I'm in Acts chapter 9. We're
going to start back where we did a couple of weeks ago. Acts
chapter 9, verse 20. Let's see here. I think I'm going
to start back at verse 20, verse 19. Acts chapter 9, verse 19. And then move forward here. In verse 19, the text tells us,
And when he that is Saul had received meat, he was strengthened,
And then with Saul certain days with the disciples which were
at Damascus and straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues
that he is the son of God now all that heard him were amazed
and said is not this he that destroyed them which called on
his name in Jerusalem and came hither For that intent that he
might bring them down unto the chief priests, but Saul increased
more in strength and confounded the Jews which dwelt at Damascus,
proving that this is the very Christ. And after that, many
days were fulfilled. The Jews took counsel to kill
him, but their lane of wait and wait was known of Saul. And they
watched the gate day and night to kill him. Then the disciples
took him by night, let him down by the wall in a basket. And
when Saul was coming Jerusalem, He has said to join himself to
the disciples but they were all afraid of him and believe not
that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought
him to the apostles and declared unto them how he had seen the
Lord in the way and that he had spoken to him and how that he
preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus. And he was
with them coming in and going out at Jerusalem and spake boldly
in the name of the Lord Jesus and disputed against the Grecians
But they went about to slay him, which when the brethren knew
that, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him forth to
Tarsus. Then had the churches rest throughout
all Judea and Galilee and Samaria and were edified in walking in
the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost. They
were multiplied. Thus is the reading of God's
word. A number of points to be drawn out of this. I don't know
how far we'll get tonight, but I do want to revisit the fact
that when God converted Saul, and we are told in verse 9 that
he was strengthened, having fasted for a few days, now he enters
into a mealtime. And we are told that, verse 20,
straightway he preached Christ in the synagogue, that he is
the son of God. Fascinating, fascinating what's
taking place. And I think I entitled this outline,
if you have it, Saul, the new kid on the block, God uses whom
he wills. So I kind of want us to come
at this from that angle as we think about this new kid on the
block who was a terror to the church but has now been converted
by the indomitable grace of God, the power of God, which alone
can change the rebel heart, a heart that we all had by nature, if
we don't still have it, which was no different than Saul's,
or any other mad, insane person who would dare to live any Moment
in this world without the grace of God and yet what we're looking
at in verse 20 is a radical radical change of not only Motive but
of habit our behavior Saul immediately goes into the synagogue and begins
to preach that Jesus is the Son of God immediately and that's
worth marking because it's true that sometimes in our conversion
a We can be very slow to let people know that God saved us. And that true. We can even be
very slow in, you know, sharing the gospel. But but Saul is immediately
preaching the very gospel, which he opposed early on. And we have
to give credit to the grace of God and the spirit of God prompting
him to actually go back into the very lion's den into which
he was throwing Christians. He's in that den. He's not, Saul
is not preaching to people, as we're going to see, that are
amenable to truth. They are religious, but they're
not amenable to truth. They're not open to truth, especially
when that truth speaks against their assumptions and their views
and their ideas. But here he is right away entering
into the battle of biblical truth. And what that says to you and
me is this, that for Saul, there were a number of things working
in his heart that motivated him to this practice, this ethic,
this praxis of going right into the synagogues and telling men
and women about Jesus Christ. I mean, he did it right away. And so in our last outline under
preaching Christ, I dealt with the fact that in order to preach
the gospel consistently and faithfully, you and I have to have the spirit
of faith. That's second Corinthians chapter four, verse 13. If you
will go back there briefly, I just want to revisit that for us just
to refresh our minds. Why is Saul being as he were,
as it were now persistent in what he's doing, given the trouble
that he's about to get into, he's getting into some trouble
saints. he's getting into some trouble
for preaching the very one that he opposed in 2nd Corinthians
chapter 4 verse 13 he gives us a reason for which we share the
gospel here's what he says in verse 13 we having the same spirit
of what we possessing the same spirit of faith according as
it is written therefore we have what is called a pointer passage
in the Old Testament that says I believe and therefore I have
what I So Jesus said in the gospel of Matthews, out of the abundance
of the heart that the mouth what? And what we are attributing to
the passion and commitment to share the gospel with men and
women, even if it means entering into harm's way, is the spirit
of faith. We cannot share the gospel confidently,
consistently, when it's gonna cost us something without the
spirit of faith. We will not share the gospel,
by the way, constantly and persistently without this spirit of faith. And I would say, therefore, to
you that faith in this context is definitely a gift from God.
Wouldn't you say that? Wouldn't you say that it's a
grace of God for us to be able to share the gospel, even when
it's going to bring about trouble in our lives? And so God has
him as an arrow in his quiver, sharing the gospel to the very
people that he was a part of opposing that truth just absolutely
amazing thing and last time not only did I call our attention
to under the point of preaching Christ that it requires that
gift there's a second truth that I want us to deal with now not
only is it the spirit of faith but the other truth that we need
to deal with now is how Paul approached this thing I want
you to know what he did it tells us that that he went into the
synagogues and he started actually preaching Christ. And verse 22
says, Saul increased in strength more and more and confounded
the Jews which dwelt at Damascus. Now I want you to hear this last
line, cause we're gonna work with this a little bit. Proving
that this is the very Christ. So not only is he preaching Christ
by the spirit of God, producing faith in him that qualifies him
to be bold enough to talk about it. He now is employing something
that he, that God would call our attention to now to affirm
the authenticity of the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ
in that scripture, scripture. I want you to Mark this cause
this is going to be an interesting angle from which we are to discuss
this. Paul is Jewish, just like his Jewish constituency of whom
all this conflict is circumscribed. The men who are opposing the
claims that Jesus is the Messiah, that Jesus rose from the dead,
that Jesus is the one of whom all the prophets had promised.
There's a movement going about. The church has grown to 10, 15,
20,000 people. The Jews are opposing this on
every hand. And Saul now has to go back to
these people with this history and seek to prove to them that
the claims of Messiah are true. Here's what I want you to mark
that he does not do. He does not bank his argument
on mere experience. He is not simply debating with
his Jewish brethren because of his Damascus Road experience. He's not saying, brethren, it's
true because it happened to me. Now, see, theologically, what
we would say is our job is not to convince men and women that
Jesus is real. Are you ready? because he's real
to me. So, you know, we have the hymn
that says, you know, I know he lives, I know he lives because
he lives within my what? Well, that don't mean a thing.
Truth is not based upon our personal subjective reality. It may be
a reality for us, but it may not be someone else's reality.
And then, therefore, that for us to assert that a thing is
true merely because we experienced it forces another person to submit
to or acquiesce to what we're talking about on the basis of
mere experience. Now, watch this. We're not saying
that we don't experience Christianity. Here's what we're saying. that
our experience of Christianity is not the mechanism by which
people come to Christ. So I'm getting ready to show
you why the methodology and the approach that Paul is using is
so critical for you and me. That God did not choose, and
see, in evangelism, we make a distinction between what happened to you
and me by the grace of God and what it means to evangelize men
and women to the gospel of Jesus Christ and what it means to subsequently
bring them into a life of discipleship. For you and I to bear record
with God's grace in our own life is what we call witnessing. Witnessing. We say that we know
him experientially and personally, right? And that has to be true.
I would be a false witness if I did not actually experience
the grace of God. Is that so? I would be a false
witness. And so every believer is a witness
to the things that he or she or they have seen and heard.
They are witness to that. They are witness to the power
of regeneration that gives them a new nature, a new heart, a
desire to know God that reveals his glory to us. Did you guys
enjoy the conference last week? Right, and so our intentions
was to demonstrate how preaching Christ brings about these things. If you are a child of God, you
fully enjoyed what we said because you experienced what we said,
right? Revelation, a confirmation of
the perfections that are in Christ, the redemption that's in Christ,
the grace of God to help us put on Christ so we can win this
war. This is the life of the believer. For the non-believer,
however, your experience of grace is not what God uses to convert
them. What God uses to convert them
is the word of God. It's the exposition of scripture. This is what's going to be so
very important. as Paul deals with this category
of people. And as you and I are now gonna
be called to this matter of the word, the word, the word, the
word. And so Paul tells Timothy in
chapter, 2 Timothy chapter four, Timothy preached the what? The
word. And our master said in John 17,
17, father sanctify them in thy truth, thy what is true, thy
word is true. So now what's being introduced
into the equation of which our senses are gonna be exercised
tonight is that really we have to bring to bear upon people's
conscience what the word of God says. And trust that the spirit
of God will use the word of God to change their hearts and their
mind. And this is where you and I are gonna see a fascinating
dynamic. That's why I say, Saul the new
kid on the block, God uses whom he wills. Saul immediately is
in the throw of a major battle. Look at what verse, 22 says again,
but Saul increased more in strength. Do you see that? Who increased
him? God did. Where did he increase
him? In his mind, in his spirit. And the increase of strength
in Saul gave him the capacity to deal with all of the opposition,
all of the hostility and all of the assaults and antagonism
that came from his religious constituency. I think last time
in our outline, I said that what Saul is doing now is opposing
their basic premise. They have a premise, don't they?
And their premise was, as I said last week, is that Jesus is not
the Messiah. He is not Messiah. That's their whole argument that
you are declaring Jesus to be something that he's not. So stay
with me on that because this is Paul's battle. Remember, he
went down there to get Christians from Damascus because he didn't
believe Jesus was Messiah. He's now going into the synagogue,
telling them that Christ is Messiah, and he's now diametrically opposing
their premise. So here are the two fundamental
arguments And this is the premise and this is the conclusion. Jesus
was not the Messiah as the Jews would say. Now watch this. And
therefore what Saul is peddling is heresy. Jesus was not the
Messiah and therefore what Saul is peddling is heresy. That being
the case, here's what Saul must do. He must now challenge their
argument, prove the validity of his position dismantle their
argument and prove that their conclusions are invalid and that
their premise is flawed. This now becomes a debate that
requires the context of scripture since both sides are arguing
that they are people of the word. And what you and I are about
to see now is how the spirit of God is moving us into the
sufficiency of scripture to prove the claims of Jesus as Messiah. So as we begin to work with that,
what I want you to do, and this is our first PowerPoint, what
I want you to do is understand it's important and imperative
that you and I not depend upon our experience as we are sharing
the word of God with people, hoping that our experience would
bring them into a saving knowledge of Christ. Do not believe or
fall prey to what is an easy approach to talking to people
about God. It is very easy to talk about
how God saved you. And that's not wrong in and of
itself, but that's not the way to bring men and women into a
saving knowledge of Christ. You've got to be able to show
them what the scriptures say about Jesus. That's the ultimate
job of the Christian. Where the word of God is going
to be powerfully efficacious and bringing men and women into
a saving experience is for you to be able to say, are you ready?
The Bible says this, this is what the word of God says. and
then either be able to show it to them in the Bible or quote
the word of God. It doesn't matter which one.
If you have the word with all hidden in your heart and you
can utter scripture, declare scripture, wherever it comes
from, they need to hear the word of God because faith comes by
what? And hearing by what? That's right.
So the word of God has to come out of our mouths into their
hearing. That's the mechanism by which
God now grips the soul because you and I have no authority in
our words. We can influence people emotionally
and we can actually get them to buy into our fervor and our
passion and our zeal, but we can't bring them out of darkness
into His marvelous light. We can't raise them from the
dead. But there are three agencies the Word of God uses for raising
men and women from the dead. Men and women are born again
by God the Father. The Father quickens whom He wills.
According to john chapter 5 many women then are born again by
the son the son quickens whom he wills That's john chapter
5 john chapter 17. And then we are all born again
by the spirit of the living god It's the spirit that quickeneth
The flesh profits nothing. It's the spirit that quickens
and the spirit always quickens through the words That's John
chapter six. So all three persons are involved
in your salvation, father, son, and Holy Ghost. And they always
use the word of God to bring about your salvation in minds.
So if you and I are going to be vehicles by which people are
actually converted, we're going to have to be able to know the
word. I just want you to watch now how this works. Jesus was
not the Messiah. That was their basic premise.
Paul has gone heretical. Let me show you the argument
in Acts chapter 24 where Paul now is for the Third time getting
ready to go into the chamber hall of judgment to be critiqued
and analyzed by his Jewish brethren for preaching the gospel for
the second time. This will lead him ultimately,
in the presence of Felix, this will lead him ultimately to Rome.
He will argue for this. In Acts chapter 24, I want you
to mark what it says in verses 3 through 5. This is the argument
that is being raised against Saul. And here's how they describe
Jesus Christ, and also describe Saul, who now is an emissary
of Jesus. Let me start at verse one and
just make my way through. And after five days, Ananias, the
high priest, descended with the elders and with a certain orator
named Tertullius, or Tertullus, who informed the governor, this
is Felix, against Paul. And when he was called forth,
Tertullus began to accuse him, that is Saul, who now is Paul,
saying, seeing that by thee we enjoy great quietness, speaking
to the governor, and that very worthy deeds are done unto this
nation by thy providence, speaking to the governor. You know what
he's doing, right? Kissing his butt. You gotta see that, right?
You understand brown nosing, right? Okay, so Tertullian, this
eloquent orator, is kissing the butt of Felix in preparation
to kill an innocent man. at the behest of the high priest
of the Jewish people. Let's just keep the context clear.
Verse three, we accepted always and in all places, most noble
Felix with all thankfulness. Verse four, here it is. Not withstanding
that I'd be not further tedious unto thee. I pray thee that thou
wouldest hear us of your clemency, a few words. This is what we
call the blithering empty words of a fool. Now let's get to the
real issue. Verse five. For we have found
this man a pestilent fellow. Talking about Saul and a mover
of, here's the word, sedition among all the Jews. Talking about
the impact of his preaching and teaching among the Jews because
the impact as we're going to see has moved some to the left
and some to the right. It has hardened some and it has
gloriously saved others. It has created a real sedition
all because he opened the scriptures and dealt with the false argument
that Jesus is not the Messiah. So now mark what he says. Well,
we have followed We have found this man a pestilent fellow and
a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world.
Now this Greek word here is not cosmos. It's talking about the
whole known world of the Roman empire and that part of the Middle
East of which the Jewish people had their residence, okay? And
a ring leader, here it is. Paul is called a ring leader
of the what? Sect of the Nazarenes. That's the view that the jews
had concerning jesus. He was a heretical sect leader
And if that's true He the jews are making paul a heretic Is
that right? Watch what it says over in verse
15, I believe Look at verse 14. It's verse 14. Watch this now
paul gets a chance to speak after tertullus condemns him And here's
what he says over in verse 12. Are you there? Well, he's defending
himself and that starts back at verse 10. Let me start at
verse 10. Then Paul, after that the governor had beckoned unto
him to speak, answered, for as much as I know that you have
been of many years a judge unto this nation, I do the more cheerfully
answer for myself, because that thou mayest understand that there
are yet but 12 days since I went up to Jerusalem to worship. And
when I went up, they found neither me in the temple disputing with
any man, neither raising up the people, neither in the synagogue,
nor in the city. What Paul was saying was, I am
not the troublemaker that they are making me out to be. I didn't
go in there disrupting them on purpose. I was very tactful in
my presentation of the gospel where the doors were open in
the synagogue and a man was allowed to stand up and give a word to
the brethren. It was that activity that created
all the mayhem that ran out into the streets that created people
wanting to kill me, both Jews and Greeks. So what Paul is doing
is saying, listen, the way Tertullus has painted the picture as if
I'm just a mischievous man wanting to create trouble in the church.
Point of application to you, my brethren. Our job is never
to create mayhem, discourse, sedition. uh, hostile outrages
and divisions among people, whether they are true churches or not.
The gospel is never sown in the context of proud antagonistic,
uh, overt sort of confrontational preaching. You don't go up into
people's organizations and structures and just start fighting with
them. That is not the Christian way. It is not the biblical way
and it's not the effective way. None of God's servants ever did
that. Don't you do it. We're called men of what peace. And so we preach peace because
we are men of peace and we do it in the context of peace as
you're going to see tonight. But a rule I have taught my guys
for years here at grace, when they're teaching and preaching
at other places, you only preach and teach in other places. If
they open the door for you to do it. You don't kick nobody's
door in. You only go in when the door
is open. And when you go in, you use every form of respect
for the structure you possibly can. And you simply do your job,
preach and teach and create no other conflict. Let the gospel
do what the gospel is going to do. So the Bible tells us in
the book of James chapter four, I believe chapter five, chapter
four, that the fruit of righteousness is always sown in peace to them
that are making peace. So when we wanna see the good
fruit of the gospel take place in the lives of men and women,
we know that it's only gonna be done where God opens the door
for us to share the word of God and it's sown in peace. The strife
always will occur with those who oppose the gospel. You got
that? We're gonna see that as we make
our way through the text. But here's what Saul says in
verse 14. After that, he says, neither can they prove the things
where of they now accuse me. Verse 13, fascinating. If I'm
just dealing with the basic logical principles of argumentation,
you set forth your accusation, you give all of your evidence,
and then here comes the person against whom you are raising
these charges, and he says, what they said is not true. He has
a right to defend himself, does he not? We call that apologetics.
And then what Saul says is this, neither can they prove it. First
of all, he's saying they're lying, And then he's saying, I am willing
to demonstrate that they cannot prove what they're saying to
be true. That immediately shuts their mouth. Cause he knows that
the picture that they were painting was a distortion of the facts.
It was an ad hominem attack on this person because of what we're
going to get ready to have our sisters exercise on going back
to our tax. And that's because they were
hit with such great clarity of biblical truth. around the person
and work of Christ from the scriptures, that the only thing they could
do was show themselves to be the devils that they were. So
here's the next verse that we deal with, verse 14. But this
I do confess unto thee, that after the way, which they call
what? See, that's our second premise.
If Jesus is not Messiah, then everything that we're teaching
about Jesus has to be what? Heresy. Now, just in case you
don't know, the word heresy needs to be understood in this generation.
And it is actually a transliteration of the Greek word heresy. Heresy
is where we get the word heresy. And it means to choose. That's what heresy means. I want
you to mark this because you're getting ready to learn something.
I taught this years ago. Heresy. is always the choice
that is not the truth. Heresy is always the choice that
is not the truth. So let me develop that for just
a moment. They're saying that Jesus was
a ringleader of a sect. He was a kook who starts a religion
that undermines turns over all of the views and traditions of
Judaism. Paul is going to prove that that's not true. He didn't
come to destroy the law. He came to perfect it and fulfill
it. We can demonstrate that in the
scriptures that his people are troublemakers. Paul will demonstrate.
No, we're not troublemakers. In fact, our master told us to
follow decorum and principles of relationship all the way through
the kingdom. If people open the door and go in, if they don't
shake the dust off your feet, keep moving. Don't create trouble.
We have an ethic with the gospel as the people of God. But thirdly,
our claims that Jesus Christ is Messiah is validated by our
own experience of the new birth in our life in conjunction with
a greater authority, and that is the word of God. Now we are
willing to sit down with men and women and talk about what
thus said the scriptures concerning the claims of Jesus Christ, which
are the most outrageous claims in all the world. For you and
I to say to men and women that Jesus is the son of God, ladies
and gentlemen, is quite a bit to chew off. You better have
an authority that can affirm those claims. Am I making some
sense? You're telling people that Christ
is the only object of redemption and salvation for all eternity,
minus everything else. You better be able to actually
demonstrate your conviction on that proposition based on something
that's credible. And we call the scriptures that
credible evidence. Not only is the scripture credible in that
intrinsically, the scriptures are infallible, inerrant, verbal
in their plenary inspiration to us. that the scriptures are
the power of God by which he brings men and women into a persuasive
conclusion that indeed that what these people are saying is true.
That's why we use the scriptures. But Paul is going to be using
the scriptures along the lines that would bring him to this
point in a fascinating way. So here's what it says again
in verse 14 before we go back, but this, I confess unto you
that after the way in which they call heresy, So worship I the
God of my fathers Watch this now believing all things which
are written in the law and in the prophets So you know what
he's doing he's talking to a secular judge about a theological issue
in the face of theological opponents who say they hold to the same
text that he does and he's saying now let's go to the book and
prove our arguments and That's all he said the first time let's
go to the Word of God Because my hope is really the hope of
these people only the problem is they don't even understand
that their hope is rooted in my gospel That's what Paul is
doing. And again, ladies and gentlemen
for you and me what this is about is making sure That our faith
is constantly nurtured by the Word of God Can I tell you why
going not going on back now because he can he will be arguing for
the resurrection The hope of Israel is the resurrection Christ
is our resurrection. Therefore Christ is our hope.
He's the hope of Judaism He's the hope of Christianity. He's
the hope of the world going back to Acts chapter 9 here is why
you and I want to be able to handle the scriptures effectively
when it comes to sharing our faith and Because right now where
we are, we are in the birthplace of what will be just a growing
melting pot of religious views with religious doctrines that
will actually last for thousands of years. uh, ideas and notions,
different denominations, different sex, different groups will hold
different views about Christianity up to our present day in the
evangelical church. We have something like over 2000
denominational branches where people hold their little pet
views about what they think God is. And then outside of Christianity,
we got something like 200 to 300 different religious groups
in the world of where, of which people say they know the way
to God. Now what that means is the devil has done a great work
at making multiple ways to God. Are you following me so far?
Cause this is going to get back to the basic definition of the
word heresy. So I had said earlier that the
word heresy literally means to choose, to choose. That's what heresy literally
means. Now, when God comes to you with this truth, he does
not tell you to choose. He tells you, this is the truth. I want you to hear this now.
God does not come to you with the truth and tells you to choose. He tells you, this is the truth.
Now, are you following me for a moment? Let me show you something
now, because men don't understand this, but we've got to understand.
If God comes to you and me, and tell us to choose, he's actually
affirming heresy. Are you ready? Because we will
always choose the wrong thing. When God comes to you and me,
he tells us this is the truth. When we reject that truth, we
have chosen and our choice is always heretical. How do we know
that what I am saying is true? We go back to the beginning of
time. We're gonna learn a lot about that as husbands and wives
tomorrow God gave Adam and Eve his first son and daughter a
wonderful wonderful tenure business Franchise company made them to
run it. He's still owner made them to
run it He says all of the trees of the garden. You can just enjoy
he didn't say choosing him. He said enjoy him. I That was
a picture of grace. They didn't earn it. He gave
it to him freely. Are you there? And they knew that that that
that that garden with all of these trees was filled with two
other trees, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. Are you hearing me now? Watch this. When they
came to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they actually
chose. Did they not? They chose. Do you know what we call choosing?
Heresy. It's endemic even to our first
parents to make the wrong choice. The tree of life was right there
next to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They were both
in the middle of the garden. Now man stands between life and
knowledge. And what did he do? He chose.
This is how insane we are by nature. Because Adam had life
and had he actually consummated that life by the tree of life,
he would have been perfect for all eternity. But he chose and
in choosing heresy is the result. Are you guys following what I'm
saying? And so there is no choice between the truth and that which
is not the truth. The truth is the truth, and that's
what we all ought to be submitting to. And when we don't, we have
now committed heresy. But the goal of the devil is
to give you and I 50, 60, 70, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500 different choices. Now watch
this. And if it's left up to you and
me, we will always choose the wrong thing. This is why salvation
must be by the grace of God, taking the truth and penetrating
your life with that truth in a saving way as to take away
your choice. Did you hear what I just said?
God has to come to you in such a powerful revelation of who
he is that there is no choice. This is the only truth there
is. That's the solution that Christians
have. Christians are weighing out whether or not Buddha and
Jesus, which one should I choose? No, Jesus is so overwhelmingly
clear to us as the truth. that there is no choice. Every
other choice is heresy. And this is what makes the storyline
of what we're getting ready to deal with now in terms of Paul's
passion. Are you back at Acts chapter
nine? And you can leave your PowerPoint up there. Paul's passion
to go back into his community and actually share the word of
God with them is based on love. Stay with me for a moment. Now
let's, Saul is an absolutely amazing person to me. What kind
of impact did Christ make on the heart of this man? That he
was immediately ready to put it in reverse and undo everything
that he had done that was wrong and use all the powers of his
prestige and his position and his history with his Jewish brethren
to appeal to them on this basis, brethren, we have made a wrong
choice. Are you hearing me? We are committing
heresy because God didn't come to us with two Jesuses. He came
to us with his son and said, this is Messiah. And we chose
other. You remember what our master
said in John chapter five? It's probably around verse 40
and verse 39. We have this as a hermeneutical ethic. You are
searching the scriptures and in them you think you have eternal
life But they are they which testify of me and then verse
40 says but you will not come unto me that you may have life
Now watch verse 41 if another another another Heresy come in
his own name him you will follow Is that what the text is Him
you will follow Him you will follow. And so, and so my point
is, is that, um, when you and I are confronted with Jesus Christ,
it's not an option. They're not a choice. He's the
truth. And if we choose anything else,
then we are dealing with heresy. And so Paul out of love now goes
back to his people group and he does something absolutely
fascinating. Going back to our PowerPoint
where I started with the preaching of Christ, the spirit of faith,
That next little line, and this is your previous PowerPoint,
you won't see this in this outline here, I don't believe. I do have
by the scriptures and that may successfully do what I needed
to do. But in our previous PowerPoint,
I use this phraseology, just leave that up there for a moment.
I use the phraseology in our previous PowerPoint, putting
together the what? The scriptures. So I wanna talk
about This for a moment because Luke uses some very technical
language that evades us and I just want to run through the verses
that underscores Paul's methodology for communicating to his Jewish
Jewish brethren in verse in chapter 9 verse 23 22 rather the last
part it says and Having confounded the Jews which are at Damascus
proving that this is the very Christ. See that little word
proving? That's our word for putting together the scriptures
in such a way as to draw an undeniable conclusion as to who Messiah
is. So the translators translated
this Greek word, which is a compound word to proving because the net
result of this labor was we have an undeniable proof just by virtue
of how we put the scriptures together, that this must be the
truth about Jesus. He was putting scripture here
and scripture there, showing them that the Old Testament was
pointing to Christ and how that everything in the Old Testament
corresponded to his person and his work. The Greek term means
to bring together, to coalesce, to knit together in such a fashion
as to draw a conclusion that this has to be the case. And
I want to just show you a few verses in the book of Acts that
underscores that. Go with me in your Bible to Acts
chapter 16, verse 10, Acts 16, verse 10. Again, the emphasis
is on the labor that the apostle went through from Genesis to
Malachi to demonstrate that Jesus was the son of God. Jesus was
the Messiah. such a cogent coherent fashion
that the Jews were dumbfounded and put to silence at the manner
in which Paul handled the scriptures so in Acts chapter 16 verse 10
here's what it says And this has to do with Paul receiving
the vision to go into Macedonia. You remember that man standing,
calling him over, starting at verse eight, and they passing
by Mysia came down to Trilas, and a vision appeared to Paul
in the night. There stood a man of Macedonia, praying him, saying,
come over into Macedonia, and what? Help us. Now look at what
verse 10 says. And after he had seen the vision,
Immediately, we endeavored to go into Macedonia. Watch this. Assuredly gathering. That's our same Greek word for
proving. Assuredly gathering. You know
what they did after they saw the vision of this man calling
them? They considered the nature of
their missionary excursion and the difficulty of them going
where they wanted to go and how the door was opening up for them
to go to where they initially did not want to go, compounded
by this man waving them on. So this man waving them on becomes
a sort of analogy of the Spirit of God that directs us into the
will of God so that we draw the conclusion, this is the way God
wants us to go. So now take that and transfer
that to Exposition of the scripture and exegesis of the word of God.
You know how we all want to do a better job at interpreting
the word of God, right? Do you know you need the help
of the third person to rightly divide the word of God? You need
the spirit of God when you're studying and you're praying and
you're reading to help you draw proper conclusions. You need
that Macedonian man to lead you into a right conclusion as to
what the text is saying so that you can land there and be blessed.
This is what Paul was experiencing when once he went back and started
studying the scriptures in the heat of the battle of his Jewish
brethren saying, Jesus cannot be Messiah. Can you imagine what
he'd do? He'd go and read the old Testament
and the spirit of God would lead him to Genesis and then lead
him to numbers and then lead him to some of the minor prophets
or lead him to the Psalms. And he would start putting the
scriptures together. Any of you guys know what I'm
talking about? Putting the scriptures together and that coherent, cogent
process of verse by verse by verse with similar points of
reference, maybe different historical context, but the same themes,
the same subjects and the same conclusions all amounting to
this. This is Jesus here, this is Jesus
here, this is Jesus here, this is Jesus here, and this is Jesus
here. And this is what he was doing
with his Jewish brethren. He would take them back to Genesis
and say, hey, hey, hey, Jesus is right here. Where? He's the
tree of life. Hey, hey, hey, Jesus is right
here. Where? He's the lamb that the father slew in order to cover
these sinners with coats of skin. Hey, Jesus is the ark of the
covenant and on and on and on all the way into Exodus Leviticus
numbers in Deuteronomy and as he is sharing the Word of God
the Spirit of God is just strengthening his inner man with revelations
and clarity a biblical true that he becomes bolder and bolder
as he communicates that truth to his Jewish brother see because
his Jewish brethren have the scriptures, but they don't have
the key Paul's got the key And he's unlocking all of the mysteries
in those passages that were making no sense. Demonstrating what
Jesus said, lo, I come in the volume of the book. It is written
to me to do thy will. Oh God, fulfilling scripture
after scripture, after scripture, after scripture, after scripture.
Now watch this, watch this now. And the Holy ghost was bearing
record in the conscious of those Jewish men without converting
them. The spirit of God was working
through Paul. to mightily prove to them that this is true, that
they cannot refute. See, they didn't acquiesce to
it. This is another part we're gonna get ready to get to. But
what they could not do is invalidate his argument. He showed them
from the scriptures, their very own scriptures, why it is absolutely
appropriate for us to come to this conclusion that Jesus is
the Messiah. Now they are gripped because
he's just taking the scriptures out of their hands and place
them where they are rightly to be. in the hands of the spirit
of God as he shines a light on the person and work of Jesus
Christ. That's what the idea means. So here in our text when
it says, assuredly gathering, you and I wanna be able to assuredly
gather biblical texts, bring them together to draw a conclusion
as to the centrality of Jesus Christ as the message of the
word of God. Is that not true? Now, then I wanna show you again,
go with me in your Bible now to Acts chapter 17, verse three,
Acts 17, verse three. Now see, this was Paul's method
as he went everywhere preaching and teaching. In Acts chapter
17, verse one. Now, when they had passed through
Amphiphilius, Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica,
where was a synagogue of the what? That was Paul's practice. Remember, to the Jew first, then
also to the what? That's right. And Paul, here
it is, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath
days." That's three weeks in a row. Here's the word reason. This is the word we get, dialogizomai,
where we dialogue and reason about truth. It was a dialogue. He would go in and say, brethren,
can we discuss these things? You can't get that today. Churches
are not willing to discuss doctrine today. They've got their fences
up. They've got their walls up. They
got the barriers up. You won't get freely today open
dialogue as to what people's views and positions are. Because
they might be overthrown and be proven to be faulty. So here,
the apostle understood that there was a practice in the Jewish
synagogues where an individual could come in, take a seat, and
the brethren would ask, is there any man here who has anything
to say? And he would stand up and say,
I do, brethren. You know that scripture you just
read from? That scripture is about Jesus. And everybody would
get blown back. And he said, can I prove to you
from the scriptures that this is about Jesus of Nazareth? and
he would go verse by verse by verse and tie it all together,
proving that this was the Messiah. Listen to what it says here in
our text. He reasoned with them out of the scriptures. Look at
verse three, are you there? Opening, see that word opening? That's the idea of taking the
text, presenting it to the people in the light of who Christ is,
verse by verse by verse by verse, opening and then alleging. He
would say, now this is what this meant. And this is who it's talking
about. This is what this meant. All
of the blood sacrifices, all of the symbols, all of the types,
all of the shadows, all of the ceremonies, all of these things
pointed to Jesus. And he would open the scriptures
and he would allege from the scriptures that these things
are about Jesus. Listen to how he says it. Opening
and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered and risen
again from the dead and that this Jesus, whom I preach to
you is Christ. So here, he does an amazing thing
here. Again, the central subject to the Jewish people was the
resurrection. That was the central subject.
This is the hope that was talked about in Acts 24. They had hope
in the resurrection. He says, I have the same hope
of my brethren. We believe in the resurrection.
What they did not believe was that Jesus is the resurrection.
Remember what Jesus said to Mary and Martha at the death of Lazarus?
Jesus said, Your brother Lazarus will live again. And they said,
we know that we're Jewish. We believe in the resurrection.
Jesus said, no, no, no, no, no. Not the resurrection on the last
day. Lazarus' hope is not in a day. It's in a person. Lazarus
will live again because I am the resurrection and the life.
They couldn't get with that. Even though they can get with
Messiah, because they weren't able to tie the resurrection
to a person, they were only tying it to an event. But when once
Jesus called Lazarus out of the grave, it became clear that life
is found in a person, not in an event. Now they had a proper
understanding of the resurrection of which their Jewish brethren
will still blinded to. Paul takes occasion upon their
hope in the resurrection to tell them that Jesus is the one who
suffered and died and rose again. And we preach him as the hope
of the resurrection. And so this is what Saul did,
opening and alleging that Christ must need have suffered. Go with
me to chapter 18. Verse five and 28, just one more
text and we'll go on back. We got 15 minutes. In chapter
18, here's what he does as well, using this portion of scripture.
I'm gonna start at verse one and go through verse five. After
these things, Paul departed from Athens, came to Corinth and found
a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy
with his wife Priscilla, because that Claudius had commanded all
the Jews to depart from Rome. This is what we call the Jewish
persecution at that time. Came unto them and because he
was of the same craft. He abode with them and wrought
By work that is for by their occupation. They were tip makers
Here it is in verse 4 Here it is in verse 4 and in verse 5.
Are you ready? And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath
Now watch this. Here's the problem and persuaded
the Jews and the Greeks See the word and that text persuade and
It's because he got them to accept the ground rules of the Bible
being the authority upon which we reason these things out See
in other words if your opinion in my opinion is the absolute
authority I may never persuade you because your worldview may
be on a whole nother planet than mine but if we can actually establish
that the ground rules for authority and persuasion is the Word of
God if you stay within the rules and I might be able to persuade
you. Am I making some sense? These
are tactics of evangelism as well. I run across Christians
all the time who actually operate out of extra biblical worldviews.
They don't even know it, but I'll share with them. Do you
understand that presently you are thinking in a postmodern
mode that you're not holding a biblical worldview? One of
the things that I have to help new couples understand, and we'll
be dealing with this again in the marriage series. If you come
into a Christian marriage, holding a postmodern view of life. If
you hold to the view that it's possible that God made more categories
of sexual persons in male and female, you are going to actually
be militating against biblical marriage. Am I making some sense? In other words, if your worldview
is that we have as many categories as we want to conjure up as to
what constitutes our sexuality, well, that's going to impede
upon a biblical model of marriage because he made them male and
female exclusively. And that marriage biblically
can never ever be comprised of anything other than a real male
and a real female. and that from that premise of
a male-female paradigm, we call that a binary view of human sexuality,
proceeds the redemptive work of Christ represented in Christ
in the church. If I deny the binary truth of
the male-female species as the exclusive and limited expression
that God himself created and opened the door for a pantheon
of different sexual expressions, we now distort the mystery of
redemption in the area of Christ in the church. What is he marrying
if he's not marrying exclusively a woman as a man? Am I making some sense? And if
in fact I call myself a Christian, but I am holding a secular worldview
in many different categories, whenever the Bible speaks authoritatively
in my life, in that particular category, I'm going to be challenged
as to whether or not I want to submit to that biblical truth.
And initially that biblical truth is not going to make sense to
me because I'm holding a set of assumptions built on another
set of worldviews that actually militates against the scripture.
And I'm going to be upset. Why is the scripture telling
me to do this or believe this or practice this? When in fact,
this is what I believe that is holding to a secular or an extra
biblical worldview that doesn't correspond to the word of God.
So you see then what you and I are bound to do when we call
ourselves Christians is to start to think biblically. When we
are Christians, we are committed to biblical thinking. We have
to now subject ourselves to the authority of the word of God
and let it change our mind. Are you following me? If I am
Christian, I am committed to my mind being renewed in the
image of him who created me in true holiness and righteousness.
If I am Christian, I am committed to thinking like Christ. because
I have the mind of Christ. I am born again. If I am Christian,
I have the spirit of adoption whereby I cry, I'm a father,
which means I submit to him in filial love, a father instructing
his son. And the word of God now becomes
my expressed vehicle by which I communicate with my heavenly
father, by means of the spirit of God, it becomes the truth
now that governs my life. I don't have the option to hold
any other authority as the basis of my worldview. To do so is
what? Heresy. To do so is heresy. This is why what Paul is doing
is so critical for us. Paul is making sure that he does
not argue for the authenticity and the reality of the Christian
faith from experience or tradition or empiricism or any other grounds
other than the word of God. Are you guys following what I'm
saying? Which means the spirit of God took Saul and buried him
deep into the scriptures day one. You know what that means?
He immediately abandoned all of his Socratic and Platonic
theories of worldviews and phenomenology and logic and all of the different
disciplines that philosophy bring to you as to how to interpret
this world. He learned all that. He learned all that. But he immediately
abandoned it for the authority of scripture. Why? Because he
had read the scriptures all his life and they didn't make the
sense that they made until the revelation of the glory of God
impacted his soul on the Damascus Road that day. And when God allowed
the scales to drop from his eyes, when he read the scriptures that
very same day, The font size blew up as I told you from 11
font to 25 font and everywhere Jesus name was, it blew up twice
as large. The Holy Ghost showed him the
key to the scriptures and he was compelled in love to go back
to his Jewish brethren and say, hey, we chose. You got it? We chose and that's
what got us in trouble. God had already provided a lamb
as a sacrifice, and we chose. And this is where his argument
is. This is where his battle is too. Going back then to our,
let me see, did I actually deal with it? No, chapter 18, verse
five, I dealt with that. Now I wanna deal with verse 28,
one more verse, and then we'll go back and see what the outcome
is of this labor on the part of Paul was. So I'm gonna start
now in chapter 18 at verse 26 and go through 28. Are we there?
And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue, whom when Aquila
and Priscilla, this is talking about Barnabas, had heard, they
took him unto him and expounded unto him the way of God more
perfectly. And when he was disposed to pass
into Achaia, the brethren were exhorting the disciples to receive
him. who, when he was come, helped
them much, which had believed through grace. Now watch this,
this is Barnabas, right along with Saul. But watch Barnabas,
for he mightily convinced the Jews and that publicly, here
it is, showing by the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ. So
the Holy Ghost took Barnabas, dumped him into that same matrix
as Paul, showed them the glories of Christ and said, go and show
them what these scriptures say. and they became a tandem for
quite a while in the preaching of the gospel. Let's go back
to our text, chapter nine. I wanna show you the impact,
because we're not done understanding what the spirit of God would
have us to understand about the efficiency of scripture as the
mechanism by which we preach Christ and seek to convince men
of the word of God and its true claims. The Spirit of God will
certainly help you and me when we are able to rightly divide
the word, properly understanding that this book is about Jesus,
and then sharing it in all humility, but also with all efficiency,
declaring the true claims of Christ from the Word of God.
God will use that, but there are battles with which we are
gonna be confronted when it occurs. Now, how many of you know, like
I know, that very seldom, whenever you share the Word of God with
people, Do they automatically capitulate, submit and receive
the truth? As a whole, by and large, when
you share the word of God with people, if God has not prepared
their heart to receive that truth, I want to help you now. I want
to help you now. I want to help you. You just made an enemy. I want to help you now. Because
I want you to see that while we are enjoying what God has
done through Saul, who now becomes Paul, what Paul basically has
done is actually opened up the warfare and increased its intensity
against him. I want you to see how this works. I'm in Acts chapter 9, verse
22, and I'm going to make my way down to verse 25. Are you ready? Saul increased
more and more in strength and confounded the Jews which dwelt
at Damascus, proving that this is the very Christ. And after
that many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to follow
Paul in obedience of faith and the crown rights of Jesus Christ.
Is that what your Bible says? All right. See what happened? See what happened? This is powerful. They were ready to kill him.
His going into the synagogues. Now watch this. and confounding
them. That's what the text said. He
confounded them. He confounded them. What that
means is he shut them up. Actually, the way this verb works
is really interesting. What he did was cause them to
actually lose internal confidence. That's what confounding does.
It caused them to lose an internal sense of confidence where they
didn't have the ability that he had to put the scriptures
together to oppose his conclusions. And what that does when you are
confronted with truth, which actually demolishes your position,
is it confounds you. Here's what you're dealing with
when once you are confronted with truth, you're confronted
with this reality. I was deceived. I held to a wrong view of what
this text taught because somebody did not teach me the Christocentric
conclusion of this text. And I thought for sure I was
solid, but another has come along and convinced me that I was wrong. And when you and I, out of just
a natural principle of self-preservation, are exposed to be wrong, it confounds
us. Because you are rushing to find
a way to save yourself, or save your doctrine, or save your teaching. But the scriptures are running
from you just as fast as you're trying to hunt them down. They
are telling you, no, no, we are free from you now because our
rest is only in the person of Christ of whom you did not preach. I'm saying the scriptures are
saying that. Are you hearing what I'm saying? Free from the
man or the woman who has hogtied the verses to make them say something
in order to peddle their pet views. which is not rightly dividing
the word, it's actually distorting and corrupting the scriptures
and bringing them into captivity to human reasoning. And when
once they are liberated to be brought into their proper place,
and that is underneath the reality and fulfillment of Jesus Christ,
even the scriptures are happy. The man or the woman that is
confronted by biblical truth, when you carefully, cogently,
and clearly set forth what the scriptures say, You confound
them. You confuse them. You humble
them. Now stay with me for a moment.
To my evangelistic brethren, that's not where we want to leave
people. But that's where they will go
when they are fighting to hold to their doctrine. Are you with
me so far? And we have to accept that excursional
process. When I'm sharing the word of
God with people and I know they're holding to error, and I have
done this a lot of times, show them the fallacy of their premise
and their conclusion, and they sit there kind of flabbergasted,
and I don't get them to simply say, you know what? You are right. Then all of the emotional and
psychological mechanisms come into play. They don't admit that
what I am saying is the truth. What they'll go is, I have to
think about that. Am I telling the truth? Now watch
this. They are confounded. I have to think about that. See,
they're trying to save themselves. They're drowning. They're drowning
in the confusion now of a baseless theory that they held that was
pulled from under their feet. They're drowning. Now they can
immediately be saved If they had the spirit of humility to
say, Lord, you're right, I'm wrong. He'd immediately save
them. Remember Peter sinking? He said, Lord, save me. But people
who want to hold to views that are not correct biblically have
to sink a long ways before they come to realize, you know what?
I held to wrong doctrine. And in some cases, if you're
not a child of God and we don't know who a child of God is, sometimes
People that we're dealing with are children of God. This is
what I know. If you're a child of God, eventually you're going
to come around. It never fails. You will be mad at me for a while,
a week, a month, a year, some many years. If you're a child
of God, you're coming around because God has chosen you unto
salvation through sanctification of the spirit and belief of the
truth. You're going to come around, but by the time you come around,
you're going to be so persuaded that your salvation is all of
grace because of your antagonism and antipathy to the truth. When
in the pride of your continence, you were holding to a false view.
Am I making some sense? And this is true for all of us.
And this is what Paul is dealing with. But now if you and I are
not Christian and we're playing church and we're holding to doctrines
that we are making to amount to our salvation, and not the
person of Jesus to whom those doctrines point. Now, I want
you to get this now. If we are professing Christians
but are not truly born again and we are holding to doctrines
that amount to our salvation and do not point to Jesus, who
is the substance and essence of our salvation in person, then
somewhere along your journey, you're going to get hit with
the truth. and be shown that you had bought into a lie. And
you're going to have to reckon with that truth. And if you die
unconverted, you know what you had done? You chose. You chose. Am I making some sense? Because
remember, heresy means to do what? To choose. See, what you
and I don't ever want to do is tell God what we believe. You don't ever want to say, God,
this is what I believe. You're going to hell for sure.
You're going to hell for sure. You're going to hell for sure.
Because the God of truth, listen to me now, the God of truth by
nature is right. And when he comes to us, he doesn't
come to us with the choice of him or other. He comes to us with the truth
and says, Bo, and then you and I get to discover whether or
not we're his sheep. My sheep hear my voice. See, this is why I've told my
brother, the reason we preach sovereign grace, the electing
love of God, the atoning work of Jesus Christ, the irresistible,
irresistible, irresistible, indomitable work of the Spirit of God to
bring men and women to himself is because that's what's modeled
in the Word of God. When Jesus went to Andrew and
John and James and Peter, he didn't say, do you guys want
to follow me? Would you make a decision to
follow me? Had he left that door open, they
would have said, no, we got a good business going on here. We don't
want to leave it. Here's what he said. Imperatively
follow me. And you know what the text said?
Straightway, they dropped their nets and followed him. That is
the authoritative command of the spirit of God in the life
of every one of God's chosen sinners. When they hear the gospel,
they understand it not as an option or a choice, but a command. And because he has made them
new creatures in Christ, they follow him. Are you guys following
what I'm saying? This is critically true. Remember, Christ didn't
come to Saul and say, Saul, I got a bargain that you cannot beat. Would you pretty please join
my team? Remember what he said? Saul,
it's hard for you to kick against the goal. I've called you to
my army. And what'd he say? Lord, what
would you have me to do? This is what we're talking about
here. What the gospel does is comes to you in authoritative
power to simply expose whether or not you're his sheep. Are
you hearing what I'm saying? Whether or not you're his sheep.
So I got just a few more things. I just want you to see here and
we'll come back and work this through next week. So notice
what it says. And after that many days were
fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him, but they're laying
in weight was known of Saul and they watched the gates day and
night to kill up. You see what that kind of preaching
and teaching had done, by the way, subtly. in your outline,
pull up the PowerPoint again. I just want to show my brothers
and sisters something that Luke does here. And the Old Testament
scriptures do this too. This phrase here in verse 23,
and after many days, is a time sequel. Because if you and I
are not careful, what we might think is that after many days
is maybe a couple of weeks or a couple of months. But actually,
after many days here corresponds to about three and a half years,
okay? After many days corresponds to
about three and a half years. That's why point a say could
be years point B about three and a half years. You guys see
that now watch this could be years. I knew it was years because
Galatians chapter one gives us the actual chronology of what
takes place here. What Saul had done when he was immediately
converted was allowed to preach the gospel to his brothers at
Damascus who were Jewish. but over a period of time, which
was probably a few weeks later, he had gotten the news that they
actually wanted to kill him and he departed. Now what the text
tells us in Galatians chapter one is what he did in the departure.
And I simply want you to see that I'll deal with that part. And then we'll close for the
night and we'll pick up next week. Here's what he explains in terms
of this, his excursion from Damascus, to, um, actually the desert by
which Christ actually even more formidably taught him the gospel. I'm at a verse, uh, 16 of chapter
verse 15 of chapter one of Galatians. But when God, when it pleased
God who separated me from my mother's woman, call me by his
grace to reveal his son in me. That's at his conversion, right?
that I might preach him among the heathen, immediately I conferred
not with flesh and blood." That's a whole nother argument. He didn't
go up to Jerusalem right away. In fact, where we are in our
text, he starts in Damascus, then he goes away for three and
a half years. Then he comes back to Damascus
and it's 15 years total before he actually sees the Jewish apostles
in Jerusalem. During that 15 years he's doing
the ministry of which you and I will read from Acts chapter
9 all the way up to Acts chapter 11. It's in Acts chapter 11 through
15 that we now have Paul actually meeting the Jewish apostles with
the exception of Peter and John. So listen to how he puts it.
I want you to see this and we'll be done. Neither went I up to
Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me. Do you see
that? But I went into where? And then I returned again to
where? Ah, that's where we are in our text. So those two verses
actually encapsulate three and a half years in Acts chapter
nine of him leaving and coming back again. When the term after
many days is used, it's saying that for many days Saul had both
preached in Damascus, left and came back. Think about this now. Think about this now. You preach,
you impact people, you leave, you come back, it amounts to
three and a half years and they still want to kill you. Are you
hearing me? They still want to kill you.
And what I'm getting at here as I'm going to stop right here
is that Certainly it was not Saul's desire to have all those
people hate him. We don't want people to hate
us. Now, our primary objective is not for people to love us.
I just want you to get that now too. See, you're not winning
people to you. You're winning people to Jesus.
So be careful that you don't make yourself the object of their
love. Your them loving you won't increase
their chances of heaven. It might make it worse. OK, so
now just follow me now. Your job in mind is to be a vehicle
by which they come to love Christ. Am I making some sense? So I'm
not done. This is going to be interesting.
I'm done here. I'm not done with the objects of my evangelical
care. simply because I win a theological
argument. You guys got that? I'm not done
because I win the argument. That's why he went back. He knew
they hated him. He went back. The love of God
in him made him go back. He wasn't done because he won
a theological argument. Ladies and gentlemen, he went
back again and again and again And you're gonna see next week
how the love of the brethren when we're authentic christians
Is to care about each other so much so that they protected paul
From both the jews and the greeks. Didn't you read it earlier? The
jews wanted to kill him and the greeks wanted to kill him Isn't
that what's in texas? Ladies and gentlemen, that's
the whole world Your only companions are men and women who love God
like you do. And so as you heard, they took
him over to the wall and let him down in a basket that he
might escape, right? But watch this now. If Paul had
to, he would have turned right around and went back through
the front doors of Damascus in order to share the gospel with
those same Jewish brethren who hated him until they believed. See, again, my point is Paul
is an amazing example to you and me of absolute love for Christ. His love was strong enough that
he wouldn't stop at merely winning the argument. Because to win
the debate there logically is not the same as winning them
to Christ, as I shared with you last Saturday, I want to win
men and women to Christ. and to win them to Christ, you
have to be willing for a period of time for them to hate you. Like they hated our master. Am
I making some sense? All right, let me close in prayer.
How many of y'all coming out to the malls class? Ooh, that's
a lot. Y'all gonna have a good time
tomorrow. Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for
the truth as it is in Christ. And we thank you for the quick
work that you made in Saul's life. My goodness. He loved his
brethren, and we want to be able to say the same, even though
they may spit in our face and reject us for Jesus, not for
ourselves, but for Christ's sake. May we endure the opposition
of sinners against ourselves in the same way our master did,
that if it might be, some of them would come to know the Lord
Jesus. Grace us to be that kind of effectual witness and evangelist
of this great gospel of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
As we go our way, give us traveling mercies, we pray in Jesus name,
amen. God bless you.