Turn with me if you will briefly
to Acts chapter 14, Acts the 14th chapter. You recall in chapter 13 that
the spirit of God commanded the church at Antioch to send Paul
and Barnabas out to preach the gospel among the Gentiles. We'll
pick up in verse 21 of Acts 14. I'll paraphrase if you want to
read along. After preaching the gospel at Antioch, Pisidia, Paul
and Barnabas then came to Iconium and preached Christ there. They
went on to preach the gospel at Lyconia and Lystra, then went
to Derbe and back to Lystra, to Iconium and to Antioch, Pisidia
again, preaching the gospel of Christ, confirming the brethren,
and ordaining elders in every church. After that, they passed
through Pisidia and preached the word in Pamphylia, Perga,
and Italia. And then they returned to Antioch
in Syria to give a report of all the work to which they had
been sent and the work which they fulfilled being sent out
as God's messengers of Christ Jesus the Lord by that local
church at Antioch. That's still the way God does
his work. He raises up men whose gifts
are recognized by his people. Raises up men whose gifts are
recognized by his people. There's a big difference between
that and fellows volunteer to go be preachers. Men and women
who are with them, see them and observe them, recognize their
gifts, and God sends them out to preach the gospel. They're
sent out as ambassadors of the King of Heaven. That being the
case, our Lord Jesus, as he sent his disciples out, you'll remember
he sent them out two by two. He said, don't you go door to
door. Don't you go begging. I have for the last, oh, at least
half a dozen weeks been getting an email from a fellow. He's
decided the Lord has called him to go do missionary work in another
place. But I can't do it. Until I've
raised so much money, several thousand dollars got to be raised
to this. Don't you know, Brother Don, that it takes money to do
these things? I know that. I know that. But God's servants
don't go begging. They don't go begging. I don't
hesitate to ask you as individual believers, as a congregation,
to give generously to the cause of Christ and to give for the
support of missionary endeavors around the world wherever there's
a need. Call on you to do it. But I promise
you, I promise you, you will not hear this preacher ask anybody
to give him a dime so he can go do what God has commanded
him to do. If God sent me to do it, he'll
figure out some way to supply my needs. I don't have to. I
don't have to. You who were here when you first
called me as your pastor will bear me witness. You fellows
asked me to consider coming down here to be your pastor. I never
once raised a question about how or what you could supply
me with. That's of no relevance. That's of no relevance. The only
question is, is this where God had me to be? Is this what God
had me to do? And you can take a good look
at me and realize I haven't gone hungry. I'm doing fine. How does
that work? I just don't know, but it does.
It does. They sent Paul and Barnabas out
to preach the gospel, and they fulfilled the work to which they
had been ordained. Then in verse 27, when they were
come and had gathered the church together, gathered this church
at Antioch, Syria together again, They rehearsed all that God had
done with them and how he had opened the door of faith unto
the Gentiles. Now I want, if God will enable
me, to do something that's a little difficult. I want to give a report,
but I'm not just here to give a report. I want to give a report
of that which God has done with you sending your pastor to preach
the gospel in Ireland and England four weeks ago. I've been going
for Today makes four weeks. Somebody said that's as long
as you've ever been gone. That's as long as I've ever been
gone anywhere. And I think probably until I'm gone for good, that's
as long as I'll ever be gone anywhere. But I don't want to
just give a report. I want to minister to your souls
with the word of God's grace. But before giving the facts,
let me remind you of the reason. I commend you as a congregation
of believers. This assembly is exemplary in
your devotion to the cause of Christ, in the support of evangelistic
endeavors, missionary works around the world. You give generously
to support men who preach the gospel in other places, both
local churches in this country and missionaries elsewhere. You
have been faithful In helping other churches get established
in other parts of the world, in other parts of this country
particularly, you send out the gospel by the Grace Bulletin,
the tracks, books, the webpages, the audio, the video messages. I just checked just a little
while ago to see, I didn't look carefully at it, but the Free
Grace Radio just last month, just last month, over 15,000
sermons downloaded. Altogether, over 300,000 sermons
have been downloaded around the world. What's God doing? I don't
know, but he's doing something. He's doing something. And what
a privilege that he should allow us to have any hand in the work. Almost every week, you send me
somewhere to preach the gospel. You may not know it, most of
the places I go, are very small groups of people, most of them,
10, 12 people, often less than that, sometimes a few more than
that. I go to those places regularly where I think I can be of most
benefit and most useful. And I go there because you support
me and because I'm able to through your generosity. Several years
ago, Brother Rex Bartley, I was going up to I preached Brother
Mahan at Ashland New Year's Eve service and Rex met me at the
door and he said, man, I'd like to go with you, but I've got
to work. And I said, don't ever apologize to me because you've
got to work. If you didn't work and pay the bills, I couldn't
go. And I appreciate the fact that you work to pay the bills
so I can go preach the gospel of God's grace wherever I feel
like the Spirit of God has opened the door. Why would you do so? Why would you take that which
could provide more fun things and more luxury things from your
families and give to send a man to preach the gospel, give to
send a missionary to Mexico or to New Guinea or to St. Croix
or to any other place? Why would a man spend his life
energies? going wherever he can, preaching
the gospel. I'm often warned by cautious
friends, some who are preachers and ought to know better, you
just, you need to slow down now, you need to back off, you need
to take it easy. Not until I quit breathing. It's not going to happen. Why? Because this is what God put
me here to do. This is why I exist. Well, but if you do this, you
could do that. Wherever God opens the way, and
I have the strength, this is what we'll continue doing. So
that men might, through Christ, believe unto life everlasting. We devote ourselves to this blessed
work of preaching the gospel for the salvation of God's elect
to the glory of God, that sinners may know Jesus Christ our Redeemer,
that his people may be comforted, edified, and strengthened. As
I left here to go to Ireland and England four weeks ago, I
had these five things in my heart determined to do in every message
I preached. If God would give me grace, number
one, to glorify God Almighty. That's the business of preaching.
We preach for God's glory, to exalt and magnify the triune
God in the salvation of sinners by Jesus Christ the Lord. Number
two, seeking the salvation of God's elect. God has his sheep. They're scattered through all
the nations of the earth. And our business is to minister
the gospel of God's grace for the saving of his people. We're
seeking the salvation of God's elect. And third, I wanted so
very much to comfort, edify, and strengthen God's saints,
people like you with struggles and heartaches and heaviness,
a trial, comfort, edify, strengthen. Back 20, no, 32, 33 years ago,
Brother Mahan and I were preaching together in Appomattox, Virginia,
and I was working on a message for the evening, and Brother
Mahan came by. He said to me, he said, Brother
Don, forget those preachers out there
in the congregation. You're not going to teach them
anything. Most of them don't want to learn anything. Just
forget them. He said, in your mind's eye,
picture somebody sitting out there whose hands are calloused,
and his nails are dirty, and he doesn't have much education,
and he just lost his wife last week, and this morning found
out his son was killed. They got a child in prison. and
is hurting, find something that he needs and preach to him and
the rest of us will profit by it. That's good advice for any
preacher. Seek to comfort, edify, and strengthen
God's saints as they walk in this world. God's people don't
need to be whipped in line. They need to be comforted. They
don't need to be beat. They need to be comforted. They
don't need to be constantly berated. They need the comfort of the
gospel. That's our business. And fourth,
I wanted so much to strengthen the hands of faithful men wherever
I went. A few faithful pastors, a few
faithful preachers. I want to encourage them in the
work, strengthen their hands. We often, especially those who
are somewhat isolated, they spend their days and nights and weeks
and months and years seeing few others with whom they have anything
in common in the work of the ministry. And they begin to feel
kind of like Elijah, you know. First Kings 19, Lord, I've been
faithful to you. I've preached your word. I've
prophesied. And now I'm the only one left.
And they need to be reminded, and we need to be reminded, God
still has 7,000 in this world who have not bowed the knee to
Baal and have not kissed his image. He still has a perfect
number a number chosen and ordained by His grace, a full, complete
number who have not and will not bow the knee to Baal, and
they are our brethren to whom we must labor and for whom we
labor. And I had a fifth determination.
It's getting to be more and more a determination of mine wherever
I go. I was determined with everything
I preached. every time I preach, do everything
I could to embarrass preachers who didn't preach the same thing.
I wanted to shame them who professed to believe the gospel and refused
to preach it. I have discovered that if there's
anything men can't stand in this politically correct, wimpish,
sissified generation is dogmatism. They tolerate anything except
dogmatism. And if there's anything that
must be declared with dogmatism, it is the gospel of God's grace.
All right. Now, in the time that remains,
let me bring to your minds those things that God was pleased to
do for us and I hope use us to accomplish. Shelby and I left,
of course, on the 12th of April, Sunday afternoon, flew out of
Lexington at 3 o'clock, and we didn't get into Dublin, Ireland,
until a little after 10 on Monday morning. So it was a long night.
And I decided not to preach Monday night. I just wasn't going to
plan on that. I knew I'd be too tired to do
so. So we just had a good evening fellowship with our friends who
picked us up at the airport. And then we stopped by Nigel
and Elizabeth Norman's house and had a late breakfast with
them. went on to Ballymoney and spent the evening with Russell
and Sharon Smith. You, of course, know Russell.
He was here just recently. And we had a good evening with
them. But Nigel and Russell had arranged for us to meet at the
Ballymoney Town Hall as I have for the last three years. And
they advertised the meeting. And the Lord gathered some people
to hear the Word again. Some who had been there previous
times weren't there, but still a sizable group of people there. And they're now in that place,
folks meeting and watching our videos. If God's pleased to raise
up a preacher, how I pray he will give them a pastor to feed
them with knowledge and understanding. There's enough folks there now,
nucleus of a good congregation, Brother David Burroughs, Brother
Nigel Norman and his wife Elizabeth, Russell Smith and his wife Sharon,
their boy Johnny, Brother Stuart Boyd and his wife Harriet. And
then there was a preacher who came to the meetings, a little
interesting. He seemed to have some interest.
God seemed to be doing some things for him, maybe him, I don't know. And there was another fellow
from, out a distance from Mounted Money to have been listening
to the messages on the Free Grace Radio, and his name was Don McLeod. He came over, he and his wife.
We had a good visit with them. You pray, Steele, that God might
be pleased yet to raise up a gospel witness in that place. Brethren,
are scattered out a good way, but Northern Ireland not all
that big. Some of you drive as far as it takes to get from one
side to the other. But it's not all that big. When you start
to consider the whole of Great Britain, the whole of Great Britain,
that's Northern Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales, all of it
you could fit in the state of Kentucky. So the whole of it,
not all that big, but yet divided considerably by culture and divided
by the waters and so forth. We had good meetings in Ballymoney,
both nights there. The Lord seemed to bless the
word and the folks seemed to profit by it. I trust that you'll
pray for them. On Thursday the 16th, again,
that was the only other day, that is right, the only other
day I didn't preach, the 16th, that we had a long ways to travel.
We took a ferry from Belfast over to Scotland and had to drive
across Scotland and had to force myself to eat fish and chips
every time I got a chance. That's good stuff, good stuff. Peter Minnie is a pastor and
had a good time in fellowship with Brother George Ella and
with Brother Ron Cotty and his wife Sylvia, who by the way asked
that I be sure to convey to you their gratitude for the videos. They meet in their home three
times a week and watch the videos. That's how they worship God.
And we had a good visit with them. And then on Friday, I was
scheduled to preach at Egglesburg Baptist Church in Eggleston.
where Brother Peter is pastor, and there was a good group there. Peter pastor is a very small
congregation which has been there for a long time. The church body
has been there. for a long, long time, but just
a very small group. But there were, I guess, I have
no idea. Many folks could fit in the building,
had a full house, but had good services there Friday night.
And then on Saturday, had the New Focus Conference. This we've
been doing for three years now. And Brother Ken Coddy preached. Brother Georgiella brought two
lectures, two papers dealing with the biographical sketch
of John Bryan. It's a name you wouldn't have
heard much. John Bryan was converted under John Gill's ministry. And
between John Gill and John Bryan, and God always does this, in
every generation, he has a man or a couple of men, he raises
up a voice or pen, and John Gill was that man in his day, and
the man who succeeded him immediately, John Bryan, both of those men,
God gifted you unusually in their ability both in preaching and
in writing to bring folks solidly to the scriptures and use those
men more than any others as far as I can see to preserve his
calls from the horrible era that tended to take over Great Britain
and the United States, especially in those areas where men thought
they were smarter than God and intellectual pursuits and religion
quickly ran to universalism and Unitarianism. But John Bryan
was a man that we have reason to be thankful for God's raising
him up to preserve his cause and preserve the light of the
gospel to this generation. And then Saturday evening, I
preached to the folks there at the meeting on eternal grace.
And then on Sunday, I preached again at the church at Egglesburn
and our friends, Brother Jim Goff, who's with the Lord. His wife, Eileen, and Sid Buggins,
folks I mentioned to you this morning, who've become such dear,
dear friends, they rented a van. Now, by English standards, this
is a big van. But I'm sure thankful she was
not a big woman, because she had a little bit of cubbyhole
to sit in all day long. But we were able to spend the
whole day driving to various places. But we went the whole
day going down to Sidmouth and then to other places where they
took me for the preaching of the gospel and spend time together
with the wrecks. And some of the men were talking
in the back. Everybody these days speaks to folks. We stay in contact, but with
email and telephones I don't know what twittering is, whatever
that nonsense is. Nobody talks to each other. Nobody. We talked. We talked all day
long. You want to get to know somebody,
get in the car and ride. You'll get to know about everything
they want you to know about them and a little bit more. But we
had just a delightful time with them, a delightful time visiting
with them, getting to know them, and so very thankful that God
brought those two families into our lives. They so much rejoice and give thanks to God
for you, for this congregation. I can't tell you how many times
those men and their wives, others as well, but those men and their
wives particularly said, be sure to tell the folks at Danville
how much we appreciate them. The ministry, not just sending
you here, but the videos, the audio cassettes, or the CDs,
just been so very, very important in our lives. And they know you. They know your names. The only
face they know is Lindsey when he's turning this thing off or
turning it on. But they know your names because
they hear me call your names and they ask how you're doing.
I can't tell you how many times, how's Bobby doing since Judy's
gone. That's just special, isn't it? So very thankful for God's
knitting our hearts together in the sweet fellowship of the
gospel. And then on Monday and Tuesday, we went over to Providence
Strict, in particular, Baptist Church. I made acquainted with
Brother Norman Wheeler about three years ago. He's been pastor
there for 40 years. He's a man 70 years old, delightful
man. He and his wife, Hilda, and their
family, just delightful. But this congregation's been
around for a long time. It's one of those old, typical
British church buildings, and just more than any place I've
ever been in Great Britain, those folks took some sense of, pride's
the wrong word, some sense of responsibility in taking care
of the house where God's people met. And they had just a beautiful
place there. And we had good meetings there
both nights and good time with Norman and Hilda. Brother Norman's
son called me three years ago and started to tell you he had
some kind of a difficulty that gave him some physical trouble,
and they'd been listening to messages, and his boy, Matt,
was real concerned for his dad's well-being, and they just called,
wanted me to be aware of it, pray for them, and so I called
Brother Wheeler. You'd have thought I wrote a
man check for a million dollars. And he'd been just a good, good
friend. And he wanted me to preach when
I was there the last two years. But anyway, he arranged it this
time. We had two excellent meetings in his place. And so thankful,
so thankful for the privilege of being there. And then on Wednesday,
the 22nd and 23rd, Brother Ian Potts had arranged for another
Sovereign Grace meeting down at Sidmouth. Brother Ian and
his wife, Rachel, gather folks every Monday night, been watching
our videos for years. Just last year, began meeting
on Sunday mornings and seems to be so very little interest
in that, but they've been so faithful in distributing the
gospel by whatever means God gave them. And so we go down
there and there was Again, a good group of people who saw the meetings
advertised in New Focus, by television, on Free Grace Radio, and folks
came from all over the place who've heard the messages and
those different means that God's given us. And we had two very,
very good nights there. Great time with Brother Ian and
his family. And then on Friday, we took off to London, got on
the train, early in the morning, I had to preach that night. And
three years ago, I keep saying that, two years ago, it was actually
just the third meeting back, Shelby and I met a couple by
the name of John and Ann Graham. They live in a flat just outside
of London. And we have gotten to be good
friends. Brother John pastures a small
group that come over to London for the meetings there. He's
had a connection with this church in London for years and preached
right in the business district of London. The building, you can see the
outline of the building, but other huge buildings are built
right over top of it. So you can get an idea right
in the heart of London. We spent the afternoon sitting
by the Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park, just visiting with John
and Ann and talking with them about the things of God. And
then that night, A good crowd of folks came, again, just like
in other places. They'd seen the thing advertised
and heard the messages on Free Grace Radio or others who get
CDs or tapes through New Focus. And we had a good meeting there.
God gave me some liberty again to preach the gospels of grace.
And there were some folks there that I'd not met before, some
I'd had some correspondence with, and some folks who seemed to
be genuinely moved by the preaching. I've got this email from Julian
Smith. Let me read it to you. He said,
it felt like revival broke out in my heart last Friday when
you preached at Westminster Baptist Church here in London. I was
so encouraged by the preaching that you brought on the blessing
pronounced by the false prophet Balaam on God's people. I haven't
heard preaching like that in a long, long time. As I said
to you afterwards, you just do not hear that kind of preaching
anymore in the United Kingdom, even amongst, quote, reformed
churches where you might expect to hear it. It's not that they
preach against it. They wouldn't do that. But it
seems that they are, they rarely emphasize the sovereign grace
of God anymore. So much of what I hear over and
over, It's what our duty is as Christians. We're duty bound. That's the emphasis of many reform
pulpits. Instead of being motivated by
his wonderful sovereign love toward us, we are constantly
told that because we are Christians, we are duty bound to be doing
this, that, and the other for the Lord. I'm so glad that the
Lord brought me to hear you speak last Friday. I had a spring in
my step on my way home. I had forgotten how wonderful
the gospel is because I haven't heard it like that for so long. I feel like packing my bags and
flying out to hear more of this wonderful preaching at your home
church. By his grace alone, Julian Smith."
Those words do the bound. I came to grips with a fact on
this trip, a sad, sad fact. Most preaching, even by men who
would claim to believe the gospel of God's grace, most preaching,
Larry, is worthless morality preaching. That's all it is. It's design, it's intent, it's
purpose. is just to keep folks acting
like Christians. That's all. It is worthless morality
preaching. Well, Brother Don, don't you
believe folks ought to be careful how they live? Of course I do. What stupidity that men would
even think such things. But believers walk with God because
they want to. They worship because they want
to. They do what they do for Christ because they want to,
because they want to. Brother Walter Groover down in
Mexico, you know where he is? He's where
he wants to be, and his whole family back here. How come? Because he loves the Redeemer.
Nobody's standing over there with a whip telling him you got
to do this, got to do that. Worthless preaching is morality preaching. Get folks to act like Christians
so they can pretend they're Christians, they can convince themselves
they're Christians, and you can put a star in your cap and tell
folks how good you've been in the service of the Lord. Worthless
morality preaching. Our object in preaching is to
expose your sin, cast you down in the dust before Christ, Lift
your eyes to the crucified son of God and send you on your way
rejoicing in free grace through blood atonement in the blessed
substitute. We had the evening with the Graham's
and the church at Westminster. Then on Saturday and Sunday,
I preached Saturday night, Sunday morning at the new church in
Nebworth meeting at the Nebworth Elementary School, Brother Alan
Jellett. I met Alan and his wife, Christine, and their three boys
23 years ago, wasn't it? Yeah, 23 years ago. And Alan
was an avid supporter of our friend, Brother Bill Clark. And
because of the lack of being able to hear this message of
God's grace, two years ago, Alan and his boys began meeting together
to see if God wouldn't raise up a work. Again, I ask you,
pray for those dear folks. I guess the most expensive property
in the world is right there in England, right around London,
horribly expensive. But if God's in it, he'll make
a way for them. Alan and his three boys meet
together and now Evelyn Clark, Bill's wife, and her daughter
Janine, and her husband Rick, and one or two others meet with
some regularity. And Alan is a faithful, faithful
man. I just so much want you to get
to know him. We'll have him here as soon as
possible. He's a faithful man. And I ask you to pray for him
and for that assembly. And then we took off Monday.
Alan speaks French. So we went to France. Been there,
done that. Let's go fishing now. But we
had a good time. We had a great time with him.
We took what's called the Eurostar. took the Eurostar over to Paris,
and they had arranged for us to have nice accommodations in
a hotel there. His congregation took care of
that, and we so much appreciated it. We went out that night, and
it was raining and cold, but we were in an enclosed boat and
went up the Seine River through Paris, through old Paris, and
that's the way to tour a place like that. Didn't have to walk
anywhere. And then the next day, we went to the Eiffel Tower,
That was the day. It took the whole day to see
the Eiffel Tower, but got to see old Paris. Fabulous city,
but more than anything else, got a chance to spend some time
with Alan and Christine and just such a delightful, delightful
family. You pray for these folks, pray
for God's continued blessings upon the ministry of the word
in those places. Brother Peter, many, and the work that he's
doing with New Focus, or that he's doing through New Focus,
are such important things. I ask you to remember them in
prayer and let them know your concern for them. In that day
or in that place in Great Britain, they're just not much. They're
just not much. God seems to be raising up some
men to replace those who have led his people
into error through their negligence and through their lack of commitment
to the gospel. There are multitudes there, multitudes
there. You sit down and write things
out and say, do you believe this? They'd agree with everything
we say. Multitudes. They just don't hear the message.
There's just no preaching. There's no preaching. And God
seems to be doing something, raising up his witnesses again. He does still have 7,000 in every
place who have not bowed the knee to Baal, nor kissed his
image. Let's labor for their soul's
good. Amen. All right, Brother Lindsey.