That's the greatest man!
Good evening everybody and welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church
Looks like everybody's kind of found their seats already. Let's go ahead and get started in song number 207
Song number 207 in your hymnals only a sinner
Song 207
Great singing everybody. Let's go ahead bow our heads for word of prayer. Heavenly Father we thank you
for this church. We thank you for everyone that's come back for evening service. We thank you for
all the souls that were one out soul winning today. We ask Lord that you fill Pastor Shelly with your
Holy Spirit and help us to help us to learn from his sermons so that we can walk out better
Christians to better serve you for your honor and glory. It's in Jesus' name we pray amen.
All right next up we have song number 250
Song number two hundred and fifty
burdens are lifted at Calvary
coming to Steadfast Baptist Church.
If you didn't already get a bulletin,
you would like one, just lift it
over your hand nice and high.
On the front, we have our Bible memory passage.
We're close to getting all of Jude finished.
Insides are service and soul winning times.
Make sure to turn your maps to our bin.
On the right is our expecting ladies list.
Please be in prayer for all of them.
Also the Tyler, Texas, soul winning marathon.
There's a sign up sheet and the welcome table.
Please just fill that out if you're planning
on going out there with us.
There's a soul winning seminar at the church
on October 4th.
It looks like we're gonna probably do that as like a lunch and then kind of an afternoon event
So just kind of a FYI as soon as we get that time we'll get that in the bulletin
There's a mission strip to Nassau Bahamas October 6th through the 11th
Please be in prayer for us as we go out there
Pastor Bruce Mejia is gonna come and preach for us
October 19th, which will be an awesome treat.
And then we have a Texas Chilly Cook Off on the 31st.
On the back is our prayer list.
Please keep our church family and your prayers.
And that's pretty much all I have.
Let's go ahead and sing our Psalm of the Week, Psalm 150.
Psalm 150.
All right, that is Psalm 150 in your Blackbinders
or in your King James Bible.
Sing it out on the front.
Great seeing everybody as the offering plates are going around would you please turn in your bibles to ax chapter number one ax chapter number one
Acts chapter one, the Bible says the former treatise have I made O theophilus of all that
Jesus began both to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up after that through
he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen to whom
being seen of them 40 days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God and
Being assembled together with them commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem
But wait for the promise of the Father which sayeth he ye have heard of me for John truly baptized with water
But ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence
When they therefore were come together they asked of him saying Lord wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel
And he said unto them it is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the father has put in his own power
But ye shall receive power
After that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in
Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth
And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud
received him out of their sight.
And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood
by them in white apparel, which also said, ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up
into heaven?
This same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as
Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the Mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a Sabbath day's journey
And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room, where abode both Peter and James and John and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus and Simon Zalotes and Judas the brother of James.
These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and marry the mother of Jesus and with his brethren.
And in those days Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples and said the number of names
together were about 120.
Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled which the Holy Ghost by
the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus.
For he was numbered with us and had obtained part of this ministry.
and falling headlong he burst a sunder in the midst
and all his bowels gushed out and it was known unto all the dwellers at Jerusalem
in so much as that field is called in their proper tongue
Asaldama that is to say the field of blood.
For it is written in the book of Psalms, let his habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein, and his bishopric let another take.
Wherefore of these men which have
accompanied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and came out among us,
beginning from the baptism of John unto that same day that he was taken up from us,
must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection.
And they appointed to Joseph called Bar Sabbaths who was surname justice and Matthias and they prayed and said thou Lord
Knowest which knowest the heart of all men show whether of these two thou has chosen
That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell
That he might go to his own place and they gave forth their lots and the lot fell upon Matthias
And he was numbered with the 11 apostles. Let us pray. Dear heavenly father. Thank you for the word of God
I thank you for the souls that were saved today soul winning
Lord God, I pray that you would please bless this church
and bless Pastor Shelley as he preaches your word to us.
Please help us to understand your word
and become better Christians.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
So this evening I wanted to preach a sermon,
kind of continuing a series I've done,
where I two weeks ago went through
the Synoptic Gospels overview, then the overview of John.
And this evening I want to preach
on the overview of the book of Acts.
And the book of Acts has the same author
as the book of Luke, and it's kind of addressed
Person here now the the book of Acts is also in a lot of Bibles will say the Acts of the Apostles
That's kind of like the longer name of what the book of Acts is about and it's it's essentially emphasizing
what those men did after the ascension of Jesus Christ.
Now that was mentioned in this chapter,
and those men that were closest to Jesus,
the disciples who are now the apostles
because they've seen the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ.
Luke is the believed author of both Luke and the book of Acts.
And in verses one through four,
or I'm sorry, verses one through three,
we basically have kind of this idea
of who it's being written to.
It says in verse number one, the former treatise,
have I made Otheophilus?
So we have, hey, before I kind of wrote this unto you,
and it's to Otheophilus.
Now, keep your finger and go back
to Luke chapter one just for a second.
And we'll see that the book of Luke also kind of starts in a similar way where we have
an introduction to Theophilus, but in verse 3 of the Gospel of Luke, chapter 1, it says,
it seemed good to me also having had perfect understanding of all things from the very
first to write under the in order most excellent Theophilus.
You can go back and you can see it's both two Theophilus and in Gluck it says most excellent Theophilus.
Now keep your finger here, go to Acts chapter 23 for a moment.
The Bible doesn't say exactly who Theophilus is.
We learn a few things from his name.
When we think about the first part of his name, Theo, that's in reference to God, that's
what that means.
The second part of his name, Phyllis, would be a root of the word friend or sometimes love.
Sometimes some people talk about Greek, they'll talk about this idea of phileo, who's ever
heard of phileo and that's kind of this idea of brotherly love, it's where you get the
city of Philadelphia.
In English, we don't really use that word for God, specifically, but we use it when we talk about, like, theology.
So we think about, like, the study of God, but we use the word God.
In Spanish, though, you kind of have Dios, and it's kind of similar to Theo and some similar roots there,
but we don't use that necessarily in English, but we do use it when we talk about...
you know in a higher level academic setting like theology when we're talking about the study of
God so we have that same root. So it's like this guy's name is the friend of God. It's kind of just
interesting he was named Theophilus. He's the friend of God, has a brotherly love of God
and it's written to him. Also believe though that this guy's probably somewhere as a high-ranking
We don't know exactly who it is, but there's a similar phrasing.
And I want to show you this in Acts 23, look at verse 25.
So it says, and he wrote a letter after this manner.
So it's interesting, this is a letter and then it's telling us,
here's another letter that's actually written
and it's telling us what the letter was like.
Now this letter is not written by the Apostle Paul,
this letter is written by a Roman.
He says, Claudius Lycius, under the most excellent governor, Felix Cendeth, greeting.
So he kind of uses that exact same terminology of the most excellent, but then he says, governor,
it seems like this might be a way that you just...
kind of honor someone that's a high-ranking official
or someone that's elevated in a government position
that you'd call them the most excellent.
Otherwise, it's like Bill and Ted's adventure or something
and you're just kind of like wondering,
why is he calling them most excellent
or something like that?
But it seems like this is probably most likely a clue.
This guy could have been someone of note,
someone as a high-ranking government official.
And yes, sometimes people in the government can get saved
or care about the things of God, even theophilus, right?
Go back to chapter one, so just kind of as a quick sample of just the overview of the
book of Acts, it's written to Theophilus, same as the Gospel of Luke, this guy is a
friend of God, probably in a government position, and when he's describing though essentially
these things that have happened, what's interesting to me in verse three it says about Jesus Christ,
infallible proofs. And I just really love that wording that the Bible teaches that what Jesus
Christ did in his resurrection is infallible. Like there's nothing that could really contest this.
We have hundreds and hundreds of eyewitnesses of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
We don't have his body. The tomb was empty. Even the Romans testified of this. Even the Jews testified
And you say, oh, there's a conspiracy or something up.
Yeah, but we don't have any evidence of that.
We have hundreds and hundreds of witnesses saying,
Jesus Christ rose again from the dead.
Not only that, of course, what the apostles did
after giving this information.
Kind of signifies that they must have believed what they said because they're not getting rich off of this idea
They're not selling books. They're not going on some tour. They're actually being persecuted hated
beaten
Scourge and killed in the most gruesome ways for believing this particular doctrine. Not only that they're going into world
that is not Christian. They're going into a Greek world, a pagan world and they're changing many
people's hearts and minds and causing them to believe in Christ and starting churches all over
the world. Why? Because of the power of the resurrection, because of the power of the word
of God, because of the power of the gospel. And I think what we can learn from the book of Acts,
which this is what I really love about the book of Acts is, you know, you have a small group of
not by any kind of a violent means,
not by through some kind of holy crusades
where they're forcing people to believe the gospel,
they didn't kill people,
they didn't use threat of violence in any way,
they simply just went out and preached the Bible
and they changed the world by preaching the Bible.
And anytime we want to understand like
how do we fix our world,
how do we do the most that we can,
it's by preaching the Bible and preaching the Word of God.
And by going out in the world and just preaching, and that's what actually is going to have
the positive impact in this world, it's not, you know, changing the government, look, by
preaching the gospel and getting lots of people saved and started churches everywhere, it
changed the government.
I mean, the government ended up changing as a result of this, and in fact, you ended up
having countries that were based on Christianity.
The government was based on Christianity.
You later down the road have America, which is a nation founded on Christian principles
and the Protestant religion.
I mean, how do you get from a Roman pagan world empire that has nothing to do with Christianity
America founded on the Word of God because of the preaching of the Gospel and because
of faithful men, because of people preaching the Word of God throughout the world and that's
how you have that.
So if you want to ever have that again, hey, it's going to be us preaching the Gospel because
politics is downstream of culture.
And when the culture is pagan, the government's going to be wicked as hell.
When the culture is Christian, you're going to have a much better government, albeit it's
always evil, it's always wicked.
I mean, if you actually understand,
this is not the Gospel of Acts.
Just one second, I'll give you a few more tidbits here.
If you actually understand the framers of our country
and the founders of our country's mindset,
they realize government is a necessary evil.
that it will always be evil. That's why they made it a limited government. They said we need to limit it as much as
humanly possible, but you know what? There's no such thing as a good government. Doesn't exist until Jesus Christ rules and reigns on this
earth. That's why they wanted to have a limited federal government. Not anarchy. We need government.
We also need to be limited because of the evilness and the sinfulness of man. When it becomes big and bloated, that's when it gets really, really bad.
Let's go back to the book of Acts though.
Many infallible proofs, he showed them,
unto them them for 40 days.
See that in verse three?
40 days.
So timeline, he rises again from the dead,
40 days later he's gonna ascend up into heaven.
Okay, so this is like the timeline of Acts.
Verse six, this is what they said.
When they were there for, were come together,
they asked him saying, Lord,
will thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel?
So the thing like, okay, you had to die,
you had to be buried, you had to rise again.
Okay, so now we're bringing in the kingdom.
And that's what they think, and Jesus is saying,
no, this is not the right timeline.
This is what you're supposed to do.
Verse eight, you're supposed to be witnesses unto me,
both in Jerusalem and all Judea and in Samaria
and in the uttermost part of the earth.
And when he had spoken these things,
while they beheld, he was taken up
and a cloud received them out of their sight.
And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven,
as he went up, the old two men stood by them in white apparel
and they're saying, why stand you gazing up into heaven?
And it says, this same Jesus, which is taken up
from you into heaven,
shall so come in like manner as you have seen him go into heaven."
So we understand that Jesus Christ,
he said,
I want you to go preach the gospel everywhere.
Matthew 28, the great commission to teach all nations.
Mark 16, 15,
go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.
Here in the gospel of Acts,
you're supposed to go into Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria,
and the uttermost part of the earth.
That is our job.
That is our goal until...
Christ returns again from the clouds the reality is he hasn't returned again from the clouds
So what is our commission?
What is our job is to continue being witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ in the entire world?
That is our goal and that's what their goal was and we're waiting for the return of
Jesus Christ so this commission of the gospel of I'm sorry not the gospel
But the Acts of the Apostles here is the same that we have today. We're waiting for Christ to return and until then
We're supposed to be witnesses of him and the witnesses of his resurrection until he comes.
Now, of course, we're not eyewitnesses, they were eyewitnesses,
but we are still witnesses through the gospel of Jesus Christ and through the word of God.
We go out and we testify of what Jesus Christ did in the gospel.
So in chapter one, you have this setup.
and you have all the disciples, the apostles,
and they're told to wait.
They're told to wait until they get power.
Chapter 2 verse 1 is this day,
and when the day of Pentecost was fully come,
they were all with one accord in one place.
Now the word Pentecost is talking about 50th,
because it's the 50th day from Easter.
Now in the Old Testament,
They didn't really celebrate Easter because they don't really understand that concept yet because Jesus Christ hasn't tied and was buried in Rose again
But what they had was the first
Wave offering they had a first fruits offering that was supposed to happen after the Sabbath day of
Passover
This specific Passover was a special Passover
because there was two Sabbath days that went in between.
There was the high day, which was the day after Passover,
and then there was the actual Sabbath,
so it happened on Sunday.
That's why you have that resurrection period
being a little bit different.
They had two Sabbaths, they didn't always have this.
But on that day, they would have done a wave offering,
which was a first fruits offering, which we know as
Easter, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Fifty days from that day was called Pentecost,
which was fifty days later and was another
harvest time of first fruits offering time.
Interesting, why, because that's to foreshadow
what we're going to read in the Gospel,
or not, sorry, I keep saying Gospel,
we're going to read in the book of Acts
about a bunch of people getting saved on this day
as a first fruits
offering. And that's what actually happens in the book of Acts. So all those feasts and all these
special things that are going on in the Old Testament were to foreshadow and to picture
future things that were going to happen. And specifically the day of Pentecost was to foreshadow
and picture a bunch of people getting saved on this particular day. In Leviticus 23, for a second
time you don't have to turn there, but it said they had to count seven Sabbaths. And that's seven
times seven is what?
49, and the day after would be what?
The 50th day, that's the day of Pentecost.
That's why they're waiting for this day,
and they're supposed to get this special power on high,
which we all know is the Holy Ghost.
Now you kind of have to ask this question like,
they got commissioned 40 days after,
why wait another 10 days?
Like, why are they supposed to wait 10 specific days?
Well, look at verse 5.
And they were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews' development, out of every nation under heaven.
It's like, God knew, hey, I need to get the gospel out to the world as fast as possible.
What would be the best way to do this?
Well, let's wait.
Let's just have everybody from every nation come to us.
But here's a problem. They don't necessarily speak our language that well.
So then I'm going to give them a special ability to speak in all languages,
have everybody come to them and get them all saved so then they can go back out
and they can start spreading the gospel in the entire world.
Why? Because God is brilliant and he understands what he's doing.
You know, if they had just gone out, they were going to be less effective than staying
here on this day waiting for everybody to come to them of every nation and you have
the special day of Pentecost where they're going to preach the gospel in multiple languages
and get people saved.
You know, the Pentecostals, which are deriving their name from this, they have no real explanation
of why any of this makes sense.
I mean, why do you need people coming from every single nation to watch you bark like
a dog and just say gibberish?
Oh man, the power of God, right, or does it make sense to have people coming from all
over the world with different languages and then the Holy Ghost gives them the ability
to preach the Gospel in a foreign language and get them saved in their mother tongue
so they can go back home and preach the Gospel in their mother tongue.
Well, that actually just makes sense and is what the Bible actually says, and Pentecostalism
is not in the Bible and it doesn't make sense, okay?
So verse 21, what are they preaching?
What are they saying whenever they're filled with the Holy Ghost and they're speaking in
other languages is what the Bible says.
Well, it says, it shall come to pass, the who shall call upon the name of the Lord shall
be saved.
You know what they're preaching?
where we go out and we run into people and say,
hey, you need to call upon the name of the Lord in faith,
and then you're gonna be saved.
Same gospel, same message, same thing that we do.
We help people call on the name of the Lord to be saved.
You know, people will go to the book of Joel
and they'll say, oh, that's talking about the end times.
That if you pray then,
then you'll be delivered from the end times.
And I'm thinking like, well, they totally missed the mark
then in Acts chapter two,
because all of those people are dead.
You know none of those people got raptured?
None of the people in Acts 2 got raptured or had anything to do with the end times.
You know, you know why this is a fulfillment of Joel 2?
Because they called upon the name of the Lord and they got saved that day.
Because that's what calling upon the name of the Lord means. It's getting saved.
Now obviously you could call upon the name of the Lord for all manner of things. We get that, right?
You could be like the Apostle Peter and be drowning in the water and say,
Lord save me and he's gonna save you from physical danger in that moment.
Let me tell you something. There's also calling upon the name of the Lord for spiritual salvation,
not just physical salvation. And these people were not in physical danger,
but they were in spiritual danger. That's why they called upon the name of the Lord,
and they got spiritual salvation. That's what it means in Romans chapter number 10,
verse 13, that for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord,
they're going to be saved. It's because they believed in Jesus Christ,
not some physical danger or something like that. Now, look, if I'm in physical danger,
But I'm not going to think that I need to believe in the resurrection to get saved from this physical danger.
I'm just going to be asking for help, okay?
So we have to understand that the Bible is teaching a consistent message.
They are preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. They're preaching for people to call upon Him to the Lord.
And they got a lot of people saved this specific day.
Now look at verse 38, this is a controversial verse for a lot of people, but it says,
then Peter said, and then repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ
for the mission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
He preached to all these people, all these Jews, Peter does,
after they see a bunch of these people speaking in other languages.
So you have to understand what happens in chapter 2.
They're waiting in the house, they have this special miracle happen where there's like
these cloven flames above their head that looks like tongues or something and they've
been filled with the Holy Ghost to preach a foreign language.
They start preaching to all these Jews from all over the world and giving them gospel
and they're getting them saved, helping them call upon the name of the Lord so that they
could be saved.
Then a bunch of other Jews there that are not from all over the world are like, what in
the world's happening?
And then Peter's like, no, no, no, these people aren't drunk.
These people are actually hearing the gospel.
And this is a fulfillment of what the Bible says in Joel.
And this is, you know, what you guys are experiencing is the fact that you guys didn't believe in Jesus.
You crucified Him.
And then they're cut to the heart and they're like,
well, then what should we do?
You know, like, then what do we do?
That was the question asked in 37.
Notice men and brethren, what shall we do?
Then Peter said to them,
repent and be baptized to every one of you
in the name of Jesus Christ for the mission of sins.
What is the repentance asked for here in this chapter?
He doesn't say stop drinking.
He doesn't say stop smoking.
We don't even know if any of them did any of these things.
He's saying, stop.
You know, you need to change your mind, you need to actually believe in the person you
crucified because you crucified Jesus and rejected him, you need to repent and actually believe
in him.
That's how you're going to actually get saved.
So the word repent here is meaning get saved.
Those calling on the name of the Lord, repent it.
He's telling them they need to repent and call on the name of the Lord too.
Then, what else should they do? They should get baptized.
And then, you know, of course, why?
Because of the remission of sins.
And they will receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
When you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
you're sealed with the Holy Spirit and you're saved.
That's how you get that gift.
The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is a gift to New Testament believers.
So when you believe in Jesus Christ, you get the Holy Ghost.
Now some people look at this verse and say you have to be baptized to be saved.
But the Bible doesn't teach you have to be baptized.
And we even learn that in the Gospel, I'm sorry, in the Gospels and in the Book of Acts.
But this specific verse is not saying what you have to do to be saved, it's just saying what you should do.
Just like Jesus gives the great commission. He says to teach all nations then to baptize them and then it says to teach them all things
That's what we should do that doesn't mean that's what you have to do to be saved
That question is asked in the book of Acts and it doesn't say you have to be baptized
But you know what you should be baptized. Hey, we're Baptist by name. We believe in baptism
It's just not necessary for salvation. Yeah, you run into Pentecostals
You run the Church of Christ or you run into some churches and they literally call themselves an axe 238 church
And it's like why can't you be an axe to 21 church?
I mean, it's before 38, and these people are getting saved.
You know, these people are easy to get saved.
They didn't have to crucify Jesus and then get saved.
These people just got saved.
You know, it's silly to make your church all about one verse and it not be like John 3.16 or something like that, right?
I mean, in Acts 2.38 church, you know, these people are not saved, they're heretics, they believe in works, salvation,
and you know, we have to try and explain to them what the Bible really means.
But the repentance here is continually defined in the Gospel of Acts as believing in Jesus, not repenting your sins.
And when I was talking to somebody at the door this week, they were telling me,
oh no, I repented a long time ago and I wasn't saved.
I had to repent of my sins to be saved.
And it's like, you know, in the book of Acts, it's constantly saying,
repent, repent, repent.
Okay, well we'll define that as we go through this particular book,
but the repentance is clear about believing in Jesus Christ.
Verse 41.
It says, then they that gladly received his word were baptized and the same day they were added under them about 3,000 souls.
What you'll learn in the book of Acts is that people got saved in one day.
This wasn't a lifestyle, this wasn't lifestyle evangelism.
People got saved in the same day that they heard the Gospel.
Why? Because salvation is a moment in time.
As soon as you receive his word gladly, then you're saved.
And notice 3,000 people got saved.
You know, how much of a conversation can you even have
with this number of people?
Because think about it, you have 120 soul winners.
You have 3,000 salvations in one day.
You know, I don't know exactly how they did this.
I don't know if they went in groups of two.
Let's just say for easy math, they went in groups of two.
That would be 60 pairs, right?
You and a partner are going soul-winning on a day.
You have 60 people, 60 pairs, 120 people, 60 pairs.
You have 3,000 salvations.
How many salvations would each pair have gotten that day?
50, exactly.
Now look, who in here has gone soul-winning with one person
and gotten more than 50 people saved in one day?
I've never even had it.
You know and I'm not saying that it hasn't happened. Maybe someone's done this, but it would be rare
The most I've even personally had in one day and it's by a long shot the most is when I was in the Bahamas
One day and I had 30 people saved and it was just like non-stop talking
Just going from person to person to person
I don't even know if I could get much more than that in a single day because it's just like your mouth stops working
All right
But it's like, just think about the math.
In order to present the gospel and getting 50 people saved in one day,
means it must not be a really long gospel presentation either.
I mean, if you just look at this chapter, you'll learn a lot about soul winning real quick.
That it must be a pretty quick, you're just preaching the gospel, they're getting saved,
you can get about max 50 people saved in a particular day.
Maybe it was 25 each for each partner.
I don't know exactly how it was, but this is a super receptive day where they're preaching
probably for hours, but we learn a lot of things about soul winning, hey, it happens
We're not doing anything different than they're doing.
They're going out preaching the same gospel,
telling people to call upon the name of the Lord.
You read Romans chapter number 10.
It's actually just quotes all of the Old Testament.
You can pretty much just go to all the Old Testament passages
and I can show you all the same things in Romans chapter 10.
They're preaching the Romans road just like we are.
even though they didn't have the book of Romans yet.
Because the Romans road is the Old Testament road,
it's just the Romans road is packed together for us nicely,
so we like to go through it.
But let me tell you, they were preaching the same gospel,
the same calling upon the name of the Lord,
eternal security, faith alone,
and that is what people were believing and getting saved,
and they got 3,000 saved in one day.
Verse 47.
praising God and having favor with all people
and the Lord added to the church daily, such as be saved.
Notice again, people get saved on a daily basis.
It's not a lifestyle, it's not works,
it's not a hope so.
They get saved, they're added to the church
and God is adding people to their church on a daily basis.
Now I've spent a lot of time on chapters one and two
because it really sets up this book.
We're gonna kind of go through this a little bit quicker.
But in chapter number three,
Peter and John heal a lame man.
Then, they're essentially confronted by the Jews for what they've done in this miracle.
Look at verse 14.
This is what Peter says, but ye denied the Holy One and the just and desired a murderer
to be granted unto you.
So what does Peter say in chapter 2 to the Jews?
You crucified Jesus.
What does he say in chapter number 3?
So, according to Peter, who killed Jesus, the Jews did.
The Jews crucified him in chapter 2, the Jews are the ones that denied him in chapter 3,
the Jews are the ones that killed him in chapter 3 as well.
And then what does he say in verse 19, Repent ye therefore and be converted.
that your sins may be blotted out when the times are refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.
Again, here's another great opportunity for Peter to say,
you guys are drunkards and liars and thieves and you need to repent of your sins.
But he didn't say that.
He said you crucified him in chapter 2, repent.
In chapter 3, he says you killed him and then he says what? Repent.
What is he trying to say?
You need to actually believe in Jesus Christ and be saved.
You need to be converted and believed in the just one, believe in the Lamb of God.
That's how you get salvation.
That's the repentance that you need for salvation.
The repentance of salvation is believing in Jesus, not hating Jesus or crucifying Him, obviously.
So that's what we see in chapter 3, same message, and that's what gives them what?
That their sins would be blotted out.
Believing in Jesus blots out your sins,
not repenting of your sins.
That's not even found in the text.
That phrase is never found in the Bible a single time.
Chapter four, verse two,
it says being grieved that they taught the people
and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead,
they laid hands on them and put them in hold
under the next day.
So again, the Jews hate what?
They hate that they're preaching Jesus and the resurrection.
So they what? They put him in prison.
This stone, this is the stone which was set at naught of you builders, and has become the head of the corner.
Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved.
So, the Jews, again, hate the resurrection, they're imprisoning Peter and John, they're
trying to stop him, and he's saying, this is the stone which was set at naught of you
builders, saying, you guys rejected Jesus, but the only salvation is in what?
In his name.
It's in believing in Jesus Christ and trusting in him.
That is the only way to be saved.
Now what do they say, verse 18?
And they called them and commanded them not to speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus.
Now think about this.
Do you really think if Peter went up to Jews after the Gospels and in this book of Acts,
he went up to people and said, you know what?
You need to obey the commandments.
Do you think the Pharisees and the Sadducees would be like, oh, don't tell them that?
No, Jesus Christ even said that they'll preach the commandments.
It says he said to observe and to bid and observe all the things that they commanded them.
They're preaching you to not lie and steal and cheat.
Look at Romans chapter number two.
They say not to commit adultery.
The problem was that they were hypocrites.
It wasn't that they said, they didn't say the right things.
It's that they didn't do the right things.
They said not to steal and to lie and to honor God.
They honored him with their lips,
but their heart was far from them.
They weren't going to get in trouble for preaching
repenting of your sins.
That's what they preached.
What was the difference between what they were preaching
is that one was preaching faith alone in Jesus
and the other one was preaching repent of your sins
and was hypocrites.
And you know what, that is the religions in the world today.
You have people preaching repenting your sins
that have never repented their sins and are hypocrites
and you have people that are preaching the repentance
of faith in Jesus Christ.
And you know what, those are the two religions in the world.
They told them not to preach in Jesus' name, not to teach the resurrection, but they saw their boldness.
Verse 29, it says now,
Lord, behold their threatenings, and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word.
Why do we need to pray for boldness so that we'll preach the Bible?
What? Because of fear of the Jews.
And let me tell you something, it is nothing new under the sun right now.
Why is it that Christians will not preach the Bible?
Because they're afraid of the Jews.
It's the same message.
It's the same events, it's the same thing that is happening today.
And you know what? Christians need to pray for boldness that they would preach the Word of God,
they would preach the Bible, and they would not be afraid of the unbelieving Jews.
It's the same thing.
Chapter 5, Ananias and Sapphira die after lying about how much money they gave.
They imprison Peter and the apostles again.
Now they had beaten the apostles or they had threatened them.
They're going to beat them now.
But in verse 29, this is the answer from Peter.
Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said we ought to obey God rather than men they say hey
You need to stop preaching in Jesus and they said well
We're gonna obey God rather than you meaning you obey the higher powers and they're gonna still continue to preach in Jesus
Christ they did not obey what they were saying and so they ended up beating them verse 41
This is their attitude and they departed from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame
for his name and daily in the temple in every house they cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.
So what do you have? You have them waiting for power. They preach the gospel to all kinds of
different Jews from all over the world. They get a bunch of people saved. Then they just keep
being confronted by Jews. They're healing people. They're preaching in Jesus' name to get arrested.
Then they're out and they just keep preaching to say all right
We'll let you go, but just don't do it again
Then they preach again, then they arrest them again
Now they're beating them and they're excited that they were counted worthy to suffer for Jesus name
You know if you never suffer any persecution you have to ask yourself this question
Are you godly?
Because the Bible says you ain't all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution
You know we could have this attitude of like oh man
You know, I'm suffering a lot of persecution from my faith, or I'm being attacked.
You know, that's a good sign.
Deblecly speaking, they, what did the Bible say?
They rejoiced.
They went away rejoicing.
Why? Because they were counted worthy to suffer.
Shame for his name.
And did that stop them?
No, daily and in every house,
they cease not to teach and preach.
Jesus Christ, they were continual soul learners,
they were steadfast.
Chapter six, they appoint some deacons
because the church has grown, it's exploded.
They have more people than they know what to do with.
They have all these widows that are being neglected
and the daily menstruation is what the Bible says.
And so they appoint different deacons,
is what I call them, just servants of the church.
One of them being Stevens.
Stevens an awesome guy, a really faithful Christian.
But the Jews hate Stephen and in verse 14 it says
This is what they accuse him of for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth
Shall destroy this place and shall change the customs which Moses delivered us
You know, that's that's what I think of the Jews sound like right
They're all mad about Stephen and what are they mad? They're mad because they say hey this place is gonna be destroyed
Well, isn't that what Jesus preached in Matthew 24?
Hey, this place is going to be destroyed because they rejected their Messiah, they rejected Christ.
That's true.
And another thing they said is that he's going to change the customs which Moses delivered us.
Well, the Bible says in the book of Hebrews that there was a change of the priesthood,
so there's also a change of the law.
So here's the thing, they're right.
By saying that Steven is saying, hey, this place is going to be destroyed, and some of the customs changed,
but what they're wrong is that he's speaking blasphemous words.
You know, it's not blasphemy, it's just Bible.
It's just New Testament Christianity.
But they would call it blasphemy.
And so they're mad at Steven for preaching the Bible.
Then Steven goes on this long sermons epic, Chapter 7's epic sermon that he's preaching against them showing,
You guys are rebellious, but everybody's been rebellious.
Let's go all the way back to the beginning.
Hey, they're rebellious with Moses,
they're rebellious with the wilderness,
they're rebellious with the kings.
You know, and you guys are also super, super rebellious.
And so they end up gnashing on him with their teeth
and they want to kill him,
they want to persecute him for preaching the Bible.
Verse 58,
And cast him out of the city and stoned him,
and all the witnesses laid down their clothes
at a young man's feet,
whose name was Saul,
and they stoned Stephen calling upon God
and saying, Lord Jesus, receive.
my spirit. So Stephen, great Christian,
dies young. And sometimes we wonder like why does God allow these things to
happen?
The reality is that through this persecution the church is going to be
scattered
and people are going to be emboldened and now preach the word of God.
And so it's never fun to lose a Stephen but sometimes you're going to lose
people
through the Christian life, through persecution, even just through like
just sinful means and we have to keep going.
And, look, do you think Stephen is mad that they kept preaching the gospel and started
doing more works?
No, look, obviously we can feel sad for these people and we can miss them, but we need to
just keep doing the work because we're the only ones that can do the work.
We're alive.
We're in the game.
So we need to do the ones that go out and preach the gospel, even when martyrs like
Stephen can't preach the gospel anymore.
He's a martyr, so we need to be inspired by people like this and their death
and continue preaching the gospel and sharing our faith and doing what's right.
And look, there will be martyrs in our lives.
I think they're going to be super rare.
I think it's going to be seldom.
It's probably not you.
I mean, the chances of you being the martyr are way less likely than just dying from a random accident.
But, you know what, when this happens we shouldn't be discouraged, but rather we should take
our lives serious and sober and say, you know what, well I'm still here, God still wants
to use me, I might as well do something for the Lord Jesus Christ.
And of course we miss Stephen and we miss those that are like him, but we want to continue
doing this great work.
Look at verse 1, and Saul was consenting unto his death and at that time there was a great
and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles.
So it seems like Christianity is doing great in Jerusalem, it's growing,
tons of people are coming, they have thousands of people,
I mean they have so many people they have to start hiring all this extra staff to accommodate all widows.
But if you think about it, there's just too much concentration of stars here.
All the all stars are just racking up here.
God needs to get them out, he told them to get out, so through persecution he basically
scatters them and starts getting them out of here, even though most of the apostles
just stick around.
So through this persecution of Saul, the Gospel is being spread and getting further out there.
In fact, Philip is one of those other people that was ordained and he goes out and he's
preaching the Gospel.
Then in pick up in verse 35,
then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture.
So he runs into an Ethiopian eunuch.
He's told by God to preach the gospel unto him
through the Holy Ghost.
And he runs to this guy.
This guy's like, how can I understand the Bible?
Except some man should guide me.
Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture
and preached unto him, Jesus.
He didn't preach unto him repenting of your sins.
He didn't preach him, hey, you need to quit smoking
and drinking and all that.
No, he preached unto him, Jesus.
And as they went on their way, they came into a certain water, and the eunuch said,
See, here is water, what doth hinder me to baptize?
Now all the modern versions just skip verse 37, but in the King James Bible it says,
And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart thou mayest, and he answered and said,
I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and he commanded the chariot to stand still,
and they went down both into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized them.
So, of course, we believe in baptism after confession in Jesus Christ, after you put
your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, after you call upon the name of the Lord in faith,
then hey, then we're going to baptize you, but we're not going to baptize babies, we're
not going to baptize infants, and we're not going to baptize people that don't know that
they're saved.
If you're not saved, we're not going to dunk you for no reason.
I didn't like being dunked in the pool.
You know, I know my older brother loved to dunk me, but I didn't like it, okay?
Because sometimes your older brother holds you under a little bit too long, you know what
I always bring people up into the water quick, you know, this is a baptism.
We're not trying to harass you here or anything like that, and it's newness of life.
We're not trying to make you nervous or something.
People get really nervous with baptism, they're like grabbing on, you know, stuff,
you gotta get them down, you know, but I bring them back up, you know, it's easy, it's good.
But again, it's not about the physical act, what is it?
It's a symbolic picture of the fact that you now want to follow Jesus Christ.
You're dying to yourself and you want to walk in newness of life.
It's picturing the fact that you trusted his death, burial and resurrection
as what gave you salvation, not your repenting of your sins or doing any of these works.
You're dead. We're dead in trespasses and sins.
It's by his grace that we're saved through our faith in what he did for us.
And of course we love baptism. You need to be baptized.
The people that serve God greatly are baptized but has nothing to do with being saved.
It's distinct.
So Philip gets the eunuch baptized
and then the Lord just catches him away
and that's pretty much for the most part
at the last we hear of Philip.
He's brought up later one other time.
Chapter nine, now we kind of get back to Saul.
It says in verse one,
Saul yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter
against the disciples of the Lord.
So this guy is just causing a lot of issues
And so he gets confronted by Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, verse 4,
and he fell to the earth and heard a voice singing,
and him, Saul, Saul, why persecute us, thou me.
So he has this this vision Jesus shows up saying why are you persecuting me Saul?
He kind of gives him the temporary blindness and sends him away to wait for
Ananias Ananias comes under him to preach him the gospel and to help him get saved and
After Saul gets saved and baptized
Then it says in verse 20 and straight way he preached Christ in the synagogues that he is the Son of God
Again, what is the Apostle Paul going out and preaching? Jesus is the Son of God
It's not preaching repenting of your sins,
it's not preaching all that stuff.
Now look, it's not like the disciples and stuff
weren't telling people to follow God's commandments,
but that's not the main emphasis.
What they're preaching is that Jesus is the Son of God.
They're preaching that you need to believe in Jesus.
Verse 22,
But Saul increased the more in strength
and confounded the Jews.
Notice he's confounding the Jews, verse 23,
and after that, many days were fulfilled,
the Jews took counsel to kill him.
It's not every Jew. I could see like the fact check. What was it technically every Jew?
Okay, but the Bible doesn't give even a fact check caveat here. It's just the Jews are trying to kill him, right?
Verse 24, but they're lying a weight was known of Saul and they watched the gates day and night to kill him
Look you read in the Bible people preaching the gospel the Jews want to kill them and they're constantly waiting to kill them
And they're constantly inspiring to kill them. That is what Jews are like
according to Acts, and there's no new thing under the sun.
Now Saul runs into Barnabas, and it's because Saul was trying to join himself to the disciples,
but they're afraid that he's not legit.
They're afraid that he's going to actually, it's like a secret informant.
So it takes Barnabas befriending him to kind of like partner up with some of the other
disciples.
It was in verse 27, but Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared
that he had spoken to him and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name
of Jesus. So he's saying, look, there's no way this guy's on the other side. He's
been preaching the gospel and getting people saved himself. He saw Jesus, he's
preaching the gospel, and Barnabas helps to reconcile these two groups.
Verse 31,
What I think is interesting is, you know, sometimes we kind of don't realize
what's happening in all these stories and we miss some of the verses,
but if we think about it, there's a lot of persecution that happens for a period of time,
and it's really intense.
But then the Bible is saying it kind of lets up.
It kind of lets up and then they get to kind of do their thing.
And so even when we go through persecutions, we shouldn't have this mindset or attitude
like it's going to be forever.
The protests are going to be forever.
No, we're steadfast.
They're not steadfast.
They're in jail or dead or buying shoes or whatever like, you know
Or they've got some disease that they're dying of or something like that some skin disease
You know what? We're the ones that are steadfast and we shouldn't be like thinking that every persecution is forever or a lifetime
Many times it's just gonna come and go just like they do
So they have a rest
Then Peter raises Dorcas back to life chapter 10
Peter ends up getting a vision and
This vision is of unclean beasts says in verse number 13 and there came a voice to him rise Peter kill and eat
So, not only do you get to eat bacon, but then there's this symbology that, hey, this
gospel is not just for Jews, it's for Gentiles, too.
And there's a man that comes unto him, Cornelius, that is supposed to go and preach unto them.
Verse 43, this is him preaching, and to him, give all the prophets witness that through
his name, who serve or believeth in him, shall receive remission of sins.
While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the Word.
So look people believe in Jesus and they got the Holy Ghost these people aren't even baptized
So this totally debunks your acts 238 that you have to be baptized to get the Holy Ghost or to be saved
Then they asked this question in verse 47,
can any man forbid water that these should not be baptized
which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?
So they realized these people had already gotten saved
and already received the Holy Ghost,
yet they hadn't even been baptized yet
because baptism is not a part of salvation.
It is an after salvation event
and that is being clearly identified here.
Yeah, they did speak with tongues
but that was a special gifting at that time.
Chapter 11 verse 14, this is Peter.
explaining what happened.
He has to go back to Jews and he has to now explain,
hey, Gentiles can get saved.
And it's going to freak some Jews out.
Like, they're going to be really weirded out.
But I like how he words this in verse 14.
He says that,
Peter was supposed to go into those people
who shall tell the words,
talking about Cornelius and the Gentiles,
whereby thou and all thy house
shall be saved.
So what was Peter preaching?
salvation. He was explaining people how to be saved. That's when they heard the
Gospel, they got saved, they were filled with the Holy Ghost. Verse 18, when they
heard these things they held their peace and glorified God saying, then I've got
also to the Gentiles granted, notice this, repentance under life. So what was
repentance defined as here in this chapter as salvation because he gave
them words?
to be saved, and then they notice, hey, the Gentiles got repentance under life.
Because their repentance is what?
Believing in Jesus Christ to be saved.
Where did Peter come to a bunch of Gentiles and say,
you Gentiles are more sinful than us, you got to repent of your sins?
No, no, no, he preached under them Jesus and that was their repentance under life.
That was the words that they needed to be saved, not repenting of their sins.
And look, Gentiles have a lot of sins they need to repent of.
They were very sinful, very wicked as a culture, as a nationality, as a group of people.
Because, again, repenting of your sins isn't what saves you.
You get saved, then you get into church, then we learn about repenting of your sins.
Repenting of your sins is after salvation, not before.
And if you had to repent of your sins to get saved, no one would ever get saved.
It says in verse 20 of this chapter,
It says in some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene which when they were come to Antioch spake unto the Grecians
preaching the Lord Jesus so people are being scattered again and and preaching the gospel some started preaching to Grecians and
It says in verse 21 and the hand of the Lord is with them and a great number of believed and turned unto the Lord
So they've been beating their head against the wall with Jews and Jerusalem
They're just getting persecuted, scattered, but when they get scattered, they're still
only preaching to Jews in these little areas, because Jews are just everywhere.
There's little small groups of Jews, but then some of them preach to some of the Greeks.
They started just exploring and preaching to the Greeks, and what does the Bible say?
God was with them.
God's with the people that are now going to the Gentiles and not beating their head against
And when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch.
This is Barnabas taking Saul there.
And it came to pass that a whole year they assembled themselves
with the church and taught much people.
And the disciples were called Christians first and Antioch.
So Antioch's one of the first holdouts,
one of the first churches of the Gentiles.
Paul's there.
That's where they're called Christians.
And this is kind of the home base for Paul and Barnabas.
So we kind of see the early church Jerusalem.
We have a new church plant, Antioch.
other places. This home base of Antioch is where they're first called Christians and we have some great people there like
Bartibus and Paul. So these churches are kind of early formed. Chapter 12 verse 2,
Herod kills James the brother of John. Then they imprison Peter. Then Peter is led out by an angel
and then Herod's killed for being prideful. Again, another little quick,
like heavy persecution against the church, but then it's just over like that again.
So here's another reminder that maybe you have one group of enemies and they come and go
Then you have a new group of enemies, but guess what? They're gonna come and go again
So don't don't think like oh man now. It's another one. This is gonna be forever. No, Herod came and went
These people came and went Saul came and went. I mean, there's just gonna be different
Persecutors at different times, but hey, they kind of come and go and then you get to have that piece again
and
It says in verse 24
We're in chapter 12, chapter 12 verse 24, but the word of God grew and multiplied.
So even through Herod's persecution, they were still being successful.
Yeah, some people died, I mean, James dies, great guy again, but they still ultimately
were growing and reaching more people and more people were getting saved.
Chapter 13 verse 3, this is them separating Barnabas and Saul and it says, And when they
had fasted and prayed, they laid their hands on them and sent them away.
So this is kind of our first missionary journey.
Because at first they're just in Jerusalem, then they're scattered by persecution, just by force.
Now they have that church and they're like, let's actually just send people out.
And they're going to send Barnabas and Paul out to do their first mission.
Verse 6, and when they had gone through the Isle and Apathos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew.
whose name was barred Jesus.
So we have this Jew, he tries to turn the deputy away from the faith.
Verse 11, he's blinded.
Verse 13, their companion John departs.
And you kind of wonder like, was it related to this
aliamist story? Maybe.
We don't know, maybe he got scared, maybe he got nervous.
But in verse 14,
but when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch and Pisidia
and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down.
You'll notice this common theme.
Paul's constantly going at first to the synagogue every time.
He's going to the Jews in every area first
and kind of preaching to them,
and you'll notice the pattern.
He's banging his head against the wall with them constantly.
Verse 38.
Be it known unto you therefore men and brethren that through this man talking about Jesus is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins and
By him all that believe are justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses
Again, it's not repenting your sins. It's by believing
This is an awesome verse that I really like verse 42 and when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue
The Gentiles was sought that these words might be preached to them the next habit they so the Jews don't like it
But then Gentiles are coming in, they're like,
we kind of like this message, right?
They kind of resonate with it.
Verse 44, in fact, the next Sabbath day
came almost the whole city together
to hear the word of God.
Verse 45,
but when the Jews saw the multitudes,
they were filled with envy.
So notice, why do the Jews hate the gospel
because it's successful and popular
and a lot of Gentiles are getting saved?
And let's be honest,
we looked at the chart even this morning.
I mean, Christianity is the number one religion in the world.
Jews, 15 million.
Nothing, a nothing burger, they're envious of how many people want to hear about Jesus
and the Bible, and they hate that.
What does Paul say?
Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold and said, it was necessary that the Word of God should
first have been spoken to you, but seeing ye put it from you and judge yourselves unworthy
of everlasting life.
Lo, we turn to the Gentiles.
Notice the Apostle Paul is now like,
hey, because you guys are God's chosen people,
no matter what, I love you.
He says, nope, I'm done with you,
and you're unworthy of everlasting life.
He says, y'all are scum, y'all are reprobate.
That's what he's saying.
That's what the Apostle Paul's saying about Jews.
Verse 50, but the Jews stirred up the development
and honorable women in the chief men of the city
and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas.
I'm seeing a really consistent message here.
They just constantly persecuted him.
Chapter 14, verses one.
And two, it says that a great multitude, both the Jews and also the Greeks,
believe, verse two,
but the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and made their minds evil,
affected against the brethren.
Who's the one that's constantly instigating the persecution?
It's the unbelieving Jews in Jerusalem.
It's the unbelieving Jews that are following them around.
It's the unbelieving Jews in every part of this area.
And they're stirring up Gentiles to do their dirty work for them.
They assault them in verse 5.
They go to Lystra in verse 8.
In verse 19, they stone Paul.
It says, and there came, there are certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium who persuaded
the people in having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing they'd be then.
So they tried to kill him.
The apostle Paul then says this in verse number 22, confirming the souls of the disciples
and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation
enter into the kingdom of God.
Boy, is he speaking from personal experience.
What is what does Christian life look like preaching the gospel being persecuted preaching the gospel being persecuted?
And what does the Apostle Paul say we must through much tribulation enter the kingdom of God?
That is the true picture of Christianity
Now, you were Danes elders in verse 23 and then in verse 27 he says,
And when they were coming and gathered the church together,
this is them explaining all the stuff that happened in their first missionary journey.
They were all that got it done with them and how he had opened the door of faith.
unto the Gentiles, because they were going out again trying to reach the Jews
and they didn't have success there, but they had this huge success with lots of
Gentiles and got lots of Gentiles saved
even though they suffered a lot of persecution along the way
from the Jews. Chapter 15 verse 1
then you have Judaizers coming in saying, except you be circumcised after the
man of Moses
you cannot be saved. This is dealt with in Galatians 1
but again that's a false gospel.
Verse seven, even Peter says this, he says,
Peter rose up and said to the men, brethren,
you know how that a good while ago,
God made choice among us that the Gentiles by my mouth
should hear the word of the gospel and believe.
So he's saying the Gentiles hear the gospel
and believe that's how they get saved.
Verse 10.
Now therefore, why tempt God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither
our fathers nor we were able to bear?
But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even
as they.
What is Peter saying?
We couldn't repent of our sins, we couldn't keep the law, we're saved by grace, so then
why would we not think that they're saved by grace?
Hey, Jews are saved by grace and Gentiles are saved by grace, but no one is saved by the law.
No one can keep the law.
He's like, why are you putting this burden on them that no one can keep?
No one's ever kept.
No one is saved by that.
Now, verse 21, he says,
For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him being read in the synagogue.
They're trying to say, well, what do we tell the Gentiles?
They tell them to avoid idols, fornication, and things strangled in blood.
If you think about it, those are some big sin issues that are rampant in those parts
and they fit the 1 Corinthians 5 issue.
It's like, hey, what should we warn them about?
Big picture, idols, fornication, and they're saying, look, they have the book of Moses.
So they're going to get a lot of the other stuff that they need, but those are the big
things that we want to remind them of and say, hey, this is what you should really stay
away from, but not to be saved, just to be a successful Christian.
When they go back out on their second mission, they're supposed to go on the second mission
They go to Jerusalem they find out hey, you know this this dispute has been squashed
It's just salvation by faith. We don't add any of his works
But they want to send back to guys with them and they send back
Forgive me the one name. I'd have to look at it again and Silas. They send two guys back with them. Is it Judas?
Yeah, Judas and Silas. I wonder why they didn't pick Judas. No, I'm just kidding
It's like they, and so they're about to go back out.
Paul and Barnabas are ready to go back out second time.
They just had all this excess.
And then Barnabas is like, let's bring John Mark.
And Paul's like, no, I'm not bringing John Mark.
And the dissension was so sharp between them
that Barnabas just decides to just go out with John Mark.
Now here's the thing, Judas and Silas were recommended
by the apostles as being great people
to go out and do the work.
John Mark's recommended by no one.
And the Apostle Paul is like, this guy already departed from us and abandoned us, I don't want to take him.
So then what does the Apostle Paul do? He picks Silas and look how the text words it in, I think it's verse 40 is what I want.
And Paul chose Silas and departed, notice this, being recommended by the brethren under the grace of God.
So we had two great guys doing all this work, then all of a sudden they split and then you know what the Bible does?
It just follows Paul and Silas.
And we don't hear about Barnabas.
But what, but he didn't, you know, Barnabas didn't pick the guy that was recommended by the church.
He picked his own personal guy instead of the guy recommended by the church, meaning we shouldn't be a respect or a person.
And look, I'm not saying that Barnabas and John, Mark didn't do something good for God,
maybe they did, but I don't think it's a coincidence that then the Bible just ignores
their journey and basically just brings up Paul and Silas as the main thing that's happening.
And we see their really successful works that they're doing.
You know, it's important who you choose to work with and who you're around, and instead
of being a respected person, you know what, you should pick the people that are recommended
Chapter 16, verse 1, we introduced the Timotheus.
He's part Hebrew, part Greek, and he's a great guy,
meaning race mixing is not always bad.
Sorry to burst your bubble.
They go to Macedonia, they cast out a demon
out of this one woman, and then we get the great,
but then they get thrown in jail for doing that.
Verse 30 and 31, we get the great question,
serves what must be to be saved, and they said,
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved.
They didn't say you were printing for sins,
they said you didn't get baptized,
they said just believe and you're going to be saved.
Chapter 17, verses one and two,
talks about Paul going through lots of other areas.
But I noticed this, it says,
And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them in three days,
in three Sabbath days, reasoned with them out of the Scriptures.
So he's going to the synagogue as his manner was.
This is what he constantly did, is he went into the synagogues,
he went into the public square and preaching to the Jews
and just beating his head against the wall,
but they're just not interested.
Verse 5,
But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy,
took unto them certain lewd fellers of the baser sort.
Now, some people say, like, oh, you're just over-generalizing Jews.
But wait a minute.
Haven't the Jews been consistent in Jerusalem
and in every single city and in every single synagogue?
It's just the same story over and over.
Now, again, there's some Jews that believe.
But the vast majority of them, the general stereotype is that they are envious, hateful, and they're very vicious and violent.
That's what these people are like, and the Bible just keeps hammering this particular point.
They stir people up, they kill them, then Paul goes to Athens, preaches unto them about the unknown God.
You have the great verse about how God has made us of one blood of all nations of men.
For a sake of time, I'm just going to kind of speed up for the rest of this so I can get some conclusions, but
chapter 18, the Apostle Paul's in Corinth, and look at verse number six.
And when they had posed themselves talking about the Jews,
and blasphemed, he shook his raiment and said to them,
your blood be upon your own heads.
I am clean.
From henceforth, I will go into the Gentiles."
It's funny because he keeps saying this,
but he keeps going back to them, right?
But he's just like, I'm just gonna go to the Gentiles now.
But then in verse number 12,
Emelon Galileo was the deputy of the Kaia,
the Jews made insurrection.
Notice who the insurrectionists are?
Jews.
Chapter 19, verse 4, we get the great definition of the, of repentance, then said Paul, John
verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe
on him, which should come after him, that is on Christ Jesus.
So a couple of people that have been baptized, not saved, don't have the Holy Ghost yet.
The apostle Paul is saying, well John the Baptist preached the baptism of repentance, what is
it?
believing on Jesus Christ.
So again, we see the consistent definition of repentance
is putting your faith in Jesus Christ
all the way through the book of Acts.
Chapter 20, the word of God prevails.
Chapter 24, you have a silver smith also attacking them.
Chapter 20, verse nine.
And they're sat in a window, a certain young man named Udikus,
being fallen into a deep sleep, and his paw was long preaching.
He sunk down to sleep and fell down from the third loft
and was taken abdent.
I just really empathize with Paul because he's a long preacher.
He preaches really long, okay?
But that's what I like about him, all right?
I kind of preach long too sometimes.
But he preaches long.
Then he preaches to the elders of Ephesus in verse 28.
Take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock where the Holy Ghost has made you overseers to feed the church of God
Which he had purchased with his own blood. So he's finishing his missionary journey. He rises
He's pretty much out of time. He's gonna go back to Jerusalem. He's commissioning all the elders of Ephesus and he's saying look
I've taught you everything, you're now responsible, you guys need to feed the flock of God.
And verse 29 is a warning, for I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wills
enter and among you not sparing the flock.
Also if your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples
after them."
So he's saying, look, there's going to be a lot of bad people coming in here and a lot
of bozos and even some of you guys are bozos.
And look, isn't that what we see in Christianity?
And what happens? You have a lot of persecution, different enemies coming and going.
You're starting a lot of churches everywhere,
you're getting a lot of people saved,
a lot of people get mad about it.
Then with all these different church plants,
well, you get a lot of bozos,
and you get a lot of weirdos,
and a lot of freaks coming in.
And look, if you just stick with Christianity for a while,
you'll see all these same things playing out
even in our lives.
This is just kind of a quick blast
through the Gospel of Acts,
but I think for those of us that have been in church
for a while, we kind of see these things happening.
And some long preaching, I get it, all right.
You have this verse it says in finding the disciples we tarried there seven days who said to Paul
Through the spirit that he should not go up to Jerusalem
People are telling the apostle Paul not to go to Jerusalem, but he disobeyed God
So even though the possible is great
He still makes mistakes and he even went to Jerusalem when he shouldn't and then he ends up trying to
capitulate to the Jews and they don't care anyways
They just want to kill them and just basically arrest him
it says
That in verse 24 he tries to placate the Jews by keeping the law, but they don't care all the Jews get him
When he goes to Jerusalem, they get him and they arrest him and they're trying to kill him
He gets rescued by the Romans and then in chapter 22 he's trying to explain himself
And then he skipped to verse 21
when he's trying to explain himself.
And he said unto me, and this is the Paul recounting,
everything that's happening, he's explaining to the Jews,
look, all I'm doing is obeying what Jesus did.
He showed up to me, he told me all these things.
And then he gets to verse 21.
And he said unto me, depart, for I will send thee far hence
unto the Gentiles.
And they gave him audience unto this word.
And then lifted up their voices and said,
away was such a fellow from the earth,
for it is not fit that he should live.
They're like they're just listening to his little story and as soon as he says hey, Jesus wants me to get Gentiles saved
They're like all right stop. We're done with them kill him
Murder him, you know, we're done with this guy. We see the racism is rampant that the Jews hate Gentiles
Anything positive about the Gentiles they want to kill them and they despise them. They think they're goyum and
Of course, you know the Apostle Paul saying he's supposed to preach unto them just drives them insane
they want to kill him.
Chapter 23, in fact, verse 6,
but when Paul perceived that one part was Sadducees
and the other Pharisees, he cried out on the Councilman
and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee,
of the hope of the resurrection of the dead,
I am called in question.
Paul didn't do anything wrong.
All he does is believe in the resurrection
and that's enough for them to want to kill him.
And he's going to testify in Rome.
God says he's going to still do this.
Verse 21.
This is a recounting of what was happening, but it says this is like a young man like talking to the Romans
But do not thou yield unto them for their lion weight for him of them more than 40 men
Which have bound themselves with an oath that they will neither eat nor drink till they have killed him and now are they ready?
looking for a promise from me, so
You know, there's 40 guys that are taking about a kill Paul. That's how serious they are
But we can see that God's still delivering him through all this.
Chapter 24 they call him a pestilent fellow.
It goes through a lot of lawfare and it's real boring, okay?
He preaches the resurrection in chapter 24 and chapter 25 verse 1.
Now Ephesus is coming to the province after three days.
He's sitting from Caesarea to Jerusalem and when he has this new guy he ends up appealing
unto Caesar.
It's verse 11, I'm sorry.
I appeal in a Caesar.
That's the only point I was going to say.
The appeal process takes a long time.
I've learned this, all right?
The court system takes a long time and everyone loses.
And I've been there.
He preaches unto different people, though,
and different men, tries to get them saved.
He almost gets a grip of saved in chapter 26
and verse number 28,
when he's preaching all these different people.
It says in chapter 26 verse 28,
then a grip is said in the Paul,
almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.
So in some cases effective sometimes he's not
Now he's sent under Rome
Because he's sent under Rome. They have to get on a boat verse 10
And he said to themselves I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt and much damage
Not only the lady in the ship, but also for lives, you know, sometimes you need to listen to the boss ball
He's literally traveled the entire world a couple times around
He probably knows what he's talking about, but these guys are too prideful and they just
go out sailing and they don't listen to him and of course they lose the ship.
And you know, sometimes your pastor's been around the block and men of God have been
around the block, maybe they can give you some advice even outside of the Bible and
you should probably just listen, okay?
That's just, they're just going to say that.
and he gets bit by a snake, he shakes off the beast in verse 5,
and then eventually they get into Rome.
Now when they're in Rome in verse 22 it says,
he talked to some Jews and they said in verse 22,
but we desire to hear of thee what thou thinkest for us concerning this sect.
We know that everywhere it is spoken against.
So now were they famous or infamous?
This is what you get when you're a Christian and you're doing a lot of things for God. You'll be infamous not famous
It's a woe unto you and all men shall speak well of you, but you know if you're serving God
I think you're still gonna be known. You're just gonna be not well liked
Everywhere this thing is spoken against everywhere. It's everybody hates this thing or whatever
But you know, Paul's a pretty great guy.
Everywhere he goes, he's healing people,
he's helping people, he's making tents,
he's making an honest job, honest living.
I mean, there's nothing bad about Paul.
Is he perfect?
No, but he's a pretty great guy.
But just everybody hates him.
Everybody's against him.
Verse 25, And when they had agreed not among themselves,
talking about Jews, they never agree among themselves,
they departed after that Paul had spoken one word,
well spake the Holy Ghost by his eyes the prophet
unto our fathers, saying, Go unto this people and say,
hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand,
and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive.
For the heart of this people is waxed gross,
and their ears are dull of hearing.
and their eyes have they closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and
understand with their heart and should be converted, and I should heal them. Be it known, therefore
unto you that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and that they will hear it."
And when he had said these words, the Jews departed and had great reasoning
among themselves. Now this is interesting. It ends this way.
It ends like, Jews don't want to get saved,
don't care, depart, but the Gentiles are interested.
That's a great lead into the fact that we're going to now get into a bunch of epistles written to what?
To Gentiles.
Show me the one written to those Jews or something.
You have the Hebrews, but it's to saved Hebrews.
It's to the saved Jews that had converted, not to a bunch of unsaved Jews.
So I have a few conclusions about the book of Acts and and really we see a lot of themes number one
Is is a good lead in to the epistles written to the Gentile churches
It helps us explain like why we have all these epistles written to the Gentile churches
Because the Jews weren't interested by and large most of them didn't even get saved number two is that we saw a persecution by the Jews
Jews were the main persecutors. There's a couple others like idolaters and those that made money
So it's basically false religion, Jews and idolaters.
And let me tell you something, the worst people against the Gospel are those groups.
Jews, Hindus especially, they hate Christianity, Catholics because of all their pagan idolatry.
Look, fake religion, Jews and idolaters, these people are the most dangerous people when it comes to the Gospel.
It should always be leery of those individuals.
Number three.
Repentance was believing in Jesus, not repenting of your sins.
I saw that consistent through the entire book.
Number four, we learned that neither Jew nor Gentile keep the law.
Nobody keeps the law, nobody's perfect.
Number five, we learned that the court system
is long and sucks, okay?
And I'll just tell you, there's no new thing under the sun.
All right, you should avoid it if possible.
And I'm speaking from real experience.
Number six, that the Word of God grew
through preaching, not force.
The word of God grew through preaching and not force, in fact through a lot of persecution.
Number seven, we should learn to pray for boldness because if we're going to do a great work for God,
there's going to be a lot of opposition, a lot of foes, a lot of enemies, and we must through
much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God. And number eight, this is the big picture,
this is what I think is the most important message from the book of Acts that I learned,
can make a big difference
That a few zealous people can make a big difference, you know the book of Acts really just emphasized as a handful of people
I'm not saying there wasn't a lot of people involved
They're not saying there wasn't other Christians
But it really was through the efforts Peter and Paul that for the most part these things happened and Paul primarily and
And we can see that even just one guy can make a huge impact
when he decides to dedicate himself to the Word of God and doing big things for God.
You know, some of our crew went down to Mexico City recently and we're preaching the Gospel
and they teamed up with a church and there's a guy, Pastor Kevin Nguyen down there and
he's a Hiles Anderson graduate.
Correct me if I'm wrong, didn't he start his church?
I believe he started his church.
From the north going down to Mexico City to start a church now the guy's running like
7,000 or something like that in Mexico City. I mean that's incredible
The work that one guy can accomplish when he just desiccates himself to the gospel and preaching and look
He's had plenty of threats and persecution and all kinds of stuff because the guy got a bunch of Mary statues on the stage
Like smashed them all and destroyed them all
Okay, so it's like I already like you, you know, I just I just like you already
Don't need any other reason like I mean you like soul winning you're smashing idols. We're fun. We're friends, okay?
You know for the old I be you have this long list of what it takes to be their friend for us
It's like King James only and you like soul winning, you know, it's like we'll take any friend we can get you know
We're desperate. All right
They're they're like really picky. It's like do you do clothes communion or open communion? You're just like come on, bro
Can't we be friends, you know?
Why can't we be friends?
No, it's like, we need more friends in this world.
And at the end of the day, we learned that all of our
common enemies, the Jews, and we need some Christians
to be bold enough to preach against our real enemies
that are out there.
Yeah, and so, you know, I hope that you learned
a little bit from the book of Acts,
and I'm hoping to do more.
You know, people will be like, oh, why do you
always bring up the Jews?
Sorry, it's just called the New Testament.
Why do you always bring up persecution?
The New Testament. Why do you bring up church planning? The New Testament?
Why do you bring up bozos? The New Testament? I mean, it's like, what do you want me to preach?
It's like, I can just let, I mean, if I just let the Bible fall open in the New Testament,
you know, why I'm doing a lot of these overviews is I'm just trying to help you get an idea of like,
what is the Bible really emphasizing? And it emphasizes a lot of these things, but you know,
you also realize that often it's just a small group of people.
That are going to make a big difference in this world and don't be discouraged by our church or our size
You know some people might think like oh you guys are a tiny movement or a tiny church or tiny group
But we're getting thousands of people saved
And we're doing a big work for God and we are the sect that's being spoken against all over the world
I mean think about it. We had people from the Netherlands just show up at our church today to film us. That's weird
Like, why do they care?
Don't you realize there's thousands of churches in this area?
There's, yay, tens of thousands of churches in all of America.
You want to come here?
Why, because we're the sect that's spoken against everywhere.
Why, because there's only a few people
that want to preach what the Bible says.
And you know what, there's going to be persecution.
There's going to be people that come and go.
But you know what, we need to be steadfast.
And we want to learn from the Apostle Paul's example
and say, hey,
Something big could be a compass in our lifetime if we dedicate ourselves to
Jesus Christ and preaching the gospel and the word of God. And you know what? I believe it. I believe we can see it
I think we've already had success
But I think the sky is the limit and I think there's a lot more success that can be had
And we need to continue being steadfast, you know, it's Sunday night church
I'm preaching to the guys that are hardcore, but let's stay hardcore
And let's keep going and let's you know tribulation bring it on
Instead of being discouraged, just be like, hey, we are counted worthy to suffer for a
sake.
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you Heavenly Father so much for this great story and these great events that happen
and these Christians who dedicated themselves to the gospel.
We understand that you will return one day, but until you return it's our job, it's our goal,
it's our mission to preach the gospel into all the world, to teach all nations, to baptize them,
and to teach them the entire Bible.
And I pray that you would help embolden us, and you give us courage,
that when we go through difficulties, when we suffer loss, when we see martyrs,
when we see needless death, when we see people getting discouraged, when we see haters,
It wouldn't dissuade us, but rather we'd be more emboldened to go out and preach the gospel.
I pray that we wouldn't be afraid of our enemies, but rather we would only fear you.
and that we desire to please you and that you would help us,
that you would give us extra power and extra strength
and extra courage to be great witnesses,
not only in Texas, not only in the United States,
yay, the entire world.
And that we could do a great work and a big work
for your son and the gospel and what he's done for us
and in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen. For our last song we're going to go to song number 412, Onward Christian Soldiers 412,
fitting song to end that sermon with. Song number 412, Onward Christian Soldiers 412,
Excellent seeing you, everybody. You're all dismissed.