching the gospel
amongst the Gentiles. But the emphasis that we have
here in these opening verses of chapter 13 is of the Holy
Spirit authorizing, commissioning, and sending out these two men. And that assured this work of
success because when the Lord builds his church. When the Lord
builds up his people then this world cannot stand against it
and the very gates of hell cannot stand against it because this
is the Lord's church and this is his work. So we discovered
that the apostles, they head away on this great activity upon
which they are embarked. I think a couple of weeks ago
I showed you a little map that looked like this. So I hope you
can see that again. And in that top right hand corner
you can see Antioch. So Jerusalem is a little bit
further down underneath that. That's where the Lord had been
slain. and that's where the apostles
had their centre. And yet the church at the time
of Stephen had been scattered and some of those arrows show
us where those early believers went and it was to that little
group at Antioch that are amongst that little group at Antioch
up there in the corner that we find Barnabas and Paul being
sent out at the moment. So that's the Mediterranean Sea
with the countries all around about the edge of the sea, right
down to Egypt there and North Africa in the bottom. And it's
from Antioch in the top right-hand corner that this missionary journey
is going to take place. So I've got another map that
just shows you, and this is a little bit more complicated. This is
what always happened when I was at school. The teacher would
put the first map up on the wall, and I would think, oh, I understand
that. That's pretty straightforward and easy. And then they would
show me the second one, and I would scratch my head and think, oh,
no, this is getting too hard for me. But there's Antioch there
again on the right hand side, just above Syria and Seleucia
there. And we can see that Seleucia
is on the coast. So that's a port town. And that's
where Barnabas and Saul went to to get the boat. And this
is speaking to us then in this passage in chapter 13 about what's
seen there with the arrows with the one underneath it and the
arrow with the two underneath it. This is them going to the
island of Cyprus. So they went first from Antioch
to Seleucia. They got a board in Seleucia
and they went to Salamis and there they preached. in the synagogue. So they'd started preaching amongst
the Jews or they knew where they could get an audience and a hearing
and that was where they first went and began to preach. And
afterwards they went across to Paphos which was one of the main
towns on the island and probably because it was such an important
town on the island that's where this man, Sergius, Paulus was the leader, the governor
of that island of Cyprus. And so we can see that the work
is going on and Paul, or as he was called, and Barnabas, they
began to speak. But when they started to speak,
we also discover that there was a man called Burgesus who was
here, and he was a sorcerer. In verse eight, we also have
another name for him, Elias, Elimus the Sorcerer. And this
man withstood Barnabas and Saul, or Paul, and he was a magician.
And he knew this man, Sergius Paulus, the deputy of the country,
and he was an important figure. It may well be that the Solimus
was supported by him, maybe lived in his house or was a member
of his staff. But in some way, he obviously
felt offended that Sergius Paulus should be listening to the gospel. And we find that Paul powerfully
opposed this man. So here we are right at the very
beginning of the gospel going out to the Gentiles. And the
first thing that happens is that the devil, this sorcerer, this
magician, raises opposition. And that shows us that Satan,
who Paul calls a child of the devil, is always going to endeavour
to stop the gospel being heard. That's the thing about the gospel
and the world. These two things can never be
reconciled. They can never be at peace. And
it was perhaps indicative. Here, as the apostles went out
on this missionary journey, which is sometimes called the first
missionary journey, they went out and they were immediately
opposed in the preaching of the gospel by this child of the devil. When somebody wants to hear the
gospel, the devil and the world will crowd in upon that person
to choke off all interest. and to stop there being an opportunity
for the gospel to be heard. And that's something that we
should always remember. We should remember that Elimus,
or the son of the devil, will always try to interpose, to make
it hard, whether it's for you personally or for someone that
you know that you're trying to bring under the sound of the
gospel. There will always be a reason. and we shouldn't be surprised
if that happens. But there's something else important
here because this man, Sergius Paulus, was a child of God. He was an elect child of God
because we are told that he believed the gospel when he heard it. And Paul had to withstand Elimas
and he did in a very dramatic way. He accused him of his deceitfulness
and he caused blindness to fall upon him. And by that miracle,
it showed us that the blindness that was in Elias's eyes was
like the blindness and the darkness that was in his heart. He had
no understanding of the light and the Lord Jesus Christ, who
is the light of the world. He had no understanding of the
way he had to be helped around and he sought someone to lead
him because he didn't know the way, the truth and the life,
who is the Lord Jesus Christ. And he didn't understand the
power of the gospel. But Sergius Paulus witnessed
what happened. He heard these men speaking and
he revealed himself to be an elect child of God because he
trusted and he believed what he was being told. And this shows
us that God will always make a way for his people to hear
the gospel. So it's very possible that there
will be hurdles put in our way. It's very possible that we personally
will find that the devil tries to stop us hearing the gospel.
or that someone that we desire to come to church with us or
to hear the gospel being preached will be prevented from doing
so. But we have this confidence that
we should continue to uphold the gospel of the Lord Jesus
Christ because the Lord will bring his people by whatever
means under the sound of the word and they will hear the words
of eternal life whereby they must be saved. So this is the
beginning of an important journey, because now the Gospel is going
out to the Gentiles, out to the towns and the cities of the Gentiles,
and to the towns and cities all around the Mediterranean. And
we can see that these arrows, as they stretch up into, well,
that's what we now call modern-day Turkey, this Pamphylia and Lycia
and Cilicia and Galicia up at the top and Cappadocia. If you
were listening in on Wednesday night, we were talking about
Colossae being in Phrygia, and that's further up there to that
top left-hand corner. But here is the gospel going
out now with Paul and Barnabas, and they are about to head away
from Cyprus and into Pamphylia, and from there on into their
various preaching places. We'll pick up on this story on
another occasion. But just perhaps to say that
here we have another example of the power of God, God the
Holy Spirit, leading his people and sending them where he knows
the gospel has to be preached for the salvation of sinners. The Lord had his people. in all
of these towns, his elect people, his chosen people, and the gospel
was now going out to find them. Barnabas and Paul were going
out to find them. Who would have thought that a
man like Sergius Paulus, the governor of the island of Cyprus,
would be one of the Lord's elect people? Who would have thought
that this man, who was almost like a king here in Cyprus, We
might think of it as our governor in the state or the senator or
even the president himself. And he was one of the Lord's
people. And the Lord has his people. And as we preach and
lift up the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord calls his own people
to himself and he saves their souls through the preaching of
the gospel. So thank you for listening.