we began to peer into and begin
to work through the response of the Gentiles to the proclamation
of the gospel in verse 46. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed
bold and said it was necessary that the word of God should first
have been spoken to you, but seeing you put it far from you,
Judge yourself unworthy of everlasting life lo we turn to the Gentiles
For so hath the Lord commanded us saying I have set thee to
be a light of the Gentiles that you should be for salvation unto
the ends of the earth and when the Gentiles heard this they
were glad that and glorified the word of the Lord. And as
many as were ordained unto eternal life believed. The word of the
Lord was published throughout all of the region. But the Jews
stirred up the devout and honorable women and the chief men of the
city and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled
them out of their coasts. But they shook off the dust of
their feet against them and came unto Iconium and the disciples
were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost thus is the reading
of God's Word starting at back at verse 45 and really just Grappling
with the facts of the context the lesson that we must first
derive from this portion of scripture has to do with What happens when
the gospel is faithfully preached in the midst of a group of people? for whom some respond positively
And others respond negatively if you're going to benefit from
this portion of scripture acts chapter 13 um And probably we
would say the whole of the discourse from the time that paul stood
up in verse 16 all the way through but certainly When we begin to
see paul close out his message and the jews responded And he
responded over in verse 39 and 40 What you and I are asking
ourselves is what is the spirit of god teaching us in an account? Where the gospel is proclaimed
proclaimed and there is a clear delineation In terms of people's
response to the gospel What ought we to know if we study god's
word about? what might occur and what will
occur when the gospel is faithfully taught and preached. The Bible
tells us that the gospel is a saver of life unto life to those who
hear it with ears of faith. And it also tells us that the
gospel is a saver of death unto death to those who hear it with
hearts of unbelief. And so what's critical about
the preaching of the gospel is the response of people towards
it. In our context, we are dealing
with a targeted group that we learned last time, and they're
called the Jews and the Gentiles. These two titles actually encompass
all of the human race. And in this context, we're talking
about synagogue or church, and we can Actually do both we can
call this a synagogue Church paradigm our scenario where in
it we have both Jews and Gentiles This was worked through for many
weeks as we looked at the verses and we saw the Apostles actually
make a distinction between the two categories in verse 26 men
and brethren are Children of the stock of Abraham. That's
one category in the church The next category is and whosoever
among you feareth God That's the Gentiles Here's what Paul
says to you is the word of this salvation sent. I So the context
is clear in verse 26. We are in a worship service It's
synagogal in nature, but it's synonymous to the church because
the word synagogue Actually is the same word in essence For
church or a congregation synagogue is really just a gathering of
the people the church is a calling out of the people and They're
called out to be gathered together with this objective that they
should hear the word of the Lord. And so in verse 26, our last
line to you is the word of salvation. What? So what they are made aware
of right now is that the event that's transpiring is them being
privileged to hear the word of God. That's what they're being
made aware of. Now that might seem incidental
or irrelevant to you, But let's ask the question, is the highest
priority in the forefront of your mind and your consciousness
when you come to church to know that you are going to hear the
word of God? All right, I just want some real
honest folks. Is that always the primary Emphasis our focus
or preparation of the heart that I am coming to hear the Word
of God and I would say that Humanly speaking is very possible for
you to come to church with priorities other than to hear the Word of
God I would say that you can come to church to just go through
the perfunctory motion of religious activity and Or you can come
to church as some do because of the existential benefits of
fellowship with others. You can come to church with the
objective of hoping that you talk to somebody to get your
needs met. And so what you're doing when
you come to church is you're really not coming with this number
one objective in view, to hear the word of the Lord. You can
have multiple objectives multiple motives multiple purposes when
you come to church. Is that true? Is that true? Yeah,
we have to think that through with to be very careful to know
That just because we move our bodies from our homes And we
come to the facility geographically That we have not necessarily
positioned our hearts to hear from god so that sometimes the
net result of having driven from Home to church and back home
again. Is that we did not hear from
God. Is that possible? Yes, it is. So again, if we're going to benefit
from the text in front of us, what we want to be able to do
is derive all of the important things there. So contextually,
the setting is they are in the church. The next most important
thing to me, and they're not like categorized in terms of
priority, but that the preachers that are preaching to them are
godly men. That's not a given in your church
as well. You may come to church with the
objective of hearing the word of God, but the ministers may
not be ministers of the word of God. On this occasion, we
have two fundamental requirements met. The people are coming to
hear the word. The word of God has now begun
to be communicated to them by the apostle, and that's what
he is announcing in the last line. To you, is the word of
this salvation sent. And he affirms that indicative
by verses 27 all the way through verse 37 where he explains to
us the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, the
Son of David. And he affirms to them that this
is the reason for which we are proclaiming the gospel to let
you know that God has raised Christ from the dead. Then we read over in verse 38,
what we call the benefits, the outcome of the resurrection of
Jesus Christ, which now becomes for those who are actually capable
of hearing, the tangible joy immediate subjective blessing
of the gospel. Why did Christ rise again from
the dead? In order that he might secure
justification to those who have no ability to get right with
God based upon their own good words. The good news of the gospel
is that Christ died for our sins and rose again for our justification. Verse 38, Be it known unto you
therefore men and brethren that that through this man, so when
Paul is preaching, he's preaching a what? Person. Through this
man is preached unto you what the forgiveness of sins Paul
knew very carefully Paul knew very keenly that when he said
to them is this word of salvation sent to you when he says salvation
He's talking about justification and therefore forgiveness of
sins by which many women now might enjoy fellowship with God
for what is salvation other than the forgiveness of sins and that
comes through the justification of Christ which is a consequence
of his death on Calvary as a substitute for sinners. This is the central
thought of which every believer is to be preoccupied from which
your joy is to flow. Your joy is to flow from this
reality that your sins have been forgiven by the justification
that was wrought by Christ on the cross when he became a propitiation
for your sins. And when you and I are rejoicing
in anything else, our rejoicing is diminished and God's glory,
quite frankly, is threatened. Because our Father would really
have us enamored with what Christ has done for us on the cross.
In fact, that's the well of grace from which we are to be drinking
in order that we might glorify the word of the Lord, as you're
going to see here in a moment, by which others would be attracted
as well to you now that you are sure that God accepts you for
Christ's sake. See, the gospel itself is a doxa. It is a shekinah. It is an outshining. It is a glory designed to draw
people to itself. And when once people are drawn
to the gospel, we get an opportunity to explain to them why it is
we rejoice. But if you and I are rejoicing
over a good job, or if we're rejoicing over a great day, or
we're rejoicing over a good meal, or we're rejoicing over some
temporal blessing that came to us, In lieu of this reality of
grace that is stupendous and immeasurable in the person of
Christ, we're still in God's glory. Right, so and what I'm
pressing home is the importance of understanding we come to hear
more about Christ with regards to what he has done to secure
our souls for eternity. This is going to be the foundation
upon which the Gentiles now will be distinguished from the Jews
and Old Testament prophecies are fulfilled. And the apostles
now, especially the apostle Paul, will have a revelation in himself
that he did not have as to what the specifics of his mission
would be when Christ called him on the road to Damascus and told
him, you are a vessel chosen unto me to bear my name among
the Gentiles. Paul is about to see that imperative,
that set of instructions come to full bloom in this account,
and he's going to be clear on his mission from this point.
For me, that's exciting. That's fascinating. Here's the
reason why. What you and I struggle with
is the reality of the gospel. terms of its efficacy in our
life and we often struggle with the reality of the God of the
gospel in terms of his efficacy in our life what we often struggle
with is whether or not God is with us in the mundane things
of everyday life the Apostle Paul here is a Amazed at what's
transpiring in front of him because in his own heart his objective
was to see that his Jewish brethren get this gospel and Something
else is happening Now he has to grapple with his expectations
not being in alignment with God's purpose and He has to now recover
himself because something is happening that he has to get
a handle on. Now, where you and I are is where
I've been with you in our Roman study for the last two or three
weeks, inculcating this fundamental truth, that the believer has
been brought nigh to God through faith in Christ that you might
know God's ways. While you and I are insufficiently
committed to a walk with God, You will not know the ways of
God when he acts and they may very well collide with your own
goals and agenda and that will diminish your joy. It will obscure
your vision. It will set you on a course of
shakiness because you actually now are not cognitive of the
fact that you assumed you knew the ways of God. But in fact
you did not know. God's moving in his his indomitable
Sovereign immutable way and your job is to line up with him And that's what Paul is doing
now Paul is Paul is in the midst of the service sharing the gospel
with Jews and Gentiles and And in his mind, he's now holding
several categories at one time. You know how you can actually
be talking? I do this all the time when I'm preaching. When
I'm preaching to you, I'm thinking about other stuff. I'm actually
talking about other stuff while I'm preaching to you. That's
a good day. That's a good day where I can actually be conscious
of multiple things at once. You guys do it too. We all do
it to one degree or another. And I would imagine that what
Paul is doing here, as we press through the interruption that's
about to take place in the worship service. Did I tell you that's
what happened last week? Interruption took place. Now,
you know, we're used to normalcy. So here he is gonna preach. He knows he did about an hour,
hour 15 minutes to preach. And in the midst of his preaching,
these Jews start stirring up, blaspheming and contradicting. blaspheming and contradicting.
Paul is amazed. Look at it in verse 40. Beware,
therefore, lest that come upon you which is spoken of in the
prophets. What does he do? He has to now
bridle in, reign in what he recognizes is opposition on the part of
his Jewish brethren. He has to reign them in. He gives
them the warning that you and I talked about in the book of
Habakkuk two weeks ago. that God would blind them and
that God would bring them into Babylonian captivity. And then
we saw all the way down in verse 45, here it is, the full-blown
manifestation of the unbelieving heart in the midst of the proclamation
of salvation. But when the Jews saw that the
multitudes, when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled
with what? And spoke against the things
which were spoken by Paul contradicting and blaspheming. The implication
is clear that while Paul is preaching, the Jews are saying that's wrong.
That's not true. They're contradicting. And then
they're blaspheming me. Jesus is a child of fornication. He's a devil. This is a sect. So now think about that with
me for a moment. You don't generally get that
because we're fairly civil people here in the States and you don't
really have these outbursts of crazy things. When was the last
time in a worship service, someone stood up and interrupted. See,
you probably don't even remember one time in your life where some
person that was just a few cards short of a full deck stood up
and began to interrupt. But when that occurs, particularly
the pastor has to retain his senses because he can't get distracted
so bad from that annoyance that he loses his focus. You generally
have a system for that like in our church. We have systems for
that to hurry up and squash that in order that the enemy does
not get an advantage of us and The advantage is this The devil
will do everything he can To make you think that coming and
sitting under the gospel is normal and a daily mundane activity
that you can give or take. That's the goal of the devil.
The goal of the devil is for you to diminish in your own eyes
the significance of being under the Word of God. The goal of
the devil is to get you to play church. That's the goal. He doesn't care about you being
here. He just don't want you actually hearing. Now if he doesn't get you coming
in the door, he's gonna get you going out the door. By the time
you get in your car, the birds of the air have snatched the
seed out of your heart. That's how serious he is about
the word not having a transformative effect in your life. Can y'all
see the devil in this text? He has no desire for what he
knows is a door opening to the whole gentile world and multiple
old testament passages are being fulfilled precept after precept
after precept right now he does not want that to happen and the
the people that are conveniently predisposed and available for
his use are the religious folks the religious folks are the most
available obstacle against the gospel the church see if I can
help you make some application here if you're religious when
you come in the church you got 50 complaints about the church
with you and you are passing out those complaints to people
on your way to your pew because you want those people to be just
as miserable as you and just as distracted from the glory
of God as you now if those people don't know how to avoid you shame
on them Because when you're serious about hearing from God, what
you do is prepare yourself not to be distracted by anything. When you're serious about hearing
from God, you prepare yourself. That means you hug brothers and
sisters, give them a quick word and move on. Because you know,
a conversation can go left real quick. And if it goes left, it
can stick in your brain and be a major impediment to you hearing
the gospel. The enemy got you that day. Your
worship is fundamentally futile because you didn't wage war to
position yourself so that you had the freedom to hear the word.
And in many cases, you're conscious of it. You know that you're sitting
in the church, but there's a bubble that does not allow you to enter
into the substance of the worship. Am I making some sense? Paul
is actually juggling those factors right now. So we have an enemy
without and we have an enemy within. You have to be very careful
to prepare your heart and to maintain a high level of regard
for the Word of God and therefore God, because God only speaks
through His Word, so that you actually are worshiping on that
day. He that worships God must worship
Him how? Right. And you have to prepare
yourself for that. Most of the time we wake up carnal. Most
of the time we wake up carnal. You have to put the armor on
if you're going to hear from God. Is that true? So the context
is alarming, but the context is instructive because what God
is actually teaching us today are the marks and evidences of
election. the marks and evidences of the
doctrine of election. This is what is actually forming
in our presence. And this is a paradigm that works
everywhere the gospel is faithfully preached in large groups of people
where they are saved and unsaved, religious folk and not, where
the word of God has one impact on a group of people, and then
it has a whole nother impact on another group of people, though
both of them are under the hearing of the Word of God. As you and
I actually developed this last week, remember I shared with
you that fundamental, we call it a premier parable, a prominent
parable. It is a sort of standard parable.
Jesus says, if you understand this parable, you'll understand
the essence of the kingdom of God. So we call it sort of an
arch paradigm parable, and that is the parable of the what? Sower
and the seed. So the four soils representing
the hearts of men represent how complex this matter of the kingdom
of God is when the preaching goes forth. The wayside, the
stony ground, the shallow ground, and then the good soil. Recall?
And our Lord says you got to understand these things because
this is basically the spiritual makeup of the church. Everybody
looks the same on the outward. We come in in our cars, we walk
in, we smile, we got our Christian knees on, we're sitting in the
pews, but invariably the hearts are different. Invariably the
hearts are different. And so to the degree that you
and I are going to intentionally sow to the spirit versus sow
to the flesh, to that degree, we will be able to make our calling
and election sure. If we are presumptuous We will
not make our calling in election. Sure. There are supposed to be
some things in your life That are so important to you That
nothing gets in the way They're supposed to be certain
things in your life that are so important to you that nothing
gets in the way Like for some people they don't prosper in
the gospel Because they don't even know how to get to church
on time They are pathologically late that's a character flaw. Because what it says is their
boss is more important than God. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? I've seen this over the years.
If God's not real to you, if he's not a real person, a tri-personal
God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to which you commit yourself
with the objective of honoring him, you won't conduct yourself
as if he's personal. You guys hear what I'm saying?
Right. So God is now actually breaking into the scene and he's
creating a Red Sea. And on the one side of this Red
Sea are the non-elect. On the other side of this Red
Sea are the elect. The evidences at this time in
this context is this. That when Paul preaches the gospel,
the elect hear it, believe it, and rejoice in it. The non-elect
not only not hear it, not rejoicing it, but oppose it. That's what's
taking place here. And this is the way the text
is going to close itself out. So you and I get an opportunity
now to extract a few doctrinal principles that take place within
the framework of the church. So we read in verse 46, these
words. So then Paul and Barnabas waxed
bold. They had to wax bold. Why? Because there were Jews in the
congregation disturbing the worship with their contradictions and
blasphemies. Now they have to stand up and be bold and overtalk
these men in order to retain the congregation. Because these
guys were trying to break up the concentration and the focus
of, remember, the whole city had come. The whole city had
come. This was an unusual effusion
of the Spirit of God to draw the whole city to hear what Paul
and Barnabas would have to say. So what does Paul and Barnabas
do? They make sure that they do not allow the enemy working
through these Jewish unbelievers to actually impede what they
are doing in terms of preaching the gospel. They stand up and
they respond boldly and they said, it was necessary That the
word of god should first have been spoken to you And you know
what? He's doing right here He's taking
these gentlemen personally and calling them out He's taking
these people personally and calling them out. He said it was necessary
that it has first been spoken to you. Now, the manner in which
he's saying this would suggest and imply that Paul already knew
the antagonism and the antagonist who were in the group. You know,
sometimes you know that. Again, if you don't have a whole
lot of control over the environment in which you are ministering
or a part of, you can know who the antagonists are, your opposition,
people that don't like you, the adversaries on job or at school
or at work, right? Even though they're not necessarily
audible with their disagreement with you, you know it in spirit,
you know the tension is there, that conflict is there. And you
kind of keep an eye on it And if you're mature and you're grounded
within yourself, you're pretty cool. I am. I grew up battling
and fighting all my life, so I'm fairly comfortable with my
enemies being close by. And so they don't necessarily
stop me from doing what I have to do, because you got to do
what you got to do. As long as you don't touch me, we cool.
Right? We're in the same space. And
it's a free country. You can stand there. And I certainly
can't intervene into your thoughts and make you think nice things
of me. So I'm not going to even waste my time trying to make
you do that. I'm going to leave you to yourself.
I'm going to isolate you in my mind and keep doing what I got
to do until, you know, something happens. This often happens in
the church, especially where churches are carnal and fleshly,
and you've got a radical mixture of sheep and goats. I deal with
pastors all the time and frequently that is the case. It's a sad
scenario where a local church is mixed with sheep and goats
and the sheep and goats are visibly disturbed with each other. All
congregations have sheep and goats, there's no doubt about
it. But where the congregation has allowed levels of carnality
to dominate it, where there are equal numbers of sheep and goat,
there is no peace. It's not possible to have peace
between sheep and goats because the mannerisms of the two are
so radically different that how can two walk together except
they be what? Agreed, right. So in congregations where they
are just enamored with numbers and not really authentic salvation
so that character is shaped and changed authentically, you got
a lot of strife and tension underneath the facade of religious protocol. Is that true? Right. And that's
because people are not authentically pursuing God in terms of character. Where they have rules and protocol
and principles of conduct operating in their soul. Where they don't
get right up from under the preaching of the gospel and go to gossipy.
Or go to lying. Or go to provoking. That's completely
outside of the pale of regenerated hearts. You guys are understanding
what I'm saying. And that kind of provocation
are the temptations of the devil. Believers don't go around tempting
one another. Believers don't do that. You
can mark yourself. If you are a provoker, you might
not be saved. Believers don't spin the hallmark
of their time causing trouble in the life of the other Saints
He that is born of God loves him that begot and loves all
those that are begotten of him 1st John chapter 5 verse 1 just
in case you need a text to know what it says is you say you love
God and don't love your brother you lie Right And this is where
paul now is about to say some very stern things about these
jews who are interrupting the service mark what it says He
says it was necessary that the word of god should have first
been spoken to you But seeing that you put it far from you
see that next clause Seeing that you put it far from you in the
original language is far more violent and expressive than that
Literally is seeing that you thrust it from you as a thing
abhorred as a thing that you don't want to be associated with.
Not that you put it from you in a quaint sort of casual way. No, you thrust it from you as
a thing you abhor. And the apostle is stating very
clearly here that he could tell by the way they behaved that
they were not liking the message. Here's what he says. And you
judge yourselves unworthy of what? Now we know that the Spirit
of God has to be working mightily in Paul's expression and terminology
because this is entering into the realms of people's hearts
and exposing their state before God, is it not? This is judging,
which he had a right to do. He said they were lost. They
were lost. That's a very damning statement
right there. Listen to it. You put it from
you and you judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life.
Lo, we turn to the what? Right. So what Paul has done
right now, having actually given them time, remember this is two
worship services. They had one last week and this
one here where everybody's come out. These guys are acting a
fool. Paul finally now is rejecting them. He's rejecting them. He didn't want to reject them.
He offered them the gospel just as he did the Gentiles. We saw
that back in verse 26. You men of Israel, stalk of Abraham. And those of you who fear God,
unto you is the word of salvation said. So he let them know, we
come to you. In fact, remember the ethic of
the apostle Paul to the Jew first. And then also to the Gentile.
Paul always labored to find his Jewish brethren to let them know
that the things that they were believing in or trusting in terms
of the promises of the Messiah were fulfilled in Jesus. But
after enough conflict, do you know you can't sit up and argue
with people all your life? Do you understand that? That's
another goal of the devil. Another goal of the devil is
to have you engage in conflicts with this person, that person,
the next person, and you look up and your whole life has been
arguments with people. Distraction. Distraction. Now, what the scripture says
is, if you have an aught with your brother, you go to him,
you try to work it through. If he don't want to work it through,
you go get a witness. If he don't want to listen to you and another
authentic witness, authentic, then you take it to the elders.
If he doesn't want to listen to the elders, you take it to
the church. If he doesn't want to hear the church, kick him
out as an unbeliever. Now, that's that is the protocol
and regulatory principle in the church where you squash all of
this carnality. If churches were exercising this
principle, you wouldn't have so much carnality in the church.
And and also what this does is it puts a ready end to an individual
who doesn't have anything to do but be your adversary until
you breathe your last breath. Can you imagine that there are
some people, all they want to do is be your enemy till you
die. They don't live for nothing else
but finding ways to provoke you. Isn't that amazing? They don't
have a life at all, but to find a way to provoke you. Now, can
I get a witness? Have you ever had a trial like
that where you're asking the Lord, you go, Lord, What's this? I didn't move from California
to New York and he didn't showed up. And you really do wonder what's
going on. Well, you have to actually ask yourself the question, do
I understand the biblical protocol and principle for cutting short
anything that would distract me from keeping my eyes on Christ?
Because if you don't, then you're wrestling with that thing. because
you have failed to understand that you have to do what is necessary
to do to make sure that you seek first the kingdom of God and
God's righteousness and nothing trumps that priority. This is such a radical principle
that God actually employs it in marriages. Did you hear what I just said?
Every believer has been called to peace. The kingdom of God
is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost and he or she
or they are to be aspiring to know God in that covenant context. Nothing has the right to impede
that. Not even a husband, not even
a wife, not even children. You have the right to position
them at a distance from you when they don't want to behave in
a fashion that respects your unique sole responsibility unto
the Lord. Anything that would hinder you
from your walk with Christ has to be cut off. Now I'm sharing
that on a practical level so I can be pastoral with you because
contextually what Paul is about to do is something that he never
thought he would ever do. Cut his own brethren off. That's what he's about to do.
He never once imagined that this would be part of his missionary
work. He never once imagined. He says,
but seeing you thrusted from you and judge yourselves unworthy
of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. How radical and definitive is
that statement by Paul? Look at verse 51. Verse 51 says,
but they shook off the dust of their feet against them and came
unto Iconium. Do you see that? They shook off
the dust of their feet. That was a rejection of a final
act. And where did they get that from?
That was a Jewish custom. I'm going to teach you something
about the gospel here. Which we have to do all the time
in this generation where we make a faulty dichotomy between the
Jew and the Gentile. I'll continue Reinforcing this
truth I'll say it propositionally like this first and you got to
get this Judaism and Israel is first and
foremost for God an ideal Ideal Judaism Israel is an ideal with
God. It's not an ethnic group. Judaism is the praise of those
who know Jehovah in the true because of his saving mercy.
That's what the word Judah means. To praise Yahweh for his salvation. Israel means to rule with God
as a prince For God the ideal Israel the ideal Judaite is the
person who knows God by his grace and Rules with God in Christ
because they have a relationship Whereby in God's covenant purpose
in God's covenant mercy. He has made you a prince of God
You guys follow that logic. I'm laying that out right now
in the Roman study. I Remember what Paul says not everyone that's
in Israel is in Israelite So God has this ideal Israel and
I could take you to ten verses to prove that to you I won't
do it tonight But what I want you to understand is what's actually
taking place in Acts chapter 13 is the beginning of that revelation
in the preaching of the gospel there will be unbelieving Jews
manifested believing Jews manifested and believing Gentiles manifested
And the believing Jew and the believing Gentile is the Israel
of God. You guys follow that? That is
the Israel of God. And one of the purposes for the
preaching of the gospel, not primarily, but definitely it
is an application, a pragmatic part of it is to make a distinction
between the sheep and the goats. My sheep, hear my what? So then
when we look at verse 47, notice what he goes on to say, and I'm
just going to remark this one briefly because we dealt with
this last week and the week before. After having resolved to turn
away from the Jews, he has committed himself to the Gentiles. He says
in verse 47, for so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, and
then he quotes Isaiah, I have set thee to be a light of the,
what? That thou shouldest be for salvation
unto the ends of the earth. See that last line the ends of
the earth That's a synonym for the gentiles Because what he's
talking about is the people groups and the gentiles and then the
ends of the earth are the locations the geographical locations of
the world everything outside of palestine is gentile country
so the ends of the earth meaning the far regions of the world
wherever gentiles are The objective of God is for the light to go
there. You guys follow that? And so
he quotes from Isaiah chapter 42 in Isaiah chapter 49. And
I stated to you last week, we'll go there in a moment. When you
go to Isaiah 42 and Isaiah 49, those passages are speaking about
Christ. They're not speaking about the
apostles. They're speaking about christ for instance go with me
in your bibles to isaiah 49 And let's look at verse 6 where paul
is specifically quoting this text and just show you something
because what he stated just now was For so the lord hath commanded
us There's something about paul's hermeneutic that's worth marking
in this context Isaiah 49 Notice what it says in verse 6 and I'm
going to start back at verse 5 And now said the lord that
formed me from the womb to be his what? So the person that's
speaking in verse 5 is speaking in what we call the first person
And now said the lord that formed me from the womb to be a servant
to bring jacob again Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I
be glorified in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my
strength." Who do you think is speaking in verse 5? Jesus Christ. Especially, you know, for those
of you who don't have a sensitivity to the biblical hermeneutic,
you know, all scripture points to Christ. In this context, is
Christ speaking messianically of his command The father's command
being bestowed upon him to be a blessing to the world look
at verse 6 and he said it is a light thing that thou shouldest
be it is a light thing that thou shouldest be my Servant to raise
up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the what of Israel Now
watch this. I will also give thee for a light
to the Gentiles that thou mayest be my salvation unto the ends
of the what I So that's a verbatim quote by Paul out of Isaiah chapter
49 verse 6, but the first line describes Christ as being told
by the Father that he should be the servant of the Lord to
raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved
of Israel. Right, so I'm not going to go
into the real litany exegesis around that, but you actually
have to be very careful with that language Because he speaks
of a preserved people a preserved people That you might raise up
for me the preserved of Israel what do we mean by preserved
those who are set aside and appointed to blessing it actually inherently
is speaking to election that there's a category of Jews that
God has preserved for salvation and And the rest will respond
as they do. But that preserved group will
come out right along with the Gentiles. Now you're going to
see that in your context. But what's interesting here is,
in Isaiah 49, we have the Lord Jesus speaking about his father's
intentions for him. We don't have the apostles speaking.
And yet Paul owns this text for his mandate to get the gospel
out. How do you do that? Here's how
you do it. Remember what we learn? This
is what we call the cause and then the means by which the cause
is affected. So God is first cause. Christ is the source of
the light. But the mechanism by which that
light is shining is the ministry of preaching in the mouth of
the apostles. What Paul understood was when
Christ gave the apostles commandment to go into all the world with
the gospel that the idea that he, that is Christ, would be
a light to the Gentiles would be through the ministry of the
word. Paul then concludes that the commandments given in the
Old Testament to Christ could only be fulfilled through apostolic
preaching. Christ is, as it were, speaking
to the Gentiles and the Jews in that congregation through
Paul. That's a rule for you and I to
be able to take away as well. I've talked about this many times
before Jesus Is not coming to you personally If he did Go see
the doctor Because we ate something wrong our medication is a little
off Are you guys hearing me? This is very important because
people will talk like that. Have you ever heard somebody
say, Jesus came to me last night? Let me see your hand. Now, if
you're lying, you better watch yourself. But there are people
who do that. And if I entertain them, I'll
raise the question. Are you ready? OK, Jesus came. Tell me what he looked like. OK, you ready? Just like the
picture. Are you with me? Okay. Now, you
know, that was a figment of their imagination. or the devil. but it wasn't Jesus. Are you
guys hearing me? It was not Jesus. We are so grossly
wrong to think that we have a right to make a picture of the master
when it is close approximation to what he
really looked like. And we are so ubiquitous with
the picture of the master, when we ain't got a picture of Paul,
or Peter, or the rest, or Moses. Are you guys following the logic?
And so when people say they met Jesus or Jesus came to them in
a dream, the picture they have is the picture that Michelangelo
and others have painted of him. Now, if Jesus really came, wouldn't
he appear like he really is since he's the truth? Would he take
a lie about himself and use a lie about himself to convey truth
to you? You guys follow the logic of what I'm saying? See, this
is very important because in our Christian culture, we actually
don't rein in, you know, our thinking skills and we get quite
loose and we start saying, well, God can do anything. And, you
know, we kind of just because we like the fantastic. What we
really like is deception. And so we have to be very careful
with that. What the apostle was teaching in our text, and I'll
show you a few other things here that are magnificent around the
mandate, is that the fulfillment of the Old Testament covenant
promises of Christ being Messiah to the Gentiles could never be
done but any other way, and that is through the proclamation of
the gospel. Notice what it says in verse
7. Thus said the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel and His Holy One, to
whom man despises, to Him whom the nations abhorred, to a servant
of rulers, kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship,
because of the Lord that is faithful and the Holy One of Israel, and
He shall choose thee. Again, this is a narrative of
a promise between the father and the son verse 8 thus saith
the Lord in an acceptable time have I heard you and in the day
of salvation have I helped you and I will preserve you and Give
you for a covenant of the people to establish the earth to cause
to inherit the desolate heritages Verse 9 that you may say to the
prisoners go forth to them that are in darkness show yourselves
They shall feed in the ways and their pastor shall be in all
high places now He's moving into this rich sort of millennial
language about the effects of the work of Christ So we know
that this is Jesus Christ being spoken up go down to Isaiah 42
just to show you the other reference to Christ being a light to the
Gentiles because when we go back to acts to close out here in
a moment You're going to see strategically why Paul uses this
Old Testament prophecy. Again, in Isaiah 42, verse 1,
here's our subject. Behold my servant. Who's talking?
The father. Who is the servant? Right. This is affirmed in Matthew's
gospel, right? When he opened the heavens and
said, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, right?
Whom I uphold, mine elect, in whom I sow what? I have put my
spirit in him, and he shall bring forth judgment to the who? There
it is. Now look down at verse 6. I,
the Lord, have called you in righteousness. I will hold your
hand, I will keep you, and I will give you for a covenant of the
people for a light to the home. Now look at verse 7. To open
the blind eyes. Is that what's happening in Acts
13? See it? To open the blind eyes,
to bring out the prisoners from the prison. Is that what's happening
in Acts 13? Justification liberating the soul of those Gentiles who
hear the free grace of God in Christ and their souls are so
excited To hear it. They want to hear it again next
week To bring out the prisoners from the prison and them that
sit in darkness out of the prison house I am the Lord that is my
name and I my glory will I not give to another neither my praise
to graven images And so this contextually also is speaking
to the work of Messiah in our text. Now let's quickly rush
back to our text so that we can finish up with the implications
of these last few verses. The apostle Paul then has warned
and rejected his Jewish brethren by saying, we turn to the Gentiles. This is affirmed in verse 51,
simply because the overwhelming response of the Gentiles in verse
48, And the fact that for a season after this worship service, the
apostle Paul has been preaching the gospel. Look at verse 49.
And the word of the Lord was published throughout all the
region. This worship service ended abruptly by Paul rebuking
the Jews who rejected the gospel. But it didn't end on a sad note
because the Gentiles were so thoroughly blessed by the preaching
of the gospel that you and I now have a serious doctrinal reflection
to draw from in verse 48. And when the Gentiles heard this,
they were what? So note the first things the
Gentiles heard. Do you see that? So faith comes
by what? Right. Note the next thing that
what they heard produced gladness. Do you see that? So then when
we talk about gladness being the consequence of hearing, we're
talking about the fruit of that which was preached resulted in
their souls being delighted in the implications of that which
was preached. And we certainly would believe
that if a person heard the gospel in his heart, where God had worked
that grace in him to hear, would it not produce joy? and they
glorified the word of the Lord. Let me ask you what does that
mean? What comes to your mind when you see that? So they heard
the gospel, they rejoiced in the gospel exceedingly, and the
text says, and they glorified the word of the Lord. What would
that mean to you? It means they believed it. It
means they believed it. Listen carefully. It means they
believed it. Because here's what's taking
place. When the word of God is proclaimed, it has an aim and
objective. When that aim and objective is
met, the word of the Lord is glorified. What is the aim and
objective of the preaching of the gospel? That men and women
might believe it. For in believing the gospel,
you glorify God. So they glorified the word of
the Lord because they believed the message of the gospel. Please
understand that and that is what we call the obedience of faith.
It's romans chapter 6 verse 17 where paul says, uh, thanks be
unto god for when you were slaves of sin You did obey from the
heart that form of doctrine that was delivered unto you faith
being planted in your heart you rejoiced in the gospel and you
Believed that gospel now watch how paul closes out this last
line. He says when the gentiles heard
this they were glad and glorified the word of the lord he qualifies
this experience By a statement essential to our understanding
As those who know that god is sovereign over everything He
didn't actually have to make this statement, but he did. Because what you and I do by
default, not thinking it through, is actually attribute the experience
of salvation to something we do rather than something God
did. This is the massive controversy
that has been going on in christendom since the days of augustine and
pelagius And calvin and arminius and luther and erasmus And all
those who fail to understand That salvation is a total gift
from god that to respond to the gospel, even in the sense of
actually hearing the gospel aright, is a work of God's grace. That
you cannot even hear the gospel right, unless God gives you ears
to hear. Do you believe that? So for those
of you who need a Bible verse, Proverbs chapter 20, 12. The hearing ear and the seeing
eye The Lord has made them both And the scriptures warn consistently
let him that have ears to hear hear And yet the scriptures demonstrate
over and over and over again that there are people Who did
not have hearing ears This actually is a pathology and an indictment
against national israel For even in the days of Moses in the wilderness,
God said to Moses concerning those same knuckleheads. I led
these folks through the wilderness for 40 years. Their shoes didn't
wear out, their clothes didn't get raggedy. I fed them every
day. I gave them water out of the
rock. I led them to the promised land. And yet to this day, Deuteronomy
chapter 29, to this day, they still do not have eyes to see
nor ears to hear. Isn't that wild? Now I want you
to see the text because I want to make sure I drive this doctrinal
truth home of which the Spirit of God wants us to think through
and make sure that we don't fall prey to it. Just go to Deuteronomy
chapter 29 and think about the enormous privileges and blessings
that they spurned because they didn't take God seriously or
hold in high value these privileges with which they were endowed. Deuteronomy chapter 29 verse
2 all the way through verse 5. Are you there? And Moses called
all Israel and said unto them you have seen all that the Lord
did Before your eyes in the land of Egypt under Pharaoh This is
going to be a key to Paul's message on election and reprobation when
I preach on Sunday. This is a key word here See actually
Paul actually Moses now is operating in the position of a lawyer for
God Indicting Israel with a list of indictments proving to Israel
that they are without excuse When they question whether or
not God is God and whether or not God loved them You have seen
what I did You saw what I did now watch the language Verse 3 the great temptations
of Which your eyes have seen and the signs and the great what
miracles verse 4 yet The Lord has not given you a heart to
what that's crazy Do you see the construction of that phrase
there that perception is a gift from God? So the way Moses is
speaking is this Moses is saying you guys were privileged with
actually seeing Observing and even experiencing the mighty
works of God in your life, but it didn't translate to faith
in your heart That's a work of grace that God
has to do in order for you to actually believe what you saw
In other words, the Gentiles got it in Acts 13, didn't it?
But the Jews didn't get it The Gentiles got it. When the gospel
was preached, the history of Israel, Abraham, David to Jesus,
Jesus' death, burial, resurrection, justification, forgiveness of
sins, the eyes of the Gentiles were opened. Their ears turned
to eyes. And that's what made them glad.
But the Jews were still blinded, weren't they? They found no joy
in the gospel. The Jews in Acts chapter 13,
which is about AD 40, AD 41, perhaps, are in the same spiritual
condition of the Jews 2,000 years, 1,500 years before Jesus in this
verse. Yet the Lord has not given you
in heart to perceive and eyes to see and what ears to hear
unto this day Watch this and I have led you 40 years in the
wilderness Your clothes are not waxing old and your shoes have
not waxing old you have not eaten bread and have drunk wine. Um Strong wine that you might
know that I am the Lord your God and when you came unto this
place Sion the king he goes on now to list all of God's victories
and destroying all their foes To let them know that God was
faithful and keeping his covenant to them and yet they didn't see
it Here's the truth. Let's go back to our text so
I can wrap this up Here's the truth that all of though the
factors that go into your salvation in my all of the factors I Desire
to hear the Word of God that comes from God The ability to
understand biblical truth in a saving way that comes from
God a heart that hungers and thirsts for righteousness That
comes from God. There's nothing about what we
do as we move towards God That is not a consequence of God acting. I God must act in order for us
to believe am I making some sense to you guys? so now watch the
text again and when the Gentiles heard this they were glad and
they glorified the word of the Lord and as many as were what
Right. So now this is the term that
Luke uses and the word ordained means to be set Means to be established
means to be fixed. They were set they were established
and means they were fixed. The word is also translated to
determine. They were determined. I'm gonna
use a couple of verses in the book of Acts to affirm this for
you. Luke says the reason why they
believed is because they were ordained to believe. Look at
Acts chapter 15 verse 2. This is the way the word is used
in Acts 15 verse 2. I'm going to read verse 1 and
2 and you'll see it in verse 2. Now certain men which came
down from Judea taught the brethren and said, except you be circumcised
after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved. Paul's going
to enter into that storm after chapter 14. When therefore Paul
and Barnabas had no small dissension and disputation with them. Notice
how Paul and Barnabas have to fight for the gospel among his
Jewish brethren. Now they want to say, OK, OK,
we accept your grace. But you've got to add to that
circumcision. You've got to add to that keeping of the law. You
see now Paul realizes that his main antagonists are the people
he loved and wanted to see know Christ first. Now look at the
next verse. Here it is. But when therefore
Paul, this same verse, when therefore Paul and Barnabas had no small
dissension and disputation with them, they determined, see that
phrase determined? That's our word. They determined,
or they appointed, or they established that Paul and Barnabas and certain
other brethren of them should go up to Jerusalem unto the apostles
and elders about this question. So they determined, they ordained,
they established, they set. What's another word? They elected.
Do you see it? Who was elected? Paul and Barnabas. Got it? Paul and Barnabas. So
obviously Barnabas and Paul had their band of brothers together
and they were working through, man, what's going on with the
church in Jerusalem? Why do they keep contradicting
and opposing free grace? And they ordained or determined
or elected among themselves that Paul and Barnabas should go up
to Jerusalem to deal with this matter. That's the inference
of the word ordained And this is exactly what god did for us
When he chose us in christ And he ordained that there would
be a day when the gospel would be preached And your heart would
be opened up to believe it Two verses i'm going to show you
and then i'll open the floor for a few questions and we'll
we'll close looking at chapter 15 um where the apostles actually
draw a conclusion on this matter. It should be Acts chapter 15
here. Acts chapter 14. Back up to Acts chapter 14 and
listen to how they conclude about the actual work of the gospel
being received by the Gentiles. I'm in Acts 14 and I'm at verse
27. And when they were come and when
they had gathered the church together, now Paul and Barnabas
have finally made an end of their first missionary journey. They've
gone back to Antioch. That's what? Verse 26 says in
this cell they to any out from which they had begun Have been
recommended to the grace of God for the work which they have
fulfilled They have fulfilled their first missionary journey
now watches and when they were calm and that gathered the church
together They rehearsed all that God had done with them and how
that he what? Opened the door of what unto
the what? Now who opens the door? You see,
it's not the church that opens the door. It's God that opens
the door. Do you see that? God is the one
that opens the door of faith and allows the Gentiles in. He's
the one that draws them to himself through the preaching of the
gospel and opens their heart so that they believe the gospel.
So the door of faith is opened by God. No man can open a person's
heart. Only God can do that. It's in
Acts chapter 16 to look at Acts chapter 16 verse 14 And this
is Paul in his second missionary journey as they move out again
Verse 6 14 and a certain woman named Lydia a seller of purple
of the city of Thyatira which worshiped God Here's the key
again. What did she do? She heard whose heart the Lord
opened That she attended unto the things which were spoken
of Paul and when she was what I Which means she had a hearing
that led to faith in Christ, didn't it? Because the only reason
he would have baptized her, Paul, is because she believed the gospel.
When she was baptized, she besought them saying, if you have judged
me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and abide.
And she what? which is the other thing that
we have learned about the impact of the gospel when it makes its
home in your life. You do not want Christ to go
away. You want all of the blessings,
all of the benefits, all of the resources of that very grace
that has now opened your eyes, opened your heart, and has taken
residence in your soul. Lydia was not going to let anything
stop her from getting all the benefits. So she used every power
in her life. She was a businesswoman of reputation
and therefore resources. What did she do? I mean, early
on in her conversion, she took her resources and opened the
door to make sure the apostles stayed there so that she and
all in her household could hear the gospel. This is how you know
when the gospel has come home to the hearts of people. They
give themselves their resources to Christ Are you guys hearing
what I'm saying? These this is what we call radical
faith. They give themselves in the resources and this is why
you guys This is why we have the book of Acts as an account
before us to give us a demonstration of what it really means to be
saved When God begins to work in your heart, I'm done here
I'll take a few questions and we want to do some therapy tonight
when God begins to work in your heart and It's not stingy when
God's when God's showing you his grace He he opens your heart
wide It's not restrained. It's not restricted That the
nature of grace is abundance flowing into the soul At least
for that initial experience You are willing to do anything for
the lord When he's working in your life This is why David said
it in Psalm 119. Lord, enlarge my heart and I
will run after you as we'll learn on Sunday. And the reason why
people don't run is because their hearts are narrow. And the reason
why people don't give is because their hearts are narrow. The
reason why people don't serve is because the heart is narrow.
You guys hear what I'm saying? Questions. Anybody got any questions?
Anybody anybody got any questions questions going once we're at
I don't see all right there. Let's get you We'll answer a
few and then so, you know, you guys stir him up. Now if you
got a question, I just have a quick question Paul was an apostle,
right? Yes, they didn't recognize him
as an apostle to send him to the apostles To get verification
of what he was telling them in in that 15 account That's not
really the issue in the Acts 15 account, whether or not Paul
is acknowledged by the Jewish brethren as an apostle. What's
taking place in Acts 15 is whether or not the Jewish brethren want
to accept and believe that God is actually saving the Gentiles
through a message of free grace that doesn't depend upon Judaism,
circumcision, and law keeping. Fundamentally big brother being
jealous because he's not being axed to help in the work You
guys follow that logic big brothers being jealous because he's hearing
about how God is working apart from the mother church and her
approval What you guys are going to see in Acts chapter 15 is
the precursor to Catholicism You guys understand that? It's
the precursor to Catholicism. And every denomination where
they have a Senate or a body of leaders, Presbytery, that
determine whether or not God is actually working. There's
nothing wrong with overseers, but they have to go to Jerusalem
because they understand that what the people are saying in
Jerusalem is actually not the gospel. And this is remarkable.
This is remarkable the people who saw Jesus ministry and heard
what the people who actually knew what Jesus really looked
like Let me put it that way have missed the gospel Paul didn't
even see Jesus in the flesh. You know what Paul had to say
about Jesus I can tell you what he looked like a big old light
a That's why his metaphor is always around the illuminating
work of the gospel and God causing the light to shine out of the
hearts of men to shine in their hearts and give them the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. For Paul, Jesus was the light
of the world. He never got into the physical
description of Christ's anatomy. I don't think he ever saw it,
but he knew him personally. And so this is very critical.
No, they weren't dealing with that. Anybody else, any other
questions back here? Okay. Right here. Okay. So we'll
do these three, start with the lady in the pink behind you,
and then we'll make our way around. Thank you, pastor Jesse. Um,
I have a question on, um, how acts it, and maybe I don't know
if I'm saying this correctly, but it's an ax. Aren't we seeing
a lot of this now in relation to last day's prophecy? Are we beginning to see, What
you're talking about coming to pass now in in prophecy last
days the book of Acts So I would probably want you to formulate
that question it with a little bit more specifics But here's
what we can say about the book of Acts if you would have been
with us when we opened up the book of Acts about six months
ago what I told you you would be experiencing when you go through
the book of Acts are the clash of two kingdoms The two kingdoms
that would be in conflict would be the kingdom of the old covenant
represented by Judaism, having a very difficult time giving
way to the new covenant, the new covenant represented by the
gospel and the apostolic ministry. We are coming to a threshold
with that in Acts chapter 15, that kingdom is going to crumble.
Like all kingdoms will crumble under the gospel because only
the gospel is the power of God under salvation. You guys follow
that argument? So if what you mean by a larger
model of conflict, religion versus the gospel in these latter days,
of course, of course. And if we could retain the enormity
of the apostasy in the church, and I don't think we can, it's
so enormous, the apostasy in the church, that it's hard to
visualize the angles and the complexity and the nature in
which the false church is ubiquitous everywhere and seeking to snuff
out all gospel truth. The gospel is a very narrow and
very specific set of propositional truths that have their origin
in the word of God. And that will not work for the
secular carnal church. So what we say is there are two
things that the secular carnal church is exposed for and that
is an abandonment of the authority of scripture The authority of
scripture. This is how you know, the church
is going to apostate it abandons the bible Are you guys hearing
me? You are not a gospel church where you reject the word of
god And then where you play around with it Is there? denying the
sufficiency of scripture in its totality to guide and frame and
regulate our lives. In other words, like you saw
me do the last couple of weeks, hopscotch Christianity, where
you jump over squares because they're not convenient for your
worldviews. So people pick and choose portions
of scripture that they want to utilize to build their ministries
on, but they don't run through the tenor of scripture and let
the tenor of scripture shape their theological convictions
and worldviews. And to the degree that you don't
do that, you don't have Christianity. You just have apostate religion.
So I hope that helps. And it will get worse. It will
get worse. I could wax a little bit lengthy
on this. I'm not. There will be for the
true church the true christian in the west As it is all around the world
The the the trial and temptation of seduction seduction You child
of god will fall quicker through seduction seduction Then you
will through persecution of a religious system or a political system
So understand the devil is behind it all. Temptation is temptation
no matter how it comes, whether or not you're being persecuted
and being told to deny the faith or whether or not you're being
tickled under your feet or behind your ear by the subtleties and
harlotries of this Babylonian system. Either way it goes, the
goal is to actually separate you from biblical conviction
so that you don't live for Christ. And Westerners are more susceptible
to than anybody else. This is why our churches are
going apostate because we're giving in to innovations and
Entertainment and all sorts of carnal things to interest people
Because there is no actual faith in the Word of God People will
not utilize what they do not believe works and And the statistics
are in, in terms of the Barna Institute giving polls about
what... I was just recently at a pastor's conference over the
last three or four days, and one of the pastors was giving
statistics about church growth and what you got to do. And as
I was listening to him, I was saying, man, this guy actually
really pays a whole lot of attention to what the secular institutions
say about What interests young people? What interests Millennials?
What interests your Gen Xers? And what interests people? And
as he was explaining what the polls are saying, it became very
evident to me that this is precisely what the church is doing to try
to win them. because the church does not believe
that the Word of God is sufficient to draw souls accompanied by
the Spirit of God, make them hungry for God, and then bring
them into a right relationship with God. And the thing that
the church is suffering with is the idolatry of narcissism. You guys got that? The idolatry
of narcissism. Don't ever let any of what you
hear people teach and preach pass through the filter, I mean,
fail to pass through the filter of this axiom, does it glorify
God? It doesn't matter how good it
feels to you or me. If it doesn't bring glory to
God as the primary objective, it is a subtle false doctrine. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? See the gospel says that no flesh should glory in his
sight This is what you're going to learn on sunday. I raised
pharaoh up To show you my power And to help my knucklehead people
understand that they didn't save themselves. I saved them That
no flesh should glory in my sight. God will not allow the church
to glory Neither will God allow the sinner
that he redeems and saves by his grace To think that he or
she is the object of God's worship Which is what dominates the church
today. Most of our songs is about how much God loves me That we've got it completely
inverted Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying, this is what we call humanism and it's pervasive area
next question Pastor, so I was talking to someone
this week and he was saying how He was asking me how were people
saved prior to Christ's crucifixion and resurrection you know the
Saints of old and You know, he was arguing that people can still
be saved in that manner and I said, you know That it wasn't true
and he was saying I guess he's going to some kind of class where
they're teaching that And so I just kind of wanted to get
more to talk to him about because he was just saying that they
were having faith in obeying the commandments. And you don't actually have to
go to the Old Testament to affirm that. Remember, the Old Testament
and the New Testament are inexorably bound together. They are correlative
covenants. So that everything that was promised
in the old is fulfilled in the new and the new Constantly refers
to the old shedding interpretive light on the Old Testament ie
When we say that the just shall live by what? We have that as
a running paradigm all the way back to the first person that
was saved. Is that true? And that's the book of Hebrews
chapter 11, right? Faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen. Without faith, it's impossible
to please God. For he that cometh unto God must believe that he
is, and is a rewarder of them that diligently what? And if
Jesus said, Lo, I come in the volume of the book that is written
of me to do thy will, did he come in Genesis 1-1? Genesis
Genesis 1 26 and 27 Genesis chapter 2 7 to 17 3 19 20 and 21 and
all the way through the Old Testament in the types and in the figures
of the Sacrifices and the offerings and the Ark of the Covenant and
so forth all of those were revelations of Christ To which the believer
then attached his faith looking for the reality to come They
were never ever without a knowledge of Christ. I They were never
ever without a knowledge of Christ for the New Testament would say
that Abraham was saved the same way We are saved as Romans chapter
4 is Galatians chapter 2 which means your friend Is not studying
his Bible Because if you just read your New Testament carefully
Your New Testament explains the object of faith in the Old Testament
and the grounds of salvation being faith in the Old Testament
so that we are all saved by the same grace through the same faith
in the same object. The difference between us and
them is they were waiting for Jesus to come. We see that Jesus
has already come, but in a real sense, we're all waiting for
Jesus to come. That's what the end of Hebrews
11 is about. So that they, without us, should
not be made perfect until Jesus comes. So your friend's theology
is not only flawed, it's just deficient in actually acknowledging
what the New Testament says. Because the New Testament's language
is very clear on that. It never says that they put their
faith in an object other than God Himself and in Christ, whom
God the Father had revealed would come. It never says that. Otherwise,
why would the New Testament say, and this is He of whom the Scriptures
said would come? The whole glory of Matthew, Mark
and Luke and John in the opening passages, is this the Messiah?
Is this the Messiah? Is this the one we've been looking
for? Well, if they've been looking for him, he must have been taught
to them Right, right. So your friend is just tell them
come to the Saturday men's class. We'll straighten them out next
next next question And Christians ought to be able
to answer these questions, by the way, you guys ought to be
able to answer these questions These these are not these are not questions
for the scholar. You should be able to answer
these questions Are we saved differently in the Old Testament
than the New Testament? You should be able to dig up
those answers. Robert. Pastor, I was just wondering
in the book of Acts, we're going through Acts, a door opened to
speak. Is there a correlation in the 16th chapter of Acts where
the Philippian jailer, there was a great earthquake and all
the doors were open. You talked about that the Lord
opens the heart and He drew a sword to harm himself when he seen
and figured that Paul and Silas had escaped. And he came in and
fell down before them. And he asked Paul, sir, what
must I do to be saved? Paul spoke out and said, do not
harm yourself. That's right. We're here. That's
right. And I was just wondering, is that a correlation? Right.
And so all scripture is a correlation. It would depend on how you take
Acts 16 and frame it, or Acts 18 and frame it. Around the doctrine
of Doors opening for salvation. It is significant that all the
prison doors open But that then becomes a typological Pattern
or picture of the fulfillment of the promise we saw in isaiah
42 isaiah 48, right? Let the prisoners out Isaiah
61 in Christ's premier Messianic statement the Spirit of the Lord
is upon me and he has anointed me to preach good tidings unto
the poor to open the eyes of the blind and let the captives
go free so Liberation theology at its heart is what the gospel
does for us By inference then you and I are prisoners and slaves
of sin until God comes and get us gets us out, right? so the
Philippian jailer whose job was to serve the emissary called
the devil, typologically is like a false prophet or a false teacher
or a false church who locks the elect up in prison and God has
to come rescue his elect over and over and over again from
those who work for the devil who would bring you into captivity,
right? So in the midst of the prison, the apostle Paul and
Barnabas are rejoicing in the Lord because whether bound or
free, they're going to preach the gospel. And so what God did
was honor their joy and worship by busting the doors open to
let them know, though they be bound, the word of God is not
bound. And that Philippian jailer was
ordained to eternal life, as the rest of us are. And so he
saw the power of God. And yet he also saw the mercy
of God, because God did not allow those prisoners to put him in
a situation where he'd get his head cut off. Isn't God good?
Alright, one more question. One more question. Is that it?
Here we go. Right here. Right here. This
will be the last one. And those, and by the way, that's a great
observation, Robert, in terms of don't just read the narrative
on a historical level. Derive from those passages the
theological truth inherent. God didn't just give you those
stories for you to go, hmm, that's interesting. The gospel is in
those accounts. And one of the premier works
of the gospel is to liberate our souls from the bondage of
sin. And so those types are going
to be there. My brother. Yeah. I was just, uh, have a
question. Is there any, uh, scriptures
in the old or new Testament that explains why God allows innocent
people, mainly women in church from different countries and
different ethnic backgrounds to just be slaughtered and murdered?
Yeah, there's a bunch of scriptures, both in the old and the new,
to underscore that. That's a great question. In theology, we call
it theodicy. It's the doctrine of evil, why
God allows evil. We've been dealing with that.
That's a classical proposition and a question that everybody
has to think through. Remember what I told you two
or three weeks ago about the assumptions of the human race,
that man basically thinks he's what? You have to understand
the false presupposition of every human being. Because from those
false presuppositions arise these kinds of questions. Okay, watch
this. So the question is, why would
bad things happen to good people? Right? Well, God will say they
don't. Point number one. See now see
now at that point offense occurs because listen you and I are
trying to handle a Proposition that is so alien to our emotions. You mean little bitty babies
Right that hurts Wait a minute pastor. You just said god said
my baby is not good That's right, your baby is not good So now
follow this. Let's follow this through because
I want to recover you again because some of y'all are going to leave
me forever now. Follow the logic. And this is
where Christian theology has to stand its ground. And this
is where you have to learn how to think. You have to know when
people are driven by emotions and when they are actually driven
by intellect and rationale. This here is an emotionally charged
question. So you have to get some objectivity
around this and frame it right to help people understand why
the Bible would say that. So this will help. Why does the
Bible depict and why does the world experience the kind of
pain and suffering and evil that seems to be unbridled, that seems
to be chaotic, that seems to have no rhyme or reason, that
just seems to be massive and extreme all over the world? Isn't
that a valid question? Are you ready? Because of sin. That was a brilliant answer,
wasn't it? Because of sin. So now think this one through
too with me, Saints. This is why I took you to the
basic philosophy of humanism, and then a false sense of freedom,
and a false sense of power to choose. Mankind believes he's
good. Mankind believes he's free. Mankind
believes he has the power to do good or evil. 60, 70, 80% of Christians believe that too,
which goes to show you how unbiblical Christians are today around biblical
anthropology. Christians don't understand that
the ravages of sin from God's perspective was so horrible that
he had to wipe the world out in the days of Noah. And it grieved
him to his heart at what he had to do that he promised he would
never do it again. although he knew to leave a world
to exist for another 10,000 years as he has done, that he would
see what we see today. And because God is holy and pure
and impeccable in his attributes and characteristics, he cannot
naturally live with any kind of complacency about sin and
evil. His anger towards it is growing. That's called long-suffering.
Macrothymia is the Greek term that says the temperature is
rising, Because that's God's nature. And yet it's the consequences
of sin. And that's why he told his parents,
don't, Adam and Eve, our parents, don't do it. Because all the
evil that you and I are experiencing has one root. And that's sin. And that's the answer for it.
And here's the other thing about it. God knows that unless we
face the hideousness of it. Hey, too much noise back there.
God knows that if we don't face the hideousness of it, we will
paint it over and make it look good. Like the pig that you put
a bow around his head. It's still ugly. It still stinks.
It still will jump in the mire because it's his nature. And
the dog is going to still return to the wallowing and return to
his vomit because it's his nature. And when you and I are sinners
by nature, when we're sinners by nature, as we are, You and
I can commit the same hideous crimes as anybody else if God
took his hand off of us. In his mercy, he restrains us
all so that we all have these measures of what we call in philosophy
ethical breaks. Everybody's ethical break is
different. And this is part of the brokenness
of sin too. So psychologically you have sociopaths,
and people whose hearts are so capable of crimes without any
kind of sympathy or pathos without sin. And you and I would say,
hang him, but let your idol get challenged and see how quick
you want to protect your idol. See, and so what God does is
allow sin to get so bad that some of us are by the hideousness
of sin driven to God. We will not come to God until
he allows it to hurt It has to hurt It has her like
like I am contemplating, you know, the kind of evil that must
be brewing against my nation against my nation Can't even
I can't even imagine What what outbursts of the cloud of God's
justice is going to pour out on America for the evil that
we engage in? Spurning the privileges that
we have had in the truth that we've known But I know that God
does not change and while he is patient God does not wink
at sin and The outbreak is going to be tremendous When that damn
breaks It's going to be tremendous against the west I was watching
a program today about You know world war one and world
war two and how we dropped the bomb on hiroshima and our how
we like to We like to clean up our history and make it as if
we are always a moral country in our actions. And when you
look at the consequences of the two bombs that were dropped on
the Japanese, and you think about the argument that they make,
well, if we didn't do that, they'd break in on our shores and kill
all our people. I said, uh-uh. That's not a valid reason to
preemptively harm innocent people. Do you hear me? So in Christian
theology, we work through what is called a principle called
just wars, because God allows wars because of sin. Christians
can only affirm just wars. So our just war theses and theories
has to be completely comprehensive and take into account as many
variables as possible in relationship to the innocent, collateral damage,
rules of engagement when it comes to wars. We used to have that.
We don't anymore. We don't have rules of engagement.
We practice some of the most hideous kinds of warfare there
is. But why do we do that? Because
we're animals. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? Because we're animals. Like, to me, if governments go
to arguing and fighting, like the government of China and the
government of America, I recommend that we find an island somewhere
where just the government strap up and one on one end of the
island and the other on the other end and just let those governments
go at it. Why do the people have to be
the collateral damage for the insane policies that create all
kinds of ego that causes governments to rise up against each other?
Why do I have to send my boys to war? We had nothing to do
with those policies. Are you hearing me, Christian?
Are you hearing me, Christian? Because when we comply or simply
acquiesce, we are tacitly approving of what they do. This is why
you have to respect the protestors. You have to respect the protestors
because the protestors are concerned about the consequences and collateral
damage, the immoral part of wars. War is evil. And it should be avoided at all
costs, at all costs. But when you can teach people
to lower the value of human life and to just make it a commodity,
just a numbers game, this goes to show you how hard your heart
is as mine. We can watch it on the screen. Today, we killed
150 Iraqis. And we sit in there drinking
our soda pop, and it doesn't mean anything to us. Let that
happen in your neighborhood with your kids See how quickly your
heart wrenches at the idea of the death of a loved one and
and and and and and then we have the audacity to think that those
people shouldn't hate us and What wouldn't want to retaliate?
Do you hear what I'm saying and then in God's mysterious Providence
He's made it to where we have to go get the collateral damage,
the refugees, and the people that are now homeless and disenfranchised,
and bring them here. We bring in our adversaries right
here. We get ready to put him in school
and nurture him, get him nice and fat and healthy. And do you
think that they're going to just forget all that we did to their
own homelands? This is God's judgment on us.
Do you understand that? This is God's judgment on us.
More than that, this is the reason why you as a Christian must not
water your gospel down with politics. You must not make your politics
equal to your gospel because your politics is gonna send you
to hell So if I run across one of my
Syrian brothers, I run across one of my Libyan brothers I run
across one of my Iraqi brothers and and they are victims of and
they had nothing to do with this they heard they hated Saddam
Hussein just like our government did and But we go in there tatty
step up and they got pictures of all their kids blown to smithereens
And they got the evidences that we have dropped, you know bombs
from our drones and destroyed whole cities. They got all that
Don't you think it prudent on the part of a christian man or
woman? to speak gospel to those people To be biblical in your
conversation with them Watch this and not political Don't
you think it would be wise for Christians to hurry up and abandon
liberal conservative progressive Democrat Republic Independent
all that junk which is a dialectical process I told you that's really
designed to put you on somebody team that you didn't actually
want to be on a team being made to do something and affirm something
and identify with something that has actually nothing to do with
the glory of God and Whoever team you on you got to separate
the consequences from the enemy. Is that true? I And so christians
ought not to be on anybody's team, but jesus You should not
be on anybody's team, but jesus in this sense stay with me now
in this sense That when you talk to your adversaries As a christian
because christ is your king and commander. You're obligated to
let them know Wherever you and I are culpable We have to let
them know we're culpable If we did something wrong, i'm, sorry
If I personally or inadvertently put you in a position where you
were out, I'm very sorry because I would never want that to happen
to me. And so I'll share with you the gospel. All have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. You and me, so that I'm
not better than you and you're not better than me. And neither
one of us gonna make it apart from Christ. You see how the
gospel can actually fix that problem? You see how I can fix
it? Because see, they're actually gonna be feeling like they're
better than you. But you gotta quickly know them, let them know
that both of us is guilty. We actually both making war against
the God of glory who's on the brink of destroying us all. So
the gospel has the ability to reconcile us and nothing else
does. There's no other message that
can fix this world problem but the gospel. They have no solution
for sin. The pain of sin that goes so
deep in our souls, will you hear me? Can only be remedied by the
spirit of god and the atoning work of christ. What substitute
can you bring? That's going to actually bring
remedy to the soul We got the best dope in the world and it's
still not fixing his soul. Am I making some sense? Those
are superficial what I call synthetic comforters the only thing that
can reach the soul and cleanse it of sin and gradually remove
hatred Is the spirit of god as a consequence of the atonement
of christ And quite remarkably That's often what happens even
in that war torn situation God's elect are exposed among those
people They come to know christ And they're even willing to forgive
their enemies Isn't that amazing? So what I'm trying to help us
understand is when we contemplate evil, particularly on a geopolitical
level and on a social level, you don't want to try to have
a social remedy. There are no social remedies. Only God. God alone is the answer. This
is why at certain points countries ultimately bow down and let the
church come in. Because they try to do it without
the church for so long and then they open the doors for the church
because only the gospel can transform the heart. Help us put down our
swords and our spears and pick up pruning hooks and shovels
and start working. We end up being able to have
people living together of different ethnic groups and sociological
makeups like we are as a church family. in the world and not
have to fear that they're going to slit our throats. Is that
right? Well, I'm just telling you, telling
you right around the corner, right around the corner. Let's
pray. Father, thank you for this time. Thank you for this Bible
study. Grace us to think soberly, to learn how to work through
the issues. There are a lot of things going on in our world
and these questions are very good, very germane for us who
have yet to feel the weight of the pain of neglect and of sin
and of ambition and of control and of dominance, which the leaders
of the world engage in at the expense of the common people
on the ground. Help us to ever remain human. Help us to ever have hearts that
care about humanity. Help us to never be superficial
and wrapped up in numbers, since according to your word, you take
no pleasure in the death of the wicked, none whatsoever. And so our hearts are to be since
you've made us new creatures in Christ. As we go our way,
give us troubling mercies, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.