Salvation Through The Ages - Part 5 — Westlake Bible Fellowship

0:01 Paul and Barnabas in Acts 13

Well, that was great. That's wonderful. These beautiful songs, you know, I often think of this, How Blessed We Are, the hymnology that is available to us to sing. You think of many tribal groups that have heard the gospel and they have hardly any music to sing. I just think of how the Lord has so blessed us and how thankful we should be.

We're going to be thinking a little bit this evening about the book of Acts, some stories in the book of Acts, and I want to think with you specifically about chapter 13 for a few minutes and then we're going to look at a few stories. Acts chapter 13. Now We are going to break into the story a little bit here and there. Let us read in at verse 26. Men and brethren, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to you the word of this salvation has been sent.

So the idea was that it had been promised to them. It wasn't promised to us. Gentiles, right? There was no covenant promise that God had made to the Gentiles. But it had been promised to them and so it was sent to them as salvation was of the Jews.

And he said, For those who dwell in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not know him, nor even the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, have fulfilled them in condemning him. And though they found no cause for death in him, they asked Pilate that he should be put to death. Now when they had fulfilled all that was written concerning him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb, but God raised him from the dead. He was seen for many days by those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses to the people, and we declare to you glad tidings that promise which was made to the fathers. God has fulfilled this for us, their children, in that he has raised up Jesus, as it is also written in the second Psalm, You are my son today I have begotten you, and that he raised him from the dead no more to return to corruption.

He has spoken thus, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Therefore, he also says in another psalm, You will not allow your Holy One to see corruption. For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep, was buried with his fathers and saw corruption. But he whom God raised up saw no corruption. Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins.

And by him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. Beware, therefore, lest what has been spoken in the prophets come upon you. Behold, you despisers, marvel and perish. For I work a work in your days, a work which you will by no means believe, though one were to declare it to you. So when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath.

Now when the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews and devote proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who speaking to them persuaded them to continue in the grace of God. On the next Sabbath, almost the whole city came together to hear the word of God. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy. And contradicting and blaspheming, they opposed the things spoken by Paul. Then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said, It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first.

But since you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us, I have set you as a light to the Gentiles that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth. Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. And the word of the Lord was being spread throughout all the region. But the Jews stirred up the devout and prominent women and the chief men of the city, raised up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from their region.

But they shook off the dust from their feet against them and came to Iconium and the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. I want to think just for a moment about the role of the book of Acts in the sacred canon. When the Old Testament was complete, it was not complete. When all the books had been written, it was discovered that there were more questions than answers in the Old Testament scriptures. There were messianic psalms and prophecies and types and shadows and they were all pointing somewhere. They

6:53 Old Testament Questions Answered in Christ

Hung there unanswered. Until John said, There he is. Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Isaiah asked the question concerning God's vineyard, What more could I have done to you? And it's not till we hear the words of the Lord Jesus taking up the same refrain and saying, This is what I will do.

I will send my only son. Surely they will reverence him. And so many questions and types and shadows and promises were made in the Old Testament. And it was realized something was waiting. Something was pending.

And that something was the revelation of Jesus Christ. When the Lord Jesus came and he began to fulfill these promises these pictures and explain all of these things that had been left there with a question mark over them, the Lord Jesus put an exclamation mark to the word of God. And so the gospels, the four evangelists, these historical biographies that were written explained that all of these pictures and illustrations were all pieces to a magnificent puzzle. And each prophet added a few clues and eventually when the Lord Jesus came, they said, Look at that. He matches perfectly.

But as we read here, the scripture says here, verse 28, Though they found no cause for death in him, they asked Pilate that he should be put to death. Now when they had fulfilled all that was written concerning him. Okay? So they didn't believe it was about Jesus, but they were the ones who made it true of Jesus. Almost all of the prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus' enemies.

Who paid the 30 of silver? Who gambled over his clothes? Who pierced his hands and feet? Who forced him to be born in Bethlehem or to come out of Egypt? It was his enemies.

The very people who didn't want him to be true were the ones who fulfilled the prophecies. And so the four gospels were given to us but as we draw to the end of them, as John records the fourth gospel, the Lord Jesus says, actually, the four gospels aren't complete either. I'm going to send the Holy Spirit. I'm going to ask the Father, and he will send the spirit and he will guide you into all truth. I have many things to tell you. You're

You're not ready for them. And so the Holy Spirit came. And he filled the believers and he empowered the believers to do what we see in the book of Acts. But even when the book of Acts was written, there was still something else missing. Because when you read through the book of Acts, you don't find doctrines being taught.

You find examples, great examples in the book of Acts, but the doctrines will wait for the epistles. And again, the Lord Jesus told them that the Holy Spirit was not going to only empower them to do, but he was going to empower them to teach. He was going to give them the truth that we call the epistles. And even when the epistles were finished, it was not all finished because the Lord added those words, and he will show you things to come. And so the book of the Revelation had to be penned so that finally the canon of scripture was complete.

11:45 Acts as the Transition Linchpin

And of course their dependence on the sacrificial system. And of course, their acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah. And so we see this disengaging from Judaism in the first half of the book of Acts. And then in the second half of the book of Acts, we see their engagement with a pagan world. They're confronting the Stoics and the Epicureans as we looked at this afternoon and dealing with all of the philosophies of the world as they went out from Jerusalem and went into Europe and into Asia and other parts of the world, they took the gospel with them.

And in each case they triumphed. So when you read through the book of Acts, every few chapters you have a little sub conclusion, the word of God flourished, people were saved, the church grew, right? It doesn't matter whether they had a frontal attack and they were thrown in prison or the people ran them out of town or whatever happened, the bottom line every time was, way to go, God did it again. And every time we see the church growing and the influence spreading and the gospel reaching out further and further from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria to the uttermost parts of the earth. And this is one of these transition passages in the book of Acts where they've come to the synagogue, they've come to talk to the Jews about the gospel.

And they're using their Jewish scriptures and quoting their Jewish prophets and reminding them that it was to them that the gospel was promised. And that was all well and good until the gentiles showed up and said, Hey, can we have a few crumbs from the master's table? And like spoiled brats they said, No. This is for us. This isn't for you.

Right? We read here that they're warned that if they do reject the gospel message, they don't have any other options. Right? So he says, Do you understand that the law cannot justify you from any sin? So be careful here.

If you reject the gospel, you don't have any other options. There's only one savior. And the law can't do this for you. The law can't do what Christ can do for you. Some of you have probably heard this story, this is what old men do, you know, they recount stories.

15:35 A Conversation With an Israeli Jew

I said, Oh, this is a little chart explaining teachings of the Bible. She said, Explain it to me. So I said, Alright. So I started going through it and she kept saying, Well, what about the Jews? What about the Jews?

I said, Why are you so interested in the Jews? She said, I am a Jew. Oh, you are? Yeah, I just moved here from Israel. Really? Yeah.

Yeah. So she says, Do I have to become a religious Jew to go to heaven? I said, Heaven? You haven't been peeking, have you? There's nothing in your scriptures about going to heaven, you know.

Heaven's only a New Testament idea. Jesus had to open heaven to us. And she kind of brushed it away and said, Well, but do I have to become a religious Jew to be okay? And I said, Well, you'll have to help me there because I don't know any religious Jews. And she said, Well, there are lots of them in Israel.

I said, Well, I've been to Israel quite a few times, but I never met any religious Jews there. He said, Well, like the ultra orthodox Jews. I said, Well, I've met quite a few of those too, but I never met a religious one. She said, What are you talking about? I said, Well, you know what the Jewish religion is, don't you?

God is holy. He's not like us, we're sinners. He's holy. But he loves sinners like us and so he arranged to live in a special building with a special room called the Holiness Of Holinesses. And he made arrangements to have a group of men known as priests.

And the priests were to take animals and to kill them and their blood was to be caught and it was to be sprinkled here and poured there. And there were very special, very special arrangements that had to be made so that a holy God could live in the midst of a sinful people. So I said, Now these religious Jews that you're talking about, do they have the holiness of holinesses? He said, No. I said, Do they have priests? No.

No. Do they have altars? No. Do they have sacrifices? No.

I said, Well, I guess I don't owe any religious Jews then, do you? I said, What they do, it's all manufactured. It's got nothing to do with what God says. It's all make believe. I said, I don't suppose you'd be interested in knowing when the whole thing shut down, would you?

It may be a coincidence, but it just happened at the very moment where a rabbi from Nazareth was spiked to a Roman cross outside the city and cried, Finished! And suddenly, the tapestry that hung between the holiness and the holiest of all, it tore in two about the time of the evening sacrifice. The little woman was standing there, her eyes were as big as saucers. She'd never heard this before. And she was like, like it was just happening right there.

And her kids came in. Her husband was sitting in the car. We've been going on for thirty minutes. She said, You go and tell daddy this is way too important. Leave me alone. I

I need to hear this. Kids ran out the door. I said, You know, Josephus says that that veil, the tapestry was the thickness of a man's hand. Two yoke of oxen couldn't pull it apart. But suddenly at the time of the evening sacrifice, 60 feet high.

No wonder it says many of the priests believed. It wasn't saying that men could go in there. It was saying that God had come out to us and provided salvation, full and free. And what the law couldn't do, Jesus did. I hope I meet that lady in heaven someday, but I tell you, it was just like she was experiencing the thing for herself right there at the spot. I

I said, This is the wonder of it, that Jesus was God incarnate. The Bible says he tabernacled among us. He was like the holiest of all. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. And when his body was being torn on the cross, God tore the veil in two to show us that when men took him and drove that spear into his side and opened his side, it opened away.

The blood sprinkled away right into the presence of God. There was a new highway to heaven now. And Jesus was the way. But they were envious. You know, Paul takes this up, doesn't he, in Romans nine through 11. And

And he explains, God has tried every tactic with the Jews. He had writing prophets and preaching prophets and singing prophets and dancing prophets and prophets who made little models and knocked them down and prophets who ran around naked. You name it, he tried it. And he couldn't get through to them. And then Stephen points this out in chapter seven, doesn't he?

What motivated the Jews was envy and jealousy. It was for envy that they sold Joseph into slavery. It was for jealousy that they betrayed the Lord Jesus. And so God said, Well, if that's the only thing that motivates you, that's what I'll use. I'll save a bunch of gentiles and you'll be like a spoiled child that's had all the toys and lost interest in them until the little snotty gentile baby came around the corner and started playing with one of your toys and said, I want it.

That's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna have the Gentiles enjoying your scriptures and your savior and singing your songs and you'll wanna get in on it. So that's what I'm gonna do. That's what he tells us. Isn't that amazing?

That he would use this very thing. And here we see this wonderful work of God where Paul says, If you reject the Messiah, you'll fulfill the Scripture. If you accept the Messiah, you'll fulfill the scripture. You don't have a chance. You can't get away from this.

23:32 Turn to the Gentiles

But you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life. Now you'll notice the parallel here. Some people have a problem with the end of verse 48. But there's a parallel here. You took yourself out of the running.

You took yourself out of line. You rejected the offer. You considered yourself not deserving, unworthy of everlasting life. Way to go. You were so clever.

You argued yourself right out of the Messiah, right out of heaven. Weren't you clever? But now the Gentiles, the Gentiles, they rejoiced to hear the message. They were glad and glorified the word of the Lord and as many as had been. Now the King James says, ordained to eternal life. That

That is not the word ordained. It's not translated that way anywhere. But we have this word appointed to eternal life. Now this is the opposite of what's said in verse 46. You judged yourself unworthy of everlasting life.

25:20 The Centurion and Military Authority

This is a military word. A military man who wants the Lord to help him because his servant needs Christ's healing touch. Let me go over and read it to you. Luke chapter seven verse two says, A certain centurion servant who was dear to him was sick and ready to die. So when he heard about Jesus, he sent elders of the Jews to him, pleading with him to come and heal his servant.

And when they came to Jesus, they begged him earnestly, saying that the one for whom he should do this was deserving, for he loves our nation and has built us a synagogue. Then Jesus went with him, when he was already not far from the house, the centurion sent friends to him saying to him, Lord, do not trouble yourself. I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof. Okay? You see the difference here? They're

They're saying that they're not worthy, right? They're saying they're not worthy of eternal life. He's saying, No, I'm not worthy of you coming into my house. And then he says this, I am a man placed under authority. That's the same word.

As our word, appointed. Appointed. I'm a man who knows what it's like to be lined up according to rank. I know how it works in the military. And he says, I have people that answer to me.

And I have orders that I'm supposed to obey. Right? I'm in the rank. There are some beneath me and there are some above me. And the ones above me tell me what to do and the ones beneath me, I tell them what to do.

That's how it works. So I'm in the rank. I'm in my place in the rank, in the line of authority. I also am a man placed under authority, having soldiers under me. I say to one, Go, and he goes to another, Come, and he comes to my servant, Do this, and he does it.

We discovered that this man has the palsy. He's paralyzed. And he's saying, Look, my servants, if I tell them to do something, go do it, they do it. I don't have to go and do it. I tell them to do it.

And they do it. I can do things by remote control. Okay? I can send them. They do what I want done, but they do it. I

I don't have to do it. I've got one servant, however, and he's paralyzed. I say to him, Go. He doesn't go. He can't go. If

If he's gonna go, you're gonna have to tell him to go. You're gonna have to heal him. You don't have to show up in my house. If I wanted something done out down the road there, I wouldn't have to go there. I could send my agent to do it.

So I know that you have authority and that you could, from a distance, heal my servant. You wouldn't have to show up. I do things all the time by remote. I don't have to show up to do them. And I know you.

You're at the top of the authority chain and you can speak the word and it'll happen. This is amazing, isn't it? Jesus is flabbergasted at the man's faith. I haven't seen such faith, not even in Israel. This is amazing. Right?

Right? So Luke says, this is the word the man used, a man placed under authority. I'm a man who's in rank, in line. And so here, what he's telling us is that there were people lined up for the gospel. The preachers would say they were ripe.

They were ripe. This is what Jesus meant when he said, The harvest is white. Right? It's ready. It's ready to come in. And

And so here were Jewish people and God had been preparing them for fifteen hundred years. Sending them prophets, giving them scriptures. We're reminding them that he wanted them, he wanted to save them for fifteen hundred years. And finally Paul says, Here it is. This is the moment. We

We explain to you who can save you and he can do it now. And you start arguing. You are envious and you say, No, if we can't have him all to ourselves, we don't want him. Or whatever it was they were saying. And so that's the case here. These

These were people who were standing on their tiptoes, who were eager. The other, the Jews, were standing back and saying, No, it's not for us. We're not interested. And these people, they were eager. They were in line, standing in line. You

You can just see a picture of them, right? They were all in ranks just waiting saying, Send me. Give me the opportunity. If you don't want the opportunity, I'll take it. I have set you as a light to the Gentiles that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.

If the Jews don't want to go with the gospel, we will. And that's exactly what happened. Now this was all laid out before. We knew this was going to happen, right? Isaiah, he tells us this.

All day long I stretched out my hand to a disobedient and arguing people. And yet I was found of those that sought me not. These Gentiles, they had no idea about this until Paul showed up and said, How'd you like to become children of God? Heirs of God, joined heirs with Christ? How would you like to have eternal life?

Are you kidding? Of course we want to be saved. Meanwhile, the Jews who had been coddled and warned and preached to and written to and pleaded with and finally God's own son came to plead with them and weep over them. They threw a temper tantrum and they just wouldn't have him. No.

Jesus said, I know how this is gonna go. When he, at 30 years of age, went into his own synagogue and read the scripture, Isaiah 61, Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears, They were kind of curious, like, Woah, that's interesting. We thought we knew who this fellow was. Don't his folks work in town? Don't they live down the street here?

But then Jesus said this. You know, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, but God couldn't find one to look after his servant. And he had to go up to Lebanon to find one, a Syrophoenician woman. And there were many lepers in Israel but none of them was healed. The only one that was healed was Naaman and he was a Syrian.

And they exploded. And they tried to drag him out and throw him over the precipice and stone him to death. Why? Well, because he was saying, I know how this is gonna go. The Jews are gonna reject me but the Gentiles will have me.

Thank God there were Jews that did trust the Lord and that they became the foundation for the church, right? And you see the church coming down from heaven in Revelation, all the names carved there are Jews. Whether the patriarchs on the gates or the apostles on the foundation stones, they're all Jews. All the people who wrote the scriptures to us are Jews. All the early martyrs of the church were Jews.

And so Paul says it wasn't entirely a failing experiment, was it? After all, says, I'm a Jew. Yeah. So it wasn't a failure, but the nation as a nation failed in rejecting the offer. And so as I said earlier, this story could be superimposed on the parable that Jesus told of the Gospel Supper.

That the ones who were chosen, the ones who were on reception list, the ones who had been elected to come, all said no. They all made excuses. And so the non elect, the ones who had not been chosen, they were the ones that he went out, he said, Go into the highways and byways and compel them to come in, for my house must be filled. Now what that meant was that these people who originally were invited, provision had been made for them. And they could have come if they had chosen to, if they hadn't made excuses.

And that the ones who were not on the list, well, there was enough for them too, wasn't there? And so, in this little passage we see quite clearly the scripture is teaching that even though Israel was elect, they had a choice to make as to whether they would accept that invitation or not. And in this case, they said no. But the Gentiles were lined up, eager and ready to receive the gospel. And as many has been appointed, as many as were lined up, as many as were in line for the gospel, They believed it.

36:28 The Three Sons of Noah

And the sons of Ham were driven out to the extremities of civilization. The sons of Ham, according to the Bible, are all the people of color. The people who are the Chinese, the people who are Africans, the people who are South American, the so called Indians, they all come under the marking of Ham. I was mentioning the other evening, it's such an interesting thing, you know, the curse on Canaan was actually a curse on Ham. But the way it works is, if you bless a child, the blessing comes back to his father. If

If you curse a child, it comes back to the father. And so by cursing Ham, the curse would have landed on Noah. And so Canaan is cursed but the curse actually comes to Ham. But the curse is this: A servant of servants shall he be. Now this book from start to finish is the story of how God turns curses into blessings.

Right? That's the whole point of this book. And the greatest person who ever lived on the planet chose for his occupation to be a servant of servants. We have this construction several times in the Bible, Heaven of heavens, Holy of Holies, King of Kings, Lord of Lords. Many times over we see this and in every occasion it's a superlative.

It's not a put down, It's something special. And the children of Ham, as I say, were sent out into the most difficult areas of the world. They're the ones who are up in the Arctic. They're the ones who are in the Gobi Desert, the outback of Australia. The most difficult places in the world.

And they not only survived but thrived. They were the most inventive of all the tribes, of all the peoples. And Arthur Custins has written a book on this subject and he explains, he has pages and pages showing that the sons of Ham were the ones, all of the domesticated animals, all of the field crops, our vegetables and most of our inventions came from the sons of Ham. We think that our civilizations may go back to Rome and Greece, but in actual fact, the Romans and the Greeks learned how to build and how to do things from the Etruscans and the Egyptians. They were the real buildings and they were the ones who taught the world how to build. The

The Archimedes screw, everything from a grain auger to a drill bit, was invented by the sons of Ham. When the white man came to America, he discovered tomatoes and squash and corn and tobacco and all these things. It was the sons of Ham that had developed all these. And so, in order for a civilization to function properly, we need all three branches. The intellectual branch, the spiritual branch, and the technical branch are all necessary to function properly.

41:04 Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

He says, How can I unless someone shows me? Stops the chariot. Philip gets in and what do you know, it's a scroll of Isaiah and he just happens to be at the section we call 53. The most beautiful description of the crucifixion of Christ in the Old Testament. And we know the story how he was saved. You

You know, deal with a very high prison population of African Americans. And many of those who try to undermine the gospel in the prisons tell them that Christianity is a white man's religion. And I point out to them that in actual fact, Christianity began in Asia and first went to Africa. Before it went to Europe, the Gospel went to Africa. And that's what we have in this story.

And we see in the story of Philip, first of all, the story of the eunuch, we see the importance of the spirit. The spirit directed him to come at the exact moment that he needed to be there to share the gospel. Does the Holy Spirit do that today? Does he do it with you and me? I say yes.

And I think we have to be more dependent on the spirit and ask the spirit, please direct me. You know, some of these mega churches, they spend a great deal of time and money making up databases of all the people in their community and who they are and what their subcategories are. And God says, Actually, I already have the database. I know every person in your town. I know every person who wept themselves to sleep last night.

I know every person that just found out they have cancer. And I not only know that, but I know the best Christian to go and meet with them. And I know the best Bible verse to put into your heart before you go there. If you'd like to work with me, I've done a fair bit of the groundwork already. And my Holy Spirit has prepared their hearts to receive it.

Right? I have a friend in town, a medical doctor, and we were discussing these things one day and I said to him, you know, God could do this with you brother. And the next morning he got up and he said, Lord, give me a verse and give me someone to share it with today. And the Lord laid on his heart, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.

And the Lord laid on his heart a patient of his who's a Muslim, who was just simply driving through our town and had a head on collision and ended up in the hospital. And so he headed over there and he said, Lord, whenever I've gone in before that's full of relatives or else he's sleeping, Could you have him sitting up and awake and nobody there but just him? And sure enough, when he walked in the door, that's how it was. After a few pleasantries, he said to this man, You might think this is strange, but this morning I was having a time of prayer and I was talking to the Lord. And I said, Lord, is there anyone that could use a visit today to be encouraged?

And the Lord laid you on my heart and I prayed for you. And then the Lord gave me a message for you from the Bible. I wonder, would you be interested in knowing what it is? Isn't that beautiful? He's asking for his permission but he's screwing up his curiosity to hide hide here. Right?

Right? And so the man said, of course he wanted to hear it. And he shared it with him and the man looked at him and said, you know, you know why I'm here? I was heading over to Georgia. My brother became a Christian and I was going over to ream him out.

And I had an accident in Starkville and you became my doctor. I think maybe that's the reason why. Well, you know, the doctor came out of there and he was just literally dancing. He's like, Could this happen every day? Yeah, it could.

Yeah. The Lord loves to do this. He's looking for people to work with him. He opens doors. He knows how to move things. He

He knows how to prepare the ground for the seed. The importance of the spirit. And then we notice the importance of the scriptures. He read the scriptures to him. Know, men that I know that are real evangelists, I mean, I play at it, men that are real evangelists, they understand that everything in the word of God is alive, not just a few verses.

And God can use any scripture to reach people. I met a man over in Ireland and he said, I'm from a group of assemblies that I'm not sure they'd have you come and speak, brother, but I just wanted to tell you this story. He said, I was going down to the West Of Southern Ireland, going down there's virtually no Protestants at all in that area, and I took some of your little messages, the uniqueness of Christianity, and I handed them out down there. When I left to head back home, I still had a few left and I thought, it's silly taking them back north. I think I'll stop in Dublin and hand them out. So

So he says, I pulled over when I got into Dublin and I saw a man standing by the Lithy, by the river there, and he was white, pasty white in his face. And I walked up to him and said, Sir, you look ill. Are you all right? And the man said to me, My marriage is in ruins and I'm just thinking about throwing myself into the river. And he said, I said to him, 'Before you kill yourself, listen to this.' The words I'd use maybe, but there it was.

So he went back north and he said, You know, a month went by, I came back down, we were doing some open air preaching in Dublin and a man came over to me and said, Do you remember me? And I said, No, I don't remember you. He said, I'm the man you told me. Listen to this message before you kill yourself. He said, Well obviously you didn't kill yourself, T. J.

J. He said, No I didn't, I got saved. She got saved. He said, Yeah, and I let my wife listen to it, but she's not sure it's really the message of God. You know, we grew up in another church and she thinks that's the right one. And

And she's not convinced it's God's message. He said, Have you got anything else? And he said, Well, you know, I have a little DVD in my car. It's just a very short talk, just about ten minutes long, and it's by the same speaker. And maybe you could let your wife listen to that.

And so he went to the car and he got out this little David Gooding was preaching and they asked me for some silly reason to get up and spend ten minutes of David Gooding's time. And so I just spoke on the little verse that you don't hear too often, Died Abner as a fool dieth. Right? So he took it home. And when he got home, he said to his wife, Say, I met the man that spared my life from killing myself.

And I said that you are still having problems believing that this was the message of God even though it's changed my life. You've seen my life change. And I asked him if he had anything else and he's got a little DVD, would you come and watch it with me? So they sat down in the living room and put on the DVD and I preached this little message on Died Abner is a Fool diet. Well, she didn't say anything. She

She just got up, went into the kitchen, started to wash dishes. And as she was washing the dishes, she turned on the radio. And she prayed looking out the window. She said, prayed, God, if that's your message, prove it to me. And then she started working on the dishes.

Well, the Christians up in the North Of Ireland have a radio broadcast down in Dublin. They've never had one response from it. And when she turned on the radio, that's what was on. And it was a preacher preaching on the verse, Died Hebner as a fool dies. She got down by the kitchen table and she said, God, you spoke to me once and you spoke to me twice, and now I'm going to speak to you.

I want you to do to me what you did to my husband and save me too. You know, this is the beauty of God. This is his wonder. He's got his finger on all the buttons. He can touch hearts and lives. You

You think this person's absolutely hopeless. Listen, God specializes in those types. All he asks us to do is love them. Love them. The love of God's people is the solvent that softens hard hearts.

And so we have this beautiful story. The importance of the spirit, the importance of the scriptures, the importance of the Savior. He preached Jesus to him, verse 35. Make much of Jesus. And then the importance of the symbol.

What would keep me from being baptized? He says, Well, if you believe with all your heart you may. And down into the water they went and the eunuch saw him no more and he went on his way rejoicing. Man, that's great stuff, isn't it? We have no idea. I'm

I'm looking forward to finding out all the people in Africa, in Ethiopia that this man touched when he got home. Can you imagine? Here's a man, and he's responsible for all the treasures of Queen Candace, and he gets up and says, Wait till you hear the treasure I got. There's nothing like it in Candace's treasure house. Oh, I tell you, it's going to be a great day when we see that.

52:45 Reaching Across the Whole World

They will see a visible manifestation of the glorified Jesus and they'll fall at his feet just like he did. And they'll say, We esteemed him stricken of God and afflicted, but he was wounded for our transgressions. And they will embrace their Messiah just as Saul of Tarsus did. And then we come to chapter 10 and we have a son of Japheth, and he is a military leader. So we have three leaders, a political leader, a religious leader and a military leader, Cornelius, a centurion and he's a Gentile and of course so is the eunuch.

And he's ready. He's right. He's been searching. He's been looking. He's been doing what we read about in chapter 17.

Reaching out, feeling for him, seeking to find the truth. The old preachers used to say, A seeking sinner and a seeking saver will always find each other. And sure enough, God wouldn't let the eunuch head back down to Africa without getting an answer. He knew that man was searching and he wasn't gonna let him go. And Philip was having a successful gospel campaign up in Samaria, but the Lord said, No, no, no. You

You get down there. I'm not gonna let this man go home disappointed. You will find me if you seek for me with all your heart. And the eunuch got saved and Saul of Tarsus got saved and Cornelius got saved. These are wonderful stories but they remind us of the largeness of the heart of God.

He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Father, once more, we have been reminded what a wonderful God you are. What a wonderful savior we proclaim, what a wonderful change is wrought in the life of those who believe him, and what a wonderful prospect we have that someday we'll hug the Ethiopian, we'll kiss the cheek of our brother Saul, we'll look into the eyes of Cornelius and realize these are our brothers. These men love the same Lord Jesus we do and millions more. And we want to be on the cutting edge. We

We want to be those people who want the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with joy and fill our minds with scripture and fill our longing, our love for the lost to overflow so that every day we get up in the morning and say, Lord, I'm not much of a preacher maybe, but I can point to Jesus. I can witness to people and simply say, Jesus is the best thing that ever happened to me. Help us to be faithful, not to be great judges or prosecutors or defense attorneys, but witnesses just to tell what we know. But Jesus changed our lives and we've never been the same since. We pray for any in the conference today who are not saved.

They don't know where they stand with you. What a tragedy to miss out on this opportunity. We pray that today will be the day that they bow the knee to the Lord Jesus and put their trust in him. We just commend ourselves to you now and give thanks, Father, for all your kindness, for this glorious gospel, for this wonderful savior, for the gracious spirit, for the testimony of faithful servants of yours who've gone out through the years, the people who prayed for us and reached us with the gospel. We're thankful, O God, that you've given us the privilege of shining the light, of taking the light and shining it in this dark world.

So bless us as we meet together and visit. Give us joy in our hearts as we see Christ in one another. We ask it in the Savior's name. Amen.

Salvation Through The Ages - Part 5 — Acts 13

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Salvation Through The Ages - Part 5 — Acts 13

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