(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

In Acts chapter number 11, we just finished up the story with Cornelius and how Peter went and preached unto Cornelius and his whole household. They got saved, they got baptized and all that, and so there's a little bit of a recap of that story at the beginning here. It says in verse number 1, And the apostles and brethren that were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the word of God. And when Peter was come up to Jerusalem, they that were of the circumcision contended with him, saying, Thou wentest in to men on a circumcision did he with them. But Peter rehearsed the matter from the beginning and expounded it by order unto them, saying, We're not going to read through that whole account again for the sake of time. We just read it, and we also talked a lot about it last week. But notice right away the critics. Peter's coming back with this great report about all these people who have gotten saved, and of course there are people right away that want to criticize and find something wrong with what he did. They're probably just jealous that he's over there getting a bunch of people saved and they're doing nothing. Go to 1 Thessalonians 2 quickly. Keep your finger in Acts 11. But there are always going to be people ready to criticize and attack whenever you do anything for God, because the devil doesn't want you to do anything for God. So every time you go out and do great things for God, you can expect there to be adversaries and criticism and attacks, and people will try to find fault with what you're doing. I'm going to talk about that a little bit later in the message also. But in 1 Thessalonians 2, it says in verse 14, For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God, which in Judea are in Christ Jesus. For ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and have persecuted us. And they pleased not God, nor contrary to all men. Look at this next phrase in verse 16, forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved. You see that? So this is, again, Paul later on, rebuking the Jews for forbidding them to preach unto the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins all way, for the wrath has come upon them to the uttermost. Back to Acts chapter 11, if you would. You see, the Jews had a real problem with this. And you remember later on, when Paul is preaching in the book of Acts, right before he gets arrested for the final time that he's going to be taken to Rome, he stands up to preach and he preaches a big long sermon. And everybody listens to him until he gets to the part where God tells him that he's going to be preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles. And it says, they listened to him up to that point. As soon as Paul said that, they say, away with such a way. It's not fit for him to live. They wanted him dead just for saying he's going to preach to the Gentiles. And the Jews in the New Testament had a real problem with thinking that they're better than everybody else, and thinking that they were somehow some kind of a master race or something, and that they're the supreme race on this earth. And you know what? That is not biblical. That was not biblical in the Old Testament. That's not biblical in the New Testament. And basically, they took the thing of Abraham and his seed being chosen, and they totally warped it and blew it out of proportion. And they thought because they were the physical seed of Abraham, that they had some kind of a special blessing on their lives. When in reality, today, we are the spiritual seed of Abraham, according to Galatians 3 and 4. The Bible says, if you be Christ, then are you Abraham's seed. And it doesn't matter whether you're Jew or Gentile, bond or free, if you are in Christ, you are Abraham's seed, just like the song. Who sang that song when you were a kid? Father Abraham, and many sons of Abraham. How did you say that song? A lot of people say, that's a doctrinally correct song. I wish people would understand the doctrine of that song. Because I've sung that song in a lot of churches that didn't understand that doctrine. But at least we sang the song. And so, we've knocked on doors of Jewish people. Like for example, we knocked on the state senator. Is that what he is? Mitchell. Not Mitchell. Because US Congressman Mitchell, we knocked on his door. But then like just a few weeks later, as Brother Garrett and I again, we knocked on David Shapiro, who's like the state senator or state congress. I believe it's the state senator. We knocked on his door, and he said he's basically going to heaven because he's a Jew. He said, well all the Jews, everyone who's Jewish, and he didn't mean the religion, he's talking about the nationality. He said, well we're all going to go to Abraham's bosom, you know, when we die. All of us. And today, a lot of the Jews, they somehow think that they have a free pass into heaven. And John the Baptist warned him about that. He said, think not to say what think yourselves, we have Abraham to our father. He said, the ax is laid unto the root of the trees. And so, the Jews here, in Acts 11, are jumping down his throat just for preaching the Gospel of the Gentiles because they look down on the Gentiles. We should never look down on a certain nationality or a certain group of people. God is not a respecter of persons, as we learned in Acts chapter 10. And anyone from any nation is respected in his sight if they do right. And so God is not partial toward one certain nationality or another. And today we have Messianic Jews. You know, you've heard of the Messianic Jews? It's funny because I've met a lot of Messianic Jews, it's too bad I've never met one that was saved yet. Every single one of them was totally trusting in works, they totally said you have to repent of your sins, live a good life, do works, all that kind of stuff. And I'm against that movement, by the way, because you know what? Jesus Christ said, other sheep have I that are not of this fold, them also must I bring. He was talking about people outside of the nation of Israel. He said, them also must I bring. He said, there shall be one fold and one shepherd. God's house is to be a house of prayer for all nations. We don't need Jews having their own separate church, some kind of a Messianic Jew church. They need to get in a Baptist church and just get right there next to a Gentile and Jew in gentility to sit next to each other and sing the hymns and listen to preaching from a Baptist preacher, not some Messianic Jew church where they teach work salvation. We don't need a separate church, we don't need a separate Chinese church, we don't need a separate black church. This church should be for every nationality if you believe on Jesus Christ, we don't need a separate church. And so this is the problem that they're having here. But people always attack you when you do great things for God and that's what's happening in Acts 11 here. Let's jump past the rehash of the story because we just read it and we already went over it last week. Basically he tells the whole story, everything that happened. The only part that we will highlight is verse 14 just because it's a verse that you should memorize. Acts 11 14, who shall tell thee words whereby thou and all thy house shall be saved. That's right there, another verse about the word of God saving you. It says in verse 17, for as much then as God gave them the gift, the life gift as he did unto us who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, what was I that I could withstand God? So he finished the whole story and in verse 18 the people who were criticizing him earlier, now they back off and say when they heard these things they held their peace and glorified God saying, then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance of the light. Now why is this surprising then? The Bible said in the Old Testament that the nation of Israel was to be a light for the Gentiles. Even in Matthew, you remember that it was preached about Jesus when he went into Zebulon and that fly when he was up in that area, they said he shall show judgment to the Gentiles, my servant whom I have chosen, my son whom my soul is well pleased, I will put my spirit upon him, I'm talking about Jesus, and he will show judgment to the Gentiles. And so the Jews were just really slow to understand, even the Jews that were saved were just really slow to understand the fact, hey we need to get the Gospel to the Gentiles too. And they're shocked that the Gentiles are filled with the Spirit and that they've got saved and all these different things. They shouldn't have been shocked by this, this isn't something new. In the Old Testament there are all kinds of saved people of all different nationalities, there's a whole chapter in the book of Jeremiah, one entire chapter in Jeremiah dedicated to an Ethiopian man named Ebeg-Melek where God's just talking about how great he is and how he's going to bless him and all these different things. One of Jesus' disciples was a Canaanite. So these people are really confused here and they think that somehow salvation and the Holy Spirit was only for the Jews. So God's having to show them over and over again, hey that's not true, that's not the case. So he says in verse 18, then hath God, this is what they said, then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life. Now, repentance unto life, notice something that it doesn't say. Does it say repent of your sins unto life? And everybody will always try to add that, because you'll never find the phrase repent of your sins in the Bible or repent of his sins. You won't find that phrase so people will just say, oh see it says repent, well it doesn't say repent of your sins. Let's let the Bible define itself. Jump down to verse 21, because right up here in 18 we saw that the Gentiles were granted repentance unto life. Here's more Gentiles down in verse 21, and the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number believed and did what? Turned unto the Lord. Does it say a great number turned from their sins? No, it says a great number turned unto the Lord. This is like in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, when he said, for they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we have of you, how that ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, who he raised from the dead, even Jesus which delivered us from the wrath to come. He said he turned from idols unto the living and true God. He turned from Islam unto the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior. He turned from Catholicism unto faith alone for salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. He turned from Buddhism to Christianity. There's no mention of, well I have to turn from your sins. Well if you have to turn from your sins to be saved, then nobody is saved. And turning from your sins is worse anyway, because in Jonah 3.10 it says that God saw their works that they turned from their evil way, and God repented of the evil which he had said he was doing to them. If repent means repent of your sins, well then I guess God repented of his sins 36 times in the Bible. But that's not what it means. Of course if you're reading the NIV or the New King James Version, they take out every time that God repented, because they want to prop up this false doctrine that you have to turn from your sins to be saved. You know who repented of his sins by the way? Judas Iscariot. Still went to hell in Matthew 27.3. But he didn't believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus looked right at him in the face in John 6 and said there's some of you that believe not. And it said he spake of Judas, he knew it was him that would betray him. He knew that he was a devil. He said if not, I've chosen you twelve when he's a devil. So don't let people, every time somebody tries to show you some verse on repent, just notice, wait a minute, does it say repent of your sins? Or is it just turning to God? Is it just turning from a false religion? Is it just turning from something else? It says in verse number 19, and by the way, yes the Bible does tell people to repent of their sins, it's always people that are saved. He doesn't use that word repent of your sins, but like in Acts 8 he told a saved guy, repent of your wickedness. A guy that was already saved, already baptized, already been serving God, he just committed a sin, he just did wrong, and he was told to repent of that. Christians are told to repent all through Revelation 2 and 3 of all various things. So it says in verse number 19, now they which were scattered abroad, upon the persecution that arose about Stephen, travelled as far as Phoenice and Cyprus and Antioch, preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only. So we kind of jump away from the Peter story, because the book of Acts is kind of following a few different stories, okay? We jump away from the story about Peter and we pick up kind of where we were at the beginning of chapter 8, when a whole bunch of people, a whole bunch of Christians, not Peter, not Paul, not those guys, but just a whole bunch of other Christians were scattered pretty much throughout the whole area and even to some of the other parts of the earth, they're all scattered because of the persecution that started with Stephen, the persecution that Saul was causing. So we kind of jump back and see, hey what happened to those people, what were they doing? Well it says that basically the ones who were scattered abroad, they travelled as far as Phoenice and Cyprus and Antioch, preaching the word what? To none but unto the Jews only. Now was that the right thing for them to do? No, because Jesus, when he was on this earth, he basically just stayed in Israel and pretty much preached the Gospel throughout Israel, and he told his disciples when he sent them out, he said, go not into the way of the Gentiles and into any city of the Samaritans, enter ye not, but go rather the lost sheep of the house of Israel. During the three and a half years he was just trying to just canvas his whole area and just do all of Israel. Once he finished that, after he died and was buried and rose again, he said, go ye therefore and teach all nations. I mean wasn't that pretty clear? He said go ye therefore and teach all nations. He said go ye therefore into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. So these people are still not getting it, are they? They're just going, okay, we'll go all over the world, but we're still just going to that one nation. We're just going to the Jews only. So they're preaching to the Jews, they're trying to get the Jews to get saved. But watch this. Some of them, some of these believers, were men of Cyprus and Cyrene. So these guys, some of them were natives of these other places. So because they had connections with that group, they had connections with the Gentiles, it says when they were come to Antioch, they spake unto the Grecians. Okay, so they're actually reaching out to a different group, preaching the Lord Jesus and verse 21 says the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number believed and turned unto the Lord. So basically you have this group going out and they're just trying to reach only the Jews, only the Jews. You know the Bible doesn't really mention the results. It doesn't really mention them having any great results with that. But then just these couple of guys say well hey let's preach to the Grecians and all of a sudden they're just getting a ton of Grecian saved. You know so that's why we shouldn't just limit ourselves and say oh we're going to reach just this one group. Somebody, somebody, you know we have some, some believers today that are still mixed up on this. We had a guy come here to our church. He said he's a missionary to the Jews living in Tempe. That's literally what he wants to do. He's like I want to come here and I want to be a missionary to the Jews in Tempe. Why don't you just be a missionary to Tempe? You know why don't you just knock every door in Tempe and preach the gospel to every creature? But you know good luck with that by the way because we've knocked a lot of doors in Tempe and the people who slammed the door the hardest was those that had the little scroll you know attached to their front door and that were the Jews. And so if we're going to really see a great number turn to the Lord, we just need to preach the gospel to everybody. Red and yellow, black and white. Just preach it to everybody. That's where you're going to see the most results according to this. So a great number believed and turned unto the Lord. Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church which was in Jerusalem. Tidings of what? All these Grecians getting saved in Antioch. All this great number of people being saved. It's such a big turnout of people being saved that word of this gets back to Jerusalem. So they sent forth Barnabas it says in verse 22 that he should go as far as Antioch who when he came and had seen the grace of God was glad and exhorted them all that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. So basically they hear about all these Grecians getting saved in Antioch and they say well hey let's send one of our you know top preachers here. One of our head guys. Let's send one of the apostles. Let's send Barnabas because Barnabas was an apostle according to the Bible. There were not just 12 apostles contrary to popular belief. Barnabas called by the Bible an apostle was sent to basically just check it out and just confirm him and strengthen him. Well when he gets there he says hey this is great. You guys are doing great. And he pretty much just preached to them that they should you know cleave unto the Lord. He just preached a motivational sermon just to try to strengthen their faith there. And it says in verse 24 about Barnabas for he was a good man and full of the Holy Ghost and faith and of faith and much people was added unto the Lord then departed Barnabas to Tarsus for to seek Saul. So basically Barnabas is so excited about what's going on in Antioch. You know first they sent for Barnabas. He gets there. He thinks it's great. He preaches and tries to build their faith more. But then he says wow this is so great I'm going to go get the apostle Paul. You know so he goes and gets Saul and wants to bring him too. It says he departed to Tarsus verse 25 for to seek Saul and when he had found him he brought him unto Antioch. So now he brings him to Antioch just to show him and just have another great man there to reach more people and to build this church even more. It says he brought him to Antioch latter part of verse 26 and it came to pass that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church and taught much people and the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. Now the part that I really want to focus on in this verse is just these three words. It says and it came to pass that a whole year they assembled themselves what? With the church. They assembled themselves for a whole year with the church and taught much people and the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. You know what I want to point out here is that like at the beginning of the chapter I said you know people will try to find fault with you whenever you get a lot of people saved. You know they pointed out oh you shouldn't have been with these Gentiles. God never said anything that was wrong to eat with Gentiles. That was just their made up Pharisee doctrine that did not come from the Old Testament. But here we see that they go to this town, preach the gospel, a bunch of people get saved and then it says for a whole year they assembled themselves with the church and taught much people and the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. One of the biggest criticisms that you'll get today if you're a soul winning Christian because people who aren't soul winning you know you'd think that they'd just be happy that somebody's out preaching the gospel and getting people saved but they're not many times. Because it exposes their lack of service for God. It exposes the fact that they're not winning anybody for Christ. It exposes the fact that they are failing to preach the gospel to every creature and other people are just you know the children of Belial who are just bad people who just want to try to discourage you from going out and preaching the gospel and winning the loss. And so this is what they'll inevitably say to criticize you today. Well how are you discipling these people? How's your follow up? Who's heard something like that before? You've heard that criticism. Now you'll hear that so many times over and over again. When you go out and get a bunch of people saved they'll say to you, well are you following up with these people? Are you discipling them? You know the Bible says make disciples blah blah blah. Now look that is the most unscriptural garbage that there is in the world because first of all the Bible never says go make disciples. Now here I've got the NIV here, the New International Version and by the way you can tell where these fundamental Baptists are getting their doctrine. They're getting it from the stinking NIV. That's the problem. Here you go brother look that up Matthew 28 in the NIV and it's amazing how many King James only so called Bible believing Christians will get up and say all these things from the NIV and quote all this stuff from the NIV. I mean what are they reading a bunch of NIV books or are they getting in their closet at night and pull out a flashlight in the NIV or something? Or are they just listening to a bunch of ponies? I don't know where they're getting this stuff. But in the King James Version of the Bible, let me read it for you in Matthew 28, let me turn there myself. It says in verse 19, Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and lo I am with you always even unto the end of the world. Amen. So there's three steps there isn't there? There's go out and teach all nations, then baptize them, then teach them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. Well the first thing you're teaching them is obviously the Gospel because you teach them that, then you get them baptized, and then you teach them everything else. He said that's your goal, that's your job. Go ahead and read that for me brother Garrett verses 19 and 20 out of Matthew 28. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. Okay that's good. So here we have from the NIV this phrase go out and make disciples, but you'll never find that phrase make disciples in the Bible, in the King James Bible. Now here's the other thing that the NIV conveniently does. It basically tells you that Mark 16 9 through 20 is not in the original manuscripts. And that's the verse that says go ye therefore into all the world and preach the Gospel to every preacher. See this verse that's up above my head right here, the NIV says that this isn't part of the Bible. It says oh this is 11. Because they want to show you that you know whoa we're not just supposed to go out and preach to everybody and just teach everybody the Gospel. No no no it only tells us to make disciples. No it doesn't tell us to make disciples. Now should we teach people after they get saved, wait hold on, after people get saved should we baptize them? Yes. After we baptize them should we teach them to observe everything that God has commanded us? Yes. But show me discipleship as in follow-up, what they call going back to somebody who I've already won to Christ who refuses to come to church and begging them to come to church. Show me that in the Bible. I'm all for discipling somebody. Look around the room here. Do you see everybody around the room? These are my disciples. And this is me discipling them right now. This is discipleship right now. Now is it my fault if somebody that I went to Christ doesn't show up here to be discipled? Am I supposed to drag them here? Or am I supposed to be like a Jehovah's Witness and go do it in their house every week? I'm not a Jehovah's Witness. And look, if you look in the Bible, turn if you would to Acts chapter 17, it's just not biblical. Yes, we should teach people, but guess where we teach them? In the church. That's what they did in Acts 11. He said they stayed there a year and he said this is where we taught them, in the church. We assembled together in the church and taught much people. That's where the teaching takes place. And you'll never show me in the Bible begging people to come to church who won't come. And going back, going back the next week. I mean show me one place in the Bible and yet people will attack us. We're going out preaching the gospel. Are we not inviting them to church after we're done winning them to Christ? I mean who here has ever seen me win somebody to Christ and just not invite them to church at all? No, I try to tell them, hey you need to be in church, you need to do this. Usually when we win somebody to Christ, we leave a Bible with them. That's why we have all those Bibles out there. It's to give to people that we win to the Lord. We give them a Bible and show them where to start reading. We tell them what time the services are. We try to get them to come to church, but guess what? We are not going to go and hold their hand and pick them up and carry them and bring them to church. If they're not coming to church, that's their problem. You know? We can't sit there and force people. And look, Jesus did it the same way we're doing it. The apostles did it the same way. I'll prove it to you. We're going to have to turn to Acts 17. Look at Acts 17. Watch this. This is when Paul is preaching the gospel to a bunch of people. He says in verse 32, he just finished preaching to them and says, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. They were Jehovah's Witnesses. And others said, we will hear thee again of this matter. So there's two types of people there. We see one mocked Paul when he preached the gospel. Others said, well, we'll hear thee again of this matter. And it says, verse 33, so Paul departed from among them. How be it? Certain men clave unto him and believed and among them, among them, I'm sorry, among the which was Dionysius, the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them. Okay? So basically, Paul preached. Okay? And then people clave to him. Did he clave to them? No. They clave unto him. Look at John. I'll read for you from 1 Samuel. Look at John 4. 1 Samuel 10, verse 26 is where I'm turning. This is when Saul has just been anointed king, the Bible says, and Saul also went home to Gibeah, and there went with him a band of men whose hearts God had touched. But the children of Belial said, how shall this man save us? And they despised him and brought him no presents, but he held his peace. So we see with Saul, when he's anointed king, there went with him a band of men whose hearts God had touched. God basically provided him a group of followers there that followed him. Other people didn't like him so much. Well, Jesus Christ said, thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Jesus is the one who builds the church. It's Jesus' job to build the church. It's not my job, and I'm not going to do it. I refuse to do it. It's God's job. And it's people's job to get their carcass down here to listen to preaching, and if they don't want to be discipled, then we'll go find somebody else and win them to Christ and disciple them that wants to be discipled. We're not going to go out and force people to be a disciple. Where did I return? John 4. This is one of many examples of Jesus Christ, because if you look at Jesus and his apostles, the Bible says they went to all the towns and villages. You'll see this over and over again. You'll see it in Matthew 9. You'll see it in Matthew 12. You'll see all these different places. It says Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages preaching the gospel. Jesus went throughout all the towns and villages. He sent his apostles two and two into all the villages, into all the towns, into all places, and they preached the gospel. Look at John 4. This is the story about the woman at the well. Of course, Jesus won her and the Lord, and a whole bunch of other people end up getting saved. Well, it says in verse 39, many of the Samaritans of that city believed on him for the saying of the woman which testified, he told me all that ever I did. So when the Samaritans were coming to him, they besought him that he would tarry with them. They're saying, please stay with us. Teach us more. Preach to us more. They're begging him to stay. It says, he abode there two days, and many more believed because of his own word, and said unto the woman, now we believe not because of this thy saying, for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world. Now after two days, he departed thence, and went to Galilee, and guess what? He never came back. Oh, but what about who's going to disciple all those people? What about my favorite was a couple weeks ago. Philip in the Ethiopian eunuch. He wins the guy to Christ. The guy says, well, he baptized me right here. He says, okay, if thou believeth with all thy heart, thou mayest. He baptized him, and the moment he comes out of the water, Philip disappears. Philip, the Spirit just whisks him away. He's like, wait, Holy Spirit, I want to do fall along. I can't do the fall along. I wanted to go back and do Bible study fall along. It's not biblical. What's biblical is them coming to the preacher. That's what's biblical. What's biblical is going out and winning people to Christ, preaching the Word, preaching the Gospel, and then people come to him. Jesus would be in a house, and a bunch of people would come to the house and listen to him preach. Jesus would go out by the seaside. People would be gathered together under him and preach. He didn't just say, well, every person we've ever wanted to lure, we've got to keep going back every week. We've got to keep a car catalog. You think Jesus was walking around with some kind of a planner or something? You think he has some kind of a day planner, some kind of a palm pilot, where he's just making sure, oh, I've got to go back every week and keep bugging him. You know what he said? He said, hey, follow me. And if they didn't follow him, he said, all right, bye. Find somebody else. He did. They said, oh, wait, I've got to go bury my dad. Nuts to your dad. Follow me. See, he got into a ship and he's gone. If you've got to go bury dad on Sunday morning at 1030, then you're not going to get discipled. If you can't be here, you're not going to be here. Period. Bury your dad between the services. Bury him at 1230. Bury him at 1 o'clock. Because we're not going to move our service so you can bury your dad. Because we are the church right here, this group right here. And this is where we meet and we're here three times a week and that's all the discipleship that anybody needs. And look at all the people that keep getting taught and keep getting discipled. But you've got to come to us. We can't just keep coming back. But we've let the Jehovah's Witnesses teach us how to reach people. Keep going to their house and going to their house and going to their house. I'm not going to do it. Go ahead and do your follow up. But you know these people who want to talk so much about follow up, they don't do any soul winning. They don't have anybody to follow up on. Because 99% of them don't even win any souls to Christ. They're just trying to pick apart and find something wrong. People criticize our small town soul winning all the time. You'll try to tell them, hey, we went down to this town, it's hours away, it's out in the middle of the desert, we knocked every door, we had this many people say, oh, now they're a bunch of sheep having no shepherd. And I said to that person, I said, you know what, we should have just let them go to hell with it. Because we'd hate to have a bunch of sheep running around with no shepherd, wouldn't we? I'd rather have a bunch of sheeps running around with no shepherd that are going to go to heaven than a bunch of goats running around that are going to go to hell. It's stupidity, it's magic. And who are you going to follow up with if you're not winning souls? And Jesus and his disciples won thousands of people to Christ. And John the Baptist won thousands of people to Christ. And yet how many people really made up that early church? In Acts 1 it was only 120. Because you know what, a lot of people aren't even going to get saved. And then a lot of the people who get saved, they're not going to stay with church. They're not going to stay in for the long haul. They're not going to become a soul winner. They're not going to bring forth much fruit. They're going to fall away. They're going to be offended. They're going to drop off. And so don't let people brainwash you with this, oh, follow up, follow up. And it seems like if you repeat something enough it'll just catch on. You know, make disciples, make disciples, make disciples, make disciples. You know, follow up, follow up, follow up, follow up. No! Soul winning! Just win souls and let God build the church. And that's what Faithful Word Baptist Church has been about for the last five years and that's what we're about right now. And by the way, I do plan to follow up on every single door in this valley when we knock them all the second time. I mean, you want to talk about follow up? Hey, last December we knocked, or last year, you know, toward the end of the year, we knocked every door in Guadalupe. Okay, I'm thinking of 2009. Yeah, 2009. The end of 2009 we knocked every door in Guadalupe. Then in December of 2010 we knocked every door in Guadalupe again. That's follow up. And we got a whole bunch of different people saved. We got to see people that we've gotten saved and recognized that we got saved the first time around and confirm them and talk to them and try to get them in church, try to strengthen them. And that's follow up, my friend. Not going around with your little Starbucks and your donut and you're going to spend your whole soul winning day driving around. Oh, not home. Let's go hit Dunkin' Donuts. You know, we knock two doors a day. You're wasting your time. Get on Jesus' method. Read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and be like Jesus. Just go, just blow in, man. Preach to a bunch of people. Get a bunch of people saved and say, come follow me. If they don't, then nuts to them. Find more. I mean, shouldn't everybody hear the gospel elites before we worry too much about just following up with everybody and begging them to go to church? And you know, I'm sick of people who don't want to go to church anyway. I'm sick of them. I don't have any time for them. If I'm going to spend hours and hours preparing sermons and studying my Bible and if we're going to pay money to have this building and do everything to have this church, they need to come down here to church and I don't have time for people that don't have time for church. I don't have time for them. I'm not going to go spend my time with people who don't have time for church. I'm going to spend my time with people who do have time for church. And if somebody doesn't have time for church, then I don't have time for them. And I'm not going to follow up with them. They can follow up with me right here and they know where to find me and this is where we've been at and nothing changed. But anyway, let's get back into the sermon here. Where are we? Acts 11? 26, 27, somewhere around there. Yeah, it says they came to pass that a whole year they assembled themselves and did follow up and they kept going back and people wouldn't come but they just kept bugging them until they finally came. It says they assembled themselves with the church and taught much people and the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. Now I want to talk quickly about the term Christians because the term Christians is only used, you're going to have to believe this, three times in the Bible. Did you know that? Three times in the whole Bible the word Christians is used. This is one of them. Let's go to 1 Peter chapter 2, I'll show you another one. 1 Peter chapter 2, there's three instances in the Bible where the word Christian is used. It's used here where it says, hey, that's where they were first called Christians was in Acts chapter 11. Go to 1 Peter chapter 2 and I'll show you another instance right here. I'm sorry, 1 Peter chapter 4. 1 Peter chapter 4, it says in verse number 15, it says, but let none of you suffer as a murderer, as a thief, or as an evil doer, or as a busybody in other men's matters. Yet if any man suffer as a what? Christian, let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God on this behalf. And then the other time that it's used is when Agrippa, what chapter is that word? Agrippa is speaking in the book of Acts, I believe it is Acts chapter 26. Who knows what they're talking about here? Acts 26, this is where Agrippa has just heard the Gospel from Paul and he says unto him, Agrippa, verse 27, King Agrippa, believeth thou the prophets, I know that thou believeth. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. So we got three times in the Bible, right? We got where it just says, hey, if Antioch was the place where they were first called Christians, then we got Agrippa saying, hey, almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. He's the judge, you know, presiding over this trial, as it were, and even the judge is about to get saved is basically what's going on there. Because, you know, King Agrippa is kind of sitting in judgment of him. He says, hey, almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. Then in 1 Peter 4, he says, hey, if you suffer as a Christian, rejoice. What do these three mentions all have in common? Think about it. In the first mention, we saw someone that's not one of them is calling them Christians. That's where they were first called Christians. Is this a term that Jesus coined? No. Some that the apostles came up with? No. It's just something that they were called. The people in Antioch called them Christians. Agrippa, a non-believer, basically says, hey, you've almost persuaded me to be a Christian. And then we see in 1 Peter 4, they're talking about being persecuted for being a Christian. So it's always something that they were called by an outsider. Basically, I don't know, it could have been derogatory, I don't know, but they basically are calling them, you're a Christian. We're going to persecute you because you're a Christian. Or, hey, you're almost talking to me for being a Christian. As crazy as that sounds. That's what King Agrippa was saying. But it's just amazing to me how people really latch onto that term. And I'm not against that term. I mean, it is a biblical term, right? Because God did use it really one time. In 1 Peter 4, that's God speaking there. And God used the term Christian. I don't think that Christian is a bad term. But it's funny how people have just really latched onto that one term. When really, it's not the most biblical term. Really, if you want to get really biblical, you call those that are saved, you call them brethren. Or you call them the saints. And that's really probably the best term that's used over and over in the Bible. I think that's one of the best terms, probably the most frequently used, I would say, is the saints. And then the other term is believers. Now, I like the term believer. Because right away, it shows you what salvation is. And I think we should bring that term back. And let's make that the big term, right? Let's make believer the big term. Because if we say, well, he's an unbeliever, he's a believer. Because that's a very biblical term used a lot more than Christian. If we use the word believer, then we're emphasizing the fact that salvation is by faith, not by works. Because we noticed we didn't say he's a worker. He's an un-worker. A non-worker. No, it's a believer or an unbeliever. And I really like the term saint, too. Saint is a great biblical term. Let's not reserve that for some Catholic weirdo, you know, the saints so and so. But sometimes we just think, oh, saint, that's Catholic. We see a restaurant that we're going to St. Francis. Sounds like some Catholic restaurant that we're going to eat at on February 12th. But it probably is a Catholic restaurant. But the food there is really good. That's why we're going to go eat there. But you know, saint this, saint that. It's funny because we're driving down this priest road and I've heard people criticize the name of priest road. And I say, well, wait a minute, I'm a priest. You know? And I've had people ask me, are you a priest? And I always say, yes, my son. I didn't say that, but hey, whenever anybody asks me if I'm a priest, like I was in a hospital or something and they asked if I was a priest, I said yes. I am a priest. And if you're saved, you're a priest, too. The Bible says he's made us a royal priesthood. We believe in the priesthood of the believer. We're all priests. And so sometimes we're afraid of terms that are biblical terms, you know, like, oh, priest road, was it some Catholic area? No, it's a Baptist area. This is a Baptist area, right by our church. It's priest road. It's talking about the high priest, Jesus Christ, and we're all the priesthood of the believers, we're in the Bible. So I like that term, too, priest. But saints, believers, try to use biblical words. I think it's good to just use biblical words when you talk about things. Just yeah, believers, unbelievers, let's bring it back, you know? And nothing wrong with the term Christian, but this isn't faithful word Christian church. It's faithful word Baptist church. And I think Jesus came up with that name, didn't he? Didn't he say among them that are born of women, they're not risen and greater than John the Baptist, okay? And so that's a biblical word. The word Baptist is used a lot more on the part of the word Christian. So what's wrong with saying I'm a Baptist? I mean, me saying I'm a Baptist is actually more scriptural than saying I'm a Christian. But even more scriptural than both of those would be to say I'm a believer, I'm a saint, right? And so I just wanted to say a little bit about that term Christian. Not a bad term, don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing the term Christian. I'm just saying I'm going to emphasize what God emphasizes. Whatever terms he uses the most, that's what I want to try to use the most. And whichever ones were just more something that were called by other people, hey, I don't mind picking that up and just wearing it as a banner. Yeah, I'm a Christian, absolutely. If somebody asked me how I'm a Christian, I'd say absolutely I am. Because God did use that term one time in 1 Peter chapter 4. Talking about being persecuted for your beliefs. But let me finish up here quickly. It says in verse 27, after it says they were called Christians first in Antioch, in these days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch, and there stood up one of them named Akathas, and signified by the Spirit that there should be great dirk throughout all the world. Dirk means famine, it's basically a time of dryness, no rain that causes food to be scarce. And he prophesizes there's going to be this great dirk or famine throughout all the world, which came to pass through the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judea, which also they did and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. So basically there's a dirk, a lot of people are on hard times, they don't have the food to eat. So the believers that are in Antioch, they decide to be really generous and take up a collection, take up a lot of food and money and everything, and they sent Saul and Barnabas unto Jerusalem with all that food and everything to help out the people that were suffering in Jerusalem. Notice who they helped out though. Who did they help out? Who did they send the relief to? Brethren. And really, we ought to try to help everybody, but the Bible says that we should do good to all men, especially them of the household of faith. God does teach giving priority. If you're going to help out, help out those that are in the brethren first before you help the outsider, I believe that. And that's why sometimes some of these organizations that are asking me for money sometimes they'll call you up, especially when it's like the police fraternity, that's my favorite church. They call up and they ask for money or maybe outside. I always tell them the same thing. I just say, well, I do all my giving through my local church. I do all my charitable donations through my local church. That's what I tell them. Because a lot of these organizations, we don't believe in the gospel they promote. You know, the Salvation Army? The Salvation Army, okay, it sounds great, except that they have a church on University Avenue that's the Salvation Army Church where they preach a false gospel. I don't want to throw my money in there. And you know, I'm sure they feed a lot of people. I'm sure they help a lot of people. They're down on their luck. But they also preach false doctrine and false teaching right here in Tempe at the Salvation Army Church. I'm not going to give it down to that guy, okay? How many times he rings that bell? I'm not throwing any money in because I'd rather give money where it's going to go to preach the gospel to people. And if somebody needs to be fed of the brethren, we'll feed them. We'll let the government feed everybody else. But we'll feed the brethren right here. And we feed you often. But let's put our hands on that board of Britain. Father, we thank you so much for your word, dear God. And thank you that it's so clear and it shows us a picture of what we should be doing. Going out, winning souls, preaching the gospel, going from town to town, city to city, spending our time in the church, the institution that you set up for us, dear God. And thank you for giving us this church where we can assemble together and grow and become better disciples for you, dear God. And please just bless these words to our ears. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.