Thank you.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to our services here at Faith Ward Baptist
Church.
Very nice to see you all here on this Sunday
morning.
If you don't please now find your seats and go to
hymn number 210.
We'll begin this morning.
Hymn number 210.
210.
Wonderful grace of Jesus.
Hymn number 210.
That's 210.
So once you find your place, we'll lift it up
together on that verse.
Hymn number 210.
Wonderful grace of Jesus.
Greater than all my sin.
Hymn number 210.
Sing it out now.
Wonderful grace of Jesus.
Greater than all my sin.
How
shall my tongue
describe it?
Where shall it
be?
Where shall it be?
I
hear
Where shall it
begin?
Taking away my
burden
setting my
spirit free
for the
wonderful
grace of Jesus
reaches me
Wonderful
grace of Jesus
Higher than the mountains, sparkling like a fountain,
falls a fishing whispering to me.
Louder than the scope of my transgression,
greater far than all my sin and shame.
Oh, magnify the precious name of Jesus.
Praise his name.
Wonderful grace of Jesus, reaching to all the lost.
By it I have been pardoned, saved to the other host.
Chains have been torn asunder, giving me
liberty for the wonderful grace of Jesus.
Reaches me.
Wonderful, the matchless grace of Jesus.
We prevent the mighty rolling sea.
Higher than the mountains, sparkling like a fountain,
falls a fishing whispering to me.
Louder than the scope of my transgression,
greater far than all my sin and shame.
Oh, magnify the precious name of Jesus.
Praise his name.
Wonderful grace of Jesus, reaching the most defiled.
By its transforming power, making him God's dear child.
Urges him peace and heaven for all eternity.
And the wonderful grace of Jesus reaches me.
Wonderful, the matchless grace of Jesus.
Deeper than the mighty rolling sea.
Higher than the mountains, sparkling like a fountain,
falls a fishing whispering to me.
Louder than the scope of my transgression,
greater far than all my sin and shame.
Oh, magnify the precious name of Jesus.
Praise his name.
Father in heaven, we want to thank you for Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
We want to thank you for this beautiful Sunday morning, Lord.
We want to thank you for all our guests we have today, Lord.
We want to have a reminder, Lord, to have everybody drink and stay hydrated with water, Lord.
Please bless our voices as we lift them up to you in praise.
Please bless every aspect of today's sermon.
It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
And then back to hymn number 21, number 21.
What a wonderful savior, hymn number 21.
Singing on that first verse now, hymn number 21.
Christ has for sin atonement made.
What a wonderful savior.
Christ has for sin atonement made.
What a wonderful savior.
We are redeemed.
The price is made.
What a wonderful savior.
What a wonderful savior is Jesus, my Jesus.
What a wonderful savior is Jesus, my Lord.
I praise him for the cleansing blood.
What a wonderful savior that reconciled my soul to God.
What a wonderful savior.
What a wonderful savior is Jesus, my Jesus.
What a wonderful savior is Jesus, my Lord.
He cleansed my heart from all its sin.
What a wonderful savior.
And now he reigns and rules therein.
What a wonderful savior.
What a wonderful savior is Jesus, my Jesus.
What a wonderful savior is Jesus, my Lord.
He gives me overcoming power.
What a wonderful savior.
And triumph in each trying out.
What a wonderful savior.
What a wonderful savior is Jesus, my Jesus.
What a wonderful savior is Jesus, my Lord.
To him I've given all my heart.
What a wonderful savior.
The world shall never share apart.
What a wonderful savior.
What a wonderful savior is Jesus, my Jesus.
What a wonderful savior is Jesus, my Lord.
All right, at this time we'll go through our announcements together.
If you don't have a bullet, then slip up your hand nice and high.
We'll get to you with one.
On the inside we have our service time.
Sunday mornings at 1030 is our preaching service.
Sunday nights at 6.
Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study.
This week will be in 2 Chronicles chapter 10.
We've got the soul-winning times listed there below,
as well as salvations and baptisms.
Across the page are the birthdays and anniversaries.
Of course, before the service we had the donuts in honor of those.
Thank you to those who came out soul-winning in Clifton, Arizona
for the small-town trip.
Six soul-winners there had 18 salvations.
It was a very receptive area.
On the back there is going to be a Navajo soul-winning trip
coming up on June 28th and 29th.
So that leaves on Friday morning, comes back on Saturday evening.
We've got details and a sign-up sheet over here to my right.
And it will also include a trip to Grand Canyon National Park.
It's free of charge, of course, like all of our church activities.
You just have to show up and participate.
Below that we've got the note about the Nigeria mission strips.
Just a couple people going,
but it's going to be June 6th through 23rd.
So if you can remember just to keep them in your prayers
for safety and effectiveness over there.
Keep praying for the expectant ladies in our church.
And that's about it.
That's about it for announcements.
Let's go ahead and sing our next song. Come lead us.
Alright, you should find the insert in front of your hymnal of Psalm 139.
If you don't have an insert, you can raise your hand. We'll sing it out.
On that first, surely thou wilt slay the wicked.
Surely thou wilt slay the wicked.
Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God.
Depart from me, therefore ye bloody men.
Do not, I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee.
And them not, I grieve with those that rise up against thee.
Do not, I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee.
For they speak against thee wickedly.
And thine enemies take thy name in vain.
Do not, I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee.
And them not, I grieve with those that rise up against thee.
Do not, I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee.
I hate them with perfect hatred.
I count them mine enemies.
Do not, I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee.
And them not, I grieve with those that rise up against thee.
Do not, I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee.
Amen. Excellent singing everybody.
Let's go to your hymnals now.
Hymn number 143.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.
Hymn number 143.
We'll sing it out on that first verse now.
Hymn number 143.
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.
O what a foretaste of glory divine.
Heir of salvation, purchase of God.
Born of his Spirit, watched in his blood.
This is my story, this is my song.
Raising my Savior all the day long.
This is my story, this is my song.
Raising my Savior all the day long.
Perfect submission, perfect delight.
Visions of rapture now burst from my sight.
Angels descending, praying from above.
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.
This is my story, this is my song.
Raising my Savior all the day long.
This is my story, this is my song.
Raising my Savior all the day long.
Perfect submission, all is at rest.
High in my Savior and happy and blessed.
Watching him waiting, looking above.
Filled with his goodness, lost in his love.
This is my story, this is my song.
Raising my Savior all the day long.
This is my story, this is my song.
Raising my Savior all the day long.
Acts chapter 19, beginning in verse number one.
Acts chapter 19, the Bible reads,
And it came to pass that while Apollos was at Corinth,
Paul having passed through the upper coast came to Ephesus,
and finding certain disciples, he said unto them,
Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?
And they said unto him, We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.
And he said unto them, Unto what then were you baptized?
And they said unto John's baptism.
Then said Paul, John verily baptized with a baptism of repentance,
saying unto the people that they should believe on him which should come after him,
that is, on Christ Jesus.
When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
And when Paul had laid his hands upon them,
the Holy Ghost came on them, and they spake with tongues and prophesied,
and all the men were about twelve.
And he went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for the space of three months,
disputing and persuading the things concerning the kingdom of God.
But when divers were hardened, and believed not,
but spake evil of that way before the multitude,
he departed from them and separated the disciples,
disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus.
And this continued by the space of two years,
so that all they which dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus,
both Jews and Greeks.
And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul,
so that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons,
and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them.
Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists,
took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits,
the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth.
And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests which did so.
And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are ye?
And the man in whom the evil spirit was left on them,
and overcame them, and prevailed against them,
so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded.
And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks,
also dwelling at Ephesus,
and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.
And many that believed came, and confessed, and showed their deeds.
Many of them also, which used curious arts,
brought their books together, and burned them before all men.
And they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.
So mightily grew the word of God, and prevailed.
After these things were ended, Paul purposed in the spirit
when he had passed through Macedonia and Achaia to go to Jerusalem,
saying, After I have been there, I must also see Rome.
So he sent into Macedonia two of them that ministered unto him,
Timotheus and Erastus, but he himself stayed in Asia for a season.
And the same time there arose no small stir about that way,
for a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith,
which made silver shrines for Diana,
brought no small gain unto the craftsman,
whom he called together with the workmen of like occupation, and said,
Sirs, you know that by this craft we have our wealth.
Moreover, you see and hear that not alone at Ephesus,
but almost throughout Asia, this Paul hath persuaded and turned away
many such people, saying that there be no gods which are made with hands.
So that not only this our craft is in danger, to be said it not,
but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised,
and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth.
And when they heard these sayings, they were full of wrath,
and cried out, saying, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.
And the whole city was filled with confusion,
and having caught Gaius and Aristarchus, men of Macedonia,
Paul's companions in travel, they rushed with one accord into the theater.
And when Paul would have entered in unto the people, the disciples suffered him not.
And certain of the chief of Asia, which were his friends, sent unto him,
desiring him that he would not adventure himself into the theater.
Some therefore cried one thing, and some another, for the assembly was confused.
And the more part knew not wherefore they were come together.
And they drew Alexander out of the multitude, and the Jews putting him forward,
and Alexander beckoned with the hand, and would have made his defense unto the people.
But when they knew that he was a Jew, all with one voice about the space of two hours,
cried out, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.
And when the town clerk had appeased the people, he said,
Ye men of Ephesus, what man is there that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesians
is a worshiper of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from Jupiter?
Seeing then that these things cannot be spoken against,
ye ought to be quiet, and to do nothing rashly.
For ye have brought hither these men, which are neither robbers of churches,
nor yet blasphemers of your goddess.
Wherefore, if Demetrius and the craftsmen which are with him have a matter against any man,
the law is open, and there are deputies. Let them implead one another.
And if ye inquire anything concerning other matters, it should be determined in a lawful assembly.
For we are in danger to be called into question for this day's uproar,
there being no cause whereby we may give an account of this concourse.
And when he had thus spoken, he dismissed the assembly.
Father in heaven, thank you for your son Jesus Christ,
and for the earnest of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of the believers.
I pray that you please bless Pastor Anderson with the fullness and the power of the Holy Spirit
as he preaches your word, so that we your children would grow in grace
and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
In Jesus' name I pray, amen.
Man, this morning I'm going to be preaching about the Apostle Paul's third missionary journey.
A while back I did a couple sermons on his first missionary journey.
I did four sermons on his second missionary journey.
And so today we're going to talk about his third missionary journey.
He sets out from Antioch and passing through what would today be,
modern Turkey, Asia Minor.
He gets to the west coast of Asia Minor slash Turkey to Ephesus.
And Ephesus is going to be a place where he has huge success
and multitudes and multitudes of people end up getting saved.
Of course we have the epistle to the Ephesians.
And so this is a really significant part of Paul's ministry when he's preaching in Ephesus.
But it says in chapter 19 verse 1,
Paul having passed through the upper coast came to Ephesus.
And finding certain disciples he said unto them,
Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?
And they said unto him, We've not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.
And he said unto them, Unto what then were you baptized?
And they said, Unto John's baptism.
Now this is a really important story doctrinally because it's one of the,
it is I think the only example of people being re-baptized in the New Testament.
Because a lot of people would say that it's unbiblical to ever re-baptize someone.
And of course the people that want to teach this doctrine are pretty much Catholics and Protestants
because they quote unquote baptize babies.
First of all, if you're not dunking someone all the way under water, you're not baptizing them.
There's no sprinkling or pouring in the Bible.
Every single baptism in the Bible involves people going down under the water, coming up out of the water.
The Bible says we are buried with him by baptism into his death.
That like as Christ was raised up from the dead to the glory of the Father,
we also should walk in newness of life.
So we're buried in the likeness of his death.
We're raised in the likeness of his resurrection.
And so of course baptism in the Bible is always by immersion.
When Philip baptizes the eunuch, they both go down into the water and he baptizes them.
John was baptizing an anon near to Salem because there was much water there.
You don't need much water to sprinkle or pour something on someone's head.
You don't need a little bird bath like you see in Protestant churches.
No, a baptistry involves a significant amount of water.
Certain parts of the Jordan River are pretty shallow to where you wouldn't be able to baptize anyone.
So he had to go to a certain part of the Jordan River where it was actually deep enough to dunk someone underwater.
All of the biblical evidence points toward immersion.
And even the people who believe in this sprinkling, pouring garbage will claim like,
well yeah, in the Bible they definitely did it by immersion, but both are okay.
Says who?
And you want to know what's so, you know, they just all of a sudden have just given themselves permission
to just also sprinkle and to also pour, even though they admit that in the Bible,
in the New Testament time, they're doing it by immersion.
Well, you know, what's the difference?
And then here's what's so ironic.
These are the same Presbyterians that are going to turn around and tell you,
oh, don't use musical instruments because we don't see it anywhere in the New Testament.
But let's just change the method of baptism to something that we also don't see in the New Testament.
Doesn't make any sense, does it?
We're either going to follow the Bible or we're not.
And by the way, musical instruments are extremely biblical.
I'm not going to re-preach that sermon.
But, and even in the New Testament, they come up.
But the point is that Catholics and Protestants teach that no one should ever be re-baptized.
Okay, first of all, if you got baptized as a baby, as a Catholic or a Protestant,
you never got baptized the first time, so you're not being re-baptized.
You're just being baptized for the first time.
But other people who maybe were dunked may need to be re-baptized
because we have a perfect example here of people being re-baptized.
Now the question is, why are these people being re-baptized?
And that's what we're going to get to the bottom of in this passage here.
So it says in verse 4,
Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance,
saying unto the people that they should believe on him which should come after him,
that is on Christ Jesus, and when they heard this,
they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
So notice, in verse 3, they were baptized unto John's baptism,
and then in verse 5, they're being baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Now here's what people will try to say.
People will try to say, well the problem is, they were baptized by John the Baptist,
not in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
You know, not in the name of the Lord Jesus.
And so that's why they had to be re-baptized.
Here's the problem with that logic.
Based on that logic, everybody baptized by John the Baptist
would have had to be re-baptized, and we don't see that anywhere in Scripture.
You see, Jesus and the apostles and thousands of other Christians
were baptized by John the Baptist, and we do not see them getting re-baptized.
There's no need for them to be re-baptized.
The reason why these particular people needed to be re-baptized
is because when they got baptized, they weren't saved.
That's the reason why they need to be re-baptized,
because when they got baptized, they weren't saved.
And so because they weren't saved, once they actually hear about Jesus
and believe on Jesus, now they need to get baptized again.
Okay, so here's the moral of the story,
and I'm going to go into more detail on this in a moment.
I'm just explaining to you the thesis here,
and then we're going to prove it in a moment.
But the idea here is that if you got baptized before you were saved,
well, then that doesn't count for anything.
That doesn't mean anything, because baptism is supposed to come after salvation.
And so if you got baptized before you were even saved,
you basically took a bath. You got wet.
It didn't mean anything, because baptism follows salvation.
You see, in Acts 8 with the Ethiopian eunuch,
Philip is preaching in the gospel of Jesus Christ,
and he says, See, here is water.
What doth hinder me to be baptized?
Okay, now the Bible then says that Philip answered him and said,
If thou believeth with all thine heart, thou missed.
What does that mean? That means if you don't believe in Jesus, you may not.
But if thou believeth with all thine heart, thou missed.
And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,
and then he baptized him.
Now, of course, modern Bible versions remove Acts 8, verse 37,
and so you will literally be reading along in an NIV or an ESV or whatever,
and it will literally say 35, 36, 38, and just skip over verse 37.
Why is verse 37 missing?
Because there are a couple of corrupted manuscripts that remove this,
and you can obviously see a motive for why this would have been removed,
because it totally flies in the face of Catholic and even Protestant doctrine,
of baptizing babies.
How can you baptize babies if you're supposed to believe
before you can get baptized, right?
So Acts 8, 37 just destroys infant baptism,
and so you can see the motive for removing it.
Just like anti-Trinitarians, people who also denied the deity of Christ,
removed 1 John 5, 7 from many manuscripts.
This was an agenda of removing certain verses that conflicted with their doctrines.
Just like the Jehovah's Witnesses, they make their own fake Bible
and take out things that they don't agree with and so forth.
And so, according to Acts 8, 37, you've got to believe on Christ,
then you get baptized.
And by the way, there's not a single example in the entire Bible of babies being baptized.
Tons of people being baptized, never a baby being baptized.
What the Presbyterians will point to is,
oh, well, this guy got baptized and his household,
therefore it must have been babies,
which is obviously illogical for a couple of reasons.
First of all, who here lives in a household with no baby in the home?
Put up your hand if you're living in a household with no baby, all right?
And look, we probably have more babies per capita
than almost any church in America, okay?
And yet, half the congregation just raised their hand and said,
there's no baby in my house.
But I'm supposed to just believe that the Philippian jailer is just running a baby nursery,
just filled with babies.
No, my friend, there's not a single baby being baptized in Scripture
because baptizing babies is a pagan, wicked practice
that the Roman Catholics got from the Roman part of their name.
It has nothing to do with actual biblical Christianity or the New Testament, okay?
Believers' baptism is what we believe in.
You believe on Jesus Christ.
Then you get baptized as a public profession of faith, right,
after you've actually believed in Jesus.
You can't impose that on someone else.
I mean, why don't I just start grabbing adults and baptizing them,
just overpowering them, right?
Why don't we just start finding the weak
and just grabbing them, body-slamming them,
and just dunking them under water and baptizing them?
And maybe that will confer some spiritual benefit on them.
Well, you know what?
It's also not going to confer a spiritual benefit to just take some baby,
just because you're stronger than that baby,
and just dunk it under water three times like the Greek Orthodox do,
just because they do a triple dunk, by the way, the Greek Orthodox,
or, you know, splashing it or dumping, whatever crazy thing.
And so the teaching here is that these people needed to be rebaptized,
not because there was something wrong with John the Baptist's baptism.
There's nothing wrong with John the Baptist's baptism.
The problem is that they weren't saved when they get baptized by John the Baptist.
And let's prove that. Let's look at that.
It says in verse number 1,
It came to pass that while Apollos was at Corinth,
Paul, having passed through the upper coast, came to Ephesus,
and finding certain disciples.
Now, what is a disciple?
A disciple is a student, a learner, right, a follower.
So these people are claiming to be disciples of Christ, Christians.
Let me ask you this.
Is everybody that you run into who says,
I'm a Christian, actually saved?
No.
I mean, we run into people all the time that'll say,
Oh, I'm a Christian.
And then you ask them,
Do you know for sure if you died today you'd go to heaven?
Well, I hope so. I'm a pretty good person.
Folks, they don't understand the gospel at all.
They don't understand salvation at all.
Or you ask them,
What do we have to do to get to heaven?
And they'll say,
Keep the commandments.
Be a good person.
Sometimes they won't even mention Jesus in the answer.
Because it's just all about their own good works.
That's not the gospel.
That's not salvation.
That's not Christianity.
So just because someone says that they're Christian,
doesn't mean that they're saved.
These people are disciples,
meaning that they're followers of Christ outwardly.
They're quote-unquote Christians.
They're claiming to be disciples.
Okay, because what does disciple mean here?
You know, it doesn't say they're calling themselves Jews or something.
I mean, it says they're disciples.
Obviously, that's disciples of Christ.
They're claiming the name of Christ.
Okay, so Paul runs into certain disciples.
So they're, you know, at first blush.
Maybe he presumes that they're saved,
thinks that they're probably saved.
They're claiming to be following Christ.
They're claiming to believe in Christ.
But then he says to them,
Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?
You know, which is a question that's a reasonable question
because of the fact that, number one,
as soon as a person believes in the Lord Jesus Christ,
that person is then sealed by the Holy Ghost.
That person is indwelled by the Holy Spirit.
And not only that, after that,
there is the potential for that person to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
And all throughout the Book of Acts,
he's being filled with the Holy Spirit,
preaching the Word of God with boldness,
speaking in a foreign language, and so forth.
And so he asks them this question.
He's basically digging a little deeper.
He's just talking to them,
figuring out where they're at spiritually.
And he asks them,
Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?
And they said unto him,
We've not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost.
They're like, We're not even sure if the Holy Ghost even exists.
Now, this is confusing to the Apostle Paul
because of the fact that people are baptized
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
So if you supposedly got saved and baptized,
you'd assume you know who the Holy Ghost is
since it's literally in his name that you're baptized,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
So he says, Well, unto what then were you baptized?
Like, how did you get baptized
and you're not even sure whether there's a Holy Ghost?
And then they say, Well, unto John's baptism.
Now, here's the thing.
This does not explain why they don't know who the Holy Ghost is.
This is a bad answer.
Here's why it's a bad answer.
Because John the Baptist, every time he's preaching in Scripture,
is constantly talking about the Holy Ghost.
So it's not like, Oh, well, you got baptized by John.
That's why you're not familiar with the Holy Ghost.
Well, no, because if they would have listened to John's preaching,
John is constantly preaching about the Holy Ghost.
For the sake of time, we're not going to go back and look at it.
But if you look it up in Matthew, Mark, Luke, John,
these are the type of things that John preached.
He says, first of all, I baptize you with water,
but he that cometh after me is mightier than I,
whose shoes I am not worthy to bear.
He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.
And so he talks about the Holy Ghost in that way.
He also talks about how Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God,
which taketh away the sin of the world.
And he says that the way that he recognized Jesus
was that he saw the Holy Ghost descending upon him like a dove,
and he knew that it was the Son of God,
because God had told him, the one who sent him to baptize had told him,
that whoever he sees the Holy Ghost descending upon and remaining on him,
that is he that is the Son of God,
that takes away the sin of the world, the Lamb of God, and so forth.
And so the apostle, or excuse me, John the Baptist preaching
covered the Holy Ghost quite a bit, if you look it up.
In virtually every instance, he's speaking a lot about the Holy Ghost.
These people apparently weren't paying attention.
They got baptized because everybody's getting baptized by John the Baptist.
Thousands and thousands of people are getting baptized by John the Baptist,
but these people somehow didn't get his message
because they come away not even knowing whether the Holy Ghost even exists.
This is a red flag to the apostle Paul
when these people don't know who the Holy Ghost is
or if there even is a Holy Ghost,
and they supposedly got baptized by John the Baptist,
so this isn't really adding up.
And so now Paul begins to preach to them what they missed from John's message.
He says,
John, verily baptized with the baptism of repentance,
saying unto the people that they should believe on him which should come after him,
that is on Christ.
You know, he's saying, look, John the Baptist was preaching the baptism of repentance,
which was that people should believe on the one who's coming after, on Jesus Christ.
And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus,
and when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them,
and they spake with tongues and prophesied,
and all the men were about twelve.
And so the reason why these people needed to be rebaptized
is not because John's baptism was insufficient,
because if it were insufficient, everybody would have had to get rebaptized,
and there's no scripture on that whatsoever.
Only these yahoos who don't know whether the Holy Ghost even exists
have to be rebaptized.
No one else.
So therefore if we run into someone who doesn't know what's going on,
doesn't understand the gospel, doesn't understand Christ's death, burial, resurrection,
the fact that salvation is by faith and so forth,
you know, if someone is confused and not saved,
and then we preach them the gospel and then they get saved,
then we would rebaptize them.
Why? Because baptism comes after salvation.
If thou believeth with all thine heart, thou mayest.
So here's the thing.
These people were sleeping during John the Baptist's sermon,
but then they came forward and got baptized anyway.
If they would have been awake during the sermon,
they would have known that John is preaching
that they're supposed to believe on him who comes after, which is Jesus.
So here's the thing.
You believe, and then you get baptized.
Now, the reason why John the Baptist's baptism was valid,
even before Jesus had been revealed as the Messiah,
is that they're believing on the Messiah who's coming.
They're looking forward to Christ.
We look back to Christ.
But the people who are being baptized by John,
they're believing in the one who's coming after.
They're believing in a coming Messiah, and they're getting baptized.
Now, it's not in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
It's not in the name of the Lord Jesus
because those things have not yet been revealed.
But they're still looking forward to the Messiah,
getting baptized in the name of that Savior, whoever he is.
Then when he shows up, John the Baptist points him out
and says, this is him.
This is who I've been preaching about.
So therefore, John the Baptist's baptism obviously could occur after salvation
for people even before Jesus came
because they're looking forward to Jesus,
and they're getting baptized, believing on him that should come after.
And so that's why Paul says this in verse 4.
Let's read it again.
I want to make sure we don't miss anything.
Then said Paul,
John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance,
saying unto the people that they should believe on him
which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.
And so the idea here is that if you got baptized by John the Baptist,
you were supposed to have believed on the coming Christ
and then gotten baptized by John the Baptist.
That's the part you guys missed, and so they hear that.
They believe that, obviously, and then they get baptized again, right?
This time, for real, because they're actually saved.
Now, what's going on here with the baptism of repentance, right?
This is something that comes up a lot today
because everybody's always trying to smuggle works into salvation, right?
Salvation's a free gift.
Salvation is by faith alone,
but everybody wants to try to smuggle in works.
And so what a lot of people will say is,
oh, you don't have to do any work to be saved.
You don't have to do any works,
but you just have to be willing to turn from all your sins
and you have to be willing to get all the sin out of your life.
Oh, that's not work at all.
Oh, is that all?
Why didn't you say so?
Sounds easy.
Folks, getting sin out of your life is work.
It's hard work.
It's a lifetime of work.
It's work every day to keep God's commandments and get sin out of our life.
By the way, getting sin out of your life is called keeping God's commandments,
and keeping God's commandments is called works.
It's called good works, the works of the law.
What about Jonah 3.10?
God saw their works, comma, that they turned from their evil way,
and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them,
and he did it not.
Somebody comes along and says,
well, you know, if you looked that up in the Hebrew,
it just says, you know, God saw what they did.
Okay, what if I told you that works and what you did are literally the exact same thing?
You know, to work is to do stuff.
It's stuff that you're doing.
It's effort that you're expending.
So God saw what they did.
Turning from your evil way is what you did.
It's the work that you worked.
And by the way, here's a synonym for works, deeds.
That's why the Bible doesn't just say you're not justified by works.
It also says you're not justified by the deeds of the law,
because guess what?
Do, did, done, deed.
Everybody understand?
Deed is literally from the verb do.
Do, did, done, deed.
Work, worked, worked, work.
Do, did, done, deed.
Everybody got that?
So the point is, yeah, stuff that you do, the deeds that you do, the deeds,
like literally, if you look this up in a Catholic Bible,
Ephesians 2, 8, 9, the Douay-Reeves Catholic Bible,
it literally says, like, you're not saved by deeds.
Instead of saying you're not saved by works, it just says you're not saved by deeds.
It's literally the exact same word, okay?
It's just another synonym.
But the point is, when God saw their works,
what was He looking at?
The fact that they turned from their evil way.
The Bible calls that He saw their works, okay?
And by the works of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in His sight.
This is why you hear preachers say all the time,
you know, we're saved by grace through faith, plus nothing, minus nothing.
Have you ever heard that?
Here's why they say plus nothing,
because you don't have to do good deeds to be saved.
Here's why they say minus nothing,
because you don't have to get all the sin out of your life in order to be saved.
Well, you just have to kind of think about doing it.
That's baloney, okay?
You get saved by faith, not by works, not by the deeds of the law,
not by works of righteousness, which we have done,
but according to His mercy, He saved us.
It's by faith that we're saved.
You believe on Jesus to be saved.
You don't do a bunch of effort and works and deeds
and whatever else you want to call it in order to be saved.
It's just a back door to saying, well, you have to live right to be saved,
which is works, works-based salvation.
You know, you're just saved by being good enough.
Well, it turns out all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags,
so that's not going to work.
And so people will come along and say,
well, you don't have to do any work,
but you do have to, you know, repent of your sins.
Okay, well, go to Mark Chapter 1.
Go to Mark Chapter 1 because when John the Baptist
is preaching the baptism of repentance, right,
in Acts 19-4, and do not miss the importance of Acts 19-4,
underline Acts 19-4 in your Bible if you like to underline verses
because Acts 19-4 is a key verse on repentance.
When people try to mix up what repentance is,
take them to Acts 19-4.
This is a great place to take them, okay,
because here's what repentance is.
Repentance is a change, and it's often a change of mind.
It's usually just talking about changing your mind,
but it could really be any kind of change,
but you don't know what the change is until you look at the context.
Okay, so you have God changing his mind
about whether he's going to destroy Nineveh.
I mean, God says, I'm going to destroy Nineveh,
but then he saw their works, and then he repented.
God repented.
When the children of Israel were leaving Egypt,
God said, well, I'm going to take them the scenic route
because I don't want to take them directly through the land of the Philistines
lest they repent when they see war.
What did he mean, repent?
He means turn around and go back to Egypt.
So in that situation, repenting was a bad thing.
If you're heading from the Promised Land,
you don't want to repent and go back to Egypt.
You want to keep going.
So repentance can be good or bad.
Repentance can be something that God does.
Repentance can be something that humans do
because it's just a change in your course of action
or a change in your mentality or whatever.
It could be all manner of things,
and it needs to be defined based upon the context.
So you'll hear this phrase, repent of your sins.
But here's the thing.
What people will do, they'll take verses that just say repent,
and they'll add of your sins to those verses.
Well, we can't just bring that phrase of your sins
and just tag it on to repent.
Why? Because what about all the times God repents?
Is God repenting of his sins?
He doesn't have any.
And so apparently, repent is not always talking about
repenting of your sins, is it?
Sometimes it can be talking about repenting of something else.
Let me give you some examples of things you could repent of.
You're going to go to the store and buy a gallon of milk,
but you repent and drink water instead.
You just change your mind.
Or, you know what, you're going to take 48th Street to church,
but you repent and take the I-10.
There's no moral issue involved.
It's just a change of plan, change of direction,
change of attitude.
You know, it could be, hey, I used to dislike him.
Now I've repented. Now I like him.
Hey, I used to like him.
Now I've repented and I dislike him.
Right?
You know, I used to not like cranberry juice,
but I repented.
Folks, these are legitimate uses of the word repent.
Biblically speaking, the word repent does not have
automatically attached to it this idea that you're doing something right
and repenting of sin or whatever,
because God doesn't repent of sin.
God is just going to do one thing
and then, oh, he repents.
Now he's going to do something else.
And by the way, God repents more than any other person
in the entire Bible.
Look up the word repent in your King James Version
and notice that it's God who's repenting.
I think somewhere on the order of like 40 times or something.
Don't quote me on that, but quite a few times
it talks about God either repenting or not repenting
in various situations.
And so look at Mark chapter 1
and let's see what the baptism of repentance was
according to Mark chapter 1.
It says in Mark 1, 4,
John did baptize in the wilderness
and preached the baptism of repentance
for the remission of sins.
So people point to this and say,
see, repentance for the remission of sins.
You have to repent of your sins
in order to get remission for your sins.
But does the Bible say here, repentance from sin?
No. What is the repentance
based on the actual context of the passage?
Look at what Jesus preaches
just a few verses later in verse 15.
What does Jesus say?
Verse 15, the time is fulfilled
and the kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent ye and believe the gospel.
He didn't say repent of your sins.
He said repent and believe the gospel.
He's saying you didn't previously believe in the gospel.
Change and start believing in the gospel.
Change what you believe.
You used to not believe.
Now you need to start believing in it.
What if someone were a Buddhist?
You say repent of Buddhism
and turn to Christianity.
Right?
Repent of Catholicism, idol worship
and believe the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Salvation by faith.
Okay, now,
with that in mind,
this is what Acts 19, 4 says.
Again, if you want to just keep your finger there
because we're going to be back there a lot.
But we're also going to look at Matthew 21
if you want to follow along with everything I'm showing you.
But the main place to be is Acts chapter 19.
Acts 19, 4 says this.
Then said Paul,
John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance.
That's the exact term that we see in Mark 1 and Luke 3.
Baptism of repentance.
He baptized with the baptism of repentance,
saying unto the people
that they should believe on him
and that they should believe on him which should come after him.
That is on Christ Jesus.
So when Paul preached,
or excuse me,
when John preached the baptism of repentance,
what was he saying?
What does it mean to preach the baptism of repentance?
How does that sermon sound?
Here's how it sounds.
Believe on him who's coming after.
He preached the baptism of repentance.
Oh, see, he's telling them that they have to stop sinning.
No, no, no.
He preached the baptism of repentance
and that they should believe on him which should come after.
That sounds like it goes perfectly with
repent and believe the gospel.
Change your mind and believe the gospel.
Right?
That's all it's saying.
Go to Matthew 21 now if you would.
We're going to be back in Acts 19,
but look at Matthew 21, verse 32.
I think some of the best verses
for correcting this nonsense
about claiming that salvation
requires you to stop sinning
or that you have to be willing to stop sinning
or something like that
is to look up these verses about repentance
and see what they mean in context.
Like, well, John, you know,
John preached to people, you know,
needed to repent for the remission of sins.
Here's the repentance they needed to do
for the remission of sins.
They need to believe on him who's coming after,
that is, on Christ Jesus.
That's what Acts 19, 4 says.
Look at Matthew 21, verse 32.
For John came unto you, verse 32,
in the way of righteousness,
and gave him not.
But the publicans and the harlots believed him,
and ye, when ye had seen it,
repented not afterward
that ye might believe him.
So what's repentance in this verse?
Is it, I'm done drinking?
Is that what it is?
Is that what this verse is about?
No, here's what the verse is about.
You've got one group of people saying
that they don't believe in Jesus.
You've got another group of people who do believe in Jesus,
and the people who don't believe in Jesus,
what they should be doing is looking at the people
who do believe and repenting and saying,
you know what, I was wrong.
I'm going to believe in Jesus now.
That's repentance.
You know what, I didn't believe in him,
but now I see the publicans and the harlots
getting saved, and you know what,
I'm going to believe in Jesus now.
Now look, folks, I don't see how you can read
Matthew 21, 32 and not understand
that the repentance associated with salvation
is that you didn't believe in him,
and now you're going to believe in him.
You used to be Buddhist, now you're Christian.
You used to be Muslim, now you're Christian.
You used to be a Hindu, now you're Christian.
That's the repentance of salvation.
It's turning to Christ.
It's turning to put your faith in Christ.
It's you stop trusting in whatever
you used to be trusting in,
and you put all your faith and trust in Christ.
You stop believing in idols and voodoo gods
and totem poles and tiki gods,
and you put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
But you know what,
repentance is not when it comes to salvation.
It is, hey, I'm going to stop sinning now.
I'm going to clean up my life now.
That's works.
It's a works-based salvation.
The Bible's clear.
Okay, here's more evidence,
and I know I'm kind of parking it on this point,
but it's an important point.
Here's more evidence.
John preached the baptism of repentance
for the remission of sins.
So whatever this repentance is,
it leads to the remission of sins.
Okay, so,
how do we get remission of sins according to the Bible?
Go to Romans chapter 3.
Romans chapter number 3.
And by the way, the apostle Paul
told us exactly what he preached
when he preached the baptism of repentance.
It'd be like,
let me just help you with the grammar.
It'd be like if I said,
you know,
my wife invited him over for lunch
saying,
come over for lunch.
Period. End quote.
Everybody get that?
Okay, John
preached the baptism of repentance saying,
believe on him who's coming after.
Not saying,
hey man,
time to quit drinking,
time to quit fornicating,
time to quit lying.
Now here's the thing.
Did John also preach
stop sinning and live a good life?
Yeah, so do I.
So do I every single Sunday and every Wednesday.
I preach against sin every single week too.
But you know what I'm not saying?
Stop sinning and thou shalt be saved.
You know what I'm not saying?
Stop sinning for the remission of sins.
That's not what I say.
Do I preach against sin?
Yes. Did John the Baptist preach against sin?
Yes. But when it came to the remission of sins,
what was the repentance
he was talking about in that particular context?
It was believe on him who's coming after.
That's what the Bible actually says
in Acts chapter 19 verse 4.
And Matthew 21 32 backs that up.
All you got is Jonah 3 10.
You know what?
I was preaching this before I even discovered
Jonah 3 10.
I was preaching this for years
and you know what my two go-to verses were?
Acts 19 4 and Matthew 21 32.
Also, I did a sermon where I went
all the way through every single time
repent is used in the book of Acts
and just completely demolished
this phony repent of your sins doctrine.
But, you know, it was a good day
when I discovered Jonah 3 10.
In fact, it was October 19th, 2008.
I just remember that because my daughter
was born the next day.
I don't know every day like that.
Where did I have you turn?
Where am I?
What are we doing?
Who are you people? Romans 3.
So Romans chapter 3
because remember, whatever this repentance is,
it leads to the remission of sins.
Ok, let's see what the Bible says.
It leads to the remission of sins.
Verse 23, Romans 3 23
For all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God,
being justified
freely by His grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
whom God has set forth
to be a propitiation
through faith in His blood
to declare His righteousness,
not our righteousness,
to declare His righteousness
for the remission of sins that are past.
So what gets us remission of sins?
Our righteousness or His righteousness?
Through the forbearance of God
to declare, I say at this time,
His righteousness
that He might be just
and the justifier
of Him which believeth in Jesus.
Where's boasting then?
Oh man, I gave up
my rock and roll lifestyle.
I gave up all the sex, drugs and rock and roll.
Shut up, I don't care about your weird,
messed up past.
If you got saved, it's because you believed in Jesus.
And you know what?
All that stuff you gave up is a big pile of dung anyway.
Because the Apostle Paul said
everything you gave up for Christ was dung in comparison.
Where's boasting then?
Oh, you know,
I've gotten so right with God
and look how holy I am
and I'm, you know, a hundred times
as righteous as thou art or whatever.
No, it says, where's boasting then?
It's excluded.
It's literally impossible.
It's totally excluded.
It's impossible to boast about this.
How can I boast about being saved
when I didn't even do anything great to get saved?
How can I possibly boast and say,
well, I'm a good person.
I go to church.
I don't drink anymore.
I don't do drugs.
I don't commit fornication.
I don't commit adultery.
You know, it's literally impossible to boast about
I'm a sinner.
I deserve hell.
But God saved me
because I just asked him to.
If you did boast about that,
the only way to boast would be boast it on Jesus.
Let him the gloriest glory of the Lord.
Why?
Because the only boasting would be
this is great.
Isn't Christ wonderful?
Isn't salvation amazing?
But it wouldn't be like, look at me.
Look what I've done.
Because what did you do?
You just believed in Jesus.
Wow, oh wow, I'm so impressed.
Oh wow, you asked for a free gift?
Wow, that's really impressive.
No, the impressive thing is Christ
coming to this earth, living a perfect life,
dying on the cross for our sins,
rising again from the dead,
dying for will.
That's pretty impressive stuff.
How about this verse?
No, no, it's the baptism of repentance,
and then they want to add
from sin for the remission of sin.
Well, if repenting of your sins
gets you remission,
then explain this verse.
Without shedding of blood is no remission.
So how much blood
was shed at that baptistry?
You know, is John the Baptist
just turning the Jordan River
into blood red,
just punching people in the nose,
giving them a bloody...
He's like a Baptist!
He's just giving people a bloody lip?
No, my friend, because baptism
doesn't give you remission of sins
unless you bleed.
And even then it wouldn't give you
remission of sins because your blood
is not the sinless blood of Christ.
My friend, it's Christ's blood
that He shed on the cross
and the remission of sins in Romans 3
through faith in His blood
because without shedding of blood
there's no remission.
So it's faith in His blood that saves.
It's not, uh, I'm done sinning now.
No, you're not.
I'm not done sinning.
You're not done sinning.
I wish I were done sinning,
but guess what?
We're all human.
If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves,
and I'm not going to take a time
because we haven't gotten very far
on the missionary journey.
So let's go back to Acts 19.
I hope that that all made sense to you.
The key teachings that we want to take away
from this first part of Acts 19.
Important stuff, my friend.
Very important.
This is what we want to take away.
Number one,
repentance with respect to salvation
is believing,
is changing your mind
and whatever religion you used to be,
you're switching over
and you're putting your faith on Jesus.
You know, it'd be like if you were,
if you're invested in the stock market
and you call up and you say,
hey, I want you to pull everything out of all my other stocks
and I want, put, put everything in Jesus
now.
Right? I want everything on Jesus.
Pull me out of all my other mutual funds
and put it on Jesus.
Now. Right?
That's what salvation is.
It was invested in AT&T
and now, you know,
because AT, I don't even know if AT&T
even exists anymore.
We're moving it over to, you know, whatever.
What's a big, what are we moving it to?
We're moving it to Verizon.
Alright? Take it out of AT&T
and we're putting it on T-Mobile.
Alright.
I have T-Mobile and this message was brought to you
in part by T-Mobile, so.
So, that's number one.
Number two, the other key takeaway
from this passage is
that rebaptism is biblical.
I mean, you have an example of people being rebaptized.
And don't let somebody try to tell you,
well, it's because it was just John's baptism.
Well then,
why didn't everybody else have to get rebaptized?
Right? Because guess what? Everybody else is
baptized by John the Baptist pretty much too.
Jesus' disciples
and thousands and thousands of
Christians, they didn't all just get rebaptized
after
the coming of Christ
because they'd already believed in Christ when they got baptized.
They believed on him that would come after.
That's what John the Baptist
told them to do. That's what they did.
They got saved. Then they got baptized.
You know, I had
another good verse on that.
Well, we'll skip it
for sake of time though.
You know what I think I was going to do
is kind of like take you back to Ephesians
1 again for a little review
about that, but you know,
I'm just going to trust
that you remember everything I preached last Sunday morning.
So, Acts chapter 19
verse 7
All the men
were about 12
that that story just has. There were 12 guys
that got rebaptized.
Verse 8
And he went into the synagogue. This is the
Apostle Paul. And where
is he? Anybody remember what town he's in?
Ephesus.
Right? Paul is in Corinth.
Paul is in Ephesus. So, this is what's
going on. The missionary
journeys, the reason we talk about the
first missionary journey, the second missionary
journey, and the third missionary
journey, and then his fourth and final
journey is the journey to Rome, you know,
where he goes and ends up in prison.
The reason that we talk about this is because
he basically goes back home in
between. Right?
So, you know, he comes back to
Antioch or Jerusalem. You know, he comes
back to his
more home base, which is Antioch,
which is his actual home base. So, you know,
at the end of the second missionary journey,
he ends up back in Antioch. So, that's
why we start a new journey because he's back at
his home church. He's back in Antioch.
And so, when he heads out,
the first stop
that the Bible tells us anything about is
the stop in Ephesus.
At the end of verse 1, it says,
Paul, having passed through the upper coasts,
came to Ephesus. Okay?
So, he's cruising
along the upper coasts through the
modern-day nation of Turkey.
And you can look at a map of this later if you're a
visual-type person. But he's
cruising along that southern
part of Turkey, the upper coasts,
and he gets to that west
coast of Turkey, and he gets
to Ephesus. He runs into these
12 guys and has this
encounter that we just talked about.
So, after talking to these 12 guys,
because he gets there and it's like,
oh, well, these guys are already Christians.
So, the first thing he's going to do is talk
to them. You know, it's like, hey, he just gets into town.
Hey, there's some disciples!
But then he runs into them, finds out, man, these guys
don't even know what's going on.
They don't even know about
Jesus. They don't know about the gospel.
They didn't get John the Baptist's message
either about the Holy Ghost or about
the fact that they were supposed to believe on him that
should come after. So, these
are his first converts. He gets these guys
saved. And, by the way, when you go
on a missions trip, it's always great
to get people saved who think that they're Christians
but are not saved. Right?
I mean, you don't want to pass up on that demographic.
You don't want to get to the mission field
and say, all right, let's go find
that guy with a bone in his nose and we're going to
get that guy saved. You know, why don't you
start with getting
the confused
so-called Christians saved
who don't know the gospel?
Why not start with the people who think
that they're saved but
don't know that salvation's a free gift,
don't know that it's by grace through faith in Jesus?
They think they're saved by the law.
They think they're saved by doing good things
or not doing bad things.
That's a good place to start on a missions trip.
Okay, so
after he deals
with the people that are already saved,
okay, or, excuse me, already
claiming the name of Christ,
after getting them saved, his
next step is he's heading for the synagogue.
Now, why is he heading for the synagogue?
Because the Apostle Paul is raised
as a Jew. He's super
familiar with the synagogue.
He's grown up his whole life in the synagogue.
He knows how to
talk and walk and do the whole
synagogue thing and so this is where he likes
to start giving the gospel
to the Jews because it's what he's
familiar with and he just personally has a burden
where he wants to get the Jews saved because
he is one, you know,
before his conversion, that is.
And so he shows up
and goes to the synagogue but, of course, the Jews
are not a receptive group of people, are they?
And so he shows up
and he preaches to the Jews in the
synagogue. It says he spake boldly
for the space of three months
disputing
and persuading the things
concerning the kingdom of God. So people are arguing
with him but he just really wants
to get the Jews saved and, of course, throughout
the book of Acts, he keeps getting more
frustrated until finally
he ends up, you know, just
saying, I'm done with the Jews. Like, I'm just
talking to the Gentiles. So we can skip step
two on future missions programs.
Number one, we find the people
who think they're already Christians and get them
saved and then we don't go to the synagogue
necessarily. We just start preaching to everybody.
And look, I am four witnessing
to Jews. I am a hundred and ten percent
four witnessing to Jews. Amen?
We should preach the gospel to every creature.
If I'm knocking doors in the neighborhood,
I don't skip the
doors where they're Jewish. I'm going to go
to all the doors. I want to preach the gospel to the Jews
and the Gentiles, both.
Here's what I'm not going to do.
I'm not going to say, oh, let me make a point
to prioritize Jews.
Why? Because they're some of the least
receptive people and that just doesn't make any sense.
Paul does that
in Acts but then he kind of learns
the hard way that it's better
to go after the Gentiles.
So again, I'm four preaching to the gospel to everybody
but I'm not going to prioritize Jews.
I'm about to say something
really racist so everybody
hang on. Hold on to your seat because it's going to be
super racist. You know, I just believe
that there's no difference between the Jews and the Greeks
and that they're all the same.
And you know, you say, well, that's not racist
at all. I didn't think so either
but I've frequently been told
that if I say that the Jews are
not special, they're not God's chosen people,
they're just like everybody else,
we're all the same, that I've been told
that that's anti-Semitic to say that.
So, you know, I'm sorry to have to
say that super anti-Semitic thing
that the Jews are not
different. They're not special.
They're exactly the same as everyone else.
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God
and the gospel is the power
of God unto salvation to the Jew first and also
the Greek.
And so I just believe everybody's
the same. I know that's super racist
but that's what I believe.
And so, you know, call me what you will.
Super anti-Semitic.
I know.
But, um,
so,
they're disputing,
they're arguing with him.
This isn't really where he's going to see his biggest
success. He spends three months there kind of beating
his head against the wall. But in verse nine,
when divers were hardened and believed not
but spake evil of that
way before the multitude, he
departed from them and separated
the disciples, disputing daily
in the school of one Tyrannus. So what
ends up happening is that
the ministry in the synagogue
after three months stops
being effective at all because
there are certain people that are just really hardened
and they're turning people against Paul,
they're fighting him, and there's so
much opposition
and fighting and negativity
at the synagogue that he
pulls out of the synagogue and says,
I'm done going to the synagogue
and talking to these people. We need to just do our
own thing. You know, we're going to go
somewhere else, we're going to do our own thing. Now,
this Tyrannosaurus guy, okay,
if you look at his name,
you know, this is not a Jewish
name. This is a Greek
name. So
what he does is basically
he pulls out of the
Jewish synagogue and he goes into
a Gentile institution.
He goes into the school
of Tyrannus. Now, we
don't know who this Tyrannus guy is, we don't
know necessarily what
he was into or what he's teaching,
but, you know, he obviously had some
kind of a facility, some kind of a
maybe it was a school of philosophy,
maybe it was a school of rhetoric,
maybe it was a, who knows,
but he had some kind of a school or something
where the, you know, where
they can do basically evangelism, you know,
where they can preach and
have a place where they can preach about
the gospel without all
of the interference from the really
hard-hearted among the Jewish synagogue.
So they pull out
of the synagogue
and they use the school of
Tyrannus as a headquarters or a
base for evangelizing
Ephesus. And it
says this continued, and by
the way, they're disputing daily in the school
of one Tyrannus. So we're
not talking about church here. We're
talking about daily, you know,
their daily efforts to evangelize the
area. Okay. So they're
using the school of Tyrannus. People
are constantly coming to the school of Tyrannus
to all preach, and he's using that
as a basis for his evangelism
of the area. And it says that continued
for two years. You know, the
gig at the synagogue only lasted three months.
There's a lot of arguing and so forth.
But then, you know, he's, now he's gonna
dispute, maybe he wants to
argue with them, he wants to preach to people,
whatever. It's happening at the school of
Tyrannus. This continued by the space of
two years, so that all they,
which dwelled in Asia,
heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.
So, three months in the
synagogue, two years in the
school of Tyrannus, and
word gets around. You know,
so he's in Ephesus the whole time.
He's not touring the entire,
you know, Asia Minor.
If you look at a map, obviously Turkey's
a pretty big country. That's
what the Bible means when it says Asia.
This is a Roman province, part
of the Roman Empire. It's a
Roman province called Asia.
It's not the continent of Asia.
So when you read, you know, all they which are in Asia
heard the word of God. This isn't talking about Japan.
You know, this isn't Paul
evangelizing Korea, China,
Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia.
It's truly amazing. No. What this is
talking about is the Roman province
called Asia, which is the modern
day country of Turkey.
Okay. So, by
preaching for three months in the synagogue,
by preaching for two years
in the school of Tyrannus, daily
he's there, disputing with people, preaching
the word of God. This causes word
to get out. Word spreads
throughout the entire province
of Asia where everybody knows about Jesus.
You know, because Jesus
isn't just this
thing that happened in, you know, this thing
that happened in Palestine where Jesus was
crucified and buried and risen again.
No. The word has gotten out now about
Christ and his message
and Christianity throughout the entire
province of Asia in the space
of two years, and this is through his
ministry.
So he has big success.
And then it says
in verse 11, we're just going to go through verse 12
and then I'll be done, so just a couple more minutes
hang with me. It says,
And God wrought special
miracles by the hands
of Paul, so that
from his body were brought unto the sick
handkerchiefs or aprons,
and the diseases departed from them, and the
evil spirits went out of them. Now, we'll talk about this
more on the next
sermon about Paul's
third missionary journey, but I want to
just sort of plant the seed of this
in your mind right now, is
that Paul did special
miracles. Now, let me ask you something.
If everybody's doing it, is it special?
Right, because a lot of people will teach that, oh,
all Christians have the power to do
these miracles, and every preacher
does miracles, and if your preacher doesn't
do miracles, well, you know, he's
just not a real preacher or whatever, and you have all these
kind of Benny Hinn
kind of hakala gondola, you know,
they take off the coat. I have a
mic in here, but you know, wham, wham,
you know, using it like a whip and
everything. Look,
the whole reason why the Bible
says that these miracles were
special is because
everybody's not doing them. That's what it means
to be special. Special miracles are
done by Paul because the apostles
specifically
were given power over
unclean spirits, power to heal sickness.
They were given power
that is not given to everybody.
This is why Paul is later going to write
and say, well, you know I'm an apostle
because the signs of an apostle were done
among you. I did,
you know, what about the miracles I did? You know,
well, that just means you're a Christian, Paul. That doesn't mean
that you're an apostle. That just means you're
Benny Hinn. No,
it's apostolic signs.
These are apostolic miracles.
This is
special miracles. Now look,
is it possible for us
today in 2024
to pray for someone
or lay hands on someone and pray to
God and for God to heal that person?
Absolutely. Of course.
Of course we could
pray for someone
and maybe God will heal them.
Okay? I mean,
look, my dad was, you know,
having a serious, severe
health problem. We were really worried about him.
Pastor Jimenez prayed for him.
He went to church on Sunday
morning. Pastor Jimenez prayed for him
and like within
a few hours he was completely healed.
And he was just fine.
You know? And he was praising God
for that. Look, of course we pray
for the sick and many times they recover.
God answers prayer.
But there's a difference between
praying for the sick,
praying for our friends, praying for our loved ones
and God helping them out, God
doing a miracle even.
That's different than just the power
to just whoever I touch is just being
healed. Isn't that a little different?
Right? If I, you know, I can't
just go to the hospital and just
start, just go, just work my way down the
hallways. You know, I'm going to, hey,
clear that clergy parking because I'm
coming. And I'm going to use that
clergy parking spot and I'm going in there
and I'm just from room to room just healing
everybody because I'm not an apostle. I don't have the ability
like Jesus and the apostles
where they're just doing multitudes of miracles.
Let me tell you a great man of God
in the Bible who Jesus
said was greater than any person
who was born of a woman. Obviously
other than himself.
John the Baptist
did no miracle.
How about that?
The greatest preacher, according
to Jesus, did no miracle.
Right? Because they said, you know, but you know what they
said about John the Baptist? They said John did no miracle
but all things that he said concerning
this man are true.
Everything John the Baptist preached was true
but yet he did no miracle.
Okay, so
the special miracles are the fact
that they can literally take a handkerchief
and touch it to the apostle
Paul and then touch it to the sick person
and the person is recovered.
That's a special miracle. The shadow
of the apostle Peter falling
on someone and then being healed. That's a
special miracle. Whereas
if you and I pray
for our loved one who's in the hospital
and we pray for them and God decides to
heal them, hey, that's a miracle.
Praise God. If God does a miraculous healing
I'm not going to deny
that a miracle took place
but that's worlds different
from just the type of things we see
with apostolic signs.
That's why the Bible uses this word.
Special miracles.
We'll get more into that in the context
next time. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for
this passage, Lord God. We thank
you for the great work that
was done at Ephesus, Lord,
because even today we're still feeling
the effects of that powerful
missionary work that
the apostle Paul did that spread the gospel
throughout the Greek-speaking
world and ultimately
to the uttermost parts of the earth, Lord.
Thank you so much for this example
that we could follow and be inspired
by. Help us to also
go out and find people who think they're
saved and actually get them
saved. Help us to also just find
all the lost, Jew and Gentile
and get as many people saved as we can
and in Jesus name we pray, amen.
Take my life
and let it
be
consecrated,
Lord, to
thee. Take
my hands and
let them move
at the
impulse of
thy love,
at the
impulse of thy
love. Take
my feet and
let them be
swift and
beautiful
for thee.
Take my voice
and let me
sing, always
only for
my King,
always only
for my
King. Take
my silver
and my gold,
not of
mine would I
withhold.
Take my
moments and my
days. Let
them flow in
ceaseless praise.
Let them flow
in ceaseless
praise.
Take my will
and make it
mine. It
shall be no
longer mine.
Take my
heart, it is
thine own.
It shall be thy
royal throne.
It shall
be thy
royal throne.
It shall be thy
royal throne.
It shall be
thy royal throne.
It shall be
thy royal throne.
It shall be
thy royal throne.
It shall be
thy royal throne.
It shall be
thy royal throne.
It shall be
thy royal throne.
It shall be thy
royal throne.