(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Amen, this morning I'm going to preach about Paul's first missionary journey which starts here in Acts chapter 13, Paul's first missionary journey. Now this is a subject that is so near and dear to God's heart that really half of the New Testament is written by a missionary. Why did God choose the apostle Paul to write down all this doctrine, to write all these epistles to churches that he had started and places where he had evangelized? Why did God choose to make more than half of the book of Acts about the apostle Paul? The answer is that God loves missions and reaching people with the gospel, evangelizing, getting people saved, and that's why the last thing he did before he ascended up to heaven was give the Great Commission. Go therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Ghost, and teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you. Christianity and the work of the church is about reaching new people with the gospel, not just babysitting the same people for decade after decade after decade. Now obviously it's important that we edify the saints, that we teach people how to raise their children and have a marriage and live a godly life and a peaceable life and to do right and we want to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We want to minister to the saints, but there needs to be a strong emphasis on reaching new people with the gospel, evangelizing, soul winning. And that happens both here locally and also when we go out even further and go to win souls in other parts of Arizona or other parts of the country or even onto the uttermost part of the earth. Many of the churches of the old independent fundamental Baptist movement are dying today because they're not reaching a lot of new people. So they're just filled with gray heads and I'm glad that we have some gray heads here this morning, but I'm glad that we don't have 100% gray heads because that would mean that we're dying if we only have the older established crowd. There has to constantly be new blood coming in, right? We have to constantly be knocking doors that we've never knocked before, reaching people that have not heard the gospel. If you're not growing, you're dying. The church must continue to reach people. It's so important that we evangelize our area and really the entire world. That's the goal. So this is a very important subject. It is really the emphasis of the New Testament. So of course the apostle Paul is the greatest missionary in the New Testament and he's an example of this and chapter 13 is where we see what's known as Paul's first missionary journey. Sometimes in the back of your Bible you have these maps and they'll show you the first, second and third missionary journeys of Paul. Well this is that first journey. Let's start out in verse number one. It says, now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers as Barnabas and Simeon that was called Niger and Lucius of Cyrene and Manan which had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I've called them. And when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So they being sent forth by the Holy Ghost departed unto Seleucia and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. The first thing I want to point out is that in order to do effective missions you've got to be sent out. The Bible says, how shall they call on him in whom they've not believed? How should they believe in him of whom they've not heard? How should they hear without a preacher? And then it says, how should they preach except they be sent? And so it's the church's job to send people out to evangelize, to organize soul winning. It's pretty sad today when people have to go out soul winning on their own because their church doesn't have anything planned. Their church doesn't have anything organized. We try to make it as easy as possible by having opportunities to go on Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, pretty much every day of the week. There's an opportunity in some part of the city to go out and knock some doors, win souls to Christ. We've got a trip coming up to the White Mountain Apache reservation. We've got a trip to the Navajo reservation. We've got a mission strip to Guyana, South America in August, which is the only English speaking country in South America. We've got a couple of Mexico trips coming up. One in October, one in December. We want to get people sent out to do missions. And missions starts right here in Tempe and Phoenix and Chandler and Mesa and the church having these soul winning times is to send you out, okay? Because it's just not going to happen unless you're sent. Very few people are that much of a self starter to get out and do this on their own. I know I wasn't. You know, I wanted to win souls my entire life but it wasn't until I turned 17 and got into a soul winning church that had an organized time where I could show up that I actually got out and did it. You need that extra push, don't you? And so here we see that these men are being sent out to do a major missions trip. And I like how the first place that they go is where Barnabas is actually from. The first place they go is the island of Cyprus. They go to Seleucio. It's a coastal city where they could then jump on a ship and go to the island of Cyprus. This makes sense because obviously Barnabas, he's going to know the ropes a little bit. He knows the culture. He knows the area. He knows the geography. It just makes sense for him to go back to where he's from, okay? And when we do missions, we should also use common sense. That's why if there is an English speaking country and a country that doesn't speak English, we're going to go to the English speaking country because we speak the language instead of trying to jump through all these hoops and hire a translator or do all these other things that don't really make sense. When we have these huge areas that speak English that are unevangelized, that are receptive to the gospel, let's start there. Let's start with what's close. Let's start with what is receptive. Let's start with a place where they speak English. We just use common sense as far as choosing where to go. Too many missionaries get these romantic ideas of I'm going to be a missionary to North Korea. I'm going to go be a missionary to Saudi Arabia. Well, what's the point when there are all these other places where it's safe, legal, receptive? Why would you go beat your head against the wall in a difficult place? And look, I'm for evangelizing North Korea. I'm for evangelizing Saudi Arabia. But you know what? I'd rather evangelize the places that are closer and make more sense first than to just jump straight to level expert. Why don't we go in beginner mode for a little while? Why don't we do some intermediate stuff? Why don't we do some advanced stuff? You know, instead of just getting out on the ski slope and just picking a double black diamond, why don't you spend a little time on the bunny slope and then we'll talk. Let's see how you do. Let's see if you can even figure out how to do a snowplow before we just send you off the double black diamond warning expert mode. But these guys, they just get these wild ideas. God's calling me. And then they go there and it doesn't work and they get one person saved every 18 months or whatever and they think they're a huge success when in reality they could go somewhere receptive, get a ton of people saved, they'll probably accidentally win more Koreans and Arabs to Christ no matter where they go. If they pick a receptive place that actually makes sense. So these guys are using common sense. They're saying, hey, Barnabas, you're from Cyprus. Let's go there. We already speak the language. They speak Greek there. We speak Greek. It's going to work out great. Let's do it. So they go to Cyprus. They go to a place that makes sense. That's why when we do a Mexico missions trip, we go to the part of Mexico that's right by us. It's close. That makes sense. Say, hey, let's go to Cancun or no, we're going to go to the place that's close. So what if it's a desert? But anyway, that's why we're going to Guyana in South America because we speak the language. It's English. It's receptive. Caribbean is filled with countries that are a great demographic for soul winning, receptive to the gospel. They speak English. They're right in our backyard. So we need to use common sense and not just say, well, God called me. Really? Did God show up and talk to you in an audible voice? Or did you just have some spooky feeling that you're just attributing to God because you just think it's a cool place to go because you have romantic ideas about it? That's typically what we see going on. You know, I remember there's a Chinese guy that God's calling him to Morocco. He doesn't even speak Arabic. He went there and sat his butt in language school for years, didn't do any soul winning. He's a Chinese guy sitting in Morocco learning Arabic. It's all part of the will of God. That's a bunch of baloney. Send that guy to China. Or let him go to an English speaking country, but let him not go to a place where he doesn't speak the language because it makes no sense. So it makes sense why they chose Cyprus to be the first place on the first missionary journey. Barnabas is from there. They speak the language. It's geographically closed. It made sense. So it says in verse five, when they were at Salamis, that's on the extreme east end of the island, it says they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews and they had also John to their minister. So Saul and Barnabas are the main missionaries, but they've got a helper with them named John Mark. And then it says in verse number six, and when they had gone through the aisle unto Paphos, and that's all the way at the west extreme of the island, when they'd gone through the island into Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew whose name was Bar Jesus. Now this guy just really couldn't get any worse, could he? I mean, this is the three strikes and you're out. He's a false prophet, he's a sorcerer, and he's a Jew. So this is the triple whammy. This guy's got a lot of bad things going for him. And his name was Bar Jesus, which just simply means son of Jesus. And this is obviously not talking about Jesus Christ, but Jesus is just a name that other people had as well, sort of like Spanish people named their children Jesus. It says, which was with the deputy of the country, Sergus Paulus, a prudent man who called for Barnabas and Saul and desired to hear the word of God. Now all throughout this chapter, we're going to see a theme that comes up over and over again in the book of Acts, and that is that God is trying to show Paul and Barnabas and others that the Gentiles are who they're supposed to be preaching to. See, they're stuck on wanting to preach to the Jews. God's trying to show them over and over again, go to the Gentiles. And that's why at the end in chapter 28, they say, I'm going to the Gentiles. Actually, he says that three times in the book of Acts. From now on, we're going to the Gentiles. But then he'll relapse and go back to the Jews. And then God has to work in his life more to get him to see, no, preach to the Gentiles. So when he started out this ministry, when he lands in Salamis, he's preaching in the synagogues of the Jews. He's still stuck on this thing of, hey, let's reach Jews with the gospel. He doesn't realize God wants him reaching everybody, and especially the Gentiles are going to be more receptive. So he preaches in the synagogues. He crosses the whole island, just preaching throughout the island, preaching throughout the island. And when he gets to the other side, there's a man named Sergius Paulus in verse 7. And he was a prudent man, and he called for Barnabas and Saul and desired to hear the word of God. So here we have a Gentile. This is the Roman political ruler of the island. The Gentile is having to go to him and say, hey, I want you to come preach to me. They're preaching in the synagogues. He says, I want to hear the word of God. So this is God signaling them, talk to the Gentiles, preach to everybody. And when we go out soul winning, we shouldn't just only target a certain nationality or a certain type of people. When we go out soul winning, we should really be open to preaching to everybody, just whoever's receptive, whoever wants to hear the gospel. I remember there was a missionary to Germany, and he was having great success winning Muslims to the Lord. There were a lot of just refugees and people, foreigners. So this guy, he's a missionary to Germany, and he ended up just really targeting these refugees and foreigners. And he was getting a ton of people saved, a ton of people baptized. His church was growing and thriving. And the other missionaries that were in Germany criticized him. And here's what they said. Well, I came here to reach Germans. And they have these tiny failing churches. They're barely reaching anybody, barely getting anything done. This guy's just bringing in crowds of heathen hordes that he's winning to Christ. And well, I came here to reach Germans. Well, you know what? I'm just ready to reach whoever wants to hear the gospel. If the foreigners are more receptive, I'll skip the Germans and go straight for the foreigners. I mean, I'm going to go preach to the people who want to hear the gospel. And so a soul is a soul is a soul. It doesn't matter whether it's a Jew or a Gentile. It doesn't matter whether it's a European or an Asian. A soul is a soul. When we go out soul winning, our desire should be to just win people to Christ. It doesn't matter red, yellow, black, white, young, old. Whoever wants to hear the gospel, that's who we'll target and get it to them. So this guy, Sergius Paulus, he wants to hear the word of God. He's begging them to preach to him. This is a great opportunity, especially because this guy has a lot of clout. I mean, he's the ruler of the country. But verse 8, Eilimus the sorcerer, for so is his name by interpretation. So basically this guy Bar Jesus is also called Eilimus. This is just his name in a different language. Eilimus the sorcerer withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. And this will happen a lot when you're out soul winning and you're trying to give the gospel to somebody. Someone else will try to get in the way. Have you ever been in the middle of witnessing to somebody and then somebody else jumps in and starts arguing with you and just confusing the issue and it drives you nuts, right? Would to God we'd have this gift that Paul uses here in a moment, but it says in verse number 9, it says, then Saul who also is called Paul filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him and said, Oh, full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all, of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord. And now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee and thou shall be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand. So there are so many things to point out here, but one thing I want to point out is that the name change from Saul to Paul. It says in verse 9, then Saul who is also called Paul. Now some people are under the mistaken impression that when Saul got saved, God changed his name to Paul. There's really no indication of God ever changing his name to Paul. And in fact, he's been called Saul even after he was saved because he got saved all the way back in chapter nine and he continues to be called Saul. It's at this moment that he switches to being called Paul and for the whole rest of the work of Acts and for the whole rest of the New Testament, he's only going to be called Paul. Now why is that? Well, the reason why is simply because Saul is a very Jewish name. I mean, if we were to meet someone even in 2019 with the name of Saul, we would immediately assume that that person is Jewish by that name. Whereas if we met someone named Paul, we wouldn't think that at all. And in fact, just to show you how Paul is such a good Roman name or Greek name in the Roman Empire, we see that the guy that he's preaching to in verse seven is named Sergius Paulus. So this guy has the same name. So what I believe is going on here is that the apostle Paul, now that he's striking out into the Gentile world, going out into the Roman Empire to evangelize and preach the gospel, he's going to start using a Gentile name. And this is him becoming all things to all men to preach the gospel. He doesn't want to just come at them seeming Jewish. He's coming at them just as Paul. So he's using his name in their language, in their local tongue. Sort of like if the apostle Paul were around today and we took him to Mexico, he'd be introducing himself as Pablo, right? He'd be saying, Me llamo Pablo. So he's basically just using the Gentile version of his name. And in fact, the Bible is kind of its own dictionary. The Bible kind of defines itself in the context. What did it just tell us in the previous verse? Well, Elimis the sorcerer, Elimis is actually Bar Jesus, but we're giving his name in the Greek or Roman style, okay? Because Bar Jesus is, again, a very Jewish name because Bar is Aramaic for son and then Jesus is obviously also an Aramaic type name or a Jewish type name. And so here we see that Paul is also switching to his Gentile name, Paul. But obviously this signals a great shift in his life because God, the author of the Bible, is choosing to refer to him from now on as Paul, showing that now he has begun his work in the ministry. He is now the missionary Paul as opposed to just being Saul of Tarsus who got saved and everything. as the apostle Paul. Now he's filled with the Holy Ghost when he rebukes this guy, so we know that what he's saying is correct here when he rebukes this guy because he comes down pretty hard on this guy, doesn't he? Oh, full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord. Why is he so harsh? Why is he so rude? Why is he coming down so hard? Because this sorcerer is a wicked person. He's an enemy of God. He's an enemy of soul winning. He's trying to stop someone from being saved, a false prophet, sorcerer, Jew. He needed to be strongly rebuked. Now there's a big difference between people who are deceived by a false religion and the deceivers themselves. You know, when it comes to Roman Catholics, I'm not mad at Roman Catholics. I'm not mad at Muslims. I'm not mad at Hindus. I'm not mad at Mormons. Okay, I'm mad at Mormons. I'm not mad at Jehovah's Witnesses because here's the thing. Many of them are just deceived. It's not that they're horrible people or that they're wicked people. It's just that they've been lied to. They've been deceived. They're a victim. And actually, I'm not their enemy. I'm their friend. I'm the best friend they ever had trying to pull them out of the fire, trying to get them saved, trying to win them to Christ. However, the architects of these religions, the deceivers, need to be strongly rebuked. Strongly rebuked. If you would keep your finger here, flip over to Titus. Now in Acts 13, we're on the island of Cyprus. Titus deals with another island in the same sea there, the Mediterranean Sea, another Greek island called Crete. And on the Greek island of Crete, Paul is giving instructions to Titus, and it says in verse 5, For this cause left I thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee. Jump down to verse 10. For there are many unruly and vain talkers, watch this, and deceivers, especially they of the circumcision. He says, especially Jews that are the biggest deceivers there on Crete, whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not for filthy lucre's sake. One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, The Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. So one of these Jewish false prophets is basically looking down on the Cretans, saying the Cretans are all liars, you know, because he's like a Jew supremacist, you know, he's against the Gentiles, just painting with a broad brush that all these Cretans are all liars, they're evil beasts, they're slow bellies. It says this witness is true, meaning this guy really actually said that, wherefore rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith. Notice what he says here, rebuke them gently, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves. If God, peradventure will give them repentance, as he acknowledges the truth. No, here he says, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men that turn from the truth. The Bible's telling us that for the sake of the people that they're deceiving, we need to rebuke the deceivers sharply. So we need to be able to differentiate between these two groups of people, the deceiver and the deceived. We don't want to just sharply rebuke the deceived, we want to, in meekness, instruct those that oppose themselves. If God, peradventure will give them repentance, unto the acknowledging of the truth, and that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who were taken captive by him at his will. But the people who are actually out teaching and preaching and coming up with this stuff, the wicked architects of this religion, I'm talking about the pope and the archbishops and the bishops and all the leaders of that church, the Catholic priest himself needs a swift kick in the pants. Oh yeah, he's not wearing any pants, he's wearing a dress, right? But you know, these guys need to be sharply rebuked, okay? We need to rebuke false teaching, and that's why you should never get offended when the pastor gets up and preaches hard and rips on the TV evangelists and rips on false religion and false pride. It's our job! The apostle Paul, frequently in his epistles, is ripping on the false teachers of his day by name. It's totally appropriate for them to be sharply rebuked. Now the people who are following them need to be gently reached with the gospel and explained, you know, that this is a lie. So the way that Paul is going to treat a guy like Sergius Paulus is totally different than the way he's going to treat Eilimus the sorcerer, if you would go back to Acts chapter 13. So this guy gets a sharp rebuke because he's a son of the devil. He's a reprobate, he's a son of Belial, and so Paul rebukes him sharply, calls him a child of the devil. Why? Because he's perverting the right ways of the Lord. And he even performs this miracle where he strikes him with blindness and this guy goes about seeking someone to lead him by the hand because he's so blind he can't even see where he's going. Now look at verse 12. Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord. And I love that statement, how he was astonished at the doctrine of the Lord. Because it could have said, boy, he was astonished at that miracle. He was astonished that Eilimus was struck with blindness. But actually he was astonished at the doctrine. This reminds me of the book of Luke when Jesus performed some amazing miracles and men marveled. And then Jesus responded by saying, let these sayings sink down into your ears. And he talked about how he's going to be crucified. You see, the powerful thing in the word of God is the doctrine. It's actually the gospel of Jesus Christ that is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth to the Jew first and also to the Greek. So even though he'd seen an amazing miracle, the thing that really blew him away was the doctrine. Why? Because the greatest miracle of all is the gospel, salvation through Jesus Christ. That's way more important and more amazing than just a physical miracle. And so Jesus, when he preached the word of God, yes, he did miracles, but the main thing was always the preaching, the word of God, the doctrine. That's what's being emphasized here. It says he was astonished. He believed when he saw what was done, when he saw this man struck a blindness, he believed and he was astonished at the doctrine of the Lord. Look at verse 13. Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia and John departing from them returned to Jerusalem. So now they've gone through the whole island of Cyprus. They're done in Cyprus. So they leave Cyprus and they head back over to the mainland, what we would call today the country of Turkey, what the Bible calls Asia Minor. And so when they get there, their helper bails on them. Okay. This is a young guy and apparently this is all too much for him. And it's probably easy to be hard on a guy like John Mark, but if you've ever been on a mission strip, they can be pretty grueling. And especially if you have to go on foot from one side of Cyprus to the other, that's a lot of walking. And so they're doing a lot of walking, a lot of preaching, and John Mark just gets burned out. And so he actually bails on them. This is later going to be a big bone of contention between Paul and Barnabas. Barnabas wants to forgive him and bring him on the second trip, let it go, give him another chance and Paul doesn't want to bring him because he says, no, this guy's going to bail on us. We're not doing that again. Later on, eventually Paul forgives him and says, hey, let's work with him. But anyway, that's a whole other story. I don't want to get into that. So anyway, they leave Cyprus, they go to the mainland and it says in verse 14, or at the end of verse 13, John Mark bails and goes to Jerusalem. Verse 14, but when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch and Pisidia. So this is not the same Antioch that they started in at the beginning. This is a different, this is not Antioch of Syria. This Antioch of Pisidia in modern day Turkey. And they went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down and after the reading of the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent unto them saying, you men and brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say on. Now this is kind of cool. They just get an opportunity to preach. It's like an open mic. Now the reason why is because they don't know who they are. All right. Now this reminds me of when I first started out in the ministry and people didn't know who I was. Well, they just put me behind the pulpit, all kinds of places. It was, I remember there's a church in New Mexico. They had a guest speaker fall through. Somebody put in a good word for me back in 2007 and I was invited to preach. Nobody knew who I was. You know, I got up and preach and the pastor loved the sermon. I was invited to preach again the next day and everything like that. But then they found out who I was after a while. And then it's like, I was never invited back, you know, so in the early days of our church, the first few years I would actually get invited to, uh, to preach places because they didn't know who I was. So this is the early days of Christianity. So they don't realize what this is. They just see a couple of foreign Jewish travelers. They seem like smart guys. They seem like they have something to say. They show up at the synagogue and they say, Hey guys, you want to preach? And they're like, sure, yeah. So they get up and they begin to preach about Christ. What a great opportunity. And look, here's my policy. I'll preach anywhere that will allow me to preach. I wouldn't say, well, I can't preach there now I'll preach there, but here's the only catch though. You know, I have to preach the whole council of God. I'm not going to censor the message, sugarcoat the message or try to, uh, you know, change what I believe to fit in with where I am. But you know, some people have criticized me for places that I've preached, but honestly I'll preach on any radio program, TV program, any school, you know, I'll preach. I'll preach anywhere that will have me. I preached to the community college. I preached one time at ASU and I preached in Southern Baptist churches. I preach in a liberal, uh, uh, community church that used the NIV and you know, but, but I didn't hold back. I got up and I preached hard. And then, you know, there was a stack of a new world order Bible versions on the back table when I was done. But anyway, the point is that, you know, I'm willing to get up and preach anywhere. These guys are willing to get up and preach in a Jewish synagogue if they'll put them behind the pulpit. I don't think there's anything wrong with it as long as you don't, uh, get unequally yoked with them or somehow, uh, tailor the message to make them feel good. You know, I've seen some people, they, they preached at a Mormon institution or something famous preachers. I think it was Ravi Zacharias or whatever. He gets up and preaches to the Mormons, but he's just totally soft on them. Doesn't say anything against Mormonism. Doesn't explain the truth about what they need to believe to be saved. Doesn't rebuke anything. You know, well, that's just not right to go there and just get all cozy and friendly with the Mormons. Okay. You know, I, but I would preach in a Mormon church, but I'd get up and preach that salvation is by faith alone, that there's only one God. I'd get up and preach the Trinity. You know, I'd get up and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, you know, if they would allow me to, but they wouldn't. So here we see that, uh, they just get to get up in the synagogue and preach verse 16. Then Paul stood up and beckoning with his hand said, men of Israel and you that fear God, give audience the God of this people of Israel chose our fathers and exalted the people when they dwell as strangers in the land of Egypt and with the high arm brought them out of it. And I'm not going to go through his entire sermon just for sake of time because I want to talk more about the missionary journey itself as opposed to the meat of the preaching. But he basically starts out in about, you know, seven verses or so. He talks about the history of the Old Testament and then he's going to use the history of the Old Testament to segue into preaching about Jesus. And then he gets into the whole story of Jesus and he talks about Jesus life and ministry about how Jesus died and he was buried and rose again. So he preaches through the gospel, talks about the resurrection. Let's jump down to verse 38 when we get toward the end of his sermon, it says, be a 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 are good people, is that what it says? All that go to church, all that turn away from a life of sin and start living right. No it says, and by him, all that believe are justified from all things from which he could not be justified by the law of Moses. You can't be justified by the law of Moses, you know why? Because everybody breaks the law of Moses, okay? So there was never any salvation in the old covenant because it's not possible for the blood of bulls and of goats to take away sins. The only way old covenant saints went to heaven was through Jesus. See how can that be? Jesus had, Jesus is the lamb slain from the foundation of the world, that's why. And no they did not know the name of Jesus, no they did not understand the details of his coming, but they looked forward to salvation that would come by the Lord. They knew the Lord was going to provide salvation somehow and the sacrifices were just a picture of that. They called upon the name of the Lord for salvation, they knew a lot less than we do about the gospel, but they still got saved through faith because it's not possible for the blood of bulls and of goats to take away sins. It's not possible to keep the Mosaic law and thereby earn salvation. If you could earn salvation by the law, if righteousness comes by the law, then Christ is dead in vain, the Bible says. So he says, this is what the law can't do for you. He said, all that believe are justified from all things from which he could not be justified by the law of Moses, verse 39. Now verse 40, beware therefore, lest that come upon you which is spoken of in the prophets, behold ye despisers and wonder and perish, for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you. And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. So notice, it's just like the Sergius Paul story, are you seeing a pattern? They're going to the synagogue, synagogue, synagogues, and then Sergius Paul says, hey wait a minute, I want to hear the gospel. And then there's a Jew there telling him, no, don't listen, and he's a you son of the devil, you know, blinds him, and then boom, the Gentile gets saved. Okay, now we move to a new geography, boom, let's head for the synagogue, they preach in the synagogue, at the end of the sermon, what happens? Everybody leaves. They preach and everybody leaves, but then the Gentiles are like, whoa, preach to us, next Sabbath, we want to hear this, preach the gospel to us. So again, God's trying to show them this, and this is a theme all throughout the book of Acts, where God's showing them, go to the Gentiles, go to the Gentiles, go to the people that are receptive, go to the people that want to hear the gospel. And so they ask that it be preached unto them the next Sabbath. Verse 43, now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God. So then they're getting Jews saved as well. It says in verse 44, and the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God. What a victory, how exciting. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. So here's the thing, the Jews have their little synagogue, Apostle Paul shows up, starts preaching the gospel, the gospel has power, everybody wants to hear it. Almost the whole city comes out to hear the word of God. And when they do, the Jews are jealous because they never got that many people to show up. They never got that many people to show up to their church. They couldn't get that many people in the synagogue. So when they see Paul and Barnabas succeeding, instead of getting excited and saying, wow, the Lord is at work here, God's really doing something, this is powerful, they get envious, they get what we would call in 2019 jealous because they're thinking to themselves, well, nobody wants to hear me preach. How come everybody wants to hear him preach? I'll tell you why, because he's filled with the Holy Ghost. I'll tell you why, because he's got something to say. He's preaching with power, you guys are dead. And so instead of having a right reaction of saying, revival is here. And look, this reminds me of the Baptist Church today, they're always talking about how they're praying for revival. Oh God, send revival. Oh God, send revival. Revival comes. And then it's the Pokemon face, you know, the meme with the open mouth, right? Yeah, old IFB, here's another audible meme here. Old IFB, pray for revival. Revival comes, old IFB, right? Who gets what I'm talking about? All right. All the young people. All right. So basically the point is that, you know, the old IFB, they're always praying for revival, but then when revival comes, they get mad about it because they don't like the fact that it's a little different than the way they preach, or a little different than some of their end times beliefs or something like that, or they're too hung up on these secondary doctrines to realize that God's doing a great soul winning work, that there's a great movement that's reaching young people with the gospel, and it's the King James Bible, it's the old fashioned hymns, it's the gospel, it's door-to-door soul winning, it's everything that they claim to love, but because they have their little pet Fox News Republican Party doctrines that they don't want to let go of, they don't want the revival. So they want to stay dead, us four no more, high steeple few people, everybody's got gray hair. They're happy with that because they don't want the revival. And you know what? What kind of a prayer is that? We just, oh, God send revival. I mean, do you really think that God just every once in a while just says like, yeah, I think I'll send revival. Yeah, just keep begging me. Keep begging me and maybe I'll send it. Keep asking and I'll do it. What does that even mean? It's nonsense is what it is. Okay, I'll tell you what, God is ready to say revival at any moment. As soon as we go out and start knocking the doors, preaching the gospel, preaching hard on sin, getting up and crying aloud, sparing not, preaching from the house tops, taking the mission strips, knocking on the doors, being bold with the word of God, revival is ready at every moment. It's sort of like a faucet. You know, you don't have to turn on the faucet and all of a sudden the water company is like, all right, let's send some water over to that house. The water is already there. The water is there all the time. The second you turn the faucet, if you turn a faucet and nothing comes out, it's like, then water starts coming out, something's wrong. It's supposed to be, you walk up, you turn the, the second you turn the faucet, it's like, right? That's how revival is. The second that you actually start doing something for God and actually start obeying the word of God and preaching and so many, you know what? The power comes, the water comes, the, the, the, the doctrines and the blessings begin to flow. All right? This thing of just, oh please, it's like they're standing in front of the faucet. Oh God, give us water in the, in the tap. Oh God, give us water in the tap. Oh Lord, please, please let water come into the sink. And then basically, you know, one of us walks up and just turns on the faucet and then, and it comes out like a fire hose and then they get sprayed and they're like, ah! That's not what I meant. I only wanted a little water out of the tap. We're turning on like a fire hose. We love it. So these people, they don't like it when revival comes. You know, if you study history and even just look in the Bible, you'll know that the Jews at this time, they weren't like Jews today. The Jews at this time were actually into converting people. They actually were wanting to convert the people around them to their religion. Like Jews today, they say like, well, we don't want to convert anybody. We don't care. It was just us. We're happy just to be us. We're special. We're unique. But back then, that's why the Bible mentioned so many times proselytes. That's people that had converted to Judaism. Did you notice how much the Bible talks about proselytes? It mentions it a lot. And then he even talks about the bad Jews as crossing sea and land to make one proselyte. So they were actively recruiting people to Judaism. They were actively proselyting people to their religion at this time. So this should be what they want when the synagogue is just like flooded with Gentiles and they're all just flooding in to hear about the God of the Bible. But as soon as it happens, now they don't want it. Because why? They're envious. Because they wanted to be the ones preaching that day. They didn't like the fact that it's Paul and Barnabas preaching because they can't draw a crowd. Okay. So it says in verse 46, then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold and said it was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you, but seeing he put it from you and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. And this is the first of three times that that statement's going to be made in the book of Acts. For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as were ordained eternal life believed. You see, when you preach what's known as replacement theology or when you preach that you know, the Jews are no longer God's chosen people, that God is now bringing the word of God to the Gentiles and that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentiles. It's opened up to everybody house of prayer for all nations. Gentiles love that message. That's a great message. I mean, I, you know, when I learned that doctrine, I thought it was great that I'm not some second class citizen because I'm not a Jew. I go, Oh, well, you know, I'm not one of the special chosen ones or way. I am one of the special chosen ones. Amen. And if you believe in Jesus, you're a special chosen one. All right. You're a not so special chosen one because anybody who believes in Christ is chosen. And so that's a doctrine that the Gentiles want to hear. And so this, this foolish Zionist doctrine or, you know, Jewish worshiping doctrine that says, Oh, well, you know, the Jews are more blessed. They're God's chosen people. And so forth. This is a doctrine that's not helping spread the gospel. It's not helping get more Gentiles saved by worshiping the Jews. You need to worship Christ. We need to shake our dust of our feet off from the Jews and reach the Gentiles and preach the gospel to the Gentiles. Say, don't you want the Jews to get saved? Yeah, but here's how the Jews would get saved. When we preach to the Gentiles, Jews will get saved too, but we shouldn't have a ministry like we're going to go reach just the Jews. That's always rebuked in the book of Acts and in the gospels, because Jesus said, go teach all nations. There should be no ministry targeting Jews. We need to target everybody else. And then that should provoke the Jews to jealousy. That's what the Bible actually teaches. So anyway, the Gentiles, they love it. They think it's great. When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. So instead of just beating their head against the wall, preaching to unreceptive Jews, when they start turning to the Gentiles, the Gentiles are getting saved by the droves, which is why you end up with all these epistles, Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Thessalonians, being written to Gentile churches, because that's where the gospel thrived. That's how the story went. And then it says, as many as were ordained to eternal life, believe. Now some people take this verse and try to teach a Calvinist doctrine that somehow negates free will. And let me just explain this verse to you. When the Bible says, as many as were ordained to eternal life, believe, what the Bible is saying here is that certain people are going to get saved and certain people aren't. And God already knows from the beginning of time who are going to be the people who receive Christ and who are not going to be the people that receive Christ. God knows the end from the beginning and there are certain people that just aren't going to get saved. And then there are other people that are going to get saved. We don't know who's going to get saved and who's not. Only God knows that. But the problem with Calvinism is that what Calvinists will often teach is that God chooses who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. So basically, at the beginning of time, you know, God decides, okay, these people are going to be saved, these people are not going to be saved, and basically there's nothing that they can do to change that. There's nothing anyone can do to change that is what they'll even say. There's nothing that anyone can do to alter the fact that these people are going to heaven and these people are going to hell because God has decreed this. And it has nothing to do with him just knowing the future. They'll specifically spell that out. But let me tell you something. It has everything to do with God knowing the future because what does the Bible say? The Bible says that those that are saved, those that are elect, the Bible says they are elect according to the foreknowledge of God. The foreknowledge of God. So what does that mean to be elect according to the foreknowledge of God? It means that God looks forward and he knows who is going to receive Christ. He knows who is not going to receive Christ. And then he predestines those who are going to receive Christ to be conformed to the image of his son, Jesus. But what he does not do is just, based on no choice of hours, just pick this one for heaven, this one for hell, this one for heaven, hell, hell, hell, hell, heaven, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, hell, heaven. That's not what God does. And if he did do that, it would be extremely disingenuous of him to then turn around and say, whosoever will may come. Just kidding. You can't. I already picked you to go to hell a long time ago. That would be deceptive, to say the least. When the Bible says God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. You have two different groups in that verse. You have the world and then you have whosoever believeth. He didn't just love the ones who believe. He didn't just die for the ones who believe. He didn't just, what did he do? He loved the world. That's everybody. That he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him. So that's a smaller group, right? You got the whole world. He loved the whole world. He gave his only begotten son for the whole world so that this smaller group, those who believe on him, will not perish but have everlasting life. But that doesn't mean that he didn't open it up to the whole world. It doesn't mean that he didn't love the whole world. It doesn't mean that he didn't die for the whole world. It doesn't mean that anyone in this world doesn't have the opportunity to believe on Jesus Christ because whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely, whoever wants to. So free will is important to understand that people make their choice. Whether you go to heaven or hell is based on your decision. You decide. Now God already knows what you're going to decide but that doesn't mean God made the decision for you. Can you see the difference? God for knowing what you will decide is different than him making the decision for you. And then that would reduce God to a computer programmer. You know, if he basically is just creating robots that just, whoop, whoop, whoop, just carry out his will and don't have any free will of their own, you know, this is like a computer programmer. Now a lot of Calvinists will say, wow, we don't, that's not what we believe. We still believe in free will. That's cognitive dissonance. Well God chooses everything but people still have free will. How can those two things coexist? They can't. If God's making all the decisions, then how can you say people have free will? Okay, some, at the end of the day, who made the decision for you particularly to receive the Lord Jesus Christ? Is it something that God decided before you were born based on nothing that you said or did? That's Calvinism. That's false. Or is it something that was offered to everyone, you took him up on the offer? And he foreknew that and because he knew that, then basically you are one of the chosen. You are one of the elect. Because in the Old Testament the chosen was a physical nation. In the New Testament the chosen is anyone who receives Christ. Anyone who believes on him has power to become the son of God by believing on his name. So there's a big difference, I mean this is an important distinction to understand. The difference between God foreknowing and your elect according to the foreknowledge of God versus God made the decision for you. Now I heard James White say this, he's a local Calvinist here in town. I heard him say this, he said, well you know when the Bible says foreknow there, that's sort of like when Adam knew Eve. Who heard him say that? Who knows what I'm talking about? Yeah. He said well when God foreknew us, that's like when Adam knew Eve. What kind of a weird, perverse, sick doctrine is that? That makes no sense. When the Bible says that we're elect according to the foreknowledge of God, it means that he knew in advance. Guess what foreknow means? You know something in advance. God knew in advance. It doesn't say God knew in advance. That's a sick weirdo doctrine. And I've heard this, I've been out knocking doors on soul and you heard this pervert doctrine of like, well you know when Jesus said depart from me I never knew you. It's coming from sick minds, friend. No means no. And I'm not Nancy Reagan up here this morning. When I say no means no, I'm saying K-N-O-W means, K-N-O-W, that basically, you know, to know means to have knowledge of what, he knows what's going to happen. He knows what's going to happen. Now why does the Bible say Adam knew his wife Eve? It's just because the Bible doesn't want to get graphic. So the Bible doesn't use graphic language, so it uses a euphemism. That's why it'll say, you know, he lay with her. It doesn't mean like they just kind of laid side by side like this. You know what I mean? When it says like they just laid side by side, you know, they lay together. Or he knew her like, hi, nice to meet you. Well, she conceives. Okay, so this is not, these are called, does everybody understand what a euphemism is? A euphemism is when you don't want to get graphic, you don't want to get coarse with your language, so you have a nice way of saying something like, well, he lay with her. Because, you know, you're not going into detail or, well, he knew her. You know, meaning that he was intimate with her. That's all that means. And so there's no need to go into any more detail. Or like when the Bible says to uncover their nakedness. That doesn't mean that they just walk up and just walk away, you know? Okay, it's a euphemism. I mean, the Bible's using these terms so that he doesn't have to go into detail of what's taking place. But to take that term and then suddenly now let's just, every time we see no, every time we see no, that's what it means. 100%, I mean, that's crazy. It's ridiculous. It's weird. But he's just grasping at straws to get around the fact that we're elect to go into the foreknowledge of God. So instead of just taking the word foreknowledge at face value of, hey, God knows who's going to receive Christ, then he just turns around, well, no there. It doesn't just mean no, you know. Turn to Genesis 4. What a bozo. But anyway, I've got to hurry up. I'm just about done here. But when it says here, as many as were ordained to eternal life believed, what he's saying is the people that are ordained to eternal life, these are the people who are going to get saved. The people who were going to get saved believed. The people who weren't going to get saved didn't believe. Now why bring that up? Why say that? Why make the statement, as many as were ordained to eternal life believed? And again, what's the big question? How did you get ordained? Because of the foreknowledge of God. God knows you're going to receive Christ. So now you're ordained to eternal life. Okay, it's not just he just picked someone at random to be ordained to eternal life. Or according to this mysterious will that nobody understands. No, it's according to his foreknowledge of who we are and whether or not we're going to receive the Lord. So when it says here, as many as were ordained to eternal life believed, what he's saying there is that look, not everybody's going to get saved. Now the whole town might come out to hear the gospel. Isn't that what happened? Practically the Bible says almost the whole city came out to hear. And you know, this will happen sometimes. There will be times when just huge amounts of people will listen to the gospel or like let's say when we go to the Apache reservation and literally 90 to 95 percent of people will say yes to hearing the gospel. But does that mean that all of them get saved? No. Now, if you can get 90 to 95 percent of people to actually listen to the gospel, that's great. But does that mean they're all going to get saved? No. Those that are ordained to eternal life will believe, okay, there are going to be people who just aren't going to get saved. Okay. And you can take the horse to the water, but you can't make him drink. So we need to understand that when we go out sowing, we can't force anybody to get saved. We can't make people get saved. Look, God doesn't even make people get saved. Okay. All we can do is be faithful to preach the gospel and leave the results with him. The results are up to him, right? And the results are up to the individual as well. Because look, if I preach the gospel to somebody and they don't want to get saved, there's nothing I can do to get them saved. If somebody doesn't want to believe the gospel, I could pray, I could fast, I can cry, I can shake them, and you know, no, I'm just kidding. They won't listen. Because some people just aren't going to get saved. Their heart is hardened, they don't want to listen, whatever. So don't have this attitude of like, you know, we're going to go out and make these people get saved. All we can do is preach and try and beg people to get saved. But at the end of the day, if they don't get saved, what do we do? We just move on to the next door. We just keep moving. And that's kind of how this chapter ends. And I'll just quickly finish this. It says, the word of the Lord, verse 49, was published throughout all the region. But the Jews, that's a common phrase in the book of Acts, stirred up the devout and honorable women, and the chief men of the city, and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them out of their coasts. But they shook off the dust of their feet against them and came unto Iconium, and the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost. Now, this is what I love about how this chapter ends. They get thrown out of town, they get deported. They get banned. They get expelled from the country. And what's their reaction? Oh, man, maybe we shouldn't have preached so hard, you know, maybe we were too mean, maybe we came out a little strong. Is that what they said? They rejoiced. Like, woo, they're excited. Why? Because they understand what I was just expounding to you from verse 48. They understand not everybody's going to get saved. All we can do is preach the word of God. Some people are going to get saved, some aren't. And you know what? They got a ton of people saved before they got thrown out. Once they get thrown out, they rejoice. They shake the dust off their feet and say, hey, mission accomplished. Why? Because almost the whole city came out to hear the word of God. Everybody heard the gospel. A bunch of people got saved. A bunch of people didn't. Persecution came. They got run out of town on a rail. And what are they doing? They're calling it a success. I mean, this sounds like a faithful word mission stripped. But see, worldly people today would look at this mission strip and say, oh, what a failure. They didn't stay there for 40 years and have a church with the same 30 people in it for the next 40 years and grow old with them. Folks, these people are moving. Paul and Barnabas are moving. They're going from town to town to town. They're crossing an entire island. I mean, if you've been listening to the story, they're going across a whole island hitting every church, right? Going hundreds of miles, hundreds of miles, town after town, preaching, preaching, preaching. They go here, they preach, they preach, they preach, preach. People get saved. People get mad. People get thrown out, shaked off the dust, woohoo. Let's go to the next place. Folks, why is this not the way we do missions? I like it. Let's do it. Actually, it is the way we do missions. It's exactly how we do missions. But no, let's just go send a guy to sit his butt in language school for years and win 10 people to the Lord in his whole career. It's not what we see in scripture. You know, and don't tell me the apostle Paul wasn't successful. He was a huge success. You know, over the course of many decades, he ended up winning all these people to Christ in these different places, and then they established into pockets of believers. They organized into churches. And over time, the whole of Greece and Macedonia and modern day Turkey was all just scattered with churches. Tons of churches. And then it spread out from there to the entire world. And here we are today preaching the Word of God. And so when we look at this chapter, what we need to understand is the necessity of missions, the necessity of preaching the gospel to the lost. And here's what I want to really emphasize. The necessity of reaching new people. New people. Hey, let's go to a new place, different town, different village, different area, different demographic. We've talked to the Jews. Let's talk to the Gentiles. We did Cyprus. Hey, now let's hit Asia Minor. We hit that. Okay, now let's hit this. If our church is going to continue to grow and thrive, we have to keep reaching new people. It's all about reaching new people, knocking new doors. So don't get discouraged if sometimes we have to drive 20 minutes to go soul winning, 30 minutes to go soul winning, a couple hours to go soul winning. At least you're not doing it on foot. We're driving you to these places. Okay? Why? And you say, well, why don't we go soul winning close to the church? Because everything close to the church has been knocked like 10 times. You've got to knock a fresh door. You've got to knock a fresh Indian reservation. You got to go on a missions trip to a country that's never been touched, right, in this generation or in this era. So we need to just keep on preaching the gospel, reaching new people. You say, well, how do I get involved, Pastor Anderson? Look, just show up at a soul winning time. It starts right here at home. Because long before Paul and Barnabas were sent out to Cyprus, you know what they did first? They were faithfully soul winning where they were. They were already preaching and soul winning. And then, okay, let's send these guys even farther. Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for this great Bible story, Lord. We thank you for the example of men like Paul and Barnabas. Lord, help us to be like Paul and Barnabas. Help us to preach the gospel. Help us to be bold. Help us to be faithful. And Lord, help us to accept rejection the way they accepted rejection, Lord. When rejection comes, help us just laugh about it and shake off the dust and rejoice and move to the next place, Lord. And Lord, if we try to give the gospel to a loved one and they don't want to hear it, it's heartbreaking. But Lord, help us not to get discouraged, but to just give the gospel to someone else. And come back later and try again, Lord. And please just help us all to be a missionary, whether it's a missionary in our neighborhood, on our job, at our school, wherever we are, Lord, help us all to be a missionary. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.