Tatham, Ernest: A NT Church-Closeup ~ Acts 13

I hope lives it. Thirteenth chapter of the book of the Acts. Now there were in the church which was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers, as Barnabas and Simeon, who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, who had been brought up with Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul, as they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work unto which I have called them. When they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So they, being sent forth by the Holy Spirit, departed. Now, I know that leaves it hanging in the air, but you'll have to read the rest of the story in order to get the details. I have often wished that I somehow could get on a red carpet or a, a moving carpet and be whisked back from AD eighty to the year eighty four, The first century of the Christian age. And I found myself wishing that I could just somehow sneak up and look through the window in on a new Testament congregation of believers. I tried to imagine myself in that position. What would I see if I could somehow tiptoe up outside their building or house or wherever they met, and just look in on them and tune in on them and listen to what they were saying and how they were saying it, and uh, and what kind of meetings did they have? Now, I believe this morning I don't really have to do that. I don't have to have some kind of magic carpet that'll take me back. I have it right here in the New Testament. God describes something of the activities of a New Testament church. And so we've come this morning in our studies in the book of Acts to the chapter thirteen. Someone has said that the thirteenth of Acts is really the beginning of the second book of Acts. Now, wait a minute. Hold it. What does that mean? The thirteenth chapter is really the second book of Acts? There's only one book of Acts. Well, that's true, but the thirteenth chapter seems to infol- unfold in a new, what shall I say, a new dimension. May I remind you this morning of the great mandate that the risen Lord gave to his church? We've said it before, and we say it again. In Acts one and eight he said, ye shall receive power, the Holy Spirit coming upon you, and ye shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea, and in Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. Now, the first twelve chapters of the book of Acts pretty well covers the first, let me see, first, second, and third movements of that, uh, mandate. Jerusalem, that's Acts one to eight. and Samaria, that's, uh, well, that's the eighth chapter, and then, um, and then, uh, uh, the, uh, Judea and Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. We begin that really in our chapter today, chapter thirteen. where we have the Holy Spirit then breaking out from the center to the circumference with this great and glorious message of grace. Now, let me just fill you in on the background. We're looking this morning in Acts chapter thirteen of a new congregation of believers that met in the city of Antioch. They were Gentiles for the most part. How did they react? How did they behave? How did the gospel ever get up there to Antioch? You say, well, fill me in, sir, on on my geography. It's a little rusty. Let me just say this. Antioch was a city about three hundred and fifty miles north of Jerusalem. The ruins are still there. It's in Syria this morning. About three hundred and fifty miles north of the city of Jerusalem was this great city of Antioch. It was one of the third, it was the third largest city in the world at that time. Rome, number one. Alexandria in North Africa, number two. and Antioch in Syria, number three. the third largest city. What kind of a city was it? Well, it was a city that was pagan. It was a, an id- idol worshiping city full of Gentiles, and it was a city of racecourses, theaters, marble colonnades, great statues, Roman baths, fountains, marketplaces, temples, and tucked away in the midst of it all, a Jewish synagogue. Now, I've said that ethnically it was a city of Gentiles. They spoke the Greek language. They worshipped the Greek gods and goddesses. And in that city they had several celebrated shrines. They had a great shrine to the god Daphne and another one to the great god Apollo, and the worshippers would come there and, uh, leave their gifts and say their prayers and rededicate themselves to these idols that marked and corrupted Greek society at that time. Now, in the midst of that city, there was a Jewish community. Wherever there was a Gentile city, there was a Jewish enclave. They were attracted to those cities because of commercial interests. They opened businesses there, and they did business, and these Jews were called Hellenists. Hellenists. That simply means they were Jews, but they spoke the Greek language, and they had some of the Greek culture rubbed off on them, although they retained very rid- rigidly their own identity. They were Jews indeed. Now, it pleased God to plant a New Testament assembly, a New Testament church in that great, significant, influential city of Antioch. How did the gospel ever get so far from the center? The center was down in Jerusalem. That's where the Lord Jesus had died. It was in Jerusalem that the Holy Spirit came. It was in Jerusalem that the first church was formed, and now three hundred and thirty miles, three hundred and fifty miles north, another one. Yes, let me tell you the story. Do you remember the eighth of Acts? Do you remember the martyrdom of Stephen? Do you remember that following the martyrdom of Stephen, there was a hurricane of persecution that settled in and struck the church at Jerusalem with a terrific, a terrific thud. The result of that great baptism of persecution in Jerusalem was that many of the fledglings were thrown out of the nest, and they had to fly. They had to learn how to fly. And these young converts, young believers, been converted on the day of Pentecost or a few days later, they were now thrown out, and they fled for their lives. And as they went out, well, look at the eighth chapter. Look at the eighth chapter, and we put it in the words of scripture. Verse, uh, chapter eight of Acts and the fourth verse, and it says, therefore, they that were scattered abroad went everywhere, they went everywhere, uh, looking for business. No? On a vacation. No, no, no. What were they doing? They were fleeing for their lives, and as they went, they prattled the gospel. They what? They prattled the gospel. Oh, well, not quite, but they, they weren't professional preachers. They were young converts, and they were like burning bushes, as we heard in our Bible study, the men's class this morning. They were on fire for God. And these young believers, with their o- with their souls ablaze with a love for Christ, and knowing what they had, he had done in their lives, they went everywhere peddling the gospel. They went everywhere testifying the gospel. And so, as I said before, the storm that hit the Jer- Jerusalem church simply scattered the seed in all directions. The wind of persecution blew the seed in all directions, and these young converts went out thither and yon, and everywhere they went, they told the story of what Jesus Christ the Lord meant in their lives. They told the story of his cross and his forgiveness, and they reached out and told people how they could be saved. Now, take your eleventh chapter. Look with me at the eleventh chapter, and let's just follow it verse by verse. Look at chapter eleven and verse nineteen. Now, this picks up the theme that's been dropped in Acts eight and verse four. They went everywhere preaching the word. Now, pick it up at eleven and nineteen. Are you with me? Now, they who were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen traveled as far as Phenice. Do you know where that is? That was Phoenicia. You know where that is? Well, that's Lebanon, northern part of Israel, north of Israel. They went up the Mediterranean coast to Phoenicia and Cyprus. Hey, that's that island in the eastern end of the Mediterranean. They went to Cyprus, some of them, and they went to Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only. You see, in the beginning, the word was to start with the Jewish nation. After all, they were the one to whom, the ones to whom the promises were made, and the gospel was limited in its beginnings to Jews only. But when the Jews said, no, so no, we will not have it, we do not want it, then it spilled over to the Gentiles. I think that's very clear in what we s- have here in verse twenty. And some of them, some of these missionaries, that isn't the right word, they weren't really professional min- missionaries, and yet they were. They were lay folk who, who, who were just overflowing with the testimony that meant everything to them. And it says some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they were come to Antioch, spoke unto the Greeks. That means they spoke unto the non-Jews. They dared to speak to the non-Jews, preaching the Lord Jesus. I like that, don't you? They preached the Lord Jesus. I- I- they didn't, uh, let me say this, they didn't hire auditoriums. They were not great eloquent preachers. They didn't have great public meetings, but they just told the story on the one-to-one basis, and they talked about the Lord Jesus. They didn't talk about the church, they didn't talk about themselves, they talked about the Lord Jesus and what he meant in their lives. And they figured, well, some of them were Gentile converts, and so they reasonably argued, and they said, well, if I'm a Gentile, if the Lord could save me a Gentile, why can't he save other Gentiles? Very good. And so they ventured to talk to the Gentiles about the Lord Jesus. And the next verse is so encouraging. Verse twenty one, and the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned unto the Lord. Isn't that beautiful? The hand, I love that, the hand of the Lord was with them. The hand of the Lord was... It's a, it's a terrible thing to have the hand of the Lord against you. To have the hand of the Lord against you. But the hand of the Lord was with them. Ever seen a traffic cop? He raises his hand and he stops hundreds and thousands of tons of traffic that are coming toward him with his hand, he stops them. He has the authority to do that. And then he may turn, and he may turn in the opposite direction and give them the go signal. Sometimes the hand of the Lord was against people. If his hand is against you or against me, you and I are in trouble and in deep. But the hand of the Lord was with them. Oh, what a hand. Oh, what a hand. A mighty hand was with them. I remember, I remember years ago going over to the Bahamas for meetings, and I had my wife and Paul, he's our youngest son. Paul was with me, he was only a little boy, and uh, the uh, between he- between here and uh, I guess between Miami and Nassau, the, the stewardess came back and she said to Paul, would you like to go up in the cockpit? Don't do that now, but they did it then. And of course, you can imagine his answer. In a few seconds, he was with her up in the cockpit. Stewardess came back into the aisle. Paul stayed up in there. Stayed up there quite a while, and after a while I thought I better go up and check him out. So I went up and opened the door and looked in, and there he was sitting on the captain's knee with his hand on the hood, and he said, look, daddy, I'm flying the plane. But I noticed that there were two other hands on top of his. The captain had his hands on the top of Paul's hands, and it was really the captain who was flying the plane, not this little boy of mine. Sometimes I think I'm flying the plane. If I find, if I'm flying the plane, we're in deep trouble. But if there's another hand on mine, if there's another hand on your life, the hand of the Lord was with them, and something wonderful happened. What happened at Antioch? It says there were a great number who believed and turned unto the Lord. Now look at verse twenty three, uh, verse twenty two. Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas that he should go as far as Antioch, who, when he came and had seen the grace of God, he was, uh, glad. He was glad, and he exhorted them all that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. Isn't that interesting? The revival was so great up there in Antioch. The moving of God was so great that the brethren way down in Jerusalem, three hundred odd miles to the south, heard about it, and they said, hey, what's going on up there? This Gentiles? Gentiles? A Gentile church? Now wait a minute. And so the church in Jerusalem, the mother church, did a very wise thing. They sent Barnabas that he'd go and investigate it. I think they sent a good man, don't you? Barnabas is called a son of consolation. You meet him first in Acts chapter four. Beautiful story of his first emergence. Acts chapter four introduces us to this big-hearted, generous, spirit-filled man called Barnabas, and the church in Jerusalem sent him. He was a son of encouragement. If they had sent a son of thunder up there, he'd have scattered the whole work and scared the wits out of those new believers up in Antioch. But they didn't send a son of thunder, they sent a son of encouragement. That was Barnabas. And when Barnabas was come and saw the work in Antioch, he was glad. Big-hearted, generous Barnabas. He was glad. He didn't say, well, now wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute here. Hmm. Well, I don't know about this work. I don't, I doubt of it, I doubt its reality. After all, we had nothing to do with it down in Jerusalem. How could it be real? Oh, my friends, he was not animated with a spirit like that. When he saw the grace of God, his big generous heart overflowed, and he said, this is the finger of God, although we had nothing to do with it down in Jerusalem, God has been here by his spirit, and he put his seal upon it, and he was glad when he saw the grace of God. He saw reality there, didn't he? Do- does the world see reality in your life? Do your fellow believers see reality in your life, or are you just a religious churchgoer, a religious performer? The woods are full of them. People that love to perform, and their- their lives are about as shallow as a swamp. Very little depth. God save us from that. When Barnabas saw the reality that was marked by these believers, he rejoiced, and many others were added to the Lord. The Lord gave him many souls. And then it says in verse, in verse, um, uh, twenty is a very beautiful epi- epigraph concerning him. It says, for he was a good man, verse twenty four, he was a good man, a righteous man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. Here are the three credentials, here are the three essentials for all effective Christian work and testimony. He was a good man, he had a good reputation. And number two, he was filled with the Holy Spirit. He was marked by the freshness and the power and the vigor and the joy of the Holy Spirit, and he was a man full of faith as well. He believed God, the God of today, the God of the now, and the result was a revival broke out there. And many more were added. Must have been a big church, must have been a large congregation of believers, and Barnabas is ministering to them until, until, until what? Well, look at the next verse. Verse twenty five. then Barnabas, then departed Barnabas to Tarsus to seek Saul, to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him unto Antioch, and it came to pass that for a whole year they, Paul and Barnabas, assembled with the church and taught many people, and the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. Now that's interesting, very interesting. Barnabas, I believe, was a man who was aware of his own limitations. And Barnabas said to the brethren and sisters in Antioch, brethren, I'm going away for a few days. Where are you going, brother? I'm going up to Tarsus. Where's that? It's a way up, way up on the north Mediterranean coast. What are you going up there for, a vacation? No, he said, I'm going up. I'm going to bring back a man here who can give you what I can't give you. His name is Saul. Saul of Tarsus had been converted about eight or nine years, and he was in his hometown of Tarsus. And Barnabas had become acquainted with Paul down in Jerusalem years before, and Paul had been, Paul had greatly impressed Barnabas by the reality and by the strength of his testimony and his ability to teach the word. And Barnabas said, I'm going to get a teacher for you. And he went out and he looked for Saul, and he found him, and he said, Brother Saul, that was Paul, of course. The name was Saul Paul, in a double name. He said, brother, you must come down to Antioch. Why must I go down to Antioch? Because God is doing a mighty work there, and you're very much needed, brother. You've got what I don't have. And so Barnabas brought Paul down into Antioch. Now, do you know what that meant? You know what that meant, beloved? It meant, are you listening? It meant that Barnabas would be eclipsed by Saul. No, not that Saul was ambitious. Not that Saul was going to come down there and move in as a big shot, but Saul's teaching abilities were so, so large, so great that he could outshine Barnabas. And Barnabas would play second fiddle, but you know, it was Spurgeon who said, it takes more grace than I can tell to play the second fiddle well. If you're only the second fiddle in the orchestra, rejoice. Don't be jealous of the first fiddle. The second fiddle and the third and all the rest of them, they're all needed. And so here you have a team of men, and it says for a whole year, Paul and Barnabas ministered to that congregation there in Antioch. I think Barnabas was a pastor. I think Paul was a teacher. I think Barnabas was a man who had the gift of a shepherd. He was a son of encouragement. He was a son of comfort and consolation. He was a people's man. Paul was a teacher, and these two men, each the the gift of each complementing the other, these two men taught the congregation in Antioch for a full year, and the result was, the result was the end of verse twenty nine, uh, twenty six. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. The word Christian occurs only three times in the New Testament. And I believe the term Christian was a kind of a nickname that was given to the Christians in Antioch that distinguished them. I- I think it was, it really was a, a, a, a dub. They said, oh, these people, we, we are, we are Caesar's ones. We belong to Caesar, the emperor, but these folks are, they belong to Christos. Uh, they belong to Christos' party. They are Christian. They, they, they belong to this Christ. And so it was, I think, the pagan onlookers that gave those early believers that honorable name, Christians, one who belongs to Christ. Do you have that name this morning? Do you have that, I say, in reality, is that your name, Christian? You say, well, everybody's a Christian in America, where there's a Christian country. Don't kid yourself. Everyone in America is certainly not a Christian. Maybe by name they're not Mohammedans, but certainly, my friends, to be a Christian in the Bible sense of the word, you must be born again. You have to have a new life and a new nature. There has to be a time in your life when you come to an end of yourself and realize that you're a lost, guilty sinner and you cannot save yourself, and that there's nothing you can do to merit God. As a matter of fact, you stand as a proper and qualifying candidate for God's rejection because of your sins and my sins. A Christian is one who has come and said, Lord Jesus, I accept you, I trust you as my savior from sin and from sin's penalty, and I crown you Lord of my life. I belong to Christ, a Christ's one, a Christ's one. That's what Christian means. You may be a nominal Christian, you may have joined the church and been baptized and all the rest of it, but unless a man is born again, he's ticketed through to the lake of fire. Get it straight. Except you repent, you shall all likewise perish, the Lord Jesus. He said in J- in, um, Matthew eighteen, except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of God. These people, their lives had been changed because Jesus Christ the Lord had become personal and real to them, and they were dubbed and nicknamed Christians, a name of reproach, a name of honor. Now then, what happened at Antioch? Now the thirteenth chapter, the thirteenth chapter of the same book of Acts. Thank you for turning your Bibles, your leaves over to chapter thirteen, verse one. Now there were in the church, which was at Antioch, certain prophets and teachers. And, uh, let me see, you know, there's a list of names here. I, let's count them. One, two, three, four, five. There are five names here. Some of them are compound names. This man, Niger, Simeon Niger, he was a black man, probably from North Africa. And of these five men, Barnabas heads the list, and Saul closes the list. You see that in verse one? Here are five. What are they? Prophets and teachers. Prophets and teachers. Where did these prophets come from? Well, they may have been the visiting prophets from Jerusalem. Back to chapter eleven and, uh, look at verse, uh, twenty seven. In these days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch. Now, every church in the New Testament had prophets, it would seem. Prophets. And they also had teachers, and they had shepherds, and they had exhorters, and there was a variety of gifts given by the Holy Spirit for the building up of the body, and what one did not have in the way of a gift, the other had. And so the gifts were complementary, not competitive, but complementary and working together. Now the Holy Spirit says, I want you to look in on that church. It had five prophets and teachers. What's the difference between a prophet and a teacher? I think there's a real difference. I do not subscribe to the accepted idea in certain places that a prophet and a teacher are exactly the same. I don't think so. Preaching is not necessarily prophesying. There may be some overlap there, but there's a distinction. I believe that the teacher, listen carefully, the teacher speaks more to the intellect. The prophet speaks more to the conscience. You say now, preacher, you've left me behind. I don't quite understand. Let me elucidate that. The teacher speaks more to the intellect, and he is the one who is gifted in taking the truth of God and presenting it in an orderly, consecutive, and understandable manner so that I can understand the truth. Thank God for teachers. Thank God for men who can make it simple and plain. That's what the Lord Jesus did. The Lord Jesus spoke with simplicity as well as with authority. The teacher, then, is one who unfolds the truth so that I can understand it. The prophet, on the other hand, is the man who comes along and applies the truth and who reaches the conscience. Let me illustrate. Supposing I were a teacher and I could explain the word of God, say, for example, the subject of prayer. I teach you what prayer is, what the Bible teaches about prayer, the principles of prayer, and the power of prayer, and the perils of prayer, problems of prayer, and and so on. Prayer, there it is. I lay it out over a series of sermons, perhaps. And you say, sir, I can understand that now. I, I understand what the Bible, I've always been confused now I understand what the Bible teaches about prayer. Very good. Good. The prophet comes along, and the prophet looks me in the eye, and he says, uh, Tatham, uh, you, uh, you understand about prayer. Yeah, I think I do. I didn't before, but I think I do now. I understand what the Bible teaches about prayer. Mm-hmm. Prophet says, uh, uh, since you learned about, uh, this, uh, subject of prayer, are you praying more than you did before? Mm. Are you getting any answers to your prayers? Do you spend more time in front of the TV than you do on your knees before God? I don't like questions like that. I don't like prophets, because sometimes they probe and, and they put their finger upon the live nerve. They put their finger on it. Prophet, the prophet says, you understand about prayer. Are you praying more now that you understand this? Are you getting answers to your prayers? That probes, that applies. Prophets are never popular in scripture. They stone the prophets usually, and then the next generation gathered the stones together and built a monument to his memory. What utter hypocrisy. But the prophet is not so much the teacher. I think the classic prophet in the New Testament is John the Baptist. There's very little theology in John the Baptist preaching, but there's a whole lot, my friends, of probing, probing, and going to the conscience and tearing off the mask of pretense and exposing men. Listen to John the Baptist. You generation of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Don't come to me and tell me we have Abraham as our father. God is able to make children of Abraham out of these stones. Who do you think you are? Get right with God. Except you repent, you're going to perish forever. There's wheat and chaff, and if you're not wheat going into the granary, you're chaff, and you're going into the fire, and get it straight. Ooh. Ooh. That was John the Baptist. He was a prophet. Now we need both. We need the prophet and the teacher, and there were five of them in the church at Antioch. uh Five prophets and teachers. See the balance? See the difference between knowing it theologically and knowing it practically in the heart, so that the truths that I learn make me a holy man. People often say to me, you know your Bible, you know a lot about your Bible. You know, that kind of scares me. I say, well, I may know a little about it, but the main thing is, am I practicing it? Am I putting into practice? Am I clothing with flesh and blood the truths that I know in my mind and my memory? That's the word of prophecy. Prophecy. There were prophets in the New Testament churches, and they complemented the teachers. There's a perfect balance there. Now, there were also evangelists in that church. Why, the church had been founded in Antioch through evangelists, so they had evangelists, and they had a pastor, that was Barnabas, and they had teachers, that was Paul, and they had prophets, so they had a whole variety of gifts there. And I praise God that he's going to do that. He's already doing it in our midst here, raising up men with gifts and women with gifts, so that these gifts exercise under the baton of the Holy Spirit himself, who's the guide and director. And then notice in closing what happened in the thirteenth chapter. It says, and as they ministered to the Lord, verse two, chapter thirteen verse two, as they ministered to the Lord. Who is the they? Get it straight, brethren. The they refers to the five prophets and teachers. The leaders. Did you hear that word? The leaders. Did you hear that word? The leaders, I said. The prophets and teachers, they were ministering to the Lord and fasting. What does that mean? It doesn't mean they were preaching. They were waiting upon God and worshiping him. Those five prophets and teachers got together, not just to discuss business. They came together to discuss the well-being of the church. They came together to ascertain the mind of God. Lord, this is not our church, it's your church. We're just your caretakers. Now we want to hear from you. And those prophets and teachers were ministering to the Lord. They were ministering to the Lord. That's what we try to do on Sunday evenings. We try to minister to the Lord in praise and worship. And there's nothing, Christian brethren and sisters, that take the place of that. Praise unlocks the key to the power and blessing of God. Praise provides a vehicle for the Holy Spirit to move into a meeting. As they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, not feasting, fasting. As they were ministering to the Lord, these five men, meeting together on their knees, looking up into the face of their Lord. What happened? Something happened. The Holy Spirit spoke. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. What's that? The Holy Spirit spoke. Does it say that? Yes. As they ministered to the Lord, verse two, as they ministered to the Lord in fast, the Holy Spirit said, separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work under which I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, these five men, they laid their hands on them and sent them away. So they, being sent forth by the Holy Spirit, went out to the mission field. Now, what happened? They had five leaders, and the Holy Spirit, as these brethren waited upon God, and in the hush and expectancy of that atmosphere, the Holy Spirit spoke. Now you'll come to me afterward and say, how did the Holy Spirit speak? I think, friends, I can't prove it, but I think he spoke through one of the prophets. Why not? One of the prophets spoke, and another prophet spoke in the mouth of two or three witnesses, and one prophet said, thus saith the Holy Spirit, separate me Saul and Barnabas for the work unto which I have called them. If I'd have been there, friends, I'd have said, oh no, Lord, you're not going to take Paul and Barnabas. We can't get along without them. But you know, God did not move Paul and Barnabas out of that church until they had not two leaders, but they had five leaders altogether. So he took two fifths of the five and he left three prophets and teachers there. He didn't leave them leaderless. Do you get it? And the Holy Spirit spoke, but he spoke in that atmosphere. The Holy Spirit doesn't speak in the jangle and the wrangle and the wildfire and the confusion and the noise of churchianity. The Holy Spirit doesn't speak, my friends, in and compete with the din of TV and radio. He speaks in the quiet hush of an expectant, praying leadership. And the Holy Spirit said, I want you, Saul. I want you, Barnabas. I've got missionary work for you to do. And so the other brethren, they laid their hands on them and prayed. Now, the laying on of hands was simply an act of fellowship, simply an act of identification. The church, if it was the church or the other leaders, as they laid their hands on those two men in prayer, they said to Paul and Barnabas, you're going out to the mission field. Yes, we're going with you. What do you mean you're going with us? We're going with you. That's what the laying on of hands is. It's identification. Oh, they didn't go with them literally, physically, but they said, as it were, we are endorsing the call of the Holy Spirit upon you. We are not ordaining you and giving you some titles, and they were already gifted, they were already functioning. Laying on of hands never made an elder. Laying on of hands is simply a recognition that a man is already an elder. He's already doing the work. The seal of God is upon him, and the church is saying amen. And that's what they did. They said amen to the Holy Spirit, and Paul and Barnabas went out, and it says they went out led by the Holy Spirit. They being sent forth by the Holy Spirit, not by the board, not by the missionary board. They went out led by, by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit called them, the Holy Spirit equipped them, and the Holy Spirit sent them. So it was a church that moved in the freshness and power of the living Holy Spirit of God. It's a great story, isn't it? Oh, I tell you, my friends, I believe that if we could recapture that simplicity and that reality, we would have a church here that would really affect the whole town of Lake Worth and its environments. I believe that the Holy Spirit is still alive. I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord. I believe, my friends, that this book is the word of God, and we here at Faith Bible Church are dedicated to the one book and the one Lord and the one Holy Spirit and the one church. Amen? All right, let's stand and sing a song. Let's sing Take Time to Be Holy. It's number, um, number three seven six in your red book, three seven six. Take time to be holy. If you're not a Christian this morning and you'd like to be, or you have any doubts, please come to me, and we'll, I think, be able to help you. First and last verses. Friends of God's people, help those who are weak for getting in, bring his blessing to seek. The last verse. Take time to be holy, be calm in thy soul. Each thought motive beneath his control. Those led by his spirit to fountains of love. Soon shall be better for service of God. Shall we pray? Lord, before we shake hands one with another and leave this building and go to our homes, will we just look up into the face of our Lord Jesus Christ and thank you for preserving this record in thy book concerning the activities of those early believers. We feel a kinship with them, Lord. We live a long way from them, time-wise, but we thank thee for the living power of your presence and your spirit. Sanctify us by thy truth. Bless thy word. Give us to practice it and to rejoice in it. Give us a good day in your presence. And may grace, mercy, and peace from Father, Son, and Holy Spirit rest upon us as we dismiss in the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. Amen. God bless you.