God has commissioned believers to spread the gospel to all nations, a task empowered by the Holy Spirit. Drawing from Acts 1:6-11 and 1 Corinthians 1:22, it contrasts the disciples' initial focus on restoring Israel's kingdom with Jesus' command to be witnesses to the ends of the earth. The message emphasizes that the gospel's power lies not in human wisdom or signs, but in the crucified and resurrected Christ, as exemplified in Paul's preaching to the Jews, which centered on Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in Jesus. The core lesson is that rebellion, not confusion, is the primary obstacle to faith, and salvation comes through God's grace, not human effort, leading to forgiveness and justification through Christ.
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I invite you to turn to the first chapter of the Apostles this morning. Acts chapter one, we begin our reading at verse six. And then we want to read a few verses from first Corinthians chapter one. Acts chapter one, verse six says, When they therefore were come together, they asked of him saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put in his own power. But ye shall receive power. After that the Holy Spirit has come upon you.
And ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And when he had spoken these things while they beheld he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come. In like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven, and they returned unto Jerusalem from the Mount called Olivet, which is from Jerusalem a Sabbath, day's journey now from first corinthians chapter one we begin our reading at verse twenty two where we read for the jews require a sign and the greeks seek after wisdom but we preach christ crucified unto the jews of stumbling block and unto the greek's foolishness but unto them which are called Both
Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Now may the Lord bless the reading of his word. Let us pray together. Our Father, we thank you again for the exceeding riches of your grace, for your kindness toward us to Christ Jesus. We thank you that you have implanted within us new life. We acknowledge a new king. We are a colony of heaven on earth. And we pray, O God, as we study together this morning, that thy word will be real and rich in our lives, that we may glorify thee, our Father who is in heaven, for Jesus' sake.
Amen. When God, by his grace, saves a sinner, that person has a deep desire within his own soul, within his being, to tell someone else, about Christ and to win that person to Christ. This desire that we have is a result of the Holy Spirit's residence in our bodies. The Book of the Acts is a record. It is a historical record of the early disciples going forth with the gospel to various alien cultures, to ethnic groups, and proclaiming Christ to them.
The amazing thing about the gospel is that it fits every ethnic group, no matter where you find them. It works in South America. It works in Siberia. It works in Alaska. It works in the South Sea Islands of the Pacific. No matter where you go, the gospel works. God has commissioned us to carry the gospel unto others. Now the promise of Jesus to be with his disciples in Acts one must have shocked them.
For the first verse that we read was when they were gathered together they said to the Lord, Lord look out this time restore the kingdom to Israel. All they had minds of glory that before the cross the one was arguing with the other which one was going to sit on the right hand and which one was going to sit on the left hand in the kingdom they had great thoughts about glory for themselves look at this time we saw the kingdom to Israel they were Israelites and they had thoughts for themselves our Lord said to them no it's not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has placed in his own power.
But this is what I want you to do. I want you to be a witness for me at Jerusalem. I want you to be a witness for me in Samaria. Boy, that must have been hard. You remember John chapter four, the woman of Samaria that our Lord spoke with at Jacob's well. She said, the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. I want you to go to Samaria. And I want you to go to the uttermost part of the earth. I'm going to save Gentiles. I want you to go to the uttermost part of the earth. But I'm going to be with you for the Holy Spirit is going to come.
I want you to wait in Jerusalem until you receive the power to go. And then I want you to go. I want you to proclaim my kingdom. You see, there's a new kingdom. because there is a new king. And the new king is our Lord Jesus Christ. And these disciples, the apostles, were to be witnesses for this new kingdom, of this new kingdom, and for this new king. Now in this kingdom, the first are last, and the last are first. Will thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?
No, there's something more important. I want the world to know about this new kingdom into which I have brought you. And there's power in this kingdom. In this kingdom of mine, power is not known by human greatness. Power is known by weakness. For it's through weakness that I declare my strength unto you. Now therefore, friends, since we are commissioned by the Lord to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth, How is it going to be accomplished? It certainly cannot be accomplished by our energies.
It has to be done through human beings who yield their lives to the Spirit of God to carry the gospel to others. When our Lord says in this passage, ye shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, in Samaria, that's just a bit to the north, And unto the uttermost part of the earth, we turn to the last book of the Bible, and we find that there's an innumerable company around the throne of God, singing His praises, magnifying His greatness, and out of every tongue and kindred and tribe and nation of the world. They are there in the kingdom.
to enjoy the eternity of God with a great redeemer of his people, our Lord Jesus Christ. How is this going to be accomplished? Well, I was intrigued this week as I read and thought about the sermons of the Book of Acts. The sermons in the Book of Acts center in the two categories. They fall into two categories. The central theme is our Lord Jesus Christ. But when the apostle went to the Gentiles, his message was different than it was when he went to the Jews.
When our Lord went to the Jewish people through his apostles, they centered upon the Old Testament scriptures and they reasoned, they argued, that these promises made to Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, the promises of the prophets, the promises that God made to Jacob, I mean to David, are fulfilled in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. He appealed to the Old Testament scriptures. And friends, you and I who are blessed today with a gospel, Paul says to us, as he does to the Corinthian church, I declare unto you the gospel.
How thy Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, the Old Testament Scriptures. But when the Apostle went to the Gentiles, and we have two great sermons to the Gentiles, one is incomplete, the other is far more complete. The one is in Acts XIV, the other is in Acts chapter twenty, or excuse me, Acts chapter seventeen, chapters fourteen and chapter seventeen. To the Gentiles, the argument is different. For their pagans, they know nothing of the promises God made to Israel. They know nothing of the lamb slain and the blood shed and the blood applied of Exodus chapter twelve, which speaks of Christ.
How do you approach a pagan today? How is it to be done? The average person today, friends, knows nothing of the Old Testament scriptures. The average person today knows so little about the Bible. I believe you could almost write it on a posting stamp. How do we approach them? How are we going to win them? You and I are our commission to carry the gospel to the world. We are our brother's keeper. And therefore we want to examine Paul's sermon this morning in Acts chapter thirteen.
Acts chapter thirteen is a message to the nation of Israel. His sermon to the nation of Israel. Now I read a passage from first Corinthians chapter one. In first Corinthians chapter one we read, the Jews require a sign, a miracle. The Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. The Jews require a miracle. When our Lord was here in the flesh, his own people went up to him and he said, show us a sign. Give us a miracle. And what did he say to them? There shall no miracle be given to them to you, except that of the sign, the miracle of the prophet Jonah.
As Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly. So shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. What our Lord said, there's a miracle going to be given to you, and it's the only miracle. It is a miracle of Calvary. It is a miracle of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And in every message to the nation of Israel, whether it's Peter's message in Acts two, His message in Acts three, his message in Acts five. In Paul's message in Acts chapter thirteen, which is a full-length message, the emphasis is on Christ being raised from the dead according to the scriptures.
The Jews require a sign. They got it. He gave it to them. He gave them the very thing that they required and they rejected the signs. that he gave to them. And throughout the historical sketch of the Book of Acts, again and again to the nation of Israel, what we have is a message that man is not confused. Man is rebellious. Man is a rebel at heart. Man is a depraved creature. And only the miraculous work of regenerating grace will ever deliver that soul.
from the bondage of corruption notice in Acts chapter thirteen I was going to read this chapter but it's a lengthy chapter and I'm therefore not going to read it because I'm pushed for time I want you to notice first of all the audience the audience is very it's very easy to find for we notice in Acts thirteen he's in verse fourteen They came to Perga and from Perga they came to Antioch and Pasidia. That is in what we know of now as modern Turkey, Asia Minor, on the south to the south of Turkey, not too far from the Mediterranean Sea.
They sat down and on the Sabbath day. Notice they are with Jews. They're in a Jewish setting. They're in the synagogue. And after the reading of the law and the prophets, The rulers of the synagogue sent unto them saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on. And that's all that Paul needed to proclaim the gospel. In the synagogue, anyone who had spiritual gifts was encouraged to exercise that gift. Now, this was the cue. that Paul needed to know that he was in the will of God, he has the opportunity now to proclaim the message from the Word of God.
The audience was waiting for the message, and that's what every preacher desires, an audience who wants to hear the Word of God. But now notice the argument. The main section down to verse thirty-seven, In verse thirty seven he gets to the climax of his message and verses thirty eight and thirty nine are outstanding in this passage. So we have his argument. What is his argument? His argument is a review of the history of Israel down through the Old Testament. He speaks of God's activity on behalf of Israel.
What God has done for these people. What God has done for you. You see, and he begins with the God's choice of their fathers. God chose Abraham. Then he speaks of their deliverance from Egyptian bondage. He moves on and he speaks of their wilderness journey, how God put up with them for forty years in the wilderness. No matter how he blessed them, the more they complained. You talk about a perverse people. You see the perverseness of man. When you look at Israel's activity in the wilderness, then you notice, then he speaks of their entrance into the land under Joshua, when Joshua crossed the Jordan River and brought the people into the land.
Then he talks to them about the period of the judges that follows, and Samuel being the last judge. And then he seems to zero in on what he's after. He's going to proclaim the kingdom. and he zeroes in on David and the fact that God through David to David was given what we call in Isaiah chapter fifty five the sure mercies of David that's what he speaks about because the reign of Christ now over his people is the reign of David's greater son the fulfillment of first or second Samuel chapter seven and Psalm eighty nine and Psalm seventy eight and some other great passages from the Old Testament notice as he zeroes in on the person of Christ he does not speak of his miracles he does not speak of his teachings he doesn't even speak of his life on earth and he doesn't even talk about his love you see but he and he doesn't talk about moral issues He
doesn't even talk about contemporary issues. The things that people think are so important today. But he talked about death. I'll tell you that's important. He talked about life. He talked about burial and resurrection, the resurrection life of Christ. And he talked about the problem of man's sin. And he talked about the problem of man's life and man's destiny. He begins with the ministry of John the Baptist. And then in verse twenty-seven, he deals with the rejection of the Messiah by the nation.
As John in the first chapter of John says, he came unto his own, and his own received him not. But, don't forget the but, but as many as received him, The them gave He authority to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name. You see, the problem in the heart of man is not confusion. People say, oh, we don't want to confuse this person. We don't want to confuse that person. Friends are... It's not a matter of confusion. It's a matter of rebellion. It is rebellion that He's bound in the heart of man. And God must overcome...
rebellion then in verse twenty nine he speaks of Messiah's burial he shared the coming end of man he knew what it was to go down into death Christ died for our sins and was buried according to the scriptures and then he speaks of him being raised from the dead in verse thirty for he says in verse thirty but God raised him from the dead Oh, he's showing what the sure mercies of David are. In Isaiah chapter fifty-five, we have those great words. Seek ye the Lord while he may be found.
Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man he saw, and let him turn unto the Lord who will be gracious, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Oh, my friends, abundantly pardon. There is an abundant pardon because the fountain open for sin and for uncleanness at Calvary. Provides an abundant pardon because of the infinite nest of its value. You cannot measure the value of the blood of Jesus Christ. It's an abundant pardon because of the abundance of its object.
Whosoever will. Let him come and take of the water of life freely. Him that cometh to me, Jesus said, I will in no wise cast out an abundant pardon. Oh, it's an abundant pardon, friends, because of the sinfulness of our sin and the abundant cleansing provided to the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Abundantly pardon. Oh, it's an abundant pardon, friends, because we have no little Savior. and no small sacrifice. We have a great Savior. We have a great and a mighty sacrifice. He will abundantly pardon.
He will abundantly pardon because it is not based on our works. It is based upon His grace. And he will abundantly pardon because of the abundant blessings provided through the work. of Calvary's Cross. You see, our Lord is using his man to present Christ to the Old Testament covenant people of God, the nation of Israel. And he's showing the fulfillment of the Old Testament in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.
When you get to verses thirty-eight and thirty-nine, you have the appeal. He says to them there, Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man, the man who died, the man who was buried, the man who arose again from the dead, through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses. You know, every good sermon has a climax. And here in the sermon of Paul in the synagogues, he took them very briefly to Old Testament history.
And he focused that Old Testament history like a camera, focuses in on an object. And the object is a person of our Lord Jesus Christ. And he showed that through this man, the person of Christ, is preached the forgiveness of sins. And when we talk about the forgiveness of sins, The word remission comes from the Greek word which means to send away. They're sent away. The sins are removed like the scapegoat carried the sins of Israel to a land uninhabited. Through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. And more than that, a person whose sins are remitted, they're justified.
They're justified from all things. The law of Moses could never do that. And the law of Moses always focused on works. What a person does. But you see, Paul isn't focusing on what a person does to be saved. He's focusing on something that one has already done to save. Even our Lord Jesus Christ. As we sang this morning at the Lord's Supper, done is the work that's saved. Once and forever done. finish the righteousness that clothes the unrighteous one. And justification, justified from all things, speaks of being clothed with righteousness even while we are yet unrighteous.
It clothes the unrighteous one, justified from all things, declared righteous by God, justified from all things. You see, What is Paul doing? He's showing the difference between law and grace. There's fatal works that are connected with legalism. And salvation by works is nothing but legalism. Legalism is redemption by human effort. In legalism, man says, I've done so much now, God. Now you have to do the rest. But it's my part that's so important.
That's legalism. Legalism promotes a mercenary spirit. I do this, God, and you pay me back. God is not indebted to man under any circumstance. And what's the problem with legalism? Oh, it is a fatal problem. Legalism has a fondness for negatives. Thou shalt not. It's like our brother John Reesinger. mentioned when he was here, the little boy in school, she said to the man, what is your name? He said, Jimmy, well, what's your last name? Don't. Jimmy, don't. Everybody was always saying to him, don't, don't, don't. After all, thou shalt not.
A funnest for negatives. But God brings us into that positive knowledge that we are his. Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren. Oh, when the gospel goes forth, whether it goes forth to Muslims or to Muslims in Africa or the Near East, or if it goes forth to Indians in South America, be it known unto you, therefore men and brethren, or if it goes forth right here. Be it known unto you, men and brethren, that through this man, the only way, this man is preached the forgiveness of sin. And by him all that they leave are justified from all things, from which they could not be justified from the law of Moses, freed from things justified by God.
Now in this sermon there's an admonition. And I have to leave it with you. It follows. For verse forty says, Beware therefore, lest that come upon you which is spoken of in the prophets. Behold ye despisers in wonder and perish, for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you. Friends, God's working today. We may not behold it, because we may be as rebellious as Israel.
We're going to have our own way regardless. The problem with Israel was not confusion. The problem with Israel was rebellion, heart rebellion. And we know the gospel well enough we can tell it to someone else that how we yielded to it. You see, the gospel deals with a new king. A new king and a new kingdom. A kingdom in which human effort and human activity is not important. kingdom in which power is made known to weakness. A kingdom in which the last are first and the first are last.
This is a message they went forth proclaiming. This is a message that turned the world upside down. This is a message the only message that saves religious but lost. individuals God's warning is beware all we may know these days we proclaim a great Savior and a great salvation we proclaim a new kingdom and because of the new king and who is this king the word of God says the Jews require a sign no sign shall be given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonah He's being raised out of the death, out of death and into life.
And that which is being proclaimed to Israel is what? The resurrection of God's king from the dead. He who is dead is alive. He's enthroned in glory. He's our king. He is our Lord. He is our sovereign. We own him. We obey his commands. That is the message of the gospel. As we sang in the language of that last hymn, the last words we sang together, his kingdom is forever. Are you in it? Are you in it? You're either in or out.
If you're out, you can come in. For he says, him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. Will you come? You have never come. It's up to you. Will you come? You see, the problem is not confusion. It's rebellion. Tonight, we're going to look at how to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. This morning, we examined how to do it, how to preach the gospel to the Jews. We have the evidence. We know from the word of God how it was done and how he expects us to do it. Now tonight we want to look at how to preach a gospel to the Gentile.
Now let's pray together. Our Father, we thank you that we have a message for all men. We thank you for the joy of proclaiming a new kingdom, a glorious kingdom, and a new king. And we ask you, O God, that thou wilt work in us and through us that desire to tell others about Christ. We pray for our vacation Bible school this week. We pray for each boy and girl that's going to come. We ask you to give us boys and girls from this neighborhood.
We ask you, our Father, to enable us to reach our Jerusalem, our Judea, our Samaria, and give us a vision of the uttermost parts of the earth. We know that you're going to save men. Will you use us? will you enable us to tell them of the good news of a risen Savior. Now our Father upon thine own that have truly believed in thee, may thy grace, thy mercy, and thy peace abide, with a new sense of the obligation to proclaim the gospel to the world.
And all, if there are any here this morning who have not been born of thee, who have not yielded to thine entreaties of mercy. Give them no rest nor peace until they rest in thee. And we'll thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.