Clough Acts Lesson 36

Follow-up of First Missionary Journey – Acts 14:1-19-28

We ran into the two categories of problems that every Christian will face somewhere along the line, people will respond to the Word of God in one of these two ways. And we ought to be clear because we will face people responding to us if we teach the Word of God in these same two ways. One way in which Paul found people responding was the problem of persecution. In persecution people hate the Word of God and hate the representative of the Word of God, not because they don’t understand but because they do understand. And at least with persecution you know one thing, that you’ve been successful in communicating. This is not the excuse of being persecuted because you’re some sort of an idiot. This is not that kind of persecution; this is persecution because you in fact have represented the gospel issue and people dislike that issue. Fine, the response in that situation is found in Acts 14:3-6. In verses 3-6 Paul stayed in the area as long as it was physically possible for him to do so. So that’s the response in a persecution situation. You hang in there, regardless of the static, because if you’re getting static that means that the Spirit of God is working. You may not interpret it that way but that’s the way God interprets it in Scripture, and if the Holy Spirit’s working then great, let’s just hang in there and irritate it some more, make sure that the Holy Spirit has really had a good opportunity to slam home the Word of God. Now that’s the apostolic technique for meeting persecution. You meet persecution by stubbornness.

But now in Acts 14:15-17 you have the opposite kind of reaction you can get, which for the lack of anything else, we’ll call the absorption reaction, and that is when the Word of God is not perceived; this is when it just seems to go in one ear and out the other, it just seems to make no change in the way the person thinks, there’s just no contact, no response whatever, it’s just kind of like a gigantic amoeba, just slurps up the whole thing and you just wonder, what did I just do, you know, I ought to see some effects around here, something; but nothing happens, it just got wholly absorbed.

In verses 15-17 last week we studied how Paul met that situation and he met it by going back and developing the foundation of the divine viewpoint, that is, he stressed those first four events of Scripture, at least three out of those four events. And the reason he did this was because no one can perceive who Jesus Christ is unless they first have this foundation. Now this takes some getting used to. I understand, because of the various traditions that are so deeply embedded in our fundamental circles, where we evangelize children by telling them Jesus stories, where we want to “close,” (quote, end quote) with a person in the street in a witnessing situation whether he understands what we’re saying or not. We want to get to a conclusion for a decision, whether the person understands of not. That is not good practice to follow biblically speaking because if you’re in a situation where you’re getting an absorption type reaction the person has never understood who and what God is. That’s why you’re getting the absorption type reaction and the Biblical way to handle yourself in that kind of a situation is to go back and go through these areas of the basic framework. This is why we have the framework; it’s as though somehow I invented the thing; it’s right here in Paul’s technique, it’s his methodology.

He started out with creation, he emphasized that over against in his day the myths of Greek and Roman culture, but we would emphasize against the myths of our day creation versus evolution and we would show people the difference. You cannot get a person to choose if you don’t show them there’s a choice over which a decision must be made. So for a decision there’s got to be a choice and what is the choice? The choice is one worldview of origins versus another; that’s the choice and some people will accept the idea of creation which says that all things came about by the Word of God. And there’s some questions that you can use in this kind of a discussion. You can ask the person, do you believe that scientific law, that the equations that control physical reality themselves came into existence as a result of a verbal command by God? That’s a good way of putting creation. You might come up with your own way of arranging creation but come up with some way that communicates so the word “creation” means something and means something biblical. And the way to do it is approach it this way; ask them a question so you know where they stand, not condemning them.

The point is not to put them under your thumb and squish and squash; that’s not the Christian presentation. But the Christian presentation at least honestly tries to communicate where do you stand? What do you believe about these major issues? If we’re going to talk truth and you expect to carry on some conversation here we’ve got to communicate. Now what do you mean, you would ask the person. How do you see all things coming about? And if the person comes out with some ridiculous stuff you don’t go oh…OH! You write it off and just say okay, now let’s see what the Scripture says, and the Scripture says this, this, this, and this. And so you contrast these two and out of this contrast these two and out of this contrast you’re going to get some very specific differences in ideas of what God is. If creation is so, then God is the infinite personal God of Scripture and you can talk a little bit about the attributes, take His sovereignty, for example; maybe you might skip to his justice or you might skip to His omniscience. But take some of the attributes, discuss those so the person understands that’s the kind of God we’re talking about; not something else, that is God. And then you distinguish this from the process god of evolution. A humanist and an evolutionist are not people who are going to deny God exists; after all, didn’t the people at Lystra believe in at least two gods; Jupiter and Mercury? The unbeliever has lots of room for God; in fact, all the gods you want he has room for in his system, that is, except one God, the Biblical God. He can’t fit the Biblical God into his system because the Biblical God demands that all systems fit into Him.

Now the unbeliever’s position would be like building a house with a lot of rooms in the house. The unbeliever has no objection to having God and man room together in the house; in fact, the unbeliever has no objection whatever of making God’s room a little bit bigger than man’s room; of having God, in fact, immensely bigger than man’s room. God may have the living room in the house and man might be the mouse in the hole in the wall but the point still is the same, both God and man together are inside the universe. That’s the unbeliever’s picture of God; both God and man together are inside the system of what we call reality. Or as the Scripture insists, God is outside the house, God built the house and only man lives in the house, God doesn’t live on a roommate basis with man in a building which neither built. God built the house. And that’s the point you want to get across in distinguishing God from God; God over/under creation versus (we’ll put His name in quotes), “God of evolution.”

And then you might discuss the issue of man and how man is going to differ from one to the other. Man is going to be different in creation because man has imagehood; man has something different about him than animals do and at least we can say that man has a conscience and animals don’t. Man operates in a moral structure and animals don’t. On an evolutionary basis there is no reason why animals are hunted and men are murdered; why not shoot any of them, there’s really no difference if you get down to it. Let’s conceive of evolution, gradual, this nice picture that you get in Time/Life books and the upsurge and up he comes, and of course he’s stooped here and then he straightens out and there’s man. Now the question that we have a right to ask our evolutionist friends is at what point, when I shoot one of these things does it become murder? Where on the scale. And if it’s there, why do you place the boundary between animal and man here and not over here, what criteria are you using? If I discover this halfway creature in the Rockies and he’s, say stealing animals, can I shoot him without murdering him, or can I shoot him as an animal and just call it hunting? That kind of a distinction evolutionists have great difficulty in making.

So then we want to deal with nature and our doctrine of nature is going to be different depending on our idea or creation or evolution. If a person is thinking in proper Biblical terms, then nature becomes something that magnifies God. It becomes something that we ought to study because in studying nature we know more about the nature-maker, God Himself. But, if evolution is correct then everything has come out of the great void of nature, including man’s brain himself, and as Darwin said, I don’t know if I can really trust the intellectual product of a brain that has come out of a monkey. Darwin was troubled with this, that’s not a facetious statement. Darwin recognized a great problem, that if nature is the source of all things, we’ve got very great problems.

Those are some of the things that would be stressed. Paul, in verse 15 stressed these things; it’s true that in this particular verse he doesn’t mention them all but that’s because Luke summaries Paul’s speeches. These are not verbatim speeches and that’s why at the end of verse 15 you red that “you should turn from these vanities,” that’s the “gods” with quotes, “the vanities,” the gods who really aren’t there, “to the living God,” the God who operates in history, “who made haven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein.” Now all men are religious and all men follow a god of their own sorts; it’s either a vain god or the living God. Choose! You’ll notice the word in verse 15, “turn,” there’s choice. The choice in verse 15 is not the choice to accept Christ. The choice in verse 15 is the choice over the issue of who is God; that’s the first basic question. Paul is not ready to preach the gospel of Christ to these people, they haven’t got enough background, they don’t have a foundation.

So then he comes to the next thing, the fall, the introduction of evil. Verse 16, and in this point you have to emphasize to a person how do you think evil got started. Can you, you would ask the person, can you visualize a time in which it would be possible that there be no evil whatsoever and that there be no physical death whatsoever? Do you think that’s biologically possible? Do you think that’s physically possible? Do you really believe that, because that’s what the Scriptures teach, that there’s a present world system existed physically before the introduction of evil. And therefore evil is an abnormality introduced into the system, it is not a necessary part of the system. Evil is not like oxygen, that you just need it to exist. On the other hand, if a person is an evolutionist, he has no fall, evil is eternal, because after all, survival of the fittest, the very process that was used to bring things existence itself was evil. And so the evolutionist has a problem of how does he explain the origin of evil and how does he keep God good when “God”, in his system with quotes, used evil to create. That’s the fallacy morally speaking of evolution, evil is being used to create. And Jesus says, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” That doesn’t logically follow from evolution; evolution says blessed are the fittest for they shall inherit the earth; you’ve got two different ethical systems, take your pick but you can’t sit on the fence.

And then Paul skipped over the flood, we could introduce the flood if we wanted to in our discussions by simply showing that God physically intervenes in history to judge people. God damns people in history, would be another way of saying it. But Paul doesn’t mention that, he skips over to the fourth event in the framework, the covenant, and the issue of the covenant is simply this, in terms of the modern man sitting there, man who you’re trying to lead to Christ, and that is he’s got to understand that physical laws of the universe are underneath God’s Word. God’s Word stands over, it’s greater, than natural law. The promise that God gave Noah is a promise that involved meteorological variables, it involved gravitational variables, it involved the configuration of the solar system and therefore must involve logically the configuration of systems outside of the solar system in the universe, otherwise God cannot guarantee the planet earth not to have a global catastrophe.

So that one simple promise of Genesis implies total dominion over all laws of nature, not by a machine, not by some super gravitational electromagnetic law, but rather by the promised spoken word of God; that is what holds nature together and that is what reigns over nature. And the person without this concept, if the person does not have this worldview, preaching Jesus is hopeless. Now maybe this will connect with some because maybe this will explain to you why, on occasion after occasion, we have watched evangelism and have just been astounded at the failure of getting any kind of a long range result out of the system. The [can’t understand word] is that the men who “came to Christ,” (quote, end quote) were never prepared; they were people without a foundation who had no idea of what God is, no idea of what sin is, no idea of what God’s Word is. And if the don’t have ideas of this, what are we talking about Saviors and saving from sin and judgment and all the rest, it’s just garbage words; it doesn’t mean a thing.

So the response to the second kind of situation…, the response to persecution, stay in there and slug out as long as you can. The response to absorption is freeze in all your progress of teaching the gospel, back up and start with 2 + 2 is 4 and work from there.

Now we come to Acts 14:19, Paul’s follow-up. “And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.” The Jewish people, the unbelieving part of the Jewish people objected, again, because of legalism. Legalism always worked to diminish the intensity of God’s moral demands that are infinite and contracts them down to bite-size manageable portions that a person can follow without relying whatsoever on God’s grace. It’s a way of getting away from using the faith technique in life, it’s a way of avoiding all contact with God’s grace. If I can diminish the intensity of God’s high lofty moral demands in my heart, and reduce it simply to a set of do’s and don’ts, a set of taboos, a set of things that I overtly do or not do, that are easy to avoid, then I’ve lucked out, I’ve managed to design the Christian way of life so I don’t have to rely any more on God’s grace. So this system always results in severing the umbilical cord of grace. And when this goes into action then you have a subtle form, in this case, of racism. Always you have human viewpoint and the human viewpoint here manifested itself in not anti-Semitism but in an anti-Goiim, anti-Gentile attitude. This was a subtle racism and like all racism it believed in selective depravity, not total depravity where every man is a sinner but partial depravity where only members of those outside of my race are depraved; everyone in my race is saved because they’re racially united.

Well, the Jewish people had this set of racism and it was that that they used against Paul. But the whole thing about verse 19 and something that’s a warning to us and will provide, I hope, some wisdom for some of us in various situations in life, is the verb, he “persuaded the people.” Now at first glance that doesn’t say too much, until you remember what was said back in verse 13. Back in verse 13 it was said that Paul had persuaded the people at Lystra; now we turn the page and we come down to verse 19 and it says the Jews persuaded the people at Lystra. So how do you explain this; we don’t know how long it took, a day or two, Paul convinces the people to go that way; the people convince the people to go this way. Fickleness, mob psychology, instability. Why do you have this pliability on the part of the mob; why is it one day oh, yeah, go Paul, and the next day, kill the character? Why this tremendous fickleness. We see it today. Why is it, for example, a few years back in the state of California did you find people who had followed very zealously Bobby Kennedy and after he was assassinated followed very zealously George Wallace; one doesn’t have to be a political expert to know there are a few shades of political difference between Bobby Kennedy and George Wallace. But nevertheless, you find the same crowd gung-ho for one, then the other. Well, obviously you have a highly fickle group of people who apparently have no inner standard.

Now the Bible explains this; let’s turn to Daniel 7 and we deal here with one of the great illustrations from general revelation, throughout the Bible, just as a lamb becomes a symbol in creation of great doctrine, so the wind and the sea are used time and time again for precisely the same constant doctrine. Daniel 7:2-3; as we said when we went through Daniel, Daniel is not primarily a book on prophecy, it is primarily a book on politics. Prophecy is there, of course, but that’s not the reason Daniel was written. Daniel was not written for prophetic charts, though it gives us information for prophetic charts. Daniel was written to be a political handbook; Daniel was written to guard people in making decisions in their citizenship. In verses 2-3, this vision, through the Holy Spirit, gives us insight into the body politics, or we would say just sociological insight. “Daniel spoke and said, I saw in my vision b night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. [3] And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another.”

The sea; what is “the sea?” The sea in Scripture consistently, in apocalyptic literature at least, is always the symbol of unregenerate humanity. Now why is the sea the sea the symbol of unregenerate humanity, constantly, over and over again? The reason is because water is a fluid, it’s a common everyday fluid. A fluid is, therefore by definition, has no solid boundaries, a fluid that takes on its own form from its environment. This is why when Jacob blesses his son and he comes to Levi, Levi you are as unstable as water, I think it’s Reuben, you are as unstable as water. Now why is water unstable? It’s not necessarily chemically unstable, there’re not being scientific about it, they’re just saying phenomenologically we know that water carries the form of its container. Water has no inherent solidarity. That’s what they mean when they say water is unstable. And the great ocean is just thousands and thousands of volumes of water put together. And therefore, that much more unstable. And so the sea, the greatest of all bodies of water, is pictured as a symbol of men without the Word of God; not necessarily the unbeliever boundary but simply men without Scripture, men without inner stability, men who have no standards. That’s why they become the sea. But it says in verse 2 that “the four winds of heaven strove upon the sea,” and the wind in Scripture again and again is a picture of the spiritual forces, either the Holy Spirit or Satan’s spirit. So the wind, like Jesus said in John 3, listen, Nicodemus, to the wind, you hear it and you see the results of it but you never can see it. So are those who are born of the Spirit. And so here in verse 2, Daniel sees the four winds of the heaven; notice these are the winds of evil, these are the winds that God, under God’s sovereignty, uses to stir up the sea; He uses to stir up society, and when society is stirred up and provoked by these evil forces that sociology say don’t even exist, when society is stirred up by these forces, what emerges from society? The monster. And that’s the great kingdoms of the earth, which ultimately culminate in the kingdom of the antichrist. Political structures are derived from the interaction of spiritual forces upon society without the Word of God. The monsters come up out of the sea.

But there’s something else to notice about verse 2 and that is that the spiritual forces that operate, pictured here as the wind, are pictured not blowing in one direction, but first blowing from the north, then from the south, then from the east, then from the west. In other words, there is no coherent spiritual direction that leads to the generation of these monsters; it is just chaos, a push in this direction, a push in that direction, a push from another direction, just a chaotic impact of spiritual forces upon society, pulled first in one direction, then in another direction and out of that comes these vicious monsters of Daniel.

Now that picture of Daniel 7 explains people, it explains mobs, it explains countries; it explains why some countries go crazy at times; why certain nations at times have done… they’ve had education, they’ve had all that’s going to them, they had industrial revolution, they’ve gone into the… as Rothschild and the other economists say, they’ve gone into the advanced economic stage [cant understand words], they’ve become an industrial state and yet still they lack this solidarity and this stability. Why did they do such crazy things? Daniel tells us why, because you don’t understand, says Daniel, I am a prime minister of a great country, I am one, Daniel would tell us, who has listened to the Spirit of God and He has taught me about [sounds like: law; may be love] He has taught me about the people that make up countries and He has taught me that there are monsters generators…monster generators. All it takes is a little wind and look what is bred from the sea.

Now this imagery is preserved in many, many places of Scripture; we want to see one more place before we come back to Acts and that’s over in the New Testament, the book of Ephesians. And when we look at this passage in Ephesians we’ll understand what Paul’s going to do at Lystra, at Derbe, at Iconium, at Antioch. Paul is going to follow up in a certain way these people, and he’s going to do it utilizing his knowledge. These people at Lystra are fickle, they are the sea, one day they can be persuaded by me; and the next day they’re persuaded by another wind blowing in another direction.

In Ephesians 4:11 we have the classic passage on the body of Christ, the structure of the Church, some of the spiritual offices that God has given to the church, “apostles; prophets; evangelists; pastors and teachers.” Why? Well, for various reasons but in verse 14 is given the final reason, “That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine,” again the picture of Daniel 7:2-3, in other words, God takes the monster-making capabilities out of our soul. Give us stability on the basis of the Word, that when the spiritual winds blow you be not only blown to and fro, but we not only cause these monsters to develop out of the ocean and the sea. What is it that makes the difference? What is it that stops and takes the monster-ness out of human souls? The Word of God! Doctrine! Verse 15, “Speaking the truth in love,” he’s talking about the ministry of teaching, and apart from the Bible doctrine there is no answer to the monster generating capacity of society. Doctrine! And notice verse 14 is addressed not to the unbeliever but to believers; it’s possible for believers who have just had an initial acquaintance with Christ, but who have had no follow-up, who have no Bible teaching, who have none of the divine viewpoint framework in their souls, it is possible for them to be tossed to and fro, just like the sea, to and fro. So Paul says and warns us that that sea-like character, the instability of water, is an instability that can be true both of the regenerate and the unregenerate.

So now we understand a little more and we turn back to Acts 14 and look at it now through the more mature eyes of people who understand the forces at work, and you can immediately diagnose the situation in verse 19, the fickleness of the mob. Oh, I know what you mean Paul; Paul knew this. These people are like the sea, blown to and fro and what they need is the stability of the Word of God. So this is why what happens happened.

Acts 14:10, “However, as the disciples stood around him, he rose up, up and he came into the city; and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe,” that’s the next city down the road. Remember here is the sea coast, Paul went inland first to Antioch, he went up here to Iconium, he went to Lystra, and now he goes to a place called Derbe. All these cities are Roman colonies; they all had Roman garrisons, they were stable areas, they were areas which sociologically the Romans had picked out to control the region. If the Roman soldiers controlled these cities the Roman soldiers in effect controlled the countryside. So Paul said huh, I differ with the Romans on my theology, but since the Romans too are made in God’s image and they live by common grace in God’s world, they’re capable of discerning some truths of the creation and because they are, I recognize that the Roman engineers that planned the roads, and the Roman governors who planned the colonies, and the ones who designed all these features, they understood what they’re doing, and because they understood what they are doing now I will follow them. In other words, my missionary strategy is not based upon some pious vision. My missionary strategy is based solidly on the work of the Roman engineers; they reflect and confirm that their choices were right.

So he goes to Derbe. Verse 20, “And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch,” they came back along that chain of cities, visiting one colony after another, following up the results of the evangelism of the first missionary journey. And what did they do as they followed up the results? Three things; things listed in verse 22, “Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.” Three things. Let’s examine those three things; three things to get rid of the monster-generating capacity from the fickle people who lived in this part of the countryside.

“Confirming the souls of the disciples,” that’s teaching them doctrine as in Ephesians 4, strengthening their lives, not by reciting spiritual experiences but by going over and over and over and over doctrinal principles out of the Old Testament. Remember, they didn’t have the New Testament, no New Testament; all follow-up came from Old Testament. And would that we had follow-up based on the Old Testament today instead of the New Testament. If we did you’d see a big, big difference in how people grow because they’d have a majestic God, not all little Jesus begging outside of their keyhole. The God of the Old Testament is majestic, He’s the Creator, He’s a sovereign Lord of history. So this is why it’s wise to follow up with the Old Testament. It takes longer, yes, but stop being lazy. The Old Testament, plus what we’ll call New Testament but it’s in an oral tradition, an oral tradition being passed to them by the apostles, no New Testament has been written yet. There’s no New Testament epistles, the epistle to Galatians didn’t come until later. So we have here the confirming done by teaching, teaching the Scriptures plus extra-Jesus tradition passed on through the apostles. These people can learn, they’ve been introduced to the framework; people here who he’s confronting are people who already know the basics, people who’ve had the creation, fall, flood and covenant, and they’ve responded to Christ correctly. So that’s the first thing he does; he teaches the Word, and teaches it some more, and some more, until he teaches them hundreds of hours of doctrine. That’s where they got their stability.

The second thing he does… well, one of the second things he doesn’t do is what we usually do. How often have you seen it written and heard it said that after you lead someone to Christ you ought to be sure and give them assurance of salvation. Now where in the book of Acts do you find the apostles giving assurance of salvation. I can’t find any place. Do you know why they didn’t? Because if a person doesn’t have assurance of salvation they probably aren’t saved. The assurance of salvation is not given by men, it’s given by the Holy Spirit and therefore you don’t find the apostles giving assurance of salvation. Instead, they give this second thing; they exhort them “to continue in the faith.” They exhort them to persevere; that’s the apostolic technique. So after teaching them the Word they teach them the truth of perseverance; they say well now you people have responded, apparently to the gospel, we exhort you people therefore to continue in the faith because if you don’t, it shows that you probably never were saved in the first place. In other words, it’s an exhortation to get real, to show the stuff you’re made of and if you’re one of these fickle types that’s up today and down tomorrow and you can’t stand, say the apostolic authority or you can’t stand something else, then you’ll flake out but that’s what you are, a flake-out, but if you are a real regenerate individual you’ll stick it out. And that’s the challenge the apostles give, no patting on the back, no backslapping, just a blunt man to man confrontation. Here is a doctrine, if you believe it you’ll persevere; if you don’t, forget it.

The third thing, after giving the exhortation to persevere, then they said, and Luke strangely alters the text here, the first two things are participles, “confirming/exhorting.” But the fourth thing is a direct quote, and for those in the King James at least, if you put quotation marks before the “we” and you end your quote after “kingdom of God,” you’ve got a complete quotation, [“we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God,”]. Now why did Luke change his style in this third point? It’s not to hard to understand. When someone repeats a phrase over and over and over and over again, as Paul must have this one, then it becomes a stop phrase, and a stop phrase can then stand for a particular truth. For example, in the campaign against Wendell Wilkes in the 1940s, FDR used to go from road stop to road stop and always conclude his political address, [can’t understand word] leaders in Congress, and he’d talk about Martin, Barton and Fish. And from road stop to road stop he’d always conclude his speech with Martin, Barton and Fish. And so it got to be after a dozen or so times that he was doing this that people would start joining in at that time, they’ just timed it because they knew exactly when his political speech would with, Martin, Barton and Fish, and everybody would join in, Martin, Barton and Fish, and it became a refrain in that presidential campaign, a stock phrase, that was repeated and repeated and repeated. Well, this apparently is one of those things; this is a stock phrase, that apparently Paul repeated and repeated and repeated, and Luke, instead of describing it, like he did the first two items in the verse, does not describe this, he just quotes the stock phrase, and the stock phrase is, “we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God,” and over and over again the apostle would do this, “we must, through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God; we must, through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God,” over and over and over so by the time Luke writes this he says you know people, “Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and ‘we must, through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.’” Just like Martin, Barton and Fish.

Now what does this mean, this phrase that was repeated so often, and since it is in a quotation we know that these are the literal words of Paul, this was a very much repeated phrase. And what does this phrase mean? Well, a few things it means and very important things it means. The first thing it means is that it is addressed to believers who have not entered the kingdom of God, a very important observation because covenantal theologians want to say that the Church is the kingdom of God; they want to say that the Church in fact is to be identified with the kingdom of God. When this equation is made horrible things result; I’m not talking about some seminary problem, I’m talking about real life history. Whenever that equation has been accepted by men there has been some very bad suffering situations. During the Middle Ages the Church was said to be the kingdom and the Church reigned on earth; think of Charlemagne and think of the great rulers of Europe, the Pope dictated to the state because the Church was the … [tape turns]

of history, not individual trials, not individual salvation, this is talking about history itself, “for we must go through the tribulation to enter the kingdom of God,” says Paul. Oh but you say, wait a minute, I saw something about a pre-trib rapture, I thought the Church Age was supposed to terminate and the Church was to be moved out from history by this time and that we were not supposed to go through the tribulation into the kingdom. Indeed, we are. Well then, how do you reconcile that teaching with verse 22 where it says we must go through the tribulation to enter the kingdom of God? It’s very simple? What have we said Acts is, over and over and over again we have said that Acts is a book of transition; we have said that Acts starts out with a kingdom proclaimed and reoffered and that the existence of the Church does not become obvious until very very late in the book of Acts. So all during this time in the book of Acts the kingdom is being preached, the kingdom is being preached, the kingdom is being preached.

And there is what we will call a theoretical picture that looks like this: here’s the cross of Christ, here’s the resurrection; here’s the ascension into heaven, here’s the kingdom, here’s the tribulation before the kingdom. The Church Age is not known to exist at this point in the book of Acts, still, because theoretically Israel still could receive their Messiah, theoretically. But she has forty years to do that; from 30 AD to 70 AD when Titus and his armies crush Jerusalem; forty years of testing like forty years in the wilderness. For forty years Israel stands by and for forty years God responds to His Son’s prayer, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” That’s not talking about forgiveness of sin; that’s talking about forgiveness of one sin, it’s the sin of rejection officially of Christ. And when Christ prayed from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” He gained forty extra years for that nation. Forty years of grace to decide once again whether they would accept Messiah or not and if they did accept Messiah, then immediately the believers that existed would go into the tribulation and into the kingdom. Paul at this point was not sure himself, for all he knew verse 19 and the stoning in that city, for all he knew that could have been the foreshock of the tribulation; that could have been the beginning of the tribulation for him. But it wasn’t, and as time goes on and it became obvious, the nation went on negative volition , it’s as though the Holy Spirit comes to Paul, as He does in Ephesians, and says Paul, I want to let you in on a little mystery, you know that Pentecost thing back there that happened, let me tell you what happened on that day of Pentecost; you didn’t notice this but here’s what I did: I founded a new thing, called the soma Christo, the body of Christ. And therefore Paul, now there’s a new entity in history. I didn’t let you know that until it became obvious that Israel would reject and now we know there’s a Church Age that begun on the day of Pentecost, will terminate some time before the rapture. That’s the Church Age but it is not revealed in the New Testament until later, after Israel had a choice.

So those are three things that Paul did to remover the monster generating capacity from the fickle mob. He gave them doctrine, and then he told those believers if you’re really with it you’ll continue in it; I’m not going to beat you over the head, I’m not going to arm twist you, I’m not going to have you sign forty different pledges, I am just going to lay it on the line and you can respond or you can reject, the choice is yours.

And the third thing is that Paul warned them that the tribulation could begin imminently, that suffering could begin. Now that third principle doesn’t technically apply to us today sine the revelation of the Church in Ephesians, but it applies in principle still because every person who stands up for Christ can expect persecution. Let’s see how Paul carries this out. We’re going to look at some verses where Paul describes his “near death” in verse 19. First look again at Acts 4:19, get in your minds the incident. [“…certain Jews… having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.”]

Now go to 1 Corinthians 11:25, we’re going to look at Paul describing that thing and watch how he describes it and how he applies it to Christian living. He says, “Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned,” there it is, “once I was stoned,” that’s Acts 14, “once I was stoned, three times I have suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep. [26] In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, and perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, and perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, and perils among false brethren, [27] In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. [28] Beside those things that are without, that which comes upon me daily, the care of all the churches. [29] Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended, and I never am? [30] If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern mine infirmities. [31] The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forevermore, knows that I lie not.” And he describes all of this. The point is that it made Paul a grace oriented man and that was the ministry of the sufferings to him personally.

Let’s look at a few other texts; turn to Galatians, the epistle written to this very area, Galatians 6:17, the closing of that epistle, Paul has a very cryptic statement to make, a statement that apparently amplifies Acts 14. “Henceforth let no man trouble me; for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Apparently those are the scars that were left from his stoning at Lystra, and he says, verse 14 in this context, “But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ,” in other words, again it made him a grace oriented, focusing completely upon Christ and His assets.

Turn to 2 Timothy 3:10, here’s he’s talking to one of his troubleshooters; he advises Timothy about certain things. He says, “Thou hast fully know my doctrine,” or “my teaching, my manner of life, my purpose, my faith, my long-suffering, charity, patience, [11] Persecution, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch,” notice the cities, “Iconium, at Lystra, which persecutions I endured; but out of them all the Lord delivered me. [12] Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.” Do you notice that? See, in principle even though the great tribulation may not begin in our day, and we may be raptured before it, the principle is the same. And the principle is that those who stand for Christ will suffer. That is to be expected and that’s the point Paul made in his follow-up back in Acts 14:22. He made it clear to his converts to expect adversity, to expect persecution.

Now he concludes with taking certain concrete action; obviously he isn’t going to be there to confirm the disciples and teach the Word so now in verse 23 he conducts the system ordained in the New Testament for follow-up, which is not some para church organization, he ordains the local church as the follow up tool; not little groups that meet outside of the Church but the Church itself is a follow-up tool.

Acts 14:23, “And when they had ordained them elders in every church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed. [24] And after they had passed throughout Pisidia, they came to Pamphylia,” and so on. [25, “And when they had preached the word in Perga, they went down into Attalia: [26] And thence sailed to Antioch, from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God for the work which they fulfilled.”]

Who are these elders? How did they appoint elders? We have one more passage to look at and that’s Titus 1. In the book of Titus we have the instructions on picking out elders. How did Paul recognize an elder? A man had red hair, blond hair, a little mark on his left temple, how did Paul recognize an elder? He recognized by a series of qualifications. We’ll study some of those qualifications briefly and prove to you that again Paul must have taught the Word of God long enough for men to begin functioning with the divine viewpoint framework.

Titus 1:5, “For this cause I left you in Crete,” Titus is one of the two troubleshooters in the early church, Timothy was one, Titus was the other. Timothy was kind of a weaker individual in his personality, great theologian but just wasn’t very aggressive. Titus wasn’t too sharp in his theology but he was very aggressive; he was a tough person and he was sent to Crete because Cretans were some of the greatest idiots in the ancient world; they were the kind of people that don’t respond to a plea, or a thank you; a Cretin only responded by somebody grabbing him by the collar and throwing him up against the wall. That was the language they understood, it communicated fine, so this was the kind of thing that Titus liked to do, throw people up against walls, so therefore Paul picked Titus out to troubleshoot the Church.

So he says in verse 5, “I left you in Crete that you should set in order the things that are wanting,” now that’s a sweet little translation. “Set in order” is used from Hippocrates writing’s when you have broken bone and the verb means to set a broken bone and it means there’s pain in making it straight. It literally means straighten out people that are all screwed up, that’s what he’s saying to Titus. “I left you in Crete that you should straighten them out, and ordain elders in every city as I told you to do. [6] If any be blameless,” and now he lists the qualifications of these men. “If any be blameless,” that means good report in the general community, that’s not perfectionism, “if any be of good report in the community, the husband of one wife,” that means not a polygamist in that day, “having faithful children, not accused of riot, or unruly,” that means children that obey, not children that are in total disobedience. Now it’s interesting, if you look seriously at verse 6 you’ll see there’s a sequence to those qualifications. The sequence is none other than our very familiar sequence that we’ve had here so often: divine institution one, divine institution two, divine institution three, listed in precisely that order. Notice again, “blameless,” there’s the reputation of the community, the man is personally a responsible being; second, he is “the husband of one wife,” strong marriage, and third, he has faithful children, “not accused of riot,” they’re obedient. It doesn’t necessarily mean they are believers; that sometimes is used in Christian organizations.

Are all your children believers? This is a question asked in ordination. And one boy in one of our ordinations said hell no, they’re not and it about shocked the people who were in the ordination council, and he furthermore told them it was none of their business, which I applauded because they had no business asking that question. How was he supposed to tell whether his children are Christian, and furthermore, what is he supposed to do, twist their volition to make them Christians if they’re not. This text does not refer to someone believing. This refers, if you trace the word, you can do it in a Greek concordance, it doesn’t take that much intellect, all you have to do is look at the word “faithless” as to how Paul uses it and it means obedience, it is used as a synonym here, and he’s talking about a well-run home, that’s the issue. So it’s interesting that in order to pick and elder Paul had to have taught the men enough doctrine and the men had to have enough time, and this takes a long time, to get started functioning in these divine institutions. So it gives you an idea of the kind of follow-up that was done, just tremendously efficient and effective follow-up.

Titus 1:7 describes some other characteristics, “not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine,” by the way, that’s not abstinence, “not given to wine” means don’t get out on the town, “not given to filthy lucre,” that means not having eight offerings every service, [8]“but a lover of hospitality, a lover of good things,” not good men, good things, it’s talking about cultural things as Philippians 4, [can’t understand word] that means he makes plans and carries them through, “just, holy, temperate,” and now notice in verse 9 the last qualification, the most important one, and this shows you why the elders were desperately needed at Lystra, “holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, in order that he might be able by sound doctrine to exhort and to convince the gainsayers, [10] For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision.” The same legalistic group Paul met in Lystra, [11] “Whose mouths must be shut,” now isn’t that a nice apostolic phase? Titus, I left you there on Crete to get some men who had guts and men who knew the Word of God so they could go around and shut the mouths of the people that were causing trouble, and do you know how they did it? With doctrine. “…who subvert whole houses,” they’d go in and visit, in the meetings of the church they’d go in and visit and they’d do it with a big hairy offering, that’s what filthy lucre is all about, every time they’d go, they’d start in and they’d rake off the offering, it wouldn’t filter through any kind of a board, they wouldn’t filter through any kind of Christian organization, they’d just walk off with the offering, and they preyed upon small groups of believers this way.

So turn back to Acts 4:14 and see how this went on. See now why he had elders? He started with a mob of people, the “sea,” and he’s going cut them down and make them stable and he does so by the local church. Finally in Acts 14:27-28, they come back with their missionary report to Antioch. “And when they were come, and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how He had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles. [28] And there they abode long time with the disciples.” A complete total missionary report, focusing on one point, a point which we’ll develop in Acts 15 later, a point that plagued the early Christians, a point that they argued about and had one of the first disagreements officially in the history of the Christian church, apart from the earlier one in Acts 6 and that is, what about this open door to the Gentiles? What does that mean? In Acts 15 we’ll discuss the Church Council that was convened to deal with the problem of the open door.

But this chapter has shown us, Paul’s first missionary journey as well as chapter 13, has shown us the enduring Paul, who endured the stonings and the beatings, who endured the hazard of Gentiles who misunderstood, in order that we might believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. We would not be here this morning, believing, if Paul and Barnabas and whoever was with them in that early apostolic party, hadn’t kept at it and kept at it and kept at it and kept at it, in spite of the fact that people spit in their face, and people ridiculed them, and people harassed them, and physically assaulted them, they kept at it, kept at it, kept at it, kept at it with the Word of God. What kept them going? The tremendous confidence and faith in the Word of God.

Shall we stand and sing….