Amen, I'm gonna read a portion
of Acts chapter 16 so we can begin to again address the the
jailer We looked at significantly verses 25 through verse 27 where
we saw that the kingdom of God had once again invaded the kingdoms
of men in the earlier studies in our Opening introduction to
the book of Acts we made it plain that the book of Acts is really
the assault of the kingdom of God on the Roman Empire and When
you open up the book of Acts chapters 1, 2, and 3, what you
see is the penetrating results of the kingdom of God into what
Daniel saw in Daniel 3 and in Daniel 7. was the bottom half
of that great image of Babylon, the Roman empire made up of clay
and stone. And you heard how in Daniel chapter
three, that there was a stone that was cut out without hands,
that would crush the feet of that giant emblematic symbol
of the antichrist kingdom called Babylon. And it would come crumbling
down by that stone cut out without hands, that stone is Christ.
And it's the gospel that has been penetrating the political
systems of this world the countries and nations and the ethos or
ethos and has been bringing men and women out of darkness into
God's marvelous light. And so we see this happening
with the jailer. We saw in verse 26 after we had
learned how Paul and Silas were walking in the spirit and praying
in the spirit and singing Psalms at midnight that suddenly there
was a what great earthquake so that the foundation of the prisons
were shaken and immediately the doors were open and Everyone's
bands were loosed and we did not casually pass over that text
because we understood that God had done this before in chapters
12 and in around chapter 4 or 5 and Every time the apostles
were put in prison by the legal system, whether it was the Roman
Empire or the law enforcement of the Jews, what did God do?
He broke open the prisons and allowed his apostles out. We
learn from that, that even though the apostles were bound, as Paul
said in 2 Thessalonians 3, the word of God is never bound. That
means even though the world system and the devil working by the
world system will always seek to stop the believer, thwart
the believer's objective to preach the gospel because that's the
thing that Christ has called us to do, we know that God will
make a way out of no way, won't he? That he will crush the political
systems of this world through his sovereign means and bear
witness to his sovereignty by the obedience of his people.
Now this is what we're about to see here unpack in the verses
before us 26 through 40. And what I stated last time was
that there are five things taking place in these subsequent verses.
First, the manifestation of God's power. The manifestation of God's
power represented in the what? The earthquake. The earthquake. The earthquake is always a symbol
of God's power. He shakes the earth. We believe
in science in so far as science is a grant and a paradigm and
a method by which we interpret things in this natural physical
world like we believe in mathematics as a scale for determining measures. But we don't say that mathematics
nor science is the origin or cause or ultimate interpreter
of things. And so when we say that we accept
science where science is consistent with biblical revelation. We
say we agree with it. We understand that tectonic place
under the earth shifts under pressures and weights and when
certain gases are loose or when influences are placed on one
side. But we also know that the earth
is fractured by the sovereign hand of God multiple thousands
of years ago when man sinned and God divided the continents
and separated mankind because of his rebellion as he sought
to develop a one world kingdom in Genesis 9 through 11. God
divided their tongues and he separated their lands and there
were massive earthquakes that shifted the plates of our nations
and now we have what are called seven continents. It was not
that way in the beginning, was it? It was one landmass with
portions of water around it until the earthquake in Peleg's day.
And then God separated men in order to have mercy on them as
we'll see in Acts chapter 17. So while we are thankful for
scientific advancements in technology and growing disciplines and interpreting
our physical cosmos, we never ever draw the conclusion that
the interpreters of the cosmos are giving us origin explanation. We understand that all things
are made by God and he sustains all things and he controls all
things and he upholds all things. And when he wants to he shakes
the earth. So what we say is that we hold to a theological
interpretation of cosmology. That means when God wants to
he shakes the earth and what he tells us is the reason why
the earth does not continue to shake is Because he's holding
it together The reason why the earth does not continue to shake
is because he's holding it together Christ is upholding all things
By the word of his power and by his word everything is held
together Colossians chapter 1 verses 12 through 15 everything is being
held together and every now and then because of the curse he
allows it to fracture and But he does it frequently in correspondence
to his will as he's doing in the account before us and as
he's done before. And we saw a massive earthquake
in the days of our Lord Jesus Christ when he hung on Calvary
Street. The text tells us in Matthew's gospel and there was
a great earthquake and the graves opened and many of the bodies
of the saints came out and bore witness to the resurrection.
Now when you go back to AD 33 and you read what we call the
astronomical calendar, not the Gregarian calendar or the Julian
calendar, or the Jewish calendar, but the astronomical calendar,
which calendar gives us cosmic events for thousands of years. We have on record a massive earthquake
in the year 1833, right about time of Passover, right along
with an eclipse, which also occurred at that time. What does that
mean? God's word is true, literally. And yet that literal interpretation
serves for us who are spiritual by nature, radical theological
implications. So we see the kingdoms of the
Roman Empire shaking at this time in verse 26. The doors were
open and everyone's bands were loose. That could not be coincidence. That had to be the act of God,
right? We believe that because it said so but now read basically
our perimeter text to this and this is Zechariah chapter 9 if
you will go to Zechariah chapter 9 I think it's verse 12 and 13
and listen to the promise that's given in that text about God
Loosening the prisoners and setting them free which is the basic
modicum of the gospel Zechariah chapter 9 If I'm not mistaken
Yes, look at verse 11. This is the father talking to
the son as for thee also by the blood of your covenant I have
sent forth your prisoners out of the pit where in is no water
Do you see? This is the father talking to
the son Zechariah 9 11 as for you also by the blood of your
covenant because of your atoning work Am I going to let the captives
free? Do you see that? Because of the
atoning work of Christ, sinners who are spiritually in bondage
are liberated. Prior to salvation, are we sinners?
Are we sinners after salvation? Let's just keep that real. But
prior to salvation, when we are sinners, we are also slaves of
sin, are we not? And we are in bondage to the
devil, and we are in bondage to the law, and we are in bondage
to the curse of the law. Is that true? And until Christ
comes to liberate us, we can only do the bidding of the enemy,
right? Well, when he comes in the power of the gospel, the
one thing of true believer experiences, an authentic salvation occurs,
is that there is a kind of liberation of the soul. Is that true? There's
a liberation of the soul in many areas, but liberation is the
fundamental theological paradigm that Christ uses. For whomsoever
the Son shall set free, shall be what? Free indeed. And so
what we're dealing with in the prophecy of Zechariah chapter
9 is the nature and condition of every believer prior to salvation. He's in a pit. That's a constrained
place where liberation is absent and he's left there to die. And
notice there is no what there? No water. That means no life
because water is a symbol of life. So prior to salvation,
you and I were dead in trespasses and sins. We had no hope in the
world, and we were slaves of the enemy. Is that true? When
once God delivered us through the proclamation of the gospel
and the power of his spirit, he liberated us from the bondage
of sin, liberated us from the tyranny of Satan, liberated us
from the curse of the law, and brought us to the fountain of
living waters, which is God himself. And now we drink freely of the
grace of God in Christ. Is that true? Now we drink freely
of the grace of God and Christ in that water of life that we
drink is Christ himself by his spirit through his word. That's
the joyful proclamation that Christ gave in John 7 verse 37. If any man thirst let him come
unto me and I will give him the water of life and he will drink
it and out of his belly shall flow overflow continue to flow. abounding, life-giving gushers
of water. And this is the language that's
describing the liberation of God's people. Go to Romans chapter
6, one more, to show you again the theological implications
of which I am certain the Apostle Paul knew when he saw and witnessed
and bore record to the miracle that's in front of us. In Romans
chapter 6, this is how God describes a real saving conversion experience
for those of us who have been truly born again. It says in
Romans 6 verse 17, but God bethanked that you were servants of sin.
See that word, servant? What's the word in the literal
Greek? Slave. That's our Greek term, doulos.
And a doulos is a slave, you guys, that is not a hired servant. That would be a whole nother
Greek term, but a doulos is a slave and that slave has no will of
his own. When you are a slave, you are
owned lock, stock and barrel by your master. This is why second
timothy chapter 2 22 through 24 where paul told timothy the
um, the teacher must be patient teaching all men Perventure if
god is pleased to give them an acknowledgement of the truth
and bring them out of the snare and bondage of the devil Which
they were taken according to their will in other words when
we share the gospel with people only god can bring them out And
so we are to be patient as we carefully explain biblical truth
with the objective of the Spirit of God doing something for them
that they cannot do. Now notice what it says, but
God be thanked that you used to be the servants of sin. Now
that past tense is very important. Now it says, but you have obeyed
from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered to you in
that form of doctrine we call the gospel. You have obeyed from
the heart the gospel. Now what is the obedience that
God requires when the gospel is preached? Faith! Believe on
the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. That's what he
demands of every one of us. And when that faith was manifested
or discovered or evidenced in your heart, you saw Christ as
your Savior and that revelation liberated you from your condition
spiritually. Now look at verse 18. Mark what
it says being then made what that's the context in which every
believer is now Spiritually, I am free from the bondage of
sins spiritually. I am free from the curse of the
law spiritually I am free from the tyranny and control of the
devil I am not practically free from the presence of sin or the
influence of sin or even the harassment of the devil, but
I am free from his authority and I am free from its authority. Its rule over me is not obligatory. It has no authority over me because
I'm Christ. Now, in that context of freedom,
I am called to walk in the liberty wherewith Christ has made me
free. You know what that means? I am to acknowledge that I am
no longer a slave of the enemy. I'm a slave of Christ. Without
that mindset, I now am not clear on my identity and I can be hoodwinked
by any proposition that comes along. But if I'm clear that
I'm owned by Christ and I am a do-loss of Christ, just as
I had no will of my own to operate out of when I was under the tyranny
of Satan, I am not free as a slave of Christ to just sin willfully. My master has called me away
from those things. So now I'm in a battle, am I
not? Because if I affirm my identity in Christ and I know that my
position is liberation by the power of Christ, then I also
know what the next several verses are gonna say. I'm gonna have
to fight for my identity and fight for my liberty because
that's what he has called me to. Being then made free from
sin, you became the servants of what? Look at verse 19. I
speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your
flesh for as you have yielded your members servants or slaves
to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity even so now yield
your members servants to righteousness with the aim of holiness. See
it? That's the call of liberated
saints. When you are liberated from the
tyranny of the devil, you now yield, you submit. That's the
term. You submit to the authority of
Christ and then experience the power of a trajectory of life
that leads to holiness, not uncleanness. You guys see that? Operative
terms are yield and submit. Verse 20. For when you were the servants
of sin, you were free from righteousness. Do you see it? You know what
that means? When you were a slave of sin, righteousness didn't
have any authority over you. It had no control over you and
neither did you want it to. So we talk, people talk about
free will often. Here's the verse that underscores
the nature and character of free will. While as yet you are not
the servant of Christ, you are only free to sin. Because righteousness is not
a sphere in reality in your life. You don't have that mechanism.
You don't have that gift or virtue. You don't have that privilege
and responsibility that only comes after conversion. Prior
to conversion, you are a slave of sin and all you can do is
sin and you willfully sin. When God began to work a work
of grace on you as we get ready to go back to the jailer, and
he began to shake the kingdoms of your heart, and he began to
demonstrate Before your own eyes how he liberates others He brings
you to your knees And causes you to say I have been confronted
personally by the power of the gospel That's what our text is
teaching. I have been confronted personally
personally by the power of the gospel Let's go back to our text. Let's work this through a little
bit What's going on in our text is just fascinating I Said what
we were going to do and hopefully I can make our way all the way
through chapter 40 because I do want to work quickly Is that
the keeper that is the jailer? was Providentially placed in
a situation where he was in the middle of God's fight with the
Roman Empire and in fact, he was a emissary of the devil and
a means of bringing into bondage those who were serving as ambassadors
of God's kingdom. And as he did what he was told
to do as we learned in verse 22 and 23, he heard and saw and
felt the real power. It was in the middle of the night
and it brought him to his knees. This is where you and I are now
going to contemplate the concept of condemnation. Condemnation
of who? The jailer. Why? Because he's an object of mercy. And the first work of the Spirit
whenever he deals with an object of mercy is to convince him of
sin. Watch how the text impacts. I'm
at verse 27. And the keeper of the prison
awakening out of his what? And this is what we call the
awakened sinner. Now what is an awakened sinner?
It's a person who has been confronted by the claims of the gospel and
his or her conscious now is jarred out of the lethargy of false
security that it had prior to hearing the claims of the gospel.
Like, When you and I are walking in the paths of darkness, our
conscious is fully asleep because we are functioning in a system
compatible with our sinful nature. We are on a course that's consistent
with the grain of the wood of the secular system. But when
once the gospel comes, it starts rubbing over against you. And it starts bopping you upside
your head. And it starts goading you as
the spirit of God did with Paul. Remember Saul, Saul, it is hard
for you to kick against the goals. And it starts waking you up in
your conscience. And you're not converted yet,
but you are becoming aware of the mandates of God's imperatives
and God's law. And you are becoming aware of
the indictment of your soul that you are what intuitively and
deeply you were aware of in your sense of insecurity about eternity.
So here's the way the Bible unpacks it. Solomon said in the book of Ecclesiastes,
God has hidden eternity in our hearts so that we might not find
out the works of God without calling on God first. So what
he has done by creating us in his image, the imago Dei, is
that he has made us aware of eternity of which we have no
grounds to speculate that any other creature in the universe
has that capacity not being created in God's image. but mankind does. So mankind from the smallest
ages have contemplated that which is beyond what he can see. Contemplated
the universe, the multiple universes, the parallel worlds, the subatomic
universes. This is why we can study them
as a discipline now, because we can go there intellectually
and cognitively. And we've studied what goes on
beyond that which is seen, because God has placed it in our hearts.
So eternity is a real sort of conundrum for man until you are
taught that you were made for eternity. That God made us for
eternity because one of the attributes wherewith we have inherited from
God's nature is that God is the eternal God. So when he created
you, he created you for eternity. Whether that eternity is with
him forever in glory or separated from God under his wrath, it's
still eternity. Eternal life. eternal damnation
and the jailer had to deal with the fact that his mortality had
brought him to the brink of his life ending the jailers mortality
what do you mean by that pastor well he could have died in the
earthquake many do right but we certainly know that he is
in danger with the law of the Roman Empire now isn't he here's
what he does light of it notice what it says in verse 27 and
the keeper of the prison awakening out of his sleep and seeing the
prison doors open he drew out his sword and would have what
killed himself see it he would have killed himself supposing
that the prisoners had been fled this is what I had stated in
one of my previous outlines Caesars Satan's useless watchmen Caesar's,
Satan's, useless watchmen. What do we mean by that? That
nothing is gonna ever stop God's gospel from advancing. The jailer
was a pawn in the hand of a political kingdom that really is a pseudo
power, a false power. Who is Caesar over against God?
Do you know God has wiped out all of the families of the Caesars?
None exist today. Though they lifted their hands
and said that they were the Son of God." Where are they today? They're gone. So Satan's useless
watchman is exposing his sin. That's John 16, 8. We just underscored
that, right? The first work of the Spirit
is to convince a man of what? Learn these axioms because you
are not going to be a good witness if you don't. You and I, when
we share the gospel with lost people, we want to detect whether
or not They have become aware of God's holiness and their sinfulness. When you share the gospel with
people, if people are flippant about God, it's a good indication
they haven't been saved. Because when you're actually
converted, the one thing that God instills in you as a foundation,
a prima facie foundation, is the fear of the Lord. The fear
of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. This is one of the
messianic attributes of Hebrews or Isaiah chapter 11 verses 2
through verse 4. And he shall be quick with the
fear of the Lord. And so God-fearing people are people who come to
an awareness that God is holy and I'm what? That's right. And
that context, those set of circumstances merit my destruction. God has
every right to destroy me for my sin. Is that true? And so
that reverence puts me in a position of needing God's what? Mercy. And until the Spirit of God has
vividly worked to that extent in the heart of a person, we
don't have any confidence that they're saved. You don't come
to holy God in an arrogant, pompous, self-righteous, or confident
way. You come humbly before the Lord your God. God dwells with
the humble and the contrite in the broken in heart. Isaiah 57
verse 15 I the high and lofty God Dwells with him that is of
a broken and a contrite heart to revive the broken and contrite
spirit So this is what David was saying in Psalm 40 that God
God requires a broken heart Sacrifices not offerings but a broken and
contrite heart God will never reject because that's a work
of grace But preliminary to that brokenness is an awareness of
your what? If you don't if you're not aware
of your sin, you can't be saved Purpose for which Christ died
is to save us from our what? Be sure of that Today in our
evangelical churches where they are departing fast from the word
of God and the teaching of the gospel Terms like sin and you
and I being a sinner is ignominious to them It's a stain in their
in their catalog in their their dialogue they don't even like
to talk to people in terms of them being sinners and and and
and being under sin and and and being under the curse of the
law because today The work of the spirit of God and convicting
people's hearts is very rare And yet the Bible's filled with
the term. Did you know that? The Bible's filled with the term
sin, sinner. And so we see this as the jailer
is about to actually commit what we would call what? Suicide.
He's ready to take his life because he knows that he has to face
Caesar or the higher courts if in fact these prisoners have
escaped his life for their life. He's done, isn't he? Right. And
you see how God will use earthly circumstances, ladies and gentlemen?
to humble you. This is why we pray, Lord, do
whatever you need to do to save my loved one. My knucklehead
son, do whatever you got to do. My knucklehead daughter, do whatever
you got to do to break them down, to make them see their need of
Christ. Everything, God, do whatever
you got to do. Shake their whole world, crumble
it to the ground and give me grace to watch it. lest I jump
in and try to save them from you, which is what we like to
do as parents. Our baby get in a little trouble,
we try to save him. I save you. I hear Lord trying
to break him down and we trying to save him. You better keep
that money in your pocket and let the Lord continue doing his
work. You need that money anyway. Here you go. You spend all that
money to save them and then they going out like a whole back wallowing
to the mire and now you mad at them and God's mad at you All
right. So now watch how verse 26 unpacks
as we look at the the crystal centric redemptive elements I
call this part God's grace And you tell me if this is not God's
grace, but but Paul cried with a loud voice. Do you see that?
saying do Yourself no harm. Is that God's grace? So now think
about this too because Paul is very clear on the hand of God
presently with him and Silas in this moment. How clear he
is as to God's ultimate target being the Jailer. I'm not sure
but what I know Paul knows is he knows Roman law and he knows
that this Jailer will kill himself if someone does not intervene.
Now can you see yourself as a child of grace standing in the gap
between the lost sinner who was the very culprit that put you
in prison but because you know your God you can actually intercede
for the very person that sought your doom. This is why I call
it God's grace. Do you see what I'm saying? Can
you see it? You see how Paul stayed on point? And him staying
on point allows him now to maintain his objective, which is evangelism. And I told you this before last
week. Evangelism is never a nice, neat package of testimony where
you get to go over somebody's house, have a good dinner, they
cook a good meal. and you enjoy a good meal and
then you have a conversation for about 30 minutes and you
lead them to Jesus and everybody's happy. That's not evangelism. That's not evangelism. That's phony. Remember what I
said last week? Evangelism is an assault on hell. Matthew 16, 16 through 19. And
often what happens is when you have an assignment, you are facing
situations where hostilities emerge. Even if they're subtle,
sometimes they're blatant, but sometimes they're subtle. And
you got to stay on point and not allow the hostilities to
be taken personally. Because your job is to accomplish
your assignment. Your job is to be used by God
to see to it that an individual is brought to a knowledge of
Christ. After all, your job is not to what? Save them. but it
is to bear witness to the glory of God in Christ. And so your
job is to negotiate the troubles, the opposition, the hostilities
by making sure that you understand that this is not about who? Me. This is what I talked about last
week. So very important to understand because a lot of evangelical
efforts are thwarted by us taking it personally. That's right. by you thinking you are the man
or you are the woman and you got the right words and you got
the right method. And if they would just listen
to you, they would be saved. Man, you really do think highly
of yourself, don't you? My goodness. If they just listen
to me, they'll be saved. And so Paul cried with a loud
voice, didn't he? In other words, he cared about
that man, didn't he? Did he care? Right. So sometimes in order
to accomplish an aspect of your assignment with those who are
averse to you or the object of God's mercy, you're gonna have
to put a little bit of effort in and it's going to demonstrate
your own sincerity. Have you ever been on assignment
and you realize your heart wasn't right? Raise your hand. And you
had to go back to God and get on your knees and cry out. Isn't that right? God, I am not
right. I am not right. And cry out. And so Paul is crying out, as
it were, saying, do yourself no harm. Here's what he says,
for we are all here. So right now what the jailer
is experiencing is what we would call condemnation. But what Paul
just now declared is what I would declare unto you. What? Justification. Let me see if I can make that
good on a theological level. The prison context is symbolic
of the state and condition of all men. And God has a people
in the world that he's going to save out of these prison systems,
right? The way he's going to save them
is through the what? Preaching of the gospel. And according
to the analogy of our text, all the doors were open. All the
chains were loose. Is that true? All the doors were
open. All the chains were loose. That
means everyone for whom Christ died will be what? Saved. All
the doors will be open. All the chains will be loose.
All souls will come up out of the dead graves. They will all
bow the knee to Jesus Christ. All acknowledge him as Lord.
And therefore, what Paul says to the jailer is, listen, this
part about the earthquaking, brother, that ain't your fault.
You didn't do that. The chains being loose from the hands of
the prisoners, Mr. Jailer, that's not your fault. You didn't do that. The doors
being open, Mr. Jailer, that's not your fault.
You didn't do that. Your problem is you are under
the control of the devil and you need to now switch sides
Because it's obvious your team ain't winning Right so so so
in a very, you know Comical way what we are underscoring is that
When we read in John chapter 6 all that the Father giveth
me Shall come unto me and he that cometh unto me. I will in
no wise cast out I and all that the father give it to me they
will come to him and none will be lost that's the security of
christ in terms of the redemption of sinners around the world there
will be none that are lost so in this context this is not about
the jailer worrying about damage being done to even caesar's kingdom
because nobody left This is about the jailer coming to understand
the sovereign hand of God that has met him in a situation where
he's gotten into the middle of somebody else's fight. And sometimes
that happens. I'll say one more thing and then
we'll work through the rest of this text. Sometimes when you are witnessing
and sharing the gospel with a group of people or a certain person,
you think the person that you're talking to is the one God is
dealing with is the cat way down the street Are the other person
in the other room are the person down the table from you that
you didn't even have your mind? Oh, is that true? Have you ever
had that situation occur? You're wrestling with somebody
and they say no and you wonder what in the world was that about
and then the other person come pull your coat and say hey, you
know, I heard you I'd like to talk to you and this is because
the matters of salvation when God is pleased to use you and
me he always keeps us walking by what right so that we do not
boast in ourselves so many times it's happened to me where I'm
thinking this is the person I'm supposed to talk to and then
somebody else come along and say I heard you could you explain
to me or could you tell me why you believe this that or the
other thing there's a number of people that are at grace now
because years back when I was a younger more spunky preacher
I And I used to be a terror to the neighborhood because evangelism
was my forte I'd be anywhere out anywhere in the public if
an opportunity to share the gospel opened up I would start talking
and the volume would rise up just enough for whoever wanted
to get an earshot to hear the Conversation and there are several
people that are here with me at grace after 20 and 30 years
who were in those earshots Because that's how God works when he
wants to Are you guys hearing what I'm saying? It's not that
I was being rude or loud, but I was being vocal enough that
if you wanted to come in, this wasn't a private conversation.
Come on over. And what a joyful thing. So here's
how it goes on now. Then he called for a light. This
is what it says. He called for a light and sprang
in and came trembling and fell down before Paul and Silas. Do
you see it? God had worked in his heart,
didn't he? He fell down between before paul and silas verse 29
When you're reading your bible and the historical narratives
are before you like this do not quickly jump over these verses
Savor the verse Meditate on it because our secular liberal culture
Which never does that because if you savor scripture, you're
gonna be saved Now, if you just want to have a mastery over the
word of God, if you want to be an intellectual with a PhD and
a scholar over the scriptures so you can cut the scriptures
up and dissect them the way you want to, don't savor them. Just
read them very superficially and quickly and then start putting
little yellow tags of if-ands and buts and game sayings everywhere
they don't make any sense to you. You'll get your PhD in cynicism. But if you meditate on God's
precepts and ask the question, what is this about? The waters will start to clear
up because remember what we learned? If you seek him, you shall find
him when you seek him with all your heart. And truth does not
always appear right away because God is always testing whether
or not we are hungry for him. But the nature of scripture,
ladies and gentlemen, is that you must meditate upon God's
precepts. You must think, meditate, cogitate,
reflect upon, pray about, memorize, meditate, cogitate, reflect upon,
wait on, tag, and wait for God to cause the fruit of that text
to mature and develop and bust open so you can enjoy the fruit
thereof. Am I making some sense? Some texts won't open for years,
for years, because God is developing other aspects of your sanctification,
your personhood, and that text is not relevant for you now.
Five years from now, 10 years from now, even 20 years from
now, you'll come back and that text will explode with clarity
because God has humbled you and grew you and matured you and
prepared you for the central truth of that text. This is why
we don't wrestle with the Word of God. We reverence the Word
of God. We honor the Word of God. We
submit to the Word of God. We read the Word of God with
respect. So what's going on here? Contextually,
we're using the hermeneutical grid, literal, historical, grammatical
interpretation of the text. What's going on here? He called
for a light because it's midnight. He sprang in. That means he came
in quickly. He came trembling and fell down
before Paul and Silas. That means he had a real sense
of the human instruments by which he now is struggling in his soul. Paul and Silas. Why Paul and
Silas? Because Paul and Silas has been
the major public subject of the whole city of Philippi over the
last couple of days because of the ministry that's been going
on at the riverside now for weeks and months. And the whole city
of Philippi has gathered together to punish Paul and Silas for
their what? Preaching the gospel. You know
what that means? The sound was going out of their
mouth, and it was traveling, and it got a hold to the city
council, and it got a hold to the businessmen, and it got a
hold to the idolaters, and it got a hold to the street people,
and finally it got a hold to the magistrates, and they took
Paul and Silas and put them in prison, because the word had
emanated everywhere, didn't it? The witness of the gospel had
gone forth, and the jailer was one who heard The gospel. And now the power has come behind
what he heard and has knocked him down. And he knows the persons
with whom he has to deal with now are these two fellas who
have turned the world of Philippi upside down. He goes to them. He goes to them. Verse 30. Now
watch this. And he brought them out. Not
the others these two See when the spirit of god is working
on you in terms of your sin He shows you what to do to get right
with him who to go to To get right with him And there he's
going to the man that god had sent to philipi to start a gospel
church and a gospel church has Started there and listen to these
blessed words that you hear very seldom in church today Listen
to these words What? Must I do? be saved. I'm telling you, you don't hear
that in church. You don't hear the free voluntary
burden of people to get right with God. Paul did not give an
altar call. Now watch this. Heaven did, right? And it was a real altar call,
wasn't it? But the man is not coming under some methodology
and technique, some type of religious wooing and sensual wooing and
overture of words over and over and over and over and over again. He's coming because he's clearly
aware of the claims of the gospel that have been proclaimed by
Paul and Silas. Paul and Silas preached Christ. the person of
Christ, the work of Christ, the cross of Christ, the death of
Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the coming of Christ, the judgment
of Christ. That's the gospel, right? And
he heard that he had to meet Christ. And so he's asking the
question in all sincerity, what must I do to be saved? Our sixth point then under that,
there are three or four things that I want to observe there
too. And so this is verses 30 through 33. I'm going to underscore
the work of grace over time, the real concern for what was
at hand and how he became the servants of Paul and Silas for
Christ's sake. So the work of grace over time.
I just want to quickly say that if you read the book of Acts
carefully, what you will note is nothing happened quickly.
Like in this text, I just enunciated that Paul has been there working
for a while, right? Look at chapter 16, verse 12,
and then again, verse 14. Chapter 16, verse 12. I'll read verse 11 and 12. Therefore,
loosing from Troas, we came a straight course to Samothracea, and the
next day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is the
chief city of that part of Macedonia. So he is in the region of which
the vision of the man had been given, and a colony of the Roman
Empire, and we were in that city abiding what? Actually, many
days. And because he was there, he
could go out and practice evangelism week after week after week after
week until there was a movement and a stir. So he was there for
a long enough period of time for Lydia to be saved, for her
band to be saved, for a fellowship to get started, for the message
to spread throughout Philippi, for it to affect the city business,
and then ultimately the magistrates. He preached the gospel at length.
And that's how evangelism works. Evangelism is not about a 30-minute
witness and then a conversion. It's a very patient work. We
saw this in chapter 14 verse 21 as well. I'll just share this
with you. If you really want to make Acts a legitimate study,
because often what people will do with the book of Acts is use
it as a model and paradigm for evangelism or ministry, but they
won't really pay careful attention to the real character and nature
of the book of Acts. The work started off in an accelerated
pace, but it plateaued fairly quickly once it left Jerusalem. Things slowed down. Ministry
takes what? Time. And when they had preached
the gospel to that city and had taught many, they returned again
to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch. And then look at
verse 23. I could do 22, but 23. Listen to what it says in verse
23. All right chapter 14 verse 23
Are we there? And when they had ordained them
elders in every city and had prayed and fasted they commended
them to the lord on whom they had believed What's going on
in verse 23? They stayed there long enough
To see to it that men were qualified to be elders You don't make elders
overnight You teach them you examine them you prove them So
what I'm saying is, as Paul and Silas are going through the book
of Acts, and the apostles are going through the book of Acts,
the establishing of churches took time. Another example, Acts
chapter 20. I think it's around verse 30.
Verse 31, as a matter of fact. We're headed there, but we might
as well use this as a model of what I am asserting. Since the
book of Acts is really what? It's evangelism, isn't it? It's
the practice of proclaiming the gospel. That's what the word
literally means to practice the gospel in Acts chapter 20 verse
30 Notice what it says Verse 31 therefore watch and remember
that by the space of how many years? I cease not to warn everyone
night and day with tears. And this is the church in Ephesus
where we have that magnificent Magna Carta of the sovereignty
of God, of election, of predestination, of the riches that are in Christ,
of the power of God, and the structure of the church in the
epistle to the Ephesians. How long was Paul there? Three
years. How frequently was he teaching?
Once a week. Is that what the text says? Day
and night. See it? Day and night. Be aware of lazy pastors, lazy
preachers. I get it all the time. Pastor,
how you do what you do? I say, don't ask me how I do
what I do. Ask Paul how he did what he did.
I preach four or five times a week, teach four or five times. He
preached day and night. every day, every night. You understand
that? This is what we call an ox, an
ox, an ox, an ox who treads out the corn, who set apart to the
word of God and to prayer and committed to sound exegetical
expository labors and teaching all who would come their way
as often as they possibly could. I'm kind of sidetracking into
the nature and character of ministry but what I am saying to you is
one of the reasons that we have lost so much ground in the church
today is because the lazy preachers and lazy teachers and a lazy
membership that can't handle one hour of teaching once a week
let alone three four five Now there's we got a good eclectic
group here you old school folks. You remember how it used to be
You remember how you used to go to church and church was all
day long And there was no doubt you was going wednesday Right,
but no doubt you was going wednesday and maybe other nights too Especially
when they had special meetings and they seem to always have
special meetings And you need to have special meetings in a
dark world Isn't that right? We ought to have special meetings.
Anytime something crazy pop up, have a meeting. Share with us
what the Word of God has to say about that crazy thing that has
popped up that's causing the people of God to be distracted
or snared. All right, we are a long way
from the way we used to handle and deal with the word of God.
All right, so let's work through another point. I said, this is
the work of grace over time. The real concern was at hand.
We saw that with regards to his question, what must I do to be
saved? And I am reminded of Acts chapter
four, verse 12. I'll just read that quickly,
Acts 4, 12. You gotta know that one by heart as well. This is
where Peter is asserting that the salvation that the lame man
experienced was not a consequence of him being holy but a consequence
of the power of the gospel verse 11 and 12 this is the stone which
was set it not of you builders which has become the head of
the corner corner the stone is who the corner is the foundation
to what building the church neither is there salvation in any other
for there is none other name under heaven given among men
whereby we must be what Peter laid it down, didn't he? That
boy changed a whole lot after he fell in front of that little
slave girl, didn't he? Holy Ghost had him strengthened
up and buoyed to tell the truth in front of the rulers for which
he suffered. And so the real question that's
in front of us is about suffering for the cause of the gospel,
about the proclamation of the gospel rather in terms of how
we must be saved. Going back to Acts chapter 16,
let's work through these latter parts. Verse 31 and following. We'll be able to work through
this fairly quickly because we've laid down the premise for the
relationship between the jailer and Paul and Silas. They didn't just meet at the
bus stop. They didn't just meet at a conference. They've had
interaction for weeks and months. And now the jailer is confronted
with the sovereignty of God. The proposition is laid out,
what must I do to be saved? That's a humble disposition of
the heart. Here's what he says in verse 31. This is what we
call the obedience of faith This is what Paul calls the obedience
of faith Romans chapter 1 verse 5 Romans chapter 16 verse 25
and 26 This is the imperative of the gospel. The imperative
of the gospel is the obedience of faith What does God require
for men to be right with God to believe the gospel? That's
the obedience of faith the obedience of faith that men and women believe
the gospel That's what he requires what he requires so here's what
he says and they said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
you shall be saved and your house and they spake unto him what
the word of the Lord and to all that were what so you see what
he did he laid out the imperative and then he began to explain
to the jailer the gospel in a fuller and More seasonal sense where
he's sitting with him opening the scriptures and declaring
the truth. You guys see that In other words, this is not knocking
on somebody door and giving them four laws This is not telling
somebody to repeat after me. Is it this is sitting down at
length opening the Word of God Sharing with him the jailer and
his family the whole message of the gospel Because the jailer's
heart is ready for it. And by the way, his house is
too And so when God has softened the soil of the heart, and that's
a wonderful, wonderful place to be. When God has softened
the soil of the heart, you know it because when you share the
word of God with them, they receive it so easily. It's like when
the water is poured into that soil and that plant is just famished. It sucks all that water. The
roots just suck it all in and say, give me more. This is how
you know too. When you are sharing the word
of God with somebody at their house and you start at about
four o'clock in the evening and it's nine o'clock now and they're
looking at you like we just got started. Where you going? And the anointing is there. And
you know the only reason that you would force a departure is
because you're carnal. Can I get a witness? See, I'm
telling the truth right now. Because sometimes we are inclined
to do that. Because God's gonna test you
as well. God's trying everybody's heart.
Are you gonna leave this opportunity to continue expanding on the
Word of God? And this couple or this family
is allowing you to stay there for hours longer? Or do you got
to catch that ball game? Or do you got to catch that other
secular event? do you got to catch up with that
chick or that dude or whatever other idol is contending for
a sovereign moment like this? That's good, isn't it? Am I telling
the truth? Right. And this is the reason why God
doesn't use many of us today. And this here is paradigmatic
too. Everywhere you go in the scriptures, when people are confronted
by the gospel and the Spirit of God is working in it, The
two people, the preacher and the auditor, the proclaimers
and the auditors become welded together like marriage. Everywhere
you go, the preparation of the heart and man and the answer
of the tongue is from the Lord. When God prepares the heart and
he prepares the mouth, he brings them together in holy matrimony. And the heart is being spoken
to you too by the mouth because both of them are the work of
God. And the heart is saying more, more, more, more about
Jesus would I know. More. And the mouth is declaring
all that it knows. And this is why we want to know
the word of God. Because out of the abundance of the heart
that the mouth what? That's right. And when your heart
is full of the truth, you can share all that you know. Is that
a glorious experience or what? I'm so glad I have experienced
it in my life. I go, here you go again, Lord.
You are so good. Give me three bottles of water.
Let's get at it. I don't even want to eat. Have
you noticed that? Somebody laughed. For me, I love
eating. But if I'm under assignment,
I can't eat. My wife has complained many times.
You just left your food there. And I have to say to her like
my master said to the disciples, my meat is to do the will of
him that sent me. Then she wanted to slap me upside
my head, but that's all cool. But it's one of these things
where the joy the joy of sharing the word soul takes away human
desires That you go into a period of fasting Because the most important
thing is focusing in on grounding those people in the word of god
and in the truth. Is that so? And so we saw this with the two
men from jerusalem on the road to emmaus. You remember that?
My how he opened the scriptures to us And when Jesus would have
as if he would go another way, they compelled him to stay with
him, abide at our house and continue telling us the truth. And I've
told you, this is one of the evidences that the spirit of
God is working. All right, let's continue to wrap this up so I
can get out of here in the next 20 minutes. And he took them
the same hour that night and washed their stripes. Verse 33. And he took them the same hour
of the night and washed their stripes and was baptized he and
all his straight way. Do you see that? A beautiful
scenario. This here is a marvelous insight
into the reciprocal nature of the man now who was basically
a taskmaster over Paul. So what does he do? He actually
operates as a servant to wash their stripes. See his humility? He humbles himself enough to
demonstrate his appreciation for who they were and what was
happening in this moment that now he takes on a model of Christ. He is a Christ model. Because
you and I have the stripes of sin on our back. A fool's mouth
calls for stripes. And you and I have lived enough
sin for God to stripe us. But Christ is the one that washes
our stripes. Is he not? He's the one that
mollifies our stripes. He heals our stripes, right?
By his stripes are we healed. And here this man is serving
those who are serving him. This is the reciprocal nature
of those who are being benefited by the gospel. And this is why
Christ had told his disciples when they go out and they preach
into cities and are taken into people's homes, if the peace
is their state, if that household is receptive of you, Don't worry
about it. They're going to do everything
to make you comfortable. You don't have to beg. You don't
have to ask for money. This is why I hate I hate talking
about money. I despise it because if in fact
men and women are being confronted by God, they'll give If you're
not being confronted by God, you won't give And God doesn't
want your money If you don't want to give from a place of
love and charity for God, do you guys hearing what I'm saying?
You don't have to force people to give you money. This is why
you told them don't ask for money. If they appreciate your message,
they will feed you. They will clothe you. They will
provide a place for you to stay. God will move in their hearts
to do that and you don't have to ask for anything. That's what
I love about church history that we're dealing with on Sunday
mornings. One of the ethical laws of church history in the
early days, in the pre-Nicene days, to distinguish true preachers
from false preachers, because preachers were going everywhere
preaching, was that false preachers were always known for asking
for money. Whoa! We'd be cleaning up all
kind of churches today, wouldn't we? The rules among those who
were part of John's band and then Polycarp's band and then
Ignatius' band and then Arrhenius' band was that if you are a preacher
of the gospel of the tenor of the apostles and the attender
of Christ, you never ask for money. The moment we hear of
you asking for money, you are no longer among the apostles'
band. See, because if you know anything,
about the East and the Middle East and the West and Africa
and poor countries. They always begging for money,
aren't they? They are shamelessly beggars
of money, especially the preachers. Nothing has changed in 2000 years
because people are poor. People have needs. And so you
will find when you go to those countries, the false prophets
who will spill bind you with a story and a half a Bible verse
and then pass the hat. Right? Am I telling the truth?
That's right. And it was set down as an ethical
norm that if you are a servant and an apostle of Christ, you
do not ask for money. Your master will take care of
you. You sow in faith, you reap in faith. You plow in hope, you
reap in hope. You trust that God will open
the heart for those who hear and see that you are sincere
as a messenger of Christ and God will provide for you through
them. This is why we don't talk about
it. Do you guys hear what I'm saying? Right, and yet today
it's worked in church, isn't it? The money thing is just worked,
worked, worked. It's a shame. And yet here we
see very clearly that the apostle Paul and Silas are taken well
care of by the jailer, the reciprocal nature of sharing the gospel,
as Paul said in Corinthians. And he said also in Galatians,
if we sow to you spiritual things, it's natural that you would return
in carnal things. But we don't have to cajole you.
That's going to be a natural outcome when you care about somebody
who has shared with you the word of God. It's just going to end
up in a sack, isn't that right? It's just gonna end up in their
bag. You're not gonna say that. It's just gonna end up in their
bag, right? And they're walking down the road and they're wondering
how they're gonna get by. The next thing they know, they
got, you know, a hundred dromkas or denarii or whatever money
is placed in the bag. How did that happen? God moved
those who were blessed by your preaching to give in a silent
way because God blesses in silence. Do your alms in silence, not
before men. Don't talk about it. Isn't that
what he said in the ethic on the mount? When you give, don't
be like the hypocrites blowing trumpets. Look, I'm writing a check for
a thousand dollars to give to the man of God, the woman of
God. I'm giving because I want to
be blessed. Right? That's what we call churchianity. It's amazing because the word
of god has exposed all this and they still do it So, you know
humanity is not bright When the word of god has exposed it and
is still working So the devil doesn't care about the fact that
it's in the text because he's trusting that folks are not reading
their bible anyway All right, let's let's keep going Touched
on this a little bit last week and I'm gonna try to wrap this
up. Maybe we can get a few questions before we close it says in verse
434 and when he had brought them into the house, he set meat before
them and Rejoiced believing in God with all of his house. Isn't
that a wonderful wonderful? Scenario and ending and when
it was day and when it was day The magistrate sent the sergeant
saying let those men go and the keepers of the prison are Told
this saying to paul the magistrates have sent to let you go now therefore
depart and go in peace Verse 37 opens up with what we call
a conjunction And it's a contrasting conjunction You know what that
is? but So now paul, I love paul. He's always thinking He's now
see he could have left this alone He could have left it alone.
Now if it were to peter Maybe James and that interview. They
just said, Paul, shut up, man. I want to go, brother. We Jews,
let's get out of here. Paul said, nah, mm-mm, mm-mm. No, I'm a Roman citizen. I got
my constitution right here. See, y'all did me wrong. And
we got to deal with this. Now, now, now, now, this was
not mischief, but this was so insightful. This is called closing
the loop on the witness. I want you to see it They could
have snuck out at night And the magistrates would have left them
out at night because they came to understand that they had just
shanghaied with a kangaroo court citizens of rome And that was
a serious problem since all philippi was was a colony It was a slave
colony of rome And for the Roman government to discover that they
had abused an actual citizen of Rome would have potentially
brought the ire of the military down on the Philippi magistrate. This is how uncertain the relationship
of the kingdom of darkness is. You understand that? Doggy dog.
So Paul says, I'm going to play this out. I'm going to play this
out. Hear what he says. He says over
in verse 38. And the sergeants told these
words unto them, I'm sorry, verse 37, but Paul said unto them,
they have beaten us openly, uncondemned. He was right. I asked you guys
a couple of weeks ago, what was the grounds upon which they beat
them? There was no grounds. It was the devil working in all
of them to punish them for the cause of the gospel, but there
was no violation of any law at that time. The spiritual conflict
was clear. The monotheistic God, the Christocentric
God over against the pluralistic God, the idolatrous polytheistic
culture that they were in was the context of the offense, right?
We worship lots of gods. Here you come telling us there's
one God. We don't like what you're saying. We don't like his implications.
If we believe what you're saying, we have to get rid of all of
our vendors and all of our business. We'll lose out all of our finances.
We're gonna stop you. This was purely an interest of
business on the fleshly level and it was an assault from hell.
But what was God doing but establishing a gospel light in Philippi? Right? He established a church there.
This is where we're going to close. How important is a gospel
church? How important is a gospel church?
We'll close right here. How important is a gospel church? A body of believers committed
to the glory of God and the truth of God. How important is a gospel
church to God? How important is a gospel church
to us? How important is a gospel church
when you have to leave a gospel church and go to another city
where there might not be a gospel church? How important is a gospel
church when you have to leave an area and there may not be
any kind of gospel anywhere that you are going Now all of a sudden
a gospel church becomes imminently important How important is that
miracle of grace? That miracle of grace that becomes
an extension of the incarnation Of the second person of the blessed
triune god that is the lord. Jesus christ having planted a
body that city how important is that witness is that testimony
is that light is that salt is that institution of mediation
and representation is that is that opportunity for signs and
wonders and manifestations of grace how important is a gospel
church how important is a gospel church when you get in trouble
when you need a pastor to come deal with your legal situation
or your moral situation or your mortal situation or your Spiritual
situation. Can I get a witness how important
is the gospel church when you get discombobulated and all of
a sudden you are unhinged in your soul from any peace in Christ
and the people you keep company with don't know God and How important
is the gospel church then how important is the gospel church
when you and I spend weeks and months? Away from the word of
god in any serious way and then discover our souls to be so dry
So dry, you can't wait till the doors of the church open so you
can sit down and beg god to help you drink once again into the
truth of the gospel and when you get there and you meet the
people of god Whom you had smirked and cast off because you were
doing your own thing. Now, you know, they're nicer
now They're kinder now you appreciate them now and How amazing it is
for you to sit in a Bible study where the Word of God is unpacked
it soundly exposed and taught in a way where the Spirit of
God is nurturing your soul. How important is that? It's extremely
important, isn't it? How important is the gospel when
you have to think about where you're gonna bring your kids
to hear true that can be deposited into their soul so that five
or ten years from now God can cause that word to metabolize
and penetrate into the body politic of their spirit. and calls them
to remember the God of their salvation. How important is the
gospel then? How important is a gospel church?
It's important enough to God to call it the two olive trees
of Revelation chapter 10 and 11. The olive trees that we're
going to talk about on Sunday. The two olive trees are the two
witnesses. That stand before the before the god of the whole
earth bearing record to god's glory in christ They pour the
oil into the lampstands that give light in the house. Am I
making some sense? That's how important the church
is when it comes to biblical truth. The whole world is in
darkness out there When you come inside the fellowship of the
saints where the word of god is opened up opened up opened
up That's what we're going to get into in chapter 17 and paul
opened and alleged from the scriptures that this was the very christ
we get to see God's glory and Are reminded how the Spirit of
God works in the salvation of men and women how important is
it there? It's extremely important, isn't it? It's extremely important
that we can in our mind Remember that our children were under
the truth of God's Word when they have to go out into that
crazy Hellish world hearing all of that stupidity and distortion
of the facts It's very important, isn't it? Very, very, very important. And so what Paul does is he says,
no, I'm going to be leaving Philippi and I'm going to be leaving a
church here. And I want everybody in Philippi to respect this church. Are you guys with me? And they
would not respect the church if Paul and Silas were made to
run out late at night as if they got away with a crime. and the
magistrates would have been able to go in and beat up on the church
folk. But now that they know that they
in trouble both with God and Caesar, they going to leave them
church folk alone. Just leave them church folk alone. We done figured out you start
messing with them church folk, and the earth starts quaking.
Things happen when you start messing. Leave them church folk
alone. In fact, let them stay in the
riverside. if you go there where they are
that's your business leave their church folk alone and you see
how God honors us when we honor him can you see it there he honors
us when he honors it and this is why we love the Apostle Paul
because Paul was like Christ he didn't do anything for himself
he can read go down the street get beat up again Yeah, you may
get beat up again, but but the church at Philippi is going to
thrive and grow and mature and guess what they're gonna be doing
supporting Paul because they're the one church that Continued
to pay into Paul's ministry when all the other churches quit Ain't
that good very good Five minutes, Q and A. Anybody got any questions?
Five minutes, Q and A. All right, I need somebody to
run. There we go. Five minutes, Q and A. Raise
your hand. Raise your hand. Over here. Over here, Mike. You brought up the Roman 620. So that one's dead. Use that
one over there. Did she cut it off? Is it red? Yeah, take that
one. Plus, I needed a younger dude.
Y'all, y'all, y'all young dudes. Give me that one. You cut it
on good. Yeah, alright, Mike. We love you. So, we are free
to righteousness. Free from righteousness at that
time. We're free from righteousness because now, because when we
are under sin, when we're not free to righteousness, we're
free to sin. How does, as a believer, I have
my conscience always pricking me when I'm stepping out of line
of what I know to be right. So how do we deal with a professing
believer that seems to be continually falling into the same type of
sin, what the Bible calls besetting sin? Is it, does that, sometimes
it causes me to wonder, is this person really a believer or are
we Is it just our propensity as people because of what we're
inclined to do by our personalities that we tend to fall into certain
sins? Is that a question? Kind of, sort of. Kind of, sort
of? Yeah. Well, I ain't going to answer it if it's kind of,
sort of. OK, it is a question. I just want to know how. Is my
mic on up there? Yeah. Can you guys hear me? OK,
I just want to make sure. That is a question. And it's
a classical question. The question is. What are the
marked evidences of a true believer relative to sin issues in their
life? That's a good way to frame it,
right? Especially when you see a believer who may be in a pattern
of sin on a consistent level. Two things that come to mind.
If you question their salvation, the questioning of their salvation
must have its weight on their understanding versus their conduct. the question of their salvation
must have its weight on their understanding of the gospel versus
their conduct. Do you guys follow that? Let
me help you understand the mistake you will make. If you are judging
them on the merits of their conduct as to whether or not they are
saved as the weight of your question and concern, you may very well
be a legalist and completely missing the foundation and framework
of grace in some of the most popular, most loved, and notorious
saints in all the scriptures. You're going to leap way over
David. Leap way over Solomon. Leap way over my man Samson. Y'all remember Samson. You're
gonna leap way over Rachel. Well, what did Rachel do? Go
back and read. You're gonna leap way over the saints and land
on this brother or sister who has a besetting sin of smoking,
or maybe alcohol, or some other thing that you don't have a problem
with. And you're gonna say, hmm, they might not be saved. They
might not be saved. But David's saved. Solomon say
Rachel say she stole her daddy's idols never gave him back But
you're gonna jump over all the Saints in the scriptures and
land on the sister of the brother out there cuz you're a legalist
We all got a little self-righteousness in us. So I'm gonna go back to
my basic statement so you can get it It's very possible that
an individual is make sure you got a question Martin. It's very
possible that an individual may not be saved if who is snared
by a continual control of a dominating sin, but the way to determine
that won't be by investigating their sin, but investigating
their understanding of the gospel. Did you guys get what I just
stated? because if they really understood the gospel at length,
they would recognize that the gospel calls them out of that
kind of behavior and it qualifies them with the grace to depart
from it. And should they not be departing from it, they will
be the first to admit that they are of all men most miserable
because they are living a radically contradictory life. And in that
kind of state, when we get to Romans 14, we will deal with
that. Romans 14, we will deal with that. You and I don't have
the right to penetrate the realm of their conscious and sit on
the judgment seat of their mind and determine whether or not
they are born again. Are you guys hearing what I'm saying?
Because we do have the caveat in scripture. And this is why
I teach the whole gospel here. People get mad. I teach the whole
gospel. I teach God will save you, but
he will also kill you. If you want to live like hell
and you're his He's gonna take you on out And we're gonna bury
you and talk about how much we loved you and how was wonderful
having you for five minutes And Secretly we're gonna say
it was a shame Aren't we we're gonna go it was a shame Because
there is a sin unto death and I sinned to you shall not pray
for that. I because we all know deep down inside how it is when
believers live in open, blatant sin, hostile to God's glory. The only reason he keeps us around
is to use us. Every day I wake up, I say, Lord,
thank you for another day, for another day. Y'all got that?
For another day. And I stand only by grace. Martin,
Yeah, earlier you talked about the Python worship, that influence. Wasn't that a cult that Alexander
the Great, his mother was involved in that cult? Yeah. And was that Philippi,
that area? Yes, it was. Right. The Roman Empire had been Hellenized
for almost 400 years, 300 years prior to Christ. Alexander the
Great was in the world, dominating the whole world, converting it
to a Hellenistic or Greek cultural sort of worldview. and Rome was
filled with it. And so the Delphi Oracles, which
is part of the prostitution religion of that culture, and there were
many like that, had these women who were under these false spirits,
wreathing and writhing, as I had stated before. So yeah, that
was obvious. And that was not something that
was hard to understand. Philippi is a colony of Rome.
Rome is a complete system of Roman Greco culture, okay? All right, any other questions?
All right, right there, right there. We'll get one more after
that. Somebody over here. Tamara, come
help me out, sis. You can help out in this kitchen. Go at them. Put it to your mouth. I was wondering about the coach. You talked maybe a year ago about
some of the laws that were being passed. And in our country? In our country, yeah. You know,
we were talking about the graying of the lines behind
the sexuality and, you know, changing the roles of men and
women. And they become hypersensitive with, you know, with the homosexual
rights and that whole movement. So because everybody's buying
into egalitarianism. Our question is, do you see the
potential for an Esther-like culture where they design a day
for coming against or purging against the church. I do. I do. This is why I'm teaching
church history right now, for us. And if you can't make it,
then get the CDs. Because I'm compelled to demonstrate,
as I stated in the second class, there's nothing new under the
sun. that which has been is and that which is to be, even that
has already been, so there's nothing new. The cyclical patterns
of God's freedom and God's sovereignty. You're going to hear it on Sunday,
the severity of God and the goodness of God, severity and goodness.
So there is a combination of God's purpose and the church's
responsibility that plays into seasons shifting where the power
of the secular system now is given more advancement against
the church. Did you guys hear what I just
stated? I'm going to say it again just in case you didn't get it.
And this is Revelation 13. I talked about this on my Monday
show. there was given unto the dragon power that he should make
war against the Saints and he was given a mouth to blaspheme
God and his tabernacle and those that are in heaven and out of
his mouth goes a flood to wash away the remnant of her seed.
And to her the woman was given two wings of a great eagle that
she should fly into the wilderness. This is a time of persecution
because the enemy knows he has a short time. So these things
happen from generation to generation wherever God has established
a gospel light. That gospel light is there for
a season. It's never there in perpetuity. There's no place on the map where
the gospel has been since the time of the apostles and it's
still there today in any kind of vital way. There is a ministry
that takes place for a season and then over time the gospel
wanes. That's why the opening of the
book of Revelation is to the seven churches and they're waning
by the end of the first century. So what Jesus was saying to the
seven churches is there is a persecution on the way. Your job was to be
a light, a salt, a mediating institute, a prophetic voice,
a priestly voice, but many of you are coming apart at the seams. Out of seven churches, five are
reproved. Is that true? Only two are obedient
to the gospel. And even them, what he said to
Smyrna was, the enemy is coming and he's going to put you in
the prison for 10 days. And a historical interpretation
of that, as we are going to see, will take place around 300 AD
under Diocletian, which rendered a persecution of the church in
that very region for exactly 10 years. And the persecution
was massive. And we're going to talk about
that persecution when we get there, because we're going to
see how politically the winds had changed. and how people's
properties were taken and how that they were mandated, the
powers of Rome were mandated to go out and hunt Christians
down and bring them into prison and to kill them if they did
not recant Jesus and call Caesar Lord. That's the same thing as
the Esther account. It was decreed by Diocletian. On this day they started what
they called the purge And what that meant was Christians knew
any day they could be just gathered up and thrown into prison and
killed. So what you're talking about
is very, very possible. Once the consensus of the majority
sways towards a very liberal, secular, demonic worldview, without
a doubt, and I say that it will happen, if you will, It will
happen first regionally. We're gonna find America breaking
up over the next 10 years in regions. That is not gonna hold
together in any kind of real sort of monolithic central governmental
form. There won't be any hostilities,
but every state will be able to operate the way that it wants
to, but because the trend of our culture today is anti-biblical. Christianity will not be tolerated
and many places will start to suffer. We're already dealing
with that right now. We already are dealing with it.
We're getting ready to lose our tax-exempt status. That's why
I talked to us about this a couple weeks ago or last week. Not us,
but I'm talking about the whole of the church is about to lose
it because the foundation of the Constitution is no longer
viewed as a document that reflects the inalienable rights of human
beings being made in the image of God. That means your right
to assemble as a local religious organization came with protection
of tax-exempt status under the Constitution. They're going to
remove that. Why? because they want to compensate
your wealth. Part of controlling people's
lives and making slaves out of people is taking the money from
them. That's Revelation 13. Am I boring
you? Now, so, so, but my point is,
is this, this is very important for you to know. The way the
enemy always works is to take your goods, take your resources,
take your money. And this is the symbolic connotation
of the mark of the beast. Not literal, symbolic. Because
it worked in the first century. The only way people could buy
and sell was to burn incense to Caesar. That's the only way
they could do it. Today, we are operating out of
a cashless society. Is that true? That's not a question,
that's an observation. So the moment the bankers want
to shut it down, you can't get any money. So the system is already
rigged to put you and I in such a crisis that we will have to
ask the question, where is our allegiance? And this is also
where you guys, I could talk for a long time about this. You
have to have an ethic. You have to have a worldview
and the matters of the gospel that are self-sustaining. Your gospel has to penetrate
the whole of your life. You have to think through a gospel
that is able to exist and survive in the midst of an anti-Christ
system. Because that has been normative
Christianity. You have to think in terms of
the possibility that you have to acquire resources and food
for yourself. instead of depending upon the
government and these present sort of contemporary cultural
models of provision where we can go to the store and get food
right now, ad infinitum. But once those things dry up
and the black horse and the red horse are riding, the scales
are bending, inflation is increasing, you and I can't survive off of
this synthetic food forever. It's already getting us sick
and killing us, right? My point is that the government
is setting up things in such a way that they can shut down
those very major sources of our survival. And will you know how
to take peas and grow them in a pot on your patio in the backyard? Or how to store up beans and
rice? Or how to plant potatoes in the
backyard? and be able to survive, self-sustain,
like our third world country folk know how to do. I ain't
got a problem with them being here. Now, they need to come
through the front door, but I don't have a problem with them being
here. Watch this. Because they know how to survive. They'll
get here and they'll get this much land right here. And you'll
see stems growing up high enough to cover their house. And they
eating every day because they know how to do it. They know
how to live off the natural land that God gave all of us as an
inheritance when he created all things. And we're going to learn
a lot from the pagan men. Then we're going to be really
ready to evangelize, because we're going to want their potatoes.
Last question. I wanted to ask you about, I've
been studying Mark 6, 4, where Jesus went to Galilee and he
said that a prophet is not without honor, but in his own country
and among his own kin and in his own house. That verse has
been on my mind in reference to the fact that I've tried to
witness to family and unsuccessfully. And does that mean that I should
cease to witness to them or And just pray for them as actually
I was taught before I came here you can't witness to someone
just pray for Well, what do you mean by witness? Witness by telling them about
Christ so that that's not witnessing All right. So let's just fix
that right quick and then we'll shut it down So when you're witnessing
is when you are telling people what God has done for you in
saving your soul. I Okay, that's what it means
to witness. This is this is what god had
told the man with the legion of spirits Go back and tell them
what great things god has done for you, right? That's witnessing
now when you're trying to explain doctrine or tell them what the
bible says and trying to teach them Now you're into either evangelism
or apologetics. Okay, that's a different thing.
Please understand that witnessing and apologetics and evangelism
two different things You guys understand that? So please understand
that's a different thing. When you're witnessing to somebody,
you're talking about the grace of God in your life and how God
has delivered you and how God has intervened and how God did
this, how God do that. That's what witnessing is all
about. But when you're talking about, you know, the Bible doesn't
say that this is what the Bible said. Now you're into apologetics.
Now you're in people business. So then you have to ask the question,
do I, you know, have I been given the grace to actually, um, impose
a view that is contrary to their view and do it in such a way
that does not threaten the relationship, even though now they have to
deal with oppositional views. Because I can tell you a lot
of times we just are jacked up in our approach to apologetics,
that we don't establish the relationship and secure the relationship before
we start talking about differences of opinions. Am I making some
sense? So we just make assumptions,
especially if you're older, and you pull rank on your kids and
you just tell them they gotta listen to you because your mama,
that ain't gonna work. That ain't gonna work because don't nobody
have to listen to nobody today. You know that, right? And so
if you don't, if you're going to be helpful to your families,
you're going to have to affirm and secure the relationship.
And then you're going to have to know that only God can save
and only God can give light. But you're going to also be prayerfully
waiting for opportunities to share the word. But you want
to share that word in a way that's going to sustain the reciprocal
dialogue between you and them, if at all possible. Does that
make sense? If at all possible. Now, when
that breaks and you lose them, the bars of a castle is done. Especially with family. As a rule, you lost that one. Do you guys understand that?
And that's why we're going to be very careful about applying
scripture to our own personal life until we actually do a sound,
exegetical, expository development of that text, literally, historically,
grammatically, theologically, redemptively, then application.
What is Jesus talking about when he says a prophet is not honored
in his own household? He's talking about the brother
that's bringing absolute judgment on everybody. That's the prophet
coming saying thus saith the lord So this is where christians
get in trouble You think just because you got a bible And they
invite you over to dinner You can be the prophet or prophetess
of the house that night No, you can't No Y'all hear me. No No They asked you over for
dinner. They didn't ask you over to tell
them what jeremiah said No, they didn't ask you to tell
them what Isaiah said. They didn't say prophet preach
to me, our prophetess preach to me. And this is where we mess
up. And a lot of times we are not
as committed to personal transformation as we ought. And we skirt personal
transformation for other transformation. We want to sanctify them. when
we're not all together sanctified. Am I making some sense? All right,
let's close in prayer. Oh, what? The meat in the mall?
There you go, girl. I see you're growing. Sister
Chyna was talking about our Revelation Bible ministry tomorrow. If you
guys have never done it, we would love to have you guys out. Putting
Bibles together for our brothers and sisters in prison is a magnificent
ministry. It'll be on at around eight o'clock
tomorrow, all day, you guys, until about two o'clock. You
guys are welcome to join us and help put together some Bibles.
If you aren't doing anything, may the Lord lay it on your heart
to come out and help us share the word. Let's close in prayer.
Father, thank you for this time. Thank you for this wonderful
class. Thank you for hungry souls as we go out may each and every
one of us touch somebody For Christ's sake we can do it in
prayer. We can do it in a word of encouragement. We can do it
in many ways We're asking that the end result would be that
men and women would be drawn closer to Christ and even brought
to Christ altogether in a saving way Mostly Lord, we're asking
that you would help us to be much more equipped, much more
capable, much more in tune with you over the subsequent weeks
and months and years that are coming because we know that we
are in very dark, dark times. Fill us with your spirit to do
for us what we cannot do for ourselves. and that is share
the truth of the gospel in a way that draws men and causes them
to look to Christ who is the only way in truth in life and
we pray it in Jesus name. Amen. God bless you guys.