Turn to Acts of the Apostles and chapter
10.
Here we read of the word of God
going to the Gentiles.
You know, Jesus said that you shall be
witnesses to me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and
the outermost parts of the earth.
And we saw how it started in Jerusalem
in Acts chapter 2 and then the regions
of Judea.
Acts chapter 8, it went to Samaria and
it's gradually now going to the outermost parts
of the earth to people who are non
-Jews.
And Peter was the one who was given
the privilege to open the door to the
Jews in Acts chapter 2 and also given
the privilege to open the door to the
non-Jews in Acts chapter 10.
I want you to notice something here, that
when Cornelius was praying, he was a man
who knew nothing of the Bible, nothing of
God, he did not worship idols, but we
could say he was praying to the God
in heaven who he did not know who
he was.
Like a lot of people today, they are
not necessarily idol worshippers, they are not Christians,
but there are some people seeking after God,
like Cornelius.
And the amazing thing is, it says here
in verse 4, that while he was praying,
in the ninth hour of the day, while
he was praying, he was a very devout
man, verse 2, one who feared God, gave
a lot of money to poor people, prayed
to God continually, knowing nothing of the Bible,
nothing of Jesus Christ.
And in the three o'clock in the
afternoon when he was praying, he saw a
vision.
An angel of God appeared to him and
said, the last part of verse 4, your
prayers and your alms, money given to the
poor, have ascended as a memorial before God.
Now some of us may think that God
does not listen to the prayers of such
sincere people who are praying not knowing anything
about the Bible or about Jesus.
If that were the case, you would have
to say that verse 4 is not true.
But God sent an angel from heaven to
this Cornelius who did not know anything about
the Bible, anything about Jesus.
He was praying, God said, I've heard your
prayers, I've seen the money that you were
giving to the poor.
You know, God, with God there is no
partiality.
And wherever people are sincerely seeking Him, He
meets with them.
Sometimes beyond our understanding.
Now we can have a prejudice like Peter
had.
No, no, no, no, no.
God cannot meet with them.
That is impossible.
God only meets with us.
Peter was like that.
God can only meet with us.
And God had to change Peter's opinion to
enlarge his heart.
See, Peter had this opinion, we are clean,
those fellows are unclean.
And so God gave him a vision when
Peter was praying one day.
It says he had a vision of a
great sheet coming down from heaven, verse 11,
with all kinds of animals inside, clean animals
and unclean animals.
And the voice said, arise Peter, kill and
eat.
There are pigs there, kill and eat it.
And Peter said, no means Lord, I will
never touch anything unclean or unholy, verse 14.
And the voice came and said, what God
has cleansed, don't call unholy.
And this had to happen three times before
Peter got convinced, verse 16.
And while he was perplexing, what does this
vision mean?
What is God trying to, he knew it
was a vision, it was not an actual
pig or a lizard over there.
But it was a vision of unclean animals,
which he knew that the law of Moses
forbade him from eating.
And God was saying, eat it.
What does this vision mean?
And then as soon as he was thinking
like that, these people from Cornelius' house reached
Peter's house.
Because God had told Cornelius through the angel,
go and ask Peter to come and give
you a message.
Now, I want to ask you a question.
When the angel came to Cornelius' house, did
the angel know the gospel that Jesus had
died for the sins of the world and
Jesus rose up from the dead?
What do you think?
Did he know the gospel or not?
He certainly did.
Why couldn't he preach the gospel himself instead
of waiting for three days for Peter to
come?
That's a very important question.
You need to know the answer for that.
What was it that Peter had that the
angel did not have?
I'm sure the angel could have explained the
gospel ten times better than Peter.
Definitely.
But there was something that Peter had which
the angel did not have.
And that was the experience of salvation.
Only Peter had the experience of salvation and
only one who has had an experience of
salvation can speak about salvation.
That is the principle in the Acts of
the Apostles.
What did we see in Acts 1.1?
He did and taught.
We have the experience, then we teach it.
The angel did not have an experience and
so even though he knew the gospel very
clearly, he is not permitted to speak it.
What is the message for you and me?
If you don't have an experience, don't speak
about it.
Learn a lesson from the angels.
Even though they know it better than anybody
else, they keep quiet about it because they're
sorry we can't speak it.
We don't have the experience.
Please send for that brother.
He can't explain it half as well as
I can, but he's got the experience.
So he can teach you better.
Remember this with all your Bible study and
knowledge.
If you don't have the experience, you cannot
speak about it.
You're wasting your time.
Peter had to come.
He may be a humble brother who knows
less than you, but he's got the experience
and he's the one who's going to speak
about it.
And when Peter was thinking like that, the
Lord told him, see, three men are looking
for you.
Go and don't have any misgivings.
Then he understood what this vision meant, that
these are unclean people, Gentiles.
I must not go and eat with them.
And when he came to Cornelius house, we
read that Cornelius fell down and worshiped Peter.
Verse 25, Peter said, get up.
I'm just a man.
And then he said about this vision that
God gave him and said, now I have
understood what this vision means.
Now I understand.
Verse 35.
Now I know that in every nation, in
every nation and every denomination, the man who
fears God and does what is right is
welcome to him.
Is that right?
I believe it is.
God will lead such a man onwards to
Christ.
I'm not saying such a man is saved.
Cornelius was not saved.
Definitely not.
But God leads such people on.
He welcomes them.
He hears that person who doesn't know the
truth crying out to him.
And he welcomes him.
He receives him.
And he longs to send you to tell
that man about salvation.
What if Peter had said, Lord, I'm not
going to go.
Like today, God calls somebody and the man
says, I'm not willing to go.
What would happen?
Will Cornelius get lost because of Peter's disobedience?
That would be very unrighteous of God to
make Cornelius suffer for Peter's disobedience.
No.
If Peter had not gone, God would have
sent James or John or somebody else.
If you don't go, well, you miss the
opportunity.
God will give that privilege to somebody else.
God will give your ministry to somebody else.
So that's all there is to it.
Acts chapter 10, verse 38.
When Jesus' ministry is being described by Peter,
Peter expresses it like this.
Beautiful word.
You know Jesus of Nazareth.
God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and
with power.
Power.
That's the mark of the anointing of the
Holy Spirit.
Jesus never spoke in tongues throughout his life.
He did not need to speak in tongues.
You know the reason why Jesus never spoke
in tongues?
It's very important to know the reason for
that.
He never had the gift of tongues.
He had the gift of healing, miracles, discernment,
prophecy, everything, but he never had tongues.
What is the reason for that?
See, tongues is because our fellowship with God
is so imperfect that he gives us another
language to be able to communicate with him
more perfectly.
When we get to heaven and our communication
is perfect, tongues, there will be no more
tongues.
When Jesus lived on earth, his communication with
the Father was so perfect that he never
needed the gift of tongues.
That's the reason Jesus never spoke in tongues.
And it says Jesus was anointed with power
and he went about doing good.
When you are anointed with power, what is
the first thing you'll do?
Good to other people.
If you do not know how to go
around doing good to other people, brother, seek
to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
You need to be anointed with the Holy
Spirit and with power so that you can
go around doing good to people, number one.
Secondly, you will go around delivering people who
are oppressed by the devil.
We are surrounded by people who are oppressed
by the devil.
People committing suicide, people who are discouraged, people
who are sick, people who are demon-possessed,
people who are harassed, wives who are being
harassed by their husbands and husbands who are
being harassed by their wives.
All types of things are going on in
the world around us.
And God has placed us in the midst
of such a world to go and deliver
these people from the oppression of the devil.
You need to be filled with the Holy
Spirit for that.
Even Jesus needed to be anointed to do
that ministry.
How much more you and I?
And he did it.
Why?
Because God was with him.
And when you are anointed with the Holy
Spirit in your ministry, it will be written
about you, God was with you.
When you went to deliver that person, God
was with you.
When you stood in the pulpit, God was
with you.
This is how God is with us, through
the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
Okay, we move on to chapter 11.
Number of things there about the spread of
the gospel.
I just want to go down to verse
27.
At this time some prophets came.
I want to speak to you a word
about prophets.
There was a man named Agabus who stood
up and began to indicate by the Spirit
that there will be a famine all over
the world.
He didn't say when, because the times and
epochs are not for us to know.
Acts 1.7. But he said, God has
shown me there is going to be a
famine.
Pretty soon perhaps, I don't know when.
And this took place in the reign of
Claudius.
And what did the disciples do?
When they heard there is going to be
a famine, then we must collect money, because
these people in Antioch were rich.
So they heard that the people in Jerusalem
were poor, so they collected money and sent
a contribution, verse 29, for the relief of
the brethren living in Judea.
All collection of money that you read of
in the New Testament, whether it is here,
or 1 Corinthians 16, verse 2, or 2
Corinthians 8 and 9, always the collection of
money was for poor people.
You never see Paul telling people, take a
collection for me.
Never.
He always said, there are poor people there,
please give it to them.
And he wouldn't touch it himself.
So there is an exhortation in the New
Testament, telling believers to give money, but if
you read carefully, it was always asking them
to give money to somebody else, not to
me.
Not saying, give it to my ministry, because
I need to buy a house or rent
a house and I want you to support
me, I am the Lord's servant.
No, Paul trusted the Lord to provide his
need.
But he did urge believers to give money,
because there were poor believers who needed help.
So they took a collection and sent it,
and this they sent through Barnabas and Saul.
So, God used the famine to bring these
Gentiles in Antioch closer to the Jews in
Jerusalem.
You know there was a big division between
the Jews and Gentiles.
And here in Antioch, we read number of
Gentiles were getting converted, as we read in
Acts 11.21. How to bring these Jews
and Gentiles together?
The Lord says, let's send a famine.
And when the famine comes, these rich Gentiles
will send money to the poor Jews and
they learn to love one another.
What do we learn from that?
Some of the troubles and trials God sends
into our life and into our churches is
in order to bring believers together, who are
far apart from each other.
Yeah, some believer is in hospital, sick, and
all the other believers rally around and provide
food for his family and provide money for
his hospital expenses.
What is the result of that?
Not just his sickness, he comes out of
the hospital after three weeks, but he comes
out much more closely linked to the body
of Christ.
Through what?
Through some message?
No, through sickness.
So God uses sickness, famine, all types of
things to bring believers together, to make them
one.
Give thanks for everything God permits.
And the other thing we see here is
that Barnabas and Saul were the ones who
went from here to Jerusalem.
Okay, keep that in mind.
And in the next chapter, we read about
James being killed by the sword, verse 2,
and Peter being delivered from prison, because it
says here, when Peter was in prison, verse
5 of chapter 12, fervent prayer was made
by the church to God.
And who were the people watching this fervent
prayer?
Barnabas and Saul, who had just come.
Chapter 11, verse 30, with the money.
And they had never seen a prayer meeting
like this.
Terrific prayer meeting, morning, night, prayer meeting, and
they see one day Peter is at the
door, he has come out of the prison.
And that really shook them up.
In Antioch, they were doing a lot of
teaching.
But now when they came to Jerusalem and
they blessed the people in Jerusalem with money,
they got a blessing in return.
What was that blessing they got in return?
They got a vision of what prayer can
do.
And they came back to Antioch in chapter
13, and they began to pray over there.
Where did they learn how to pray?
In Jerusalem.
What did they go to Jerusalem for?
To give money.
And they got a blessing in return, learned
how to pray, and came back in chapter
13 and started praying with the others.
And God spoke to them in the middle
of that prayer meeting and said, separate me
Saul and Barnabas for the ministry.
See, God is using all these means to
teach one another.
Whenever you bless somebody else, that person blesses
you in another way.
You may bless him materially, he may bless
you spiritually.
You may bless him spiritually, he may bless
you materially.
But God makes the body of Christ linked
with each other.
You see that again and again.
One more thing I want to say to
you from this prophecy of Agabus, Acts 11
.28. It's very important to know that in
the Old Testament, people went to the prophets
and said, what shall I do?
And the prophets said, do this, go here,
go there.
Why did the prophets have to say that
in the Old Testament?
Because none of these other people had the
Holy Spirit.
Only the prophet had the Holy Spirit.
But in the New Covenant, the Lord said,
they shall not teach every man his neighbor,
saying, know the Lord.
In the New Covenant, Hebrews chapter 8.
But all shall know Me.
So there's no need for the prophet to
tell that person now, you can go here
or you shouldn't go there.
No.
Then the prophet is taking the place of
the Holy Spirit.
In my lifetime, many, many, many, many people
in many, many places have come to me
to find the will of God for their
lives.
And I have never tried to do it.
I said, I will not find the will
of God for your life, because that will
be taking the place of the Holy Spirit
in your life.
And I dare not take the place of
the Holy Spirit in your life, because I
am a man who fears God.
Some other fellow who doesn't fear God may
take the place of the Holy Spirit in
your life, but I will not do it.
I want the Holy Spirit to have the
rightful place in your life, so I will
not find God's will for you.
I can give you advice.
When you ask me, should I do this
or should I do that, I can tell
you, with the certain amount of wisdom I've
had, walking with the Lord for so many
years, these are the advantages, these are the
disadvantages, consider this, consider this.
So what should I do, brother?
Think of all the things I told you,
go and pray to God, and God will
tell you whether you should take this job
or travel here or not.
Should I marry this girl?
I say, I don't know.
I can tell you what I know about
this girl or what I know about this
boy.
I can give you, but you got to
find God's will yourself.
Don't ever try to find God's will for
somebody else.
Don't ever try to take the place of
God in somebody else's life.
Oh, there are multitudes of people who call
themselves prophets today, who are taking the place
of God.
Like it says in 2 Thessalonians 2, the
Antichrist sits in the temple, takes the place
of God.
There are these prophets today who are sitting
in the church, taking the place of God,
telling people what to do.
Taking the place of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit will guide you.
He's a jealous spirit.
He does not want to give his place
in your life to some wretched prophet, false
prophet.
No, he wants to tell you himself.
So what should a true man of God
do?
A man of God should give you advice,
show you the advantages, disadvantages, and point you
to the Holy Spirit.
What did Agabus do here?
Read carefully.
Did Agabus say, there's going to be a
famine, so take a collection?
No.
He knew where to stop.
Today's prophets don't know where to stop.
He said, there's going to be a famine,
full stop.
That's all.
I'm not going to say anything more.
What should you do about it?
I'm not going to tell you.
You've got the Holy Spirit.
Seek God.
They sought God, and God told them to
send a contribution.
They did that.
Agabus did not tell them what to do.
Directive prophecy is never found in the New
Testament.
Directive prophecy is an Old Testament feature because
people didn't have the Holy Spirit.
Very, very important to understand that if you
want to be saved from the deception that
goes by the name of prophecy, there's plenty
of it here in Kerala, plenty of it
in Northeast India, in the states over there,
in different places particularly, like this.
People who sit with them, they take their
fees, prophets' fees.
It's just like a doctor's consulting room.
You go there and you pay your fees
and get your prophecy and go.
It's all a deception.
And you find people who go there never
grow in the Lord because they have no
contact with the Holy Spirit.
Next time they want to find something, they've
got to contact the prophet again.
This is all deception.
Don't be deceived by it.
Agabus was a true prophet who said something
and left it for people to decide what
to do.
Later on you read in Acts 21, Agabus
said, thus says the Lord, the man who
owns this girdle, that is Paul, he will
be bound in Jerusalem.
He didn't tell Paul whether to go or
not to go.
There were other self-appointed prophets over there
who said, no, the Lord says don't go.
Paul said, rubbish, I'm going.
Agabus knew where to stop.
Those self-appointed false prophets there in Acts
21 did not know where to stop.
We find both categories of people today.
A prophet in the Old Testament never, never,
never told other people what to do in
the New Testament.
In the Old Testament they did.
Okay, God's sovereignty we see in Acts chapter
12 in delivering Peter but allowing James to
die.
I don't know why James died.
God could have delivered James just as he
delivered Peter.
He could have sent an angel three days
earlier and delivered James from prison.
But when a man's time is up in
God's diary, God does not send an angel.
He just takes him to heaven.
When God's time is not up, then he
will deliver him.
Jeremiah and Uriah both prophesied.
We saw Uriah died, Jeremiah lived, James died,
Peter was alive.
And Peter comes to the meeting and testifies,
God delivered me.
And sitting in the meeting is Mrs. James,
perhaps thinking, why didn't God deliver my husband?
Do you wonder why God did not do
something for you, which he did for another
brother?
Humble yourself and say, Lord, that's your sovereign
plan.
I'm so happy that you did it for
that brother.
That's what Mrs. James should say.
My husband died a few days ago.
He was killed.
Lord, you could have delivered him like you
delivered Peter.
He's standing here now.
Mrs. Peter is so happy.
And I want to rejoice with Mrs. Peter
for the work you have done for her
husband, even though you allowed my husband to
die.
That is a godly woman who recognizes the
sovereignty of God in delivering one and allowing
another person to die.
So often sicknesses, one person is healed, another
person is not.
Learn to rejoice when God deals like that
with that person, if he's not dealt like
that with you.
So there are many lessons like this we
learn.
Acts chapter 13, we read about the first
great missionary movement out of Antioch.
They come back and they've learned how to
pray.
And the Lord says in verse 2, it's
a very important principle of missionary work here.
You read in Acts 13, verse 1 and
2.
There were a number of prophets and teachers
there.
And they fasted and worshipped the Lord.
They were not only fasting and praying, they
were fasting and worshipping, asking for nothing.
Lord, we worship you.
Thou alone art worthy.
Fasting and worshipping.
It's a wonderful thing to fast and worship.
And while they were fasting and worshipping, the
Holy Spirit spoke.
In a way that all those five people
there got a deep conviction.
This is what God is saying.
Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul.
Didn't stop there.
Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for
the work to which I have already called
them.
I'm not calling them now.
Some people think this is the call of
Saul and Barnabas.
No.
I have already called them.
The call of God is always personal and
private.
It may be confirmed in public.
Like this is a public meeting where the
call was confirmed.
But this was not the call.
Don't ever get a call when somebody says,
Blessed is the Lord.
You are called to go here or you
are called to marry so and so.
Garbage.
Throw it in the garbage bin.
If God wants you to do something, He
will speak to you privately.
He may confirm it through other elders publicly.
But always to the work to which I
have already called them.
Saul and Barnabas already heard the call.
They were thinking about it, thinking about it.
And suddenly in the meeting, the other elders
say, Hey, we get a confirmation you should
be like this.
It's wonderful.
I remember when the day when God called
me.
I mentioned it the other day.
It's the 6th of May 1964.
And I remember nobody knew.
I was sitting reading the scriptures.
I was in the midst of traveling.
I was on leave that time.
I was traveling around in an evangelistic team
having meetings.
And I was reading the scriptures and God
called me very clearly.
It was personal, private.
It was very clear.
And while I was seriously considering and just
thinking of quitting my job, a man of
God who was the greatest man of God
I've respected in this country in my life.
He's dead now.
Came to me and said, Are you thinking
of leaving your job?
When are you leaving your job?
It was prophetic.
That man was a prophet.
And that was an external confirmation to what
God had already called me.
If God calls you, he'll call you personally.
The confirmation may come from other godly men.
But you must get the call yourself.
That's what we see here.
And they went out sent out by the
and the power of God was with them.
And you see a number of things there.
Let me show you one thing in one
of the sermons that Paul preached in verse
36.
Says about David that he served his generation
in the will of God and then fell
asleep.
Do you know, my brothers and sisters, that
you can only serve your generation.
In another generation, God has to raise up
another man, another woman.
But in your generation, make sure you serve
God's purpose and fulfill all of God's will
in your generation before you pass on.
And if you want to do that, you
must be like it says here, I have
found David, a man after my own heart.
That's the type of person you are to
be.
And he served in his own generation and
he died.
If you also like David are a man
after God's own heart, then like it says
here in verse 36, you can serve your
generation in the will of God and move
on.
So verse 22, where it says, I found
David after my own heart is linked with
verse 36.
OK, we move on to chapter 14.
And we read of the signs and wonders
that the Lord did there.
And it's very interesting that we see that
in one place where in one at one
moment they were almost worshipping them.
Verse 13, they brought garlands and wanted to
offer sacrifice with the crowds to Paul and
Barnabas because they saw them doing a miracle.
A few moments later in verse 19, they
were stoning them to death, going to stone
them to death.
See how fickle minded the crowd is.
One moment they are praising you, next moment
they want to stone you.
We read of Jesus in Nazareth in Luke
chapter four.
He started preaching.
People said, what gracious words he's speaking.
And then he said something to hurt them.
And they stopped him in the middle of
the sermon, pulled him out and took him
outside to kill him.
But they didn't succeed in killing Jesus and
they didn't succeed in killing Paul.
They stoned Paul, verse 19, dragged him out
of the city, supposing him to be dead.
Does God allow his greatest servants to be
treated like this?
He does.
I remember once hearing a story of a
man who was an unbeliever.
Somebody was witnessing to him and that man's
son had died in some bad way.
Some others had killed him or something like
that.
And so this unbeliever said to this believer
who was witnessing to him, where was your
God when my son died?
And the believer told him that God was
in the same place where he was when
his own son died on the cross.
He didn't stop evil people from killing his
son.
He didn't stop evil people from killing Peter,
Paul, James, all the apostles except John as
far as we know were killed.
The greatest servants of Jesus Christ in history
were killed.
And God did not stop them from killing
his greatest servants.
This is not like the Old Testament.
In the Old Testament God did not allow
anybody to kill Abraham or Isaac or Jacob
or David or Elijah or Joshua.
They all died natural deaths.
But we are in the New Covenant now.
And in the New Covenant almost all of
God's greatest servants, the apostles, were all killed.
But only in God's time.
It was not time for Paul to die
so he allowed the people to think that
Paul was dead.
They dragged him out.
And you know, if you look at the
time factor, when Paul wrote 2 Corinthians 12
he said, I knew a man 14 years
ago who went up to heaven and came
back.
He was talking about himself.
The time factor relates it to this particular
time.
This is probably the time when Paul went
up to heaven and came back.
When he was dragged, thrown outside, stoned to
death, but God rewarded him with a trip
up to heaven and came back.
And he has never told us what he
saw there in heaven.
Now you can be sure that if God
allows you to face intense suffering, he will
give you some intense rewards also.
Great suffering comes with great rewards.
Verse 22, and after that it says Paul
went somewhere and verse 21, returned to Lystra,
to the same place where he was stoned.
He was not afraid.
He came back and strengthened the souls of
the disciples and said, don't get discouraged, they
stoned me.
And through much tribulation, verse 22, we must
enter the kingdom of God.
And when a man like Paul stood up
and said that, with all the scars on
his face and the wounds which are still
healing, and such a man says through much
tribulation, you got to enter the kingdom of
God is much more impressive than me standing
here and saying it.
So those who are called to be, God
gives them the honor of being persecuted for
the kingdom's sake.
They are extremely valuable in God's eyes.
The second thing Paul did there was verse
23.
He appointed elders in every church.
You never find in the New Testament pastors
being appointed in any church.
Never.
No church in the New Testament was run
by one pastor.
Pastor is not an office.
It is a gift.
It's a shepherd.
It's a gift of shepherding people like apostle
is a gift.
Evangelist is a gift, Ephesians 4.
It's not an office.
The office is the office of elder.
And always there was more than one elder
in every church.
They appointed elders in every church and prayed
with fasting because in New Testament ministry, it's
not like one Elijah, one Abraham, one Elisha,
one Moses.
No.
In New Testament ministry, you need a minimum
of two people to express the body of
Christ.
Because Jesus said where two are gathered together,
there I am in the midst.
So you have to have two elders for
the Lord to be present there to manifest
his power when they bind Satan and lead
the church on.
And also the balance.
Separate me not Saul alone, but Saul and
Barnabas.
Not Peter alone going to pray.
Peter and John we read in Acts 3
going to pray.
Saul and Barnabas.
Two elders.
Always in the New Testament, you find this
principle of two.
Jesus sent out his disciples two by two.
This one man pastor is never found anywhere
in the New Testament.
It's I know it's practiced in Christendom like
a hundred and one other unscriptural practices are
practiced.
But all I'm trying to show you is
if you have the courage to believe it,
it is not found in the New Testament.
They appointed elders.
Acts chapter 15.
We read of a controversy concerning circumcision and
the apostles did a wise thing.
They came together were six to look into
this matter because they wanted, didn't want any
controversy.
Remember, this is a time when scripture was
not written.
We don't have such controversies today because we
got the New Testament.
But they were living in a time when
the New Testament was not written.
They were in that transition period.
And the apostles spoke the word of God.
There was no written New Testament those days.
So they needed to come together to clarify
these things.
And after some days were 36 acts 1536
Paul said to Barnabas.
Let's go back and visit some of these
brothers.
Let's go back and establish them.
Now we learn something from this.
I don't think the world has ever seen
a greater evangelist than the apostle Paul, a
greater man who had a greater burden for
reaching the lost and reaching lost souls.
Many times he used to say, I want
to preach Christ where he's never been named.
I don't want to build on another man's
foundation.
I want to go away.
Nobody says the people have never heard of
Jesus Christ.
What a passion he had.
And this man who had such a passion
for evangelism.
Here what does he say?
He's not talking about evangelism.
He's talking about building the church.
Why doesn't he tell Barnabas, let us go
to some other places where the gospel has
never been preached.
That's not what he says.
What weren't there other places where the gospel
was not preached?
Hundreds and thousands of places.
But he says, let us go back to
the cities where we have already preached the
word of God.
And let's see how they are, because he
knew the value of building the fellowship of
the local church and making them disciples, not
just evangelism.
The greatest evangelist is speaking.
You can't be better than this man.
So Barnabas said, listen, we should take along
Mark.
Mark was the person who came with them
the first time and dropped out halfway because
he found it was tough, this missionary work.
And Paul said, you cannot take him.
Barnabas, Mark was his nephew.
Barnabas said, we must take him.
And it says the disagreement with them, between
them, verse 39, was so sharp that they
separated.
Paul said, okay, you take Mark, I can't
take him.
The Holy Spirit had brought Saul and Barnabas
together.
Saul was a very hard man, speaking of
truth.
Barnabas was a soft man, speaking of grace.
Between them, the glory of God was seen,
full of grace and truth.
When they separated, how sad.
Was that separation the will of God?
Definitely not.
God does not desire those whom he has
called together to separate, particularly when they perfectly
balance out each other.
You see the balance right here.
Paul was hard.
Don't take Mark.
Barnabas says, Paul, you also got a second
chance.
Let's give him a second chance.
If they had learned to work together, how
different it would have been.
Much later in life, Paul says, yeah, Mark
is profitable for the ministry.
Remember, these apostles also made mistakes.
Acts of the Apostles is full of a
number of mistakes the apostles made.
And they learned from those mistakes.
I'm sure if this had happened when Paul
was 60 years old, he would not have
reacted like that.
And Barnabas also would not have reacted like
that.
They would have found a way to solve
that problem.
But they were in their 30s, maybe 39,
40, full of zeal, not that much wisdom.
They made mistakes.
And that's a great encouragement for us to
know that apostles made mistakes and we'll make
mistakes.
But God used it for the furtherance of
the gospel because now instead of one team
going, two teams went.
Both had one experienced person in it.
Barnabas took Mark and went.
And Paul chose Silas and went.
So the gospel spread even more.
So God uses the things that the devil
does for the furtherance of the gospel.
So praise the Lord.
And when he went to Derby, he met
a disciple called Timothy, chapter 16, verse 1.
It was Paul who chose Silas, but God
had planned some other co-worker for Paul,
and that was Timothy.
And so immediately after Barnabas is taken away,
God says, okay, Paul, you need another gentle
type of person, you're too hard.
And he gives him a very gentle co
-worker, Timothy, who was another Barnabas.
How did this affect John Mark?
I think John Mark was blessed by Paul's
attitude and Barnabas's attitude.
He was blessed by Paul's attitude because Paul,
Mark must have realized, yeah, that's serious what
I did last time, just drop out half
the way what Paul says is right.
I better take my Christian life more seriously
in future.
Paul helped him to think like that.
At the same time, he didn't get discouraged
and give up because Barnabas gave him a
second chance.
So grace and truth, when both ministries operate
together, they bless people.
And so we read here that Paul saw
this young man, Timothy, outstanding and took him.
And another mistake Paul made here, verse 3,
he circumcised him to please the Jews.
Paul made a lot of mistakes.
Don't follow him in everything.
And we read in verse 9, he saw
a vision.
Here we get an understanding of Christian leadership.
Paul had a vision.
Everybody in the team didn't get a vision.
One man, the leader, got the vision.
He said, come to Macedonia and help us.
And now listen to this verse 10, it's
a beautiful verse.
They had such confidence in the leadership of
Paul.
They said, Paul, you've seen the vision, that's
enough.
God doesn't have to give a vision to
all of us.
We are absolutely convinced, verse 10, that God
has called us to go to Macedonia.
It's wonderful when teams can work like this
with absolute confidence in their leader.
The leader sees a vision and the team
says, fine, we're going that way.
I want to say to all of you,
don't be a loner.
There are many loners in India.
Loners means people who work all by themselves,
alone, with no leadership, no fellowship, a lot
of freedom.
I can do what I like, I arrange
my own program, I do this, I do
that, and I do the other thing.
I tell you, ultimately you'll destroy yourself.
It's just a matter of time.
You need a God-given leader to guide
you.
And you're on very dangerous ground.
You may not believe it today, you think
you're alright, just wait another five years and
see what happens.
And you'll believe the truth of what I
say.
And it says here, one more thing I
want to point out to you is that
in verse 6, they passed through the Galatian
region and were forbidden by the Holy Spirit
to speak the word in Asia.
How did the Holy Spirit forbid them?
Do you know?
You read in Galatians chapter 4 that Paul
says, I preached the gospel to you because
I was sick.
That means it was Paul got sick.
He didn't want to stop in Galatia.
He was going to another place called Asia
Minor.
But on the way, when he was in
Galatia, he fell sick.
And because he was sick, he could not
go where he wanted to go and he
had to stay there and people came and
he preached the gospel and people got converted
and the church was formed in Galatia.
See God's will in stopping Paul by a
sickness in order to establish a church in
the place where Paul got sick.
So don't think when you get sick, you
miss the will of God.
Not necessarily a church got established in Galatia
because Paul was sick.
But here it is said he was forbidden
by the Holy Spirit, but we are not
told how.
Sometimes the Holy Spirit stops us through sickness.
There are many wonderful things like this in
the whole Acts of the Apostles where you
can learn the principles of serving God and
learn from the mistakes of the Apostles too.
We see one thing here about a demon
possessed girl saying, verse 17, following after Paul
and saying, these are the servants of the
Most High God.
And Paul virtually told him, shut up.
I command you to get out in the
name of Jesus.
I don't want a testimony from demons.
Paul did not want any testimony from demons,
just like Jesus did not want demons to
say he is the son of God.
Don't ever receive a testimony from demons.
Chapter 17, it says here in verse 10
and 11, Paul and Silas went to Berea
and the people in Berea were more noble
because they received the word of God with
great eagerness and studied the scriptures.
What is the result of that?
The result is there is no epistle of
Paul to the Bereans.
Why?
Because they already had the habit of checking
up what every preacher said with the word
of God.
And those who keep checking up everything that
anything they hear with the word of God
will not go astray, like some of those
other people in the other places in Galatia
and others all needed correction in their teaching.
Okay, we move on to chapter 18 where
we read of the apostle Paul, the Lord
telling the apostle Paul when he was in
Corinth, don't be afraid of all the opposition,
verse 9 and 10, keep on speaking boldly
because I've got many people in this city.
Just because there's opposition does not mean we
should run away.
Seek the Lord and if the Lord says
go, go.
But the Lord may tell you stay on
because nobody can harm you here.
It's always good to develop the habit of
listening to God, not to go only by
outside circumstances.
We must never move on the basis of
fear, we must move on the basis of
God leading us.
A wonderful example in verse 24 and 28
of a godly sister who could help a
brother get more light.
Priscilla was the wife of Aquila and it
seems as though she was more spiritual and
perhaps had a better understanding of scripture because
verse 26, it's written Priscilla and Aquila, giving
us a little indication that perhaps she was
more spiritual.
They took Apollos who did not know the
scriptures properly aside, took him home, explained the
word of God to him, the way of
God to him more accurately.
Here was a sister who knew her place.
She did not try to teach without her
husband, she called her husband, called Apollos home,
called him for a meal and shared the
word of God with him along with her
husband and led this man to a better
understanding and ultimately he became a mighty servant
of God.
Sisters have a unique ministry in the New
Testament.
In Acts chapter 19 we read about certain
people to whom Paul asked this question, verse
2, did you receive the Holy Spirit when
you believed?
He said we never heard about the Holy
Spirit.
Then he says, into what were you baptized?
Now this verse by the way proves that
they did not baptize in the name of
Jesus in those days.
How do you get that from this verse?
Because when they said we haven't heard about
the Holy Spirit, he said then what were
you baptized?
In what name were you baptized?
Because they were supposed to be baptized in
the name of the Father, the Son, the
Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
That's the point.
That's how they were baptized in those days.
So he said you have to have heard
about the Holy Spirit because that would have
been there in your baptism and then they
said we were not baptized that way.
Then he discovered they were baptized only with
John's baptism.
And so he preached the gospel to them,
they accepted the Lord and they were baptized.
Verse 5, in the name of the Father,
the Son, the Lord Jesus and the Holy
Spirit.
After they were born again and after they
were baptized, Paul laid his hands on them
and the Holy Spirit came upon them and
they began speaking in unknown tongues and prophesying.
Just like in Cornelius' house, as Paul, Peter
was praying, the Holy Spirit fell on Cornelius'
house and they spoke in unknown tongues.
Notice the different ways the Holy Spirit came
on people.
In Acts chapter 2, there was no preaching,
they were just waiting, the Holy Spirit came.
In Acts chapter 10, before Cornelius was baptized,
without anybody laying on of hands, the Holy
Spirit came.
Here, after they were baptized, through the laying
on of hands, the Holy Spirit came.
It teaches us that the Holy Spirit can
come with laying on of hands, without laying
on of hands, before baptism, after water baptism,
all by yourself when you are praying.
Paul was alone praying and God sent Ananias.
So it's different ways.
The important thing is that they were filled
with the Holy Spirit.
In Acts chapter 20, we read about Paul
giving a testimony to the elders in Ephesus.
After having been there for three years, it's
a wonderful passage and I would encourage you
to read from verse 17 to verse 35.
It's a beautiful passage demonstrating how a true
servant of God should serve the Lord.
He says, I preach repentance and faith, verse
21.
I've spent three years here and he says,
in all these three years, you've seen, not
listen to my sermons only, but verse 18
and 19, you've seen how I have lived
here and served you with all humility.
He points to his life.
He's not ashamed to say, look at my
life, come and see, look at my example.
Don't be ashamed to show other people the
example of your life and talk about it,
not just your sermons.
And he says, now I'm going, be on
guard for yourself, verse 28, because I know
what will happen after I go, verse 29,
wolves will come in.
Why couldn't the wolves come in when Paul
was there?
Because Paul was a very strict gatekeeper.
Every church needs a very strict gatekeeper if
you want to keep the wolves outside.
When that gatekeeper goes away and all the
diplomatic elders take over, all the wolves come
right in.
That's what happened.
Paul was there for three years.
So, every church needs a strong leader who
makes sure that the wolves get the whip.
Otherwise, the church will be destroyed.
And Paul's example in verse 33 to 34
and 35, he said, you see how I
worked with my own hands, earned my living,
supported myself so that I did not take
any money from you, I did not take
any clothes from you.
And I supported not only myself, but these
people with me to give you an example
how we should serve the Lord.
In Acts chapter 21, we read about this
time when I told you these false prophets,
false prophets means not false in the sense
of evil, but they went beyond what the
Holy Spirit said.
They said to Paul, verse 4, you should
not set foot in Jerusalem.
Paul was in a meeting and they were
in Tyre and Paul was attending a meeting
and there, Acts 21, verse 4, somebody got
up and said, thus says the Lord, Apostle
Paul, you should not go to Jerusalem.
Agabus also came a little later and prophesied
in verse 11 in another town.
And what does he tell Paul?
He only says, Paul, you'll be bound in
Jerusalem, but I cannot tell you whether you
should go or not to go.
You see the difference.
One are immature people who don't know how
to prophesy.
Agabus was a mature prophet.
He knew I cannot tell this man what
to do or what not to do.
Paul said, I'm going.
And he went.
Now let us find out whether Paul went
in the will of God or outside the
will of God.
Acts 23, 11.
The Lord appeared to Paul at night and
said, take courage, Paul, as you have witnessed
in Jerusalem, you will witness in Rome also.
Some people say because Paul was jailed, he
missed the will of God.
He didn't.
The Lord said, you are in the will
of God.
If he had listened to those prophets who
said, don't go to Jerusalem, he would not
have gone to Jerusalem.
He would not have gone to Rome.
It was in Rome that he sat down
and wrote Philippians and Colossians when he was
locked up there.
We would not have got the letters to
the Philippians and the Colossians and all if
he had listened to those people who were
giving him directive prophecy.
When you listen to people who give you
directive prophecy, you can miss the will of
God too.
Acts 24, 16, a lovely verse that tells
us one secret of Paul's life.
I always maintain a conscience blameless before God
and before men.
Whenever his conscience troubled him, he set it
right immediately.
Acts 26, 19, another secret of Paul's life.
I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision
God gave me.
You can read the rest of those stories,
that beautiful story in Acts 27 where the
ship got wrecked and nobody in that ship
was lost.
Reason?
Because there was one man of God on
that ship.
Do you know the blessing a ship gets
if one man of God is on that
ship?
Do you know the blessing a town gets
if one man of God is in that
town?
Be a man of God like that.
In conclusion, chapter 28, verse 31.
Paul stayed two full years, verse 30 and
31, in his own rented quarters.
He paid the rent for his own house.
He did not ask the church in Rome
to pay his rent.
He was a man who was free.
He paid his own rent for two years
and preached the kingdom of God with all
openness, unhindered.
This is the place where he wrote Philippians
and Colossians and Ephesians.
Sitting there for two years, imprisoned as a
soldier of Rome, he fulfilled God's purpose.
Paul comes through in the Acts of the
Apostles as a unique example of a servant
of God.
He supported himself and served the Lord.
Not all did that.
Peter, James, John, they were fishermen.
They could not carry their boat with them.
But Peter, but Paul was a tent maker.
All he had to carry was a needle
with him and he could support himself.
Some people are called to support themselves and
serve the Lord like Paul.
Some people are called to be supported by
others like Jesus, Peter, James, John.
It's not a question of how you are
supported.
It's a question of being faithful with the
money you receive, seeking the glory of God,
ultimately trusting God to provide your need.
In many, many areas we can see Paul's
unique example.
Let's follow his example and serve the Lord
in our day and age.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for the example
of this wonderful godly man who lived 20
centuries ago, whose example challenges us even today.
Help us to follow his example as he
followed Christ, we ask in Jesus' name.