Please turn in your bottles to the 13th chapter of Acts. You have the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, in the New Testament, and then you have the Book of Acts. Page 980 in a few bottles. You want to make it real clear where you can find the 13th chapter of Acts because if you're visiting with us, we ask that everyone would turn in a copy of God's Word. There are few bottles provided for you. You don't have a copy of your own copy with you. We would love for everyone to have God's Word open before them, and you might keep it open because we go verse by verse, and it will help you this morning as we do that. Paul has just completed a very strong, very powerful, clear doctrinal sermon in which he has boldly named God's Son. These people said that God's Son is the long awaited Messiah, and with great courage he has called his audience, his congregation, to faith in Jesus Christ. If they want to be saved, if they want to spend an eternity with God, then they must put their faith in Jesus as the Messiah. Now, how are these people going to react to that message? Are all those in his audience going to put their faith in Christ and call him Savior? Are they all going to call him Lord? No. It's a mixed response. There will be some who will accept the message, and then there will be those who will reject the message. Namely, the Jews will reject the message, the Gentiles will accept. But there's much for us to learn here. We learn, for one thing, we learn how we should react to the various responses to God's Word, and there are many responses to God's Word. Even as I stand here, and I read the Word in just a moment, and as I preach the Word, there are many, many different responses to God's Word. Some accept and some reject. What is that? How we react to those various responses if we will be helped in the health and our reaction through this passage. Not only so, as we look at these people, as we look at Paul's audience, we see ourselves. We see our strengths, we see our weaknesses, and this passage serves as a mirror. It gives us a reflection of how we respond. If I were to hold this passage up and say, this is a mirror, and you represent Trinity Presbyterian Church, we would see a reflection. How does Trinity Church respond to God's Word? Is it a sweet smelling aroma? Is it the fragrance of light to us, or is it an evil smelling odor? The stench of death. It's one or the other. That's what the Bible tells us. The Word of God is one or the other. So think about that. Contemplate that as we stand, or the reading of God's authoritative Word. His infallible Word, as it's recorded for us here, beginning in verse 42 of Acts 13. And when the Jews went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. Now when the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews in devout profilites followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God. And the next Sabbath, almost the whole city came together to hear the Word of God. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, but when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy. A contradicting and glass-seeming, they opposed the things spoken by Paul. Then Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said, it was necessary that the Word of God should be spoken to you first. But since you rejected and judged yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded it, I have set you to be a light to the Gentiles that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the Word of the Lord, and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. And the Word of the Lord was being spread throughout all the region. But the Jews stirred up the devout and prominent women and the chief men of the city raised up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from their region. But they shook off the dust from their feet against them and came to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the fields. The Word of God shall be heard. Amen, please be seated. One of again by urging you to put yourself in Paul's shoes, there on that day in that synagogue, you realize that Paul was a real person, a real breathing walking on this earth individual. He is in a real situation as we're reading here in our passage and he is surrounded by a real pagan. You try to put yourself in his shoes. You're preaching God's Word. You're standing there before this congregation, and you're preaching the very message that Jesus told you to preach. You're being thankful to God's Word. You're preaching it is true, preaching the Word of God. The reaction of these people could be anything. They could be hot, they could be cold. They may accept what you say and pack you on the back and say, well done, what a good sermon you preached, and we're all for you. We believe every word you said because we believe the Word of God that they could just as well reject you. Reject your message and take you out and persecute you and possibly even put you in prison, maybe even stone you. Put you to death for your message being thankful to God's Word. Just like Paul. You know, it's so great about Paul and his reaction. You know, one of the things that makes Paul one of our heroes is that his reaction is always balanced. That's what we want to strive for in our church. We want to be known for that. In our church, Paul was never up. He was never down in his reactions. And you'll notice that his reactions are never canned. It's always genuine. Very real. He's always steady. He always has this heart for the lost. But at the same time, you don't find it negativity in his view of the world. It says a lot. I mean, it says a lot about a man about whom it could be said that the wind was always glowing in his face hot and cold. All the time, all these different reactions to Paul's stead, Paul's balance. I want you to notice first, the first reaction of the people and notice that it actually first very sincere on this first Sabbath when they go to the synagogue to preach in verse 42. When the Jews went out of the synagogue, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. Obviously, they're moved by what has been said. Obviously, as Paul was preaching, there was some stirring in the hearts of these individuals. They were moved. Their interest was stirred. I mean, the understanding is they literally begged Paul and Barnabas to say, please, please, the word to it, please come back again next week and let us hear more of this message. Please tell us more of the gospel. Notice in verse 43, when the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews in the bowed cross lights followed Paul and Barnabas, who speaking to them persuaded them. The word means urged them to continue in the grace of God. You have this mass of people, a mass of a keenly interested people and in this mass of keenly interested people, you have really two groups of individuals. There are those who accept the message and there are those who reject the message. No matter if they're interested or not, there are still those that will accept it and those that will not accept it. So there is, for us, over verses 42 and 43, a caution light, a blinking yellow light, it's a caution to ourselves. You know what the caution is? You know what the warning is? Out of these two verses that is possible, it's very possible to be deeply stirred within your heart and not be converted. It's very possible to be keenly interested, very possible to come to a church like this and sit under the preaching and say, I'm moved by that, but not really, really be saved. It's possible to be fascinated with the things of God, to be moved in your life, to study the Bible even. It's possible for you to be intrigued by a study of doctrine even. The scriptures even tell us that you can go so far as to find joy in the Word of God to receive it with joy and not be truly converted. Do you know that Paul would say about these individuals in deletion, this area of deletion that he would later write a letter? Do you know what he said about them? He said, they were some there that I believe they would pluck their eyes out for me and give me their eyes, but I fear that they were lost. That's deletion 4.11 and 15, if you want to just jot that down. In Hebrew 6, probably some of the most sobering words in the Bible, in verse 4 it says, quote, it's impossible for those who were once enlightened and have tasted the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit and have tasted the good Word of God and the power of the age to come if they fall away, we understand it's not to be Christians, they would never were really saints, they just tasted it, they realized the Word was good and they enjoyed it and being in a setting like this possibly. It says it's impossible for them to renew, to renew them again to repent since they crucified again for themselves as son of God and put into open shame. I think we have only looked as far as ourselves when we look at our own church, our own congregation in just the year 2000. We know that there have been individuals who have come to the church and had a spark of interest and said, oh, I'm really going to start now, I'm really going to get back into church only to fall away, to slip through the cracks as we say. Lightly that worldly concerns are competing for their interests. Now, obviously, there are those that are here and they come into those within our church that are literally pressing into the kingdom as the Bible says, pressing into the kingdom through law for God's Word and law for hearing it read it, studying God's Word and sitting under the preaching of it and praying and there is in your life self-examination and the avoiding of worldly temptations you love the means of grace, you love to involve yourself in those areas that God has given you to grow in grace. You're committed to worship, you're committed to fellowship, and I'm just saying to you, as your pastor, don't be fooled. Don't be fooled because many start the race, few finish it. Many start with these finishes. And then my how things change within a week if you'll notice in verse 44, the next Sabbath, almost the whole city came together to hear the Word of God. But when the Jews saw the multitude, they were filled with envy and contradicting and blaspheming, they opposed the things spoken by Paul. I think the hardest lick in the ministry for me was in 1997. I'm not talking about a personal attack. That's what it goes with the territory. I've had my share of those as well. But I'm talking about just a real lick as a minister and a decision that a session have made and then to see it come back on you in 1997. We have spent three years paving the way to add a seventh and eighth grade to our Christian school in Clarksdale. For three years, we had talked about it and done all the foundational work that needed to be done to get this in gear to get it in place before the next school year. We knew that it would be a joke to the community, a community that size, it would be a tremendous competition to the local academy that was not Christian to possibly even close their doors because they were so in need of those students. But we felt Christian education was what we needed for Clarksdale. And even if we were to take it further, grades after that, but we were going to be committed to it. Again, it was a bold move. It would have been a bold move for the school, for the church, and the community. We met, we voted, it was unanimous. We walked out of there on cloud nine. We knew this was right. That week some letters came out in the community. You could call it hate mail. Stern warnings from people within the community. We did that, what it would mean to our children. What it would mean to those who went from the Christian school to the secular school. We had a call meeting about it and two of our elders changed their votes.
It was a tremendous blow, tremendous blow to our session. It was a blow to our church, really, but those that were concerned about it. I had a grown man, one of our elders, literally sobbing in my office, because he knew now that his daughter wasn't going to have those two extra years, just two more years of a world in life, you, from that curriculum. One week we walk out of that meeting, and his excitement, and his enthusiasm, and this is the direction of God. And then one week later, every day, three years of work down the drain. And so it is in our passage here. So positive, some uplifting. The whole town turns out, come and preach the word of God. There is again, in that next week, serious, serious opposition. Very negative, very evil. Those men in the synagogue had time to go home, talk about it with their spouses, talk about it among themselves, and say, do you realize the implication that what's going to happen if the gospel is great that these people become Christians? Do you see what that's going to do to our city? Do you know what that's going to do to this synagogue? The bottom line in the jealousy. Look at verse 44. They were filled with envy. If they don't get me wrong, these Jewish leaders, it's not like they didn't care, but the Gentiles, they did care for the Gentiles. They invited them to church come and sit among our cues, or don't sit on my side. Remember that? You can sit over here. Don't just don't get near me. And listen, and don't create ways. And maybe one day you'll become a good Jew. We did the same thing. Come visit our church. You can sit over here. And you can listen to us, and maybe after some time you'll become a good Presbyterian. Well, that's what's happening here, but they say they're coming in here. These visitors, they're preaching against Moses, against the wall. They're saying that you can be justified by faith alone. They're saying that you can be right with God, that God will receive you. People have to become a Jew first. And to the Jews, this was betrayal. It was blasphemy. And they just weren't going to stand for it. Look at verse 50. But the Jews stirred up the devout and prominent women, the chief men of the city, raised up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from their region. Probably a legal expulsion. In other words, not a mob. This was not some mob actually gathering and pushed them out of the city. I think probably just a legal expulsion. But a disastrous decision. A decision that had disastrous consequences. Because of the decision made that day, there would now be laws of eternal life for God's people to use. There would now be the laws of their divine mission to be a light to the Gentiles, to be a light to the ends of the earth. And not only so, do you know that the new people of God, the church, the Christians, would now refer to the Jews as pagans. From this point forward, disastrous consequences because of this decision they made. And look at the reaction of Paul and Barnabas in verse 46. Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said it was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first. But since you rejected and jacked yourselves on worthy of everlasting life, the hall we turned to the Gentiles, verse 47, for so the Lord has commanded us, I have set you to be a light to the Gentiles. But you should be a salvation to the ends of the earth. You understand this is really a gospel principle. In this text of the principle, Romans 164 to Jew first, 4 to Jew first is very important. 4 to Jew first. They were God's people. It was only right that they had the priority interest unless they rejected which they did. If you rejected, then we do what Christ is commissioning us to do and we turned away from you to the Gentiles. And that's what they did. In verse 51, they shook off the dust on their feet against them and came to our podium. He walked away. Our hero, the one whose life we would love to emulate, do you see in the picture? He turns around and he walks away
when Paul met hostility. You don't find him obnoxiously beating his head against a brick wall. He's not going to cast his pearls to slime, teaching us rather than there is or there does come a time when a faithful church will turn and walk away from a rebellious world. The risk of being your weapon. I didn't want to bear it. I thought, would you apologize before I make the quants? But you know it's just fitting. It's Kenny Rogers. You've got to know when to hold him and when to follow him. You know that it just pops in your mind. You've got to know when to walk away. You've got to know when to run. It's a serious thing now. Because when they walked away and they knocked the dust off their feet and knocked the dust of a fellow Jew, knocked his dust off your feet, you're saying to that fellow Jew, I'm leaving you to your pagan way. And I'm leaving you in your sin. While the Jews are rejecting the gospel, the Gentiles are gladly embracing it back at verse 48. When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the Word of the Lord and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believe. And the Word of the Lord was being spread throughout all the region. These individuals as they were creaking somewhere were violently posed and those that were appointed to eternal life, they were loving it. They were enjoying it. They were saving it. They wanted more of it. They couldn't get enough of it. Because that's the way the Christian responds to God's Word. They hear the Word of God. They put their faith in Christ. Their lives are changed forever. They have joy. They glorify the Word of the Lord. And you know what follows evangelism. Because these new converts are so filled with joy. When they go out, they can't help but tell everybody they know what's happened to them. So again, more and more people say because these individuals are bearing witness that God has been gracious to them in their lives. That church is established right there in all of one week. One week, M&A gives our church planners three years. You got three years to be self-sustained. That's what we tell our church planners. Three is do you imagine calling our guys over in Colorado or New Orleans? You know, Jeffrey, you've been there four months. Where's the church? It took them one week. Interesting, I was thinking about that. This morning I was thinking about that common thing. And those guys went, Jeffrey, they go down there and pagan New Orleans. And they do have, they've already started their service. And Jeffrey's been there about six months. Started it first service a couple of months ago. It's amazing. That's the way that's the gospel, though. That's the Word of God. How are these individuals saying? In verse 48, notice that they glorify the Word of the Lord. These people, they came back. That Lord's day, they had heard. They had heard about the preaching. They came and they wanted to do one thing. They wanted to hear Paul preach the Word. Paul gives them what they want. He delivers to them the Word of God. They receive it. They believe it. They believe it is true. And the Word spreads. Do you notice in these verses there's no talk about marketing? There's no talk about how to go out and get everybody into your church, tell them all these. This circus they can come through and enjoy the worship service. There's no talk about the Word of God. They don't bring out the gospel seals, as they say, to do the tricks. And in front of all the people, there's no light show. He praises the Word of God. No gimmicks. The Spirit brings the people. The Spirit teaches them the truth. The Spirit converts the people, changes their lives forever, and a church is begun. I would say that Trinity would believe that. I think we do believe it. I might say, oh, that Trinity would continue to believe that the means of grace are all we need. There's no need for flaw. There's no need for a circus in this sanctuary. What you have, what you say in an order of worship, like we have this morning, it's sufficient. It's what pleases God, it's what He asks for. In the Word, in worship. We wouldn't spend our wills in all those other directions. Just praise the Word and pray. Praise the Word and pray. Praise the Word and pray. That's what we're committed to. We feel why are they saved? Why are some saved and others not saved? We've read 48 a couple of times now. Have you seen the answer? Look at it for yourself. Verse 48, as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. What do you know? The doctrine of election. Right there in the middle of an evangelistic story. In the Word, the verb is tassel. It suggests ordained to eternal life. It can mean inscribed or enrolled. And the idea is those whose names were written in the Lamb's book of life, they believed. That's the way God saves individuals. God ordained them to life. He writes their name in the book of life before the foundation of the world. The sun goes to the cross to accomplish the redemption of that person's life. It's already accomplished at the cross. Before faith. And the spirit comes in and breathed life into that spirit into your soul and brings you to life spiritually and gives you faith. And you were made able to repent of your sins and your Christians. It was last week after the service. Why do we evangelize it? That's the case. Why do we evangelize it? Here's the answer. This is why we evangelize. Because God has written the names of people in the book of life and the names by which those people are going to spend an eternity with Him is through our preaching and our prayers and our witnessing and our evangelism. And it is up to us if it's made. Yes. It's God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, hand in hand. It just shows how sovereign God is and how great He is. How powerful. We'll just look at verse 52 as we close. But look at verse 52. Don't close your body. We'll look at verse 52. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. These disciples is a reference to the most recent converse. Rather than being disheartened by the departure of Paul and Barnabas, they are filled with joy. They are filled with the Holy Spirit. Is that not a great prayer to pray for yourself? Give me joy and give me the Holy Spirit. Most Christians are materialists. Do you hear that? Most Christians are materialists. Most Christians believe that their joy is contingent upon outer circumstances. That's why we ring our hands and we fret about our education system and the government and Hollywood and the morality and all these things going on in Florida. And we look at all these liberals that are talking on the television and we just say, oh, what was me? And yeah, we need to realize that Paul had it as bad if not worse than we have. Certainly worse than we have in America. Paul, we told if they were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit. Paul is thrown in jail at Philippine. They open his back with a Roman whip. His back looks like a piece of hamburger meat. He's bleeding. He's hurting. They throw him in the dungeon, but not just the any dungeon, but inner parts of the dungeon. And not just the inner parts of the dungeon. They put him in the stocks. So he can't touch his wounds. He can't smooth his wounds. It's midnight. And what do you hear, Paul? And Barnes, you hear Paul down the dungeon saying, always me, Barnes, because I'm so sorry I got you in this. No. You know what the Bible says they're doing? Singing and praying and lasting.
Leave with that thought. Say it still as you are. And listen to this. I say it 26. You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because they trust in you. Are you scared? Are you worried? Are you coming apart at the same time in your life? Because you fear this rejection of your family or your friends or your business. Rejection of the gospel. They don't care. They don't understand you. They don't know what's going on. Because they don't know your heart. Moses said, if this way, Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. And we close with the words from Paul, again, we've set him a couple of times today. If we live, we live to the Lord. If we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's. As we pray together. Our God in heaven, we pray that your Word would do its work by your spirit and hearts of flesh, that there would not be walls, barriers that are put off so that we can't hear. We pray that there not be one soul in this room right now that will spiritually put their fingers in their ears and say, I don't want to hear, I don't want to hear the truth. We thank you that your Word is true, that it's sufficient for us, that the message we've heard in just these moments is sufficient for our lives, for this day and this week, really, for all eternity. May you be our all-in-all God. We make our prayer in Jesus' name as we turn.