Amen. We're in Acts chapter 14,
and we are working from our fourth point, which would be verses
8 through 10, as we deal now with the apostolic signs to further
the advance of the gospel, the apostolic signs to further the
advance of the gospel. That would be our PowerPoint
position that you have in your outline. Last week, we spent
quite a bit of time working through the concept of division. And
what we did was address the fact that all division is not bad
division. Some division is necessary division. And we dealt with the divisions
that Christ himself experienced. We saw the three verses in the
Gospel of John that addressed the division because of him,
because of his word and because of those sayings. Then we regarded
the fact that Christ said, I did not come to bring peace. I came
to bring a sword. And as difficult as that is,
there's a division that does occur when you become a true
believer in Christ. Unfortunately, that division
results in a spiritual divide between those who know Jesus
in the family and those who don't. And that can be very difficult
as well. But our Lord was honest when he said that the disciples
that he would draw and produce and create and develop would
often be met with variance and hostility from their own family
members. That's Luke's gospel chapter
12, as well as Matthew's gospel chapter 10. And we all know something
about that division. I wanna show you one more verse
around division, and then we'll begin to deal with why the spirit
of God moved the apostle Paul Barnabas and others from the
region of Iconia down towards Lystra. And that's Romans 16,
verse 17, where the apostle warns about a kind of division that
we must never approve of, nor participate in. Romans 16, verse
17. It's a wonderful chapter that
closes out the epistle. One of the things that you mark
when you read through Romans 16 is how many friends of the
gospel that Paul had. as difficult as his life was
in Christ, you can tell by Romans 16 how close he was as an apostle
and a shepherd of the church of God at large with the people
to whom he is saluting. He covers almost 17 verses, 16
at least, saying, salute this brother, that brother, those
brethren. And that always impressed me about Paul because he wasn't
as free as you and I And yet he had a lot of friends in the
faith. Here's what he says over in verse
17, after closing out verse 16 this way, salute one another
with a holy kiss. The churches of Christ salute
you. That gives you a little insight
into the nature of the fellowship of the saints in Rome, that they
were really rather close to one another. There wasn't such a
sort of overwhelming life in this world that had them fragmented
and separated. He could actually say in verse
16, the churches of Christ salute you as well. And then he says
in verse 17, now I beseech you, brethren, to mark them that cause
divisions. And then he uses another word,
scandals or offenses, contrary to the what? To the doctrine,
which you have learned and to do what? Avoid them. So verse
17 tells us that there is a division that we want to be careful to
observe when individuals are creating divisive situations,
environments, circumstances, contrary to the doctrine, contrary
to the gospel, contrary to essential Christian truth. So then what
we want to do is strike the balance between understanding divisions
will occur, but they should not be divisions based upon petty
opinions or differences that are rooted in our own ideas that
are not core to the heart of the gospel. Very interesting
observation. He says, mark them, which cause
divisions. And what that word mark means
is to observe and then put a tag on them. because their pattern
of behavior is really what he's saying, be careful about. There
are always those persons who come into the church who are
unstable and they actually have another agenda other than an
affirmation of the gospel, a desire to be part of a body that is
seeking to go deep into Christ and thus manifest the unity for
which every local church is raised up. Every local gospel church
ostensibly is a family of God, a body of believers who walk
in the Spirit, and therefore the maturity of the saints are
evidenced by our ability to get along with one another in spite
of our differences. I was dealing with a situation
earlier today on that very fact. Someone very dear to me was asking
me how to address a problem that had occurred between him and
another individual. And I said, the way that you
address that is to minimize what you have to say about the situation. So asked to leave the situation
in their court to resolve so that it doesn't become personal.
A lot of times when conflicts occur, There are really conflicts
that don't amount to a whole lot, but because they don't get
handled right, offenses occur. When people take the conflict
that objectively and all by itself could be resolved with biblical
principles, some prudence, and then begin to personalize it,
then it becomes an issue where they struggle and offenses abound,
as the proverb says, in the multitude of words, their lacketh not sin. Like you and I know that you
can be addressing an issue with someone, and if you talk too
much, it's gonna create a situation. Which situation then is gonna
create personal offenses between you and them, which may or may
not be resolved. As the proverb puts it, a brother
offended is harder than the bars of a castle. And I find that
to be true very frequently among the body of Christ, among professing
Christians, where we don't know how to take the issue, address
the issue, and not let the issue become personal, and therefore
create a scandal or an offense around the gospel. So what Paul
is saying here is, mark them which cause divisions and offenses
contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and then to
avoid them. And here's the motive he says they have. For they that
are such serve not our Lord Jesus. Do you guys see that? In other
words, for them, their ultimate priority is not obedience to
Christ. Here's what it says, but their
own lusts. So if a person is driven by a
kind of personal agenda or a level of selfishness, self-centeredness
that really is all about getting their needs met. When the circumstances
don't work out their way, then they want to create a hassle.
And in creating that hassle, they disrupt the fellowship.
And in disrupting the fellowship, they create a ripple effect,
a wave that then has to be entered in by leadership a lot of times
and halt it. This is a sad case of affairs.
And so here he says, mark that because these who do do that,
they do not serve our Lord Jesus, but their own belly. And by good
words and fair speeches, deceive the hearts of the simple. That's
an exegetical all by itself. But let me just share with you
what verse 18 is saying, and then we'll go back. No one ever
getting in a situation that's dubious or ambivalent or ambiguous
in nature, will ever present the negative side of their participation
in that particular quandary. or trouble, very seldom will
people say, you know, I actually was wrong. I actually initiated
it. I had a bad attitude. I really
want to work this through. So I'm 50% the blame of the problem. 99% of the time, people always
put forth a good view of themselves in the midst of the situation.
Even when they allow that particular issue to go beyond the circle
of them and that individual with whom they are engaged. in order
to win favor from others. Now notice the last line on verse
18 that underscores that. And by what? Good words and what? Fair speeches deceive the hearts
of the what? So now what Paul is doing is
extracting a principle out of the proverb, which I've shared
with you for years. I think it's Proverbs chapter
15, verse 14 or 14, verse 15. The simple believe every word. The simple, that is the person
that's non-discerning. The immature or the gullible
are the individual, like we had stated a few weeks ago, that
is prone to gossip. An individual who may be prone
to gossip will be open to the first person coming with their
argument or their view. As another proverb would put
it, he that is first in his own cause always is going to present
themselves as just or right. Always. But his neighbor comes
after him and gives the bigger picture, and then you begin to
discover there's more to the story than that first person
coming to you. Have you experienced that? Of
course, that's human nature. That's human nature. And we're
Christians are not principled enough to both not operate in
that pattern and therefore set other people up or be in a place
of vulnerability where you have itching ears, ears that are open
to any kind of conflict, any kind of trouble, any kind of
issue. And you just want to be in on
the gossip. Well, that's how you continue
to stir the fires of slander and gossip and ad hominem attacks. And you're way off the issue.
Now we're getting into personal things and assumptions and conclusions
that are being drawn that you can never, ever verify. You have
to be very careful about that because you can build a major
mountain of argumentation against a person and 60, 70% of your
argument can never, ever be validated. So what good is it for you to
tell somebody something about someone else and create a negative
perspective about that person of which that individual you
told could never ever verify your point. All you do is set
them up to have to choose whether or not they're going to believe
you or not. Now that makes it even more precarious because
as an individual who's supposed to be neutral in the situation,
he or she should not be put in a situation where they have to
choose between you and the other person. Am I making some sense? But if in fact you bring that
news to them or that gossip or that line of offense that you
say you're dealing with, and that individual is not capable
of parsing between the facts and the fiction, the objective
criticism, and your own personal, as it were, opinions, then they're
going to be swallowed up by the dynamic, the vortex of the conflict
And a lot of times that third party is often more hurt than
the two individuals who were originally engaged in the conflict. So what would the Bible say is
the solution? Those two are to gather together
by themselves without anyone else and demonstrate the character
and maturity of true believers and work that through. Is that
right? Before you even contemplate telling somebody else about it,
you should work it through yourselves. the Lord wisely gave us that
principle in order to to minimize the toxic disease oriented practice
of ad hominems and gossip and slander and stuff that can take
on a life of their own you guys know what I'm talking about so
what Paul said is for they are such that do not serve the Lord
Jesus. In other words, they don't walk
Coramdale. They don't walk conscious that the Lord sees it, but they
are seeking to fulfill their own belly. Now, again, that's
a proverbial euphemism that comes out of Ecclesiastes. All the
labor of men is for his own what? Belly or lust. And it simply
means that you have some innate craving to be noticed or wanted
or approved or accepted or right. And we're sinners. And because
of that kind of liability on our part, we can unconsciously
be given over to seeking to have someone approve us just based
on a little stupid, shallow conversation that we may have engaged in that
leads to this kind of slanderous practice. He says in verse 19,
for your obedience is come abroad unto all. I am glad therefore
on your behalf But yet I would have you wise unto that which
is what and simple concerning what And here's the promise and
the god of peace shall brew satan under your feet what? shortly. Now notice what Paul does. He
says, now as a whole, I understand that you guys in Rome are pretty
solid. You don't get tossed to and fro
by every wind of doctrine. You're not running after every
line of gossip and every piece of news that's in the newspaper.
You don't get caught up in hearsay and all of this other stuff.
And yet I would have you to be wise unto that, which is good.
and simple concerning evil. When he gets to the simple part
concerning evil, that's an ethical break that he's calling the believer
to have. This is a psychological term,
but I use it frequently on my Monday show, a moral compass
and an ethical break. So you can buy it and own it,
it's free. A moral compass is the ability to know what's right. And an ethical break is the ability
to do what's right. and stop before it starts something
that you're going to regret down the line. An ethical break is
the ability to say, no, I'm not going down that course. Being
able to stop a conversation before it builds into something that's
not worth it. In the life of husbands and wives,
it's a very good thing to have an ethical break. in the lives
of, uh, uh, persons at work and they have coworkers and you guys
are really critical to one another in the area of accomplishing
work. And yet, you know, there's a person with whom you're working
that they can slip right into gossip. Like, I don't know. I
mean, so quick, go from a normal conversation about nothing, right
into gossip. You gotta be able to go. No, You know, this is not profitable.
Every time we go down this course, we're always talking about our
other coworker and it's just not a bad deal. You got an issue
with her, go talk to her. You guys follow that logic? Right,
now these are simple principles that will keep you in a place
of being clear in your conscious and right with God versus contaminated
in your spirit and greed in your conscious because you know you're
saying things and engaging and affirming things that people
are saying that you know, as a believer, you should not be
subject to, right? Believers slip into that when
we don't walk in the authority that God has called us to and
the light into which he has called us as well, an ethical break
We'll be able to say no, that's the no factor of Psalm one verse
one. Remember it, right? Blessed is the man that walks
not in the council of the ungodly and the ungodly council can come
from a brother or sister in Christ as soon as they go carnal. Is
that true? And as soon as you hear, you
got to go, no, not taking this any further. And this is definitely
true for leaders in the church. Mature people in the church if
you call yourself mature in Christ You have to be able to operate
with an ethical break and a moral compass that moral compass should
be based upon your knowledge of God's Word which says If an
individual has an art with you you deal with it privately, you
don't take it anywhere. That's a moral compass You know
what the Bible says and then you're operating out of it. So
there are times when I Divisions occur that we have to be able
to cap it before it creates ungodliness and major divisions in the church
of which you and I learned Was taking place in the church at
Corinth when Paul said divisions must be among you first Corinthians
chapter 11 verse 19 divisions must be among you in order to
manifest those who are already what approved and In other words,
divisions are gonna come from the kind of unethical behavior
that I'm talking about, and it's gonna test whether or not you
are grounded in Christ. It's gonna test the congregation
as to whether or not the congregation as an aggregate whole is mature
enough to bear the candlestick of Christ publicly. If you and
I were noted as a congregation that gives itself over to the
kind of silly, gossipy, a slanderous behavior that would amount to
basically a scandal, then our congregation would not be a good
witness for Christ. If we had the reputation out
there, you go to grace, you better watch what you say, because some
of those folks will take it and twist it and run with it for
five miles. And no one ever puts it in check.
If that's the kind of reputation that you and I acquire here at
grace, well, we are not a candlestick of Christ. You guys understand
what I'm saying? We're not a candlestick. We're
not a candlestick. So it requires growing up and
maturing and learning how to walk in these things in order
to approve our election of God. All right, then let's go back
to Acts now after having given that little pastoral, let's deal
with another portion of scripture. Although the very thing that
we just talked about for the last 10 or 15 minutes is so critically
important to righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. I
know so many Christians, professing Christians who are miserable
because of a violation of what I just talked about. Miserable. Don't tell me words don't hurt.
Words do hurt. Read Proverbs chapter 25 and
26 for yourself. They go down into the soul and
they eat like canker and they burn like fire and they contaminate
like a disease if we don't work them through. Point number four
in our PowerPoint, I think it's point number four, apostolic
signs to further the advance of the gospel. So now let's work
through what's taking place here in verses eight and following.
We are told in verse six, that the disciples were aware, the
apostles rather, were aware of the attempted abuse on the part
of Jews and Gentiles who wanted to stone them. So they fled to
Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, Lycaonia unto this region that,
or unto the region that lies around about the area of Lycaonia. And there they preach the gospel,
that's verse seven. So our context is this, they
have left the city where they were rejected for preaching the
gospel. The city that kicked them out
actually had a large constituency or representation of Jews. It
was a synagogue of the Jews that worked with the Gentiles to kick
them out and wanted to stone them. So obviously where Paul
and them are now is in a place where they can preach the gospel
freely. So what I want you to think in your mind is they are
preaching the gospel there for several days. They're free to
preach and that's what they are doing. So verse seven says, and
there they preached the gospel. Do not assume that this was a
30 minute event or one hour event. They're there for several days.
This is going to contextualize what we're about to get into
now, which brings us to verse eight. And there sat a certain
man at Lystra, impotent in his feet. We would then be at the
next point. We're at verses eight, verses
eight through 10, you guys up there. And there sat a certain
man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, being a cripple from his
mother's womb who never had walked. Now what is verse eight? Verse
eight is a sort of synopsis or a diagnosis on the part of the
human author who happens to be Luke, who happens to be a what?
Physician. And what Luke does is he blows
up in the narrative the specifics about a certain man whom the
Spirit of God wants us to observe as we learn how God works to
bring the gospel to a particular people group by targeting one
man. So Luke says there sat a certain
man at Lystra while the apostles are preaching, maybe for four
or five days, maybe seven days, maybe a couple of weeks. This
man is described as being impotent in his feet. That is, he could
not walk. He did not have strength. And
being a cripple from his mother's womb. That is, he never had ever
walked. Who never had walked. So that's a severe case, isn't
it? So we have him. Luke has caught our attention
to him. And then it says in verse nine, the same heard Paul, what? Right. The same heard Paul speak. It's in what we call an aspect
verb or Aries tense. That means it happened. He heard
while they were preaching, he was hearing and he heard, he
heard them speak who steadfastly beholding him. So now we got
pronouns here, who steadfastly beholding him, who was doing
the beholding. Paul was doing the beholding.
The same heard Paul speak, who that is Paul steadfastly beholding
the lame man. I want you to get that because
this here is a construction that we have back in Acts chapter
four as well with Acts chapter three, rather with Peter, with
the lame man that was set at the gate beautiful. You guys
remember that? We'll go back there in a moment. So Paul is
preaching and as he's preaching, Several days have gone by and
they're preaching in the city, probably in the same place, day
in and day out, several times. He notices that there's a man
there who was severely crippled, but this man is listening to
him. And now Paul is inclined to fix
his thoughts on this individual who steadfastly beholding him. And the term beholding here literally
means to lock your eyes on and to gaze with a fixation as almost
in a trance. So he was inclined out of all
the people that were listening to him preach to lock his eyes
on this one man. And it goes on to say this, we'll
come back to that statement here in a moment. And it goes on to
say this, and perceiving that the man had faith to be healed,
He said with a loud voice, stand upright on your feet. And he
leaped up and walked. Now, what's interesting about
this narrative, in my own opinion, as we're reading it through is
the process of what's happening. Paul and Barnabas are preaching
to all sorts of people. We don't know, a hundred people,
couple hundred people, lots of people. And it's just this one
man that Paul now hones in on. And what the text said is Paul
perceived that this man had what? Right. And so we need to think
that through. How does Paul perceive this?
And it's just the literal Greek term to perceive or to know or
to comprehend. There's no great insight into
the word. There's nothing subtle about the word. It would be like
you being able to say, and I perceived that that individual was interested
in what I was saying. I could tell by the way they
were sitting there, very attentive to my words, that they were interested
in what I'm saying. Is that a valid analogy right
there, an example? You know when you're talking
to someone, whether or not they're interested in what you're saying.
Is that true? You know. Right. Sometimes you cannot necessarily
know the depth of interest And on occasion, you have to be very
careful to mark idiosyncratic patterns that are unique to people
by which if you are making assumptions, you can actually be wrong about
whether or not a person is paying attention or not. Some people
can look like they're not paying attention and being paying a
great deal of attention to what you're saying. Is that true?
And you could make a mistake assuming that they were not listening. This is where you're not to be
careful about generalizing ideas and patterns of behavior pathologies
on the part of people. I've learned this over the years,
not to be too analytical about what people look like when I'm
preaching to them. I've learned this. I've learned
that a person can be sitting there just apparently as engaged
as anyone, And at the end of the message, when I end up talking
to them, they miss the whole thing. And that has to do with a lot
of things. It has to do with the individual maybe not being
prepared to comprehend the nature of the topic or subject I was
addressing. That may have to do with that individual being
so preoccupied with other issues that while they are listening,
they are multitasking. It may be that that individual
already believes or assumes that they know the topic I'm dealing
with. And so rather than listening, they are actually talking over
the topic while listening to me and homiletics. I shared this
with our men, how critical it is for you to be an expository
listener. You guys have heard me use that
term before, right? An expository listener, the kind of listener
that knows how to hear what the person is saying. hear it clearly
and then analyze it objectively for what's stated, not what they
believe he's saying, but what he's saying. And then in process
of time, try to acquire or ascertain the significance of what they're
saying or where they're going. You know, we're all brilliant
people in our own right. Every one of us thinks we're
an Einstein. And so we'll often follow a person until we think
we have a trend as to what they're saying, and then we'll draw a
conclusion for them before they even get there. And then when
they turn right on us, we're upset because they didn't land
on the same conclusions that we drew. Well, what's going on
in our minds, and I've talked to you guys about this before,
is if you and I are not aware of the chatter going on in our
own head, We can actually miss what a person said and what a
person meant because we were talking too much in our own head.
Is that possible? Right. That's called the chatter
mind, the mind filled with chatter, not really carefully paying attention
to what's being said. The apostle Paul, according to
Luke's estimation, locked in on this lame man and perceived
that he had faith in order to be what? Healed. Now, this is
interesting because as we're going to be dealing with this
fourth point, I'm thinking that's what it is. I know it's verses
8 through 10, apostolic signs to further the advance of the
gospel. We're going to learn here in a moment that this is
what we call a description, not a prescription. It's a description
of the authority and the gifting of apostles to be able to actually
do things that are unique to their apostolic call. that this
doesn't become a pattern that is to be given to you and me
as to determine whether or not we would practice such a thing
on other people. In other words, you are preaching
and you're in the room with people and invariably people in the
room have illnesses. We got about 40, 50, 60 people
in here and somebody here is ill. I don't know who's ill in
the house. I don't care. But I'm not going
to come down off the stage and walk over to you and perceiving
you have faith to be healed, say, rise up and walk or open
your eyes or a headache, go away or any of that. Because the text
is not teaching a prescription to practice, but a description
of the historical account based upon the unique gifting of the
apostolic call. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? And it's very important to know the difference. So Paul
perceived it. His perception may have been
purely the gift of the spirit of God and discerning that man's
level of authentic faith. His perception may have been
purely the gift of God and giving him the discernment to know the
level of that man's faith. Are you, are you following me?
The gift of discernment, the gift of knowledge, the gift of
wisdom, as we have categorized in first Corinthians chapter
12, right? He could have purely been operating under the unction
of the Holy Ghost, honed in on this man because of the larger
objective that the Spirit of God wants to accomplish in that
city. Paul may not have all been given
to the fancy of his own experience in prior situations where he
was the vehicle by which people are healed. And I'm not sure,
I'm thinking now as we work our way back, There, there, well,
he, yeah, he could have been doing healings in prior to we,
I can't recall, uh, besides this account where Paul has done any
healings. I know Peter has done them thus far, but what if in
fact, the reality is that this is Paul's first recorded miracle. Then Paul doesn't have any kind
of precedent to do this other than the unction of the Holy
spirit. That would say at this moment this individual who's
been listening to paul preach for several days now Has indicated
some kind of way that he believes the gospel Right that he trusts
christ That he's waiting on the consolation of israel That he
has hope in god through the blood atoning work of jesus That he
believes the gospel. Are you guys following me so
far now watch this? Paul may have already so thoroughly proclaimed
the gospel that this man has said yes to the gospel audibly,
yes to the gospel clearly, and affirmed it by his eager participation
every time Paul preached. He could have been sitting there
with great joy and great enthusiasm as he heard the message of redemption
and affirmed the things that Paul is saying with amens. He could have been knowledgeable
enough about the gospel himself already that when Paul preached,
he would say, that's right. That's what the scriptures say,
brother. In other words, there could have been a number of evidences
that could have demonstrated on his part that he fully believed
the gospel that Paul preached. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? And that would have facilitated Paul's eagerness now to submit
to the prompting of the spirit, to do something that wasn't always
done whenever the apostles preached. Everywhere the apostles went,
they didn't heal people. Every time they went out to do
a ministry of proclamation, someone wasn't necessarily gonna be healed.
But on this occasion, the spirit of God would have Paul to fix
his eyes on this guy. And I mean, fix his eyes. It's
the same word that Peter used. Go back to Acts chapter three.
I want you to see the similarities, and then we'll see the distinctions.
We made these distinctions back when we were in Acts three as
well, but I'm gonna do it again now for the moment. Chapter three,
verses one, two, and three, and then four. Now, Peter and John
went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, being
the ninth hour, and a certain man laying from his mother's
womb was carried, whom they lay daily at the gate of the temple,
which is called beautiful to ask arms of them that enter into
the temple. Who seen Peter and John about to go into the temple,
ask for money. Verse four, and Peter fastening
his eyes. See that term? It's exactly the
same term that's used of Paul. And Peter fixing his eyes on
him with John said, look on us. Now, I think if I recall what
I shared with you last time about this several months back is,
again, to benefit from the larger context. This is not Peter and
John walking by a vagabond on the street and nobody's on the
street. There's a bunch of people making
their way into the temple together at the hour of prayer. There's
a whole group of us that are headed to prayer. So there's
a number of people passing by this thoroughfare at the gate. It just happens to be that this
lame man is at the gate. And this lame man chooses to
ask Peter and John for money. And the Spirit of God prompts
Peter to stop and look at the man. This is an occasion now
where the Spirit of God is going to glorify Christ, is he not?
So this is gonna be an occasion once again of a description of
an apostolic power that is being exercised judiciously by Peter
in this moment because the Jews are about to see the glory of
God in Christ. They're all getting ready to
go into the temple. The lady man's going in with them too.
So we have Luke's analysis of what occurred in verse four,
Peter fastened his eyes upon him with John said look on us
and he gave heed to them expecting to receive Something of them
like what money? Right, you know what he wanted
Then Peter said silver and gold I do not have but such as I have
I given to thee in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise
up and walk now mark verse 7 and he took him by the right hand
and Lifted him up and immediately his feet and ankle bones received
strength. And he, leaping up and walked,
entered with them into the temple, walking and leaping and praising
God. So you see what the Spirit of
God did? The Spirit of God says, on this occasion, we will bear
witness to the resurrection of Christ by this lame man's healing
to affirm that the message that the apostles are preaching is
true. On this occasion, as you and
I learned last time, there was a unique mediation between the
command to rise up and this man's rising up that we don't see in
Acts 14. The unique mediation is that
Peter reaches out and helps him get up. Are you guys following
me? The mediation here is that Peter
now will be a helper in helping this man rise up out of his weakness
into his strength and obedience to the command. And we talked
about that by implication, and that is every believer has the
right and privilege to help other believers overcome their weaknesses,
grow in grace, and then be able to rise up out of their circumstances
in a conduct of obedience that glorifies God. We also made a
further application of it on a teaching level. that there
is a sense in which all of us are lame in our feet, lame in
our walk, our walk is weak, our walk is flawed, and in some cases
we don't have a walk at all, but we do have a desire. And
that desire is there by the grace of God. God works in you both
the what? Will and to do. And so when a
man or woman has the desire, all they have to do is continue
to plead before God to give them grace to overcome behavior patterns
that are paralysis in terms of their moral ethical conduct before
God. And on some cases is going to be a believer coming along,
encouraging you to get up out of that mess. And there's going
to reach down and help you get up out of that mess. Have you
been there? Believers will help you get up out of your mess.
And you'll be thankful for the right-handed fellowship that
helps you get up out of your mess. On a teaching level, sound
doctrine is what does that. So the apostolic mandate here
is really the word of God or the power of the gospel that
you and I hear week in and week out. And on some occasions, the
power of the gospel is going to speak directly to you. Get
up out of your mess. Let me help you. And you will
begin to experience the power of God in by and by getting you
up out of your mess, getting you up out of your mess through
a series we're teaching on some subject we are addressing points
one, two, and three points, a, B, and C. It's a process in some
cases where God brings you out of a paralysis of faith or conduct
before him. Does that make some sense? And
then you then begin to rejoice and you begin to manifest the
liberty and freedom that comes with the gospel as this lame
man did. And as he went into the temple,
an opportunity was given for Peter to preach publicly what
Christ had done for this man. Going back then to chapter 14,
let's work through what we got here in terms of the unique difference. So we read over in verse nine,
The same heard Paul speak, who steadfastly beheld in him, perceiving
that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, stand
upright on your feet. And it's interesting that Paul
gave this imperative with a loud voice. We don't have this in
Acts three, but we have it here. Stand up on your feet. That means
that it would have been loud enough for others to hear. This
is fascinating to me. Because what Paul is doing for
me is learning how to walk in his apostolic authority. He's
learning how the Spirit of God is moving him towards Gentile
country because he's going to be the minister of the gospel
to the Gentiles. And now he's growing in his apostolic
authority. He's growing in his ability to
now exercise those powers that are alien to him as a human being. You and I don't have power to
make anybody Hold. You guys do know that, right?
Doesn't mean we can't pray for it. Doesn't mean we shouldn't
and we should pray for it. I pray for it often. I pray for
it frequently. When people are ill and sick
and in the hospital or in different places, I lay hands on them.
I pray for them. I ask God to heal them. I frequently
believe in that healing. That healing often comes to pass.
Sometimes it doesn't. God's the one that does the healing.
I don't squabble over or get disappointed at God not showing
up to heal at the time that I ask. I rejoice greatly when it happens
later. I still rejoice if it doesn't. God is sovereign. There are no
healers. There's only one healer and that's
God himself. The rest of us are simply vehicles
by which the healing can take place if God decides to use you
and me. But I am not a healer. You are
not a healer. God's the healer. That's Jehovah
Rapha, the Lord that healeth thee. So you and I can be vehicles
if God wants to bring that to pass. And as long as you understand
that, you don't have to now sell little bottles of water with
your name on it and pay your rent. You just don't have to do that.
But you can when you're visiting your loved ones and your relatives.
If you are a believer in Christ and you are compelled by humility
and compelled by faith to pray for them for healing and to lay
hands on them if you are compelled from a proper motive. If your
motive is not right, don't do it. Are you guys following what
I'm saying? And so the apostle Paul now is
learning how to walk in that authority. And so on this occasion,
he says with a loud voice, stand up upon your feet. Now, this
is interesting. Because the credibility of the
gospel is right here in jeopardy, is it not? And say with me now,
is the gospel's credibility in jeopardy here? Now, if your pastor
just went 51 50, just God forbid, let's just think this through.
And he just thought, you know, Lord, I'm going to put you to
the test. And somebody comes in, that's just a little bit
mental. We bring him up front and I'm
gonna say Lord now now you got to come through for brother You
got to come through because I'm gonna make this public now in
the name of Jesus be healed and The Lord continues to be God
and Nothing happens. I have just discredited God Because I made a very false assumption
about an ability that I either possessed or a right that I claim
I had to move God's hand. When I don't have that right,
I am no more special than any other Christian. I don't have
the right to put God to the test like that. Am I making some sense? You don't have the right to put
God to the test like that. So when the devil told Jesus,
jump, You're the son of God. God don't catch you. Jesus didn't
have the right to jump. Did he? And so he told the devil,
it is written, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. And
so because that was a temptation, Christ would not dishonor his
father by jumping. After all, that would have mean
that he was being obedient to the devil and not to his father. Are you guys hearing me? And
so the apostle Paul is actually responding to an unction that's
taking place of which God then comes through because that unction
is from God. The text says, stand upon your
feet and he leaped. I don't understand it. I know
this Greek term. You know what it means? Leaped.
I mean, he literally leapt up. Unlike in Acts chapter three,
where it was gradual, He gradually got up and as the layman and
actuary started walking, he started jumping and moving because he
got so happy. Strength was gathering in his
body. This man immediately leapt up. In other words, there was such
a rush and a fusion of power in this man that there was no
process. There was simply the command
and the response. Get up, he jumped up, left, right,
on, up, on his feet, leaped up and walked. Ladies and gentlemen,
that's why in your outline I have a true infirmity, point number
A, a true infirmity, not a headache. Point number B, a true miracle. This was, when you just think
through the text, just in a very honest assessment of what it
says, He leaped and walked at the imperative, at the command
right away. No process, no drama. You know
how false prophets like to create dramas? Draw it out, draw it
out, draw it out, turn it into a long drawn out thing. Wait a minute, wait a minute.
You know, draw it out. It was just get up. Loud noise.
Everybody pays attention. Boom. He's up. It's amazing. And the thing that you want to
derive from that is the effusion of power that so quickly healed
that man's body. Remember, he never walked before. He never walked before. You and I would have been cool
with him struggling, you know, trying to get up. We didn't look
at the miracle, look at the Lord, look at the Lord. And then he
finally get up and kind of, you know, and we'd all be clapping
and going on. You know how we do. Cuz something's
happening Even if he was this way for a week or two he's a
large hill in him That brother jumped right up crazy But what
is this about? It's about a means to an end
not an end in itself You will never find anywhere in church
history Where faithful gospel churches, sound doctrinal churches
ever engaged in miracle ministries, healing ministries as an end in itself. You will
never find anywhere in church history where sound faithful
Bible preaching, teaching spirit aided ministries where people
are really saved, where people are really healed from their
sin sicknesses, where people really get rooted and grounded
in God and grow. And I'm talking about movements. I'm talking
revivals. You will never find among sound
doctrinal men ever engaging in healing ministries. You'll never
find it. You will always find this where
sound doctrine is absent. you only find miracle ministries
and healing ministries and all of that stuff in places where
sound doctrine is absent. For whatever reason, those folks
who feature signs and wonders and healings and miracles cannot
do it co-existent with sound doctrine. Sound doctrine has
to be removed from the atmosphere in order for them to exercise
the exhibition of pseudo miracles, in order that you suspend your
judgment on what you see, because largely what's taking place in
those pseudo healing ministries is a trick. Do you understand
what I'm saying? Largely what's taking place is
the manipulation of the mind the stirring up of the emotions,
the manipulation of your objective, reasonable, critical thinking
skills and get you so amped up, so amped up by the atmosphere.
We call this a sociological manipulation of the masses to get them just
amped up so you lose all critical thinking skills. And then when
the miracle is allegedly taking place, it's like straining at
a gnat. Because the miracles are always
miracles of utter suspicion. Somebody comes up with a cane. And the miracle is evidenced
by throwing away the cane. Now we're all wondering whether
or not that was true or false because nothing obvious was manifested. Somebody comes up with a headache.
Somebody comes up claiming they had a tumor. Somebody comes up
claiming they had cancer. nothing of any kind of empirical
evidence, former prior to the alleged healing, and then a post-evidential
criterion that the tumor or cancer that was there is now gone. None
of that. It's all smoke and mirrors, noise and manipulation, swaying
of the audience, working the audience on both sides like magicians
do, getting everybody ramped up for something that fundamentally
is just a few minutes of tricanery. And then the music gets to going
and people get to clapping and shouting a healing, a miracle
in the name of Jesus. And then inevitably the big old
baskets go around, give me your money. Am I telling the truth? Right. It never happens. It never happens where sound
doctrine is taught. It never happens. You can't manipulate
the masses where sound doctrine is the foundation and atmosphere
of that community of people. because now people are free to
remain objective, yea even remain suspicious, yea even remain critical. You have every right to be critical,
every right to be objective, every right to be suspicious
upon anyone saying they have the power to heal. And in fact,
you are mandated to be critical. Again, Proverbs chapter 14, verse
15, the simple believe it every word, but the prudent The discerning
looks well to his going. Is that what it says? It looks
well. He looks very careful. He discerns.
He discerns. He analyzes that. I don't see
anything. I'm not believing that there
was nothing here that evidenced a real miracle. And yet I am
not saying that real miracles don't occur. There you go. The
simple believe it every word, but the prudent man look as well
to as what? That's right. And so 1 John 4, verse 4 says,
try the spirits, 1 John 4, 1 and then 4, 4, try the spirits, whether
they be of God or not. Every spirit that confesses the
Lord is not of God. There's a spirit of truth and
a spirit of error. We learn again in 1 Thessalonians
5, verse 19, prove all things and hold fast to that which is
good, right? So we have principles in the scriptures that establishes
a spiritual ethical break on the part of us committing to
the assumption or allegations or assertions that what is taking
place is actually a miracle. The believer does not have any
right to draw any conclusion based upon a massive lack of
credible evidence that these things are done. Moreover, when
you start engaging in these so-called miracle services, you then raise
the question about the perpetuation of apostolic authority. So some groups of Christians
have learned to understand a little bit of the doctrinal arguments
that are present around these issues. So you will have two
positions. One position will be what we
call the perpetuity of the gifts of the spirit. The other position
would be called the cessation of the gifts of the spirit. These
are two classical camps. And the one camp, the argument
is every gift that was operating in the first century, including
the offices, offices that actually occupy those gifts are still
present today. That's one position. It's the
position that holds to the term that's given Ephesians chapter
4, verse 11 and 12, the fivefold ministry. How many of you guys
have heard the term fivefold ministry? Right. You hear it
frequently. And in those assemblies where
they believe in the fivefold ministry, they are asserting
that as there were apostles in the first century, there are
apostles today. As there were prophets in the first century,
there are prophets today. As there were pastor, teachers,
and evangelists, then there are pastors and teachers and evangelists
today. The last three are true, the first two are wrong. The
last three are true, the first two are wrong, and it's never
ever exegetically explained. The first two, the apostolic
and prophetic office, are foundational gifts. I've explained that many
times, have I not? They are foundational gifts.
They are foundation to the establishing of the gospel, and that's why
we see them operating in the book of Acts. The apostles and
the prophets had the gifts of the spirit whereby they could
do these kinds of sign manifestations to affirm the authenticity of
the gospel, the resurrection of Christ, and thus build the
church. They had the ability to do that. The apostles and
prophets had the ability to do that. And they operated constantly
in those giftings where it was essential. As we go through the
book of Acts, you'll discover there are times when they don't
do it. It's not needed. But the last three gifts, the
gift of evangelist, pastor, teacher, which in the Greek construction,
really, there's only two gifts, the evangelist and then the pastor
teacher, because the pastor is to be a teacher. Although all
teachers are not pastors, every pastor should be a teacher. So
technically it should be the fourfold gifts, but I won't get
into that grammatical argument. Let's assert, let's assume that
it's a fivefold gift. The difference between the first
two is the first two are foundational. The last three build the church.
in terms of edification and strength and character and conduct. The first two are what we call
gifts to the church at large. The apostolic ministry and the
prophetic ministry are not local church offices. The apostolic
ministry and the prophetic ministry are not local church offices.
They actually serve the whole body of Christ. The apostles
laid down the foundation of the gospel and regents and churches
were started. The apostles didn't stay there
and pastor the church. Are you following me so far?
So the apostolic gift and the prophetic gift was to the church
as a whole. They never were like the local
pastor. The evangelist also carried the
role of roaming missionary, a roaming exhorter. Largely, the evangelist
is a missionary of sorts. And the evangelist swings between
the gifts of the apostles and prophets, but he's not bringing
new revelation. He's actually affirming the revelation
that's brought exhorting people to trust in Christ. The in-house
gift, the pastor teacher, is the local pastorate ministry
where the angel of that congregation heads up that congregation with
teachers under him to help strengthen that local body. Are you guys
hearing me? Therefore, we have in the New
Testament, the criterium or the qualifications for being a pastor
or an elder or a deacon. You don't have that for the apostles
or the prophets in the local church. Every local church, therefore,
is to operate under the biblical authority and mandate and qualifications
of 1 Timothy 3, Titus 1-2, 2 Samuel 23, and Exodus 18. These are principles about the
character, conduct, and qualifications of the men who are called to
be pastors, elders, and deacons in the church. Are you guys following
what I'm saying? I'll say it just one more time,
just for clarity's sake. Not anyone and not everyone is
called to be a pastor. Those who are called to be a
pastor have to meet the biblical qualifications of pastoral leadership
as explicitly laid out in first Timothy three, Titus chapter
one and two, Exodus chapter 18 and second Samuel chapter 23,
where it talks about drawing from yourself men who are qualified
both in character and in gifting to lead the church. Where we
violate those rules, we are setting the church up to drift away from
the truth and to err up. When we violate the rules of
who is qualified to be a pastor, to be an elder, to be a deacon,
and those are the only three offices in your Bible that constitutes
the local church. Are you guys hearing me so far?
You have no other biblical offices that constitutes the rule of
the local church. Now we have different gifts.
Mark this now. Gifting is different than offices. To be a gifted teacher, to be
a gifted singer, to be a gifted helper, to do works of mercy,
or works of administration. All these gifts in 1 Corinthians
chapter 12, and in Romans chapter 12, which we'll get to in a little
while, those are all giftings. Individuals variably may qualify
under those categories, whatever gifts God has given to the church
along those lines. But in terms of the offices in
the local church, there are but three, pastor, elder, Deacon. So there's a difference between
the gift and the offices. For instance, an individual may
have the gift of exhortation and therefore is very capable
of communicating the gospel well to individuals. but because he
does not meet the criterion for elder or pastor or even deacon,
he cannot function in the office of those three. Are you guys hearing me? A woman
may be very well qualified to teach or to exhort or to encourage
having the gift of teaching. That's not without the framework
of the ministry of the spirit of God. But she is not called
to the office of pastor or elder or deacon. Because those qualifications
are explicit and they are clear. Are you guys following me? They
are explicit and they are clear. So we want to make a distinction
between teaching gifts and ruling offices. So there are those who
will discover that they have the gift of gab. That don't mean
you have the gift of teaching. You got the gift of running off
at your mouth and manipulating people who are shallow in their
understanding. I see a lot of that. But the
gift of teaching is another thing. And it's also marked. It's also
marked rather by moral excellence. When God calls a person to teach
in the body of Christ, he doesn't call a person to teach whose
conduct is questionable and their character is dubious. He does
not call individuals to lead in the authoritative proclamation
of the word whose lives are scandalous and filled with sinful practices. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? So always the call of ministry is going to be co-joined
with the character that is adjoined to that ministry to affirm the
nature of the God who gives the call. You're getting ready to
learn this in the life of David. that David is about to replace
Saul because Saul was morally corrupt. David was a human being
with a few flaws, but largely David lived for the glory of
God in such an imminent way that it does you and me well to be
able to mark those characteristics out as we go through the scriptures.
because we blow up his adultery so big that we make David like
some kind of, you know, sexual pervert that just couldn't live
without a bunch of women. And that's not the case. It's
not the case. So we'll see that as we make
our way through the life of David in our text, how remarkable David
was as a real believer and therefore qualified to be king, though
he had to suffer the consequences of that indiscretion. The tenor
of scripture is very clear. Those that rule must rule in
the fear of God. They must rule with a knowledge
of God. They must carry the moral qualities
that constitute a walk with God in order for them to serve in
leadership. Because the principle of kind begets kind is always
at stake. If the leadership is corrupt,
the congregation will be corrupt too. Do you hear me? There's
no possible way to have a congregation where the leadership is obedient
to Christ, but the congregation is living like hell. The Spirit
of God would never work in that kind of conflicting set of circumstances. Because the teaching ministry
that proceeds from the leadership of the church is going to be
dynamic enough to change the nature and character of the body
politic that the reflection of the moral standard of the leadership
is going to be seen in the congregation. Is that true? Don't you even
doubt it? Matthew chapter seven makes it
very clear that the tree bring forth fruit of its own kind. Let the tree bring forth fruit
of its own kind. No fig tree is going to ever
produce thorns and thistles. No grape tree is going to ever
produce any other kind of fruit, but that which is consistent
with its own nature. And so I, Jesus said in the gospel
of Luke, let it either bear good fruit or bad fruit, but don't
tolerate hypocrisy. You guys follow that argument.
In other words, what Jesus was saying with that parable in Luke,
Luke's gospel is open your eyes and look at what it is. Call
it what it is. And don't pretend that it's something
else. All you have to do is examine the fruit and you know what it
is. Is that true? And that's where
Christians have to be brave and honest about assessing a ministry
and the character of that ministry and the people under that ministry.
If our ministry is morally corrupt, if our leadership is not committed
to obedience to the gospel here and obedience to Christ, you
should quickly get away from our ministry, especially if you're
serious about obeying God. Don't ever sit under a ministry
that you can determine by how they conduct themselves that
they play fast and loose. with biblical truth. That will
not profit your soul. For as the priest, so were the
people. An evil thing has occurred in
Israel. God told Jeremiah in Jeremiah chapter 5 verse 31.
An evil thing has occurred in Israel. The scripture says the prophets
prophesy falsely. They're not telling the truth.
And the priests are exercising their own wills. They're not
doing what God says. And the people love to have it
so. Do you guys see that? The prophets prophesy falsely.
The priests do their own thing. And the people love it. You know
what we call that? Kind begets kind. That's a perfect
marriage right there. You got wicked leaders and wicked
people. And I share with you what goes
on when that's the kind of church that it is. Are you ready? The
reputation precedes you. It's out there. People already
know about your church. It's common parlance among religious
folk. Oh, yeah, that church, da, da,
da, da, da, da. Because you just can't cover
it up that much for people not to know. Are you guys hearing
what I'm saying? Very, very important then. The
prophets prophesied falsely. The priests bear rule by their
own means. And my people love to have it so. And what will
you do in the day of judgment? That's what he said. What you
think gonna happen when you meet the true king, the true judge,
with whom there is no variable of turning, with whom he is a
perfect light. He sees everything for what it
really is. You're not gonna hoodwink him.
You're not gonna bargain him. You're not gonna kowtow him.
You can control the local earthly pastors. but you can't control
that pastor. That pastor is going to get it
right on the day of judgment. You're not going to manipulate
him. You're not going to play church with him. When all of us show
up before that great pastor, he's going to pierce us with
his burning eyes and it's going to go straight through our soul
and expose us for what we really are and the consequences are
going to be just. All right, then let's go back
and work through this latter part before we close. Apostolic
signs to further the advance of the gospel. That's my, that's
my assumption of what's going on in verses eight through 10.
And when the apostle Paul says, rise up and walk, notice what
it says. And when the people saw what Paul had, what? Done. That's verse 11. And when the
people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices saying
in the speech of Lycaonia, the gods are come down to us in the
likeness of men. So we're getting ready to make
a transition. I want you to follow my outline now because I don't
want you to jump to conclusion. Teach your gospel truth here.
We're getting ready to make a transition here into an analysis of a response
to a true miracle that becomes the premise for an exposure of
the gospel to that same people group. An analysis of the response. to a true miracle that occurred,
that's going to be the premise or precursor to an exposure to
the true gospel to these people to whom it is given. Are you
guys with me so far? So, under point number, for me
it's my fourth point, verses eight through 10, we have a true
infirmity, not a headache, a true miracle that took place And then
point C, he perceived that he was ready to be healed because
he had faith. And then finally point D, he
sprang, he leaped, he followed. And the verses affirm that in
Acts chapter 3, 8. And then also John 14, 4 is a reference to
that particular word for springing up and leaking. You don't have
to go there. But let me work with now verses 11 through 13.
I don't know what that is in the PowerPoint. The next PowerPoint
where it says a form of the truth in a what? Do you guys have the
same outline I do? Oh, OK. That's the problem. Do you do? Verses 11 through
13, does it say a form of the truth and a lie? The humility of faithful service.
OK, that'll work. Leave it right there. I'll work
with that one. The humility of faithful service. OK. So, OK, that's point number six
for me. I gotta work. Um, but is there
a point before that? Back it up. Let me see. No, we just dealt with that one.
Okay. So the point that I'm dealing
with is in verses 11 through 13. So let me put this up on
the board just for your visual. I call this a form of the truth
and a lot, and I'll teach you something here. Um, so that we're not too quick to
punish these guys that are responding. I better get a pen that actually
works. Maybe this will show you something
that I saw. A form of the truth. So let's ask some questions here
before we get too judicious on these people. Follow this line. We're dealing with verses 11
through 13. Follow this line. In verse 11,
it says, and when the people saw what Paul had done, they
lifted up their voices saying in the speech of Lyconia, the
gods are come down to us in the likeness of men. I want to ask
the question, is there a form of the truth there? The answer
is yes. So I want you to work with that
for a moment so I can show you something. Is it true that God
came down in the form of a man? Is it true that him coming down
in the form of a man affected the possibility of being people
being healed as a consequence of it? Is it true? Absolutely. I want you to think
through the gospel here because there's a truth that we need
to learn about this. Yes, we call it the incarnation. Is that
right? The incarnation and the word
was made what? And did what? Did it dwell among
us? Did the gods come down in the
form of men? Of course, of course. So out of their mouth is coming
a truth that is not rooted in their Premise are their assumption,
but there's a truth here. This is called a form of the
truth Echoing something that you and I need to know when the
people saw what Paul had done They lifted up their voices saying
in the speech of like or near the gods are come down to us
in the likeness of men Yes, and no No, and yes, God did come
down Christ did come down. Is he the God man? I Did Christ
rise again from the dead? Did he go back to heaven? Did
the Holy Ghost come down? Is the Spirit of God actually
working through these men? So we give the credit to God,
but is he not working through men? This is a real sort of splitting
of the hairs, but there's a revelation here that we talk about in what
we call comparative religion that has to do with the witness
bearing of the conscious, even upon the pagan, about the things
of God, though they don't have a direct revelation of the gospel.
Meaning, according to Romans chapter two, God has laid it
on the conscious of all men to know that there's a God. And
that what God has done is born witness to himself through creation
and through the conscious and through the gospel of who he
is. So that mankind, even in pagan
religions, often have a silhouette. They often have a form and shape
of the gospel in their pagan religions. Are you guys hearing
me? They have a form and shape of
the gospel in their pagan religions. You can hear again and again
and again throughout Egyptian religion, Egyptology, Babylonian
religions, Roman religions, even the Greek gods. I'm gonna share
with you here two in a moment and show you the parallels between
the two gods that are gonna be attributed to Paul and Barnabas
as types of the true and the living God. And why would God
do that? Why would God give mankind a
form of the true to bear record of him being the truth. Jesus says, I am the truth, the
way and the life. No one comes unto the father
but by me. And so when these guys see what Paul and them did,
they attribute this miracle to God coming down, didn't they?
They didn't just say these men are the great power of God. They
attributed this to this God coming down to us in the likeness of
men. And notice what it says in verse 12. I'll work this through
with you. And they call Barnabas what? Jupiter. Called him a planet. That's cool. I can work with that. And then
they call Paul what? Mercurius. Right. Do you know who these two gods
really are in the pagan Roman culture of that day? One is Zeus. Z-U-S, Zeus. So we start off with Zeus, because
that's the literal Greek. And the other Mercurius is actually
who? Hermes. Now, some of your translations
will have that. How many of you here have translations
of your Bible that literally say Hermes and Zeus? Right, because that is more of
an accurate Greek translation there. And also it is historically
accurate that in this region of the Gentile culture, a temple
was ascribed to Zeus. And this temple is right here
in this area of Laoconia, a temple to Zeus. Now Zeus is called the
great God of all gods. He's like the head God, okay? Like the chief God. And that
Zeus then would correspond to who? God who? The father. Is that true? Of course. Let
me help you. Get the cobwebs out of your head. Is God above all gods? Is He
the true and the living God? Right. And He will use that terminology
frequently when He is exercising sovereign right over all the
other false gods of the world. And what we say in theology is
he possesses ontological aseity or absolute independent authority
within himself and everything else is dependent upon him. So
God will play on the distortions of false gods in order to prove
that he's the only true and living God. All the other gods are idols. And that's true. And that all
the other gods are either figments of people's imagination the product
of woods and stone and silver and gold images are demons. There are six ways, and I talked,
well, you guys learned this in the Psalm study. There are six
ways in your Bible the word God is used. Six ways the word God
is used. So everywhere you read the word
God, you must not assume that the word God is speaking in the
sense of the true and the living God. 1 Corinthians chapter eight
says, we know that there is but one God. It's around verse four
or five. Although there be many gods in the world. So what the
King James does rightly is put God in capital letters and then
many gods in the world in lower case god It's the same Greek
term Theos So it's not a grammatical distinction. It's a theological
distinction that you have to be able to capture. Are you guys
following me? So just because you read the word God, second
Corinthians chapter four, where Paul says, and if our gospel
be hid, it is hid to them whom the God of this world have blinded
the minds of those that believe not. The God of this world would
be who? Satan. That's why it's translated
in what we call the lower case G.O.D. But it's the Greek word
theos. So you're not going to get any
distinction in the grammar. It's always what? Context. So
then there is God who is the true and the living God that
is the father. Then you have the false God, which is Satan.
And then you also have the word God being used for angels. They're called gods in the book
of Job, when the sons of God called the morning stars saying
at the creation story. So they're called sons of God.
That's the third time that is used the fourth time that the
term God is used. It's for rulers in Israel called
judges Psalm 85 which is a quotation that Jesus uses in John 10 when
he says does not your Bible say that we are called gods So we're
called gods in the sense that It's not that we are God, but
we have an attribute of God and that is the attribute of judging
So rulers sit and make moral judgments that determine people's
lives like God. Am I making some sense? Judges
can decree that you live and judges can decree that you what?
Die. And ultimately only God does
that. So we have God used in the sense of the father. We have
God used in the sense of angels. We have God used in the sense
of rulers. We have God used in the sense
of men. We are called sons of, that's
right. Then we have got used in the
sense of the spirit of God. We have got used in the sense
of the son of God. And so there are six ways in
which it's used and you gotta be able to determine them contextually
where they apply. I simply say that because, again,
in our text, while we can quickly push off what they are saying
as wrong in terms of their basic presupposition of false gods
having come down in the person of Zeus and Hermes, there is
a silhouette of theological truth taking place. Because do you
guys know what the term Hermes means? Messenger. Messenger. And literally the
word Hermes is a term that we use for interpreter Interpreter it's the theological
term that we have what hermeneutics Hermeneutics What are you saying
pastor? Hermes was the messenger who
actually brought the interpretation of Zeus to the people. I The
reason why they call Paul Hermes was because he was the prominent
one expounding the word. Paul was the messenger. Barnabas
appeared to be the one who was with the one who was speaking
for him. We have that paradigm in the two, in the days of Moses
and Aaron. Remember what God said about
Moses? You are a God to Pharaoh. And Aaron is your what? Messenger. because Aaron served as the what?
Mouthpiece for Moses because he wasn't confident to speak.
You guys see the silhouette? This is what we call a paradigmatic
silhouette. And it helps us understand how
God will be able to bear witness on the last day and the consciences
of men all over the world, even though they didn't hear the gospel.
Just like creation testifies to God redemptively on a whole
lot of levels. So in my outline, I have under a form of the truth.
I'm just going to share these with you. I thought I had put
these up as a PowerPoint. God did come down. The very Greek
term, Emmanuel is what? God with us. He did come down
in the likeness of the flesh. That's John chapter one, verse
14. We celebrate that in a couple of months. And then also we have
now in verse 11 through 14, I'll just touch on this. You can pull
that PowerPoint up and then we'll open the floor for questions.
If not, we'll go home. The humility of faithful servants. So here's
what happens. They call Barnabas, Jupiter and Paul Mercurius. and
they called Barnabas, Jupiter, and Paul Mercurius because he
was the chief speaker. Then the priest of Jupiter, which
was before their city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gates
and would have done what? Sacrifice with the people to
worship them as what? Gods. Which when the apostles,
Barnabas and Paul, heard, they rent their clothes and ran in
among the people crying out and 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 what living God, which made heaven and earth
and the sea and all things that are there in. We'll leave it
right there. Go up to that PowerPoint, pull
that PowerPoint up. I just want to notice it, market the humility
of faithful servants, and then we'll come back and deal with
versus, um, 11 through 18. Mark this now. The humility of
faithful servants. So now let's just take a moment and ask the
question. What would an unfaithful servant
do who was able to hoodwink the people by a false miracle and
everybody thought for sure that was a real miracle? And everybody
started lauding and applauding that person who had done the
miracle. You know, like all of these great
healers who call themselves bishops and apostles all around the world,
to have the masses of the city just laud them and drape them
with accolades and money and all that. What would an unfaithful
messenger do? Would he say, no, no, no, I don't
want your money. I don't want your accolades. I don't want your fame. This
is not about me. This is about God. No. No. All right, so you guys already
know the answer, don't you? You know that, and this is one
of the reasons why it is so egregious on the part of those who take
advantage of ignorant people, because they know that if they
can pull the wool over their eyes with false miracles, that
those people will just about worship them. And this is why
they attribute to themselves these exalted titles. I want
you to hear me now. When they attribute to themselves
titles like apostle and bishop, these are titles that they're
using in order to actually get the allegiance of the people
so that the people's sacrifice is not oxen and garlic, but dollar
bills, 10s and 20s and 50s to give to the great man of God
or the great woman of God, right? the great man of God, the great
woman of God. This is epidemic in your church.
This is epidemic in your church. And this is what we had learned
in Acts chapter 10. Remember when Paul and Peter
exposed, Acts chapter eight rather, where Peter exposed that false
prophet who went around making himself out to be some great
one and everybody called him the great power of God. So what
you and I are dealing with right now is the idea that if people
are not really rooted and grounded in God's word, they are going
to yield allegiance to men as if they are gods. That's just
an invariable. It's almost impossible to stop
it from happening. And because that's the kind of
allegiance that people yield, it is incumbent upon faithful
ministers to do everything they possibly can to make sure people
don't do that. First by major self effacing. First by major self effacing. Meaning never ever once give
off as if you are something The preacher of the gospel must never
ever give off as If he is even an iota better than anyone else
He must never hint at being special He must never even allow you
to talk like that. You know, we have those people
that talk like that Duncan People will come in and they'll talk
about, and I've said this before, if you're new, don't be offended.
I'm just going to help you understand my ethic. Okay. I've said this
before. If you come into grace and you
have this twisted notion about who pastor Jesse is, I intentionally
piss you off just to bust your bubble so you can land back on
the ground and realize I'm a brother that puts his pants on just like
you do. because this is how that kind
of corrupting flattery just permeates churches and people lose their
mind. They lose their mind. I will
quickly make you mad at me because see, I don't have one of those
complexes where you got to love me. I just, I grew up in the
hood. Love me. Cool. Don't love me. Cool. And that keeps everything
equal. Cause you and I need the same
grace to stand before God on that last day. And it will never
help you to look at me above that which the scriptures teach
or which I really am. And the moment that I give you
any sense that I am more than just a man, I have just obscured
the glory of God. Are you hearing me? I have just
utterly obscured the glory of God and it's very important for
you to know that because in religion We just do that. We are so given
to inflation of character Do you notice what Paul and Barnabas
did They first rent their garments It was abominable to them. What was taking place? Pastor
what was taking place? the very temple became agitated
with all the priests and they started gathering all the oxen
and the garlic, it became a whole city activity. Paul and them
heard that this was going on, that they were about to have
a big festival to them. Now, if those men had even given
in for a moment of vulnerability, for self-exaltation, they might've
let it happen. They might've let it happen.
Am I telling the truth? They might've let it happen.
If they didn't think God's thoughts after, if they didn't understand
that if we let this act occur, everything would be of naught.
There'd be no way the gospel could take place in this city
if we let that happen. Of course, being true servants
of God, they didn't let it happen. And that's Paul's ethic as well. He would much rather offend you
that you take your eyes off of him and put them on Christ than
to exalt them and make them something. Any questions? Anybody got any
questions? All right, you can speak up sister, I'll repeat
it. So did anybody hear me say that?
Right, right. So I earlier I did plainly develop
it, didn't I? So you might've not have been
here. Right, right, right. So yeah, so yeah. So what did we plainly say? Miracles
occur when God wants them to, and only when God wants them
to. There are no healers. There's nobody who has possessed
the gift of healing. That's God's gift that he works
sovereignly and he can work it through people, but they are
not healers. You don't have the gift of healing
per se, where you become the point of healing so that people
get to come in crowds to the great healer and the healer lays
hands on you and you get healed. It's a very slight of words here,
but it's very important to know this. So I'll reiterate it just
for the record. God does heal, but he very seldom
heals in a context in which this is all about a show. In fact,
I would assert that he never heals in a show. And God does
not give the gift of healing to one individual so that they
say that I have the gift of healing. That operated in the era of the
apostles and prophets as we had stated, but that gift has long
since ceased in the sense that individuals have the gift of
healing. And the church has had 2000 years of history now, just
in case you don't know, of being able to hunt down these incredible
claims and prove over and over and over and over and over again
that that individual does not have the gift of healing. It
has proved it over and over and over again. Does God heal? Does a person have the gift of
healing that is to say he's a healer or she's a healer? No. So God
works sovereignly in that. What's that? No. And so like you, you still
weren't quite capturing it. Like I shared the testimony that
I've laid hands on several people throughout the course of my ministry
and God has healed them and other people have too. And you don't
even have to lay hands on people. All you have to do is pray for
them. We have a prayer ministry at grace. We pray for a lot of
people and we see healings. We do. but we know better than
to cap that and turn it into a ministry. So as to draw attention,
because it's a radical distinction, no new Testament ministry, no
new Testament churches that are faithful to the word of God puts
a commodity on healing miracle ministries, no faithful gospel
ministry throughout the year, 2000 years, the church has been
in existence has ever said, come to our healing ministry. Never. It's always been false churches.
whose theologies are deeply flawed and invariably their conduct
is immoral. We have it on record. You know,
that's why I like actually being candid in my ministry and dealing
with this on public radio, because I love to call them on the carpet
for the claims they make. Share with you a testimony and
then I'll take a couple more questions. This is what happened.
This is why I don't believe in churches that feature signs and
wonders and speaking in tongues and babbling and all that crazy
stuff. because invariably when they talk about sign gifts, like
speaking in tongues, that's a sign gift. It's gonna be associated
with all the other gifts. And they will tell you without
missing a beat. Yeah, we had a healing service
where the Lord opened the eyes of the blind. He healed people
that were lame and he raised the dead. I remember this eight years ago
in my radio program, we had a little music, a young music group come
in. young cats for victory outreach. And they were zealous about the
conference that they were doing. So they were sitting behind the
mic because this was a shout out for the conference that was
coming up. Yeah, pastor, the Lord is doing great things among
us. He's opening the eyes of the blind and he's healing the
sick and he's raising the dead. And I stopped and let the deafening
silence dominate the airwaves. And I said, God did not raise
the dead among you. And I doubt seriously if he opened
the eyes of any blind person among you. You are lying. And you should not talk like
that in public because you discredit God with everybody that has a
scintilla of sense. Are you guys hearing me? You
guys hearing me? See, the problem with Christianity
is it makes claims that it can't keep. And that's horrible because
it shuts down your critical thinking skills. I'm going over the first
part of our study again, am I not? It's horrible. So when we say
God can, it's not the same as God does. Right? that God can is not the same
as God does. Neither is that God can is the
same as he has to work through a certain methodology every time.
So we want to be very careful about that. God does heal, doesn't
he? I saw your hand up, young man. Mr. Anderson. So what you
could say is these men were healed consequently, but in order to point to God, You're talking about in our context,
right? Remember, it's not a means to an end. We just happen to
be the lucky guys that got to be the object that pointed to
God. When you, contentually, this is about apostolic ministry. That's why
our outline said the apostolic ministry. Contextually, it's
about affirming the authority of the apostles. And that's why
when we went into the fact that there are no longer apostolic
gifts, There are no longer prophetic gifts because the apostolic gift
and the prophetic gift were unique gifts for the foundation of the
church that would have carried that kind of a fusion of the
spirit of God, right? So when once we establish that
fact, now we can move on to understand that the regulatory gifts that
are going to be employed are the gifts that have to do with
teaching and preaching where the spirit of God works to bring
about salvation and conversion and growth and that healings
are incidental to those and not something that's normative. And
it's very important to know that. Because again, in the circles
where they laud healings, I said it earlier, I shouldn't say it
again. They laud apostolic ministry and prophetic ministry. I'll
say it one more time. When they say we heal, we heal,
they are also saying we have apostles, we have prophets. And that's what they say. It's
not true. When you test that office against
the scriptures, it's phony. We dealt with a subject called
speaking in tongues about three years ago, two years ago. And
in that I challenged pastors locally to come in or call me
on a radio program who advocate those positions. I got one and
he waffled a little bit. So I didn't even actually deal
with him seriously on it because he really wasn't prepared. He
just said he disagreed with me. Great. Actually, I had two in
that series. One emailed me, one left a message
says, I don't agree with you. How can you say, you know, that
speaking in tongues is not for the day I'm, you know, and then
he starts giving me all kinds of stuff about not walking in
love. And so my point is this, if you
buy into the, the terminology of miracles, the terminology
of, of apostles and the terminology of prophets, Invariably, you're
gonna have to get rid of your Bibles. Please hear me. In those camps where they do
that, the Bible is so belittled because now they're not operating
out of the critical texts as revelation, but the subjective
experience of their mediators, these highfalutin bishops and
prophets and great prophetesses of God who have a word from the
Lord for you. Am I telling the truth? who have
a word from the Lord. Now, just throw your Bible under
the bench. So what we have learned in the evangelical church over
the last 300 years around this and in the reformed church for
the last 500 years is that you cannot have a serious, consistent
commitment to biblical truth. And at the same time embrace
and adopt a perpetuity of the gifts of the spirit along the
lines of apostles and prophets because their authority is going
to always cancel out the authority of that which is fixed and written.
Because they're going to have new words, new revelations, new
insights. new teachings and the people
who are subject to that will say, well, but that's what my
pastor said. That's what my prophet has said. That's what my Bishop
said. Now you can't question them. They're the man of God.
They're the woman of God. And all of a sudden your Bible
now is discredited. Do you guys understand what I'm
saying? That's the real, the real challenge here in our present
culture is whether or not people are going to be biblical Christians
or mystical Christians. And right now in the evangelical
church, the divide is massive. In the evangelical church, the
divide is massive. And this is why I am teaching
you guys a sound crystal centric hermeneutic, how to interpret
the Bible and get all that it is worth because where you are
not committed to learning the Bible deeply and profoundly,
But you want some experience? The only thing you will be left
with is that mass of experience. And in that dimension, it is
so powerful, it will suck you up. And you can't hold the word of
God in that too. You inevitably let the word of
God go. I've seen it happen way too many times. I've seen it happen way too many
times. But that's the division that the gospel brings. No, no,
no. And you don't tape. So I have
to stop you right there. First of all, you didn't hear me say
that. I don't know who you, I know you listen to a lot of teachers,
but you didn't hear me say that. So I'm going to make sure that
we clarify that Alec and I. Yeah. Cause I want you to get,
I want you to get this distinction and then you can go on and build
your point. In fact, I should have captured this earlier, but
I'm going to capture it now for all of you guys. Okay. So, We
want to make a grammatical distinction between miracles, okay, and the supernatural, or what we would call spiritual
things, although both are spiritual. I want to make this distinction
right now so that you guys can get this. A miracle is a visible, manifestation
of a supernatural work of God setting aside the normative processes
of healing by which a thing is done. So that you see it with
evidential empirical evidence. An individual is lame. Boom! He rises up and walks. An individual
is absolutely blind and we know it. Boom! He sees. An individual
is dead. We know they're dead. Not clinically
dead, not assumed dead. Dead. Boom! They rise up and
walk. Lazarus and many other examples
in the scriptures that are undeniable miracles. Those are miracles.
The supernatural work is the work that God does that remains
invisible though unavoidable to affirm. Like a person's salvation
is supernatural. like the healing of someone that
has cancer and that cancer goes into remission because we have
prayed intensely and asked God to do it and it goes into remission.
That's supernatural. Our tumor is in the brain and
the doctors are worried about it growing and we pray and they
pray and that tumor shrinks to nothing. That's supernatural.
Why? Because you are not visibly seeing that. You are believing
that the source of that reversal is God himself and it is. But
obvious miracles, simeon is the Greek term, are the visible manifestations
of the setting aside of the natural laws so that you see something
happen that you cannot attribute to nothing but God. And everybody
saw it, like our Texas, and they saw the lame man who had never
walked jump up and start running, right? So they don't need that
group of people at Laocoonia. They don't need the newspapers.
They don't need the doctors. They don't need any kind of empiricist.
They saw what they saw. And what that becomes for them
is a premise for now the gospel, right? But Mark, even this, until
Paul preaches the gospel to them, they still attribute it to paganism,
don't they? So miracles in and of themselves
don't convert anybody, don't save anybody. So that's why we
say in theology miracles are gifts adjacent to the ministry
of proclamation to affirm the message among people groups who
are not prepared for the message. He's still talking, man. OK.
Now, that's the distinction that I was looking for. There you
go. That's it. Because here is what you have taught. And I hope
that you affirm this. And that is that we're all dead
in trespasses and sins. And so when God does his work
and his work alone in us to save us and to bring us about to the
point where we have such a love to be with God's people, to hear
God's word over and over again. And we just can't get enough
of it. I recall you saying that's America. It's called a miracle
of grace. And that's in the category of salvation. Obviously that's
what we're talking about now, but what we want to be careful
about, and we need to be careful in this religious age, You know,
you want somebody to come to church and they haven't been
coming to church for years. And then all of a sudden they
decide to come to church with you. You'll go, man, that's a miracle. I got
her to come to church. Well, that's too loose of a usage
of the term miracle and the scriptures. And see, once we start watering
it down and stretching it out of its context, now, then it
begins to be very ambiguous in its employment. Am I making some
sense? And it's very important that we don't do that. Because
again, like I said, those young kids that had sat across me in
the studio, they were shocked that I stopped them in their
tracks. And can I tell you why they were shocked? Because the
rest of the religious world wouldn't do it. They let them just talk
like that. And you'd have to think about
the proposition. Are these boys lying? Yes, they're
lying. And we're letting them lie in
the name of advertisement. Oh, yeah, we're seeing God raise
the dead, open the eyes of the blind, heal the sick, and heal
lame arm. Pastor, we're seeing it. I said,
you didn't see anything. And they were stopped in their
tracks. And they had to be. I had a radio program on. I'm
not going to sit here and let them just lie like that. That's
what we do in the church too much. Just let it go. The Bible
says, prove all things. It never says, just let it slide. Always prove it. A couple more
questions, we'll shut it down. Anybody else? Right here, Mark. Okay, then we'll get over here.
Now bring it up to Mark. Okay, yeah, you can walk over
there. Come over, just keep coming. Oh, okay. At this day and age,
We have to define our terms because, like you said, it's being used
too loosely and too easily, you know, miracles and whatnot. And
the word God, the word God can mean anything. It could be a
three-pronged stick. And in some countries, it is
a three-pronged stick. So when we use the term God,
we must define what we mean. Right. The infinite personal
God who created this, not, you know, a finite projection of
man's personality. Right. So we really have to define
our terms. Right. Well, well, what we're
saying is that you can take the microphone and come to us. That
would be my last one. No, give it to him. He's got
it. What we're saying is that I see you later, Mark. What we're
saying is that propositional truth. This is my last statement. Hold on for a second, too. So
when you're in a class, learning the word is because you value
propositional truth. We are in a postmodern culture.
I want you to hear this now. And in a postmodern culture,
the very danger that Martin is talking about, defining things
the way we want to, is where we are. Because mankind knows with technology,
and scientific innovation coupled with his imagination, he can
recreate his own world. And that's the very delusion
that the Bible is talking about will be part of the end time
delusion. This is the very delusion of which the Bible says will
be part of the end time delusion, Revelation chapter 13, and he
gave power to the image of the beast. He gave power to the image
of the beast that it should both speak and talk. So mark this
now, an image given power by the devil to appear to be alive. See the proposition? It's not
real. It's empowered by demonic forces.
And so it looks like it has all the power and life of deity.
Well, a historical interpretation of Revelation chapter 13 verse
seven or eight is in the days when the Catholic church was
hoodwinking people with icons and statues making blood come
out of them and tears come out of the eyes. And this is what
people buy into when they're not serious about propositional
truth. And they've been doing these
kind of hoodwinking tricks to poor indigent Poverty stricken,
unintelligent people throughout the world as they land with their
witchcrafts, the visions of Fatima and so forth. Some of y'all are
ex-Catholic, am I telling the truth? See, these are my brothers
and sisters who have come out of that folly. Now, I want to
show you another truth while I got you here. The charismatic
movement comes out of the Catholic Church. It's the same thing. The Pentecostal churches are
neo Catholic, charismatic manifestations. What do you mean? They have a
hierarchy of leadership like the Pope and his archbishops
and their worldwide diocese. And they keep the people ignorant
because they don't have a body of propositional truth. That
is a regulatory principle by which to discern. So the vast
majority of the people that are following the papacy simply listen
to their priests and they're ignorant of the Word of God.
And in the Pentecostal churches, it's the same exact way. You
can show them in the Bible what it says. I don't care what you
say, my pastor says. At that point, you are not Protestant,
you are not evangelical, and you are not Reformed. It was
Luther who was the priest in Germany, who was overwhelmed
by the confusion that he saw in the papacy and the hoodwinking
and corruption and wickedness that his fellow colleagues was
engaged in and how they kept the common people ignorant. And
he was compelled by reading the scriptures to understand that
a large portion of the problem was that the people were ignorant
of the word of God. And when he nailed his 95 theses
on Wittenberg's door on October 31st, around 1516 to 1519, it
started a major war for about a decade. that rent the church and sent
priests fleeing from the Catholic church to their Bibles to read
their Bibles and say their Bibles are saying something different
than what we are practicing. And that's what started the reformation
that led to Protestant churches like this one, like this is a
Protestant church. The church that most of you guys
are under here is a Protestant church because we protest against
the teachings of everyone in every system that opposes the
word of God as being the exclusive body of truth to which we commit
our lives. That was called the Protestant
movement, the reformation, sola scriptura, sola faith, sola gracia,
sola gloria. and to the glory of God alone,
through faith alone and Christ alone, sola Christa, the five
solas. It is a Bible-based, Christ-exalting,
God-glorifying, word-oriented manifestation. If you and I go
outside of the scriptures, this is what we've argued. You have
no way of determining what's right and what's wrong. And so
our churches now are being divided once again over this very issue
right here. the sufficiency and authority
of scripture. And you and I are human beings.
We all have propensities. And so some people have a propensity
for the more mystical orientation and are not so quick to commit
allegiance to the Bible. But we warn, we warn the Bible
is very clear that in the latter days, first Timothy chapter four,
Some shall give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils
and will depart from the truth and give themselves over to fables
and lies. And the ferocity with which deception
is so massively pervasive in our culture now can only be overcome
by your allegiance to biblical truth. Do you guys understand
that? That's the only way it can be
overcome. It can't be overcome any other way. That means you
have to be serious about learning the word. And what it's going
to do is what we talked about last week is divide. The word is going
to divide. It's going to separate between
people and people are going to say, well, that's your opinion.
And what we say is if what I am saying is my opinion, prove it
wrong. So this is what I do every week
on the Monday program, I give people an opportunity to call
in. Because I know we don't have that, we don't have that forum
anymore hardly. The lines are divided already.
You guys understand what I mean? You got groups over here and
groups over there and groups over here. I'm getting ready
to go to Africa in the next seven months. Because there's a portion
of Africa that's just given over to this mess. Myself and a bunch
of pastors getting ready to preach 20 times in one week. to try
to help those men understand the grave era that they're getting
into when they buy into this mystical notion of the Spirit
of God, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of
God. And the only reason it's running like wildfire through
that country is because they're prepared for that kind of stuff
by their own paganism. Yeah, several places. But guess what? It's going on
in our world, in our nation, too. The last question. Pastor you were talking a little
while ago about coming up We're gonna be talking about the birth
of Christ and I just am starting a study and trying to understand
I just need some direction I'm gonna get some direction regarding
angels. I believe you talked some months
ago about what like in verse chapter 2 of Luke when the angels
were already saying behold do not be afraid and so my understanding
is that angels were more masculine in nature. You know, when I think
about Christmastime and they have angels, angels are everywhere.
I want to understand, is that biblical? Well, hold on. Angels
weren't everywhere. So let me help you with that
because you're on recording. OK. The battle that's going on in
scholarship right now, in scholarship, in our seminaries, the massive
battle going on in our seminaries It's called textual criticism
argumentation. They're arguing whether or not the Bible is actually
faithful, trustworthy, true. This is the major argument that's
going on. This is called higher criticism, textual criticism,
determining whether or not the Bible is actually the word of
God. I'm getting ready to answer a question, but I want you guys
to get this. This is how fierce, this is how fierce this battle
is in which we're living. The goal of the devil is to get
rid of the Bible. This is his goal. Get rid of
the Bible. Get rid of the Bible. What your Bible teaches you is
a biblical worldview. That, according to God's will,
is patriarchal in his paradigm. Patriarchal. And because it's
patriarchal, it actually affirms the nature of the revelatory
work of God. God has revealed to us as not
mother, but what? He's revealed to us as not sister,
but what? And the third person is a Holy
Spirit. And he has no gender, but he's
always spoken of in the masculine person. When he, the spirit of
truth has come. So stay with me, I'm helping
you understand why this battle was so fierce. Because you guys
know that our whole Western culture is opposing a patriarchal paradigm. You guys understand that, right?
That even your literature, even the education for our kids in
school is denying the patriarchal hierarchy of the father in the
home as head and the mother and the father being the heads over
the children. So that the children are going
to be left free to define themselves in terms of their gender and
their orientation because of a wholesale rejection of a biblical
patriarchy. Are you guys following what I'm
saying so far? Now watch this. I want you to get this. So prevalent is
a patriarchal model in the scriptures that the angels are never spoken
of in the feminine gender. They are never seen as female. Whenever there's a manifestation
of angels, and what we talk about when we say a manifestation of
the angels is an angelophony, an angelophony, that is an appearance
of them, because they are spiritual beings. Like you and I are spiritual
persons with physical bodies, and when our bodies hit the dust,
we're still real persons, but we are immaterial, right? Well,
angels are immaterial until God gives them manifestation, or
what we would call Epiphanies, revelations. Whenever they take
on revelatory form, it's always masculine. Always masculine. To affirm the
nature of God as revealed to us in the triune persons. Always. Biblical theology around womanhood
is massively clear to those of you who have been taught biblical
womanhood here. Have you guys been taught biblical
womanhood here? And it's massively clear, but it's radically distinct
from biblical manhood, right? The two don't conflate. They
don't cross over. Ontologically the same, distinct
in your persons, distinct in your roles. Is that right? So
follow this. The angels are messengers. They are messengers. Angels bring
and bear the message. That's the beauty of the incarnation,
right? They bear the message. Because
messengers in the celestial dimension regulate by pattern messengers
in the terrestrial dimension. So that prophets and Evangelists
and apostles and pastors are called messengers. The ruling
body on the physical level are going to be men. Are you guys
hearing me? They're going to be men. That's
the way God set the world up initially, did he not? And we have been corrupting ever
since the fall of Adam, have we not? And what I'm saying is
our world is going away from a biblical model and the dust
contamination I talked to you about last week, getting into
our ears and clogging up our cognitive thinking skills, does
not allow us to be able to see the continuity of biblical truth
through and through. So when our sister asks about
angels, they are always viewed in scripture in the masculine
form because they are messengers. That doesn't exclude women, I
already talked about the gifts, you guys learned that, right?
But the masculine form is the way God has revealed himself
in terms of a biblical worldview. And where you and I start to
collapse on that, which is what's going on in our churches, is
apostasy. The moment that we give up on
a biblical worldview and start to allow an egalitarian view
of men and women as being equal without distinction, It's all
downhill from there. So we are in a homosexual culture.
Our homosexual culture is about to move into paternosity. You
guys know paternosity? You know paternosity? The raping
of your boys. The molesting of your boys. Did
you guys heard about the military guy that just got kicked out
of the military? Cause he was a Green Beret and he went in
Afghanistan on their own military base, on their own military base. And Afghanistan soldier was fondling
a little boy because that's common in the culture of what we call
the Neo Canaanite world we live in. And that military man went
in and stopped him and his superiors got him ejected out of the military.
In other words, American military men who understand a biblical
worldview, protect your women, protect your children at all
costs, at all costs, which is a biblical model erected by Jesus,
erected by Jesus because it was going on in Palestine in Jesus
day as well. Jesus elevated the children. Jesus elevated the women. He
didn't make them equal with men in the sense of their roles,
but he elevated them. to the point that we're supposed
to lay our lives down for our women and for our kids. Our country
is returning again to a neo-Canaanite culture, where it is accepting
these debasing behaviors that depicted Canaan before God destroyed
it. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? This is prevailing around the world. Right now in the Supreme
Court, They are lowering right now, arguing to lower sexual
consent to the age of 12. Right now. Ruth Bader Ginsburg
has been arguing for decades to drop the consent down to 11
and 12. Why? Because the next group that they
want to pervert are the children. We are sexualizing our children
at younger and younger ages. This is why I brought the subject
up last Monday about artificial intelligence. Did I not? I brought
it up because the goal of the apostate world is to not only
deny our humanity because our humanity mandates that we contemplate
God because we're created in his image, but to deny our bodies
as being vehicles, the exclusive vehicles by which God is honored.
So now if you and I, have a normative lifestyle of interaction on an
emotional and intimate level with robots, what's next? And you guys have already seen
the movies, haven't you? Are they out already? So think
about what's going on in terms of the spiraling down into the
abyss of immorality. No moral compass, no ethical
breaks. Europe is talking about this
as if it's right and normal. Europe is talking about this
and I told you Europe is like the ten northern tribes and America
is like the two southern tribes of Judah Europe is already talking
about it's okay for you to be in love with your car It's okay
for you to be in love with your post office box They've got people
now that are having amorous affairs with their what I'm getting at
is this is a slippery slope that doesn't end Are you guys hearing
me? So understand that your Bible
is actually designed to preserve you from the trends of the culture. And you're gonna see your loved
ones collapse all over the place. The pressure on our matrix, you
guys saw the matrix, anybody saw the matrix? So do you understand
the underlying spiritual theme in the matrix, the Babylonian
system? and the deception of those who are sleeping versus
being awake. That was paradigmatic of biblical
truth because the Bible talks about those of us who are awake
and those of us who are asleep. And if you and I are asleep,
we will fall prey to the matrix because the pressure right now
in the matrix system, the pressure is ubiquitous. We have an economic
pressure. We have a social pressure. We
have an ethical pressure. We have a spiritual pressure.
We have a political pressure. We have a global pressure and
it's caving in on us. You guys understand that? It's
caving in. It's heavy. It's heavy. It's heavy. And the only solution
is if God intervenes. If God doesn't intervene, you're
going to see more and more people cave in that you didn't think
would cave in. And they're just gonna give up.
Who can make war with the beast? Who can overcome the beast? That's
the battle that we got going on. And the only litmus test
for what's right is gonna be your Bible. You get rid of your
Bible, you have no authority. Father, help us. Help us in this
day and age. We thank you for this opportunity
to talk so very soberly. In this Bible study, and I trust
that these are the same kinds of things that are happening
elsewhere around the world. Around the nation rather that
men and women in the name of Jesus are not falling asleep
and thinking everything is alright with our culture and that it's
alright to think and believe what we want. Our thoughts have
consequences and we're seeing that in our culture. We would
have never guessed where we are today, 20 years ago. And we see
what's coming and your word is right. So give us the strength
to be objective and to be critical thinking and to understand your
worldview and give us grace to be prudent about it so we can
make sure that our families are not deceived. And our children
are not deceived, especially the next generation. Give them
a hunger for your word. Because the devil is talking
24 hours a day in all of the different mediums in which he's
talking, and he's drawing away multitudes. We are nothing in
ourself. We need you. We can't do it without
you. And we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. God bless you guys.