Dennis Tuuri

Scripture is in Acts 13:42-52. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. Remember that these particular verses follow the Sabbath sermon of Paul in Pisidian Antioch. And we now have beginning with the first few verses the continuing developments on that Sabbath day and then a following Sabbath day as well. So as we meet together on the Lord’s day and the Sabbath day, we think of the implications that these verses have for us of what the Sabbath is all about.

Acts 13:42 and following. “And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. Now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who speaking to them persuaded them to continue in the grace of God. And the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.

But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, ‘It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you, but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life. Lo, we turn to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.

And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and rejoiced and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as were ordained to eternal life, believed, and the word of the Lord was published throughout all the region. But the Jews stirred up the devout and honorable women and the chief men of the city, and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them out of their coasts. But they shook off the dust of their feet against them and came unto Iconium.

And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost.”

Let’s pray.

We continue now with the implications of what Paul had preached and what it accomplished at Pisidian Antioch. We mentioned that there are correlations between that Sabbath sermon that he preached and the Pentecost sermon that Peter preached, and we have other correlations that continue on as well. We know that the Sabbath is a day of great proclamation of salvation.

Remember that Paul’s sermon touched upon God’s deliverance, his mighty acts in history for his people that he calls the people. He sovereignly ordains them to eternal life. We see that repeated in the text before us as well. He provides for them deliverance from enemies. He chastises them with wicked rulers such as King Saul when the people sin. But he delivers them when they repent, and the evidence of that being shown both in his deliverance from Egypt as well as the deliverance of those people from Saul with the raising up of David.

All of which points to the coming of the great Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, which proclamation rather Paul made to the people at Pisidian Antioch. That proclamation is one of salvation from sins, but it’s put in the context by Paul in terms of deliverance from oppression as well. And so we don’t want to make the gospel into a purely messianic interpretation that God would somehow come and deliver the people from external rule without dealing with their hearts, their sin that brings external oppression upon them.

And so both elements, political implications are there as well, but the central focus is deliverance from our sins of course because it is our sins that bring political oppression upon us. So that’s the message, that’s the Sabbath day message that we really proclaim in one way every Lord’s day here. We rejoice in that salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ. We were at Port Orford this last week. We spent three or four days there, including a last Lord’s day with the Howard Walter family. And I thought there at Port Orford of that song about the Sabbath, “thou art a port protected,” because there’s a port there.

Really, it isn’t very protected as it turns out at Port Orford, but in any event, the Sabbath is a port protected that we come here and we have dinner with Jesus, for instance, in the context of a world and enemies to Christ and his kingdom, but we do so restfully and joyfully. But the Sabbath is not simply a day of rest and joy. The Sabbath is also a day of evaluation. We come here today to meet with God.

And hopefully we will train ourselves increasingly over the years that as we come to Sabbath day worship services, we do so first and foremost thinking of God whom we will meet particularly in the opening call to worship and then our confession of sin. So we come here not primarily to fellowship. We come here primarily to fellowship first with God and then because of the reconciliation we have with God, we have fellowship with each other. It’s good that we enjoy each other’s company, but mostly we should come here to focus upon the person of God. God evaluates men and judges men and the word is a sharp two-edged sword cutting us asunder. And we come forward and recognize the Sabbath is also a day of evaluation that is particularly portrayed to us in communion, of course.

Well, at this particular Sabbath day and the next one that followed it, the ones that followed it at Pisidian Antioch, we see a Sabbath that is first of all a picture of blessing. We see Sabbath success. Many people, the whole city comes out to hear the preaching of the word. But then we also see Sabbath controversy. We see that the day of evaluation cuts some people off and ingrafts other people in. Controversy ensues in the part of the Jews and they see all the multitude, the variety of people that came out, the numbers of them from the city, nearly the whole city. They’re filled with envy.

And so we have Sabbath controversy as well and that is important to understand that the Sabbath has that aspect to it as well. We also in the text then move from the success of the gospel preaching pictured for us and then controversy with the Jews which of course will be the story of the rest of the missionary journeys as well. There will continue to be this controversy and strife with the Jews and the synagogues which are first preached to and as the Gentiles are engrafted in, the Jews become increasingly, not all of them of course, but primarily as a people become increasingly hostile to the gospel, and the text identifies the reason for that as their envy at the multitudes that are brought forth.

Well, that day of evaluation and that controversy brings forth envy and sin on behalf of the Jews. They contradict. They blaspheme. But it also brings forth boldness from Paul and Barnabas. The text tells us they waxed bold and they spoke forth words of which we can only characterize really as words of judgment to the Jews, but words of great grace to the Gentiles. They declare a turn from the guilty Jews rather to the nations.

The word that’s translated Gentiles in verse 46 and 48 really could be translated more literally as “the nations.” And so we see that turn and they quote from the Old Testament scriptures to say that this is justified and necessary according to God’s own word. So the Sabbath becomes not simply a day of success but also a day of controversy. The end result of the text is that two paths develop as the text goes on and talks about the implications of that Sabbath message, the Sabbath success and the Sabbath controversy that’s developed.

The implications of that into the lives of the people are that people choose one of two paths. There’s the path of the Jews who begin to intensify their persecution of God’s people to the extent that Paul and Barnabas and company are actually expelled from that particular region. But then there’s the path also of those people that have received the word with gladness and joy and it took deep root in their souls and in the providence of God, they were ordained to believe and their path is one of joy and of rejoicing in the midst of persecution.

And so the text tells us much about what our Sabbaths will probably be like as well. Times of gospel preaching, times of success as people hear the word, but times also of evaluation to discern men’s hearts and attitudes. And then the result is carried out into the world. As we go back over these verses a little more slowly, I want to concentrate on several points of application from the text itself, and we’ll be developing this as we go along.

But there are really three points that I want us to really think about as we work through these texts. The first that we’ll develop at several points is that we are to continue in grace. Even in the midst of persecution, Paul reminds these men, he encourages them to continue in the grace of God and they do so in the midst of persecution. So that’ll be one theme that I want us to take out of this, that we’re to remember that there’s an exhortation in this passage, in this historical recitation of events for us to continue in grace in the midst of persecution.

Secondly, in terms of application, I want us to recognize that we are to be warmly affectionate toward the right things. Now, I’ll explain that a little bit later in more detail, but we’re to be zealous, jealous, hot-spirited, so to speak, for the right things and not let that zeal turn into something that is sinful and wicked in God’s sight. So we’re to be warmly affectionate toward correct things.

Third, we’re to have boldness in the announcement of judgment. Now, we’ll apply that also in terms of boldness in preaching of the gospel, but the preaching of the gospel carries with it the announcement of God’s evaluation and judgment upon the hearers. And so we see Paul and Barnabas being bold in the announcement of judgment. And it’s an encouragement to us also to be bold in the announcement of the gospel and of God’s judgment in our world.

And then the fourth thing I want us to recognize is that we have a need for a poverty of spirit. I’ve kind of titled this, and we won’t touch on these things very much, but behind all of this we see those who are poor in spirit, that is who recognize their poverty of spirit, that in and of themselves they have nothing to commend them to God. Those who recognize their poorness in spirit, that is the Gentiles, are the ones who inherit the kingdom of God.

And that’s what our Lord tells us in the sermon on the mount. So we have a need for a poverty of spirit. And that really drives these other three points of application: to continue in grace not in works, continue in grace in the midst of persecution. And then as I said to be warmly affectionate for the right things, to be bold in the pronouncement of judgment and of the gospel of course, which is a message rather of evaluation.

So those are the things we’ll talk about as we go through the text a little slower.

Now first of all let’s look at the text and then look at this first section where first we see the success of the gospel preaching on that first Sabbath day that we read of in Antioch. Verses 42 and 43. “When the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. And when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas who speaking to them persuaded them to continue in the grace of God.”

So we have success here coming about in the preaching of the gospel. On the very next Sabbath day, we’re told in verse 44, came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God. God in verses 42, 43, and 44 there’s no note of controversy. I don’t believe we see the Jews being differentiated from the Gentiles in terms of their acceptance of the message. Instead the scriptures want us to see them jointly coming together to be persuaded by Paul and Barnabas to continue in the grace of God.

You know our Savior tells us about the parable of the sower and the seed and the seed that day produced apparently apparent fruit, apparent growth in everybody that heard it, Jew and Gentile alike. But our Savior warns us that some when troubles arise or when temptations happen, they have no root. The seed has really taken no root in their heart or soul. They have an external response to the gospel. And soon the testing will make evident that that is simply an external evidence and not an evidence of a regeneration of their heart.

But the first thing pointed out for us is the whole city coming together the next Sabbath day to hear the word of God. Now this is, there is almost again a mini indication of what the scriptures tell us will be the result of gospel preaching over the generations. Remember on the day of Pentecost which I’ve drawn some correlations to, remember all people there were Jews there from all parts of the known world and there was a picture for us that the gospel would penetrate all those nations. The conversion of the nations was pictured for us on that first day of Pentecost.

Well here on this first recorded incident of preaching in the gentile world and Paul’s first recorded sermon and with correlations to Peter’s Pentecost sermon, we see also a picture with the coming forth of the whole city to hear the word of God of what the scriptures assure us will eventually be reality: that all the nations will come to the mountain of the Lord to receive instruction. And so we have a little picture of that.

And hopefully every Sabbath day we’re reminded of the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ and the efficacy of God’s gospel preaching. Notice also that in this text, in this first portion, the success of the Sabbath, the Sabbath success pictured for us, that those who respond are persuaded to continue in the grace of God. Paul and Barnabas are not fooled. They understand that trials and tribulations will accompany the preaching of the gospel.

And we have a hint of that in them encouraging the men to continue in the grace of God. They’re going to need to continue in the grace of God in the face of persecution. And that will happen right quickly in their particular historical context. Matthew Henry gives three points on your outline here in terms of application, that they are exhorted to continue in the grace of God. Matthew Henry says first of all that they are to keep believing in the gospel of grace.

They are to remain dependent upon the spirit of grace and they are to keep attending to the means of grace. And so as we hear from this an exhortation to us to continue in grace, we want to remember those same things. A couple weeks ago we talked about justification. Remember that was part of Paul’s sermon, that we’re justified on the basis of what Christ has done. And it’s important to recognize that justification is by grace, by the grace of God.

There’s nothing in us to merit salvation. The gospel of grace is just that. It’s not a gospel of works. I once read in a magazine many years ago, and I probably mentioned this to several of you, there was a little test there to see if you understood the doctrine of justification by faith. The test was: Are you accepted by God on which of these two things? And be careful how you answer it in your mind. Are you accepted by God first of all on the basis of a life lived in perfect obedience to the law?

Or are you accepted by God because of the faith that you exercise, because of faith rather that you exercise. You see many people would say it’s because of the faith that we’re accepted to God. But that really is not correct. Many people perceive their faith, maybe not directly but at least indirectly, as the key that unlocks the door to salvation and acceptance with God on behalf of themselves. Somehow faith, which is solely the gift of God, the scriptures make clear that no man should be able to boast.

Somehow our sinful tendencies can begin to look upon our faith as a work by which we merit salvation. And without meaning to impugn anybody here, various Evangelical campaigns say, “Well, you just pray this prayer and then you’ll be sure that you’re a Christian.” See, and the emphasis then becomes in our lives, the assurance becomes the fact that we prayed or that we exercise faith. But really, our acceptance with God is on the basis of a life lived in perfect obedience to the law.

Not our life, but the life of the Lord Jesus Christ. He paid for our sins, but he is also our righteousness, or our justice with God, imputed to our account, not internal to us. This is the difference between the Catholic doctrine of justification by faith and the Protestant doctrine. Roman Catholic, that is, the Protestant understanding of the scriptures. What the scriptures clearly teach is that salvation is by grace alone.

God sovereignly ordains us to believe. We read that later in the text. He calls us. He calls us irresistibly to himself. And we are then given faith by God in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. But it is his work that is the basis for our acceptance with God, not the exercise of our faith, not the prayers we pray, and certainly not the works that we do. It’s very important to recognize that we must begin in this understanding of the sovereignty of God and the depravity of man because it is the grace of God that is manifested toward us.

And if we’re to continue in that grace, we must understand it first of all. So we’re to keep believing in that gospel of grace. We’re to remain dependent upon the spirit of grace. The faith comes through the spirit who gives us that faith. It is the gift of God. And then third, we must keep attending to the means of grace. What are the means of grace? Means of grace are the preaching of God’s word. God’s word read in our own homes is a means of grace to us.

The sacraments, baptism, and communion are means of grace. God promises to bless us as we partake worthily and in obedience to his scriptures. The church is a means of grace. We come together. We have the witness of the church in our lives and we interact together. Calvin said that if a person leaves the institutional church, he leaves the means of his sanctification. And so to keep continuing in the grace of God implies much to it that we’ve only briefly touched on here, but it’s important to recognize that exhortation to us as well to continue in the grace of God.

But and this is necessary because controversy will ensue and immediately in the context of the text controversy does begin to ensue as the Jews are moved, because of the multitudes that come forth and the success of gospel preaching. Envy here is a word that is translated many different ways in the New Testament. This same word can be translated zealous or jealous or fervent in spirit, etc. Emulation is another way that this is translated.

The word basically means to be very warmly affectionate or warmly moved towards something, and the context, the context, the context then determines how the translators decide to translate the word. And here the King James translation of “envy” is a good one because we are told explicitly that the reason why the Jews get all worked up and what they get worked up about is they see the multitudes that come forth, not just the numbers of people but the very classes that are represented as well.

Well, they see that and they’re moved to envy. Now, jealousy and envy are two different things. To be jealous of something or to be covetous of something is to desire to have something that you think you can get. Okay? But if you think you cannot get something, then that condition is called envy. That’s the differentiation of the two terms. Envy says you have what I want. I can’t have it, so I will take it from you.

Okay? The Jews see here that Paul and Barnabas have something that they want. Large numbers of people coming to hear them preach, but they also know that they can’t have it. They can’t have that kind of success with their preaching. And so as a result, they’re moved by envy to try to destroy or take away what Paul and Barnabas have. And ultimately, they’re moved to kill him. Now, envy is a motivating force throughout the scriptures.

Joseph’s brothers, we’re told, were envious of Joseph when he has his dream about them all bowing down to him. They can’t attain to that position. They know that position is his. They can’t attain to it. So what do they want to do? They want to kill Joseph. If they can’t have it, they’ll take it away. And if that means murdering the man who does have it, that’s what they’ll do. We have an incident recorded in the headlines these last couple of days that the whole nation is focused on.

And while we don’t know the particulars, we do know that frequently men become obsessed with a particular person. And if they can’t have that person, they’ll destroy that person and whoever else desires that person. Envy, you see, wanting something we can’t have and as a result striking out against it. Our Savior says explicitly that it was envy that moved the men to persecute and eventually kill him as well.

Men could not attain to his righteousness and so men would in their envy of that, desiring it and not being able to have it in and of themselves, they will destroy God’s Son. And that’s what they did. And continually in the book of Acts, the persecution of the Jews is motivated by envy, desiring something that they cannot have and as a result seeking to destroy that thing. It’s important to understand this because our culture is driven in many ways by the politics of envy.

When you see, for instance, tax proposals to tax very wealthy people at higher and higher rates, that usually is accompanied by a call to exercise envy on behalf of the population of the country. I can’t have that man’s wealth. I’ll never be a multimillionaire, but I can take it from him by way of taxation. I may not get any benefit from it in terms of the civil government giving me that money, but I can take it away from him.

See, envy desires to take down what it cannot have. And increasingly, this country is driven, self-consciously in the part of many politicians, by the politics of envy. It is a deep-rooted sin in our hearts that surfaces from the beginning chapters of Genesis right on through to the end of the Bible. Envy is found throughout those pages. We’re warned time and time again in the epistles about the dangers of envy causing strife and division in the context of the church.

Now, it’s important to understand this because it’s important to recognize that envy will spring up in our hearts and to confess it as sin, to repent and turn away from it. Scriptures tell us that charity envieth not. 1 Corinthians 13:4. The key to driving out sinful envy, a sinful exercise of emotion towards somebody else, the key to eliminating that in our lives is love and understanding the relationship of love to our fellow man.

Now, the scriptures tell us that while we’re to avoid envy and we should—you know, as I said we live in the context of a culture that plays upon it greatly and you should understand what envy is, what conceptually what it is. As I said, it’s: if I can’t get what you have, I can’t get it, I’ll destroy it. Understand that. Begin to evaluate your own responses to people, to political action, etc. Look for evidences of envy in your life. Confess that sin and repent of it. Turn away from it. We don’t want to be warmly affectionate, so to speak, moved, get hot under the collar driven by sinful envy.

But on the other hand, God. Paul at one point says that he’s jealous over the people that he ministered to. But the godly jealousy—now it’s the same word. There’s a godly way to be motivated and affectionate, hot under the collar, so to speak. There are various things the scriptures tell us are a proper response to, or proper exercise rather, of this strong desire for something. The scriptures give us various admonitions to actually be jealous, covetous, earnestly desiring certain things.

Let’s talk about them a little bit. We’re told for instance in Revelation 3:19 to be zealous therefore and repent. One of the things we should be warmly affectionate to do is to repent of our sins. We should be highly motivated emotionally to want to repent of our sins. Secondly, the scriptures tell us in Acts 21:20 that it is proper to be zealous of the law. We’re told there are many converts and how they were zealous of the law.

We should be warmly affectioned, hot under the collar, so to speak, moved emotionally to desire to keep God’s law. That is a proper exercise of our emotions. Okay. We’re also told in 1 Corinthians 14:12 that you are to be zealous of spiritual gifts. And then we’re told later in that same text to zealously strive for the greater gifts. We’re to be wanting emotionally to have certain spiritual gifts given to us by God.

Now, why would we want to do that? Well, in other places in the New Testament, we’re told to be zealous of good works. We’re not supposed to be envious toward other people in a destructive sense. But we are to covet to do certain things. We’re to be emotionally moved to repent. We’re to be emotionally moved to God’s law. We’re to be emotionally moved to want to exercise good works. There’s another one of the references on your outline that refers to having a zealousness of works.

Paul even speaks apparently favorably of being zealous for the traditions of men, the godly traditions of the church. While not infallible, they are still something that we’re to be jealously motivated to act in obedient or act in consort with. But this zealousness for spiritual gifts and for coveting the better of the gifts, Paul says, is something I really want us to stress here by way of application.

We’re not to want to sin the way the Jews did through emulation, through envy, causing division and strife. But we do want to exercise our emotions and point our affections toward spiritual gifts which are given to us explicitly for ministry within the body of Christ. Now, for the last month, I’ve talked about how we’re putting out these green sheets to evaluate where you think you could minister in the body of Christ at Reformation Covenant Church.

The scriptures tell us here, I think, that in these references from 1 Corinthians that we are to want to desire to discover what gifts God has given us because we are supposed to be affectionate toward, hot under the collar to discern and then exercise the gifts that God gives us in service to the body of Christ. So it’s not enough just not to be like those terrible Jews who are envious in a bad sense.

Let’s be warmly affectionate in a proper sense to what God tells us to be warmly affectionate toward. That is his law. That is the exercise of spiritual gifts and that is ministry within the body of Christ. Now another important point of application here. These Jews were moved with envy. Why? Because of the multitudes that came out. They saw their position, their privileged position as being threatened and subsumed by this great flood of people that responded to gospel preaching.

And we could say, well, that’s terrible. You know, I mean, it’s so good to have people come and hear the word of God, and it’s so good to have more laborers in terms of the work, etc. That’s true, but it’s also good to have a small, closely-knit group. It’s a fun thing to know people that you come together with on the Lord’s day to fellowship with them deeply over the years. That’s a good thing. And these Jews have become so ingrown in that sense that when they saw this tremendous outpouring that would challenge their nicely knit small community, they responded unfavorably.

Now we are putting out a mailing tomorrow and by Tuesday it should go out at the latest to 2500 people in the greater Portland area. That mailing has been a letter introducing them to Reformation Covenant Church. There’s copies without letters, the letter down in the gym in the gymnasium. You can pick up a copy at our meal on the handout table there. That mailing also has a family camp brochure to sort of give them an idea of what we’re about as a church.

I don’t think many people will respond, and it has a postcard that they can respond and request a tape, introductory material to the church, etc. Now I bring this up because it’s easy for us to be somewhat disconcerted about that if we begin. You know, God’s sovereign here and we don’t want to anticipate this or that or the other thing. But if God brings in more people into this church or if he brings people to family camp, we want to avoid the sinful reactions the Jews had to people coming into their turf.

We want to be open. We want the greater area of this city and this state to hear the word of God. And if we think that perhaps there are things at this church that are somewhat clearer than another church, people have cast about and are not at a church right now, we should be pleased. They want to come forward to hear the preaching of God’s word, to fellowship with God’s people, to participate in godly worship.

We’re having a great speaker come to family camp, Dr. Bahnsen. And it’s my, it has been an, it confuses me. It’s constraining to me to see over the years such great men who can preach, Mr. B. Jordan, Mr. Bahnsen, Reverend Rushdoony, etc., and yet to have being heard by relatively small groups of people. We want people to come and hear this man preach. And I know that there are things there that we want to do that are fellowship time.

It’s like extended family time. That’s perfectly proper. But if we do, in the grace of God, and who knows, I don’t think we’re going to get much response at family camp. But if we do, let’s be careful not to fall into the attitude of the Jews and wanting to protect their privileged position. Let’s want to bring people in. Let’s welcome them into our worshiping community, and let’s respond in a positive way.

So, let’s be affectionate toward the proper things. Also in this text, we’re told that in response to all of this, the persecution that begins then in verse 45. And this is by the way an interesting statement that we see here: they speak against the things that are spoken by Paul as a result of their. This leads to these sinful actions. They contradict and they blaspheme. Contradict means to speak against something, to speak back against something that somebody else says.

They try to intellectually combat it and they end up blaspheming. Now, we don’t know if they blasphemed in terms of attributing the work of the spirit through Paul and Barnabas to an ungodly source or if they blaspheme Christ directly. We don’t know. But we do know it seems to me that there is a progression here from contradicting and speaking against what these men of God teach. They then move to blaspheming and then we’ll see them move further in the text to physical violence itself, and we’ll see that even attempted murder as we move to the next city.

So there is this progression. Those who begin with contradicting soon move to blaspheming and soon move to active persecution. That’s the way these Jews move through this. Paul and Barnabas however in response to this give us a model for response to persecution as well. Paul and Barnabas waxed bold and say it was necessary the word of God should first have been spoken to you. But seeing ye put it from you, they point out the sin of the people, you thrust this thing away from yourself, is what Paul says.

You judge yourselves therefore unworthy of everlasting life. Lo, we turn to the Gentiles. So here we have the great break in summary form that will continue to manifest itself throughout the book of Acts. But it really happens here definitively, although not conclusively yet. They’ll continue to go to synagogues, but the break with the synagogue has definitively happened at this early juncture in the ministry to the Gentiles.

Paul says, “We turn to the Gentiles.” The book of Acts ends in Acts 28 with Paul saying the same thing. We shall go to the Gentiles. And he adds this: “They will hear the message, the word of God.” He knows this because he knows that what he’s doing is in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. This break has happened and the church must break with the synagogue and it shall. And in verses 46-47 we find out that Paul’s boldness is based upon this prophecy of the Old Testament.

“For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.”

Now I have many texts listed in your outline, a whole bunch, three or four lines of text that go over and over to remind us of the truth that Paul is referring to here, quoting from Isaiah 49:6. But throughout the Old Testament prophets and in the Psalms, there were these predictions that the gospel would indeed be taken to all the world and that he tells his Savior, he tells his anointed one in Isaiah 49, that it is a light thing to gather Israel to you.

Indeed, I’ll give you as a light to the Gentiles. Let me read Isaiah 49:5 and 6, which Paul is quoting from here. “And now saith the Lord, that formed me from the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob again to him. Though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength. It was prophesied in the book of Isaiah that Israel would not be gathered at first.

Even though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorified. My God shall be my strength. And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou be my salvation unto the ends of the earth.”

You see, what he’s saying in Isaiah 49 is not that, well, okay, the Jews won’t turn to you, but I’ll give you something in exchange for them, the Gentiles. No, what he’s saying is this: it is too small a thing to bring simply the Jews, to simply restore tribal Israel. I’ll give you as a light to the nations. All the world will respond to Messiah in time, in history, and will come and worship him. All the ends of the earth will see the salvation of the Lord, repeated over and over and over.

Now, the amazing thing here is that Paul relates this prophecy certainly to Messiah, but also to himself and Barnabas as Messiah’s messengers to take the word of the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth. Paul says, “The Lord has commanded us.” Paul and Barnabas, the Lord has commanded, not the Lord Jesus, not simply Messiah. The Lord has commanded us, saying, “I have set thee to be light to the Gentiles.”

We’ve talked from day one that the book of Acts is about the acts of Jesus Christ through his church. And this identification with the sufferings and the triumph and the words of the Lord Jesus Christ has been pictured over and over. And here is a miraculous correlation between the ministry of the church and the ministry of Messiah. He rebukes the Jews. You know, an elder, one of the qualifications is to be able to convict the gainsayer. And the gainsayer is that same word that’s translated “contradicting” what the Jews do here.

Paul and Barnabas show that they were indeed elders of the Lord Jesus Christ. They convict the gainsayers. They don’t bring them to repentance, but they show from scripture that their concern about the turn to the Gentiles is completely unwarranted. They know to convict the gainsayer means to exercise God’s word in such a way as to demonstrate from that word the sin of the gainsayer. It doesn’t mean to bring him to repentance because they don’t bring him to repentance here, and you can’t bring a gainsayer to repentance if he’s not ordained to life.

But it does mean you can shut his mouth, so to speak, and that’s what Paul does here. And he does it by correlating the mission and ministry of the church through its representative elders with the mission and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now that’s great news for us. We should have boldness to proclaim the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Understanding that prophecy of Isaiah 49 to take the salvation to the ends of the earth applies to us. Jesus Christ through his spirit is moving through us to proclaim the good news of the ascension of the Savior King to the throne to the nations and the nations shall hear it. Paul says in Acts 28 over and over again there are the promises that indeed the response of the nations will ultimately be to stream to the mountain of the Lord just as that whole city streamed out to the Sabbath to hear the preachers of God’s word.

So all the nations shall stream to the mountain of the Lord to hear the word spoke. They’ll beat their swords into plowshares and they’ll learn war no more. They will become obedient and worshiping of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now Paul and Barnabas, their response to all of this, the persecution that begins then, is to the Jews is to boldly proclaim judgment to them. After this, the Jews get all worked up and they work up some honorable women, some women who had influence in the society who then apparently work up prominent men to exercise civil persecution to kick them out of the city basically.

And the response of Paul and Barnabas is to shake the dust off their feet. Why do they do that? It’s the same waxing bold. It’s really the same thing they’re saying here. They say here in their courage and boldness that you have thrust aside the message of God and are no longer, you are not worthy of everlasting life. And so we turn away from you. And the shaking off the dust off their feet is the same thing.

The dust is connected to the land. The earth is one of the witnesses that God has established against sinning nations and against the sinning nation of Israel particularly. And they leave from their feet there as an evidence and witness. The scriptures in some way here speaks of the earth as having a witness capability to God of the sin that earth has witnessed to. And so Paul and Barnabas proclaimed the judgment of God against these Jews, not against the whole city, but against the Jews who contradicted and blasphemed the word of God and rejected the message of Messiah.

And that’s the same thing they’re doing here. This tells us that we must be courageous and bold. Now the word “bold” here has the idea of courage of course, but it also means to speak plainly, to say things openly, not in secret, to speak plainly. At this particular juncture of a historical event, to plainly speak forth in the context of this the judgment of God against sinners and the blessing of God to those who are poor in spirit, the Gentiles.

And so what we want to do in our culture as we see the need to proclaim the word of God and we see people contradicting that word, we want to pray for boldness to speak the gospel of Christ because that gospel is a judgment word as well as it is a blessing word to people. Now we saw this earlier. Remember with Peter? They were amazed at Peter and John’s boldness. Remember when they were first arrested back in the early chapters of the book of Acts, they were amazed at their boldness.

They let them out and then they go out. Peter and John met with the church then and the church says this is Psalm 2 at work. And what does the church do? They prayed for boldness. And what happens? The Holy Spirit of boldness comes upon them. Boldness is not a natural thing to happen to us. We do not in and of ourselves freely speak forth the gospel of Jesus Christ. We don’t do it. We must pray for it. They had to pray for it.

The early church did who just had the demonstration and the release of Peter and John, of God’s victory over all power and authority. And yet they prayed for it. And that boldness only came through the spirit. By way of application, we want to be hotly affectionate toward the right things: ministry to the church, the law of God, good works, not envying, not emulating, not being jealous in an ungodly sense, but having a godly jealousy.

We also want to be bold in the face of persecution to proclaim judgment, to proclaim the gospel. And to that end, we should be praying for each other. Part of our prayers for each other in the context of the body of Christ should be for this kind of boldness. Now, one of the reasons why we don’t have boldness is sin. 1 John says that if our heart doesn’t condemn us, then we are bold. Then we have boldness.

Proverbs says that the wicked flee when no man pursues. But the righteous is as bold as a lion. Righteous positionally with God, but righteous experientially in the continuing growth in grace and an elimination of sin in our life. Sin, unconfessed, unrepented of sin in your life will lead to a failure of boldness, a failure to speak forth judgment. And if there ever was a culture that needed judgment spoken forth to it, it is this culture in which we live.

I mentioned we were at Port Orford. Port Orford, they have a deep water port there. And when Howard and Jerry moved there twenty years ago, he used to go out in the salmon fishing boats. They would bring in between 150 to 300 salmon a day off these fishing boats. They had a big cannery there at Port Orford where they would can salmon, shrimp, crab, etc. They did all this fishing. You know, the Old Testament said that one of the blessings would be to suck the produce out of the sea.

And that’s what they did at Port Orford, one of the blessings on that particular portion of our country twenty years ago. Since then, the salmon fishing has been closed down, of course, through government intervention, through natural processes, etc. You know what the only thing that cannery cans anymore down there is in Port Orford? It’s amazing. Remember, this is what they used to bring that produce out and feed the people with.

Now, the only thing they suck out of that ocean are sea urchins. And the only thing they use from the sea urchin are the reproductive organs. That cannery, they bring in these sea urchins and very delicately cut off the reproductive organs from sea urchins, put them in these special little trays, zip them right up to Portland, fly them overseas real quick to Japan where they’re eaten as an aphrodisiac.

They take tours of young people there through this cannery and offer them these reproductive organs of the urchins. Now, you know, in my way of thinking, that is a pretty clear picture written in big letters by God: movement away from feeding the people to providing aphrodisiacs for pagan people to eat reproductive organs. That’s a terrible thing, but it’s a picture of judgment. People, we can see these things.

Remember, we said that, you know, what we see continually in the preaching of God’s people in the book of Acts is we see historical events interpreted by the word of God. And we should look at things like these, see a historical event happening in our lifetime and be able to interpret it according to the word of God, not just for our own intellectual curiosity but for the sake of proclaiming it. To boldly speak forth the gospel of Christ means to boldly proclaim judgment as well in the context the world in which we live.

And that’s what happens. Paul and Barnabas have that boldness to speak it forth. The Gentiles of course respond to this boldness of the proclamation with gladness and joy. They glorify the word of the Lord. You know, some commentators like to change that phrase in verse 48. They glorified the Lord. They like to say or they received the word of the Lord. It bothers them that the text says they glorified not the Lord but the word of the Lord.

Remember that psalm, back in the Psalms, God tells us that you know that he has exalted his word above his name. That also, that particular psalm has been mistranslated now or intentionally switched around because people just can’t imagine what that could mean. How could God exalt his word above his very person?

Well, what God wants us to do is not to see his person as lower somehow. But what he wants to do here by saying the Gentiles properly glorified the word of the Lord is to correlate the word, God’s scripture with the Lord. And don’t say you glorify God if you don’t glorify the word of God. And don’t say you’re a follower of the king if you don’t obey the law of the king. You see, God wants us to equate the word of the Lord with the Lord and to glorify his word, his breath spoken forth to us that we receive.

Well, the Gentiles then respond in this way and we should as well, correlating the word with the Lord. And the word of the Lord was published, taken through, borne out, carried throughout the region. That’s what the word “published” means. We are the ones who publish it in this region. The members of the body of Jesus Christ, this church, other local churches in Portland are to take this word, interpreted historical events, continuing in the grace of God, being fervent to minister, being bold in the proclamation of God’s judgment as well as God’s salvation to the culture.

We’re to take that same gospel Sabbath message of salvation from sin and deliverance from political oppression. We’re to be the ones who carry that throughout our region. It’s not going to happen here. Usually people aren’t going to come here. We’re