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Thank you for our salvation in this wonderful church. Dear God, we ask that you please bless the pastor as he preaches your word tonight. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. We're in Acts chapter 13 this evening. Acts chapter 13. Now, this is a pretty lengthy chapter, and really the majority of the content that's found in this chapter is Paul's sermon in the synagogue, and that's why we'll cover that later, but a very large portion of this chapter actually has to do with the sermon as he's preaching the word of God unto them. He's preaching the gospel, really, unto those who are in that synagogue, and we'll see what the results of that is later on, but it's a pretty popular chapter due to the particular confrontation that we see with the Limas on the island of Cyprus. Everyone's pretty familiar with that whole story, a Limas the sorcerer and what Paul does to him, and we'll get into that as well, but let me just give you an overview of the entire chapter because obviously I'm not gonna be able to cover this entire thing. It's a very lengthy chapter, so I'm just gonna give you the highlights of, I'm gonna cover the highlights in this sermon, but let me just give you an overview of what's taking place. If you remember, a couple chapters back, we have Paul and Barnabas. They are being sent to Judea, and what they're doing is they're sending relief unto the brethren. If you remember, there's a prophet that came unto the disciples and basically said that there's gonna be a dearth in the land, and so what the disciples do is they assemble together, and they send relief unto the brethren at the hand of Saul and Barnabas, and so they go there, they send relief in Judea, and they're doing that work. At the latter end of chapter 12, we see them coming back from Jerusalem to Antioch where the church is at there, and basically they're fasting, they're praying, and then what we see here is that the Holy Ghost basically separates them and commissions them for another work, that work being going to Cyprus, seeing people saved, going to Pisidia, going to Perga and all those areas, Pamphylia, to see more people saved. That's the work that he's called them to do. They go there, they go to Seleucia first and foremost, and from there, they sail to Salamis, which is off the coast of Cyprus. From Salamis, they go to Paphos, and that's where they find Elamis the sorcerer, and it's interesting because any time there's an open door, an effectual open door, there seems to be a Jew on the other side of that door. I mean, you constantly see that in the book of Acts, and the Jew here is Elamis the sorcerer, who is a Jew. He's a false prophet, and he's resisting them. He's withstanding their words. Of course, we see what happens there. They depart from Cyprus, they go to Perga, and then they end up going to Antioch of Pisidia, and that's a different Antioch than the Antioch that's north of Jerusalem. It's a different part of that region there. It's actually in Turkey, and so we see them going there. They go to the synagogue. They're preaching the word of God. Many people are saved because of it, but then you have Jews who are envious. They begin to blaspheme, and they kind of kick them out. They go to the Gentiles, see more people saved. They run them out of their coast, and they end up in Iconium, and then we'll see what happens there in chapter 14, but that is basically the gist of chapter 13. Lots of exciting things that are happening here. Look down at your Bibles at verse number one. It says, now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers, as Barnabas and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch and Saul. Look at verse number two, and as they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, separate me, Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So I want you to notice first and foremost, I want to talk about this for a while, the importance of ordination, because what do we see here? We see that the prophets and teachers lay hands on Paul, they lay hands on Barnabas for a specific task. Now, I want you to also notice that the Holy Ghost is the one who's separating them, right? He's basically saying, hey, I got to work for them to do, they're going to go to Cyprus, they're going to go to Pamphylia, they're going to go to Antioch in Turkey, and I want them to preach the word of God. But you know what they didn't do? Oh, you know, God's called us, so let's just go. We don't need the approval of anybody. What do we see? We see that the men at the church laid hands on them and sent them out. Now, this is important. I mean, we're looking at an example here of someone who is called, right? I mean, the Holy Ghost is telling them, this is what I want you to do. But you know what, the Holy Ghost is not saying, hey, you don't want to send anybody else. I'm sending you out. You don't need the authority of the local New Testament church. You don't need the authority of church leadership. You just go do whatever you want to do, whatever I tell you to do. No, in fact, once he is commissioned, we see that the prophets and the teachers lay hands on them, and they are sent out. Now, this is important, and it's important today because of the fact that, you know, in order for a pastor to go out and start a church, he needs to be sent out of a local New Testament church. He needs someone to lay hands on him and commission him and send him out. Now, you know, in the old IP, you have people saying, and I used to say this, I'm called to preach. Now, that's not the type of lingo that we like to use here. We don't like to say we're called to preach. The Bible says if a man desires the office of a bishop, he desires the good work. But you know what, let's just say, for example, that that's okay to say I'm called. Okay, but hold on a second. Who's sending you out, though? You know, because here's the thing. There's plenty of people out there who claim to be called, but you know what, they don't qualify to be a pastor. But yet they claim, well, you know, God's calling me to do this work, to be this pastor, to start this church. But hold on a second, they're divorced, or they don't have children, or they're not even married, or they're just completely disqualified from being a pastor, yet they feel they have that calling in their life, you know? And you know what they do? They don't look for an approval of another church. They just send themselves out. That happens all the time. Well, folks, that's not biblical. Okay, the biblical model for church planting is that pastors send out other pastors, okay? You know, evangelists need to be sent out. I mean, don't we see that with Paul and Barnabas? Paul and Barnabas, they're not being sent out to go start a church. They're being sent out as missionaries, or as the Bible would call them, evangelists. And as evangelists, they're going out there, they're preaching the word of God, they're seeing people saved. I'm sure they're even baptizing people, which I believe requires an ordained person to do so. And this is why, you know, they're fasting and praying, and they're laying hands on them. Folks, this church was started by another pastor, which is exactly the way it should be. It was started by another pastor, I was the evangelist here, and ultimately, I showed myself to be qualified, and then he laid hands on me, and ordained me as the pastor of this church. I was sent out by another church, okay? But you know, you have people today that try to undermine that, and say, well, that's not important. You know, if you just have a group of people there, and they approve you, or whatever, or if you feel like you're called of God, you can go do that work, doesn't work that way. And I'll give you an example of this. I remember when I was working at the church plant, previous to this one, it was in Monterey Park. And I was laboring there as a Spanish preacher, okay? So I was heading up the Spanish group, preaching the word of God in Spanish, leading the people there in Spanish, training them to be soul winners, and I was under a different pastor. And after a while, I just, I couldn't do it anymore, because, you know, they require for you to use the 1960. For me, the 1960 reign of Valera is like toilet paper. It's just trash, you know? It's your new King James equivalent, okay? Or NIV equivalent, it's trash. You know, don't tell that to any Spanish pastor, because they'll fall over and die if you tell them something like that. But, you know, I thought to myself, you know, amongst other reasons, I basically thought to myself, I can't do this anymore. I need to step down, because I don't want to preach the word of God, you know, using this Bible. This is a corrupt version of the Bible. And they wouldn't let me use the Gomez, or the 1569, or the 1602, they wanted me to stick with the 1960. So rather than fight them on it, I just said, well, I'm just not going to do it. I'm going back to Long Beach, which is the church that started that church in Monterey Park. You know, and I had gained, I had developed relationships with the people there at the Spanish ministry. I mean, I genuinely loved them. They loved me, I helped disciple them and train them. We had a great relationship. And so when I went back to Long Beach, you know, some of those people, they came back to Long Beach as well from the Spanish ministry there. And I specifically remember one person coming up to me and say, hey, I got an idea. He said, look, me and the crew over in Monterey Park, you know, the Spanish ministry, we're 100% behind you. We're willing to just, you know, we have the money. We can pay you, we can rent out a building, and we can just start our own church. And he was just like ecstatic about it. He's like, you know, and by the way, at that time, I wasn't necessarily 100% in agreement with the leadership at the time. You know, I submitted to their authority, but we weren't seen eye to eye on a lot of things because of doctrine and the people that I was associated with, okay. So, you know, he's telling me this, and he's just like, you know, we can already get a building, we'll pay you, we'll pay the rent, you know, you already have a group of people, and I said, no. And he was like shocked, he was like, why not? And I'm like, because pastors have to be sent out. You know, I know how the Spanish ministry, you know, Spanish churches do it. They just split churches like it's nobody's business, and you know, who cares who ordains you, or who lays hands on you, but that's not my flavor. And I told him, I said, look, you know, that's not biblical. And I said, look, I don't agree with the leadership here, obviously. There's a lot of conflicts that we're having, but I will never be willing to do something like that because it's not biblical and God's hand can't be on it. I need someone to lay hands on me, ordain me, and send me out. I just can't be like, well, let's just split the church, I'll be your pastor, I'm called of God, you know. I'm called to preach, doesn't work that way. And it doesn't matter if an individual, if a man is apt to teach, doesn't matter if he knows how to preach the word of God, if he knows the Bible, if he feels like he's qualified, doesn't matter, he needs the approval of a pastor to be sent out. That's important. And we never want to undermine that, because look, there's still pastors out there, even pastors who listen to our type of preaching, who they were not sent out, you know, they started their own thing and built their own church and reached their own people or whatever, but they were not sent out. And look, they may have the skills to be able to pastor, but folks, if they are not approved by another pastor, they cannot pastor that church. They're not qualified. They need to be sent out. And look, we see an extreme example here where the Holy Ghost is saying, hey, I'm separating these guys for the work of the ministry, and you know what, the teachers and the prophets said, well, if you guys don't need our approval, the Holy Ghost already sent you. No, still, they said, well, we're going to lay hands on you and send you out. What is that called? The authority of the local New Testament church. Okay. So pastors need to be sent out, Adam Fannin. You know, pastors need to be sent out, and to start a church, you just can't, on a whim, just change your doctrine and say, well, I don't believe that. What I see here, I mean, what Bible are you reading? Because what I'm seeing here is that even though the Holy Ghost is commissioning them, they're still under church authority, and they're being sent out. People are laying hands on them for the work. Evangelists need to be sent out. And let me just say this, soul winners need to be sent out of a local New Testament church. Now, obviously, we're not laying hands on soul winners, okay? You know, every Sunday we're like, you know, the Holy Ghost be upon you and be filled to go in souls to Christ. That's not necessarily an office, so to speak, of what we see in the New Testament that says, you know, we need to lay hands on an individual. But that's not to say that they're not still sent out of a local New Testament church. Because here's the thing, the great commission is to preach the gospel, to baptize, and to teach them to observe all things whatsoever Christ has commanded us. Well, where does that take place? In a local New Testament church. So look, anybody who comes to our church, you're being sent out with my authority, right? And look, that's why I strongly believe in our method, in our strategy, in our teams to train other people, because of the fact that if you are representing our church, right, you're representing our God, but you're representing our church, we wanna make sure that you know what you're doing. You're being sent out with our authority to say, yeah, we approve of this individual preaching the gospel, we know this person knows what they're doing, and therefore we approve of them, and we're sending them out of a local New Testament church. Now obviously, there's people out there who don't have a church that go soul winning, and that's the best they got, that's what they could do. Okay, that's fine, but you know what, if you are a part of a church, you're being sanctioned by the church to actually go out there and preach the gospel, and if you're part of this church, you're gonna receive training in order to do that. Okay, and let me just park it here for just a little bit. I don't buy this whole thing. Look, if you come to me, and you're like, well, I don't wanna be a part of a team, I soul win like Pastor Anderson's soul wins, and I'm just gonna be like, oh, sorry, I shut my mouth. People pull that all the time, okay? And let me just tell you something, I know exactly how Pastor Anderson's soul wins. He's soul wins like I soul win because we both were trained by independent fundamental Baptists, but people tend to use his name a little too much, and then when you actually go soul winning with them, it's like, this is not how Pastor Anderson's soul wins. They're just kinda like throwing his name out there, and multiple people have done that. People do that all the time. Anytime they feel cornered, they pull that car down and say, well, I'm Pastor Jimenez. It's just like, well, sorry, but this is First Works Baptist Church, and I'm not discrediting Pastor Jimenez. I'm not discrediting Pastor Anderson, but if you wanna name drop, then we're gonna really see if you use soul win like they soul win, right? So, sorry, that's not a qualification I look for. Why would you use soul win like Pastor Anderson does? I'm not asking you that. What I'm trying to figure out is if you know how to soul win, and if you don't know how to soul win, then here's a place to learn. Typically, people pull out that card when they don't wanna learn from someone else. They go, oh, man, well, these people are, and we had a couple here years ago when we first started the church, not years ago, but a couple years ago when we first started the church, and they were doing some funny business. They were inflating the numbers a tad bit, okay? And it's just like, I don't know about these salvations. Like, good night, this is getting a little out of hand. They're like, how many salvations? They're all. It's just like throwing up all these, and it's just like, I don't know. And then when they were confronted, what do they do? Well, we learn from the best. We learn from Pastor Jimenez. Are you trying to say that Pastor Jimenez doesn't know how to soul win? You know that straw man that they try to pull out? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I'm trying to say, yeah. Don't give me that. Are you trying to say that Pastor Anderson doesn't know what he's doing? No, I know what, I know he knows what he's doing. I'm trying to figure out, you know what you're doing. All right. That's what I'm trying to figure out. They already, I know their work. I know their fruit. I've been soul winning with them. I know how they do it. I just don't know how you do it, you know? And here's the thing. I mean, we also think that when people come through our door and they say, you know, they listen to Pastor Anderson, we don't automatically think, okay, this person's good to go because you just never know. Because they just throw his name out there like that to try to gain credibility so we don't question them. You know what I mean? Well, I don't buy it. And it's not because I don't think he doesn't know what he's doing. Obviously he does. I'm saying that there's individuals who try to use that as a card so you can just leave them alone, okay? It's just like, oh, okay, you learn from him. Then you wouldn't mind learning from us as well because he teaches that as well. You know, you wouldn't mind going soul winning with me and me kind of checking you out the way you preach the gospel, right? Because here's the thing, we're sending you out. Now, if you say, well, I'm not in agreement with that. I don't buy that. I'm not for that. Okay, then you go do your own thing, but don't give out my invitations. Don't give out our YouTube cards because I don't approve of that. And I don't want people thinking, you know, whoa, you go to this church, I'm going to go ahead and call Pastor up and tell him what you're doing or whatever if you do some funny stuff, some funny business. And look, we don't have that here, thankfully, but it has happened in the past. You know, when they try to pull out that card, and I'm telling you that couple did the same exact thing, and it's just like, you know, they try to, it's their get out of jail free card kind of thing. Or it's like, well, just leave them alone. Oh, man, I didn't know that. We took Pastor Jimenez's course. What are you talking about? We listened to all the sermons on soul winning. Well, great, but you learn on the job, not through just videos, though. And by the way, people who've learned from Pastor Jimenez and Pastor Anderson truly learn from them have no problem learning from everyone else. Because a soul winner, a genuine soul winner just wants to keep learning. They don't feel like they've arrived or they've obtained. They are there, they're just bonafide soul winners. They're like, there's always more to learn. I've been soul winning for like 14 years, and I'm still learning. I go with different people because I want to learn maybe a different illustration that you may use, maybe some different verses that I may not have in my repertoire, you know. I want to keep learning because I want to keep being, I want to keep growing as a soul winner and getting better at my craft of preaching the gospel. You understand? But what I'm saying is this, is that it's important that we understand that this local New Testament church needs to send people out, whether that's soul winners, an evangelist, missionary, another pastor. The Bible says in Titus 1 to five, for this cause left I thee in Crete that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting, the things that are lacking, and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed thee. So we see satellite church plants in Crete, Titus is being sent to ordain men to take over those churches. He says, if any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot or unruly, for a bishop must be blameless as a steward of God, not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wino striker, not given to filthy lucre. So a qualification is that a pastor should not be self-willed. Well, let me just do my own thing. Well, this shows that that individual does not know how to serve another leader. They're self-willed, they want vain glory. They want the credit to themselves. They have an underlying motive that is not a righteous motive. You know, the people who want to be pastors should have a desire to say, well, I want to serve the people. I want to disciple people, I want us to get people saved, I want to be able to lead a team to accomplish the work of God, not self-willed. Folks, we see in Acts chapter six, Stephen got ordained to be a deacon. They laid hands on him, okay? Now, there's two types of laying hands in the Bible. One laying hands is when they're getting down, beating someone up. Another laying hands is when they are actually ordaining, charging them, choosing them for a specific work, okay? By the way, this is a foundational teaching. Don't undermine this, can we just move on? No, because this is foundational. Hebrew six says that it's foundational. It talks about the doctrines of Christ, and one of them is the laying on of hands. This is how serious God takes this, where he says, hey, you guys need to learn the doctrine of laying on of hands, and recognize that you're not to lay hands suddenly on no man. Don't just ordain anybody, because they went to Bible college, right? You know, that's like the new qualification, I guess, for churches, like, well, did you go to Bible college? It's like, well, I have three kids, I've been married, I read the Bible, I don't care, did you go to Bible college? Did you go to Golden State? Did you go to West Coast? That is now a qualification, but that's not a qualification that we see in the Bible, okay? People need to be proved and tested in their local New Testament church, okay? If you're here, obviously we're not going to be ordaining people for quite some time. Well, who knows, maybe that might change. But in my observation, it's going to be a while until we start ordaining people. Why, because they need to be found faithful, that's why. So number one qualification that we see is that they need to be found faithful. Faithful in their ministry, faithful in soul winning, faithful in church attendance, faithful in just serving as a Christian, they need to be faithful. Folks, this is why Paul was sent out. He said that God put him into the ministry because he counted him what? Faithful. And look, let me just say this, is that when we mean faithful, we mean you're faithful in the little and therefore you can be given much. I mean, think about this, the Apostle Paul and Barnabas, what were they doing before they went to Cyprus? They were sending relief to the brethren. This menial task is just like, here's food, here's money, take it to Judea. Yes, sir. They went and they did the work and they came back and lo and behold, the Holy Ghost said, these are the people I want to do the work. Because they're taking care of throwing out the trash. They're taking care of cleaning. They're taking care of the menial task that no one else wants to do. They're being faithful in that which is little and therefore they're given more responsibility. Well, that's just not like what I thought. I don't think I'm supposed to do that. I'm just a really good preacher. And so I'm just hoping pastor sees that I'm just a really good preacher and I don't have to like vacuum or sweep or do menial tasks. I want to be chosen based upon my talents. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. You need to be faithful. Okay. And yeah, you need to do the humble tasks like Paul did. I mean, that's not necessarily like a glorified task, right? Sending relief to the brethren. We don't see him complaining and murmuring about it. I mean, this is the apostle Paul. You know? And they gave him that responsibility like all right, assemble, here's it. Paul, you're new here. You go do it. And he's like, let's do it. And you know what? What happened thereafter? He had a crazy adventure. You want to rebuke false prophets? Go throw out the trash first. You want to be able to preach great sermons and see a bunch of people saved? Go send relief. Go bring a family who just had a baby, go bring them a meal. A meal? I'm called to be a pastor? I have the desire to be a bishop? You know, let me preach on Sunday morning. I'll do that. Give me a slot on Sunday morning or Sunday night. Then we can talk. But send like Little Caesars to like a couple who just had pizza? That's not very, I don't know about that. But folks, that's where it starts. And that's what I observe. I'm observing those who are willing to do just the smallest of things. They're not above it. They're willing to just serve. You know, I remember serving under my pastor doing menial tasks, sometimes things that he didn't ask me to do. I would take his vehicle to go get it cleaned, gas it up, clean it out, even though he didn't ask me. I would go do whatever he wanted me to do. And even things that he didn't ask me to do, just because I wanted to serve my pastor. You don't have to clean my car, okay? My car is reprobate, okay? You can try to polish that thing as much as possible. It's not gonna do any good. Laying on of hands. The Bible says in First Timothy 4.14, neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the presbyterian. You know, we need to ordain men who are found faithful. Now, let's keep reading here. So that's what they do. So they send them out. They are being sent out to Cyprus. And then, man, the rest is history with Paul. I mean, he just has adventure after adventure after this. Look at verse four. So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia, and from thence sailed to Cyprus. And when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews, and they had also John to their minister. So what we see here is that they go from Seleucia, they sail there to Cyprus. Once they get there, they're preaching in the synagogues. And it's not just Paul and Barnabas, they have John Mark with them as well. He's working, he's kinda operating like an assistant to Paul and Barnabas, okay? And that's pretty significant later on in the story here. Now, let's get into the good stuff here. I mean, that was good stuff too, but this is the really exciting stuff right here, okay? Verse six says, and when they had gone through the isle of Paphos, unto Paphos, excuse me, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bar-Jesus. Now, this can almost seem like a joke, right? Like a bar joke? You know, a false prophet, a sorcerer, and a Jew walking through a bar. But here's the thing, this is all one individual. Yeah. Yeah. Now, let me just say this, is that Paul and Barnabas, are they looking for false prophets? Nope. No, they just wanna go see people saved. They're like, we're gonna go preach the word of God, we're gonna go sow in, we're gonna preach the gospel, but you know what? Anytime when there's a great and effectual door open unto them, there's always a Jew on the other side of that door. I'm not joking. We see that throughout, I mean, we've seen that so far. And they're getting one of the grimiest Jews in the book of Acts. Bar-Jesus, which bar basically means son. You think of Simon, son of Bar-Jonah, referring to Peter, it's referring to son of Jonah, okay? Bar-Jesus is simply saying the son of Joshua. Joshua's another name, another variation of Jesus there. But he's a sorcerer, of course, because they're adhered to the Talmud, right? A false prophet, he's a Jew, whose name was Bar-Jesus. Which was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man, who called for Barnabas and Saul and desired to hear the word of God. So why are they going to the opposite side of the island of Cyprus all the way to Paphos? Because Sergius Paulus actually requested it for them to come. They're like, man, I want to hear these guys, I heard about what they're doing out there, have them come over. They're preaching the word of God to Sergius Paulus and then there's this Jew there who's trying to intercept the message. Verse eight, but Elymas the sorcerer, for so is his name by interpretation, withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. Folks, this is so evil, so wicked. Why? What makes him different from just a regular sinner who just doesn't like Christians? Well, a regular sinner who just doesn't like Christians or maybe doesn't like our church, they just want nothing to do with us. They're like, I don't want that Jesus stuff and that Bible stuff, just get out of here. I'm not interested, you guys are weird or whatever. They want to separate from you. Whereas the Elymoses of this world, these false prophets, they take it a step further. They're like, not only do we not want anything to do with you, we want to stop your message. We want to withstand you, we want to stop you, we want to resist you, we want you to go down. That's wicked. They want to turn away the deputy from the faith. So Paul's there preaching with meekness and fear. He's preaching the gospel, then you got this Jew walking up trying to stop the message. Now we don't know exactly how that looked or if he's doing jumping jacks in front of him or quoting the Talmud or something. We don't know what he's doing, but we do know this, is that Paul understood this guy's trying to turn him away from the faith. Let me just say this, you can never do the work of God without having some wicked and unreasonable individual there, it's always going to happen. Just expect it, right? Look at verse nine, then Saul, who also is called Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him and said, oh, full of all subtlety and all mischief. So notice that it says that he's filled with the Holy Ghost. So what he's about to say is what a spear-filled man says. Oh, full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil. That's not very nice. Yeah, the Holy Ghost sometimes is not nice. Right? He's the spirit of truth. Thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord. So he's just like, hey man, you know, he's preaching, he's just like Jesus Christ died on the cross and he's just like, you mischievous child of the devil, enemy of all, and he just switches the sermon. So it's going off on this Jew. I mean, I don't think Sergius Paulus and Illymus are the only ones there. I think there's probably a good amount of people, because he's a deputy of the country in Cyprus there, there's probably a lot of people in that setting there, and I'm pretty sure it was pretty darn entertaining to watch that. He was like, oh snap, what is he going to do? Because Paul, you know, he's rude in speech, yet not in knowledge. So he's probably like pointing his finger, just ripping this guy's face off, and rightfully so. But notice that he calls him the child of the devil. Now, earlier in the book of Acts, we have Simon the sorcerer who gets saved, right? And he's not a child of the devil, because he gets saved. This guy cannot get saved. This guy is a full-blown reprobate. Why? Because he's called the child of the devil. So God gave Paul special discernment to know this person is without conscience. You know, today we would say he's a psychopath. This person is a reprobate, he's a false prophet, he's a false teacher, he's a wicked individual, he's a child of the devil. Now, why does he call him a child of the devil? Well, it's the same reason, he's basically saying what Jesus would say to the Pharisees, you generation of vipers. He's like, you're a generation of vipers, you're a child of Satan, you are a wicked individual. And you wonder why he says later on in his letters, like, hey, pray that we're delivered from wicked and unreasonable men, for all men have not faith. Because he's run into them. So that goes to show you something, you know, these pastors out there who don't run into any reprobate whatsoever when they're doing the work of God, either one, they're just not really doing the work of the Lord, or two, they don't have any discernment, their church is just filled with false prophets and reprobates and psychopaths, and people without conscience. Because they don't even see it, they're like, well, you know, if you preach the word of God, you're not gonna turn people away from the faith, and you guys just have a different spirit, yeah, it's called the Holy Spirit. It's different than the spirit that you have, you have a spirit of fear. Not of power, love, and a sound mind, not of the Holy Ghost, okay? So he's preaching against them, against this individual, this wicked Jew, look at verse 11. And now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee. This is not a good hand of the Lord upon thee. Right? This is like that Isaiah that his hand is stretched out still, it's not a good thing. And thou shall be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness, and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand. What do you do, you just blinded him. So think about this, he's just like, God's hand is on you, you're gonna be blind. And as he's saying that, just darkness comes upon this individual, and there's people there, and he's just like, oh, help! He's like looking for people to, I mean, what you think of is like the sodomites in Genesis 19 groping for the door. Blinded them, right? Hold your place there, go to Ephesians chapter four. And by the way, what did Paul do? He simply gave him blind eyes as a representation of what the blindness of his own heart. Because the reprobate of false prophet is spiritually blind, right? Ephesians 4 17, look what the Bible says. This I say therefore and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk, not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their minds, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart, the Bible says, who being past feeling, what does that mean? They can't, they don't have empathy. I mean, to damn people to hell, you gotta be a person who's just completely without empathy, right? Just to teach damnable heresy, knowing that you're damning people to hell and you just don't give a crap about it, you're past feeling. Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness, the Bible says. And this is something that you see within psychopaths even today, okay? Reprobates of today, they're past feeling, they have zero empathy for any human being, any physical human being, but let alone their spiritual life. They can care less if they damn people to hell. They don't care. Now, I want you to notice, go back to, or hold your, go to Psalm 35, Psalm 35. So this is pretty cool. I mean, one minute he's just sending reliefs into the brethren, the next minute he's blinding some wicked false Jew in front of a bunch of people. That's cool. That's awesome. Like, him and Barnabas are like, yeah, you saw that? He's like, man, you should've just stretched out your hand at least, you know, make it look like you were just like, yeah. I mean, that probably looked pretty awesome, you know? But I want you to notice that he doesn't, he doesn't kill Elimis. It's not like drop dead, he just like drops dead. He doesn't kill him, he doesn't destroy him. All he does is make a public example out of him. Because how stupid does this guy look, just groping, help! He's just like trying to get someone to like lead him. He made a public example out of him. What did God do? He confounded him is what he did. Now, in me, that is in my flesh, if I was probably like, Lord, just kind of blow him up. Just let him just blow up in front of everybody. That'll show the wrath of God. Just make his head explode, Lord. Get creative with it, you know? Call down fire from heaven, Lord, and just in this one particular area. I would like to have done that, okay? But this is actually better. Because let's say he just completely decimated that false prophet, you know? He's not even alive to suffer the shame of it. Think about it. So keeping them alive basically causes them to suffer shame. Because he stood up against the man of God, he was confounded, and now he was just eating humble pie. Because now he's blind, right? Now, this reminds me of something, okay? Because we came from the Fundamentalist Conference last week, and you know, I went over there, Marcus and I went over there, a bunch of pastors were going over there because we wanted to see people saved, we just want to preach the word of God, but then you have these wicked Eilimises over there, these sorcerers, they're probably Jews, too, you know, who basically try to stop us. And they put a considerable amount of effort into shutting us down, I mean, over and over. I mean, mocking us, making videos, we shut them down, this is the Raising Files. We shut Bruce Mejia down. Just mocking us, making fun of us, they're like, oh, they just shut up, shut their venue down, what are they gonna do next, we don't know, just laughing at us, mocking us. And I was just like, Lord, just break their teeth. Give that guy diabetes, Lord, or something. And I'm praying, I'm like, Lord, help us to find a new venue, but then one thing that I just kept thinking, I was like, Lord, confound them, confound them, Lord. Just confound them, make a public example out of them. I don't know how, but just do it, please, because I was so frustrated. In my flesh, I'm like, you know, Marcos, look up this guy's ashes, we're gonna go knock on, we're going sowing in his area, because he was in Ohio. I'm like, we're about to teach him something, we're about to impart some wisdom unto him. That's what I want to do, but you know what, obviously that's not what God wants us to do, you know, and you know, I'm not supposed to be a brawler or striker, so what I was gonna do is just send Marcos, no, I'm just kidding. By the hand of Marcos. But I'm like, confound them. And they're like, they're just celebrating, mocking, making videos, saying all this stupidity and manner of evil. Well, the conference went on, we all preached, we saw a bunch of people saved, and everything went according to plan. And you know what happened? One of these losers, these bozos, the Salimists, made a video apologizing, saying we were wrong. Not we, them. They made a video saying, we were wrong, we should not have done that. You say, what is that called? That's called God confounding them. And I'm like 90% sure there's something that happened behind closed doors, where God did something to that individual that made him repent and get right. And by the way, he can repent all he wants, he's not gonna get saved, he's probably still a wicked reprobate. I believe he's a wicked reprobate, I believe that person is twice dead, plucked up by the roots, but you know what happened? God confounded that individual. Because there's something that happened to that individual that caused him to be ashamed of what he did. And literally put on the title, we were wrong. And his other fag buddy, he was just like, well I'm not gonna apologize. I'm not apologizing, come back out here again, I'll do it again. And his fag buddy's just like, well I'm saying sorry, that was wrong. Look at Psalm 35 verse one. Plead my cause, oh Lord, with them to strive with me, fight against them to fight against me. Take hold of shield and buckler and stand up for mine help. Draw out also the spear and stop the way against them that persecute me. Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul. Let them be turned back and brought to confusion that divides my hurt. I believe God did that to those individuals. Dang it, how were they still able to do it? Because I made some videos where I was like, well, looks like we got a new venue. We're still having it, got a bunch of people saved, you couldn't stop us. I made a meme and it was just like, it was a meme and it said, you know, these are the homos, or me saying, you know, the homos can't stop us. And then the reason follows, this guy's just like, man, maybe I am gay. Because you couldn't stop us. You know, and by the way, they were doing this in the name of God. They're like, God's not going to let them do this and God's going to stop them and God is with us. Psych sucker, no he's not. He's with us. Or rather, we're with him. Go to Psalm 40. Oh, you're just looking for trouble. Oh yeah, yeah, I went to Ohio to go look for some reprobate to try to shut us down, yeah. That's why we called it the fundamentalist conference. Folks, I was going out there to preach against the Bible Belt. That's all I was doing. I was going out there to go soloing to get fellowship with my fellow brethren, my fellow pastors, Pastor Jason Robinson, Joe Jones, and Pastor Dave Berzins. I just want to hang out with them. Have some fellowship, preach the word of God. I wasn't going out there to go fight with reprobates. They brought the fight to us. You know what God did? He made them ashamed and confounded them. Psalm 40 verse 13 says, be pleased, oh Lord, to deliver me, oh Lord, make haste to help me. Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my soul to destroy it. Let them be driven backward and put to shame that wish me evil. Let them be desolate for reward of their shame that say unto me, aha, aha. You know, they shut down one venue, they're like, aha. And then I just do the Caprio meme, which is like new venue. Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee. Let such as love thy salvation and say continually, the Lord be magnified. You know what we did at the end of this whole thing? The Lord is magnified. And it made me want to stay right with God, keep preaching hard, keep standing for truth because God was with us. Go to Psalm 70, Psalm 70. So look, when we get reprobates attacking us, this is what we need to do. We need to pray, God, please confound that individual. Make them a public spectacle. What an idiot to make a video saying we were wrong, right? It's one thing if I were to make a video and say, hey, you guys are wrong. They literally said it themselves. We were wrong. I didn't pay that guy to do that. I didn't tell him, hey, you got to make a video. We made a bet or something, you know. Now you got to eat humble. No, it's called eating humble pie. I was going to mail him a fork and say this is for your humble pie. Enjoy. Psalm 70 verse one says, make haste, O God, to deliver me. Make haste to help me, O Lord. Let them be ashamed and confounded that seek after my soul. Let them be turned backward. You know, like these guys who turned backward and ran away from me. Did I tell that story? I'll tell it again. We're at the conference and this guy sends his little infiltrators, these queer little sissies, and they're trying to open the door. And I didn't know it was them, so I go out there and I was like, hey, and as soon as they saw me, they turned backward and were put to confusion. They ran off. He said, what did they say? They just kept yelling no. Are you guys here for the conference? No! Hey guys, no! They just ran. And then they make a video, our secret agents over here had an exchange with Wordsworth, Bruce Mejia. The exchange was no. As they ran. What happened? Let them be turned backward and put to confusion that desire might hurt. Let them be turned back for a reward of their shame that say, aha, aha. Guess what I was saying? Aha! That's what I was saying. Because they looked shameful running away because the wicked fleet would no man pursue it. These bunch of little sissy little facts. You guys don't have the, you say all that stuff behind a keyboard, now you got me here face to face. Here's your chance. You got me in the flesh here in more ways than one, amen? You got me in the flesh, I'm here, and what do they do? I fly all the way out to Ohio. I'm there. Nobody was with me. Two of you. Two against one. What do they do? They went backward, they ran, they were ashamed. What is that called? That's called God confounding them. And then they say this, they recently made a video, they're like, we called the hotel to see if any staff saw them run away. Just ask them. Ask the three witnesses, me and them. They ran. Point blank. So what am I saying here? I'm saying that the reason God did not destroy Elamis the sorcerer is because he wanted to embarrass him. Well how embarrassing is that? You're just saying all this nonsense against Paul. You're like, you're trying to stop him, and all of a sudden you just go blind, and they're like trying to find, someone hold my hand. And Paul's just like, anyways, like I was saying. Anybody else want to interrupt? It's like, keep going, man. Oh man, he's, you have a, pastor, you're gonna turn away a lot of people like that, though. You know, when you do stuff like that, you're gonna turn away a lot of people. They're not gonna like what you're saying. Well look what it says in verse 12. Go back to Acts chapter 13. Look at verse 12. Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed. Being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord. They're like, dang, these guys are men of God. I believe this. God's here. God's hand is on this. He didn't turn away the deputy. I was contacted last night by an old friend of mine from my old church, and I hadn't seen him in, I hadn't talked to him in years. And he contacted me because I posted a picture of me, my wife and I, and he's just congratulating us. And then he said this, he said, I was like, hey, how's it going, you going to church or whatever? And he's, you know, I can't remember exactly what he said, but one of the things he said was this. Oh, I told him, I said, hey, I'm pastoring here in Omani, and whatnot. He's like, yeah, I heard a lot of bad things about you. I'm like, whoa, amen, all right. He's like, yeah, I've heard a lot of bad things about you, but you know, he's like, I know haters are going to hate, and some people just say stuff or whatever, and they're just kind of envious or whatever. And you know what, it's true. But people like that are the ones, what do they do? It's like, this guy hasn't even been in church for years, but he's getting in contact with people who are bringing me up in conversation? Think about that, isn't that weird? And he's like, hey, I haven't seen you in a while, let's talk about Bruce. He's a hate preacher, you know, or whatever. He doesn't like homos or whatever, you know? Those kind of people are the ones who are turning people away from the Lord. The ones who actually bring people to the Lord are actually the ones who don't care what anyone thinks. They just want to please God. They want to just do the work, and what happens is they turn people to the Lord because of it, okay? Just like the deputy here. So then, we're almost out of time, we're basically out of time. We see that then they lose from Paphos, they come to Perga and Pamphylia, and John departed from them and he returned to Jerusalem. Later on we'll see that this is actually a point of contention later on in Acts chapter 15, and we'll get into that when we get into that chapter there. Look at verse 14, but when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch and Pisidia and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and sat down. This is pretty interesting right here. So they go there and they're not like bursting through the doors, like you bunch of unsaved Jews, listen to us. What do they do? They go to one of the services and they just sit down and listen. Think about that. They're not there to start trouble. They're going there to hear the word of God because they're reading the word of God. I would liken this onto going to an old IFB church. I know that's kind of bad, the synagogue, but just bear with me here. When you go on vacation or something, you don't have to go to a new IFB church. You can go to some old IFB church. I personally love going to old IFB churches because they have a specific flavor that I grew up with at Spiritually Speaking that I like. And you know what, these guys who know the word of God, they just went there and they sat down and then they get up and say, all right, shut up, let a real man do the job here. No, in fact, after the reading of the scripture, the guy who was reading it said, hey, do you guys want to preach? And Paul said, yup. So what's the lesson we can learn there? There's a prepared place for prepared people. They went there with the intent to just listen, but then the guy, the master of ceremony there or whatever, the one who's reading the scriptures says, hey, do you, brethren, want to give a word of exhortation? Say on. And what did Paul do? He just broke out into this sermon. I mean, this guy waxed eloquent. He went, something about these guys in the book of Acts, they just like going through the whole history of Israel. He went through the entire history of Israel, just like expanding the word of God and bringing it to Jesus, back to Jesus and giving them the gospel. And then, you know, a lot of them, they were very content with what he said. And obviously the preaching was so powerful that people returned on the next Sabbath day to hear the word of God preached. But then a bunch of people from the city came and now the Jews are like getting mad. They're like, oh man, these guys are attracting too many people. They became envious and they began to blaspheme. You know, big surprise there, right? So they, basically they turned, they said, look, you guys deem yourselves to be unworthy of everlasting life, we're going to the Gentiles then. They go and preach the word of God to the Gentiles and a bunch of Gentiles get saved. Now skip down to, let me see, let me skip a couple things here. Go to verse 44. It says in the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy and spake against those things which are spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold and said, it was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken unto you, but seeing you put it from you and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord commanded us saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles that thou shouldst be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord and as many as were ordained to eternal life, believe. Now let me just debunk this real quick because a lot of Calvinists would try to use this particular verse here in verse 48, this phrase that they were ordained to eternal life to believe. So what they'll say, they'll teach, you know, election and they'll use this and basically, hey, they're ordained to eternal life, therefore they believe because they were chosen is what they'll teach. But that's not necessarily, obviously that's not what it's teaching. When the Bible says ordained, as I mentioned before, it can be chosen, right? Like you're ordained someone for a specific task but it also means to charge someone, to command someone. Like I'm ordaining, so when we are ordained someone for the work of the ministry, we are choosing them but in like manner, we're charging them, hey, to do the work of the ministry. Make full proof of thy ministry, do the work of an evangelist, we are commanding them, we're charging them. So when the Bible says here that as many as were ordained to eternal life believed, it's referring to the fact that Paul is charging them, right, to believe. He's charging them regarding eternal life and therefore they believed, okay? That's what that's referring to there. And here's the thing, this is the only command that we have to obey in order to be saved. The command is to what? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and that is a command but it's the only command that we have to actually adhere to to obey to be saved. So when he charged them, he commanded them to believe on Jesus Christ, they believed, okay? And they got saved. That's pretty easy to debunk right there. Verse 49 says that the word of the Lord was published throughout all the region but the Jews stirred up the devout and honorable women and the chief men of the city and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them out of their coast but they shook off the dust of their feet against them and came into Iconium and the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost. Yeah, you bet they were. After that whole trip, they're just like, man, this is awesome. Filled with joy with the Holy Ghost. It's just like, when's the next trip? When's the next event? You know what this does? It's just like, bring it on, reprobates. Bring it on, Illimis, just bring it on. And this is the way the Christian life is. When you're serving God, when you're doing works for him, these are the kind of opportunities to present themselves but just remember this, you gotta be faithful and little in order to be given bigger responsibility to be faithful and much, amen? Spire heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word and thank you for Paul's example, Lord. Thank you for Barnabas' example. Pray, God, that you'd help us to take these things to heart. What an exciting life that a Christian can live and we obviously know that that's not always the case. Sometimes there's days that are just mundane where we're just doing the basics and that's great but we do know that you give us opportunities to do exciting things for you, to fight against the false prophets, to see people saved, to be a part of miraculous events. I pray, God, that you'd continue to bless our church, help us to continue to see more people saved and Lord, confound the wicked people. I pray that you continue to confound those wicked individuals who try to stop our conference and any individual out there who hates us, may you confound them, make a public example out of them to show that there is a God in El Mani who is watching over First Works Baptist Church, that your hand is upon us. Please continue to bless us. Lord, we love you so much and we thank you. Pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.