Take your Bibles and turn back
with me to Acts chapter 16. My text this morning is what
I am convinced to be the beginning of the church at Philippi. Now Lydia was meeting, she was there, she
was a A merchant woman, a seller of purple, either the dye or
the fabric, I'm not sure which, but she was there on business.
Paul had been forbidden to go into the country where Lydia
lived, but in God's providence, he sent him to the country that
she would be on business. God knows more about providence
than any of us give him credit for. These things were all set
up ahead of time. Lydia was going to be there.
Paul was going to be there. Neither one of them knew the
other. Paul wanted to worship God. He heard there was a service
going on down there on the river, so he went down there. The Lord
saved Lydia under Paul's preaching, and she was baptized. And then
they continued on and preached there for a while. And all of these other things
come to pass. God's providence is a strange
and wonderful thing. A strange and wonderful thing.
If you look at the map supplied to us sometime by Sermon Audio,
you can go on there and look, and it'll give you all the geographic
locations of all that we call Grace Churches in this country.
And Some places, they just sprinkle
the landscape. Kentucky, West Virginia, all
of them, they just sprinkle the landscape. They're everywhere.
They're everywhere. And then you come over toward
the center of the country, and it's just like a big vacuum.
They're just nothing. Old Bruce Gresham over in Mississippi,
he used to call and talk to me all the time. He told me, he
said, me and you out on the frontier. We're on the frontier. And I
guess that's the way it is. And there's no explanation for
it except to say, even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy
sight. God knows what he's doing, and he's going to do what he
wills to do, and we're to praise him for it. Now, I say his providence
is strange and wonderful, and it is if you have a proper view
of the state of this world. Otherwise, it's very confusing. It's very stressful. But if you
have a proper view of the condition of this world, God's providence
is strange and it's wonderful. It's wonderful. This world lies
in a state of condemnation. In Ephesians 2, verse 3, speaking
of the former condition of men and women before God quickened
them, brought them forth from death
to life everlasting. He said, you were by nature the
children of wrath, even as others. That's the condition of this
world. They're under the wrath of God. In Romans chapter five,
verse 18, it said, by the offense of one judgment came upon all
men to condemnation. But you say, Preacher, I don't
see where I'm under a curse. Did you feel cursed when you
was born and growing up? Do you feel cursed? Do you feel
like you was under the condemnation of God all the time? Going to
school? You say, well, I work my job.
I've got a family. My children play out in the yard.
I can think and reason and read and pretty much go anywhere I
want to. My government, as far as I know,
has put no one out there to guard me and watch over me. I'm not
convicted under any law. I'm not confined or restrained
in any way. So I don't see that I'm under
the curse. What do you mean we're under
the wrath of God? What do you mean when you say
we're condemned of God? Well, I'm going to give you two
examples this morning. Two examples. The first one is
the world before the flood. Before God destroyed this world
with the flood. God said, the end of all flesh
has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through
them, and behold, I will destroy them with the earth. I'm gonna
wipe it out. This was more than 120 years
before he actually did it. In Matthew chapter 24, verse
38, it tells us exactly what went on during those 120 years. In the days before the flood,
they were eating and drinking. They'd have a banquet. I had
a bunch of folks over and they'd come over and have a big barbecue
or whatever they were doing. They were eating and drinking.
They were marrying and giving in marriage until the day that
Noah entered into the ark. They laughed to scorn God's preacher
talking about that world being under the curse of God, being
under the wrath of God, and God had already ordained its destruction
and he was coming to destroy the world and nobody not on that
ark was going to be saved. They laughed him to scorn over
what? Because he told them that they
were under the condemnation of God. They laughed him to scorn. They
went about their lives not feeling confined or judged. None of them
felt judged. None of them felt like they were
under the condemnation of God. Their children played out in
the yard. Their young men and women were
joined in marriage. There was businesses made and
established. You see what I'm saying? But
they were under the wrath of God that whole time. That whole
time. Another example is Egypt. Egypt
was the most advanced society in their day. They were organized,
smart, builders of roads, water aqueducts, and reservoirs. They excelled in art and science
and agriculture. But God condemned Egypt and revealed
their condemnation to Abraham hundreds of years before he actually
came through that place and slayed the firstborn. He told Abraham,
when he made a covenant with him, he said, your seed is going
to go down to Egypt. And in my providence, they're
going to flourish down there and they're going to grow into
the size of a nation. And he said, after that time,
I'm going to judge that nation. I'm going to judge that nation. Do you think in all that time
Egypt was aware of God's judgment on them? No. No. Do you think that there were
any visible signs of it? No. They were flourishing. Do you imagine that they felt
like a condemned nation? I tell you, when Moses walked
into the throne room, Pharaoh didn't even feel threatened. And yet, when I tell folks they're
under the condemnation of God and under the wrath of God, they
say, well, we don't feel like it. Neither did they. Neither
did they. Pharaoh wanted to go to the river,
he'd go to the river. If he didn't want to go to the
river, he could stay home. Old soldiers did what they wanted
to do. My friend, God says he has condemned
this world, and in the light of that condemnation, if he's
pleased to send his messenger and raise up a church and give
chosen sinners a heart to hear and a mind to understand, wouldn't
you call that strange and wonderful? Boy, I'm glad he sent Henry Mahan
to Ashland, Kentucky, I'll tell you that. It was strange, but it was wonderful. It was wonderful. And that's
what happened here in Philippi. Paul had cast out this spirit
of divination, the ability to tell the future, and her masters,
who made a lot of money by her, were angry about it. They were
mad. So they took Paul and Silas to
the magistrates, calling them troublemakers. They said, they
do exceedingly trouble our city. They didn't trouble the city,
they troubled these Masters who were misusing this maiden, they might have abused them a
little bit, but they went down and made them out to be a cult. As far as I know, these magistrates
never even heard what they were preaching. Wasn't even interested
in what they were preaching. They were just angry. They said,
they're a cult, Act 1621. teaching customs which are not
lawful for us to receive or observe being Romans. And they stirred
up the people being in the marketplace of the city, and the officials
rent off their clothes before the people because they had to
make a scene for the people. They didn't want to be falsely
accused of the people, so they rent off their clothes and they
commanded these men to be beaten. And after they'd laid many stripes
on them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailer to
keep them. And he put them in solitary confinement. He put them in the strongest
cell there was in the prison, put them in the inner prison.
And he made their feet fast in the stalks. And being shocked
by these things, they were depressed and blamed themselves. No, I
didn't want to say it. Here they sat, the flesh ripped
off their back. They'd been called falsely accused
and called false prophets and cult leaders and who knows what. Then they're taken down to jail
and they're treated, I doubt the murderers were in the inner
prison. But here they take these men
who had done nobody any harm whatsoever, no physical harm
to anybody. They took them down there, beaten
half to death, throwed them in the inner prison, and then come
in and put those steel shocks around their legs so they couldn't
even get up and walk. And so these men sat there all
depressed, saying, God, what did we do? No. No, that ain't
what they did. They sang praises under God. They sang praises unto God. And those prisoners that were
in that place couldn't believe their ears. They're in worse shape than we
are. There was no multitude that brought
us in here. Man, these were vigilantes. They were ready to string them
up. And these men are singing praises
unto God. At midnight, Paul and Silas prayed
and sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them. And
then suddenly, all of a sudden, there was a great earthquake. Well, accidents will happen.
If you believe in accidents, God sent an earthquake to Philippi. There was a great earthquake
so that the foundation of the prisons were shaken and immediately
all the doors were opened. The walls didn't fall down, but
the doors opened. Isn't that something? And everyone's bands were loosed. What an earthquake. Walls didn't
fall down, ceiling didn't fall down on them, but just the doors
opened right up and the shocks fell right off their ankles. And the keeper of the prison,
awaking out of his sleep and seeing the prison doors open,
drew out his sword. He knew what was coming to him.
They'd beat him, they'd torture him, and then they'd kill him.
He said, I'm going to save him a trouble. He pulled out that
sword and he was getting ready to kill himself. And Paul said,
don't do that. We didn't go anywhere. We're
right here. We're right here. Paul cried with a loud voice,
saying, do thyself no harm, for we're all here. Why were the
prisoners still there? Nobody left. Why? Why was those prisoners still
there? Because they heard what these men were praying and they
heard what these men were singing. That's why. And then they saw
the providence of God attend their prayers. I don't think
I'd have run either. Then he called for light and
sprang in and he came trembling and fell down before Paul and
Silas and he brought them out and he said, sirs, what must
I do to be saved? Here's the gist of what these
men were preaching, the salvation of the Lord. Salvation of the
Lord. That's what these men were preaching
in that city. And this jailer couldn't have
given two hoots about it until after God's providence caused
him to see what he saw and hear what he heard. And now he looks
at these two men and he's trembling before them. And he could give
two wits about those men who gave him all those charges to
kill him and torture him and all the threatenings that they
did. He didn't even think about that. He came trembling before
Paul and Silas. And he said, sirs, you reckon
he would've called him sirs uh... the warden of a prison you reckon
he'd look at that prisoner and say sir what he did to these
two men all of a sudden this man had respect for these men
and he said sirs what must I do to be saved when a man or a woman
comes to see by God's providence God's messenger and god's spirit
when he comes to see his condition before god there's not a more
pertinent question to be asked than this what must i do to be
safe how can i have what you have is it possible is there anything for me to do
is there anything that God would allow me to do. What must I do
to be saved? Now, men and women who've never
been convicted of sin, they've never experienced that Holy Spirit
conviction, they've never been made to taste of that iniquity,
never been able to see their own sin, And like David say, I hate myself,
I despise myself. Well, they ask all sorts of questions. I had a fella come up here one
day, introduced himself, I talked to him for a little while, and
he said, what mode of baptism do you all teach? They ask all kinds of questions.
What do you believe about the tribulation? What do you feel about women
being able to participate in the business of the church? Do
you believe in tithing? Do you believe in keeping the
Sabbath? Here's one I'm asked this all
the time. Do you believe in passing an offering plate? My friend, when God convicts
and convinces a man of sin and his condition before God, reveals
to him his inability, his wickedness, his rebellion, shows him that
the wrath of God is abiding on him. shows him his walk according
to the course of this world and according to the prince of the
power of the air, his walk in the lust of his flesh, fulfilling
the desires of his flesh and of his mind. This man only has
one question and he does not address this question to himself
because all confidence in himself has been destroyed. Isn't that
what a child of God is? He has no confidence in the flesh. I'll tell you the difference
between a man who's an intellectual and a man under the conviction
of sin. The intellectual will come to
you and he'll start talking to you about all the intellectual
things in the doctrine. But when a man's convinced of
sin, he doesn't tell you anything that he thinks or believes except
that he's a sinner. That's all he knows. Henry used to tell a story, I
know he read it by Spurgeon or one of those English authors,
about this man, he was considered to be a simpleton over there. And he'd run around and he'd
chant this, something, I know nothing at
all, I'm just a poor sinner. I'm just a poor sinner." And
he'd chant this over and over everywhere he went. I'm just
a poor sinner, know nothing at all, except Jesus Christ is my
all in all. That's what he said. That's what
a man under the conviction of sin would have. I'm just a poor
sinner. I don't know anything. All my
knowledge, I put it on the dung heap. All my glory, I took it
out, dumped it on the dung heap. It's nothing. Here I sit guilty
before God. Is there anything I can do to
be saved? The sinner just has one question.
And he don't address that question to himself because all confidence
in himself has been destroyed. He'll look to God's ambassador
for the answer. For the answer. And he'll say, what must I do
to be saved? What must I do to have a God
who can save me and keep me and preserve me in any situation
and in any circumstance, no matter what? What must I do to be saved? And there is but one answer,
verse 31. They said, believe on the, no
hesitation here. They didn't say, well, I wonder
what text we ought to get. Just go over there and sit down,
Mr. Gaylor, and I'm going to prepare an outline for you. They
need an outline for this. They need an outline for this.
Verse 31, they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
thou shalt be saved. How come we don't say that? Huh? Salvation begins in the center
with a God-given faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Faith and
repentance. I believe faith is the first
work because a man who does not believe, he can't be led to repentance
because he doesn't believe anything. But I'm going to tell you something.
You can't divorce repentance from faith. And faith won't be
divorced from repentance. They're together. And when God
gives faith, He gives repentance. Salvation begins in the sinner
with a God-given faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and Paul gives
us a good explanation of what it is to believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ in 2 Timothy 1.12. He tells us, he said, I know
whom I have believed. And I'm persuaded that he is
able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that
day. Isn't that what faith does? Doesn't
faith hear? What's it hear? It hears about
Jesus Christ and him crucified. Jesus Christ, Lord of glory. In our text, having answered
the jailer's question, Paul gathered him and his whole house together,
verse 22, and they spake unto him the word of the Lord. They preached the gospel to him
and to all that were in his house. What is it to speak the word
of the Lord? Well, the word of the Lord is
God's testimony in the scriptures concerning His everlasting purpose
of grace in the promised Redeemer and the work He would accomplish
as the God-man. All through the scriptures it
testifies of this over and over and over. Gives us pictures,
gives us allegories, gives us similitudes, all through the
Old Testament he gives us these things. And then it's preached
to us in just plain language in the New Testament. It's to
preach the satisfaction of God's holy justice and show the righteousness
of God in his remission of our sins. and the free and complete justification
of God's elect in Christ by His divine and sovereign grace. In short, it's to preach Christ
and Him crucified, raised from the dead, seated
at the right hand of God. Through this man is preached
unto you the forgiveness of sin. awful weight of the law falls
on the ears of a sinner and his mouth is stopped and he sits
there trembling before God in his guilt. It's a wonderful thing
to hear about Jesus Christ. It's not just a story anymore. It's not just a common name.
I grew up hearing the word Jesus my whole life. As far back as
I have a memory, I can remember listening to people talking about
Jesus. Talking about the cross, talking
about his death, talking about his resurrection, talking about
all those things. But there come a time when to hear that was
not common anymore. It was wonderful. It was wonderful. When a man falls under the conviction
of the Holy Spirit, These things become wonderful to him. Now
he's ready to hear. Now he's willing to listen. Now
you've got his undivided attention. Listen to this. This is Isaiah
54. He said, in a little wrath, God
said, I hid my face from thee for a moment. But with everlasting kindness
will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord, thy redeemer. Paul said, I know your election
of God, for our gospel came not in word only, but in power and
demonstration of the Spirit. What is the ministry of the Holy
Ghost in this world? What does the Holy Ghost do?
What did our Lord said He'd do when He comes to this earth?
He said, now when I, it's absolutely necessary that I go to the Father.
If I don't go to the Father, I can't send you the Holy Ghost. But I'm gonna go to the Father,
and when I do, I'm gonna send you the Holy Spirit. And here's
what he's gonna do. He's gonna convince of sin. He's not gonna give you a foreign
tongue so you can dance around the place and think you're somebody,
because you can speak in a foreign language. Most of it's just made up gibberish
anyway. No, he's gonna convince of sin.
That's what he's gonna do. We used to sing, we'd have special
music. Old people come in, we had this
little blind girl came in one time. I'm telling you, she could
sing like an angel. I don't know if you remember
that down at White Oak Chapel or not. She came in during what
we called revival and sang that night. She had a voice of an
angel. And we went home that night and we said, boy, the spirit
of God was there tonight. Fear of God wasn't there that
night. There was nobody in that place convinced of sin. And here's
another thing he's going to do. When he convinces you of sin,
now I want you to hear me. For the way you talked about
picnicking after a while or whatever it is you got planned, I want
you to hear what I'm telling you. If the Holy Spirit ever
convinces you of sin, He'll have to convince you of righteousness.
Because you can't see any possibility of you being righteous before
a holy God. There's not something you can
just conjure up in your head or go in your closet and think
about it a little bit and come out and say, well, He convinced
me, I'm righteous. Now, know that'll be the last
thing on your mind. If you ever had unbelief, here's
where unbelief will show itself the greatest. When he tells you
that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believe in. The Holy Spirit will convince
of sin. When he does, you'll be convinced
of it. Nobody can stand in this pulpit
and describe sin like you've learned it from your experience.
You will know what sin is and you'll know that you're the sinner. Self-righteous religions stand
before God and say as he looks around and he sees the old publican
sitting back there and he lifts up his eyes, he don't bow his
head, he just lifts up his eyes to heaven and he says, God I
thank you I'm not like him. But the man convinced to sin,
he can't even look into heaven. And he said, Lord, have mercy
on me, the sinner, the sinner, not a sinner, the sinner. The Holy Spirit convinces a man
of sin, and if he does, he'll have to convince him of righteousness.
And here's the next thing he'll convince him of, Judgment, not
that there's gonna be one, but judgment satisfied. I tell you, for the sinner, that's
something. To think that all my sins are
gone. They're gone. Sins I haven't
even committed. They're gone. Shins and I'm too
ignorant to even know that they're sin. Gone. All my sins have been paid for. Now this is the work of the Holy
Ghost. When the Holy Spirit comes into a place and abides in there,
this is what he convinces men of, that they're sinners. But that God has a righteousness
with which he intends them to be clothed. And clothing them with that righteousness,
he shows them that his judgment had been satisfied in Christ.
And they're fully reconciled to him. All my soul. All in Silas preached the word
of the Lord unto the jailer and his whole house, the word of
his eternal appointments, the word of his promise, the word
of his incarnation, the word of his representative obedience,
the word of his vicarious death and suffering, the word of his
resurrection and ascension, the word of his coronation and present
reign and glory, the word of his second coming and the gathering
of all his saints to himself. That's what he preached to that
jailer. And you know what? That jailer believed. He believed. And his whole house. And that's
what Paul told him way back at the beginning, wasn't he? Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and you're gonna be saved and your
whole house. And then he sat down and told
him who Christ was and he believed and God saved him and his whole
house. My friend, I can say without
hesitation that when a poor lost sinner shut up to himself and
his condition, he'll hear and receive the gospel and he'll
obey the commandments of Christ. What does Christ command a man? Well, his first commandment to
you is to believe. That's a commandment. It's not
a suggestion. This is not an option. Religion
puts it up as an option. There's no option to it. You
don't believe or be damned. That's not an option. It's not a suggestion. It's not
one of many options. It's a divine command. Believe.
And the second is this. Be baptized. Well, I thought that was an option.
That's no option. It's a commandment of God. I'm so tired of pussyfooting
around with this thing of baptism. I'll preach it. You're going
to run somebody off if you start preaching about it. Hit the door,
man. You're not going to run a believer
off talking to him about the commandments of Christ. He loves
Christ. He wants to obey Christ. He's
looking forward to anything he can do. Don Fortner said, Brother
Darwin, would you be interested in going down and pastoring that
little church or just a handful of people down there in Arkansas?
And I just don't have anybody else to send. Would you be interested? I said, Don, I'd be interested
in standing on my head until the Lord returns. If I believe
that's what he wants me to do. Well, I'm a believer, but I don't
know about this thing of baptism. You're not a believer. Believers
don't reject the commandment of Christ. My soul, they don't
argue with their Lord, they fall down before him. He's their hope,
he's their prince, he's their king. They fully surrendered
to him. If he said, be baptized, they
going to jump in the water. I'm going to tell you something.
That Ethiopian eunuch didn't know beans about anything. Philip
preached to him the gospel. And that eunuch did everything
but demand of Philip to be baptized. He sure did. And this gaoler,
this is three o'clock in the morning. Paul's been preaching
to them now for two hours. He got done preaching. They wasn't
going to wait for morning. They want to be baptized right
now. And he took them out at three
o'clock in the morning. He baptized him and his whole house. I don't
know how long Peter's sermon lasted at Pentecost, but at the
end of it, 3,000 souls were saved, and they baptized 3,000 souls.
They didn't do that in 10 minutes. It probably went up into the
late hours of the night. But they were all baptized. And
none of them wanted to go home until they were. I just can't imagine why any
man who hears and believes would resist baptism. And I know this. When I was in the Navy, when
it came time to put on the uniform, you know, we When you went in
boot camp back then, you got a pair of jeans that was about
a foot or two longer than what they're supposed to be and you
had to roll them all up and then they taught you how to cut them
and sew them and do all that. You wore these leggings and you
wore this little denim, faded denim shirt and your blue jeans. That's all you had on all the
way through boot camp. When you graduated, now you put
on the dress uniform of the United States Navy. There wasn't a man
in that place who didn't put that uniform on. You was in the
Navy, you know exactly what I'm talking about. You put that on
and swelled up like a toad, didn't you? Huh? You was proud to put
on that uniform. Baptism's putting on the uniform
of Christ. Huh? There's only one reason
why a person won't do it. They're not proud to be a believer. That's right. That's right. They don't want to be identified
with their Savior. The evangelist Ralph Barnard
said one time that baptism was putting on the uniform of Christ.
And that's why it's not a private act, but a public confession
of your faith in Christ. And then let me give you this,
and I'll quit. That's enough about baptism. After the gospel
was preached and the commandment of Christ was obeyed, these men
set meat before God's ambassadors and rejoiced. They rejoiced. They didn't say, phew, I'm glad
that's over. No, they rejoiced. They rejoiced. What keeps men and women coming
back to hear the gospel? Is it the law? Is that what does
it? You better go down there or else. I tell you why sane people come
back over and over and over and over, because they rejoice in
Christ. I tell you, if the richest man
in the world left you a big inheritance, And they said, now this is a
big inheritance. We can't get it all out in one
session. So we're gonna do this over a
period of six years. You be there every time the door's
open. Now here's what that gang gets. Here's what Uncle Tom gets. You
go down that line, boy, you just like that, waiting for your name. You be there every time the door's
open. Well, that's what it is when we preach the gospel. We're
just going over your inheritance. We're just talking about the
things that God's freely given to you. Now, if you have an interest
in that, man, that ear just like that. And then you go home, boy,
$100,000 I got. You rejoice. You rejoice. How much more to have eternal
life? They set meat down before these
men. And they rejoiced in believing in God with all
their halves. Believers are grateful people.
They spend most of their prayer time giving thanks to God. If you read the epistles written
by Paul and these other men, especially Paul, he's constantly
giving God thanks for everything, for his providence, for the sufficiency
of his gospel, for the success of his gospel, for all things. He's thankful for them people.
He's thankful for everything. God's people are grateful because
everything that had been given to them, they didn't have anything. Paul said, After I heard of your
faith in the Lord Jesus and love to all the saints, I ceased not
to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers,
giving thanks unto the Father who hath made us meet to be partakers
with enlightened saints, bound to give thanks always to God
for you, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning
chosen you to salvation through sanctification of spirit and
belief in the truth. They all gathered together and
they sat down to meet and rejoiced and gave thanks. And this is
why we gathered here today, isn't it? To eat the bread of Christ
and to give thanks and to rejoice. God called me. That jailer, he
lost all sight of all that nonsense, all them magistrates and all
them people and that lynch mob and everything else. He lost
sight of that whole thing. And I tell you, that's what happens
when a man sees Christ. Everything else just disappears. This world just loses its glitter. Just loses its glitter. This
is what you want. I have to have it. I want it. I wanna be there. I wanna hear
every word. I don't wanna miss a word. I
don't wanna miss a word. That may just be the word that
I need to hear. I'm gonna be there. And I hope
you feel that way in this upcoming conference, because I've known
these men for quite a while, and there's not a one of them,
not a one of them that I wouldn't be afraid to have preach here,
even if I wasn't here. But I've gone off somewhere.
Have these men preach. Just pray for the Lord's blessings
on them. Thank you.