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Homework for next week, should you be disposed to do any, would be to read the Acts of the Apostles from chapter sixteen uh and verse six through to chapter nineteen and verse twenty. If you cannot do the homework, nevertheless, come to the meeting. You will not be penalized, you won't lose any stars or anything like that. But of course, if you can acquaint yourself freshly with the contents of that passage, it will help both you and me next week in our survey of its message. This evening, we are to think, for the most part, about the fourth section of the go- of the book of the Acts of the Apostles.
That is the section that begins in chapter twelve and verse twenty five. Acts chapter twelve and verse ah twenty five. And let us make a selection of readings that will help us refresh our memories as to the salient points of this fourth section of the book. Acts twelve twenty five: And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem, when they had fulfilled their ministration, taking with them John, whose surname was Mark. So the very first verse tells us of men from Jerusalem.
We shall meet another lot of men from Jerusalem presently. They will be of a very different sort. Now there were at Antioch in the church that was there, prophets and teachers, Barnabas and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, the foster-bower of Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul. And as they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, they laid their hands on them and they sent them away.
So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, went down to Seleucia, and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. And when they were at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews, and they had also John as their attendant. And when they had gone through the whole island unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Barjesus. And we notice how Luke singles this out for mention and for our attention. He began his story with the teachers and the prophets that were in the church at Antioch.
Now, as some of them go out on their missionary journey, their teaching and preaching of the gospel is to be resisted and opposed by this false prophet, a Jew by the name of Elymas, who was a sorcerer. He withstood them, says verse eight, seeking to turn aside the proconsul from the faith. Paul dealt with that man by miraculous God-given authority and power. And there fell on that man, says verse eleven, a mist and a darkness. Hardness in part happened to this Israelite.
For his resistance to the spread of the gospel. And what happened to him, alas, in another sense, happened to his nation. Hardness in part has happened to Israel. Paul was to lament later on. When the proconsul, when he saw that it was done, says verse twelve, he believed, being astonished, and you might have thought that what would have astonished the man was Paul's miraculous power, but you notice that is not so. What he was astonished at, says Luke, was the teaching of the Lord.
For Luke began his story with prophets and teachers that were in the church at Antioch, and how they were sent forth of the Holy Spirit to preach the faith, and how this renegade Jew tried to keep the Gentiles back from the faith and came under the judgment of God because of it. And how that this Gentile proconsul, in spite of what that renegade Jew tried to do, was astonished by the teaching. While we may be interested in miracles in this section of the book, we shall in particular be interested in Christian doctrine. And we are yet to see many an argument about Christian doctrine.
However, that incident over, Paul and his company set sail from Paphos, says verse thirteen, and came to Perga in Pamphylia, and John departed from them and returned to Jerusalem. But they, passing through Perga, came to Antioch of Pisidia and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down. There, after the reading of the law, they were invited to address the assembled congregation in the synagogue, and Paul preached them a very famous sermon. Let us simply pick out now some of its leading themes. Verse twenty two: and when God had removed him, he raised up David to be their king, to whom also he bear witness and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who shall do all my will.
Of this man's seed hath God, according to his promise, brought unto Israel a savior. Verse twenty six: Brethren, children of the stock of Abraham, and to those among you that fear God, to us is the word of this salvation sent. Verse forty seven: For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee for a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the uttermost parts of the earth.
And then for a moment, if we could come back to verses thirty eight and thirty nine to hear the basic principles of this salvation, that is the topic of this sermon, proclaimed. Well, here they are in verse thirty eight and thirty nine: Be it known unto you, therefore, brethren, that through this man is proclaimed unto you the forgiveness of sins. And by him everyone that believeth is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. So then, in this section that began with prophets and teachers, and proceeded to tell us how they were sent forth to preach the faith, and preached it in spite of Jewish opposition, to effect that the Gentile proconsul was converted and astonished at the faith.
In this section, then, Paul gives us an example of the preaching of that faith. It turns out to be a sermon on salvation, clearly said to be so. And basic and central to that doctrine of salvation, as the early Christians preached it, was that it was a salvation utterly by grace, by which a man could be justified from all things. A salvation that the law of Moses could not possibly offer a man or procure for him. This is the Christian faith, the doctrine of salvation.
Through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins. By him all who believe are justified from all things. So much then for the preaching of this, uh, salvation. Then Paul went further, says chapter fourteen, through sundry cities in that part of the world. But the Jews, says verse two of chapter fourteen, were disobedient and stirred up the souls of the Gentiles and made them evil affected against the brethren. In fact, when eventually, according to verse eight, Paul and Barnabas came to Lystra and miraculously cured a lame man.
The natives, in their primitive superstition, thought that the gods had come down upon the earth and proceeded to bring out sacrifices and would have sacrificed to Paul and Barnabas. And Paul and Barnabas ran out amongst them, verse fourteen, and they rent their garments and sprang forth among the multitudes, crying and saying, Sirs, why do you do these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and bring you good tidings that you should turn from these vain things unto the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is therein. So did Paul and Barnabas restrain those Gentiles from breaking the law of Moses, forbidding them to engage in idolatry.
Nonetheless, the Jews stoned Paul and persuaded the natives to join in and left him for dead. But he got up and went forth, says verse twenty, with Barnabas to Derbe. And when they had preached there, then they returned. They returned to Lystra, says verse twenty one, and to Iconium and to Antioch, confirming the souls of the disciples and exhorting them to continue in the faith. And that through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God. And thus they did, and eventually their return journey took them all the way home. When they got home, verse twenty seven: when they were come, they gathered the church together, they rehearsed all things that God had done with them, and how that he had opened a door of faith unto the Gentiles, and they tarried no little time with the disciples.
So there for you is the preaching of the doctrine of Christianity, the doctrine of salvation, the preaching of it. We've gone out with Paul on his missionary journey, and we have now returned. Then comes chapter fifteen. And certain men came down from Judea. Oh, these presumably are a different crowd. And what did they say? They taught the brethren saying, except you be circumcised after the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. Oh ho, this is a variation upon the theme, isn't it?
Really? As you might expect, there was no small distinction, says verse 2, with Paul and Barnabas on the one side and these men from Judea on the other, and eventually they all went up to Jerusalem. Verse four: and when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church and the apostles and the elders, and they rehearsed all things that God had done with them. But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees who believed. Believed what? For these of the sect of the Pharisees who believed said, but it is needful to circumcise the gentiles and to charge them to keep the law of Moses.
Needful? For what? Well, for salvation. Well, that's what the fellows from Judea had said, except you be circumcised after the manner of the law of Moses, you cannot be saved. And here, if you please, are certain of the sect of the Pharisees who believe. And they're saying the same thing. What, you have to be circumcised and to keep the law of Moses to be saved. Tut tut, there'll be some, there'll be some discussion about this one, will there not? So there was. And we are given the account how that the apostles and the elders collaborated and discussed the matter and came up with their verdict of these things.
We shall read simply now, for sake of time, what Peter said. Verse ten: Now therefore, why tempt you, God, that you should put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus. Or to translate it as we should translate it in proper emphasis, but we believe that it is by the grace of the Lord Jesus that we shall be saved, even and in like manner as they.
It's the grace of the Lord Jesus by which we Jews are saved. Even we Jews are not saved by circumcision or the law of Moses. Even we Jews, it is by the grace of the Lord Jesus we are saved. And we're saved thus by his grace in the exact same manner as Gentiles are so- are saved. There are not two doctrines of salvation, one for one dispensation and one for another. There is only one way of salvation, be you Jew or be you Gentile. Here, Peter himself enunciated, it is by the grace of the Lord Jesus we shall be saved.
To which sentiment, of course, all the apostles agreed, and James added weighty reasons why they should. And then verse twenty two tells uh, tells us that it seemed good to them, uh, to the elders and to the church, to write a letter and send it by the hands of Paul and Barnabas and others to the Gentile church at Antioch and to any others that could profit thereby. And they took it home, and they returned. And that was that, and that problem settled, but not quite. For verse thirty six tells us that after certain days, Paul said unto Barnabas, let us now return and visit the brethren in every city where we proclaim the word of the Lord, and see how they fare.
And Barnabas was minded to take with them John also, who was called Mark, and Paul said, no, you don't. And there broke out no small distinction. So fierce and bitter that in the end, Barnabas and Paul parted, and they who had stood shoulder to shoulder in that big rumpus about Dockton earlier on, ah, and chased the Judaizers all the way up to Jerusalem and back, now themselves were divided a lot. Whatever for, and whatever over. Well, it rings true to Christian experience, I'm afraid, so the reasons we can leave for a moment and pass on.
But Paul, going his way, says chapter sixteen, came to Derby, and there was a man there named Timothy. He was the son of a Jewess which believed, and his father was a Greek. Verse three, Paul would have him go forth with him, and he took and... surely not. Surely not. Circumcised him. No, no, no, surely not. I mean, why, Paul has just been all the way up to Jerusalem to oppose this root and branch and insist that circumcision isn't necessary. But there is the plain historical fact, says Luke.
He took Timothy and he circumcised him. Whatever did he do that for? You say, Mr. Preacher, you should have stuck to s- considering the, um, missionary journeys of Paul, you see. If you'd have just followed the missionary journeys, you needn't have put those two things together, need you, because you would have left the other thing in the first missionary journey, and this would be the second missionary journey, and you wouldn't have to bother to put the two together. How unfortunate. But now we shall have to, shall we, because... how will you explain it? Well, anyway, however we explain it, we have taken a bird's eye view of the fourth section of the Acts of the Apostles.
Just let's remember what it is we're trying to do, not to expound this book in all its detail. We are taking week by week roughly one major section of this book, and we are looking to see in each section that point or points at which Christianity, the early church, diverged from Judaism. Our idea is just this, that if we will mark in each of these sections those points over which the early Christians felt they must break with Judaism, they had no choice, they must diverge from Judaism, then if we note that point, we shall find that it lies at the very heart of basic Christianity.
These will be things that characterize the new faith, things so essential to Christianity that the early church felt it could not possibly compromise. If the Jews wouldn't have it, then they must break with the Jews. And we are doing so that we might take a, a, a firmer grip ourselves nowadays on what true Christianity is. What is basic and essential Christianity? For the danger is that even today we shall do what the church has very frequently done in the course of history, let go what is distinctively Christian and fall back to a kind of Judaism, or sometimes even worse, to paganism.
And we found in our first section of Acts that the point of divergence was over the person of the Lord Jesus. The Christians said that God has made the Jesus both Lord and Messiah. He was Son of God. He was Messiah. The Jews said no. They believed in Messiah, but Jesus was not the Messiah, and he wasn't the Son of God. Over that, Christianity diverged. There could be no compromise. And if in these days, uh, professing Christian people let go of the deity of Christ, what they have left is not Christianity.
For there is no other name under heaven given amongst men whereby we must be saved. We saw in the second section that Luke, uh, shows us Christianity in relation to the Jewish temple, and that from two aspects. First of all, the Jewish temple as the place of worship and service of God, and how the early Christians began to diverge from that, holding that the Jewish temple and all its ritual was a thing given of God in the Old Testament for the time then being, full of shadows and symbols, pointing the way to the coming of the real thing in Jesus Christ our Lord.
But now Christ had come. That old system of ritual was passing away and would soon be obsolete. We saw also that in that section, Luke chose certain incidents to help us see the relation of early Christianity to the Jewish temple, not only in its worship and service of God, but in its witness to the nations around. We spent some time last week considering the power and strength of the Jewish witness over many centuries to the pagan world, fulfilling the task that God had given the Jewish nation, and how wonderful that temple was, and even more wonderful the message it stood for as its bright witness among the Gentile nations.
How even that Ethiopian chancellor had been impressed by the testimony of the Jewish temple and was coming up to seek the true God. He was far from criticizing that Jewish temple or its function, but we did observe that good as it was, even at its best, it had something short of the true gospel to preach. And what that gospel was, Philip preached to that eunuch, as we saw. And as he preached it, he preached a thing over which Christianity and Judaism diverges irreconcilably. Christianity says that the suffering servant of Isaiah fifty three, by whose stripe we are healed, who was wounded for our transgression, is none other than Jesus Christ, God's son, who for our sakes bore our sins in his body on the tree.
And Christianity, therefore, has a gospel to preach, not merely a law, but a gospel, not merely a law that tells men how they should behave about the holiness of God, but a gospel that tells them how they might be forgiven and reconciled to God through the atoning sufferings of Jesus Christ, our Lord. And the Judaism that rejects it is left without any gospel of forgiveness. And the modern Christendom has got to be careful. Some of them affect not to like to preach what they call the gospel of the shambles. They don't like anymore to preach the blood of Christ and his atoning death and the wrath of God against sin, which was atoned by the Savior's blood.
But cutting that out of their preaching, they've got no gospel left. Nothing but an ethic and a social conscience. Good as those two things are, they don't convert anybody, and they certainly can't save anybody. If the church is to keep its evangelical dynamism, we must keep hold of the doctrines of the atoning death of Christ. Then last week we pushed on to the third section and found it to be the difference between the early church and Judaism on the question of holiness.
Under the law, God had made his people holy by a method that you describe as putting a big wall around them of ritual and ceremony and symbolic law, food laws, uh, laws of cleanliness and uncleanness that put a wall around the Jews and kept them separate from the Gentiles. For in those days, God was treating his people, as Galatians chapter three says, or four, as children. We saw how that wouldn't work any longer if now the Christians had got to go out and take the gospel to Gentiles. They couldn't be separate from the Gentiles anymore. They must be free to go and drink coffee with such as Cornelius the Centurion.
For if you're not free to take coffee with the man, how on earth will you preach the gospel to him? And therefore, in that third section of the Acts of the Apostles, we found described and illustrated the basic principles of true Christian holiness, as distinct from Jewish methods of holiness. And we found that true Christian holiness is not bound, founded so much on rules and regulations, food laws, and such symbolic things. It is founded on two great foundations, Jew and Gentile, both equally sinners, at the foot of the Savior's cross, confronted with the holy life of the Savior and his holy deeds that condemns both Jew and Gentile and shows us both to be unholy.
But by that death, both Jew and Gentile can get forgiveness on the same terms, accepted as we are in Christ and for Christ's sake. The first great platform of Christian holiness. And the second, that to which Peter called the attention of his, uh, colleagues in Jerusalem when they criticized him, as sometimes, uh, our colleagues are won't to criticize us when we've done something that they think odd for the sake of the spreading of the gospel. He explained to them that God had given to the Gentiles the same Holy Spirit as he had given to the Jew.
That the Holy Spirit had fallen on them in Cornelius's house when they believed, and that they had been baptized in the Holy Spirit, just as the Jews had been who believed in Christ on the day of Pentecost. So Jew and Gentile baptized into one body in one spirit. Leading to holiness in two directions. First of all, the secret of a true Christian holiness is not simply a law written up on two tables of stone. It is the presence of the Holy Spirit and a divine nature begotten in the very heart of the believer.
Nothing short of the new birth, being baptized in the Holy Spirit, if you will. Nothing short of that. But then if a man is indeed indwelt by the Holy Spirit, born again of the Holy Spirit, taken up into the very body of Christ, then that man is safe to go out among the Gentiles with the word of the gospel. He has sufficient to make him and keep him holy. And as for those old walls of division between Jew and Gentile, well, of course, they automatically fall down, don't they?
What? If you take a Jew and in the Holy Spirit you baptize him into the body of Christ, and then you go and take a Gentile and you baptize him into the body of Christ, but now they're same, the same body, aren't they? Would you put a wall between your right hand and your left? Would you sit at the table with your right hand and leave your right foot outside the door? Now, all that kind of thing becomes obsolete, doesn't it? For men and women that have genuinely been baptized in one spirit into one body. Before we proceed, we ought to notice one other large message that that third section of Acts has for us, and then finally come to our main section for tonight.
You may have noticed in your homework, or at other times, that the third section of Acts, having discussed this new concept of holiness that marks Christianity as distinct from Judaism, spends its chapter twelve describing to us what is nothing less than an absolute perversion of holiness. Let me remind you of the detail. Around about the time of Passover one year, Herod put forth his hand to vex the church, and he killed one good man with the sword, and he shut up Peter in prison. And he did it, so we are told, because he saw, being a politician with eyes to political support where he could get it, and he needed it.
He did it because he saw it pleased the Jews. If he persecuted the Christians, killed them and put them into prison, he thought to catch votes and support thereby. What have we here, if not political discrimination on the basis of religion. That, my good, good folks, is not holiness. It is a perversion of holiness. Let us think it through a bit.
You say, surely the Jews were in their right to do it, weren't they? I mean, the Jews regarded the Christians as heretics. Well, they did that, certainly some of them. Well, then hadn't they got the right given them of God to put down heretics? People say you're forgetting your history. Yes, they did once upon a time have that right. Of course they did. When Israel was brought out of Egypt and constituted a theocracy, with a king eventually appointed by God, the very Lord's anointed, God's viceroy on earth. When Israel was a theocracy, then they not only were allowed, they were positively commanded to do it.
They were to enforce the law of God. And if people disobeyed it, the civil power was to take the sword and enforce them, and force it on them. Deuteronomy is very clear that if they should hear that in such and such a city in the land, the people have gone over to idolatry or blasphemous doctrine, they should warn them and give them opportunity to repent. And if the people wouldn't repent, the civil power has to take out the army and destroy the heretic and the idolater. Yes, but that was in days when Israel was a theocracy.
When their kings were the anointed of God. But by the time we come to the Acts of the Apostles, that isn't any longer so, is it? God has taken away political independence from the Jew. They have no political leader anointed of God, of the seed of David. God has removed it. He has given them to their land, he has allowed them to build a temple, but what he has not done is given them back their theocracy.
Now they are under Gentiles, utterly unregenerate men, not only unregenerate, they never did stand to God in any spiritual relationship. Utterly unregenerate men in the government that controlled the land at that time. Why, if you want to know what kind of man was on the throne at that time, you'll see by the end of chapter twelve it was this Herod, who presently having a political speech to make to win over a certain people, sat him on his throne and made a great oration, and the people shouted, the voice of God and not a man. And that foolish politician accepted that blasphemous praise, and immediately the angel of God smote him for usurping the place of God.
A man that comes as near being a foretaste of Antichrist and the man of sin as you could possibly get. Just you imagine the Jews of this time, when God had deliberately taken from them political power, using the unregenerate government... in the name of religion... to put down what they felt were heresies. That's sad and sorry. That is not holiness.
That is a perversion of holiness. I repeat, what using unregenerate governments to establish the faith and to discriminate against people that don't believe the same as you do. That isn't holiness. When they put, uh, Peter in prison... As you imagine, poor Peter, how would you have felt like in prison? You know, Peter was an apostle, you say, yes, jolly good stuff. He had that little streak of fear, like some of us do as well. And James had his head cut off, and a lot more Christians could stand to get their heads cut off as well.
And here was Peter in prison, and there were four sturdy soldiers are snoring at his side to whom he was chained. And the thoughts that were going through Peter's mind, do you think he said to himself, can five hundred million num- oh, well, no, I mean, can a lot of Jews be wrong and I right? Humble fishermen from Galilee. And here's a government, and here's the Jewish religious authority hand in hand now. When the angel of the Lord came and brought him out of prison, and Peter, getting outside, couldn't believe his ears, uh, couldn't believe his eyes or ears or anything, and nipped himself to see whether he was awake.
Yes, he was awake. This w- he was outside. Now I know, says Peter for the second time in this third section of Acts. Now I perceive that the Lord has sent his angel and delivered me, and the Jews are wrong. It was an anti-God thing they did in calling on the unregenerate Gentile political authority to discriminate against the Christians politically. Why do we need to take in that message? Because the church has forgotten it for centuries on end.
How many centuries there have been throughout Europe, at least, when the vast majority of folks in Europe believe that their sovereigns were appointed as the direct representatives of God. That the Pope on his throne was Christ's viceroy and had the right to call upon the political civil power to crush heretics. And if you ask such people to justify it, they will tell you, oh, but this is a Christian country. How did it become Christian? Pray, what do you mean by Christian?
Well, the answer to that is that everybody in those days had been baptized as infants. Does that make them Christian? Regenerate? What a myth it is, isn't it? What a fatal illusion to imagine you can make nations into Christians simply by lining them up at the command of the king and getting them, uh, baptized, or getting innocent babies and baptizing them, and hey, presto, they somehow become Christian, and therefore the government is Christian because it's a Christian country. And therefore the government has a right to act for the church and use the sword to put down heretics.
Ah, yes, but it hasn't only been the Roman Catholic Church that has done it, has it? It has been Protestant churches that, when they've got the chance, have done the self same thing. It wasn't Rome, was it, that put John Bunyan in prison? Oh, how we do need to be reminded of what Christianity is, and what it isn't. We are not Israel, and we're certainly not Israel under that old system of theocracy, so that the particular country that we're in happens to be a Christian government, responsible to use the civil power to back the gospel and to put down heresy?
No, we're not. And the idea that somehow you, uh, serve the cause of the gospel by calling in the unregenerate civil power is, in my humble estimation, and I speak, I trust humbly, a grievous delusion. Certainly it isn't holiness. You will see where that kind of thing ends up. Call in the unregenerate civil power to exercise the sword over the people you please to call heretics.
But they're unregenerate men. And when the man of sin comes, they'll be on his side. Look at Herod. One minute the Jews are pleased with him. They put the Christians in prison. We're keeping them down. And the next minute the man is on his throne accepting divine honors blasphemously. That will the man of sin do, inevitably. Oh, but let's leave us there.
That's a grim lesson, isn't it? Well, it's there on the page of Luke, and in this context of what is true Christian holiness, as distinct from Jewish holiness. But we move on to to section four, and here is a section that I needn't labor, though I might indeed fall to doing so, but I needn't, because here is a something of which I need not convince you at all, I trust. For if the third section of the Acts concerned the impact on the doctrine of holiness, of the going forth of, of the gospel to the Gentiles, the fourth section of Acts follows that with a study of the doctrine of salvation, likewise forced upon the apostles' tension by the gospel going to the Gentiles.
I am not implying that the apostles didn't know the gospel right from the word go. But well estimation, and I speak, I trust humbly, a grievous delusion. Certainly it isn't holiness. You will see where that kind of thing ends up. Call in the unregenerate civil power to exercise the sword over the people you please to call heretics. But they're unregenerate men. And when the man of sin comes, they'll be on his side.
Look at Herod. One minute the Jews are pleased with him. They put the Christians in prison. We're keeping them down. And the next minute the man is on his throne accepting divine honors blasphemously. That will the man of sin do, inevitably. Oh, but let's leave it there. That's a grim lesson, isn't it? Well, it's there on the page of Luke, and in this context of what is true Christian holiness, as distinct from Jewish holiness.
But we move on to to section four, and here is a section that I needn't labor, although I might indeed fall to doing so, but I needn't, because here is a something of which I need not convince you at all, I trust. For if the third section of the Acts concerned the impact on the doctrine of holiness, of the going forth of, of the gospel to the Gentiles, the fourth section of Acts follows that with a study of the doctrine of salvation, likewise forced upon the apostles' tension by the gospel going to the Gentiles.
I am not i- implying that the apostles didn't know the gospel right from the word go. But sometimes, you know, as you go through life and you keep preaching the gospel and folks get saved, and presently you come across a question, you say, oh, wait a minute, no, now, yes. How exactly is a man, uh, saved? Now let's get this thing, uh, clear. I mean, you've been saying at one stage it's by faith, but then you keep exhorting the people to come to the Lord's Supper. And didn't I hear you saying you ought to be baptized? Uh, now wait a minute, um, and now when it comes to brass tacks, exactly on what conditions is anybody saved? And such a situation arose in the early churches when the gospel began to go out to the Gentiles.
Notice then how our passage has concentrated our attention on this, that on that first missionary journey, it began with these prophets and teachers of the early church, sent out by the Holy Spirit to preach the faith. How this renegade Jew, at last not true to his own Bible, but gone off into mysticism and, uh, worse, to sorcery, tried to persuade the Gentile proconsul against the faith and suffered the discipline of God. He stands as one example of God's ways of discipline with the Jewish nation.
It broke Paul's heart. He tells us he had constant sorrow of heart for his brethren's sake, but then again he tells us that they are perverse and contrary. They will not allow the gospel to come to the Gentiles, and therefore wrath has come upon them to the uttermost. Hardening of heart has happened to Israel in part. Your enemies for the gospel's sake, under God's discipline, because of their opposition to the gospel going out to the Gentiles. Despite of that, the gospel went forward.
And in this part- uh, this section four, the great sermon that Luke selects to record is the sermon preached by Saul in, uh, Antioch. And I spy many a gospel preacher sitting in front of me. I can be very brief. But sometimes it's an enjoyable thing, isn't it, to steal somebody else's sermon. I've done it many times, particularly Saul's sermons. I find they're very good to steal, and he's not there to to listen anyway or to blame me. You see, there they are. What a brilliant man he was at sermons, wasn't he? How would you like to enter into a strange city like Antioch and into this large synagogue?
And on the front row, the learners use their beards and the rabbi completes, yeah? And you want to get the mo- the message of salvation across, but how on earth you're going to do it? You'll only have to mention the word saved. Oh! Nasty little evangelicals. Saved to somebody says maybe you don't like that word. Oh. Well, how are you going to get it across then? So Saul is given the book. He knows a thing or two as a gospel tactician, doesn't he? And say, now I'm telling you, gentlemen, you need to be saved. That's what you know. Gentlemen, isn't it a marvelous thing as we read the inspired record of our ancient Jewish history, how marvelous the ways of God with our fathers?
Your beard went up. How our folks, our forefathers were in Egypt. Yeah, well then. And God exalted the people out of Egypt. Yes, they did that. He did that. Exalted the people, that's what he did. They wouldn't have been so keen if he said he'd saved them, so he exalted the people out of Egypt. That'll do. What's the sense of putting their backs up too soon? He exalted the people out of Egypt. Yes, says the rabbis, he did that. We believe in exaltation. We believe in freedom, in being delivered. You do, don't you? So do we, says Paul. Yeah. Deliverance on tyranny.
Of course, you gospel preachers know what to make of that, don't you? And have made of it a thousand times, that tyranny in Egypt, and then you go off talking about another tyrant and how God, uh, delivers people who trust in Christ from that other tyrant. But Paul is letting the Old Testament sink in. And then came the period of the judges. Do you know, gentlemen, our people didn't from time to time decline their moral standards, in their spiritual standards. They fell a prey to the corrupt immoralities of the Canaanites. They fell a prey to the old idolatries of Canaan and came into bondage. They did to the rabbis. That shows you what a bondage sin is.
And were it not for God who comes and delivers his people, where should we be? Yes, I'm preaching you deliverance. God has always been the great God of deliverance from social decline, from moral decline, from spiritual decline. Sounded good, didn't it? But we had big enemies, outsiders, Philistines and things. Giants stalked the land. With a sword in his hand that threatened us all with inescapable death, and God raised up David to save us from Goliath's sword. He's got the word saved in now, but I haven't noticed it perhaps just yet.
Yeah, they believe in being saved from death. Do really? I could tell you about the biggest tyrant of all, says Paul. Death itself, one day it will beat you, won't it? Put you in a coffin. You got any deliverance from death? I preach you the sure mercies of David that God promised our fathers that one day God would send us a deliverer who would break the very power of death and raise people again, and God has done it in Jesus Christ. That was masterly gospel preaching, wasn't it?
Paul won't mind, Paul won't mind if you borrow it too. But wait a minute. Deliverance from death, resurrection. Yes, but, but, but, but. If there's a resurrection, what happens if you have to stand before God? What happens, after all, if life's not the end, and you have to stand before God? Oh, where can I find deliverance from the claim of his law. I can preach you through this man, of this man's seed God hath raised us a savior, and uh, be it known to you that in this man, through this man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all are justified.
From all things. From which you could not possibly be justified by the law of Moses. That, ladies and gentlemen, is preaching salvation through Jesus Christ, our great deliverer. When many of the Jews rejected the message, the Gentiles heard it gradually, forerunners of millions who heard it and been delivered from all kinds of bondages, and from the bondage of death, and ultimately from the bondage of guilt.
Justified. It is God that justifies. Who shall the broken chain of guilt replace when it is God that justifies? What does that mean, however, in actual practical terms? Is Paul going around and telling Gentiles, if you please, that they can be justified by faith as well as, uh, uh, uh, as Jews, and it's utterly by grace? Does that mean then it doesn't matter if you break the law? Some people have had that idea, haven't they?
That being justified by grace apart from the law means that it doesn't matter really. I mean, some people might say it matters a little bit, but on the whole, really, it doesn't matter if, having been justified, you do break the law. And that's what, of course, makes the more morally ins- uh, inclined amongst religious people very skeptical of this doctrine of justification by. How could it be of God if it leads to people breaking the law and saying the law doesn't matter? Indeed, the enemies of the gospel have always said that, haven't they? They said that what you preach, being justified by faith, means, and they use the theological term, antinomianism. That you tell people it doesn't matter if they break the law.
But that is a slander upon true. For see the very next story. Here's Paul and company, and they go forth among the Gentiles, and their journeys take them to some exceedingly primitive parts. I mustn't say too much because at that time Ireland itself was even more primitive, but, uh, uh, these were sizably primitive, uh, these folks at Lystra. And when Paul and Barnabas went there and did a miracle and healed a lame man, the four primitive near savages thought that the gods were come down. And they prepared sacrifice to do to Paul and Barnabas. And of course, Paul and Barnabas had the opportunity of their lives.
They could have been high priests of the new religion in, in Lystra. And have been worshipped, if not as gods, yet, wow, they could have made a pound or two out of it. And these men who believe that salvation is utterly by grace and not by the works of the law, what did they say? Well, it doesn't matter, you know, they're Gentiles, and they like a little bit of this thing, and it won't do us any harm, and it'll increase the collection. Not indeed. They let forth among them, and they tore their garments. They just stopped me. God, the true God of heaven, the one who gives us harvests and showers and fruit, calls you from these vain things of idolatry that you should serve and worship him only.
And being good Jews, they preached the first commandment, didn't they? Of the law. You see, it is the fact that the gospel presumes the law. You'll need to get it straight there's only one God before you can be justified with him, can't- won't you? If you're thinking there are ten thousand gods, you won't get justified, will you? You need to be taught there's only one God. Before you get justified with him, the gospel presumes the law. And when a man or woman has been justified by faith, yes, apart from the deeds of the law, actually justified by grace, but it leads to the keeping of the law.
And if it doesn't, if it doesn't, you may question whether it's the real thing. Oh, how glad we might be that Luke has put those two stories side by side to keep the balance. Justified apart from the law, leading to the keeping of the law. But it put the Jews in a little predicament, to be honest, didn't it? For the Jews didn't like this doctrine of justifi- justification by faith. They were determined to stamp it out, said they to themselves. If we let this man Paul and his coworker Barnabas go around the place, fancy them coming to poor ignorant Gentiles and telling poor ignorant Gentiles that you don't have to keep the law and you can be justified by simple by faith.
Well, you'll see what kind of thing that results in amongst poor primitive Gentiles. They'll slip more fruits than ever they slip. So they felt it their duty to follow Paul and Barnabas down the road and stop them confusing poor Gentiles. So when they come down the road, when they got to the suburbs of Lystra. Yes, there was Paul and Barnabas preaching to these Gentiles. Let's stop this. Stop this antinomianism business, telling Gentiles they don't have to keep the law and can be saved by faith. So they draw near to the crowd. Oh. Oh, how awkward. There's Paul and Barnabas, they're certainly preaching, but they're telling Gentiles to keep the law.
Oh. Well, now that's a bit embarrassing. Because, I mean, if they were to st- stone Paul and Barnabas now, the Gentiles would get the wrong impression, wouldn't they? They, poor Gentiles, would think it was Paul and Barnabas that were for the law, and the Jews against it. My, how unfortunate that they should have come up just the moment when Paul and Barnabas weren't preaching justification by faith, they were telling these Gentiles to keep God's law. So the Jews walked in among the crowd and said, yes, gentlemen, we may not agree with these Christians in everything, but, uh, what they're telling you now is right.
No, I'm sorry they didn't. They picked up stones, and they persuaded the Gentiles to join in stoning the apostles. Alas, alas, alas. There are some folks that will prefer you to be drunk every night of the week and be religious, rather than that you should get saved by grace and get drunk no more. With that, we have covered the major section, and it remains for me to say little more, save only to remind you that after that, uh, flow of thought in which Paul presents the preaching of the doctrine of salvation, in that very balanced fashion, salvation by faith, not by works of the law, but leading to the keeping of the law.
Now there comes the doctrine, the underneath doctrine of salvation. For, we are told, there came down men from Judea and began to teach the disciples, if you please, that except you be circumcised and keep the law of Moses, you cannot be saved. I say, who on earth were these fellows? You say they must have been of the Jews party. Yeah, but when they got back to Jerusalem, did you not hear those others? Some of the Pharisees who believed, who said, oh yes, you do have to tell Gentiles to be circumcised and keep the law, you do. Isn't it funny? When Luke says they believed, these fellows, or what do you mean they believed?
Believe what? Were they in the church? Looks like it, doesn't it? Who say they believe that Jesus was the Messiah. Lovely. But then when it came to the rub, you know, of course they were Jews, and they'd been, they'd been circumcised, the men folks, as as infants, so it hadn't crossed their heads for the moment, uh, this business of circumcision and how it relates to salvation, and they believed on the Lord Jesus as the Messiah and received him as the Messiah, and of course they believed he was Savior, and perhaps they hadn't sat down to think, well, now half a minute, now salvation, yes, I see, well now salvation.
Uh, how does this circumcision business relate to salvation? And then thought about it, apparently, until the gospel began to go out to Gentiles, and Gentiles got converted. And then the question arose, hey, do you have to circumcise Gentiles for them to be saved? And some of these sort of said, well, yes, of course, I mean, you do. Well, what for? Well, you can't be properly saved, and I mean... Well, I thought it was by grace. Ah, yes, but, uh, I mean, you're not going to tell us circumcision does nothing.
Of course. Wasn't it a good thing it came up? So that we should be very clear. Christian people be very clear as to what exactly is the relation of such ceremonies upon babies. Does it help salvation? Well, there was an enormous dispute. And unashamedly, Pa- uh, Luke tells us that Paul and Barnabas stood like Gibraltar, used to stand, and uh, uh, stood against these and said, no, no, no, no, gentlemen.
They were, they were polite, I trust. But big things were at issue. The salvation of men's souls was at issue. And the fundamental principle of the gospel was at issue. They weren't for mincing any words. And give in not an inch. How could they give in when it was a question of salvation? But they went to Jerusalem, not to get permission from the apostles. Paul got his gospel straight from God, but he went out to Jerusalem to secure this, that the apostles should all say and put out a statement to that effect, that contrary to rumors, that Paul preached one thing and Peter and James another, Paul, Peter, and James all preached the very same thing.
Have you ever had it said to you that James contradicts Paul? Well, Paul and co. went up to Jerusalem to get all the apostles making a statement, and everybody agreed with what Paul preached. Listen to Peter. Why do you want to put a yoke upon the neck of the Gentiles, which neither we nor our fathers could bear? It's a bondage. It is a yoke. Oh, don't let any misguided, uh, kindliness of heart lead you to compromise on that basic thing of the gospel, neither circumcision nor anything else performed on babes or anybody else, save.
In this theological sense, we are saved and justified by faith in Christ. Compromise that, and you're leading back into the bondage of spirit that, alas, has marked Europe for many, many centuries. We believe, says Peter, we Jews, that it is by the grace of the Lord Jesus that we Jews shall be saved.
Even we Jews. All our circumcision, right ceremonies, and the whole lot avails nothing. Even we Jews believe that it is by the grace of the Lord Jesus that we shall be saved in the exact same manner as the Gentiles. That is the doctrine, the apostolic doctrine of salvation. James had a lot to say, as usual, and uh, uh, supported Peter, and it was decided they'd write a letter to the churches. These men with this other version have subverted your souls, says James.
We gave them no authority. But now we're telling the Gentiles what to do. Well, what is that? Saved by grace, yes. Abstain from idolatry, won't you? Do you notice the balance? Once again. Not only abstain from idolatry and the moral and spiritual requirements of the law, obey them, but go the extra mile. And if it isn't a question of salvation, but simply accommodating the tender conscience of Jews, well, forego your rights, you Gentiles, and respect some of the habits of Jews, their scruples and their conscience, when it is not a question of salvation.
In that spirit, surely we are to understand the final stories in this fourth section. The one story tells us that Paul and Barnabas, who had stood so magnificently shoulder to shoulder without an inch between them against false doctrine on salvation, subsequently fell out, and there was a rumpus between them, and they parted. We should be careful to notice what it was on which they agreed, and what kind of thing it was they disagreed. When it came to the basics of the gospel, they agreed.
When it came to methods in the Lord's work, they disagreed. That's not the last time that's happened. Is that the best we can do? Pray, brothers and sisters, let's do that. Let's see, when it comes to the fundamentals of the faith, we stand shoulder to shoulder. Ah, so oftentimes the Lord's servants have fallen out over methods in the Lord's service. What makes us do it, I wonder. At least of this it is could be said, they went each one his way, and the world's a big place.
So instead of tripping on each other's toes, they went and got on with the gospel. God bless them. And both of them saw souls saved. Magnificent. And Paul didn't set up Pauline churches and say, now look here, don't you go to any of these churches set up by Barnabas. Did he? And Barnabas didn't set up Barnabas' churches and say, look here, you don't go to any of Saul's churches because he's wrong on methods. Did he? Well, at least I never did read of it. And we could follow that example too, if we must fall out at all. But you say, what are you going to say, Mr.
Preacher? You've got a difficult job there to convince us. What are you going to say about Paul's curious behavior in going and circumcising Timothy? Whatever did he do it for? Well, this we may be sure, that he hadn't forgotten about the argument at Jerusalem. And this you may be sure as well, he wasn't, as he understood it, ceding the principle that salvation is utterly by grace and by faith, and that circumcision is not necessary to salvation. Then why did he do it? Because in this circumstance, it wasn't a question of getting the man circumcised for salvation. And you see, as he himself was later to write in the Epistle to the Galatians, actually, if you don't make it a condition of salvation, circumcision is neither here nor there.
Circumcision is nothing, uncircumcision is nothing. Timothy was half a Jew. Paul wanted him to work among Jews. There were Jews that were converted, and they felt, yes, salvation is utterly by faith. But then, if you really are a believer and you've been forgiven, the righteousness of the law should be fulfilled in you. You say, yes, my brother, but only the moral law. You know, the ritual law is, is no longer needed. How did he say this is moral? You say, no, it isn't. Yes, he says it is. Oh. So now what? This man is clear that his salvation is by faith, but, uh, he thinks that the command of circumcision is a moral command, so he feels he ought to keep it.
You see it isn't a moral command, only a symbol, so you feel free not to keep it. So Paul takes Timothy and circumcises him. Whatever for? Well, I suggest to you simply for gospel tactics. Let me close by citing a possible analogy. One of these days, from the comfort of finicky, you feel called upon of God to go as a missionary to the wild islands of the Outer Hebrides. Or not so wild these days, prosperous maybe. But there you must know there are people that are exceedingly religious. Some of them are last not saved. They feel that you have to keep the law, and the Sabbath is part of the law.
Others that are saved, and they likewise feel that the Sabbath is a moral commandment, and that if you are a genuine believer, you ought to keep the Sabbath. You say, so do I. No, you don't, because you, I saw you driving to the hall in your car on Sunday and having a fire inside the cylinder to make it go. I've seen some of you with fires in your lounges on Sundays and cold days in Belfast. You say that the Sabbath isn't a moral commandment. I agree with you. Ah, but these folks think it is.
So now you're going to evangelize them. What are you going to do? You say, well, I can't take notice of the silly nonsense. I shall drive up on my bicycle, if not on my, in my rolls, I shall go on my bicycle. Well, you might as well stay at home then. They won't listen to you. In their understanding, you're deliberately breaking the law of God. You couldn't be a genuine believer. How will you ever preach the gospel to them? You'll tell them straight if they ask you, I don't believe you have to keep the Sabbath to be saved. But to come down and to consider their conscience and to win them for the gospel, you're prepared to forego your right and walk to the meeting on the Sunday.
In order not to offend them, so as you can preach the gospel to them. That, as I understand it, is what Paul did about circumcision. If they tried to tell him it was necessary for salvation, never. If it wasn't for salvation, but simply to respect other folks' conscience, he was prepared to go along with their conscience so as to be able to preach the gospel to them. And with that we close. Our study has been long. God help us to select from it what he wants to teach us, and may his bless, may he bless his word to us all. Shall we pray?
Our Father, we thank thee for the way thy word speaks to us over the centuries. We recognize in the situations that met the early church, problems and principles that we ourselves still have to face. We thank thee for these clear examples that set before us, without shadow of doubt, what are the principles of salvation. We pray tonight, Lord, that all of us here, without exception, may see it clearly exactly how a man is saved by grace, that all of us, without exception, may enjoy that salvation.
Give us, Lord, that same missionary zeal to take that message to others, if need be, in the process, foregoing our own rights, that by all means we may win some. Part us with thine evening peace through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
