The Bible says, Now when they heard this,
they were fricked in their heart and said
unto Peter and to the rest of the
apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, be baptized
every one of you in the name of
Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and
you shall receive the gift of the Holy
Ghost.
For the promise is unto you and to
your children and to all that are of
all, even as many as the Lord our
God shall call.
And with many other words did he testify
and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward
generation.
Then they that gladly received his word were
baptized.
And the same day there were added unto
them about three thousand souls.
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine
and fellowship and in breaking of bread and
in prayers.
And fear came upon every soul and many
wonders and signs were done by the apostles.
And all that believed were together and had
all things common and sold their possessions and
goods and parted them to all men as
every man had a need.
And they continuing daily with one accord in
the temple and breaking bread from house to
house did eat their meat with gladness and
singleness of heart, praising God and having favor
with all the people.
And the Lord added to the church daily
such as should be saved."
This morning in Sunday School we deal with
a simple subject, essentials of a real New
Testament church.
Let's pray and ask the Lord to bless
our time together, shall we?
Lord, thank You so much for Your Word
and for what it means to us.
And Lord, You've left it here so that
we may learn much about You and about
how we should live.
So I pray that You'd help us this
morning to have a very profitable time in
Sunday School.
Thank You for the good number of folks
who have come out today to worship the
Lord.
And I pray, Lord, that we would do
exactly that here in Sunday School and in
the preaching time to follow and the music
and everything that takes place.
We just want to honor and magnify the
lovely Lord Jesus Christ.
We pray that You would bless.
We'll thank You for everything that You'll say
and do for us in Jesus' name that
we ask You to embrace.
Amen.
The book of the Acts is probably one
of my favorite New Testament books out of
the 27 that we do have, 28 short
chapters.
And basically, you can take the book of
the Acts and you can divide it into
three segments.
You can divide it, number one, by the
start of the church.
You can then have the second division of
the spirit of the church.
And then most of the book of the
Acts is what we consider to be the
service of the church.
Now, last night, Ike and I were flipping
through the television and came across one of
my favorite preachers on TV.
His name is Robert Shuler.
I know he's not one of my favorite
preachers, but we came across him.
And he said that he was fixing to
be having a pastor's leadership conference.
It was the 32nd annual leadership conference for
pastors.
And he said, I'm the first preacher in
America to ever have an actual pastor's conference
that teaches people suggestions on how to run
their church and blah, blah, blah.
And he went on and he told all
these people that went through his program and
all these people that have been helped.
And he showed all these pictures of all
these bigwig liberal preachers who are now out
in their churches because they came to his
pastoral program.
And I remember one thing he said.
He said, what we're going to give you
is some concrete suggestions for your local church.
Well, I don't want to do that this
morning.
I want to give you some concrete essentials
for a local church because I believe the
Bible is a book of absolutes.
I don't believe it's necessarily written to suggest
things to us.
I believe God gives us some essentials and
he tells us that these things need to
be there.
So, we call this Temple-Bounded Church.
This is a local, New Testament, fundamental Bible
-believing Baptist church.
So, therefore, what are its essentials?
What is it that God said in his
word, not that we should have in a
local church, but that we must have in
a local church?
Well, I believe every principle that we're going
to deal with is very simply stated right
here in this little short portion of Scripture
that we dealt with.
Look in your Bibles, if you would, please,
at verse number 37 again.
Well, again, just a moment ago, I have
several things I want to share with you
to get it in in the time that
we have a lot.
In Acts chapter 2, obviously, you know the
day of Pentecost.
The Apostle Peter preaches and 3,000 people
are saved just on the very first day
from the very first altar call.
And we know the promise of the Spirit
was in Acts chapter 1 and the fulfillment
of that promise came in Acts chapter number
2.
Notice what happens here in verse 37.
Here, Peter had just preached a scathing, scolding
message.
I mean, he preached, Thus saith the Lord.
It says in verse 37, Now when they
heard this, they were pricked in their hearts
and said unto Peter and to the rest
of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall
we do?
Now notice what Peter tells them.
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be
baptized every one of you in the name
of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins,
and ye shall receive the gift of the
Holy Ghost.
For the promise is unto you and to
your children and to all that are afar
off, even as many as the Lord our
God shall call.
And with many other words did he testify
and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward."
Kind of a word for wicked, for this
untoward generation.
What is the first essential of a real
New Testament local church?
Well, I believe these principles are not only
fulfilled here in Acts chapter 2, but I
believe for the entire 28 chapters, if we
look at the early church, we will see
that all of these principles are instituted.
I want to write a few things down,
at least remember some things.
Number one, the first essential, not suggestion, but
the first essential of a New Testament church
is what I call fearless preaching.
The fearless preaching of the Word of God
is something that accompanied all of the early
New Testament churches, every single one of them.
The church at Galatia, the church at Thessalonica,
the Corinthian church, the church at Ephesus, all
of the churches that were founded by the
apostle Paul and the other men of God
throughout the New Testament were founded and were
built and were established on the preaching of
the Word of God.
And so what is taking place in Acts
chapter 2 is they're not having a discussion
plan.
He's not getting up there and saying, Well,
let's just raise hands and we'll just kind
of vote around the round table here, and
I'll let you think what you want, you
can live like you want.
No, he just opened his heart, opened his
mouth, opened his Bible like the front door
of his house.
He got up in the pulpit and those
fellas said, Men and brethren, what are we
supposed to do?
He said, I'll tell you what you're supposed
to do.
He said, You're supposed to repent and get
right with God.
And from right there, he began to preach
the straightforward, unadulterated message of the Word of
God and 3,000 people were saved by
the grace of God.
Now, we don't always see 3,000 people
saved by the grace of God.
As a matter of fact, it's very rare
that we would.
But you know what?
Preaching still gets the job done.
It is still God's avenue whereby revival comes
to God's people, whereby people are saved because
nowhere in the Bible does it say by
the foolishness of church attendance will God save
them that belief.
It doesn't say by the foolishness of singing,
by the foolishness of potluck dinners, by the
foolishness of fellowship.
It says by the foolishness of preaching, God
chooses to save them that belief.
And I believe that the fearless preaching of
the Word of God still gets the job
done.
It still works.
Now, it's a sad day in which we're
living because nowadays churches are built on principles.
Nowadays churches are built on psychology.
They're built on all of these little things.
But very rarely do you find churches that
have been built and that continue to build
the people through the preaching of the Word
of God.
But at one time, in our movement, if
you will, as fundamentalists, that is what our
movement was known for.
It was known for straightforward preaching.
Now, please understand, when I talk about fearless
preaching, I'm not just talking about screaming and
yelling and just calling people by name.
I'm not talking about that.
There's different styles of preaching.
And so, when I deal with the subject
of preaching, a lot of people take one
little mindset and one little framework of mine,
and they lump everybody into the same way.
And they say, well, if they don't preach
that way, then that's not fearless preaching.
No, no.
We're not talking about the way a person
preaches.
We're talking about the content and the subject
whereby a person preaches.
And I believe in the day and age
in which we live, we should call sin,
sin and holiness, holiness.
We should call up, up and right, right
and down, down and wrong, wrong.
And the Apostle Peter and the Apostle Paul
and all the other New Testament disciples, and
then you got Jesus and you got John
the Baptist, all of these men were characterized
in their ministry by one thing.
They were not worried about crowds.
They were not worried about what people thought.
They could have cared less about the black
and white tabloids and the paper on Monday
morning.
They didn't care about that.
They cared about one thing, preaching the Word
of God as in truth it is the
Word of God.
The Apostle Paul wrote to young Timothy in
2 Timothy 4, verse 1.
He said, I charge you therefore before God
and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge
both the quick and the dead in His
appearing and His coming.
Notice verse 2, preach the Word.
Because Jesus Christ is going to judge us,
Paul tells Timothy, because people do need to
be saved, he says, therefore, preach the Word.
The instant in season and out of season.
You see, according to the Bible, there's only
two times that a God-fearing, Bible-believing
preacher ought to ever preach the Word of
God.
There's only two times according to the Bible,
in season and out of season, all the
time.
And so he says, you preach the Word
in season, out of season, rebuke and exhort
with all long-suffering and doctrine.
Why?
For the time will come when they will
not endure sound doctrine.
But he to themselves teachers having itching ears
and shall turn their hearts away from the
truth and shall be turning to fables.
He said, but watch on all things, endure
afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make
full proof of thy ministry.
He said, for I am now ready to
be offered.
And the time of my departure is at
hand.
I've fought a good fight, I've kept the
faith, I've finished the course.
Verse 8, henceforth, there is laid up for
me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord,
the righteous judge, shall give me at that
day, and not unto me only, but also
to them that love is appearing.
What is Paul saying?
The whole focus, the whole mindset of the
ministry of the apostle Paul was preach the
blessed Word of God.
Preach the blessed Word of God.
And there was a day when churches were
built on the preaching of the Word of
God.
But nowadays, we've got sermon ants, the Christian
ants, who smoke cigarettes in the dinette, and
nobody wants to hear hard preaching anymore.
And we wonder why the standards are the
way they are in churches.
And we wonder why convictions are lax.
And we wonder why there's no revival.
And we wonder why there's no real Holy
Spirit power.
I'll be honest, because Holy Spirit power has
always been hand in hand with the straightforward,
fearless preaching of the Word of God.
Now, you study revival.
There's two things that have taken place in
all revivals on the history of God's green
earth.
They always had prayer, and they always had
preaching.
Because preaching is something that not only begins
that stirring in your heart, but it's something
that keeps us stirred, and preaching is something
that works in the hearts and lives of
people.
It still builds churches.
I still believe in preaching.
You say, well, the only reason you believe
in preaching is because you're evangelist.
No, I believed in preaching before I was
an evangelist, because I got saved in the
preaching.
I got right with God in the preaching.
I got called to the ministry in the
preaching.
I got called to Bible college in the
preaching.
And everything I have, I owe to the
preaching of the Word of God.
And I believe, I don't care if it's
a two-year-old kid or a 200
-year-old man, I believe if we preach
to people, I believe God will work in
their heart and give them what they need.
And I think we've got some cheap and
shallow anti-biblical preaching in the day and
age in which we live.
And I believe we need some men of
God who will stand in the pulpit, and
they will have some backbone, and they will
have some courage, and they will open the
Bible.
And Jeremiah said, Be not afraid of their
faces.
And you know why that's in the Bible?
I'll tell you why.
Because I meet a lot of spooky faces
in evangelism, alright?
I mean sad faces, mad faces, happy faces,
ugly faces, pretty faces.
I mean all kind of faces.
But you know what?
I'm not worried about your faces.
I'm worried about your heart.
And that's why I believe the Bible needs
to be preached.
It needs to be preached practically.
It doesn't need to be preached over people's
heads, but we need to open the Word
of God and say, Listen folks, this is
what God says, this is what we're supposed
to do, because preaching still works.
It always has, and it always will.
You remember the book of Jonah?
Jonah preached an eight-worded sermon, and 175
,000 people got saved by the grace of
God.
Just a simple eight-worded sermon.
The first great awakening, the second great awakening,
all the revivals of the past.
Those men simply preached the Word of God.
They didn't get up and say, Let me
tell you what I think about life.
They didn't get up and say, Well, here's
my philosophy, or you know, the power of
positive thinking, and the rest of that stuff
in the day and age in which we
live.
No, they just opened up the Bible, and
they let the Bible say what it said.
They said, This is what God said.
If we don't like it, then it's God
that's not going to change.
We're going to have to change.
We're going to have to conform to what
the Word of God says.
You know what Peter did?
He stood up.
Those fellows said, What are we supposed to
do?
He said, You're supposed to repent.
You're supposed to get right with God.
He fearlessly preached the Bible, and you know
what?
He got the job done.
It is what founded that church.
It is what propagated that church.
And that church went on in great glory
and great power because preacher after preacher after
preacher after preacher simply preached the Word of
God.
And I believe that still works, and it
still gets the job done.
And so you ought to thank God that
you have a preacher who's willing to preach
the Bible.
You'd be surprised how many preachers in America
have given in to the peer pressure of
popularity and the peer pressure of their people.
And there's a whole lot of churches whose
pulpit is filled with a puppet, not with
a preacher.
Their pulpit is filled with a puppet, not
with a prophet.
And what we need in the day and
age in which we live are some men
of God to sound forth a gospel trumpet
and not preach, Thus saith the Bible college.
Not preach, Thus saith my little pet peeve.
Not preach, Thus saith the story of the
Lord.
Or, Thus saith the revival fires.
But, Thus saith the God of the Bible.
Because that's what's going to get the job
done.
And so it's founded, number one, by fearless
preaching.
Look in verse 42, would you?
And obviously, much more can be said about
all of these, and you can develop an
outline any way you want to, but notice
what it says in verse 42.
And they, that's the people who were just
saved and added to that local church.
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine
and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and
in prayers.
Verse 46 now, please.
And they, same group of people.
And they, continuing daily with one accord in
the temple and breaking bread from house to
house, did eat their meat with gladness and
singled them apart.
Number one, first essential, fearless preaching.
Second essential is there has to be faithful
people.
If you're going to have a local New
Testament church, you're going to have to have
people who are faithful to that local New
Testament church.
Now, we live in a day when church
membership, for most people, was just kind of
a suggestion.
That, for most people, church membership is kind
of a social status.
It's just kind of a gathering.
Just kind of comes together.
I know this independent Baptist preacher.
I'll not give his name.
He was in evangelism for about ten years.
And when I was in Bible college, Dr.
Comfort said, I want all you fellas to
watch that guy because it won't be about
two or three more years he's going to
be out in left field somewhere.
And sure enough, this past year, he went
to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and he quit the ministry
as far as evangelism was concerned.
He quit wearing ties and changed his Bible
and dropped all his standards and got some
mop head to beat around on some drums
and things like that.
They filled up this big place.
They rented out the governor's palace, the big
coliseum that they have over there.
They rented it out.
They only have Sunday morning services.
No Sunday evening, no revival meetings, no mission
conference, no Wednesday night, no prayer meetings, no
visitation.
And they got a big sign out there
called The Gathering.
And that's about what most churches are nowadays.
It's just a gathering place.
And I'll tell you, if this church is
going to be everything it needs to be
for the glory of God, it's going to
have to have some faithful people who love
God, who love preaching, who love the Bible,
who love God's people, who love to worship
the Lord, and they will be faithful.
I'd like to remind you, Hebrews 10.25
is still in your Bible.
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as
the manner of some is.
He said, you don't do it, but there's
some dirty crooks that are.
He said, you don't be faithless or unfaithful.
He said, but there's many of them that
are being.
So he says, I want you to be
faithful.
And he said, so much the more as
you see the day approaching.
And obviously, he's speaking of the day of
Christ.
And we're a whole lot closer to that
day than Paul was in Hebrews 10.25.
And so he says, the more we should
be gathering together to worship the Lord and
be faithful to the New Testament local church.
You know, I'm convinced if we gave our
bosses the same excuses for not coming to
work as we gave God and the preacher
for not coming to church, most of us
would be out of a job.
And we come up with some pretty silly
excuses for why we don't go to church.
Here's my favorite one.
Well, I was providentially hindered.
You ever thought about that?
You actually think providence is going to hinder
you from doing something that providence commanded you
to do to begin with?
Which, oh, God hindered me from coming to
the house of God.
I don't believe that for a minute.
I mean, sure, this little pulpit here is
black.
I don't believe that God is going to
hinder His people from doing something that He
commanded His people to do.
You may have a flat tire.
That's fine.
You may get sick.
That's fine.
You may have to work.
That's fine.
But I'm telling you, we can do what
we want to do, and we will do
what we want to do.
And if you want to be faithful to
a local New Testament church, you can be
faithful to a local New Testament church.
And these people continue not weekly, and they
didn't come Sunday morning and Wednesday night.
Guess when they came?
And daily.
I mean, we're talking about every day, friends.
Now, we're just asking you, you know, Sunday,
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, to come and
be faithful.
But I mean, these people went to church
every single day.
And they didn't bellyache when the man preaching
along.
They didn't bellyache when the singers sang a
little bit.
They didn't bellyache when it seemed like the
Spirit of God was working and people were
getting saved and people were getting right.
Man, they'd stay there all day long.
Hey, you remember the Old Testament?
Nehemiah opened the Bible one day.
The Bible says that he got up in
the pulpit, and he read for a fourth
part of the day.
And the Bible says all the people stood
with their faces to the crowd.
I mean, he read for a fourth part
of the day, and everybody, I mean, the
men, the women, the boys, the girls, the
teenagers, everybody stood up and out of reverence
bowed their head with their faces toward the
ground for a fourth part of the day.
And nowadays, you know, if some man preaches
over 20 minutes, we think that's awful.
And, you know, you preach 25 minutes, and
everybody's sitting down with their heads bowed down
to the ground.
You know, they're about to fall asleep.
And so, I mean, in the Old Testament
and the New Testament, there was reverence when
people came to the house of God.
They wasn't there because it was a glorified
entertainment center.
They wasn't there because it was a movie
theater or a bowling alley or a social
gatherer.
Man, they were there to worship God.
And real New Testament local churches are filled
with faithful people, people who want to be
used by God.
And we don't just come to fill a
spot.
We come to worship the Lord and to
serve and to help here in this local
church.
And so that's what these people did.
And certainly, again, more could be said about
that.
But look in your Bibles now, if you
would, at verse 43.
Verse number 43 of Acts chapter 2.
We see the third essential.
Notice what it says, "...and fear came upon
every soul, and many wonders and signs were
done by the apostles."
Before I give you the point, I want
to explain that little part there at the
end.
Words in the Bible mean something.
You understand that?
That's why they're there.
It does not say, "...many signs and wonders
were done by the people."
You notice that?
It does not say, "...many signs and wonders
were done by the church members."
No, no.
It says, "...many signs and wonders were done
by the apostles."
Why does it say that?
Because the apostles had apostolic power given them
in Mark chapter number 16.
God told these men, "...you will have certain
powers."
Why does it not say that the people
did signs and wonders and miracles?
Because the people, if you will, did not
have that power.
The apostles did.
Therefore, when the apostles died, apostolic power died
with them.
We don't need apostolic power.
You know why your preacher doesn't get up
and handle snakes?
Because he's not crazy for one thing, but
because he don't have apostolic power.
You know why he doesn't get up and
do all kinds of miracles and signs and
wonders?
Because he's not an apostle.
You see these birds on TV, this is
apostle so-and-so.
No, it's not apostle so-and-so because
the apostles are dead.
And to be an apostle, you had to
see the Lord Jesus Christ face-to-face.
And I don't believe there's one soul in
here that's seen Him face-to-face.
I know what the Bible says.
I know by faith He resides in my
very body, but I've never seen Him face
-to-face, and I'm not an apostle.
And so it doesn't say the people performed
miracles.
It said the apostles did, and when they
died, that power died with them, and all
we need now is the sufficient power of
the Word of God.
But here's a third essential that I want
to give you.
Not only was it fearless preaching, faithful people,
but also I want you to see and
understand the terminology, fearful people.
These people were full of fear.
You say, well, Uncle Locke, I've heard you
preach before.
The Bible says that you're not supposed to
fear.
No, it's not that type of a fear.
They had a fear of God.
They had a reverence and a respect for
God's holiness that scared them to death to
get involved in sin.
I believe the word fear, if I remember
correctly, is used 17 times in these 28
chapters.
And every single time it keeps saying, and
fear fell on the people.
Remember Acts chapter 5, God smote in and
out, and Sapphira dead just right there on
the floor, and fear came upon the people.
And fear came upon the people.
And fear over and over again.
It talks about the fear coming upon the
people.
And I thought to myself, what is this
fear business?
So I started that little phrase fear.
Now, I'm not a Greek scholar.
I'm not a Hebrew scholar.
I do well to preach in English, but
I'm going to tell you something.
You know what that word fear is in
the Greek language?
It is the word phobos.
It is the same word that we derive
phobia from.
For example, I have arachnophobia.
I hate spiders.
I mean, I have a phobia about spiders.
I was preaching at the Berean Baptist Church
in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, and I said that
one morning in a Sunday evening service, and
the Sunday night service, I got in the
pulpit, they had a great big old hairy
rubber spider sitting up in the pulpit.
I just about came that close to cancel
that meeting, buddy.
I can't stand them.
I don't like a little spider.
I don't like a big spider.
I don't like any spider.
And so I've got a phobia when it
comes to spiders.
There are some people that have a phobia
when it comes to darkness.
There are some people that have a phobia
when it comes to other things, maybe a
phobia of height.
My mother is claustrophobic.
I mean, buddy, you can't put her in
a tight area.
We was in Gatlinburg, Tennessee about four or
five years ago, and we went in one
of these caves, and that cave was as
big as this room, and I thought my
mama's head would just pop off.
I mean, she got ready to be, and
then all of a sudden she went from
red to pale as a ghost, and I'm
telling you, she just felt like the walls
was closing on her.
Some people that have a phobia about certain
things.
You know, these people had a phobia.
These people had something that scared them to
death.
You know what it was?
Displeasing their God.
The Bible says that fear came on these
people.
They had a phobia of displeasing God.
They were scared to death to have sin
in their life.
You know what our churches need?
Our churches need some people who are not
only faithful, but some people who fear God.
You know what the fear of God will
do?
It will cause me to love righteousness and
hate iniquity.
You see, the Bible says in Proverbs chapter
17, ye that love the Lord hate evil.
Now, you know, I'm not real smart, but
please understand, if God says you love the
Lord and you hate evil, obviously that means
if you love evil, then by process of
elimination, apparently you don't love the Lord too
much.
Because the Bible says if you love me,
you'll keep my command.
And you know what?
That's not something that Greg Locke made up.
That's not something that Greg Locke wrote.
It's right there in the Bible.
Ye that love the Lord hate evil.
These people did that.
They loved their God, they hated evil, and
they had a phobia of sin.
It scared them to death that they were
going to displease their Savior.
I tell you, our churches need to be
filled with people who reverence God and who
love God, have a respect for God, and
they don't come to the house of God
and don't sit on the back row and
kick their feet up and chew their bubble
gum and teenagers come in with their hats
on backwards and their baggy breeches in their
pockets hanging all the way down, and they
come in here and they say, well, give
me a little dose of that salvation.
Preach to me for 25 minutes so I
can go home.
No, we need some people who come to
the house of God and they have a
reverence for God.
They come to the house of God and
they don't worship the building, but they worship
the God of the building that this building
represents, and some people who have a fear
in their life of displeasing God.
That's what we need.
The reason America is in the mess that
she's in is because we fear everything but
God.
You see, you watch all these folks go
by these teenagers and say, no fear.
They're exactly right.
They have no fear at all.
No fear of God, no fear of sin,
no fear of anything whatsoever.
If there's anything we need as God's people,
as Bible believers, as a real local New
Testament church, it is to fear God and
have a phobia of sin.
Be scared to death of sin so that
we want to worship and praise and honor
our Lord Jesus Christ.
But go back in your Bibles if you
would, please, and we'll show you something else.
Now, I know we're dealing with a lot
this morning, but for time's sake, we can
just go through these and you can study
them a little bit later.
Look at verse 45, would you?
Verse number 45.
It says, "...and sold their possessions and goods
and parted them to all men as every
man."
Some people are thinking, well, I knew he
was going to get on money sometime before
he got through with that.
That's what all them banks are so good
for.
But I'm going to be honest with you.
Do you know there's an essential of a
local church?
Do you know what it is?
Financial sacrifice.
You know, it takes money to run a
local church.
It takes money to run the work of
God.
It's not that we beg people for money,
but it does take money to do God's
work.
And that's the way that God has set
it up.
Do you know what these people did?
They sacrificed for the ministry and for the
work of the local church so that that
work could continue.
Now, God doesn't need our money.
He doesn't need one single dime.
And by the way, contrary to popular belief,
He doesn't just owe 10% of your
money.
He owns all of your money.
He just so happens to ask that you
to the local church would tithe your money.
By the way, you don't tithe to some
television evangelist.
You don't tithe to a mission board.
You don't tithe to missionaries.
You don't tithe to a Bible college.
You tithe to your local church.
And by the way, if you're not a
tither, if I found out about it, I
don't believe I'd let somebody that wouldn't tithe
their local church, I don't believe I'd let
them in my trailer.
Say why?
Because if you're robbed from God, you're robbing
anybody.
If you're steal from God, you'll steal from
me, I guarantee you.
And if you're not a tither, guess what?
You're a God robber.
If you do not give faithfully to your
local church according to the Bible, I didn't
make it up.
It's not popular, but it's right.
You are a God robber if you are
not a faithful tither.
God does not just own that $1 on
$10 and $10 on $100 and $100 on
$1,000.
He doesn't just own that.
He owns every single bit of it.
But He entrusts you that you will give
Him what according to the Bible is a
simple chance.
And then of course, over and beyond that,
our tithes and our offerings.
You know what these people did?
They took care of the people in the
local church.
They didn't know anything in the New Testament
Bible in Acts chapter 2.
They did not know anything about a welfare
program.
They knew about a local church welfare program.
The local church took care of their own.
The state didn't have to.
Then if there was some widow in that
local church, buddy, let's buy her some groceries
and let's buy her some pinot beans and
let's buy her everything she needed.
And if there was a person in there,
man, they had some difficulty with a vehicle
or something like that, let's do their best.
Let's ride her together.
The Bible says they sold their possessions.
Then they sold their boats and they sold
their cars.
Then the kids sold their bicycles and then
they took sacrificial offerings and they supported one
another in the local church.
And I'll tell you, that's a foreign idea,
but you know what?
It's a scriptural idea.
Because we should support one another.
We should love one another.
We should reach out and take care of
one another.
And it takes financial sacrifice to run the
ministry of a local New Testament church.
Luke 6, 38, one of my favorite verses
in all the Bible.
Give and it shall be given.
You've heard it a thousand times.
You cannot out-give God.
Guess what?
I've heard it a thousand times.
You cannot out-give God.
Give and it shall be given.
Good measure, shaken down, pressed together, running over,
shall men give unto your bosom.
For with what measure ye meet, it shall
be measured unto you again.
What's God saying?
You will reap what you sow.
You put a little bit in the ground,
you sow sparingly, you'll reap sparingly.
But if you sow abundantly, you will reap
abundantly.
And I'm not one of these Creflo Dollars
and one of these highfalutin fellas on TV
that say that you're always going to be
a rich fat cat and you're always going
to be healthy.
That's not true.
You won't always be loaded up in the
bank.
And you won't always be healthy because I
believe those men tore the book of Job
right out of their Bible.
Because he was a faithless man in the
land, but yet he had financial troubles and
he had flesh troubles and he had family
troubles.
He had friendly troubles.
I believe he had just about every trouble
you can imagine.
But I do want to remind you, he
stayed faithful to God and at the end,
God doubly blessed him.
And so I don't believe in this health
and wealth type of a gospel, but I
do believe if we give, God will honor
us.
I do believe if we support and help
and love people and tithe and give to
our local church and financial sacrifice and not
even necessarily out of our abundance, but sometimes
it is a sacrifice and it comes out
of our poverty.
And I mean it comes down deep in
that pocket.
And you think to yourself, is God ever
going to be able to take care of
me?
David said, I've been young and now I'm
old and I've not seen the righteous forsaken
nor his seed begging bread.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and
His righteousness and all these things shall be
added unto you.
This morning I went over to Biscuitville.
I like Biscuitville.
That's a nice place.
Whenever people ask me where I'll be preaching
when I'm over here in Collinsville, I tell
them the Biscuitville Baptist Church.
It's right up behind Biscuitville is where we
have a meeting, amen.
And this morning I went over to Biscuitville
and I was sitting there and I saw
some folks here from the church and they
didn't recognize me with my new weird haircut.
And I walked in there and I was
getting a cup of coffee and this man
was standing in line in front of me
and she rang him up.
He asked her a question or so and
she's going to give him back the change.
And I don't know what it was and
what he gave her or whatever.
And she said, your change will be $6
.33. And I seen it come up there,
boom, in red, $6.33. And I thought
to myself, I'm going to get something like
that and just made it jump out.
And I'm going to tell you something, God
will honor those that seek Him first.
And so they had financial sacrifice.
But notice something else if you would please,
verse 42.
Back up in verse 42.
Now this is something that's just named here
quickly and it's just mentioned, but this is
basically the whole theme of the book of
the Acts when it came to the New
Testament church.
They continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, that
was their teaching, their preaching of the day,
and fellowship.
And in breaking of bread, notice, and in
prayer.
You know, one of the marks of the
early New Testament church was what I call
fervent prayer.
They knew what it meant to pray to
God.
They knew what it meant there in Acts
chapter 1 to fall on their face and
be in one accord, in one mind, in
one spirit.
No schisms, no divisions, no bitterness, no strife,
no ill will, no contentions, anything like that.
And you know what happened as they prayed?
Like a great, mighty locomotive, the Spirit of
God moved through that room, filled them with
the Holy Ghost, and the Bible says that
great things began right there.
And from that moment, not only was the
church burnt in prayer, but it continued in
prayer all the way through the book of
the Acts.
And by the way, when you get to
Acts chapter 28, if you get to the
end of that chapter, you will notice that
the Holy Spirit of God almost stops in
mid-sentence.
There is no conclusion to the book of
the Acts.
There is no stop in the book of
the Acts.
You know, a lot of them say, you
know, even so come Lord Jesus, amen.
Some of them say, greet the brethren with
a holy kiss, and you know, bye-bye,
and God bless you, and see you later,
and I'm coming to visit you.
The book of the Acts doesn't do that.
It just ends right in mid-sentence.
You know why?
The reason the book of the Acts never
ended is because the book of the Acts
is still being lived out in local New
Testament Bible-believing churches today.
And so therefore, we should institute the same
principle that they used in the 28 chapters
of the book of the Acts, and the
whole chapter is filled with people who pray.
They prayed, prayed, and prayed.
Boy, last night it was a joy.
I came in late, but it was the
Overt Youth Rally, and I tell you, the
Lord blessed.
We had about 100 teenagers show up, and
maybe 20 or 30 workers, and we had
five guys and girls saved, and I tell
you, it was a real blessing.
I hated to be in late, but I
slipped in and got over here beside Brother
Doyle here by the piano bench, and we
were praying, and all the men were praying,
and the pastor was praying.
Now I'm telling you, now's just a sweet
time to get together with God's people and
just pray.
You say, why would you do that?
Because I tell you, we want God to
do something great this week.
You know, we don't just pull a couple
of trailers in here and open up the
door, and so I tell Brother Doyle, I
say, go over and open that church door.
So he opens the church door and I
open up my trailer door, and I say,
okay, the spirit of revival is going to
jump from this door to this door right
here, and it's just going to fill up
this room this week.
So we open it up, and the power
of God comes flying in, and so we
bring in our briefcases.
He brings in his little trumpet case, and
we set up our pianos and set up
all the little things, and so we open
everything up, and all of a sudden, the
glory of God starts pouring out.
It doesn't work that way, friends.
There's not an evangelist on the face of
God's earth that can bring you revival.
Not a one.
And if He says He can, then you
need to go ahead and cancel that verse
anyhow.
Because no preacher can bring you revival.
There's only one person that can bring you
revival, and that's God, the sovereign God of
heaven, and there's one thing that gets God's
attention, and that's the prayer of the disciples.
And I'll tell you, they didn't just pray
and just kind of say, Lord, we want
You to bless us.
But they were fervent.
I mean, they sweat.
They stayed up at night.
I mean, they fasted.
They prayed to the God of heaven, and
God came down in a miraculous way.
And certainly many verses could be quoted and
given along these lines, but I want to
show you the last thing, and I believe
it's in verse number 47.
Would you look there?
Acts 2, verse number 47.
It says, they were praising God, and notice,
having favor with all the people, and the
Lord, not the preachers, and the Lord added
to the church daily, such as should be
said.
Now, when it says that they had favor
with all of the people, what you must
understand is that that is not a reference
to just all of the people in the
church.
They had favor with all the people in
the community.
And here's the reason I believe that, because
lastly, an essential of a New Testament local
church is that they take a firm stand.
There is nothing wrong, ladies and gentlemen, with
letting the community know that you want to
be right.
There is nothing wrong with letting America know
that there's things we are for and that
there's things that we're against.
And by the way, just by process of
elimination, if there are certain things that you
are for, then there must be certain things
that you are against.
And there's nothing wrong with letting Martinsville and
Collinsville and the rest of this people around
here, there's nothing wrong with letting them know
that just up on the hill behind Biscuitville,
there's a church that loves God.
There's a church that has some standards.
There's a church that has some convictions.
There's nothing wrong with taking a firm stand.
Now, people say, well, I tell you, you're
just some old hard-hearted warmongers.
All you like to do is fight everybody.
There's some things worth fighting about, by the
way.
There's some things worth getting in the good
old-fashioned fight about.
Hey, I'll fight about the virgin birth.
I'll fight about the inspiration of the Scriptures.
I'll fight about the fact that Jesus Christ
is coming again and His substitutionary death and
His bodily resurrection.
There's some things worth fighting about.
Now, there's some things not worth fighting about.
There's some things I'm not going to be
foolish over.
There's some things I'm not going to argue
with you about.
People come to you in meetings and they
want to argue about everything in the world.
I'm not going to argue with you.
It's what the Bible says.
God's not going to change.
You're not going to persuade me.
I'm not going to persuade you.
Get your nose out of the newspaper, put
it in the Bible, see what God says
about it.
But I'm going to tell you, I don't
have any problem letting people in America know
that I want to take a firm stand.
I want to be on God's side.
And I don't want the lion, by the
way, to be way over here so people
have to wonder whose side I'm on.
I want it to be way over there
so they don't have to wonder at all
whose side I'm on.
I want them to know I'm on God's
side.
I want them to know that I'm on
a Gideon 300, if you will.
I've got the sword of the Lord and
I'll slay the devil and I want to
slay the very imps and minions and demons
of hell.
I don't want people to think that I'm
on the liberal side.
I don't want them to think I'm on
the New Evangelical side.
I don't want them to think I'm on
the moderate side.
I want them to know that I'm on
God's side.
And these people took a firm stand.
You know what?
I believe the people in the community respected
that.
See, we've swallowed the lie of the devil
and put it behind our thinkers that if
we take a firm stand, nobody's going to
like us.
I don't believe that.
I don't believe that for a minute.
Now there'll be some liberals that don't like
us.
You know, the ACLU's not going to like
us if we take a firm stand.
But I'm going to tell you something.
You know people respect people that take a
firm stand?
Nobody's ever liked a wishy-washy Christian.
Nobody has ever liked somebody that just falls
all to pieces when everything goes bad.
No, they want somebody to take a firm
stand.
They want to know that there are people
that believe in absolute and we believe in
absolute.
There's some things socially that we do not
accept.
There's things spiritually that we do not accept.
There's things economically and politically that we do
not accept.
And you know what?
There is nothing wrong with letting people know,
hey, we're not going to be hard-nosed.
We're not going to be mean.
We're not going to cram it down your
throat.
But this is what we believe and we
are going to stand on the principles of
the Word of God.
And I believe that is what gives us
favor in the eyes of those who are
not in the local New Testament church.
And sometimes it even spurs their imagination to
come and visit because people will respect those
who have backbone, have courage, and who will
take a stand.
I'll give you a simple illustration and we'll
be done.
I was in the Good Shepherd Baptist Church
of Mooresville, Indiana about a year and a
half ago, maybe almost two years ago.
And I was preaching and a newspaper reporter
came one night.
And that doesn't happen a whole lot.
And usually when it does, you get a
little nervous.
And she came and, you know, you can
see she's just writing.
I mean, just a 90 miles or nothing.
And it was a liberal newspaper that she
was writing so I knew that.
And the preacher told me just kind of
beware.
I'm telling you, she was just writing while
I was preaching.
And if you're going to get down what
I'm saying, you better write real fast while
I'm preaching.
And so, I mean, she was just writing
and writing and writing.
So the next day, I guess it was
maybe about two days, the preacher said, come
here, I want to show you something.
And I went to a visitation and he
opened it up, you know, and had this
big old full page and had a little
old picture up here in the corner of
the church, you know, and the pastor and
things like that.
Had my name kind of in bold letters
right there across the top and I thought,
oh boy, my first exploit here in the
newspaper if he's going to say something crazy
about me.
I'm some hair-raising fundamental scare tactic evangelist.
And so I got to reading down through
that thing and I'm telling you, it was
one of the nicest articles I'd ever read
in my life about a preacher.
I couldn't believe it.
I thought, she's talking about the same person.
And she just wrote, she just wrote three
or four paragraphs.
It was a long article.
I cut it out, I got it in
my trailer.
And down close to the bottom, it says,
one of the things I respected about evangelist
law is simply that when you left the
building, you knew exactly, and I believe we
ought to just make it clear.
I believe we ought to just make it
just right down the line.
And be straight and be holy and not
mince words and take a firm stand on
the Word of God.
And so, Schumer can have his New Testament
suggestions.
I want the book of the Acts and
have my New Testament.
Thank you, Lord, for Sunday School, for what
you taught us.
Lord, much more can be said.
I pray that we would be as the
Bereans of Acts 13.
We would search the Scriptures daily to see
whether those things are so.
And God, give us a heart, we pray,
for our local church.
Oh, Lord, may we love the church.
May we support the preacher.
May we love Your Word.
May we be holy and faithful and enjoy
the preaching of the Word of God.
May we be sacrificial.
May we be fervent in our prayer.
Lord, may we, in this wicked world, take
a firm stand upon the principles and the
fundamentals of the Word of God.
Help us, we pray, in Jesus' name, Amen.