Amen. I'm in Acts chapter 14,
and you guys, we have a new outline, so we'll just start right at
the top of our outline for tonight. And we actually touched on this
a little bit last week, a form of the truth and a lie, a form
of the truth. And I just want to reiterate
those portions that we touched on last week coming out of Acts
14, verse 11 and 12. And when the people saw what
Paul had done, they lifted up their voices saying in the speech
of the Lycanians, the gods are come down to us in the likeness
of men. And they called Barnabas, Jupiter
and Paul Mercurius because he was the chief speaker. Then the
priest of Jupiter, which was before the city brought oxen
and garlands into the gates and would have done sacrifice with
the people. which when the apostles Barnabas
and Paul heard, they rent their clothes and ran in among the
people, crying out, saying, sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passion
with you and preach unto you that you should turn from these
vanities unto the living God, which made heaven and earth and
the sea and all things that are therein. We'll stop right there. Picking up from our last week's
point, now that you have it in your outline, a form of the truth
and a lie, paganism. That's all paganism is, a form
of the truth and a lie. One of the reasons why I actually
brought this up last week was in order to help you know that
if you peruse or make your way outside of the circle and sphere
of Christianity and begin to examine other religions, one
of the things that you will come across are levels of similarity
in their teachings that will make you wonder which came first,
the chicken or the egg. All right, that's a philosophical
jargon that really has to do with the origin of a thing. And
being able to answer that question is important because in some
of those religions, they will tell you that Judaism and therefore
Christianity, which is the full stock of Judaism, is a knockoff
of earlier religions. Those who would hold to Egyptology
would argue that our Trinitarian view of God came from their view
of a triune Godhead, Isis, I think, yes it is, Iris, Horus, and Osiris. And then many other religions
also hold to this sort of vague view of a plurality within the
Godhead. And then there are other emblematic
elements that they would argue that Judaism stole as well. What we would say is that contrary
to our conversely to what they say, every pagan religion actually
borrowed from the original religion, which is a biblical revelation
given to us by God from the foundation of the world, that they actually
adopted the revelation that were given to the patriarchs Remember
the patriarchal model was the way God revealed himself to us
in the beginning of time. It was through the fathers such
as Abel and Noah and the men that walked in those days. Enoch
walked with God and was not. These men had revelation given
to them directly by God by which they would have known things
that would have been communicated orally in their generation. The
further mankind, got away from God, the more distorted their
understanding of God became, though it was not so distorted
that they didn't have emblems of the truth. And so when I say
a form of the truth in a lie, when they stated in verse 11,
the gods are come down to us in the likeness of men. What
we learned last week was that was a partial truth, wasn't it?
They did come down the form of a man this is what we call doctrinally
what the incarnation I just want to underscore that there God
had no problem in the progressive unfolding of biblical truth throughout
the history of the world to allow mankind to maintain vestiges
of the truth and though those vestiges of the truth were not
directly attributed to the true and the living God. He did not
mind them maintaining certain elements of worship, artifacts,
worship, abstracts, elements that would point to the need
for a mediator, the need to do sacrifices and offerings, the
need to placate or as it were propitiate the angry hostile
gods. All of those are revelations
that were intrinsic to the nature of mankind. And they would all
point to this reality that God had written his law on the hearts
of all human beings. And that even when they looked
out upon creation, they would see emblems of truth about God
in creation by which they would begin to build their own idolatrous
notions. So there are four things under
verses 11 through 13 that we considered. God did come down
in the form of a man. We call him Emmanuel. He did
come in the likeness of flesh. We call that the incarnation.
And in fact, in first John chapter four, verse three, you don't
have to go there. One of the early cardinal doctrines by which
you were to affirm an orthodoxy of Christianity was that you
had to believe that Christ came in the flesh. Now that's not
so much a doctrine that we have to argue about today. No one
hardly ever denies the incarnation today. There are other heretical
elements that can be attributed to false doctrines and false
teaching that would constitute heresy, but not the incarnation.
But in John's day, it was very plain. He said, the person that
denies that Jesus came in the flesh is an antichrist. So that doctrine of the incarnation
is a critical component to our belief in the gospel. Thirdly,
he condemned sin in the flesh. And when I call our attention
to that, that's Romans 8, 3 and 4, that is signified by the post
cross work of Christ that allowed the apostles to actually do healings
that would be a precursor or a bridge to the conversation
of the gospel by which the people would then become saved. Meaning
this, as we'll get into it in our next couple of points. When
the apostles did miracles, when they did healings, those miracles
or healings were not in and of themselves something to which
the people were to be enamored. It was simply a conversation
starter in the presence of people who would now have had a visitation
by the true and the living God. It was simply an opportunity
to affirm that Messiah rose again from the dead. These are orthodox
views, but they're very important to acquire. I'm going to reiterate
a point that I made last week, and that is that we never talk
about the apostles as being healers. The Lord Jesus Christ didn't
say to the apostles that I'm going to make you miracle workers
or healers. So they're not miracle workers
per se or healers. They are heralders, preachers
of the gospel. though God gave them the ability
to heal and to work miracles from time to time. There's a
very important distinction that has to be made there. Because
again, in our present culture where people have shifted the
emphasis of what constitutes true from the centrality of Jesus
Christ and him crucified to the works of the spirit, healings
and signs and wonders and other things, what we would say to
individuals is, is that God does not today work in the same way
he did in the apostolic era of bringing about the kind of massive
miracle manifestations that we see in the book of Acts in our
present generation. Having said that, what we also
said last week was to say that there are no longer any apostles
around who demonstrate what 2 Corinthians chapter 12 calls the signs of
the apostles, which was the ability to perform miracles as a basis
of authenticating the gospel to say that the sign gifts are
not used today in that regard is not to say that God doesn't
heal. We do believe that God heals.
We do believe that God works very sympathetically through
the church to bring about healing by virtue of prayer. We do believe
that God uses the body of Christ as a whole to affect on some
occasions where he wants to manifest his glory, a reversal of people's
sicknesses and illnesses. Having said that, I also want
to therefore encourage you to not only believe that, but desire
that manifestation. Let me just again develop that
just briefly before I demonstrate also that Paul and And Peter
and the rest of the apostles didn't just go around laying
hands on everybody they met And everyone became healed Because
they were not miracle workers in that sense. They were not
healers in that sense And in fact, Jesus didn't even heal
everyone with whom he was with Because he wasn't really a healer
per se or a miracle worker per se though. He is god His primary
objective was to fulfill the scriptures in affirming his messiahship
And in fulfilling the scriptures to affirm his messiahship He
was pointing men and women to the father by virtue of his sacrifice
on the cross And then his subsequent resurrection from the dead which
message the apostles carried forward even as we have it in
the uh Book of Acts, but the apostles themselves were not
continued unending miracle workers and you and I ought not to Take
on that title today when you meet somebody that says I have
the gift of healing say nah, probably not. I Mean you can
be nice. I'm the second week that I'm
dealing with it. So I'm being a little bit more politically
incorrect I mean politically correct if I were thinking about
that individual I begin to assess them to constitute their IQ see
how many cards are missing from the deck you know and ask are
you really serious when you say you are a healer because not
even the Apostles were arbitrarily free to do that show you two
verses around this that's gonna be very good for you and then
we'll finish up here go with me in your Bibles to 2nd Timothy
chapter 4 verse 20 I'm gonna show you something I'm actually
working on a series of messages around the ministry of preaching.
And as I was closing out second Timothy, this is what I came
across. I'm gonna show you two verses in regards to the ministry
of the apostles. Now watch this. Now I want you
to think this through. If this is true for them, it's
certainly true for us. The apostle Paul is talking to
Timothy, his son in the faith, something I'm gonna talk about
here in a minute too. And as he closes out his last
letter, as we know it, Paul is going to be beheaded shortly
by Nero under capital punishment for being a heretic. Here's what
he says over in verse 19 and then verse 20. Let me start at
verse 18. And the Lord shall deliver me
from every evil work and preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom
to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. This is Paul waxing
eloquent about being beheaded, yet God delivering him. Here's
what Paul does as he closes out the letter. He says, Salute Prisca,
or Priscilla, and Aquila, and the household of Oniphorus. Erastus abode at Corinth, but
Trophimus have I left at Militum. What? He says, I left him there. And I left him there, what? Well,
now if Paul is the miracle worker, if he's the healer, If he heals
everyone he comes into contact with because he's the great man
of god Why didn't he just heal the brother? I mean he not only
was in his presence and the brother was sick He left the brother
sick Which teaches us that the apostle paul couldn't cut on
and off at will the powers of working miracles Are you guys
hearing what i'm saying? And what's important is the Holy
Ghost made sure that this was written so that you and I would
not fall prey to the notion that there are persons who possess
the unending, unabated power to just lay hands on people and
heal them. Here, the great apostle Paul is saying, I had to leave
this brother here sick. There's another occasion in which
that occurred. Go back to Philippians chapter two, 25 and 26. The reason
I'm sharing this with you is because the, The outrageous response
of the folks in Lystra here who are wanting to worship Paul and
Barnabas as gods had to be abated by Paul and Barnabas fiercely
and openly in almost a hostile way, as we'll see. It also has
to be that way today because as human beings, we have the
natural inclination of exalting people above measure and making
them more than what they really are. and even the apostles would
not spend one moment being misrepresented as some kind of special healers
or miracle workers. But here we are told concerning
a brother who was the minister at the church at Philippi. Here's
what Paul said when he says in verse 24 of Philippians 2, in
the Lord that I also myself shall come to you shortly. Yet I suppose
it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and companion in labor
and fellow soldier, but watch this, but your messenger and
he that ministered to my wants. And then he describes verse 26,
for he longed after you all and was full of heaviness because
that he had heard that you had heard that he had been sick.
Watch this. For indeed he was sick, nigh
unto death. But God had mercy on him and
not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon
sorrow. Now notice what Paul is doing.
He's giving insight to occasions with which he was with brothers
in Christ who had gotten sick so sick that they were about
to die, and all Paul could do is what you and I do with loved
ones who get so sick that they're near death, the sorrow swallows
us up because we can't do a thing about it. What this text underscores
is the sovereignty of God. God's absolute rule, his absolute
right to heal whom he wills, when he wills, if he wills. Paul had submitted to that here
and he left our other brother in Miletus. He left him sick. He went on about his business
because Paul knew what I'm sharing with you that truly only God
heals. And Paul doesn't have to be there
for God to heal them. The same thing with you and me
as well. All right, let's go on back to Acts chapter 14 and
begin to work through again the rest of our points. So the exhortation
I will give you is that don't shrink back from prayer when
people are ill or sick. Press into it and believe it
with confidence, but always subjugate your prayers to the will of God.
Never think that your passion or desire or wants or wills ever
supersede God's will. Always subordinate your desires
under the will of God. because God is sovereign and
God knows best. Okay, that will keep you and
me out of a lot of trouble. And so when we read in verse
15, these words in verse 14, and when the apostles Barnabas
and Paul heard it, they rent their clothes and ran in among
the people crying out and saying, sirs, why are you doing these
things? We also are men of light passion
with you. And we preach unto you that you
should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made
heaven and earth and the sea and all things that are there
in. So under our second point, I want to run through these three
categories as well. The humility of faithful servants,
the humility of faithful servants, three things I want to call your
attention to pagan responses to divine events. And we touched
on that a little bit. This is a pagan response, right?
It's a pagan response to a divine event, which means this these
people were not prepared for the implications of the miracle
These people were not prepared for the implications of this
miracle and that's because they were Gentiles They were pagan
if you recall we looked at the example of Peter's healing the
same kind of lame man in Acts chapter 3 remember at the gate
beautiful and And when Peter used that event to share the
gospel with his people, the Jews, they were able to hear his message
directly. They didn't go into some kind
of pagan exhibition or response because of the miracle, which
goes to teach us that it all depends upon how informed your
audience is as to how they are going to respond to the presentation
in revelation of God. The people in Acts chapter three,
where Peter does his miracle and John does this miracle to
the layman there, they are marveling at Peter and John and Peter and
John say the same thing. Don't look on us as if we are
some great man. What Peter said was the father
of our Lord Jesus Christ had glorified his son. That's the
reason why this miracle took place. He is glorifying his son. And in fact, that's the only
reason for which miracles were taking place at that time. But
I wanted to show you the distinction between what happened in that
account. These people here are going into a full-blown sacrificial
celebration, assuming that the gods Jupiter and Mercurius have
come down. And you and I already looked
at the fact that that term Jupiter and Mercurius literally in the
Greek is the god Zeus and the god what? Hermes. So some of
your translations have it because that's what it is literally in
the Greek, Jupiter, represents Zeus and Mercurius represents
Hermes and Zeus was supposed to be the head god of the pantheon
of gods in the Roman Greco culture and Hermes was to be the messenger
that brings revelation and illumination to the people as a consequence
they were both pagan views because these people were pagan and their
response to would have been a response that was basically idolatrous.
Had Paul and Barnabas been like some people today, they would
have taken advantage of this kind of high accolade to them.
Had Paul and Barnabas been corrupted in their understanding of their
calling and would have chosen to tempt the Lord by taking on
the credit for healing those people, they would have been
like men today who, as it were, call for faith healing and miracles
and conferences and the like. But the Apostle Paul responds
very radically. In fact, both men respond very
radically. They first rent their clothes,
that's verse 14, and they rushed in among the people and then
they cried out. They rent their clothes rusting
among the people verse 14 and they cried out saying sirs Why
are you doing these things? I told you last week they made
a big fuss Those people had made a big fuss all of the priest
in the temple. This was the temple to Zeus Had
gathered these oxen and gathered the garlic and they were getting
ready to have a big massive worship And Paul and Barnabas met their
zeal with their zeal to stop them in their tracks because
they knew how abominable that would be. That's a lesson for
you and me as well. But under our second point, there are a
couple of things I want you to see. Not only are we recognizing a
pagan response, but Paul in them then begins to set the record
straight. He says, we are also men of like what? Passions with
you. Not phrase like passion is a
sort of old Saxon term, and it simply means we're human with
the same kind of frailties and weaknesses that everyone else
has. Now, I know that seems obvious, but it's very important in religion
and even in the church today to reiterate the reality that
we are all the same across the board, that there is no hierarchy
in heaven, or rather in the kingdom of God, as it is on this earth,
where some people are better than other people, or some people
are more intrinsically gifted and qualified than other people,
and therefore there's this kind of a scale of reverence to be
had. When the apostle Paul in Barnabas
says, we are also men of like passion with you, what he is
saying is, the master taught us And he taught us very well
that even though we have the privilege to preach the gospel
to men and women, and even though we are the vehicles by which
healings and miracles can take place, the reality is, is that
we are just like every other human being on planet earth.
We are sinners saved by the grace of God. We are no different in
nature than anyone else. We are exactly the same. Humanly
speaking, We put our pants on the same way any other person
does. Humanly speaking, we have the
same troubles every other individual has. Let me press this home because
you will meet men and women who are in ministry and they will
talk to you like they have the secrets to life. They will talk
to you like they have overcome all the trials that a human being
goes through and that they are on another level of maturity
and sanctification that you have yet to acquire. Now for a nice
fee, they can give you access to that level. And the reality is, is that it's
a lie. It's a lie. So I'm gonna help
you just briefly with this, just so I can make sure this comes
home. The people that God uses the most are the people who are
most persuaded that they are nothing in themselves. The people that God uses the
most are people who are the most persuaded that there is nothing
intrinsic to them. that makes them more qualified
to be used of God more than anyone else. People that you meet who are
authentically servants of God will quickly tell you they are
sinners and they have weaknesses and flaws and they go through
trouble just like anyone else. That they operate in the dynamic
of the dichotomy of being both righteous and sinful at the same
time. Godly men and women will tell
you they are no different than anyone else. On any given day,
we all could fall. And this is what Paul is getting
across and what Barnabas is getting across to this group of people.
Now, what does that do when that occurs? What happens when you
quickly let men and women know, hey, I think evil thoughts, Hey,
I have lustful thoughts. Hey, I'm driven by murderous
passions. Hey, I have these crazy inclinations
to do the most foolish things. Hey, in secret, I struggle with
dark issues like everyone else. You know what you do when you
talk like that? You help people. Actually, you incline people
not to cross the line to think more of you than that which is
written in the scriptures. Romans chapter 12. And it gives
them a release, a freedom, not to now put their hopes in you
or what they perceive in you to be as something they want. Because at that point, having
shifted them towards you, you have obscured the only hope that
they really have, which is in Jesus Christ. And this is such
an important ethic to make sure we drive home. We are also men
of light passion with you. Don't look to us. And then he
speaks to his mission and task, which is, and we preach unto
you that you should turn from these what? Right. We preach
unto you that you should turn from these vanities. So gospel
preaching confronts the culture and tells the culture it needs
to repent. Doesn't it? Gospel preaching
confronts the culture and tells the culture that it needs to
repent because the culture Intrinsically are idolatrous you and I are
idolaters by nature Can I get a witness? Church folk ought
to be the first folk that tell the truth Church folk ought to
be the first folks that tell the truth. I think it was Charles
Spurgeon who borrowed it from a earlier a theologian that our
hearts are idle factories and Can you imagine the conveyor
belt? And on the conveyor belt, idols popping up every 30 seconds.
Idols. Idols. Idols. Our hearts are
idol factories. Idol factories. Before we know
it, we have constructed an idol. Out of a person, out of a thing,
out of a goal, out of an agenda, out of ourselves. Whatever the
case may be, idols are popping up in our hearts all the time.
And we have to be granted repentance in order to turn from those things.
So repentance is a constituent component to the proclamation
of the gospel because we need a remedy for that problem. And
so in our second point, under the humility of faithful servants,
all of sin, a gospel response Uh, pointing men to God through
Christ. That's our objective. So in first
Thessalonians chapter one, verse nine and 10, it's a perfect,
uh, perfect statement that would affirm what we're talking about.
When we tell men and women, they must turn from idols to serve
the true and the living God. Here's how Paul puts it in first
Thessalonians chapter one, verse nine and 10. He's actually speaking
to the efficacy of the gospel when it comes in power. It's
a great topic. It starts at verse five, for
our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power
and in the Holy ghost and in much assurance, as you know,
what manner of men we were among you for your sake. Now, verse
five has a lot to say, but I'm just going to actually deal with
a few points inside of verse five to help you understand why
Paul was confident about the effectual nature of the gospel
in the life of the Thessalonians. First he says our gospel came
to you In word, but not in word only What he was saying was in
his preaching of the gospel. God assisted that preaching by
his spirit Now that's the key to the life that's changed The
man or woman is only hearing words And the spirit of god is
not working through those words You can listen to sermons all
day long and the heart never changes. This is the radical
difference between the coming of a message and the coming of
the kingdom of God through the message. He says, for our word
came not unto you, our gospel came not unto you only in word,
but also in what? Power, dunamis, dunamis, and
in the Holy Ghost. That's a reiteration. It's through
the ministry of the Holy Spirit that the power of God, it's what
Paul called it in Romans chapter 116, the power of God through
the gospel radically impacted their life. And notice what it
says, and in much assurance, as you know what manner of men
we were among you for your what? Now I'm going to make an argument
here that I can prove through chapters one and two, but I'm
going to just see if this will just resonate with you. What
the apostle Paul said to the church at Thessalonica was God's
word worked effectually by three means, the proclamation of the
gospel, the presence of the spirit of God working through that gospel
and men who were credible, who had committed themselves to God
through whom God had worked. This is important And I've said
this before I don't believe that God saves many women through
false prophets and false teachers. I Don't believe it I don't believe
that God uses an unregenerate man or an unregenerate woman
as a vehicle by which people are saved. I Believe that the
only way you can be saved is if God uses a faithful servant
to preach a faithful message that then delivers the incorruptible
seed of the gospel by which you are actually saved. I know people
say all sorts of things like, you know, God can do anything.
Yeah, no, God can't do anything. So I would say that while you
may want to feel like God will do anything to save his people,
the fact of the matter is, is that God goes through great efforts
to qualify those whom he's going to use to save people through
the truth of the gospel. To me, the logic is flawed to
assert that God would raise people up, change their heart, Renewed
them qualified them with gifts to go out and share the gospel
with men and women Of whom he is also down the street using
an unregenerate heart a person whose motives are flawed To preach
a flawed gospel and save people as well It makes no sense to
me It makes no sense to me that God would raise people up, give
them life and faith in Christ, give them gifts, help them to
understand the truth of the gospel, and then send them in the mission
field all around the world, sharing the gospel, and yet at the same
time use the emissaries of the devil to also save people? That
would be contradicting his own work, wouldn't it? Right, so
think this through, children of God, it's very important.
Every seed bearing herb brings forth fruit of its own kind.
Matthew chapter 7 says a good tree cannot bear forth bad fruit
and a bad tree cannot bring forth good fruit So if a man is unregenerate
and unsaved he is a bad tree Can a bad tree bring forth good
fruit Right is very important therefore for you to know this
because again We have these really bizarre opaque ideas about how
God works as if God is desperate It's God ever desperate Does
God have to compromise his own principles to get a thing done?
No, he doesn't. So it's very important for you
to know. And then also know this, that God is not bound by majority
rule and nor is God bound by numbers. In other words, God
doesn't have to wait until he provides 500,000 preachers to
get his word out effectually to the masses. He can use one.
Can he use one? Right. So for God, numbers aren't
an issue with him. It's the character and quality
of the servant that he uses. This argument then is carried
over into first Timothy chapter four. You don't have to go there
where Paul is telling Timothy, if you want to see people say
Timothy in your ministry, there's two things you have to regard.
You've got to regard yourself and your doctrine. If you want
to see people saved under your ministry, Timothy, you've got
to regard two things yourself and your doctrine. Are you guys
hearing what I'm saying? Let me show you that text just
so you can know it. Go to first Timothy chapter four.
And what I'm arguing for, and this is something I've thought
about for many, many years as I've had to work through people's,
um, people's assertion that certain persons who are popular in ministry
have been the means by which people are saved, though we all
know they held to very heretical teachings, false teachings, and
their lives itself was raggedy and less than commendable. I
would question whether or not God had actually worked through
that individual, even though externally they may have had
masses of people attending their ministries. The reality is on
the last day, you and I will discover every man's work, whether
or not it was wood, hay and stubble and simply have the appearance
of life or whether or not was silver, gold and precious stone,
the substance of eternal verity, because God had worked through
the quality of men versus as a word, their methods and their
techniques. And because the masses saw them as popular, they became
part of their ministry. Again, I render the principle,
every seed bearing herb brings forth fruit of its own kind.
And here's Paul's admonition to young Timothy, as he engaged
in the ministry, he would say to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter
four, these words, I'm gonna start at verse 12. Let no man
despise your you, be thou an example of the believers in word,
in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, and in purity. Is verse 12 not speaking to the
character? Is Paul not telling Timothy he
must demonstrate authentic Christianity in his own life? Now watch what
he says. Till I come give attendance to
reading, exhortation, and what? That means he must be committed
to the theological practice of exegetical studies and expository
teaching. Give yourself over to the attendance
of reading and then what? Exhortation and doctrine. That's
the ministry of the preacher. Neglect not the gift that is
in you, which is given to you by prophecy with the laying on
of hands of the presbytery. Verse 14 describes the call of
Timothy to preach. Verse 15, here it is. Meditate
upon these things. Give yourself wholly to them
that your what property may appear to all God expects his servants
who preach the gospel to profit God gives his servants a gospel
ministry that's designed to save and to sanctify, to grow people
up, to qualify them to minister, to reduplicate the glory of God
in the lives of men and women. He expects for them to profit. God does not give his servants
the commodity of the gospel for to sit and not bear fruit. He
goes on to say here, Meditate upon these things, give yourself
over to them that your profiting might appear to all. What does
that mean? People should look at the life of the minister and
see growth, see maturity, see development of character, see
wisdom and prudence in the total protocol of his ministry. Is
that true? Right. You shouldn't live among
the ministers of the gospel or the leaders of the church and
have very questionable concerns about their life. Their life
must not be dubious before you. You must not struggle with their
character in terms of whether or not it corresponds to the
gospel, that they bear the fruit of the spirit, that they walk
in wisdom, that they have their priorities straight. If you are
struggling with their character, then we have an issue. Am I making
some sense? If you are struggling with their
character, we have some issues. Meditate upon these things, give
yourself wholly to them that your property may appear to all.
Why? Because leadership is a model. Leadership is a model. As the
people are, or rather as the leaders are, so are the people.
If your leaders are not developing and growing into Christ's likeness,
into Christ's character, into Christ's wisdom, then you have
concern about your own growth. Now, it does happen sometimes.
I'm on a segue here, but this is probably important. There
are times when you are part of a ministry where an individual
or the leadership at large is not taking Christ seriously.
And let's say that span is over a period of five or ten years.
and you come to discover that you have grown in the word significantly
enough to know that they're not growing in the word. You come
to understand doctrine in a much more deeper and profound way
than your own leadership. You become worried because as
they're preaching and teaching, you know that they're filibustering.
That's a political term simply saying that they're wasting their
time if they're talking to you, they're entertaining you and
not soundly expounding the scriptures. You start to really scratch your
head and wonder what's going on here. The same message he's
preached now, I heard him preach exactly the same message five
years ago. You're hitting your head against
the wall because you know that you want to be further down the
line in your growth and development in Christ, but your leadership
is not taking you there. You might have outgrown your
leadership. If that is true, then your soul will only be satisfied
when you move into a place where your roots can go deeper into
Christ and grow more fully satisfied in the teachings of the word
of God so that you can bear fruit upward. Am I making some sense?
And a lot of churches today are in that situation where the pastors
have left off to go deep themselves in order to help the people go
deep. And what Paul is saying to Timothy is don't let that
happen. Make sure that there is a marked evidential growth
in your life, both in your character and in your teaching. You know,
if people are going to be with you a decade, shouldn't they
know that they're making some progress? We just buried a brother
today and he'd been with me for 10 years. I buried a brother
a few weeks ago and he was with me for 25 years. I buried a man. He was, 80 years old almost. He had been with me for 25 years.
Why would you hang around a ministry or a man who is not growing for
25 years? Are you hearing what I'm saying?
Unless you are just religious, unless you purchase your pew
and you're just not going anywhere. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
It's very important to understand these things and work them through.
Here's what he goes on to say. We'll be able to close this thought
here. You may think that this is a, you know, sort of an aside,
but it's going to come back in a minute. He says in verse 16,
take heed to your what? That's right. Take heed to yourself,
watch yourself and unto the what? So those are the two areas in
which Timothy is called to watch. Take heed to himself. In other
words, he's got to regard his own soul. He's got to regard
his own heart. He's got to regard his own life.
He has to take himself seriously. As Paul said in first Corinthians
chapter nine, as he was talking about becoming all things to
all men, that if by any means he might win some, he said in
the latter part of chapter nine, that he brings his body into
subjection. Even to the point of buffeting
it, using the analogy of a boxer, he beats himself into submission
Less as he preached to others, he himself would be a castaway.
He said he did not want to be the kind of person who was telling
other people to obey the gospel when he himself was not obeying
the gospel. He didn't want to bring a disgrace or a scandal
to the cause of the gospel. And that ethic he's passing on
to Timothy. Here it is. Take heed unto yourself and unto
the doctrine. Now watch this, continue in them. What is that? The doctrine and taking heed
to yourself. For in doing this, you will both
save yourself and them that what? You guys see that? I wanna drive
that home for you. The spirit of God has just told
Timothy that God has in his economy chosen to be the means of the
eternal security of men and women The means by which the eternal
security of men and women is established is by godly leadership
who are committed to their own character, development, growth,
and watching, as well as to the doctrine of the gospel. That
Timothy can be sure that when those under his watch die, they
can enter into the presence of the Lord and actually give an
account to the Lord for the ministry that they were under all those
years. I shared this with you before, and I'll be sharing this
with a bunch of pastors here in a few weeks. I am said that I have to actually
stand before the Lord on the last day and give an answer to
my ministry. Then I'm also said that I have
to give an account about those who were under my ministry. That's
Hebrews chapter 12, Hebrews 13, I'm sorry, verse seven and 17.
As those that must give an account, that they might do it with joy
and not with greed. That's an awesome thought, isn't
it? That the ministry of the gospel
has this reciprocal relationship where the auditors are accountable
for what they hear and the minister is accountable for those who
hear. So that the minister has to answer
one day for the life that you lived in his presence. I think
that evades us. And it largely evades us because
we don't take the kingdom of God that seriously. That's a
topic for another discussion. But it fundamentally means this,
that when you get saved, you've been brought into a kingdom.
And when you're brought into that kingdom, that kingdom has
a king to whom everyone must answer. And I don't think we
really think along those lines in this democratic culture where
everybody basically is a free agent. But the reality is we
all got to line up in front of the king one day. And we have
to all answer to the king as to what we did with this gospel,
how we functioned under his ministry. And pastors, those that are listening,
you can be sure that the people who were under your ministry
will honestly tell the Lord how your ministry affected them,
good or evil. Is that true? I had to meditate
on that because I'm, I'm burying brothers so quick here. I'm saying,
Lord, what's going on? Every time a man dies under my
ministry, a woman dies under my ministry. They go right into
the presence of the Lord and they get to tell the Lord exactly
how my ministry impacted their life. Whether I told them the
truth, the whole truth. So help me God. See, this is
really not a play game at the end of the day. Is that true?
This is not a play game. So it makes me wonder all the
people that I put in the ground thus far. What was their assessment
of my ministry to them? So I know I got to answer to
God, but I'm already being accounted for by the souls that have passed
from this life into glory. Is that true? This is why in
paul's teaching what he's telling timothy is to make sure you are
serious about this thing called the gospel That you are preaching
the whole counsel of god that you're not shaving off the ends
You're not catering to the felt needs of the people That you're
preaching and teaching with eternity in view. Is that healthy? It's
healthy because well Many of you brothers and sisters that
have been with me for 20, 30 years now, y'all in the summit just
like I am. How many of you guys on the summit with me? Watch
this now, raise your hand. How many of you guys on the summit?
How many of you guys are older than 50? Yeah, you better get those hands up.
Get your hands up. You're on the summit with me.
You're on the summit. We can go anytime now. So this matter of the gospel
and the character of persons conveying that gospel is very
important to heed to yourself and to the doctrine continuing
them for in doing so you will save both yourself and them that
hear thee I have always thought that that is a fascinating concept
in a massive burden that's too great for any human being let's
go back now and make our way through the rest of the points
there's some very important things I want to share with you now
under our third point verses 16 through 18 of our text after
Paul warns them and tells them to turn from vanities that is
idols to serve the true and the living God which made heaven
and earth and the sea and all that in them is and I was in
first Thessalonians chapter 9 it didn't actually go to my passages
that I need you to look at so we got to go right back back
your car up to first Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 9 and 10 just
in case you don't know these texts I need you to see them
So after having explained the importance of the presence of
the Spirit of God in the ministry of those who are authentic ministers
of the gospel, here's what the apostle says in 1 Thessalonians
chapter 1 verse 8. For from you sounded out the
word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also
in every place where your faith God word is spread abroad. so that we need not to speak
anything for they themselves, that is your faith, shows us
what manner of entering in we had unto you and how you turned
to God from idols to serve the true and the living God. See
verse 9? That's what we call the efficacy of the gospel. The
impact of the gospel. I love that chapter. Read it
for yourself in its own time. You know what Paul said? We don't
have to go around commending the church at Thessalonica because
the gospel impacted them in such a way that everybody knows that
the moment that they received that gospel, they began telling
men and women about Christ. Their faith was shown abroad. When in fact you and I are truly
saved, it redounds to God's glory and men and women are going to
know it. This is very true. This is first corinthians chapter
8. You don't have to turn there The man or the woman that loves
god the same will be known of them That's first corinthians
chapter 8 verses 1 through 4 where paul is arguing for charity in
the church And here's what he says. You don't have to tell
anyone that you love god You don't have to tell them They'll
know You guys hear what I just said. You have to go around telling
people i'm a christian You have to put signs on your shirts and
banners on your cards and stickers. I believe Jesus. Nope. We'll
see. We'll see. Are you guys hearing me? You
don't have to tell anybody you're a Christian. All that Christian
talk doesn't do anything today. We're way saturated today in
our culture with Christian talk. All we're looking for is the
fruit. And this is what Paul said occurred with them. And
then he says in verse 10, after they turn from idols and serve
the true and the living God, they are now waiting for his
son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which
deliver us from the wrath to come. There's your gospel. Going
back to our text now so we can make our way as we begin to close
it down. So the apostle Paul and Barnabas
interrupt this idolatrous attempt at exalting them and making them
gods. And he says something very interesting in verse 16 and 17. who in time past, that is God,
who in time past suffered all nations to walk in their own
ways. Nevertheless, he left himself
not without witness in that he did good, gave us rain from heaven,
fruitful season, filling our heart with food and gladness. Verse 16 and 17 is an interesting
tactic on Paul's part to these pagans. He's satisfying these
pagans thoughts and desires To placate god and to honor god
by sharing with these pagans About how god has been patient
with them even in their ignorance He's setting them up for the
gospel by saying god has let you live all these years in ignorance
And still bestowed his goodness on your life while you were ignorant
Isn't that our testimony? God has let you live in your
darkness, in your blindness, in your paganness, and still
showed you temporal corporal goods in order for you to come
to know him in his saving mercy and grace. That's the only thing
that restrained them. He said, this is what's restraining
them. So under our third point, the endurance of God with paganism,
you see that? the endurance with God. I was
gonna write patience with God, the patience with God, but you
know what I've discovered in my generation? That we twist
concepts around and we take the significance of the meaning out
of it. If I were to say that God is patient with you, he exercises
patience towards you, you know what you would think? That God
is tolerant. See, because that's the natural
inclination of our present antinomian culture. We live in an antinomian
culture, a lawless culture, a culture where people live like hell and
actually think they're going to get away with it. I am amazed
at the cognitive dissonance that exists in church folks who think
they can live like hell and going to be all right on the last day.
It blows me away because what I ask myself is who, who do they
think Jesus is? Who do they really think God
is? Now, I'm actually giving you insights into some things
I'm working through on a larger theological scale, but I'm gonna
give this to you for free. I want you to think this through,
because maybe somebody in the house needs to hear this. If in fact,
you are living contrary to what you know you should be living
according to the word of God, you, and you think God's all
right with it, you have made an idol out of God. You have
fashioned a false notion that God is all right with you sticking
your fist in his face Are you hearing me? So so follow this
logic now follow this now and this is a this is an endemic
problem with us as sinners God has revealed himself in his word
to us one way but because we want to have our cake and eat
it too and We start shaving off the character of God and remolding
him into our own image. And then we start emphasizing
certain attributes and characteristics of God that favor our sinful
behavior. Am I telling the truth? And really
what we have done is said that either I don't want to know God
in the true or I don't know God at all. I'm just pretending that
I know him. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? Now I'm gonna say it again for the record, because these
kinds of interrogatives are very important. These kinds of analysis
are very important. Why do we have a culture of Christians
who are unbiblical in their understanding and immoral in their conduct
and can easily and flippantly say that they're believers in
Christ? Because they have reshaped the image of God in a fashion
that corresponds to accommodating their conduct. which reshaping
of God is nothing but an idle image of God that doesn't correspond
to the truth. In other words, they're believing
a lie. Am I making some sense? They have fabricated a false
Jesus and a false God by which it now accommodates or assuages
their conscious while they live like they wanna live. These are
the people whom Jesus says on the last day, I will tell you,
I never knew you. Are you hearing me? Those are
the people. These are the people who have shaped Jesus into an
image that they wanted him to fit so that they can continue
in their lifestyle. In other words, this is a lack of repentance
on their part. Because repentance is the changing
of our mind. Repentance is not the changing
of God's mind. Our God's character, our image,
our attributes, our God's will in revelation. Repentance is
our conforming to God's will, not conforming God to our will.
The perpetual and unending practice of reshaping God, where my God
would never do that. That's a dangerous statement.
Do you mean your God would never do that? My God would never send
a person to hell like that. Well, what kind of God do you
have? Is your God the God of the Bible?
Or is he the God of your own vain imagination? Something that
you have constructed to make you feel good. See, so we have
what we call Christian idolatry that does not conform itself
to the revealed will of God according to the gospel. Am I making some
sense, ladies and gentlemen? Now, this is very important because,
you ready? We're all tempted to do it. to
exalt an attribute of God to diminish an attribute of God
to Disregard a character of God in order to have an aspect of
God that accommodates our need What Paul said according to verse
16 was that God endured that kind of paganism he endured it
That's literally what the word means. He just endured it he
Put up with it who in time past suffered all nations to walk
in their own ways. Now watch this. It didn't mean
that they won't perish and go to hell, they will. It simply
means he endured it in this life while they lived their temporal
life without pouring judgments upon them as he did in the days
of the flood. Or as he did in the days of Sodom
and Gomorrah. Or as he did in the days of Egypt
when he destroyed Egypt. What God had said to Noah back
after he had destroyed the world that first time is, I'm not going
to do that. I'm going to let them run. I'm
going to let them live like hell. I'm going to let them struggle
in their conscious. The men and women that come to me, who come
to me by faith through the revelation that I give at that time will
be saved. But the masses of the world will perish. That's all
Paul is saying. He's saying prior to the cross
of Christ, the vast majority of the world perished outside
of God. Are you guys hearing me? This answers the question. So what happened to all of the
people that didn't hear the gospel? They perished. You got that? Because in our
world of scholarship and theology, in particular, our liberal progressive
theologians, they want to find a way to make everybody say.
Is that true? you know, the pagans and the
Himalayans and the pagans and, and central Africa and the pagans,
you know, just in the Amazonians, uh, jungles who never knew God,
didn't know anything about God, didn't know anything about Christ,
just kind of lived in the darkness of their pagan notions. They
couldn't possibly be in hell. Yes, they can. And yes, they
are because God gave them over to their own passions and desires,
didn't he? So you can think about that era of the world from the
time of Noah up to the time of the calling of Abraham and then
letting Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the 12 tribes be a model
for the world to come to Jehovah through the temple. You can think
of that period as the whole world being covered in darkness. Are
you guys hearing me? Just pagan darkness where people
lived in darkness and died in darkness as a consequence of
their rebellion against the true and the living God. Here's how
Paul puts it in Acts chapter 17, verse 30. Turn to Acts 17,
30. As he deals with the Mars Hill
group, who also were idolatrous and polytheistic at that, he
says these words in verse 29 and 30 and 31 of Acts 17. He says, for as much then as
we are the offspring of God, We ought not to think that the
godhead is likened to gold or silver or stone or graven art
Graven by art and man's device that means I idols the consequence
of man's own workings Like you can't make a god and then expect
that to be the true and the living God Now astas and the times of
this what? God what? God winked he literally
overlooked it That's the word you have in your outline in the
parentheses. It's the Greek term Hooper. We
don't. We don't means to look. Hooper
means over and got overlooked. He overlooked them. He disregarded
them. He just let them go. I don't
know why the King James uses the word wink. There are a couple
of words in our translation that are a little bit challenging.
When I get down to the strengthening of the church here, maybe in
a moment, I'll share with you why I said some of the things
I said last week around bishops and elders and pastors and stuff
like that. But the idea of winking once again, almost sounds as
if God kind of lowered his standard. Isn't that right? Because when
we wink at something, we basically say, you got to pass. Isn't that
right? We're giving you a pass. You
can kind of go. But that's not what that means. When it says
that God overlooked it, it means that he left them to themselves
while he addressed his own redemptive purposes with his people. God
would let the children of Cain grow and populate and become
massive and then destroy them in the flood while he watched
over the line of Seth and made sure the line of Seth made it
all the way to Noah and Noah and his eight souls would be
saved. Are you guys hearing me? God would allow the three sons
of Noah, Japheth, Shem, and Ham to grow up and become great nations.
And yet the Shemites would be the line through which the Messiah
would come because the Shemites are the Semites, Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob. A few of the people from the
Japheth and the Hamite tribes would enter in ultimately, but
the line would start with the Shemites. Am I making some sense?
And you would see God's redemptive work historically through the
Shemites. He would let the rest of the
three boys, the nations of the three boys just live in darkness,
do whatever they want until judgment day. That's the consequences
of sin. And so the same thing is being
stated here. Here's what he says. And the times of this ignorance
got winked at, but now commanded all men everywhere to what? Now,
so the order of events is different now. Go back to act 17. The order of events, act 14,
the order of events is different today. And what makes the order
of events different today? The urgency of events different
today. The resurrection of Christ, the
revelation of Christ, the coming of the son of God into the world,
the sufferings of Christ, the death of Christ, the resurrection
of Christ, the exaltation of Christ makes everything different.
Work on that if that's an element of theological inquiry that you
have. What made history Time the epics
and events to Kairos in which we are in now different than
before the coming of Jesus Was that the coming of Jesus was
largely the mystery that God was working through in his Old
Testament people Protecting the seed all the way from Eve up
to Mary the mother of our Lord and he had to protect that seed
through the conduit of the twelve tribes because as you know, they
were constantly under assault to be killed right and So we
had to protect that seed through several means, the patriarchy,
the theocratic government of the judges, and then ultimately
the monarchy. And even in the monarchy, as
we're gonna learn in David's days, eventually the monarchy
crumbled, did it not? And it was devastated, but God
still protected Israel and the specific tribe of Judah until
Jesus was born about BC seven, okay? And so seven BC. And then once Christ came and
accomplished eternal redemption for us, God says, okay, pull
the veil back. Tell everybody that Christ is
here. He's exalted his son. He's making him known through
the preaching of the gospel. You have no reason to delay.
Believe the gospel and you'll be saved. Do not believe the
gospel and you'll be damned to all nations. Because now what
he's doing is sending the gospel into every nation by his apostles,
his prophets, and his preachers. In other words, you don't come
to Jerusalem now, the gospel's coming to you. And everywhere
the gospel goes, it demands men and women to repent because now
the light of redemption is right before your face. Are you guys
hearing what I'm saying? So this is what makes it more
urgent today because the work is resolved, the atonement is
made, propitiation for sin is done, and God is now reconciling
sinners to himself through Jesus Christ. Moreover, it is a greater
aggravation after the cross for you to reject God's revelation
redemption and mercy in Christ since God has made it very plain
that all sins are forgiven in him for the man or the woman
to reject Christ is to lead themselves to a greater damnation and so
this is why Paul would say what he's saying here going back to
our point so let's work this through so there were three things
under the endurance of God with paganism he suffered their ways
and He manifested his nature through goodness, and Christ
would argue this in Matthew 6, and Romans 2, verse 4 would also
affirm this. It's the goodness of God that
leads to what? Repentance. So, and I think you guys will
agree with me on this a little bit. Christ said, God reigns
upon the just and the unjust. He pours his goodness upon all
of humanity, but it's designed to get them to turn to God. It's designed to get them thinking,
you know what? Why am I waking up the next day
after I lived like hell yesterday? Why is God allowing me to still
retain good health when I'm so destructive to myself? Why has
God in his mercy not been as severe to me as he could? And I've been just as this wicked
scandalous ruffian and God's been patient. That's really what
God's goodness is designed to do to get you to reflect and
think upon the fact that you and I are simply living on borrowed
time. And then couple that with the
fact that on occasion, he would have a gospel preacher come your
way and tell you, faith in Christ will get you out of your mess.
And you're still rejecting the gospel. See what I'm getting
at? You and I know this, that when
we finally saw the glory of God in Christ, when God revealed
his glory to us, and we sat down and assessed our life, we realized
that we were running from God all our life, sticking our fist
in God's face saying no to God, were we not? Yes, we were. We
were not so totally oblivious to God that we weren't conscious
of him. We didn't care about his moral
law. We didn't care about consequences. We were all that and more as
God started hunting us down by his grace. In fact, what God
often did with most of us was press heavy upon us and awareness
of our sinfulness. he would press upon us the realities
of our sin and he would show us that we are indeed the sinners
that the Bible tells us that we are. See, we thought we were
good. Every man will proclaim his own goodness. Even though
we were bad as hell, we were still saying we were a little
bit better than the next cat. That was the thing that was allowing
us to actually continue to deceive ourselves. I'm bad, but I'm not
as bad as him. It's true. It's true. It's true. And we thought that that would
be a legitimate argument with God. We believed that God would
judge us on a scale. Well, my good would outweigh
my bad. We were utterly deceived, were we not? This is why the
gospel has to come in power and show us that we were hell-bound
sinners that were operating out of mercy. We were on borrowed
time. And finally, God was able to
bring us to the light of the gospel. Finally, then under the
endurance of God with paganism, he not only suffered their ways,
he manifested his nature through goodness. He also appointed a
day, did he not? This is the thing that people
have to hear. And this is not, this is also not part of the
message of the gospel today. God has appointed a day wherein
he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he has raised
from the dead and has given assurance to all, that man is Jesus. Men
and women have to know there's a judgment day, don't they? Yes,
they do. Men and women have to know that
and when once you have shared that with them, their culpability
is greater. Let's go to our next point. They
finally stoned him as they desire. This is remarkable. Let me show
you two more things and then we'll take some questions in
and close for tonight. In our text, it says in verse
19, after they had scarcely restrained them, verse 19 says, and there
came there certain Jews from Antioch, and Iconium, who persuaded
the people, and having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city,
supposing he had been dead." Now this is remarkable to me
because these are the same people we can find in verse 14. well
as in verse 5 I mean verse 1 of chapter 14 verse 5 look at verse
1 of chapter 14 it came to pass in Iconium that they went both
together into the synagogue of the Jews and so spake that a
great multitude both the Jews and also of Greeks believe verse
2 but the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and made their
minds evil affected against the brethren do you see that How
much so? Look at verse five. And when
there was an assault made both of the Gentiles and also of the
Jews with their rulers to use them despitely and to what? They
finally got their way. Earlier in Paul and Barnabas
ministry up near Asia Minor in the area of Galatia, where Lystra
and Derby and Iconium were, they were small cities that were only
a few miles away. Paul and them met with adversity
among the Jewish people. The Jewish people stirred up
the Gentiles and they wanted to stone Paul, but they left
from that region and went down to Derby. That's where the enlistment
by Derby, that's where the impotent man was healed. And now as Paul
and them are succeeding in the ministry in Derby, we're told
that these folks came up from Antioch and Iconium and persuaded
the people to stone Paul. So they finally got him, didn't
they? This gets back to what I was saying a couple of weeks
ago. In the call of the apostles, they weren't called to live large,
have big houses, drive Rolls Royces, wear Rolexes. They were
called to suffer for the gospel. Here we see Paul on his first
missionary journey. This is his first missionary
journey. His first journey. And they stoned
the man. And on his way up from Antioch
in Syria, all the way up to Antioch in Galatia, everywhere he goes,
he's being persecuted by the Jews. He does a successful work,
him and Barnabas, but in the midst of that work, they catch
up to him and they stone the man so much so that you and I
do not have decisive clarity as to whether he was dead or
not. This is what we know. He wasn't
hit with pebbles. He was hit with stones. He was
incognito and he was out. The way Luke shrouds the facts
is to leave it for us to draw one of two very rational conclusions
about what happened. Look at what it says in verse
20. When they stoned him and dragged
him out of the city, supposing he was dead because he was unconscious.
The ones who stoned him dragged him out of the city. Are you
hearing me? The ones who stoned him dragged him out of the city,
get out of our city, cursing the man. It says in verse 20,
how be it as the disciples stood round about him. Do you see?
He rose up. Now this is shrouded language
of which a sanctified mind gets to read into the text certain
inferences. If you are a believer and you
got a brother or sister who is in the throes of death, And it's
a group of you surrounding him. What are you going to be doing?
Passionately, aren't you? Aren't you going to be? Are you
going to just be standing there? Man, he he looks pretty calm there. You
know, he doesn't look too bad. They stone. You're going to be
praying for him. You're going to be passionately
praying for him. You're going to be praying for
him. This is one of the other manifestations of the kingdom.
I wish I had time to talk about it. This is how you know whether
or not you're operating by faith or not. When a situation occurs
where it appears like the enemy has taken someone out, are you
going to have Fitz pull your hair out, run and scream, call
9-1-1, get irate? Are you going to pray? Are you
going to do what the saints did? They circled our brother and
prayed. Now watch this. Now watch this. They prayed and
God answered right there. Did he? They prayed and God answered
right there in the midst of their prayer. Paul rose up Did he not? This teaches us then the importance
of our role as a priesthood This teaches us our participation
in the ministry of those who preach the gospel and suffer
for it This teaches us how we can play a role in the healing
of those who are in ministry and hazard their lives for the
cause of the gospel The church who is not stoned should be the
church praying for the church that's stoned. The church that
lives in the ease and comfort of a Western societal culture
like we do should be praying for our brothers and sisters
in the Middle East and around the world who are being put to
death and stoned and suffering for Christ. Am I making some
sense? It's just, it's as practical as it gets. These were believing
men and women and God honored them. Something's crazy here
too. This is, this is really, really crazy. So under this final
point, three things here, the prophetic word of Christ in Luke
21, 16, Christ told the disciples, they're going to kill you. Then
we have what I call the mad hostility of false religion. You know,
you got to be really bad to think that killing somebody with whom
you disagree honors God, right? You got to be mad. And that's
what religion is. Therefore, you be careful on
a rhetorical level of not killing people because they don't agree
with you. Did you hear what I'm saying?
Therefore, you and I be careful that on a rhetorical level that
you don't kill people just because they don't agree with you. If
you are right and they're wrong, they're in trouble. Is that right?
But you don't have to kill them. You don't have to take on the
mercenary or hostile path of false religion. And according
to John 16, 2, Christ says they're going to kill you and think they're
doing God's service. That means you're deluded, aren't
you? The last one is this is the witness of the apostles.
I love this is the witness of the apostles. We'll stop here
and we'll come back and work through our other stuff next
week. Here's the witness of the apostles.
Do you know Paul got up from this stoning and turned around
and went back to the same city that stoned him? Yeah, this is
crazy. I wish I had the map up. They
had went all the way up to Iconium, Derbe and Lystra were small cities
right there, as I said, in Syria, in Antioch, up by Galatia. And they were trying to drive
them back down towards Syria. But what God told Paul and Barnabas
to do is to get up and go back into those cities and show them
the power of the gospel that's able to raise a man from the
dead and bear witness to that grace in their life. Can you
imagine the strategy of God impacting the very city that thought that
they had done away with the apostle Paul? Think about this with me
for a moment. Think about this on the part of God. These people
who were in those cities who had believed that gospel, because
many of them believed, right? If they would have never saw
Paul again, what would they have thought about adversaries with
regards to the gospel? That the adversaries won. If they would have seen every
time that the gospel rises up in a culture, here comes the
adversary, he kills off the leadership, the leadership disappears, that's
it. But for the leadership to rise again from the dead and
to come back into the very same city, where they stoned him. Not only is God's glory being
manifested in terms of the resurrection of Christ, but I surmise that
many of the ones who actually stoned him that first time now
are gonna... Is that right? But you don't
have to kill them. You don't have to take on the
mercenary or hostile path of false religion. And according
to John 16, 2, Christ says, They're going to kill you and think they're
doing God's service. That means you're deluded, aren't
you? The last one is this is the witness of the apostles.
I love this is the witness of the apostles. We'll stop here
and we'll come back and work through our other stuff next
week. Here's the witness of the apostles.
Do you know Paul got up from this stoning and turned around
and went back to the same city that stoned him? Yeah, this is
crazy. I wish I had the map up. They
had went all the way up to Iconium, Derbe and Lystra were small cities
right there, as I said, in Antioch up by Galatia. And they were
trying to drive them back down towards Syria. But what God told
Paul and Barnabas to do is to get up and go back into those
cities and show them the power of the gospel that's able to
raise a man from the dead and bear witness to that grace in
their life. Can you imagine the strategy
of God impacting the very city that thought that they had done
away with the apostle Paul? Think about this with me for
a moment. Think about this on the part of God. These people
who were in those cities, who had believed that gospel, because
many of them believed, right? If they would have never saw
Paul again, what would they have thought about adversaries with
regards to the gospel? That the adversaries won. If they would have seen every
time that the gospel rises up in a culture, here comes the
adversary. He kills off the leadership. The leadership disappears. That's
it. But for the leadership to rise again from the dead and
to come back into the very same city. where they stoned him. Not only is God's glory being
manifested in terms of the resurrection of Christ, but I surmise that
many of the ones who actually stoned him that first time now
are gonna bow the knee to Jesus Christ, recognizing the power
of the resurrection in his servants, the apostles. Am I making some
sense? And certainly what our text is clearly indicating, not
just by inference or by implication, our text says that the apostles
went through those cities in order to confirm the churches
and to establish the doctrine. Is my soul going to be confirmed
when the man that God used to save me, I thought he was dead.
He rises up again and come in church the next week. Is my soul
going to be confirmed? Look at verse 22. Confirming
the souls of the disciples and exhorting them to continue in
the what? Now watch how he closes. And
that we must through much tribulation enter into the what? Now does
Paul preach what he teaches, practice what he preaches? Right. You can imagine when he said,
We got to go through this. What you see me going through,
you all got to go through. And how that's going to strengthen
them to go through it. You guys hear what I'm saying?
This is remarkable. Now there's a lot of stuff in
terms of our outline that needs to be worked through and we'll
do that next week. But I'm so encouraged by the fact that when
God raised Paul up, he sent Barnabas and Paul right back into Lystra,
right back into the Antioch area, right back into Iconium, right
where both their enemies and the believers were. The believers
had to be strengthened by the resurrection of this apostle. And so it is when you and I get
in trouble and God raises us up too. We get in trouble, don't
we? Any questions? Anybody got any
questions for the night? Going once, going twice. My brother, what's your question?
Isn't it true that Paul was reaping what he had sown? That Paul was
what? Reaping what he had sown. Oh,
put that to his mouth. I guess, in a sense, we could
say that. That's pretty tough, huh? Now, just imagine if my
brother was standing around Paul when Paul was dead out in the
city and said, Paul, you didn't reap what you sold, brother. Well, who gave him the money?
That's Galatians 6. Huh? That's Galatians 6, 7. OK, so
let's see if we can make a stretch on that. Anybody else got another
question? Anybody? We're all good. That's going
to be the question that closes us out tonight. OK. Um, I probably
would avoid that construction on what happened to brother Paul.
I think I would reframe it a little bit different. But if I was non
sympathetic, I might use that as an example. He sold the truth
and he died for the truth that he sold. Is that true? He sold the truth. and he died
for the truth that he sold. More than that, we can say that
he reaped and that he was actually a partaker of the power of the
resurrection of which he yearned for in Philippians chapter three,
when he says, oh, that I might know him and the power of his
resurrection, that I might, if by any means attain unto the
resurrection from the dead. What he said was he wanted to
know christ in his sufferings and in his resurrection paul
gained a greater Appreciation and awareness of the power of
grace to raise him from the dead Because he had sold into it.
You guys got that he did He sold the gospel and that gospel did
what the gospel says it would do it would kill us and make
us alive That that's the that's the promise of the gospel Christ
said, if you suffer with me, you will what? Reign with me.
Paul is reigning, is he not? So in that sense, I guess you're
right, my brother. Let's close in a word of prayer. So father,
thank you for this time. Thank you for this hour. As we
go our way, give us traveling mercies, prepare us to worship
you on Sunday as you deserve to be worshiped. We pray in Jesus
name. Amen. God bless you guys.