Well, if any of you go to sleep
this morning, it's not dreadful.
Well, that'll wake you up.
It'd be nice to have that early in
the morning, sometimes when you have a little
trouble getting awake.
Boy, it'd be wonderful to be thrilled by
the message of that song when first you
arise.
You know, when we gather together in such
pleasant circumstances, I'm always reminded of those less
fortunate.
And a part of my prayer daily, in
my prayer time, is always to cover all
those areas that I may not think of
and say, Lord, do remember all of those
less fortunate than we are.
And there are a number, and John has
already mentioned, Lucille Stevens and Marie Gooch and
so many others.
And there's some back this morning here at
Sister Eva Parish and others that have been
away.
And I think it's so appropriate when we
do gather together to remember those that are
not able to carry on in a normal
fashion, such as we are this morning.
Thankful to God that we are assembled together
for the express purpose of opening the Word
of God and have the Spirit of God
speak to our heart.
So, let us bow in just a word
of prayer and thank God again for His
goodness to us and remember all those less
fortunate.
Our Father in Heaven, it indeed is with
a deep sense of gratitude in our souls
that we lift our voices to Thee and
thank Thee that we are found, assembled together
this morning.
And we have an open Bible, and we're
able to glean from the pages and the
words of Scripture those things that can enrich
our lives and inspire us.
Grant, we pray Thee, as we reflect upon
how pleasant it is for us to remember
all others less fortunate.
There are some that are hurting.
There are some that are going through times
of deep trial and testing.
Oh, our God, preserve and keep Your people
and keep them encouraged and give them that
consciousness of Your presence with them.
We ask this in that wonderful name of
our Lord Jesus Christ.
Amen.
I'd like for us this morning to read
in the 13th chapter of the book of
Acts.
We've been going through this book, and we've
arrived at this 13th chapter, which is a
little change of direction.
The main characters up to this point, one
of them being the Apostle Peter, we'll discover
that Peter is only mentioned one time in
the remainder of the book of Acts, and
that's in Acts 15.
But Paul, Saul of Tarsus, that enemy of
the gospel, persecutor of Christians, that man that
we read about and his wonderful, glorious conversion
experience in the book of Acts, he becomes
one of the main characters in the book
of Acts.
And these are the acts of the Holy
Spirit.
It's that divine, sovereign work of the Spirit
of God working in and through those that
have come to a saving knowledge of Jesus
Christ our Lord.
And men and women that have been sovereignly
gifted by the Spirit of God to serve
the Lord, to exercise spiritual gifts that will
result in the whole body of Christ being
built up in its most holy face.
And we will see that demonstrated throughout this
book.
We've already, in reading and understanding what God
is doing in this divine plan and purpose
of carrying the gospel of Jesus Christ to
the uttermost parts of the world, here we
see that launching out, that going forth for
which Paul really has already been destined to
do.
And we read about that when we were
in the ninth chapter.
The Lord said concerning him, Go, for he
is a chosen vessel.
Speaking of the Apostle Paul, A chosen vessel
of mine to bear my name before Gentiles,
kings, and the children of Israel.
For I will show him how many things
he must suffer for my name's sake.
The Apostle Paul is an exceptional character in
the scriptures.
He is a man that I think without
question the reason that he is given this
kind of prominence by the Spirit of God,
he didn't seek it for himself.
The reason he's given this kind of prominence
is that he had a single eye for
the Lord and his heart.
There's nothing half-hearted about the Apostle Paul.
This man that had been so zealous in
seeking out and endeavoring to hurt Christians, to
erase the name of Jesus Christ from the
minds of the world itself.
That man carried with him that same devotion
and loyalty to the cause of Jesus Christ.
You know those words well that are attributed
to him after his conversion.
He says, For me to live is Christ.
The whole thrust of his life was to
tell others about Jesus Christ.
Tell out of his own experience in knowing
Christ just what a wonderful person Jesus Christ
really is.
In the chapters that we have read and
looked at previously, and in the close of
the eleventh chapter, we were reminded that the
disciples, each according to his ability, determined to
send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea.
This they also did, and sent it to
the elders by the hands of Barnabas and
Saul.
Now, Saul has been involved in many aspects
of the Lord's work.
In this case, he with Barnabas had gone
back because of the rather needy conditions that
existed.
He carried a gift, he and Barnabas.
And the closing verse of the twelfth chapter
says, And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem
when they had fulfilled their ministry, and they
also took with them John, whose surname was
Mark.
And so now we begin the thirteenth chapter.
I'd like for us to read these first
twelve verses and may God speak to us
from His Word.
Now, in the church that was at Antioch,
there were certain prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon
who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manian
who had been brought up with Herod the
Septuagint, and Saul.
And as they ministered to the Lord and
fasted, the Holy Spirit said, to me Barnabas
and Saul for the work of which I
have called them.
Then having fasted and prayed and laid hands
on them, they sent them away.
So being sent out by the Holy Spirit,
they went down to Seleucia, and from there
they sailed to Cyprus.
And when they arrived in Salamis, they preached
the Word of God in the synagogues of
the Jews.
They also had John as their assistant.
Now, when they had gone through the island
to Tephas, they found a certain sorcerer, a
false prophet, a Jew whose name was Bar
-Jesus, who was with the proconsul Sergius Paulus,
an intelligent man.
This man called for Barnabas and Saul and
sought to hear the Word of God.
But Elamos, the sorcerer, for so his name
is translated, withstood them, seeking to turn the
proconsul away from the faith.
Then Saul, who also is called Paul, filled
with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him
and said, O fool of all deceit and
all fraud, you son of the devil, you
enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease
perverting the straight ways of the Lord?
And now, indeed, the hand of the Lord
is upon you and you shall be blind,
not seeing the sun for a time.
And immediately a dark mist fell on him,
and he went around seeking someone to lead
him by the hand.
Then the proconsul believed when he saw what
had been done, being astonished at the teaching
of the Lord.
The striking thing about this, again, is that
a man that is completely devoted to the
cause of Christ, a man that has declared
that the gospel of Jesus Christ is the
power of God unto salvation for all that
believe it, Saul, the one that was converted,
the person with that enmity in his heart
and soul toward Christians and the person of
Christ.
On that Damascus road, he met the Lord
Jesus Christ face to face.
And there, in the light of the glory
of God, the conversion experience, this man responding,
Lord, what will you have me to do?
Well, we've just read that the Lord said,
he is a chosen vessel.
I chose him for a special purpose, a
very special mission.
That mission is that he will go out
over the face of the earth.
He will faithfully, if he's in the king's
courtyard, if he stands before Potentate, doesn't matter
wherever he goes, he has just one message.
And I'm so thankful this morning that that
message has not changed.
If there were amendments to that message and
it was constantly changing and we had to
update our Bibles and have different additions made
of the Scriptures saying, this must be added
and this must be taken away, it would
add nothing but confusion to what we have
that is so solid and so steadfast.
The Word of the living God, it shall
indeed endure forever.
Heaven and earth may pass away, but the
Word of God endures forever.
Saul of Tarsus, now Paul, that great apostle,
is launching out on that mission, that mission
that will send him all the way to
Rome.
Ultimately, he will become a martyr for the
cause of Christ.
Paul, the one that identified himself as the
chief of sinners, least of all the saints,
through the grace of God, he becomes God's
man for reaching the world.
And it's, I think, remarkable that this man
who had such a low opinion of himself
had such a high opinion of the Lord
Jesus Christ.
He must have the preeminent place like John
the Baptist of old when he is asked
about the person of Christ and some would
even identify him as being the Messiah.
Oh no, never.
I must decrease, but he must increase.
And those that would truly serve the cause
of Christ must be constantly reminded that without
him, we can't do anything for the glory
of God.
Without him, if we didn't have him, life
again becomes something that indeed is so meaningless.
Now, Paul has a mission.
These saints at Antioch, and Antioch now becomes
the center, the center for sending forth those
that would proclaim this message of the gospel.
Our Lord Jesus Christ says in that eighth
verse of the first chapter of this book,
You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea,
Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the
world.
Witness has been born in Jerusalem and it
has spread out over Judea and Samaria, and
now it's time for this special messenger of
God to go out across the Mediterranean, to
go into Europe to carry this wonderful message
of the gospel.
The best news that any man ever heard
is to be delivered by the Apostle Paul.
As they assemble there, you're given some names,
and these names are men that are filled
with the Spirit of God, and these men
as they ministered to the Lord.
In that second verse, that's the expression that
is used, and fasted the Holy Spirit said.
Now, it doesn't mean that the Spirit of
God in an audible voice instructed Saul or
Paul and Barnabas as to what they were
to do, but through these men that were
filled with the Spirit of God, the message
and the will of God was conveyed, and
they spoke the will of God, and they
directed Barnabas and Saul to go forth to
this work to which they had been called
of God, and it should ever be that
way.
When anyone who says they have a calling
to go to a mission field, you certainly
would want the support and the approval of
your brethren, and you would pray and hope
that those men were guided and filled with
the Spirit of God lest there be some
misjudgment.
So easy sometimes to arrange things and to
conclude because of our organizational skills and all
that makes us so innovative and sometimes ignoring
the ways of God and the things that
we do in His name to say, well,
we can do this, and it doesn't necessarily
require that we be filled with the Spirit
of God.
Well, I would be very, very dubious of
any decision that is made for the honor
and glory of God and that includes the
will of God in which the Spirit of
God was not involved.
Hear the Spirit of God.
Again, the act of the Holy Spirit working
in and through these men, these men that
have solemn responsibility, separates us unto Me.
Barnabas and Saul for the work for which
they have called.
Undeniable, no question, that indeed these men are
being sent forth by a solemn dictate from
God Himself to go out into the world.
And they did.
But notice what they did.
Having fasted and prayed and laid hands on
them, they sent them away.
And that simply meant that there was perfect
accord in what they were doing.
And they prayed together.
Fasting in this sense means that they abstained
from anything that would cause them any stray
thinking, anything that would be a distraction, anything
that would be a threat to them wholly
looking unto the Lord for direction and help
as far as sending these men forth.
They fasted.
They prayed.
And that's not something that should be out
of date.
Fasting and prayer are still in order for
God's people.
And our Lord Jesus Christ reminded His own
concerning their inability to deal with a demonic
spirit this kind only come forth when there
is prayer and fasting.
If you get desperate in the course of
life, if you get desperate for knowing the
will of God, try prayer and fasting.
Go aside.
There are many, many faithful servants of God
today.
I'll just mention one, a man that I
admired so much, Theodore F.
Back to the Bible broadcast.
All of you are acquainted with him.
Brother F., it was a part of his
life from time to time to isolate himself
from everything else.
The distractions from the news that is flowing
today through so many of the news media,
the newspapers and the radio and the television.
Isolate himself and devote himself to prayer and
fasting so that he might clearly discern the
will of God.
How many of us do any prayer and
fasting?
We ought to try.
If you haven't tried it, you ought to
try.
I believe we would discover new things about
our dealings with the Lord.
We so often have such low opinions of
ourselves.
We can't sometimes see ourselves as being very
important in the plan and the purposes of
God.
What a ridiculous thought.
We are counted as being co-laborers with
Him.
We are His messengers to the world in
which we are living.
The Apostle Paul says, I am an ambassador
for Jesus Christ.
I have a responsibility.
And you know, until we get, this is
not something that involves an inflated ego about
how great we are, but it's an awareness
of how great He is and what He
can do in and through us.
And again, the Lord Jesus said, without me
you can't do anything for the glory of
God.
Just as that branch in the vine can
never be fruitful, can never bear fruit, unless
that channel between the vine and the branch
are wide open and the full life and
the blessing of God can flow from the
vine through the branches.
Let us be aware.
And indeed, don't have a low opinion of
yourself and think, well, God wouldn't use me.
I'm too insignificant.
God loves you.
And God saved you for a purpose.
And don't think only in terms of men
like the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter
and others and the D.
L.
Moody's and the Billy Graham's.
They are prominent, to be sure, and they
are indeed a blessing to so many.
But what about your life and my life?
Aren't we important in the sight of God?
You better believe we are.
We are members of the body of Jesus
Christ, the Son of God.
And we are to be witnesses for Him.
I read just a little devotional thought that
I thought was so appropriate.
It says, Those who are on the road
to heaven should never be content to go
there alone.
And again, the great D.
L.
Moody one time viewed a picture of a
woman that she was in peril.
Waters were rushing all around her, and that
picture showed that woman holding on to the
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And Moody thought about it for a while,
and it just didn't quite set with him
until finally he saw another picture.
And he said, That picture was the one
that I really liked.
It showed a picture of this woman, and
she was hanging on to the cross with
one hand, and she was rescuing someone that
was in the same peril as she was
from the danger that existed.
The Apostle Paul had been saved by the
grace of God, and he never forgot it.
And you in this room this morning, and
I speak to myself, we've been saved by
the sovereign grace of God just through faith
in Jesus Christ our Lord.
If that means so much to us, don't
we know that there are souls that are
perishing in this world?
Don't we know that there are lonely hearts
everywhere?
Don't we understand that indeed those without Christ,
they're on the broad road that leads to
destruction?
Don't we know that Christ is able to
save to the uttermost those that will by
faith come to Him?
Don't we know this?
And isn't it our responsibility?
Indeed, we appreciate what Christ has done for
us.
We appreciate it so much that we reach
out and we seek to save those that
are lost.
A young man on a beach out in
Australia, he was given some notoriety because on
his little seat or stand that he sat
upon, he had there John 3.16. And
everybody called him John 3.16. And quite
often he had the opportunity of explaining to
people why the John 3.16. He said,
Well, as a young boy on this very
beach, one day I was in peril in
the waves and one of the lifeguards that
was on duty here ran out and dived
into the water and he saved me.
He rescued me from those angry waves.
And that same lifeguard took me under his
wing and he told me about Jesus Christ
and I was saved.
And he told me that in the course
of life to be sure to remember that
I had a responsibility because of what had
been done for me.
I could show my appreciation best by doing
something for someone else.
And he said, I purposed that one day
I would be a lifeguard.
I purposed that one day I would rescue
someone from those angry waves.
I purposed that one day I would tell
others about this wonderful person, Jesus Christ.
And my whole life is devoted to telling
others about the Lord Jesus.
I just want us to get a sense
of the responsibility that's ours as Christians.
It's a sad thing to see someone live
what is called bubble Christianity.
You know, we isolate ourselves in our little
bubble and you can touch your bubble, my
bubble, but you can't touch me.
We insulate ourselves.
We isolate ourselves from the world in which
we're living.
And that's a thought that is foreign to
the Word of God.
Paul and Barnabas went forth, men filled with
the Spirit of God.
Their first encounter is they come now to
the island of Paphos.
They found there a man, a man that
they witnessed to.
They found that the devil was already there
too.
And through a sorcerer, an enemy of the
gospel of Jesus Christ, they found that there
was someone there that represented the forces of
evil that are in the world.
And on the one hand, they were giving
to this man the wonderful message of the
gospel of Jesus Christ and the enemy of
the cross of Christ.
He was doing everything that he could to
tear down and to prevent that poor soul
from being rescued, from going down into a
lost eternity.
Paul says some things there that you better
be careful if you ever use these words
and say these things to someone.
You might get hurt.
But Paul, when he realized what was happening,
this man filled with the Holy Spirit, he
looked intently at him.
In other words, they had an eye-to
-eye encounter.
He didn't say it to his back.
He got right in his face.
And he told him with a certain amount
of conviction that he did not misunderstand.
Oh, you that are full of deceit.
And Satan is a deceiver.
And anyone that's on his side is a
deceiver.
So sad to see people, they're not content
just to be lost and miserable in this
world, but sometimes they try to influence others.
Satan works that way.
All frauds.
You are a phony.
You don't have anything for this man.
You are sorcery.
This delving into the occult.
Spiritualism.
Spiritism as it's so called.
Seeking encounters that are mysterious.
And I'm reminded that Satan as an angel
of shining light can present himself to people.
It would probably cause each one of us
to be just amazed at perhaps all these
encounters that people talk about having with spirit
beings and what they felt.
And it may have been a direct encounter
with Satan, that angel of shining light.
Be careful how you look for angels and
these experiences that indeed may be a direct
encounter with the devil himself.
His ministers of righteousness do his work.
But he saw Paul of the Apostle with
that kind of courage that's needed.
He looked right into this man's face and
he said, you're full of deceit.
You're a phony.
You are the son of the devil.
And the Lord Jesus said that to some
Pharisees one day in the 8th chapter of
John's Gospel.
He says, you are of your father the
devil.
And you know, that's a horrible thought.
A horrible thought that a human being created
by God, created for the purpose of bringing
glory to the God that created them.
And yet they would align themselves with the
enemy of God.
And the Son of God would say, because
of your alignment with Him, because you've made
a choice to walk on the broad road
that leads to destruction, you are of your
father the devil.
You're just doing his bidding.
You're serving his cause.
He has you captive.
And he'll take your soul down into the
hell that is reserved, that was created for
the devil and all those fallen angels.
You enemy of all righteousness, will you not
cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord?
That man, of course, felt the hand of
God upon him.
As a result, a dark mist fell on
him.
He went around seeking someone to lead.
He was blind.
It says this, then the procounsel believes.
He witnessed something.
Would you not today?
It takes all kinds of experiences sometimes to
bring people to Christ.
But we know one thing for sure, there's
only one way to God and that's through
Christ.
If this man had his eyes open, this
power here, there's something exceptional going on here.
I wouldn't covet that power necessarily just to
carry out an act like that.
But indeed, every one of us should desire
from the depths of our souls to be
used of God in witnessing to others about
our wonderful Savior.
A story that comes to mind that indeed
is true.
A dear girl by the name of Ann,
who had moved to a very large city,
her brother Brad came to live with her
and he went to work in an industrial
plant and there he met a man named
Charlie.
Ann was a Christian.
She knew the Lord and she witnessed to
her brother and he listened.
But she soon discovered that this Charlie that
he was working with, this man was leading
her brother astray.
He was a good time Charlie.
He lived for today.
Eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow you'll
be gone.
That dear sister on her knees daily was
praying that Brad would not listen to Charlie.
And Brad seemed so inclined when she presented
the Gospel to him to accept Christ.
But he heard his sister praying and he
heard her praying regularly, Lord break the power
of Charlie over Brad's life.
Lord save my brother.
He heard her praying at night.
One day Brad went to work and where's
Charlie?
Charlie's not here.
Charlie's had an accident, a very serious accident.
In fact, he won't be back to work
for perhaps several months.
You know in reading that story and applying
it to what happened here, the intervention of
God sometimes in seeing to it that those
that are receptive to the Gospel of Christ,
they'll hear it.
And He will remove every obstacle for them
to accept the Lord Jesus Christ.
Brad got saved.
I believe God intervened.
I believe Anne's prayers were answered.
You may be praying for someone.
There may be someone else because this world
reaches out.
And the Apostle Paul says don't be conformed
to the ways of this world.
Don't be pressed into this world's mold.
It will make you just like it is.
We can pray and we can ask the
Lord to intervene and to save souls.
That's our responsibility.
The Apostle Paul is going to launch out.
He is going to be a mighty force
for spreading the good news of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ across the face of the
earth.
You say, I like that story.
I like that.
That excites me.
Well, what about your life and my life?
Does that mean we just become spectators and
say Paul can do it?
Philip Graham can do it?
D.L. Moody could do it?
Others can do it?
No.
You and I are entrusted with the solemn
responsibility of being witnesses for Jesus Christ in
this world in which we're living today.
We're not doing it.
We're out of the will of God.
Our Father in Heaven, help us as believers
in the Lord Jesus to accept that responsibility
of being a spokesman, a witness, an ambassador
for our Lord Jesus in this world today.
We ask it in our Savior's precious name.
Amen.