Through his life, Jesus met the requirements of the law. And through his death, Jesus paid for my sins under the Law. And because he did those things on my behalf, my business with the Law is done. My debt is paid, and God's perfect standard has been met. The Law is no longer my master. The Lord Jesus is my master, and he set me free from the Law so that I could live for Him.
Verse 20 is the gospel. If you don't have it underlined in your Bible, do it. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live. But Christ loves in me the life I now live in the Body. I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
When Jesus died on the cross, he died in my place. The old me died with Jesus, and when we place our faith in Him, he places His Spirit in us, bringing our dead Spirit to life in him. That's what Paul means when he writes Christ lives in me. His presence does not come and go based on my behavior or my performance. He never leaves me.
He never forsakes me. Christ lives. He permanently dwells. He's made a forever home in me. We're free from the power of sin and death, and all we want to do with that freedom is live our lives for the One who loved us and gave Himself for us.
Paul says. Don't ever forget that, Peter. As Paul would write to the Romans, we have been released from the Law since we have died to what held us so that we may serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the old letter of the Law. Verse 23. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died for nothing.
If we could be loved by simply doing our best to be good people, then Jesus suffered and died for nothing. That would have hit Peter like a punch to the gut. We need to understand this on a theological level, because it destroys any notion of pluralism, the idea that there are many ways to get to God. If there is any other way for us to be saved other than by Jesus's death on the cross, then God the Father ignored the cries of his only begotten Son when he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane on the night of his arrest. My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me yet, not as I will, but as you will.
The reason the Father did not provide an alternative is that there was no alternative. There was no other way. Jesus was and is the only way for us to be saved.
From an apologetics, from a philosophical perspective, it creates all kinds of problems when you claim that there are multiple ways to heaven because it would mean that God the Father let Jesus die unnecessarily and that Jesus chose to die for no apparent reason, and that is not something an all-powerful, all-knowing God would do. That's something a delusional, crazy person would do. There's no logical room to have Jesus be a great moral teacher and simultaneously a delusional fool who died for nothing. You can't harmonize those two realities. .
S. Lewis famously wrote, Jesus is either a liar, he's a lunatic, or he's Lord, he's who he says he is. Write this down. If we could be loved by our good works, then Jesus died for nothing.
And one last little note I just have to mention while we're here. If you come from a Catholic background, this interaction between Peter and Paul is very problematic, because if you're Catholic, you believe that Peter was the first Pope, and to this day, Catholics believe that Popes are infallible. In other words, they're never wrong when it comes to doctrine and theology. And yet here we have Peter, supposedly the first and greatest Pope, 20 years into the Church age, being publicly corrected on matters of doctrine and theology by Paul. So I would humbly encourage you to think through the implications of that, because it's here in black and white in the Bible, in Galatians, chapter two.
Don't be crazy. Because you see, Jesus had taught things like it's not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but what comes out of the mouth. This defiles a person. Talking about the kind of food you eat. Jesus ate meals with people who were considered sinners by the Jewish culture.
Part of Jesus's message was that the Jews had missed the heart of the law of Moses' and were misinterpreting it as a result, Jesus David, things that appeared to violate the law as it was viewed in his day, it didn't actually violate the law, but the way they were interpreting it, it did. He ate with people he shouldn't have been eating with based on their view of the law. And Paul devastatingly points out that Peter is holding to a version of Christianity that would make Jesus a sinner because he ate with unclean people. And so as well, would anybody else who follows Jesus's commands also be a sinner? But Peter won't even eat with Gentile believers.
So, does this mean that Jesus was promoting sin? Peter, shall we correct Jesus for eating with sinners? Peter, verse 18. If I rebuild those things that I tore down, I show myself to be a lawbreaker. Jesus has fulfilled the law on my behalf because I couldn't do it.
In a million lifetimes, I couldn't do it. But if I choose to then try and be saved by my good works through the law, then I'm rejecting Christ's work on my behalf and I'm making myself a sinner once again. When I'm under the grace of God, I'm righteous. But when I'm under the law, I'm a sinner. It's a binary option.
It's one or the other, works or faith. How are you going to be saved? Works or faith. And no man is saved by works. The second we say, well, you know what?
I'm just going to do my best to be a good person, and everything will work out in the end, we are chosen to try and be saved by our works, and we will not be, because none of us is perfect. And perfection is God's standard if we want to try and be saved by our good works. This is the mistake everyone makes. Everyone acts like you're going to be Judea by a mirror version of yourself, like you're going to stand before God one day and he's going to be you, and his version of good is going to be whatever you think good is. Like God's going to say to you, well, you know, what do you think good is?
And then tell me why you're a good person. You're not going to judge you. Your friends aren't going to Jude you. God is going to judge you by how he defines good. And I always say this.
He doesn't grade on a curve. He doesn't say, Tell you what, I'll let you into heaven if you can name five people, they're bigger jerks than you. It's not how it's loving to work. If you want to be judged according to your works, your good works will be compared to one person, and that's God. You're not going to hold up.
You're not going to hold up. It's faith in Christ or nothing. That's why Jesus could truthfully declare, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. So, write this down.
When we add additional requirements to salvation, we claim the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are insufficient, and we blaspheme the saving work of Christ. When we add additional requirements to salvation, we claim the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus are insufficient, and we blaspheme the saving work of Christ. That's why Paul couldn't do it, and that's why he had to call out Peter, verse 19. For through the Law, I died to the Law so that I might live for God. Paul says my whole life used to be about trying to keep the Law.
The Law controlled my whole life, and despite my best efforts, I was still guilty under the Law. I couldn't keep it perfectly, and so I was separated from God. But Jesus set me free from my dealings with the Law. He lived the perfect life that I could never live in my place, and then he took the punishment that I deserved under the Law in my place.
And that meant that one of these two uppercase apostles, Paul or Peter, was wrong. They were in theological error. It was a serious situation. The issue at hand was, "Is salvation by faith alone?" We read in verse 13 then the rest of the Jews, the rest of the Jewish believers joined his hypocrisy so that even Barnabas was lead astray by their hypocrisy.
So all of the Jewish believers in Antioch followed Peter's lead and separated themselves from their Gentile brethren. Even Barnabas, an elder, got caught up in this, just tearing the church apart. In just a few days, the church that had been the model of Jewish and Gentile believers fellowshipping in unity had fractured. Why does Paul call this behavior by the Jewish believers' hypocrisy? He's going to explain in just a minute.
Verse 14, but when I, Paul, saw that they were deviating from the truth of the Gospel, I told Kefas Peter in front of everyone. So, Paul decides that public sin requires public rebuke. And because Peter has been communicating a wrong Gospel publicly, Paul confronts and corrects him publicly. When Paul wrote to his pastoral protege Timothy, he told him that if several witnesses affirmed a charge against a church elder as being true, he should publicly rebuke those who sin so that the rest would be afraid. Afraid of what?
Afraid of sinning. Afraid of hypocrisy, afraid of teaching false doctrine. So, Paul likely did this during a church service or during a communion feast. Can you imagine? Paul yells across the room. Everyone falls silent. like that. Paul walks right up to Peter. Peter stands up and Paul begins correcting Peter he was loud enough for everyone to hear what was going on. And he says to him, if you who are a Jew live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel Gentiles to live like Jews? Peter. You're a Jew? And a few days ago, you were fellowshipping with all of us here in Antioch.
You didn't turn down those tasty pork chops. Yes, I'll have more bacon, thank you. You were living like you were free from the Law, because you are. So why then did you suddenly turn into Captain Kosher as soon as those guys showed up from Jerusalem? You're an ethnic Jew, Peter, and you don't even follow the Law.
So why are you now telling these Gentile believers to follow the Law? Why are you being a hypocrite? Peter would have been kind of tense. Verse 15. He keeps saying that we are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners.
And yet because we know that underline this a person is not justified by the works of the Law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. Even we ourselves have believed in Christ. This was so that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law. Because underline this, by the works of the Law, no human being will be justified. That's an emphatic statement.
Paul says, no one has ever been justified. No one's ever been made right with God by the Law. No one's ever been made right with God by doing good works, and no one will ever be justified by the Law. End of discussion. David, who lived under the Law, wrote of God in Psalm 143, verse two in your sight, no one living is righteous.
David's, one of God's favorites, if you've read the Bible. And David says, even me, I know in your sight I'm not righteous. Paul says, Peter, we've been devout Jews our whole lives, and yet we both believed in the Lord Jesus because we know that nobody can be saved by the Law. So if the Law can't even save a devout Jew, why are you pretending that it can save a Gentile? Verse 17 but if we ourselves are also found to be sinners while seeking to be justified by Christ, is Christ then a promoter of sin?
Absolutely not. It's a bit convoluted, but the original Greek tells us that what Peter is saying is something along the lines of Peter. Sorry. What Paul is saying is Peter, in your version of the Gospel, obeying Jesus would lead us to sin. Are you claiming that Jesus wants us to sin?
And to think there are some people who complain when we ask you to take an online course for membership could be a lot worse. I'm just saying. We ended last week's study, with Paul and Barnabas having returned to Antioch, where they are recovering from Paul's first missionary journey.
At some point in the months that followed, the Apostle Peter came to visit the brothers in Antioch. Peter has been traveling all over the world at this time, doing mission work. And Paul writes about Peter's visit to Antioch in Galatians, chapter two, beginning in verse eleven. Let's read it together. Paul says, but when Cephas, which is the Greek version of Peter's name, came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned or he was in the wrong, for he regularly ate with the Gentiles before certain men came from Jambres.
So, Peter comes to visit Antioch, he's having a great time, and he's enjoying the grace of God in the church. He's rejoicing at how the Gospel has saved thousands of Gentiles. He's munching on some tasty pork chops at the communion feast. It's all God. And then some brothers show up from Judea.
Judea is the southern part of Israel that includes Jerusalem. The Apostle James was the most prominent elder in the Jerusalem Church at this time. So, when we read that certain men came from James, it would seem that they were sent by the Jerusalem Church at James's request to just check up on how things are going in Antioch. And as soon as these guys show up, Peter's behavior changes. Paul says.
However, when they came, he that's Peter, withdrew and separated himself because he feared those from the circumcision party again. Now, if you're thinking what the heck is a circumcision party? It doesn't sound like much fun. Just know that it means they were part of the majority group in Jerusalem who believed that Gentiles needed to be circumcised to follow Jesus. As crazy as it sounds, despite being an uppercase-A apostle for 20 years, Peter still gives in to the fear of man.
He craves the approval of those brothers from Jerusalem for some reason, and so he stops eating with the Gentile believers because these guys visiting from Jerusalem who were part of the circumcision party believed that every Gentile Christian man needed to be circumcised. And if they weren't, then you shouldn't be eating with them. You shouldn't associate with them because they're unclean. They're not real believers. So, can you imagine how hurtful this would have been to the brothers in Antioch who were Gentiles?
Overnight? Peter shifts to treating them like they're unclean. He won't talk to them, he won't acknowledge them, he won't eat with them, he won't even associate with them in any way. They would have been deeply hurt and they would have been dismayed because as Gentile believers who had been taught by men like Paul and Barnabas, they would have understood the doctrine of salvation by faith. The Bible teaches explicitly that we are saved, our sins are forgiven, we are adopted into the family of God, we get to go to heaven, we are made right with God, all those wonderful things, solely because of what Jesus has done on our behalf.
We get all those eternity-altering blessings, not by doing good works, but by believing what Jesus has done for us in our place and placing our faith in him as our Lord and Savior. That is salvation by faith, and it's what the Gentile brothers in Antioch would have been taught. But Peter's actions were communicating to them that they weren't really saved by faith. There were works that they needed to do to be saved, starting with circumcision. Instead of viewing them as brothers, Peter was now viewing and treating them as unbelievers and directly contradicting the Gospel message they had heard from their own elders.
Series: Acts...Passage: Acts 15:1-12...Speaker: Jeff Thompson
Paul, Barnabas, and some of the other brothers from Antioch journey to Jerusalem for the first apostolic council to answer the vital question, “What must a man do to be saved?”
Acts chapter 15 requires us to set the scene so that we can understand the context of events. During the first decade of the Church, from around 32 AD. To 42 AD. Almost all believers were Jews who had recognized that Jesus was the Messiah and that the Church was headquartered, so to speak, in Jerusalem.
In the second decade of the Church, from around 42 AD to 52 AD, the Gospel spread in earnest to the Gentiles, resulting in thousands and thousands of them turning to the Lord. It wasn't long before most believers were Gentiles, and the headquarters of the Gospel outreach to the Gentile world was the Church in Antioch in present-day Syria. So at the time in history we'll be studying today, the demographics of the Church had changed radically as most believers were Gentiles and their numbers continued to increase. Simultaneously, the influence of the Church in Jerusalem was decreasing, but the influence of the Church in Antioch was increasing.
And these dynamics created some cultural tensions in the Church at large. The Jewish believers in the Church had spent their entire lives living uprightly. They followed the law of Moses, the moral, ceremonial, and civil laws given to the nation of Israel by God. They were okay with the fact that the Gospel was for Gentiles too, in the same way that they had been okay with a few God-fearing Gentiles sitting in the back of the synagogue service quietly to check out Judaism. But they were having a hard time wrapping their heads around the idea that pagan Gentiles could just convert, join the Church, and immediately share equality with them.
How could that be? They had been partaking in pagan s*xual rituals, some of them just a few weeks ago, and now they're brothers and sisters just like that. What? And now their numbers are overwhelming the Church and they're gaining more and more influence. The Jewish believers rightly believed that the Church had been founded upon Jewish believers and they feared that the Gentiles were bringing anarchy into the Church and threatening Jewish culture, Jewish traditions, and Jewish influence.
But in addition to these cultural issues, there was a glaring theological issue coming to the fore that was increasingly unavoidable. This issue put the Jerusalem Church on a collision course with the Church in Antioch. What was the issue? Well, even around 52 AD, The Jerusalem church was pretty much still entirely Jewish.
And it turns out they were still to a large degree holding to the belief that since Christianity was the continuation of Judaism, since Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, it was necessary to continue obeying the law of Moses to be a Christian. Yes, Jesus saved you, but you also had to keep the law of Moses to maintain your salvation. And for Gentile men who converted to Christianity, that included being circumcised. Circumcision was the outward mark God had commanded the men of Israel to take, beginning with Abraham's to distinguish them from all the surrounding pagan nations. It was a sign of the covenant between God and the men of Israel, a mark in their flesh that meant I belong to God, I am his property.
And so, knowing that you can see the logic of the leaders and many of the men of the Jerusalem Church, because they would have been thinking, well, circumcision marks men as belonging to the people of God. And so, if Gentiles are now part of the people of God, then obviously they need to take the mark too.
But he was also a Roman citizen like Paul. Silas is a Greek name, that came with certain legal protections and benefits that would be useful while traveling the empire. Furthermore, he could serve as a representative of the Jerusalem Church as they shared the letter from James and the Jerusalem Council with the churches. He could be an actual witness from the Jerusalem Church. Now, in the previous chapter, we learned that Silas went down to Antioch with the contingent from the Jerusalem Church to share that letter about the Jerusalem Council.
After spending some time with the brethren in Antioch, he felt like the Lord just wanted him to stay there, and so he did. He didn't know why. He just felt like he should stay. And now we see why God had chosen him to be a traveling companion of Paul's in his next missionary journey. And that's one of the ways the Lord leads us.
He gives us an affection, a bond with a place, a people, a ministry. He inclines our hearts in certain directions in accordance with his will. And so, when he does that when he gives us an extra affinity for something, we pray, we fast, we seek wise and Godly counsel. What do you think the Lord is doing? We search the Scriptures, and if there are no red flags, then we trust the Lord is leading us and we move forward in faith.
So, make a note of this. God sometimes directs us by giving us a heart for a specific place, people, or type of ministry. Place, people, or type of ministry. Please make sure that you didn't use selective hearing and block out the part where I said that we seek wise, godly counsel. That's really important.
I don't want anyone to show up next week and be like God's given me a heart for the Mime community. And so, I need to start a miming ministry in this church. Please seek wise counsel. Let's pray and discern together what the Lord might or might not be doing. So don't just follow your heart.
Scripture says the heart is deceitful. So, you want to pray, you want to search the Scriptures, you want to get wise counsel. Is it possible? Yes. Not in this church, though.
Just putting that out there. Silas joined Paul as he revisited the towns and cities where he had previously ministered in Paul's second ministry. Sorry. Paul's second missionary journey is going to begin in earnest. In verse 11 of the next chapter, it says, He - that's Paul - traveled through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.
Let's throw our map up on the screen and take a look here. So, from their home base of the Syrian city of Antioch, Paul's team traveled around the Roman province of Syria, and then up north to the Roman province of Cilicia, where they almost certainly passed through Paul's old stomping ground of Tarsus. It seems that they were likely following the route taken by the false teachers who had been spreading the heresy that salvation is by keeping the law instead of by faith in Christ. So, they visited those churches to expose that heretical teaching, share truthful, correct teaching, and share the verdict of the Jerusalem Council and encourage the brethren in each of those churches. These were courageous men who were setting out on these mission trips.
Remember what happened to Paul on his first missionary journey. He still bore the scars from the stoning that almost ended his life. And he certainly would have laid out the risks to Silas before inviting him to partner with him. These men put their lives on the line for the Gospel, as I've shared before. Men like Paul and Silas did this because of their love for the church.
Their love for the people of God was greater than their fear of earthly death. They knew there were Christians who were young in the faith who needed to be encouraged, strengthened, and built up in their knowledge of Christ. And their hearts loved to visit those saints and provide what they needed.
We've got to raise up and appoint elders and deacons, we got to build up people in the faith and create systems that are going to do that and instruct people. Paul showed the heart of Jesus that set his face toward Jerusalem and refused to allow anything to distract him from the mission that he had been given by the Father. In verse 39 we read they had such a sharp disagreement that they parted company and Barnabas took Mark with them and sailed off to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and departed after being commended by the brothers and sisters to the grace of the Lord. This is no small disagreement.
It was contentious and interestingly, the Bible doesn't tell us who was right. John Mark later became a valued co-laborer of Paul in the work of the Gospel and such a close associate of the Apostle Peter that he helped him write his Gospel. That's the gospel we know is the gospel of Mark. It's Peter's gospel recorded by Mark. So, was Barnabas right?
Well, I think we can say that Paul was not the right person to disciple John Mark at that season in time, but Barnabas was. You can argue for Paul and say, well, the text says that only Paul was commended by the Church before he left. It doesn't say Barnabas was, but I think that's kind of an argument from silence. But I think we can also say that Barnabas was not the right partner for Silas, but Paul was. The result was that both John Mark and Silas ended up on a missions team with the right leader for them.
And the Gospel went out with twice the efficacy as two teams now went out from Antioch instead of just one. So why didn't the Holy Spirit just tell Paul and Barnabas, it's all cool, you take Silas, you take John Mark, double the work for the kingdom? Why didn't the Holy Spirit just tell them that? He probably did. He probably did.
This might shock you, but sometimes we're not good at listening when God speaks, sometimes we make assumptions. And what we notice is that Paul and Barnabas just assumed that if there was another mission trip to go on, it would be the two of them going together. They apparently didn't stop and seek the Lord and say, lord, do you want us to go together again? They just assumed and they didn't ask. But praise God.
Praise God. When we desire to do his will, he will do good through us, even through something like a sharp disagreement to get us where we need to be. And I'm so thankful that God is gracious to work and move even through hard-headed people like you and me. He really does look at us and say, your heart's in the right place and so I'm going to use you even though you're doing everything you can to make it as difficult as possible. In summary, it seems neither of them was wrong.
God was just doing something neither of them had considered. God gifted both Paul and Barnabas. God used both men, and the church grew because both men operated with their gifts. We need different gifts in the Church. We need different gifts among elders deacons and church members.
We need people with a heart for different areas of ministry. We need advocates for different causes so that the full heart of God can be reflected in his church. We need that. This will be the last time we hear about Barnabas in the Book of Acts. He continued to be fruitful in ministry, but the focus of the text is going to move to Paul's missionary travels.
And we know from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians that he and Barnabas later reconciled. So, Paul takes on a new partner, Silas. Silas was a leader in the Jerusalem Church. He was a recognized prophet, and he would have been adept at teaching the Word of God. He was a Jew, so he would have had full access to any synagogue.
And together, as a church, we're going to do everything we can to help each other follow Jesus. That's the commitment that we've made to one another. Help me. Follow the Lord. If you see me getting off track, help me get back on track.
If I need someone to pray for me, be there. When I ask you to, I'll be there for you as well. That's what the church does. We follow Jesus together because we want to obey Him. That's our desire.
And so, with all that in mind, Paul wanted to check in on the spiritual health and development of the new believers that he had left in the many cities and towns in which he had previously ministered. In the next chapter, we'll be told that they also took the letter with them from the Jerusalem Council so they could share the decision that had been made and James's instruction for Gentile disciples to abstain from s*xual immorality and pagan idolatry. And we discussed that in our previous study. If you missed it. Verse 37.
Barnabas wanted to take along John, who was called Mark, but Paul insisted that they should not take along this man who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone on with them to work. To refresh your memories, John Mark had joined Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey. But for whatever reason, when he got to Pamphylia, this region around Galatia, he decided to split and go back home. We aren't told why, but it's likely either because he got scared by the danger inherent to their mission, or he didn't like the fact that Paul had emerged as the leader of their team and not his Uncle Barnabas. The disagreement between Paul and Barnabas is understandable.
Paul believes that the nature of their mission work will require them to depend on one another and trust each other with their lives. The stakes are high. The preaching of the gospel to men and women who have never heard it, to risk the mission being sabotaged by someone who lacks the necessary commitment and is not ready to yet lay down their life for the Lord is not an option in Paul's mind. On the other side, you have Barnabas, who believes in second chances and views John Mark as a young man who loves the Lord, has learned a painful and embarrassing lesson, and is ready to try again. Barnabas had to be frustrated by Paul's seemingly short memory, because you may recall that Paul was at one time the foremost persecutor of the church before being radically transformed by an encounter with the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus.
But when Paul journeyed to Jerusalem to meet with the apostles, none of them were willing because none of them trusted him. But who was it who believed that people could change? Who was it that did go and meet with Paul, even though he didn't yet know if Paul's conversion was sincere? It was Barnabas. And it was Barnabas who vouched for Paul and brought him to the apostles.
And so, Barnabas must have been full of righteous indignation. Really, Paul, you don't believe a person can change. You don't believe that a person can change. And what we see is there are different personalities and giftings in play. Barnabas had such a heart for the individual.
He's all about one person at a time. He was totally present with who they were at that moment, and he was laser-focused on how he could help them move forward in Christ in a greater way. And he was willing to risk his life for just the potential opportunity to help one person move closer to Christ. Barnabas had the heart of Jesus. That leaves the 99 to go after the one.
Now, I don't mean to imply here that Paul didn't care about people, because he obviously did. But Paul was gifted with an obsession and drive for the Gospel, for the big picture of the kingdom of God. We need to plant churches. We need to preach the Gospel where people have never heard it, heard it. We need to make sure that churches are teaching truthful doctrine.
But a category that doesn't exist in the Scriptures is people who are Christians but don't want to obey Jesus. That's not a thing in the Bible. Christians who don't want to obey Jesus.
Again, just to use my favorite analogy, this is like somebody wanting to say they're a member of Greenpeace while they're wearing, like, a fur coat with, like, a fox head on it. You know, what's the problem? I thought you guys were open to anyone. The Bible views people who don't want to obey Jesus as non-believers, people who are not saved. And so, because we love people, we cannot be a church where it's easy and comfortable for people to deceive themselves into thinking they're in the right relationship with God when they don't even want to obey Jesus.
Like, this weighs on me as a pastor that I would ever end up standing next to someone before Jesus. And this person would say, I went to your church for years and you let me think I was saved. Because I just said, well, the important thing is let's just be gracious everyone's at different places. And so sure, they're a Christian who doesn't want to obey Jesus, but who am I to judge? It haunts me, the idea of that ever happening.
And so, we want to be explicit that Christians who don't want to obey Jesus are not a thing in the Bible. The only time you see anything like that is when the Bible says you need to check yourself to see if you're actually saved because Christians want to obey Jesus. Now, people deceive themselves and they find a way out of this. And perhaps someone here is already thinking this, well, Jeff, nobody's perfect. Everybody makes mistakes, and everybody sins.
And all those statements are true. But that's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about perfection. We're talking about intention. We're not talking about our countless failures and sins on our journey of sanctification.
We're talking about our desires. A Christian desires to obey Jesus. There's no such thing as a Christian who doesn't desire to obey Jesus. A Christian fails over and over and over again. Our brother John tells us if we say we have no sin, we're deceiving ourselves.
And the truth is not in us. But the desire of the Christian is to be righteous. The desire of the Christian is to be holy, set apart for the glory of God. The desire of the Christian is to be set free from sin. The Christians hate their sin.
They don't coddle it or excuse it. They wage war against it. Write this down. Christians desire to obey Jesus. It's not about perfection. It's about intention. It's about intention. Here's why I can say this with such confidence. Because the Christian who doesn't want to obey Jesus doesn't want Jesus to be their Lord. It's that simple.
If you don't want to obey Jesus, then you don't want him to be your master. You don't want him to be your Lord. So how can you be a Christian who doesn't want Jesus to be your Lord? It doesn't even make sense. At Gospel City, the elders desire to have Paul's heart for the Church.
He wrote this to the Colossians. We proclaim him the Lord Jesus, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom so that we may present everyone mature in Christ. If you're checking out Christianity, we're so glad you're here. Welcome. I hope you don't feel any pressure in any way.
If you are a Christian, we will never apologize for never stopping, doing everything we can to help you grow into greater maturity in Christ. We'll never apologize for that. We'll never apologize if it makes you uncomfortable that we call you to be more like Jesus'. We're always going to do that. And if you're a member of Gospel City, then you've made the commitment to your brothers and sisters, you've made the commitment to BJ and myself.
Divided for the Greater Good...Date:5/14/23...Series: Acts
Passage: Acts 15:36-16:5...Speaker: Jeff Thompson
Paul and Barnabas have a heated disagreement, part ways, and head out on new journeys to visit the churches they had planted previously and preach the Gospel.
So, as we pick things up, Paul and Barnabas are back in the city of Antioch in present-day Syria. It is the home base, so to speak, of the church in Gentile territory. And Paul and Barnabas are both elders there. They are teaching and building up the saints in the faith.
They're making disciples. But Paul is an Apostle. He's an evangelist. And so, it's not long before he feels compelled by the love of God to check on the spiritual health of the churches he helped plant during his first missionary journey. Additionally, he knows millions have not heard the Gospel, and he can't help but want to do something about that.
As he wrote to the Romans, my aim is to preach the Gospel where Christ has not been named. Paul's passion didn't come from learning some secret evangelistic technique of the pros. It came from loving and knowing Jesus so deeply that God's heart for the lots became Paul's. He described his passion for the Gospel to the Corinthians, pointing, I am compelled to preach, and woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel. And so, we'll pick it up in Acts 15:36, where we read.
After some time had passed, Paul said to Barnabas, let's go back and visit the brothers and sisters in every town where we have preached the word of the Lord and see how they're doing. Paul had the heart of a pastor. He didn't simply drop in on a city, preach the Gospel, count the number of hands raised, take some pictures for his social media, and say, that's 100 decisions for Christ. See you again. Never.
No. Paul planted churches, and appointed elders, and he continued to monitor the spiritual health of those churches. Even from a distance, Paul understood that the command of Jesus is not to make converts, it's to make disciples. Jesus gave his disciples the Great Commission, and most Christians are familiar with the first part. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.
Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. But it doesn't end there. It keeps going. And Jesus says, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. The goal is disciples.
Men and women who desire to obey Jesus know how to obey Jesus and then wait for it. Obey Jesus, mature believers. That's the goal. So, write this down. It's your first fill-in.
Jesus commanded his followers to make disciples, men and women who worship and obey Jesus as Lord. That's what a disciple does. They worship and obey Jesus as Lord. The greatest evangelistic technique is not a method or huge events, our big conferences, or Gospel rallies. The greatest evangelistic method is mature followers of Jesus.
Because they reproduce, they make more disciples. In the long run, the good works produced by a well-taught, mature, and spiritually strong local church will have a far greater impact than any evangelistic crusade. We want people at Gospel City who are exploring Christianity, and checking it out, to feel comfortable here. We really do. We want anyone who wants to grow in their faith and follow Jesus as Lord to feel comfortable in our church, whether you're a brand-new Christian or you've been a believer for decades.
But it might surprise you to know there's actually one group we want to make uncomfortable at Gospel City. If you consider yourself a Christian but you do not want to obey Jesus in every area of your life, we want to make it uncomfortable for you to stay in that place at Gospel City church. We really do. Because when we study the Scriptures, we see people who are not Christians who don't want to obey Jesus, and we see people who are Christians who want to obey Jesus.
Lord Jesus, thank you so much for the truth of your word. Thank You that Your desire for us is not based on any need that You have for power or for ego or to twist our arms into compliance. Lord, Your goodness, your greatness, and Your glory are completely unaffected by anything we do. You don't need anything from us, but all of Your commands are for our good, both here and now and in the ages to come. You only share instruction with us for our good that we might experience Your life, the abundant life that You spoke about as You ministered on the Earth, and experience rewards in eternity.
And so, Jesus, first of all, I just pray that You would forgive us where we've ever fallen into thinking that Your commands are for anything other than our good.
Where we've had any construction of You in our minds. That is inaccurate. Lord, our only good. And you're concerned about the good of Your children, and You know that the greatest good for us is becoming more like Your son, Jesus. And so, Lord, we just invite You to do that work in us.
Do it, Lord. Make us more like Jesus, please. Loved where we've been stubborn, where we've said no and come up with excuses so many times that we can't even sense Your conviction anymore. Lord, return that sensitivity to our hearts so that we can obey you. Jesus, fill us with a desire to obey You rooted in gratitude for everything that You've done for us because You have set us free.
You have liberated us from bondage to sin and death. And so, we stand on that. We believe in Jesus name. We have victory because of the victory Jesus won on our behalf. And Lord Jesus, we pray right now for any of our brothers and sisters here who are in bondage in any area of life.
We know that You do not desire them to be. And so, Jesus, would you shine a light on any area in their lives or ours where we are walking in disobedience that we might repent and experience life. And we pray for our brothers and sisters who may feel overwhelmed and feel like something is impossible. But how could God do this? How could I ever stop doing this?
How could I ever not need this? Jesus, we pray that just right now, by our spirit, You would overwhelm them with the reality that You are the Most High God. Nothing is impossible for You. Your arm is not too short. Nothing is impossible.
There's freedom in You from anything and from everything. So, help us to love, help us to praise, help us to speak, help us to think as free men and women set free by Jesus, and to not run back to the change that You have set us free from. Thank You for freedom, Jesus, we love you. In your name, we pray. Amen.
We saw two women in the text today. One of them was free. One of them was in bondage. The world will tell you that if you are just freed from oppression and inequality, then you'll be able to experience freedom and fulfillment. Then you'll be liberated.
This isn't a message for today. This message has been going on since the 50s, since the 60s, even earlier. But all liberation movements cannot deliver on their promises because you can do whatever you want. You can change laws, you can become celebrated in the culture, and you can change your socioeconomic status. You can adopt a new gender or s*xual identity.
If your heart remains the same, you'll be a slave. The only true freedom that exists is freedom from bondage to sin and death. That is the freedom Jesus was speaking of when he said, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. And we live in a time, as others have before us, where Satan is blasting the message out to the culture that it's not the truth that will set you free. We have an enemy who wants to get you to believe in anything other than the truth as the solution to your situation, to deceive you into believing.
No. That is what will give you freedom from the bondage that you're experiencing in your life. But Jesus, the living God, the Most High God, says you need freedom from bondage to sin and death, and you can only find it in me. The prophet Jeremiah pointed out the futility of trying to transform ourselves apart from Christ's writing. Can the Ethiopian change his skin or a leopard his spots?
If so, then you might be able to do what is good, you who are instructed in evil. So, Jeremiah says, listen, if a person can change the color of their skin and actually become a different ethnicity, or if an animal can become something else, hey, then maybe you can become something else too, by just trying. He says, the point is that you can't. You can't because we are in bondage to sin and death until we are set free by Jesus Christ. We need the freedom that only Christ can offer.
All else falls short. And at this very moment, all of humanity, every single person, is either a slave to sin or a slave to righteousness. Sin leads to death, but righteousness leads to life. And the good news is that God promises to open the hearts of all who seek Him and set them free. The Lord also said, through Jeremiah, you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart.
That's a promise. You will seek me and you will find me when you search for me with all your heart when you say, okay, Lord, no preconditions. I just want the truth. I just want to be free, whatever it costs. God says you'll find me.
You'll find me when you come to me like that. Is there any area of your life I'll ask the worship team to come up. Is there any area of your life where you know that Jesus has given you a clear command, but you're delaying your obedience to Him? I don't care how you're justifying it. God doesn't care how you're justifying it.
Is there an area of your life where God has spoken to you clearly, but you're delaying your obedience to him? You need to hear this because I love you. Delayed obedience is disobedience. You're not just delaying your obedience, you are actively disobeying God. Obey Christ.
Obey Christ and live free. Because if there is a single area of your life where you are knowingly disobeying Christ, you are in bondage in that area of your life, you are not experiencing the life Jesus has for you. Obey Christ and live free. Let's pray. Would you bow your head and close your eyes?
Genesis Eleven records the Tower of Babel incident. And if you're not familiar with the Tower of Babel, go look up our study on Genesis eleven on the website. As a consequence, for humanity to unite to rebel against God and to protect future generations from going down the same dark road, God divided the people of the world at Babel into ethnos and different ethnicities that were immediately divided by language. The Bible calls these different ethnicities the nations. Scripture tells us that God appointed certain angels, certain spiritual beings he had created over each of the nations except for Israel, which was God's portion among the nations.
Deuteronomy 32/8 refers to the time when the Most High divided the nations and divided the human race. He set the boundaries of the people according to the number of angels. However, these supernatural beings, these angels who were given charge over the nations, rebelled against the Lord and made themselves the gods of the nations they were appointed over. Are there other gods? Absolutely.
The Bible teaches this, and that's what makes the title Most High God significant. It's a title that specifically designates Yahweh as the highest god among the gods. He is like no other god, and no other god is like him. Even the servants of the lesser gods, like the demon in this girl, know this Yahweh has power and authority over all other gods. And again, I'll throw this out there.
I know you'd love me to explain more, but I'll still just share this. The destiny of the Church is to replace the gods of the nations and to rule over the nations with Christ. It's just a small thing to stay up tonight. Thinking about verse 18. It says, she, the demon possessed girl, did this for many days.
So, this demon possessed girl starts following Paul and his crew around, acting like a herald, shouting, these men who are proclaiming to you a way of salvation are the servants of the Most High God. This was not ideal, as generally, ministers of the Gospel do not seek endorsements from demons. Additionally, because she was promoting them, people would have assumed that she was part of their ministry. Again, not ideal. People may have even then assumed that Paul Silas and Timothy were likewise possessed by spirits from the underworld.
Then we read Paul was greatly annoyed. Turning to the Spirit, he said, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out right away. When demons did this kind of thing to Jesus, we read about his response in the Gospels. It says in Mark One, he healed many who were sick with various diseases and drove out many demons.
And he would not permit the demons to speak because they knew him. In Luke four, it says demons were coming out of many, shouting and saying, you are the Son of God. But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak. You see, Paul had grown tired of the distraction and the danger this woman posed to their ministry. And he felt sorry for this girl, who was so clearly enslaved by this demon.
And so, Paul waited for the Holy Spirit to tell him to cast the demon out of this girl. Why did the Holy Spirit have Paul wait? I have no idea. But the second he gave Paul the green light, Paul acted. And the word of God spoken through him, commanded the demon to leave.
And because Paul spoke with the authority of the Most High God, the demon had no choice but to obey. To state the obvious, the fact that the demon left this girl, and she was instantly transformed confirms this was not a mental illness. This was not a sideshow circus act. It was real demonic possession. And I would encourage us to remember when we pray, do not ever forget that we are praying to the Most High God. He's the God over all other gods. They all have to bow to him. He has absolute authority over everything. And so, when we pray, we should remember that, because that's the God that we call upon.
However, the god Apollo showed up one day, slew the python and established his own temple in Delphi, and appointed an oracle, a woman whom he would possess and through whom he would speak prophecies.
These are the mythical origins of the actual and historical oracle of Delphi, who was also known as the Pythia. It was a position held by various women over the centuries from around 700 to 500 BC. But it was a position that had not existed for centuries by the time of Christ. And so, because of that mythology, the Greeks and the Romans referred to anyone possessed by a fortune-telling spirit as being possessed by a python spirit. And so, to put it in simpler terms, this was a demon possessed woman who was empowered to speak prophecies about the future.
And people would pay a lot of money for this service. No military commander, no civic leader, and no business owner would make a major decision without first consulting an oracle like this girl. And it tells you something about the state of the world and supernatural beliefs at that time in history. There was nobody in the world at the time of Christ, really, who did not believe in the supernatural. Atheism was not really a thing at all.
It's a similar thing if you go to Africa or many parts of the Third World. It's very hard. To find someone who doesn't believe in the supernatural at all. It's extremely rare. But note that this was something that existed in almost every major town and city in the Roman Empire.
There would be someone who was possessed by a specific kind of spirit, and people would pay money to hear prophecies about the future. Now, could she really predict the future? No. While the Bible does teach that Satan holds sway over anyone who does not belong to Jesus, satan and demons do not control the future. But this demon would enable the person it was possessing to speak with eloquence and with convincing words.
Sort of like somebody who could write really compelling horoscopes, someone will have a birthday this year. Something like that. But this demon then would probably also cause some sort of physical state to happen, like violent shaking and eyes rolling back while she uttered these prophecies or foamed at the mouth or something like that. It says in verse 17, as she followed Paul she cried out, these men who are proclaiming to you a way of salvation are the servants of the Most High God. This is interesting.
We're going to talk about some interesting stuff here because it seems that when a demon-possessed person encountered the presence of God in a Christian in the Scriptures, it antagonized them. It agitated the demon. We have two examples of this in the ministry of Jesus recorded in the Gospel of Luke. And notice how similar they are to what happens with Paul and his team here.
In Luke four, it says in the synagogue, there was a man with an unclean demonic spirit who cried out with a loud voice, leave us alone. What do you have to do with us? Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. The Holy One of God. And then in Luke eight, we read a demon-possessed man from the town met him. For a long time, he had worn no clothes and did not stay in a house, but in the tombs. When he saw Jesus, he cried out, fell down before him, and said in a loud voice, what do you have to do with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God?
I beg you, don't torment me. And now, when this demon-possessed woman comes across Paul and his team, she cries out, these men who are proclaiming to you a way of salvation are the servants of the Most High God. In all these cases, it's as if the demons, involuntarily confess the reality of Jesus, the Holy One of God, the Son of the Most High God, servants of the Most High God. In Deuteronomy 32, verse 8, there's a reference to a reality that most Christians are completely unaware of.
She urged us, if you consider me a believer in the Lord, come and stay at my house. And she persuaded us. The phrase her household tells us that Judea did not have a husband at this time. She was most likely a widow or a divorcee. And there would have been some further teaching given to Lydia and her household by Paul because Paul would have only Baptist sincere converts to Christianity, so he would have had to share the Gospel with her household as well. This means that Paul preached to family members and slaves who were likely part of her household, and they all turned to the Lord.
They were all saved. It's very similar to Peter's experience with the household of Cornelius in Acts chapter ten, and what a saleswoman Judea is. She gives them an invitation they can't refuse because she says, if you think my salvation is genuine, come and stay at my house. They knew she had been legitimately saved, so what could they say? So, they had to go and stay with her.
And I'm sure they would have been grateful for her hospitality, because at this time in history, in the Roman Empire, inns were very inappropriate places for Christians to stay, because most of the time, especially in Roman colonies and Greek cities, they were dirty, dangerous, expensive, and literally just brothels. So, to instead stay among believers and share the love of Christ and fellowship with the saints would have been a tremendous blessing. And it's why hospitality was emphasized so strongly in the early church, especially for any traveling Christians who may have been passing through your city. Lydia's house will become the meeting location of the church that will be planted in Philippi, and she will become a leading patron of God's work in the city, opening up her home for ministry and hospitality and supporting the Lord's work in her city. Through significant financial giving, the church was able to grow significantly in Philippi while still meeting at her house tells us that Lydia had a really big property and ran a very profitable business.
And it's funny that in Paul's vision, if you'll recall, he saw a man from Macedonia calling him to come over and share the gospel, when he got there, he found a woman's only Bible study and his first convert was a single woman, Lydia and her household. And the church there is hosted by and financed by Lydia. And this counters the claims of some who try to paint Paul as a chauvinist. His eagerness to minister to this group of women shows that nothing could be further from the truth. His attitude was completely different from that of the Pharisees, who would never discuss the scriptures with a woman and who regularly prayed prayers in public along the lines of, dear God, thank you that I wasn't born a gentile, a slave, or a woman.
And when you read Paul's epistles, you will frequently find him greeting women by name whom he loved and considered sisters in the faith. Verse 16. Once, as we were on our way to prayer, a slave girl met us who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She made a large profit for her owners by fortune telling. So, while staying at Lydia's house, Paul and his team continued evangelizing the Jewish woman and any traveling Jews who were gathering outside the city by the river.
One day, while they're on their way to that spot, they come across, not by accident, a girl, not a woman, a girl who is a slave and is possessed by a demon that empowers her to predict the future, and she's being exploited by her owners as a business. The original Greek says she was possessed by a pneuma python, which literally means a python spirit. And this relates to Greek mythology. You see, the Greeks believed that the god Gaia had a son who was the python, and the python would prophesy from a cave in Delphi, which was connected to the Peter of the Earth where Gaia dwelt.
So, among this group of Gentiles women, among this group of women sorry, was a Gentile God fearer named Lydia. And you may recall from earlier studies that a God fearer was a Gentile who had recognized the reality of the Hebrew God turned from pagan idolatry, was worshipping Yahweh exclusively and reverently learning about the Hebrew faith but had not yet fully converted. They had not yet become a Jew themselves. Thia Tyra was a city in the region of Lydia. And it seems this woman had been named after the place she was from.
And that this actually, historians tell us, might have been a shortened form of her business name, which was probably something like the Judea Lady. And so, everyone just called her Lydia for short. Thyatira was famed for its production of purple cloth, and Lydia was a dealer in such textiles. Purple dye could only be produced through a time and labor-intensive process using the glands of a specific shellfish or the root of a certain plant. And this made purple prohibitively expensive, and a color worn exclusively by the wealthy.
It was just insanely expensive. And it says here that regarding Lydia, the Lord opened her heart to respond to what Paul was saying. As we've discussed in previous messages, the Lord gives general revelation to everyone. Paul tells us in Romans one and two that God reveals Himself to every person through the glory of his creation around us and through our inner moral conscience. Solomon wrote that God has put eternity in the hearts of man.
In other words, God has put an existential longing in the hearts of man. This desire to understand why we're here, or what the true nature of reality is, what the meaning of life is. Speaking of his coming crucifixion, Jesus said, as for me, if I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to myself. And the interesting thing about the Greek word that's translated all there is, that in English, it means all. Jesus draws, Jesus invites, Jesus calls all people to be saved.
But he honors the free will of man and allows him to draw closer to the revelation he gives, or to reject the revelation that he gives. To those who draw closer, he gives more revelation. And if they continue drawing closer as new revelation is given, they reach a point where God opens up their hearts to receive and believe the saving truth of the Gospel. That's what the Lord did for Lydia. We can see that she had been responding to the general revelation she had been given.
She had been responding to the special revelation of the Jewish people and the Hebrew Scriptures. The text tells us that as Paul spoke, she was listening. Listen. You can sit through a lot of sermons without listening. But Lydia was listening.
She had been drawing closer and had reached the point where God said, because you desire the truth and because you have responded positively to the revelation I've given you, I'm going to open up your heart to understand the Gospel and receive the gift of eternal life. Many heard Jesus teach, but few listened when Jesus taught. You can hear many sermons and you can hear the Gospel many times. But if you don't desire the truth, or if you've already made up your mind that you're not willing to change, if the truth demands it of you, you will be unable to listen. This is what Jesus said about the importance of listening and responding to the truth and light that God has already given us.
It's on your outlines. He said, no one, after lighting a lamp, covers it with a basket or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a lamp stand so that those who come in may see its light. For nothing is concealed that won't be revealed, and nothing is hidden that won't be made known and brought to light. Therefore, take care how you listen, for whoever has more will be given to him.
If your small child knows digits and fractions, you need to work on this. Do it right away, the first time with a smile. That's a good standard to have what's your five-year-old got going on for those 3 seconds that they can't obey immediately? Do it. Verse 11 it says, from Troas, we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace the next day to Neapolis and from there to Philippi, a Roman colony and a leading city of the district of Macedonia.
We stayed in that city for several days. Let's put up our next map here. So, they sail from Troas to the island of Samothrace because the journey would have been too long to do in one go and they generally don't want to be sailing around that part of the world in the dark because there are little islands and rocks all over the Aegean, as you can get an idea from the map. So, they spent a night at Samothrace. The next day they journey to Philippi, and they actually would have gone to Neapolis, which is the port city that served Philippians.
Philippi was about 10 miles, 16 km further inland from the coast so the total journey likely took just a couple of days. And when they stepped off the boat in Neapolis, the Gospel reached Europe for the first time in history. Named after Philip II of Macedon, who was the father of Alexander the Great, Philippi was on the main east-west road that connected Macedonia to Rome. It was the most prosperous and prominent city in its district, and it was a Roman colony. That's going to be important later, meaning that it handled all civil matters the way they would have been handled in Rome.
Instead of being a foreign territory under the Roman Empire, Philippi was actually like a piece of Rome in a foreign country in the way that it functioned and operated. Verse 13. On the Sabbath day, we went outside the city gate by the river where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and spoke to the women gathered there. Hebrew law dictated that ten Jewish men were necessary to form a synagogue.
And so it seems that there were not enough Jewish men in the city of Philippi to form a synagogue. Hebrew law also dictated that if a synagogue was not available, the Jews should gather on the Sabbath under an open sky next to a river or the sea. And that seems to be why this group of women has gathered by the river outside the city. Paul and his team headed there in keeping with Paul's custom of always first trying to take the Gospel to the Jews in every city. So, he had apparently asked around where the synagogue learned that there wasn't one and then learned that the Jews in the city, when they gathered, would gather at this spot just outside of town.
With no rabbi to teach them, these faithful women took the initiative to gather on the Sabbath to pray, read the Old Testament Scriptures, and discuss what they had read. So, when Paul, a scholar and a student of the greatest rabbi in Israel, Gamaliel, showed up, sat down, and began teaching them from the Scriptures, it would have been a rare privilege and a blessing, and they would have listened eagerly. Verse 14. A God-fearing woman named I got to mess you up. I know you've been reading the Bible your whole life, but we've all been seeing her name wrong.
We've all been doing it. It's Lydia is her name. And so, I'm going to say Lydia. Not to be quirky or weird, but because that's actually her name.
And everyone's just been doing the typical Western thing we do when we meet someone who has a foreign name that we can't immediately pronounce. She's like, my name's Lydia. We're like it's, Lydia, but it's not. Yeah, it is. So, a God-fearing woman named Lydia, because we can do better. A dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thia Tyra was listening.
He's likely still recovering from having his health stricken. He's probably frustrated because he doesn't understand why they can't seem to go everywhere they try to go. And he's looking out at the Aegean trying to figure out what he's supposed to do next. But God had brought Paul exactly where he wanted him to be. And that's revealed in the next verse.
It says, during the night, Paul had a vision in which a Macedonian man was standing and pleading with him, to cross over to Macedonia and help us. Let's put our next map up on the screen. So, Paul is in his dream, he's looking out at the same sea that he was looking out at the day before. And in his dream, he sees a man in Macedonia, present-day Greece. And Macedonia wasn't on Paul's ministry radar at all.
He hadn't even considered it. But then the Lord whacked him upside the head, put some blinders on him, and got him to the place where he was literally facing the ocean he would need to cross to get to Macedonia. And then God said it's that way. Paul. That way.
The only way you can go. And I have to tell you that I've grown to the place where when I am trying to make a decision, my prayer to the Lord is usually this. It's usually, Lord, please give me one option and let it be the one you want because I'm so dumb. As long as there are two options, there's a real shot that I'm going to choose the wrong one. And I want to be in Your will.
So, can you help me out? Just remove one of the options and then I'll go with the only one left so that I can be in Your will. That's the confidence I have in God and the total lack of confidence I have in myself. But I'm so thankful that God is gracious to do this in our lives. And if you haven't figured this out yet, take this to heart.
The Lord speaks through closed doors as much as he does through open doors. He speaks through both equally. So be grateful, don't resist where the Lord has closed a door, and walk through the ones that he opens. In verse 10, it says after he had seen the vision, we underline we and then underline the next word immediately made efforts to set out for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. We see Luke begin to use the pronoun we, indicating that he joined Paul's team in Troas.
And I had you underline the word immediately because this is what disciples of Jesus do. When God has given a clear command, they obey immediately. They don't say, God's given us a vision saying, come over to Macedonia. He's removed all other options. We should pray about it for a while, take a few days.
They don't do that. Why? Because when Jesus has given an explicit command, there is nothing to pray about. What's the logic? You're going to go and get a second opinion from the same person who gave you the first opinion?
Let's be real here. When Scripture is clear, when God speaks clearly, but people say, I think I need to pray about it, it's usually just a spiritual-sounding excuse to delay obeying Jesus. If you want to verify that you're understanding the command of Jesus in Scripture correctly, that's good. But do that research ASAP. Call up, talk, and meet with some wise and mature followers of Jesus who know the word.
Why? Because delayed obedience is disobedience. Write this down. Disciples of Jesus are called to obey him ASAP because delayed obedience is disobedience. Paul and his team understood this.
So once the Lord had made it clear that he wanted them to travel to Macedonia, they immediately made efforts to set out for Macedonia. I'll give you one piece of parenting advice. If you're a parent of young children, take this to heart. Delayed obedience is disobedience. I'll just tell you.
I'll just say it. Do not be one of those parents that says I'm going to count to three. What do you need to count to three for? And then you always look really weak in front of your kid when you're one, two, two and a half. 2.6.
So, what did the Holy Spirit have to do then to prevent Paul from traveling to Asia? It clearly would have had to be more than just a prophetic word or a verbal warning. We're talking about something happening that made it impossible for Paul to go where he wanted to go. The truth is that we don't know. We're not told exactly what the Holy Spirit did, but I think there's a good chance that he struck Paul with some type of illness that stopped him in his tracks.
And this theory could be supported by the fact that Luke joins Paul's team in verse 10. We know this because Luke is narrating the Book of Acts. And in Acts 16, verse ten, the pronouns change to include him. He begins using we and us. Now, what was Luke's profession?
He's a doctor, he's a physician. And so, it seems more than coincidental at this specific time when something has happened that prevents Paul from going to Asia. A doctor joins the team before they move on, possibly because Paul required his medical knowledge and skills. So, perhaps unable to leave his bed, Paul finally says, I perceive the Holy Spirit is forbidding me from going to Asia. Sometimes we're stubborn.
Not you. I'm speaking, of course, of our online listeners and viewers. But we can be hardheaded. And sometimes the Lord must strike us with trials, obstacles and even infirmities to keep us in his will and keep us from unintentionally loving against. It far better to be sensitive to the leading of the Spirit.
But thank God he doesn't give up on us, even when we're stubborn and even when we have moments when we don't listen. That's God being gracious to us, that's God being good. It says in verse 7, that when they came to Musia, they tried to go to Bethania, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. Let's put up our next map here. And so, what they likely did is that they cut across sort of the east-northeast corner of Musa to try and go north into Bithynia.
But now we read the Spirit of Jesus' prevents them from going north. So where else can they go? All that's left is a west northwesterly direction the Spirit of Jesus is one and the same as the Holy Spirit. And Luke just uses the term here to remind us that Jesus continues to play an active rose in the story of his church, leading and guiding her by his spirit. We know that Paul had to be slapped upside the head in a significant way in order to give up on a plan.
Therefore, I suspect that after Paul recognized that God didn't want him to travel to Asia, the Holy Spirit allowed him to recover. But then when he tried to go into Bethania, the Holy Spirit had to say wrong again and probably cause another flare up of whatever illness he had struck Paul with previously. We're going to see in just a minute that this is all happening, because there's somewhere very specific that Jesus wanted Paul to do, and he was going to get Paul there no matter what. Verse 8, it says, Passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. Let's put up our next map here, Troas.
So, they have only one direction they can go. And so, they go there towards the northwest coast and the ancient Greek city of Troas. They might have even limped their way there with Paul because coastal climates are better for one's health. Troas was a pivotal port city and a center of commerce that connected Asia Minor to Europe. It was in present-day Turkey, across the Aegean Sea.
From the present-day country of Greece, it's Greece, to the west, across the Aegean. It was the kind of city where Paul would usually look to plant a church. But he didn't do it on this journey. That would happen later. And so, Paul and his team spend a few days in Troas as Paul tries to discern where the Lord wants him to go.
Paul and his team take the Gospel into Europe for the first time starting with the city of Phlippi, where they encounter two very different women - one a picture of freedom, the other a picture of slavery.
In our previous study, we saw the Lord Jesus direct his church through unlikely means, a sharp division between Paul and Barnabas, resulting in two missions teams going out from the church at Antioch rather than one. Today we will see the Lord give direction to Paul's team through what seems to be an illness and a supernatural dream. We're going to be reminded that Jesus is the head of the church and he's able to work through our strengths and our weaknesses to accomplish his will. And praise God for that. Let's jump in.
In Acts chapter 16, verse 6, it says they. This is the missions team that included Paul, Silas, and Timothy went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia. They had been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. So let's go ahead and put our first map up on the screen and we'll just orient ourselves where we are. So, Phrygia and Galatia were Roman provinces where Paul and his team went to minister after leaving Lustra and passing through Pisidian, Antioch.
Asia was a region that incorporated the central and southern parts of the coast to the west, that's present-day Turkey. And then it came inland to form sort of an equilateral triangle. So, if you just look at Phrygia on the map and you put sort of one point of a triangle in there, and then you go out to the central and southern coast so that you have an equilateral triangle. That region would be considered Asia at this time in history. And so, scholars tell us that Paul likely wanted to travel southwest from Phrygia to coastal cities like Ephesus when the Holy Spirit forbade him from doing so.
This raises the logical question what does that mean to be forbidden by the Holy Spirit? Well, to state the obvious, Paul wanted to go to Asia, but the Holy Spirit did something that made it impossible because God wanted Paul and his team to go somewhere else. We know Paul was relentless. He was stubborn and dogged. And when he got it in his mind that he wanted to go somewhere, nothing could deter him.
When we reach Acts 21, we'll read about a time when Paul became determined to return to Jerusalem. On his way there, they stop at the Lebanese port of Tyre, where God speaks prophetically through some of the disciples who tell Paul on behalf of the Lord not to go to Jerusalem. He keeps going. Then they travel south to the next port, Ptolemais. And Luke tells us a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea.
He came to us, took Paul's belt, tied his feet and hands, and said, this is what the Holy Spirit says. In this way, the Jews in Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him over to the Gentiles. When we heard this, we and the local people pleaded with Paul not to go to Jerusalem. Then Paul replied, what are you doing? Weeping and breaking my heart, for I am ready not only to be bound but also to die in Jerusalem in the name of the Lord Jesus.
And everybody else is saying, Paul, the Lord Jesus is telling you not to go to Jerusalem. And then Luke writes since he would not be persuaded, we said no more except the Lord's will be done. Paul's determination was the best and worst thing about him. It caused him to do incredible things for God to keep going when many others would have quit. But it sometimes caused him to be blind to the fact that he was actually disobeying God in some instances, like in Acts 21.
We thank Thee each morning for a new born day Where we may work the fields of new mown hay We thank Thee for the sunshine and the air that we breathe Oh Lord, we thank Thee
Thank Thee for the rivers that run all day Thank Thee for the little birds that sing along the way Thank Thee for the trees and the deep blue sea Oh Lord, we thank Thee
Oh yes, we thank Thee, Lord, for every flower that blooms Birds that sing, fish that swim and the light of the moon We thank Thee every day as we kneel and pray That we were born with eyes to see these things
Thank Thee for the fields where the clover is grown Thank Thee for the pastures where cattle may roam Thank Thee for Thy love so pure and free Oh Lord, we thank Thee
Oh yes, we thank Thee, Lord, for every flower that blooms Birds that sing, fish that swim and the light of the moon We thank Thee every day as we kneel and pray That we were born with eyes to see these things
And so when we pray, we're going to ask the Lord to reveal to us if there's anything in our lives that is giving the devil an opportunity because we want to walk in freedom all the days of our lives. And if you believe that you are experiencing sickness or torment or any kind of distress because there's a sin in your life that has given the devil access to your life, I want to encourage you to do what the Bible calls you to do. If you're a believer, come and talk with me and BJ after the service. In James 5, it says that if you'll confess your sin to the elders of the church and repent of it, turn away from it, and then ask the elders to pray for you, you'll be healed, you'll be set free. That's really true and I really believe there are people wrestling with things like depression and anxiety and other things because there's unconfessed sin going on.
And so we're going to ask the Holy Spirit to show us in this coming time of prayer and worship if that's the case, if that's what's going on. So would you bow your head and close your eyes? Let's pray together. Jesus, thank you that you have through your Word, pulled back the curtain and given us insight into the true nature of reality. You've given us insight into the secret things of the spiritual world and what is going on in our lives.
So, thank you that we don't need to seek anywhere else than in you. And thank You that when we come to you looking for that wisdom and insight, you protect us from the things that would not be good for us, and you reveal to us anything that would be good. And so, Lord, here's what I know. I know that if there are any among us who are being oppressed because we've been given access to spiritual forces through sin in our lives or dabbling with spiritual things, we should not be getting involved in an addiction, lord, I know that what is good and what you desire is that they would be set free. And so, Jesus, we ask in Your grace and Your mercy that You would reveal to us if there's any area of our lives where we've given the devil a foothold, where we've carved out a little bit of room and said, you can hang out here.
Lord, would you reveal any strongholds in our souls, wrong beliefs that are not true, that lord, maybe we don't even know how to stop believing it because the emotions attached to it are so intense, but we know that you can bring those things down. We know You can set us free from them, lord, reveal to us if we're holding on to any wrong or untrue beliefs and set Your people free, loved. I pray for anyone, any of us, Lord, who's being deceived by the power of sin, lord, give us eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts that are soft and open to Your spirit. Speak to Your people, Lord, so that all of our affections and all of our energies would be rightly directed toward you. Help Your people to walk in freedom and the abundant life that you gave to give us, Lord, and help us not to settle for anything less.
Thank You that whatever the issue is, you're greater. Whatever the addiction is, you're greater. Whatever the hurt is, you are greater. Jesus, you're the healer, you're the Savior. You're the king of kings, you're the Lord of lords, beginning and end, alpha and Omega, lord God, Almighty above all things, and you're our Savior.
So, bless Your people, move among Your people for your glory, Jesus, we pray in Your name. Amen. Amen.
We do not wage war according to the flesh since the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds we demolish arguments and every proud thing that is raised up against the knowledge of God and we take every thought captive to obey Christ. Paul wrote that they, the apostles, used the truth, the word of God to demolish strongholds and false beliefs. We must look to the truth of God's word and then when we recognize in it that we've been holding on to a false belief, we must abandon that false belief. We must immediately repent of it, turn from it, and instead embrace the truth of God's Word. And when we do that, scripture says that those false beliefs in our lives are brought down like a tower being reduced to rubble.
And then Paul says that we also use the word of God to take every thought captive to obey Christ, meaning that as we go forward, we continue to hold tight to the truth of God's word so that we can discern the difference between a truth and a lie and then take captive any thought that enters our mind. That is a lie. And so, the picture is this lie comes into our mind, and we recognize that it's a lie because we're holding on to the truth of God's word. We speak the truth to ourselves. And by doing that, we take this thought that is not true.
Captive saying you don't get any real estate in my Saul. You don't get to start building anything. You don't get to come in here, whoever you are. The truth of God's Word is the answer. Wherever we have embraced a lie or a deception, we must repent of it, we must turn from it and instead embrace the truth of God's Word.
If you're not a believer, that means turning from being lord over your own life or allowing anything or anyone else to be lord over your own life and asking Christ to be the lord of your life. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew twelve we talked about this last time you won't be helped if you just want Jesus to come in and clear out these dark forces that are at work in your life and then leave you alone. You won't be helped because Jesus says hey, if I do that, those same demonic forces are just going to come back again later with even more of their friends and you'll be worse off than you Derbe before. If you're not a believer, your call is to repent. Turn from all other gods and turn to Christ as your savior and Lord.
He is greater and more powerful than anything and if you'll give Him the keys to your life, he'll come in, he'll cast out all other powers and he'll establish Himself as king over your life and he will set you free. He will set you free if you will invite him to be the Lord of your life. If you're a believer and you are making contact with the spiritual world outside of what the Bible prescribes, if you're a believer and you are surrendering control of your life to an addiction, if you're a believer and you're walking in any unrepentant sin as a way of life, you are inviting demonic forces into your life to oppress you. That's what the Bible teaches and they're only pointing destruction with them. These are the kind of truths, when you understand them, you understand nobody is getting away with their sin.
Nobody. Even if you think you are, I promise you are paying a high, high price. What holding on to that is doing to your soul, to your mind, to your emotions, to your spirit. If that's you repent, turn from your sin. Embrace the truth of God's Word and he'll set you free.
He will set you free. I'm going to ask the worship team to come up. We're going to pray in just a moment. And so, if you need to repent, do it. If you need to turn to Christ for the first time, do it.
You shouldn't even go to church, shouldn't even tell anyone you're struggling with those shame, guilt, and condemnation bringing you to isolation. And you see this in the s*xual immorality of our day. People can hook up whenever they want, just use apps to find partners, and the culture would say, oh, it's s*xual liberation. But what's the reality? Even secular studies tell us the reality is that millennials and Gen Zers are the most depressed, most anxious, loneliest, and most psychotropically medicated generation the world has ever seen.
It's not even close. Pornography was supposed to be about s*xual liberation too. According to the culture, all it's done is enslave people, make them depressed, and ruin their ability to have meaningful and healthy relationships. What's going on? Our spiritual adversaries are telling us it's not a big deal before we sin and then overwhelming us with guilt and shame. After we sin, we give the devil an opportunity, and he gladly takes it, leading us into depression, anxiety, or worse. When Paul writes to the Corinthians, he seems to address something else that Satan does when we give him an opportunity, when we give him that little bit of real estate in our souls to begin working with. Paul writes about beliefs that we have as strongholds. The idea is that when we give dark spiritual forces that little bit of real estate in our souls, and we give them some time to work with, they begin building a stronghold, a deeply entrenched and fortified wrong belief, an untrue belief, and that's the picture you need to have.
They start building like this stronghold, like this tower in your soul, where you process your thoughts and your emotions, and they begin building this really, really reinforced strong wrong belief that comes deeply entrenched in our souls. I'm worthless. I'm trash. Nobody could ever love me. Everybody hates me.
Everyone's out to get me. There's nothing good coming in my future. Nothing good is ever going to happen to me. God doesn't care about me. God doesn't care about my happiness.
The people telling me to stop doing this, don't care about me. They're just judgmental. They think they're better than me. Could be any number of things. And if you're honest, you've experienced this because it's happened to all of us, right?
Something happens, and we don't forgive, we don't repent, and we begin to believe things that are not true. Demonic forces build a stronghold in our souls, and our belief in these wrong things gets stronger and stronger. They're not true, but they become incredibly precious to us, and nothing good ever comes from that, unless, by God's grace, he does something where it's suddenly reveal what you believe, and there's something or someone in your life who can say, that's insane. Like, what are you talking about? Why would you think that?
Where's the evidence for that? And you suddenly realize, well, there isn't actually any evidence for that, but I know it's true. What's going on? You've got a stronghold. There's no evidence, but you believe it with all your heart, mind, and soul.
It's not true, but it's a deeply held belief. There's a stronghold in your soul. That's what's going on. Write this down. Satan desires to build false beliefs into strongholds in our souls.
He desires to build false beliefs into strongholds in our souls. And so, what do we do with all this? What do we do with all this? I want to start by sharing what Paul says he and his fellow apostles did, writing in 2 Corinthians 10. Although we live in the flesh.
And when they do, the spiritual forces behind those addictions become your master. They become your lord. You are functionally their slave. Paul put it this way in Romans six, don't you know that if you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of that one that you obey either of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness? This is true of s*xual sin.
We hear this even from non-believers who become addicted to pornography or sex. They describe themselves as being slaves to their base desires, spending every waking moment pursuing the next hookup or wasting hours every day watching porn. Paul told the Ephesians, believers, don't get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit. In other words, what Paul is saying is you should be controlled by the Holy Spirit, not by wine or any other addiction. Some people are slaves to money.
Jesus warned us about that and said, no one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. And when Jesus spoke about money, he also referred to it as mammon. Mammon is the name of the demonic God behind money. This is what you need to understand.
Money is not neutral. Many of these addictions, they're not just things. There are spiritual forces behind them working to hook ensnare and enslave people to that addiction. The man who serves money serves mammon, the demonic force behind money. Jesus said, there's only room for one master.
There's only room for one Lord in our life. And if we haven't invited Christ to be our Master, if we're not serving Christ first as our Master, then we're either serving something or someone else, or there's an advertisement for that position posted in the spiritual realm. I currently have a vacancy open in my life for master's. Does anybody want to come in and give me something to serve? I hope you're understanding that this could be food, this could be anger, this could be all kinds of things, anything that gains control over our lives.
And when we hand over control of our lives to addiction, we open up a door to the demonic forces behind that addiction, and we invite them in and say, would you like to take control over my life? Would you like to take control of my thoughts? I will serve you. I will do whatever you want me to do. There's nothing I won't do for you.
We've explained that we can invite demonic forces into our lives by making contact with the spiritual world outside of what the Bible prescribes, and by surrendering control of our lives. To an addiction. But the Bible also tells us and you can write this down the Bible also tells us we can open doors to demonic forces through unrepentant patterns of sin. Unrepentant patterns of sin. As I was studying this week, I was struck, as I regularly am, by how seriously the Bible speaks about things that I often do not take very seriously.
And when that happens, I must recognize that it means my perception of reality is distorted. It's my perspective that needs to be updated, not God's. God is not the one seeing things inaccurately. I am. For example, look at what the Lord says through Paul in Ephesians 4.
He says, be angry and do not sin. Don't let the sun go down on your anger, and don't give the devil an opportunity. Some of you will be more familiar with the way the NIV translation renders the end of that verse. It says, do not give the devil a foothold. I hopped on blueletterbible.com and I looked up the original Greek word that was used there, and it's topos.
And we'll sit down and watch a movie where people are just tormented by demonic forces in horrific ways. And that's the entire plot of the movie. That's it. Or we'll watch a movie that's part of the genre called torture porn. This entire concept of these movies is simply to put on screen the most horrific, perverted, creative, and cruel kinds of torture imaginable and then watch it as entertainment. That's it.
That's all there is to these movies. There's no other plot. The entire attraction is the perversity of the horrors that they can put on screen. Oh, but it's not real, Jeff. It's not real. Well, they might be fictional events but the pleasure that you take in being entertained by them is very real. And the demonic forces that inspired that content in the creators are very real. And the hatred that God feels towards those things, even as concepts, is very real. And we might think, oh, it's just a movie, Jeff, or, oh, it's just part of my cultural heritage, or it's just a form of meditation that helps me relax. No, it's not.
No, it's not. Remember, if you are engaging in any kind of spiritual or supernatural practice that is not biblical, then you are engaging with spiritual forces of darkness. All these practices we've talked about can extend invitations to forces of darkness to enter our lives. It's not rocket science. The Bible says the Lord is a rewarder of those who seek him.
In other words, if we invite the Lord into our lives, he'll come into our lives. In the same way. If we seek communion with spiritual forces of darkness, knowingly or unknowingly, we extend an invitation to them to enter our lives, and they will often gladly accept it. But they don't bring rewards with them. They don't bring blessings.
They bring bondage. Jesus explained the difference like this. He said, I am the gate. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will come in and go out and find pasture. A thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.
I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance. If you contact the spiritual world by pursuing Christ, he says, you'll be saved and you'll find freedom. If you contact the spiritual world apart from Christ, you will find an enemy that has only one ultimate goal to steal and kill and destroy. Our brother Peter put it bluntly be sober-minded. Be alert.
Your adversary, the devil, is prowling around like a roaring lion looking for anyone he can devour. How do non-believers become possessed? How do believers become oppressed? The first and most obvious answer is by contacting the spiritual world outside of what the Bible prescribes.
Another way non-believers can become possessed and believers can become oppressed is by surrendering control of themselves to something other than Christ. Write this down. If we surrender control of ourselves to something other than Christ, that something can have a dark spiritual force behind it. And I'm not talking about momentarily for a second or a minute. I'm not saying like, oh, Jeff, like the other day, I ate one too many donuts, and I was just controlled by my hunger. Am I demon-possessed? No. No, you're not. You just had one too many donuts. Okay?
I'm talking about things like alcohol, substance abuse, and other forms of addiction, and that's still a very wide spectrum. But things where you lose control of yourself and your whole life now becomes about serving this addiction. The worldview that the Bible presents is that such addictions are far, far more than just activity in the brain. They are spiritual. There are dark spiritual forces behind those addictions seeking to lure you into those addictions because they can gain control over your life through those addictions.
I'm like what? I'm like, you're telling me, like, children get together around a Ouija board and put their hands on it and try to summon spirits, and they're like, yeah. I was like, this cannot be true. There's just no way in the world that North American children are trying to conjure spirits as a game where they're like, do you want to play Monopoly, or do you want to try and contact demons? I could not believe this till I got here, and then I got here, and I was like, It's true.
It's actually true. This is a form of automatic writing is what it's called, and it's marketed to children. And it blows my mind. Something that's desperately wicked and evil doesn't become less desperately wicked and evil just because a whole bunch of people do it. That's not how it works.
Well, if we just make it common enough, then we have to sort of reset the bar. No, because good and evil are defined by God, not by the culture. A huge part thing in our part of the world, smudging. Smudging is an attempt to interact with the spiritual world in an unbiblical way. It is.
It's to try and curry favor with spirits, change the spiritual atmosphere in a place, and if it's unbiblical, then you're not interacting with the Lord. You're interacting with powers of darkness. You're interacting with demons. And they're doing this in our schools to kids without even informing the parents. When you read the Gospels, I was talking with BJ about this.
It's disturbing when you see demon-possessed children that Jesus interacts with and delivers, and you have this question, well, how did they get demon-possessed? And it had to be because the adults and the parents in their lives were putting them around demonic practices like they're doing in our public schools with kids. What about spiritual yoga practices? Now, hang with me. You're like, oh, no, don't go after my yoga, Jeff.
Don't do it. Now, I got to be honest, because some Christians get really weird with this. Like, if I'm just stretching my hamstrings and someone's like, did you know that in India, people do that pose to bow to Krishna? It's not like I can't stretch my hamstrings anymore. I don't think that's a thing.
They're like, you better not stretch. What about this one? No, they do that one, too. I guess I'll just never stretch again, or I'm going to become demonically possessed. That's not what we're talking about.
But listen, if you attend a yoga class where the yogi is trying to interact with everybody's chakra and trying to get everyone into a certain spiritual state, maybe chanting a meditation or something like that, then yes, you are participating in a pagan spiritual practice. You are. It doesn't work to just say, oh, I didn't mean it. It doesn't work like that. The demon is not like, oh, my bad.
Sorry for the misunderstanding. That's not how this works. Let me hit one more area where I am astounded by the amount of Christian participation movies that are centered on demonic activity. Now, the Bible is clear in telling us things like how much God values human life and how much spiritual forces of darkness hate humanity. God's word is clear, as we've seen, that he considers us participating in demonic activities detestable.
And God's word is also clear about how glorious it is when the Lord delivers people from demonic possession and depression. And yet, I know of many believers, many who will microwave some popcorn, flop down on the sofa to spend an hour and a half watching people be tormented by demons as entertainment. Entertainment. And let me be crystal clear when we do that, we take something God hates, he hates, and we watch it as entertainment.
Let me say it again, and you can write it down. If you are engaging in any kind of spiritual or supernatural practice that is not biblical, then you are engaging with spiritual forces of darkness.
It's not good spirits and bad spirits. It's not white magic or black magic. It's not positive energy or negative energy.
If it's not of the Lord, it's of the darkness. And practices that you might think are innocuous - harmless - are in reality bringing you into contact with demons or evil spirits. The Lord calls out astrology, a practice still with us through horoscopes. And the Lord says, when you look to the heavens and see the sun, moon, and stars, all the stars in the sky, do not be led astray to bow and worship to them and serve them. The Lord your God has provided them for all people everywhere under heaven.
God says, I made the sun, moon, and stars. I provided them. If you're looking for guidance, hope, peace, and assurance, look to me. Don't look to the objects that I created. And I'm going to repeat myself because I know someone is thinking, come on, Jeff, it's not a big deal if I check my horoscope, it's just a little fun.
I don't take it seriously. It doesn't matter if you or the culture take it seriously or not. You do not have the power to define reality with your own opinions. Let me say that again. You do not have the power to define reality with your own opinions.
If something is a big deal, it doesn't become not a big deal, because that's your opinion. The Lord defines reality because he created reality. And he says, if you are engaging in any kind of spiritual or supernatural practice that is not biblical, then you are engaging with spiritual forces of darkness. That's the truth. If you have any other view, you're in denial.
It's that simple. And to drill this home, all we need to do is look at the consequences. God stipulated in His Law that he gave to Israel the consequences for engaging in the kinds of spiritual practices and attempts to interact with the supernatural world that we've been discussing. Take a look at your outline again. The Lord said in Leviticus, whoever turns to mediums or spiritists and prostitutes himself with them, I will turn against that person and cut him off from his people.
In other words, God will be against the customer of the medium or the spiritist, and they are to be excommunicated from the nation of Israel. They were to be kicked out of their home, kicked out of their community. Go and find a new people, because you're no longer welcome here. He also says in Leviticus 20 - a man or woman who is a medium or spiritist must be put to death. They are to be stoned, for their death is their own fault.
Exodus 22 - do not allow a sorceress to live. All that stuff isn't real. Seems like God has a very different opinion on the subject. Do you remember what Paul said to Elymas, the sorcerer he encountered on Cyprus in Acts chapter 13? He said to him, you are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery, you son of the devil, an enemy of all that is right.
Won't you ever stop perverting the straight paths of the Lord? You and the culture might not take things like sorcery seriously, but the Lord does. He views them as deadly serious. Let me point out a few other examples many of us may have come across over the course of our lifetimes. Practices we might think are harmless but are in reality far from it.
Number one, we'll go to a classic - Ouija boards. So, I grew up in South Africa, which was more conservative than America and Canada, and Ouija boards were literally something only used by Satanists in South Africa. And I didn't believe it till I lived here when I was 16. I didn't believe it when people were like, that's like a kids' game in North America. Like, Hasbro makes it.
There are supernatural practices that much of our society does not take seriously, but God does. Practices that much of our society might not even believe are real, but God does. And he reveals that by how he speaks about those things in His Word, and he reveals it by the consequences he put in his law to Israel for those who practice those things. Let's talk about some examples. These are on your outlines.
When Israel was getting ready to enter the Promised Land, the Lord told them this when you enter the land the Lord is giving you, do not imitate the detestable customs of those nations. No one among you is to sacrifice his son or daughter in the fire. That's a reference to the pagan practice that was happening in the land at that time of child sacrifice, literally killing your child as an offering to a pagan God. But I want you to note here what else the Lord puts in the same category as child sacrifice. He says, Also, no one among you is to practice divination.
That simply refers to this umbrella category of trying to uncover some type of hidden knowledge by contacting the spiritual world. It could be knowledge about the future, knowledge about the past, or knowledge about the present, God says. Likewise, no one among you is to tell fortunes or interpret omens. So these are practices like tarot cards, our reading tea leaves. No one among you is to practice sorcery cast spells, consult a medium or a spiritist or inquire of the dead.
There's just the practice of trying to somehow contact the spirits of the dead. Everyone who does these acts is detestable to the Lord, and the Lord your God is driving out the nations before you because of these detestable acts. These practices are detestable to the Lord because they are a direct insult to and rejection of Him. Let me explain. The Lord has made Himself available to all who desire a relationship with Him.
The God of heaven and earth offers his spirit to every person. He says I'll come and dwell in you so that our relationship, our communion, can be constant. I'll lead and guide you through My spirit. If you need wisdom, just ask and I'll give it to you. And through My Word, I'll give you insight into the true nature of reality.
That's the offer of God. And even back under the old covenant, God still offered people a way to commune with the spiritual and the supernatural with Himself, the one true God. But there's a catch to this offer that God makes. God's offer includes trusting Him as Lord, trusting Him to decide what is good for you, and trusting Him when he withholds certain things from you because he says these things are not good for you. Now, that shouldn't be an issue.
Why? Because God is perfectly loving, kind, and good. If he says this is not for you, it's not because it's awesome and he doesn't want you to have it. It's because he knows it's going to bring something destructive into your life and your relationships. But those who engage in these detestable practices are saying, I want to access the spiritual world without having to submit to God as Lord.
They're saying, I don't want any restrictions. I don't want God to decide what's good for me. I want to be my own God. And like Lucifer, they are motivated by the desire to be like God themselves and access secret knowledge on their own terms. And God says that's detestable.
It's also detestable because there are only two spiritual forces in existence god and the forces of darkness. You've got to understand this concept and if you are engaging in any kind of spiritual or supernatural practice that is not biblical, that is not of the Lord, if you're not engaging with Him, then you are engaging with spiritual forces of darkness. It's that simple. It doesn't matter if you or the culture don't think it's a big deal. It doesn't matter what you think.
If I can somehow mix human and fallen angel genetics, then there won't be anyone who's not corrupted in some way on a genetic level with fallen angel genetic material, and God's plan won't be able to work. And so what did God do? Well, according to the scriptures, it got all the way to the point where there was only one family on the entire planet that wasn't corrupted, and that family was Noah's. And what happened to everyone else? They were killed by the Lord in the great flood.
Why? Because they loved sin. But there's also a really good chance it was because they weren't actually human anymore. And what happened to the spirits of those people, the spirits of the Nephilim after they died? Well, they couldn't go to Hades, the good or bad side, because they weren't human.
And so those spirits remained trapped on the Earth and became demons without bodies. When you get into what the Bible actually teaches and what it hints at, it's very, very interesting, because there are people today who think they've made all kinds of amazing historical and spiritual discoveries, when in reality, they've been part of the biblical worldview for millennia. Some people are surprised when they find out like that. When I hear them say, oh, you believe in evil spirits? Me too.
Oh, you believe there are many gods? Me too. You believe there were advanced civilizations before a catastrophic global flood? Me too. You believe there were advanced civilizations before the flood, visited by extraterrestrials who gave them advanced knowledge.
Wrong. They were not extraterrestrial. They were interdimensional. But other than that, me too. This is stuff that's in the Bible, that's part of the biblical worldview.
And so, demons hate humanity because they are the spirits, most likely of beings who hated God while they were alive in bodies, and they died being punished by God for hating God. And so, they look at humanity, God's prized creation, and they try to attack God by attacking his prized creation. Demons are real. They hate you. And right now, there are many of them roaming the earth looking for a home.
So, would you write this down? Demons do not have bodies. They are spirits seeking a home. They are spirits seeking a home. And I really will throw this out there if it sparks any questions for you, please feel free to email me.
There are no stupid questions on something like this. I may change my opinion on that in a week, but I don't think there's any stupid questions on this. But listen to the message on Genesis 6. First, most of the time when we see spiritual possession, our oppression discussed in the Scriptures, it's in relation to demons. There are a few exceptions, but we don't have time to get into those exceptions today.
So we're going to focus on demons today, or what is also called in scripture, evil spirits. Now, the effects of demonic possession and oppression on a person can vary widely based upon the strength and number of the demonic forces involved. And when we talk about the things that we can do that allow demonic forces access to our lives, things can also vary widely. Here's what I mean. I mean that one person may dabble in something and a demonic force may enter their lives through it.
Another person may dabble in that thing and come out unscathed. Some things will definitely bring demonic forces into your life, and some things may bring demonic forces into your life. But suffice it to say, I hope you're with me on this. You don't want to be involved in anything that might bring demonic forces into your life, right? Hopefully, we're on the same page with that.
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What Makes Jesus Unique? No one else made the claims that He did, He is alive...............
Through his life, Jesus met the requirements of the law.
And through his death, Jesus paid for my sins under the Law. And because he did those things on my behalf, my business with the Law is done. My debt is paid, and God's perfect standard has been met. The Law is no longer my master. The Lord Jesus is my master, and he set me free from the Law so that I could live for Him.
Verse 20 is the gospel. If you don't have it underlined in your Bible, do it. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live. But Christ loves in me the life I now live in the Body. I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.
When Jesus died on the cross, he died in my place. The old me died with Jesus, and when we place our faith in Him, he places His Spirit in us, bringing our dead Spirit to life in him. That's what Paul means when he writes Christ lives in me. His presence does not come and go based on my behavior or my performance. He never leaves me.
He never forsakes me. Christ lives. He permanently dwells. He's made a forever home in me. We're free from the power of sin and death, and all we want to do with that freedom is live our lives for the One who loved us and gave Himself for us.
Paul says. Don't ever forget that, Peter. As Paul would write to the Romans, we have been released from the Law since we have died to what held us so that we may serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the old letter of the Law. Verse 23. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died for nothing.
If we could be loved by simply doing our best to be good people, then Jesus suffered and died for nothing. That would have hit Peter like a punch to the gut. We need to understand this on a theological level, because it destroys any notion of pluralism, the idea that there are many ways to get to God. If there is any other way for us to be saved other than by Jesus's death on the cross, then God the Father ignored the cries of his only begotten Son when he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane on the night of his arrest. My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me yet, not as I will, but as you will.
The reason the Father did not provide an alternative is that there was no alternative. There was no other way. Jesus was and is the only way for us to be saved.
From an apologetics, from a philosophical perspective, it creates all kinds of problems when you claim that there are multiple ways to heaven because it would mean that God the Father let Jesus die unnecessarily and that Jesus chose to die for no apparent reason, and that is not something an all-powerful, all-knowing God would do. That's something a delusional, crazy person would do. There's no logical room to have Jesus be a great moral teacher and simultaneously a delusional fool who died for nothing. You can't harmonize those two realities. .
S. Lewis famously wrote, Jesus is either a liar, he's a lunatic, or he's Lord, he's who he says he is. Write this down. If we could be loved by our good works, then Jesus died for nothing.
And one last little note I just have to mention while we're here. If you come from a Catholic background, this interaction between Peter and Paul is very problematic, because if you're Catholic, you believe that Peter was the first Pope, and to this day, Catholics believe that Popes are infallible. In other words, they're never wrong when it comes to doctrine and theology. And yet here we have Peter, supposedly the first and greatest Pope, 20 years into the Church age, being publicly corrected on matters of doctrine and theology by Paul. So I would humbly encourage you to think through the implications of that, because it's here in black and white in the Bible, in Galatians, chapter two.