(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.) Now beginning in verse number 1, the Bible reads, and after the uproar was ceased, Paul called unto him the disciples and embraced them and departed before he go into masculinity. Now what uproar was that? You remember last week in chapter 19, this is where there was the big uproar where all the people who had made the idols unto the goddess Diana, the silver idols, were angry because they were losing business because Paul was getting a lot of people saved and they were no longer worshipping idols. He was telling them to turn from these phony gods and to worship the one true living God. And so they caused that big uproar and a big riot and the government had to get involved and calm things down. So that's the uproar it's referring to. It says in verse 2, And when he had gone over those parts and had given them much exhortation, he came into Greece and there abode three months. And when the Jews laid weight for him as he was about to sail into Syria, he purposed to return through Macedonia. So basically he left Ephesus, he went to Macedonia, he gave them much exhortation, he preached them a lot of things out of the Bible. He went on to Greece and then the Jews were laying weight for him. He decided to go back through Macedonia. And it says in verse 4, And there accompanied him into Asia. He lists his friends there, Sope and Uroboria, the Thessalonians, Aristarchus, and Segundus, and Gaius of Derbe, and Timotheus, and of Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus. These go on before terried forest at Troas. And we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and came unto them to Troas in five days, where we abode seven days. And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morn. Now you can see here very clearly in verse 7 that this is obviously something that they were accustomed to do. The first day of the week was when they got together and broke bread. That's found in another place in the New Testament. 1 Corinthians 16 is another one. We have church on Sunday. We have church on the first day of the week. There are a lot of people who think that we must have church on the seventh day. Yet we see throughout the book of Acts that they got together and broke bread and listened to preaching on the first day of the week. Now, people will say this. Well, Sunday is not the Sabbath. Amen. Of course Sunday is not the Sabbath. Of course with all the Spanish speakers that are in our area, we know that, what is Saturday in Spanish? Sabado. Sabado. And what does that sound like? Sabbath. Because the Sabbath is the seventh day. So no, Sunday is not the Sabbath. Many people will teach and preach that it's wrong to work on Sunday, that it's wrong to do any work because it's the Sabbath. That is not true. Sunday is not the Sabbath. Sunday is the first day of the week, not the seventh day. We as New Testament believers do not observe the Sabbath. Now, we believe that God's commands in the Old Testament that we should obey all of them except for the ones that he specifically told us in the New Testament not to worry about. He explains it very clearly in Colossians and Hebrews that anything that had to do with the Levitical priesthood has been replaced with Jesus Christ the High Priest. We don't need the sacrifices, we don't need the tabernacle, we don't need those things. He said that the laws regarding meats and drinks and divers' washings and carnal or physical ordinances, he said those things were only imposed on them until the coming of Christ. So we don't just throw out the whole Old Testament. But there are certain things that were ceremonial or that were just picturing something and the Sabbath is in that category of something that's been done away with. I don't want to preach on that tonight because that's a whole sermon in and of itself. Colossians 2 is a place you could look at on that. Romans 14, 5 says, One man esteemeth one day above another. Another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He will turn to one place, Colossians 2, Hebrews chapter 4, go to Colossians 2, but in Hebrews chapter 4, the Bible explains what the Sabbath pictured and what it represented. And it represented salvation through Jesus Christ. And the reason why it represented that is because the Bible says in Hebrews 4 that when God had created all things in six days, it says He rested on the seventh day. And it says that we should enter into His rest and the Bible says, Now He that has entered into His rest hath also ceased from His own works as God did from His. So the Sabbath pictured that we don't have to do any works for salvation. And the reason that they were not to do any work on the Sabbath is because there are no works involved in being saved. It's just believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Did you know that when Jesus Christ was crucified, He was crucified at even on the fourteenth day of the month Abib, according to the Bible. The Passover was to be slain at even. Jesus Christ was that Passover. But when Jesus Christ was slain at even, when He died at even, that day was a day of rest, a Sabbath known as the Passover. So the first 24 hours that Jesus was dead was the Passover. The second 24 hour period when Jesus was dead was called the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is also a Sabbath or a day of rest. Those two holidays. And then the third day, the third 24 hour period that Jesus Christ was dead was Saturday, which is what? The Sabbath. So isn't it interesting that as Jesus Christ died for our sins and the Bible says He was dead for three days and three nights and then He rose again, He said that He would spend three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. I'm talking about the grave there. The grave is on the surface of the earth. He spent three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. While He was down there, conquering death and hell, the Bible says basically that there was Sabbath, Sabbath, Sabbath. So really no one was to do any works during that time. A picture of the fact that Jesus Christ was doing all the work for our salvation. He doesn't need us to add any works to it. He did it all. The 14th was a holiday. The 15th was a holiday. Saturday was just the normal Saturday. So God in His infinite wisdom and foreknowledge and planning made sure that Jesus Christ was crucified on a year where the Passover fell upon basically our Wednesday night, 6 p.m. It would be basically considered the Thursday, Friday, Saturday. It worked out perfectly in God's plan. That's why the Sabbath was instituted to represent that there are no works involved for salvation. In the New Testament, a lot of these symbolic and ceremonial things have been done away. Look at Colossians 2 and the Bible explains this. It says in verse 14, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross. And having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holiday, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days, which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ. And He later on rebukes them and says, you know, ye observe days and times, and He said, I'm afraid of you lest I bestow labor upon you in vain. He was questioning, do you guys even understand the Gospel if you're still trying to practice a lot of these ritualistic, ceremonial-type things from the Old Testament? that were a figure for the time then present, the Bible tells us. They were symbolic for that time. That doesn't mean we just throw out everything in the Old Her, whatever we want out of the Old Testament, only the things that were specifically mentioned, the meat, the drink, the food, and the divers washing. That's why we eat pork and all those things. Because there's nothing inherently sinful about eating pork. That's why when Noah got off the ark in Genesis 9, he was told to eat every animal, including pigs. That was just a temporary thing. And this world has been around for 6,300 years approximately. And in that 6,300 years that this world's been around, those dietary restrictions were only there for about 1,500 years, 1,600 years, just a short time. The law came by Moses, and grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And so we are not under those ordinances, the carnal ordinances. We do have to obey the moral laws of the Old Testament. What God said was right then is still right today. And what He said was wrong is still wrong. Acts 20. So in Acts 20, He said in verse 7, Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow. He was ready to leave the next day. And continued his speech until midnight. So this is a pretty long service. I mean, he's preaching long. He starts the evening service. Midnight rolls around. He's still preaching. And it says in verse number 8, There were many lights in the upper chamber where they were gathered together. It wasn't one of those really dim churches. You know, you walk into some of these churches really dark and dim. They had a lot of lights on. You notice all the lighting. And the Bible says men love darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. And you walk into a lot of these dark churches. You know, they're very dark spiritually as well. And you go to some of these churches where it's very ritualistic and they darken down the lights. Have you ever noticed that a lot of sinful places have dim lighting? You go to a bar, it's dimmed down. You go to a casino, it's dimmed down. You know, the Bible says men love darkness rather than light when their deeds are evil. Good deeds are done in the light and they're not afraid of the light. And so our church has a lot of lights on tonight. And so it says they had a lot of lights lit up in the upper chamber where they were gathered together. And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus. Now that tells me the place was packed because he probably wouldn't have been sitting in a window if there was a better place to sit. Obviously, it was just packed. And I remember when I preached at Brother Jimenez's house, that place was packed. And we were talking about sticking people and kind of, you know, well, we can stick them there and stick them on the stairs there. You know, we have people up in the balcony and everything. And so I think it was packed into a house like that or some kind of a building, but it was packed. And so this guy had to get stuck in a window. And it says he was in a window, a certain young man named Eutychus, and he was asleep. So basically, the preaching is just going so long, this guy just falls asleep. He's a young guy. He starts zoning out in that window. Pretty soon, he falls asleep, okay? And it says, and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep and fell down from the third loft. So he's basically a few stories up. And he falls out the window from really high up. This is something that can kill you. And basically, it says he was taken up dead like they thought he was dead because he fell so far. They stop everything. They run over. He fell off, and they pick him up and say, these guys just died. I mean, he just fell off the third loft out the window. And it says, and Paul went down and fell on him and, embracing him, said, trouble not yourselves, for his life is in him. For when he therefore was come up again in a broken bread and eaten and talked a long while, even till the break of day, he departed, and they brought the young man alive, and were not a little comforted. You know what I think this symbolizes spiritually, though? People that are half in and half out. You know, if you think about the church there, this guy was not all the way in. He's on the window. He's straddling the fence. Basically, you wonder, why did he take that seat? Maybe he was trying to watch what's going on outside. You know, maybe he's listening to the preaching, but then he's also kind of looking around and everything. I think it's symbolic of the things they've got. They're not all the way in. They're not 100% in. And you've heard the expression being half in and half out. And that's what this guy was. Notice which way did he fall? He didn't fall in. I mean, he didn't slump over and fall into the building. He fell out. Have you ever heard people say that somebody fell out of church? Now, when you're half in and half out, you don't fall in. You fall out. And that's why it's so important to just get all the way in, to jump all the way in. And I've noticed that, you know, let's face it, through the years, our church has existed for a little over five years, we've seen people fall out of church. And some of the people that got out of church were people that were some of the most zealous people in our church. And they were on fire. They were winning souls to Christ. They were growing in the Lord. They were reading their Bible. But, you know, they don't just go from that stage to just all of a sudden they're gone. No. There's a fading process. You know, they start to fade. They start to fade spiritually. And if that's you tonight, you know, you better take heat unto yourself lest you fall. If that's you tonight, if you feel like you're starting to fade and you're starting to just get into the cares of this world or becoming more important and you're missing more church than you've ever missed and you're missing a lot of soul winning, you know, you've got to ask yourself, am I a spiritual eunuchus that's starting to hang out there in the balance? You know, you're going to fall asleep and you're going to fall out of church. You know, this guy didn't even realize it until he hit the ground that he'd fallen out because he's asleep. And so, we need to take heat and beware lest we be half in and half out. God said, I would that thou wert cold or hot. He said, get in or get out, you know. And notice, Paul embraces them. Paul wanted them to be in. And we'll embrace you if you're half in and half out but we want you to begin all the way in. Don't be a fringe person. Don't be somebody who's just kind of on the edge all the time. You know, get in. And so, that was the problem with Utica spiritually. But notice what else. Notice that Paul preached really long. You know, I've noticed a trend and I'm, by nature, I'm not a really long-winded preacher. I don't usually preach a lot of the long sermons. I know about a week and a half ago I did a pretty long Sunday night. It was like over an hour and a half long. But you know, the bottom line is I didn't preach until midnight but the thing is as I've traveled around and as I've talked to people, they've come and visited our church and they say, wow, you preached for an hour. You preached for an hour and 15. You know, you preached for long. And they say, you know, my church back home, it's like 20 minutes, 25, 30 minutes, 35. Let me tell you something. There's a reason for that because some people just don't have that much to say. That's why. Let me tell you something. There's a lot to preach about. This is a big book and there's a lot of things that we need to learn. A lot of preachers just don't have that much to say because they just don't care that much or they're just not that excited about it or they just haven't read that much or studied that much but there's just not a lot to say. So they get up and they fill time for 20 minutes and they're watching that clock, make sure they preach long enough and call it good. You know, we ought to have something to say. Paul had something to say. He preached all night and I bet you he could have kept preaching even longer before he even started here and said he had a plan and he has to leave in the morning. He starts preaching on Sunday night. He preaches until midnight. Somebody falls out the window asleep. He just said, oh, well, pick him up and in fact, I'm hungry. Let's have something to eat and then he gets up and preaches again. He preaches until 6 a.m. and says, well, you know, I have a lot more in my notes here but I got to go. I already planned on leaving. Here's somebody who had something to say and I think it's great when a preacher has something to say and we don't need a minute's sermonette on a Sunday morning for babies. And we live in a society where people don't have an attention span and so we say, well, people don't have an attention span so we got to bring the sermon down shorter 15 minutes to suit their attention span. Isn't it amazing how those same people will sit for two hours in front of a movie and it's nothing to them? When was the last time you went to a movie theater and watched a half hour movie? Every movie, and you know what you'd say? You'd say, I got ripped off. I want my money back. I paid whatever. I haven't been to the theater in a decade or something but, you know, you'd feel tipped if you got down there and it was a 25 minute movie. Say, you know, I want a full feature presentation. Not as short. Hey, this is the full feature presentation right here. You want to feel ripped off if you drive all the way out to church and get some 5, 10 minute, 20 minute, 30 minute thing. You know, get something with some meat on the bone. You know, learn something. And so people today have a short attention span. They can watch movies. They can get up in the morning and play video games until they go to bed at night. And people today have a short attention span, especially children, and that's why you ought to get your children in church and tell them to sit down and shut up until it's over and let them learn to sit still, learn to be quiet, and learn to think about something that's not exploding, that's not, you know, a bunch of skin across the screen. You know, get them to actually focus on a book that has white pages and black ink with no pictures in it. That's good for them. And we need to grow up and not be children looking at our watch after 10 or 15 minutes because we want to go play somewhere. Hey, let's get into the Word tonight. Let's read this. Let's study this. This is what it's about. There's a lot to learn. I've got a lot to say and so don't be, you know, ADD Baptist. That'd be the name of some of these churches. ADD Baptist. Pastor Ritalin or whatever. The bottom line is, here's some long preaching. And the people wanted to hear it. You know, they liked it. And so the Bible says in verse number 13, it says, we went before to ship and sailed on the Assos. They're intending to take in Paul for so he had appointed, minding himself, to go afoot. And when we, you know, we're going to take in Paul for so he had appointed, minding himself, to go afoot. And when we, we're going to take in Paul for so he had appointed, to go afoot. And when we, when he met with us at Assos, we took him in and came to Mydalene. Now this is interesting because Paul basically, he leaves on foot. They were sailing to another city called Mydalene. But Paul actually wanted to leave and I think this is part of why he wanted to leave early. He wanted to go on foot. And he told them, you sail the ship and I'm going to do the first leg of the journey on foot. Okay? And then I'll meet you there. Now, you know, what do you make of that? I say, you know, Paul just wanted to be alone for a little while maybe. Maybe you want to spend some time praying and just being alone with God and do some thinking. And not only that, but he must have been a pretty physically fit guy to be able to do that walk, especially after preaching all night. Okay? He did this long walk. Now what can we learn from this? We live in a society where sometimes we're surrounded by noise all the time. We're always surrounded by people and we're always tired because even when we're by ourself, we've got our cell phone. You know, we've got some other electronic device whereby we're communicating with others. And it's all fine and dandy to communicate with others, but you know, we should take some time where we get alone and can just think on our own and be by ourself and get alone with God. The Bible says, But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou has shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. This is time we need to get alone and pray alone, spend some time thinking alone, and not always just have the headphones in, the TV on, or talking to people, or texting. Sometimes it's good to just shut that stuff off and just take a little peaceful time. And that's one thing I like about my job where I do a lot of driving because it gives me a little bit of peaceful time when I can actually just think and be alone. And you know, a lot of times I'm having to deal with business calls from the road or I'm chatting with friends and family, but the bottom line is it does provide a good time to just have peace. And I think that's what Paul was doing. He said, I think that's what Paul was doing here because he went alone. He sent everybody else on the ship and said, hey, I want to take this walk and just be alone for a while. So they met up with them. They took him into the ship in Mydalenia and we sailed Theds, verse 15. The next day over gets Chios and the next day we arrived at Samos and tarried at Trogillium and the next day we came to Miletus. For Paul had determined to sail by Ephesus because he would not spend the time in Asia for he pasted if it were possible for him to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost. So basically he's saying, you know what, let's skip Ephesus. Let's just sail right by it because I'm in a hurry to get to Jerusalem for the day of Pentecost. It says in verse 17, and from Miletus he's sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the church. So he's not stopping in Ephesus so he goes to Miletus and says, hey, I do want to talk to the elders of the church from Ephesus. He has them meet him there. They send for them and they come to see him. And it says in verse 18, when they will come to him, he sent unto them. Ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons, serving the Lord with all humility of mind and with many tears and temptations which befell me by the lying weight of the Jews. Here we see Paul's consistency where he said, I've been with you at all seasons serving the Lord. He wasn't one of these that just served God when it was the popular thing to do. He did it when it was unpopular, instant in season out of season. Not only that, he did it when it was hot outside. He did it when it was cold. He did everything in between. He was consistent all the way where I didn't let the heat stop him. I remember my sister was looking for a church and she was calling down the list and trying to find a good church because her husband had transferred into an area and she wanted to find the right church to go to. And she was calling around different churches and there was a pastor, she talked to her and she was trying to find a church that had a soul winning, and he said, well, we have soul winning but pretty much just me that's going out right now, just the pastor only because he said, well, the assistant pastor is doing some work on his house. He's building on his house. So I told him to just kind of skip soul winning until he's totally done with that project. And he's going to be on that project for a long time, this assistant pastor. So he's not doing soul winning. And he said, I go soul winning seven months out of the year in the west time, it's too calm. It's too calm for me to go soul winning. You know what I mean? It's a grown man. And he lived in New Mexico. He didn't live in the North Pole. He didn't live with Santa Claus in the North Pole. He didn't live in Alaska. You know, he lived in the southwest. And yeah, it gets cold in the desert, it gets cold in New Mexico because there's a high elevation place. And his name was Pastor Stackpole, so my sister just remembered him as seven month Stackpole. You know, just seven months out of the year, he goes soul winning. And you know, if we only went soul winning when the weather was good, we'd be pretty much seven month back to church because we have about five months of just inferno temperatures, don't we? We have five months over a hundred pretty much here in Phoenix. You know, but you know what? We can still get out there and do it. You just strap on the water. I think it's Brother Segura's the one that straps on like a water thing and you just, you know, drinking out of that thing. Hey, get out there and do it. You know, when we go out soul winning in the summertime, and look, you should be safe about it. Put on a hat, put on the sunscreen, and we carry around big jugs of water, plop them down at the door, big jugs of Gatorade. And you know, I'm not saying to overdo it, you know, console your physician. You know, I'm not a gator. Let's see, some people have experienced nausea, vomiting, cold sweats, palpitations, you know, passing out, soil, you know, obviously, if you respond, you know, use paperwork that starts responsibly, okay? But the bottom line is, when you, you know, we're not gonna sit there and just use every excuse like the slugger who says, well, there's a lion in the streets. The Bible says you know, and we've got the harvest ripe out there and we need to go out there and push that plow and plow up the ground and plant the seed and water it and God said if you won't go out there and do it because of the cold, you're lazy. He said the slugger will not probably, you know, you don't have a problem with that because it never gets cold here. But the, but the, but you know, we could just say the heat, the consistency because let me tell you something. Consistency is what it's all about. You go out there every week. You may not be having a ton of people saved. You may go for hour after hour after hour and just get one person saved in hours and hours of soul winning. Hour upon hour. But you know what? If you consistently do that every week, that adds up. That adds up. You know, one year, one there because you're just consistently going out, one year, you'll be surprised how many people you were able to get saved because you just kept going in all seasons, kept going out. You know, one little soul winning blitzkrieg, you just go out there and just, you know, I'm gonna go every day for this man, you know, but then you just don't do it for the whole rest of the year. The person who is consistent at it will get more people saved. It's like the tortoise and the hare. The one who just week after week, he was consistent in all seasons. He was very consistent. He was consistent to church. He was consistent to soul winning. He was consistent in his Bible reading. He was consistently praying. He was consistently doing the things they need to be doing. And it says in verse 20, and I kept back nothing that was profitable under you but it showed you and it taught you publicly and from house to house. I love it how he said I showed you. You know, I've often said this. I say this all the time. Don't tell me how to do it. You know, and everybody wants to tell you how to pastor a church or how to start a church or how to win souls to Christ or a better way of sowing. I don't want to hear about it. I want them to show me how to do it. And Paul said, you know what, I took you out and showed you from house to house. I showed you how to win souls to Christ. I showed you how to serve God and how to live for God. And that's the way it is here. We want to show you how to do it. I'm saying, come with me this Sunday afternoon. Come with brother Dave on Wednesday night at 5.15. Come with us on Tuesday night. Come with us pretty much. I mean, you notice seven days a week pretty much. Somebody's out there. Let them show you how to do it. You know, we don't need people who are just telling us. He said, I showed you how to do it. He said, I kept back nothing that was profitable that I could keep back from you because I know that they're going to offend visitors. They're going to offend people who can't handle this kind of preaching. And so I hold back certain truths because I know that they won't fly today in 2011. But you know what? If they're profitable to you, I'm going to preach it. And you know how I decide whether it's profitable or not? All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable because every word is profitable. See, I'll preach the whole Bible. I'm not going to hold back anything. And there are parts of the Bible that are offensive to the world, that would be censored by the world, that would be considered wrong by the world. But you know what? I say the world's wrong. You know, they want to say that parts of the Bible are wrong. And oh, can you believe this? I've even heard people talk about possibly putting a parental advisory on who is explicit. And if it's explicit, then it needs to be explicit in that part. Who are we to question God? And yes, some of the Bible asks some pretty hard-edged and rough-edged things, but you know what? Who are we to reply against God? It's God's word. And so I think that there's a lot of garbage on TV. In fact, I think it's all garbage. You know, I think everything on the radio is garbage. You know, I don't know if it's acceptable or acceptable and what part is not. People literally will label words that the Bible uses as a cuss word. Literally. The word bastard, a Bible word. And the Bible says every word of God is pure. They'll say, oh, that's a cuss word. Well, you know what? What are you trying to say? That God is wrong? I say you're wrong, Tipper Gore. It's not a cuss word. You try to talk to someone about hell and they say, oh, I'm not allowed to say that word. That's a bad word. Okay? You know, and we need to use God's word and not be afraid of these words and say, oh, it's offensive. Well, you know what? The world offends me. And the Bible offends the world. You know? Get over it. And so I thank God for Paul that he didn't hold anything back. If it was profitable, Paul says in verse 21, testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, does that, somebody help me. I don't have my glasses on. I don't wear glasses, by the way, except when I'm just kidding around and I put those on. But let me make sure that my Bible says, you know, let me get everything out of my eye and make sure I'm seeing this clearly. Does that say, repent of your sins and faith toward Christ? Can somebody help me out there? Somebody keeps showing me this verse and telling me, see, there it is. You've got to repent of your sins to be saved. It's right there. I'm missing something. I don't see it. Can somebody help me? Where does it say sins in that verse? It doesn't. But I'm so tired of people saying, see, there it is right there. Repent of your sins to be saved. It isn't there. Now, keep your finger there and go to 1 Thessalonians, chapter 1. 1 Thessalonians, chapter 1. 1 Thessalonians, chapter 1. And by the way, whenever somebody tries to preach a false doctrine, okay, and they'll tell you, well, the Bible says here and the Bible says there, here's what I always recommend to you. Never discuss the Bible unless the Bible is open in front of you. If you don't have a Bible open in front of you, don't even discuss it. Because people say, what about all those verses that say this? And I always just say, well, okay, let's get the Bible out and maybe you can show me something. Because we can talk all day long of stuff in our memory and people's memories are wrong. And then you don't have the context and you don't know what's going on. I always just say, okay, well, let's look at it. You know, let's show me, don't tell me, show me. And so I always get out the Bible. So if you're ever discussing, and that's why when you go soul and you bring the Bible, because you've got to use the Bible then you should easily be able to show me one of them. And people will actually try to use this verse and they'll say, see right there, right there it is, repent of your sins to be saved. Now, look at 1 Thessalonians chapter number 1 verse 9. It says in verse number 9, for they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we have unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God. Let me ask you something. What were they serving before? Idols. Idols, right? And what is an idol? A false god. Because he said, you turned from an idol to the living and true God. Because all throughout the Bible, God tells us over and over that the idols are not alive. He says, They have eyes, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not. They have feet, but they go not. He said, there's no breath at all in the midst of them, but the Lord is in his holy temple and all the earth keeps silence before him. See, idols are not real. They're fake. They're a false god. And when people bow down and worship that idol, the Bible says they're worshiping devils. But the idol itself is nothing in the world, the Bible says, because it's not alive. It has no breath at all. It cannot see, hear, move, or walk. So what do these people turn from? Drinking? Is that what it says? It says they turned from idols unto the living God. Now, think about this. Is an idol a god that people worship in their own mind? Yes. Right? It's a god. It's a false god. It's a dead god. It doesn't exist. Okay. But it's a god that people worship. Now, is the true and living god a god that people worship? Yeah. So what was replaced here? The false god that they were worshiping was replaced with the living and true god. So they turned from a false god to the living and true god. Now look, this would be like a Muslim. They're worshiping Allah. They're worshiping the Quran and Muhammad. That's not the same god of the Bible. Because the Quran says Allah has no son. Okay. So that right there shows that it's not the same god because Jesus Christ is the son of God. Okay. And so right there we see that Allah is a false god. So in order for a Muslim to get saved they can't say well I'm still going to remain Muslim. I'm still going to worship Allah. But I'm also going to believe in Jesus Christ also. No. They have to turn from Allah and put all and they're basically serving false gods associated with Buddhism. If they're a Hindu and you know we saw a gigantic we were out stolen off 23rd Avenue Brother Garrett and I we saw just a gigantic Hindu temple. It was massive. So I said to Brother Garrett hey let's go check that out. Let's see what that is. We didn't even know it was Hindu. We didn't know what it was. So we drove over and we checked it out and you know they worship and none of it is real. But we walked in and we found a similarity between our church and theirs because we saw one familiar thing. We saw all these golden elephants and all these pictures of false gods but then we saw a ping pong table right in the middle of the Hindu temple and we were like we play ping pong at our church you know common ground but you know that's pretty much where the common ground stops right there. We both we love ping pong and we were thinking Christianity versus Hinduism. We had a grudge match no I'm just kidding. Anyway they have like a ping pong it seems a little out of place right because it's this temple that's got this ping pong table in it. So the bottom line is they worship a false god. They can't say well you know we already worship a thousand what's a thousand and one? Let's add Jesus Christ. No way. They have to turn from the false god in order to believe in Jesus Christ. Is it possible to have all of your faith in Jesus Christ if you're still trusting in another god also? No. Because in order to have all of your faith in Jesus Christ that would of necessity mean that you're turning away from the other stuff you had your faith in right? Go to Hebrews chapter 6 for example. Hebrews chapter number 6. You see what if I just said faith in Jesus to save you nothing else. Now basically when I say that what I'm also saying by that even though I'm not coming right out and saying it I'm basically implying you're going to have to take your faith out of whatever it was in. You're going to have to turn from that false god if you're confessing that Jesus Christ is going to put all of your faith in Jesus. Well obviously then turning from that other god would be included in that statement because I'm saying you've got to have all of it on him trusting him alone to save you as the only god. Look at Hebrews chapter 6. It says in verse number 1 therefore leaving the principles of repenting of your sins. No that's not what it says. Repentance from dead works and of faith toward god of the doctrine of baptisms and of the resurrection of the dead or laying on hands of the resurrection of the dead. It's all faith. It's all faith. It's all faith. It's all faith. It's just belief. That's it. It's only belief right? Usually I'm also going to explain oh hey guess what it's not? Works. It's not going to church. It's not being baptized. It's not living a good life. It's just trusting in Jesus Christ. Now look what if I didn't say both ways just to make sure they understand. Does everybody understand what I'm saying right now? So right here it says repentance from dead works faith toward god that's salvation. Baptism follows salvation. The laying on of hands follows baptism. This is when men were basically sent out to do the work of god to get an eternal judgment. That's the order right there. These are the foundational doctrines. Go to 2 Timothy 2 quickly. Just a few pages to the left in your Bible toward the beginning. Just a few pages. 2 Timothy 2. It says in 2 Timothy 2 verse 25 in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves to give them repentance so they can give up those sins that they're struggling with. Is that what it says? No. It says repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. So this repentance is from not acknowledging the truth. Now they're going to acknowledge it. From believing a lie to believing the truth. From trusting works to trusting the truth. John chapter number 21. John chapter number 21. Because you see repentance is a turning. That's what repent means. To turn. Now guess who repented in the Bible more than anyone else? God. Out of 105 mentions of the sins. So we know he's not turning from his sins. But he is turning in those verses. He's not turning from sin. But he's turning. His repentance is a turning or a change. Now here's what's interesting about those 36 times that God is repenting in the Bible. The NIV New King James repented 46 times and 36 of them involve God repenting. They made sure in that NIV and they dead sure made sure in their ESB which is put out by Calvinists make sure God doesn't repent they took out every time God repented. And you know what else they took out? They took out the Apostle Paul repenting when he said I was going to write you a letter and then I changed my mind I repented I didn't write that letter. So they take out all the mentions that have to do with God or mentions that clearly would destroy their doctrine that would repent that means be willing to turn from your sin. And how many gospel tracts you see it says you must repent be willing to turn ok but here's what's interesting look at John chapter 20 verse 30 and many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book the book of John verse 31 but these are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God and that believing you might have light through his name go to Luke chapter 1 why was the book of John written according to John itself the book of John was written unto you that you might believe and that believing you might have life through his name why was the book of Luke written look at Luke chapter 1 and he'll tell us why the book of Luke was written right at the very beginning it said in verse 3 it seemed good to be also having had a perfect understanding of all things from the very first to write unto thee an order most excellent Theophilus and also ourselves today might know the certainty of those things wherein thou has been instructed that's why the book of Luke was written that Theophilus and also ourselves today might know the certainty of those things wherein we've been instructed why was the book of first John written first John was written he said these things rind out unto you that your joy may be full later in the book he said so what was the purpose for the book of John being written that you might believe and that believing you might have life through sin did you know that the word repent is never found in the book of John once so if you know we're doing something wrong if we don't preach that people need to repent to be saved then why did the book the one book that claims to be written that people might be saved not just be chock full I agree with that by the way first John 1 12 but as many as received him to them may be power to become the sons of God even to them that believe are his name John 3 15 that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life John 3 16 that whosoever forgot to love the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have condemned already because he did not believe in the name of the only begotten son of God John 3 36 he that believeth on the son hath everlasting life but he that believeth not the son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him John 5 24 verily verily I say to you he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me hath everlasting life and shall not come into combination but is past from death to life John 6 47 and we can go on and on and on John 11 25 Jesus said unto her I am the resurrection and the life he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall he live and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die believeth thou this John 10 28 and I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand how many verses John 14 6 I am the way the truth and the life no man cometh unto and how many times do you say believe believe believe 90 times in the book of John the word believe believe believe good salvation is by faith now look if you're gonna believe all the way on Jesus Christ yeah you gotta stop believing in your false religion your false works based system you gotta stop believing in some other god but do you have to stop drinking to be saved? no do you have to stop smoking? do you have to stop fornicating? do you have to stop watching garbage on TV? do you have to stop sinning and turn from your sins? and yet a false other gospel today is repent of your sins to be saved and if you're not willing to give up those sins well then you can't be saved well I say that the people who are preaching that many of them aren't saved and if they are preaching that if they are saved shame on them for being sucked into that false doctrine I say like Paul says in the Galatians hey this persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you you did run well you did run well who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth the truth is that salvation is by faith and for thousands of years the devil will always try to make sin works whether it's telling people they can lose their salvation if they don't do the works you know well it's free to get it but you gotta keep working on it to keep it whether it's you know repent of your sins to be saved whether it's you gotta be baptized to be saved whether it's just you know it's always some angle of how it's at and works hey it's free it's a gift it's faith alone and so let's just quickly blow through the end of the chapter here I spent a lot of time on that because it's important now here's the verse this is uh I don't know if I have some kind of disappearing ink in my bible but of your sins every time I look up a verse and I've never found a verse that said repent of your sins and the only people who were told to repent of specific sins in the bible were people that were already saved Acts chapter 8 Simon after he believed and was baptized was told repent of this thy wickedness the seven churches of Asia in Revelation 2 and 3 were told to repent of many sins in their life they were believers or else Jesus Christ wouldn't have even said that they were a candlestick alighting the gospel to the world and so uh we see that repentance is something that can mean many things God turns but what does the unsafe person have to have to repent of a false god another way to heaven whatever's stopping them from putting their faith in Jesus Christ people say turn from sin to the savior what in the world sin is not a false god no one's trusting in their sins to get them to heaven I've been soul winning thousands of times and I've still never had somebody say if I asked them why do you think you're going to heaven I've never had somebody say cause I sin so much that's why I'm going to heaven nobody's trusting in their sins and they say they gotta turn from their sins to the savior nobody's trusting in their sins they need to trust the savior they need to trust the savior okay but they don't need to turn from trusting sin to the savior well they just need to stop saying okay well good luck with that let me know when you've stopped saying or when you've been willing to stop how willing do you have to be so willing that you will stop or just willing that you will stop willingly later on I mean it's dumb show me the word willing in the bible God's not willing that an ancient parish but that all should come to what repentance of their sins no that's not what it says it says God's not willing that an ancient parish but that all should come to repentance hey he doesn't want them to continue on the path to hell he wants them to turn to Jesus Christ turn from what a false god turn from what works salvation turn from what Catholicism Islam whatever other religion Buddhism Hinduism that's it anyway I gotta hurry it says in verse 22 and now behold I go bound in the spirit under Jerusalem not knowing the things that shall befall me there save that the Holy Ghost witnesses in every city save that bonds and afflictions abide me but none of these things move me neither count I my life dear unto myself so that I might finish my course with joy and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God this reminds me of what Paul said in first Corinthians 15 be therefore steadfast unmovable always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not invading the Lord don't let things move you David said it solves I shall not be moved the Lord is at my right hand we should not be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine we should not be moved on what we believe we should not be moved by persecutions and afflictions and bonds and all these things afflictions things that can slow us down we need to keep going not let them move us he said neither count I my life dear unto myself he just said I want to finish the course that's set before me he said in verse 25 among whom I have been preached in the kingdom of God shall see my face no more wherefore I take it a record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men for I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God that means if he had shunned to declare God's word he would have had some of their blood on his hands he said the reason that blood was not on his hands is because he had not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God take heed therefore unto yourselves and up to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost had made you overseers to feed the church of God which he had purchased with his own blood see you can't feed the church and preach to the church and lead the church until you take heed to yourself you gotta have yourself in order before you can teach and preach and be an example for others he said for I know this that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you not sparing the flock also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them let me say this the bible says in second Peter chapter 2 that there shall be false prophets among you he said there were false prophets among Moses and the children of Israel even Jesus Christ had a false prophet in his church Judas Iscariot he was a devil he was an unbeliever from the beginning and the bible promises us that we will have false prophets and false teachers he said there will be people that come from outside bringing in damnable heresies and then he said there will arise even from yourselves those who will speak perverse things to draw away disciples after them perverse means crooked twisted things false doctrine and so forth and it can also mean perverse as in the way that we know perverse today in 2011 I've heard a lot of preachers preach a lot of perverse things and so we need to be aware of the fact that there will always be false prophets that means that just because somebody goes to our church that doesn't mean we just blindly trust them or think that they would never do wrong there are infiltrators from time to time there are people who will be among you who walk the walk and they talk the talk but let me tell you something on the inside the bible says that they've privily come in to bring in damnable heresies so we need to just be aware of that and watch out for that I'm not saying we need to go on a witch hunt tonight but what I am saying is that you know Judas Iscariot I mean Jesus knew that Judas was there you know when he put him in charge of the money that's how money oriented Jesus' church was you know these churches where it's all about the money and the offering he was so money oriented he took the one guy that he knew was the phony cause he knew from the beginning it said in John 6 and he told him you handled the money and he knew that he was stealing the money and the bible says that throughout Jesus ministry Judas was stealing from the offering plan Jesus doesn't care about that because it's not about the money to God I mean to God that's the least you know let's say he's divvying out 12 jobs he said okay well here's the least job you put the phony guy in front of the plan you know handling the money okay and that's what he did and so there will be phonies so if you ever see me having people count the offering my wife gets so mad at me when I do this whenever anybody counts the offering like whenever I have like brother Dave's counting the offering or something my wife is counting the offering or other manager I always say like hey Judas how you doing and she gets so mad she doesn't think that's funny and she said people are going to be offended when you do that when you call Judas you know you're counting the offering you were never offended when I did that right brother Dave? a little bit alright Judas but anyway he's just warning them and basically they all have a poignant embrace at the end there they hug and kiss each other and they weep and cry because they know that they're not going to see Paul again cause Paul pretty much tells them I'm not going to see your face anymore now chapter 21 is a really interesting chapter and so hopefully you'll be back next week for that cause chapter 21 is really a fascinating chapter where Paul makes that final trip to Jerusalem and there's a lot of things in that chapter I want to bring out and so let's bow our heads for a word of prayer Father we thank you so much for your word dear God and for the opportunity to preach to your people dear God and I thank you that our church is filled with such wonderful people that love your word and that work hard to preach the gospel and that study to show themselves approved thank you for our church dear God and I pray that you would just help us to be steadfast and unmovable and I pray that you would help us to abound in the work of the Lord at all seasons in Jesus' name I pray amen alright we're going to sing one more song going through the hymnals song number 11