Dennis Tuuri

# Acts 14:1-7

Please stand for the reading of the words of the King. Acts 14:1-7.

And it came to pass in Iconium that they went both together into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spake that a great multitude, both of the Jews and also of the Greeks, believed. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and made their minds evil affected against the brethren. Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord which gave testimony unto the word of his grace and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands.

But the multitude of the city was divided in part held with the Jews and part with the apostles. And when there was an assault made both of the Gentiles and also of the Jews with their rulers to use them despitefully and to stone them. They were aware of it and fled unto Lystra and Derby, cities of Lyonia, and unto the region that lie round about. And there they preached the gospel.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for calling us forward to worship you this day. We thank you for giving us an awareness of our sin. And we thank you, Lord God, also for raising us up and making us remember that our sins are forgiven through the work of our savior Jesus Christ. We thank you also you tell us repeatedly in the scriptures that you gather us together to worship you but also to hear a word from you to take to the nations.

We thank you for this account of the gospel of Jesus Christ and his grace being taken to those nations. And we pray now Lord God that your Holy Spirit would illumine this text to our understanding to a work in our heart that we may do works with our hands this week in obedience to the gospel of Christ that we might take it into all the earth in obedience to the great commission. In Jesus Christ’s name we pray and for the sake of his kingdom.

Amen.

Well, we continue today with our messages going through the book of Acts. Remember, we’re in that second half of the book of Acts where the gospel is now taken unto the uttermost parts of the earth and our savior. Remember, all of this is in response really to the question of the disciples recorded for us in Acts chapter 1 about the restoration of the kingdom.

And last week in the account of third message we had on the Sabbath sermon and then the results of that Sabbath sermon in Antioch Pisidia.

You remember that we talked about how that restoration of the kingdom is prophesied in the Old Testament to be not simply a restoration of Israel. That is those of the faith of the Old Testament and of the lineage of the Jews, but rather that restoration Isaiah tells us that is too light a thing for the Messiah to come in effect. Rather, he is going to take the message of salvation and deliverance from oppression from our sins to the ends of the earth.

And the Gentiles will receive the light of the gospel. And so, we’re in that portion of the book of Acts where that’s what’s going on. The Gentiles are receiving the light of the gospel. And last week, we saw it definitively where Paul and Barnabas said that because of the rejection, because the Jews turning away and turning themselves away from the word of the scriptures and the word of the coming of Messiah Jesus Christ, that they then would turn toward the Gentiles.

Very important to notice that God in a way is seen in the scriptures as putting up with our sin for a while. But there comes a point at which he turns from us and turns us over then to judgment. And that’s what’s going on in the context of this preaching mission this missionary journey of proclaiming the good news of our savior. Remember also that Sabbath sermon had to do with the coming of Christ. It’s the definitive sermon of Paul.

We don’t read of that sermon in this text in Iconium. We don’t read of what Paul and Barnabas spoke of directly in the next city in Lystra nor in Derby. And then the missionary journey ends through those regions. This is the only sermon we have recorded. That’s because that’s all we need to have recorded. It summarizes the message of the gospel as Paul understood it and preached it forth. And you remember that really there were three things he did there.

He stressed God’s actions in history. He stressed the sovereignty of God that God called forth a people. God had a people grow. He delivered those people from oppression. He gave them ruler a Saul that they wished for and not correctly. They wished a king like the nations round about them. He does that but then he provides deliverance through the giving of David and before that he gives deliverance from the attacks of the Philistines in the land by raising up judges for them.

All of that is preliminary to understanding the work of raising up the Lord Jesus Christ. And then Paul of course speaks about that Christ is raised as salvation for our sins. So Paul gives a message first premised upon the acts of God in history. Secondly he gives us a message that salvation encompasses within it great societal change deliverance from temporal oppression that usually comes about, not always, but usually comes about as a result of the sin of his people.

They sinned. They didn’t drive out the Philistines. God raised up judges. They sinned. They sought an evil king who had taxed them to death and etc. Be not a godly king at all. But God raises up a deliverer when they repent. And so it has significance for us today as well when we see a country largely populated by people coming from a Christian lineage and yet having set up another king like the nations round about us.

In this country for the last 50 or 100 years, we’ve sought increasingly salvation from the civil state. And that brings a degree of oppression to people. Rightly so, because God is causing us to come to repentance for our sins, of seeking someone other than him to rule over us. That’s all wrapped up by Paul in the message, the gospel of salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul doesn’t envision a gospel of salvation strictly limited to preparing us for heaven.

He talks about its implications on earth. And we’ll see that developed in today’s text as well.

Now, just by way of review again, remember last week we said that God turns and Paul declares the turning to those who were poor in spirit. Our savior tells us that those who recognize their poverty in spirit. I mean, everybody in relationship to God’s requirements are poor in what they can bring to God. But some people recognize their poverty of spirit.

And because they recognize it, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And so the Jews thought they had natural privilege. They thought things were going good for them. At least a large part of them did. They didn’t recognize their poverty and spirit. And so God turned to the Gentiles. And we want to be careful to hear that message. You know, this is an institutional setting of a church really is where all this happened last week in Antioch Pisidia at the synagogue on the Sabbath day with the Sabbath sermon.

Then subsequent Sabbath days when division occurs as the Jews moved by envy stirred up the Gentiles. That’s the model which we see repeated now throughout these missionary journeys. And so we have a more synopsized compacted form of it here, but essentially it’s the same message. So, it’s important for us to remember that what we said last week has implications for this week as well.

We want to remember to continue in the grace of God.

Remember, Paul exhorted those Gentiles who believed to continue in the grace of God. He knew there would be persecutions. He knew there would be afflictions. He knew there’d be slanders. And he urged them to continue in God’s grace, not thinking that we have a result of our own works, our own prayer even to God, our own faith. None of that is basis for our acceptance with God. Only grace, the gift of God, so that no man may boast.

We’re to continue with an understanding of God’s sovereignty and our being here solely by the grace of God, unmerited favor. And he also we’re to continue in the means of grace. They were to continue meeting together and teaching each other the word and hearing the word. So that’s an exhortation to us as well to continue in the grace of God in that doctrine in that teaching and in the means of grace, the church, the word, talking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, etc.

We’re to continue in all those things. We also had a warning last week that we’re not to be envious. Envy drives much of our culture. We said we have to understand that envy is different from covetousness. Covetousness says, “I want what you have. I will try to get it.” And usually through illicit means. Envy says, “I want what you have. I’m not going to be able to get it, so I don’t want you to have it either. I’m going to destroy it.”

The Jews saw the popularity the success of gospel preaching and that could never be theirs. And so they attempted to tear it down. We will be tempted to tear down the works of others who have things that we think we can never attain to. So gangs deface BMWs for instance or beauty contest losers deface literally the face of those who might win for instance. We see these things reported. So we remember instead of being warmly affectionate.

Instead of being worked up in envy, we want to be worked up to take the word of God, to love his law and testimony, to understand its relationship to our life. We want to be worked up in zealous, Paul said, for spiritual gifts that we might minister in the context of the church. So, we want to be worked up about the right things, not about the wrong things.

Well, we have a continuing saga then in terms of this need for continuing the grace of God, not being worked up for the wrong things, but instead being worked up for the right things.

We see all that continuing on in to our text today. Now, as I was going over these verses, I thought to myself, how would I what would I do with this text? Would I teach this to my children? And I want to suggest that if you have children, maybe this would be a good way for you, to teach these central points. And these are the these are the four things I think I’d want my children to come away from the text we just read, of Paul’s account of what happens at Iconium with the preaching of the gospel.

First of all, I want my children to understand that the gospel meets with success. That the difference between the New Testament and Old Testament significantly is that the preaching of God’s word is accompanied by the power of the spirit and that will bring success in time and in history in terms of the world about him. By success, I don’t mean monetary success, but I mean that the gospel preached forth will bring forth the people of God that are called of him that are in the words of last week’s text ordained to believe.

It’s very important, I think, that our children understand that we’re not on the losing side. All about us, we see evidence that we are. It’s important that our children understand that when the gospel is preached, people come to faith and things happen in this culture around us. Progress ensues. And while it doesn’t look like it, it is progress in the context of Iconium as well. I want them to under I want my children to understand that this is a repeated thing.

We talk about this a lot. Paul was not shy about telling people things over and over. He said, “It’s good for you that I repeat things to you, and it’s good for our children to continue to give them the message that God’s gospel is a gospel that brings victory for God and his people in the context of the world run about us.

The second thing I want my children to understand from this text, in spite of all that, the fact that gospel preaching will bring people who hear that the elect of God will come forth, I want them I want them to understand and expect attacks upon them.” And the attacks that come upon Paul and Barnabas in our text today They are of two types.

There’s attacks on their character and there’s attacks on their actual physical safety. And I want my children to understand that indeed if we’re proclaiming the gospel, if we’re pushing what the implications of that gospel are in the context of our culture, and I think that’s what happened in today’s text. We’ll talk about in a couple of minutes, you can expect problems and attacks. So when problems, attacks, controversies arise, it’s not something to just go run away from.

Now, we’ve always said it’s good to examine yourself to see if you’ve caused these problems with your sin. But if if that has been done and still problems ensue, don’t think somehow something’s wrong. This is normal. This will be the normal pattern of the gospel as it goes forward into all the world in the book of Acts and as a picture of going into all the world in our day and age as well. Expect attacks.

Expect attacks against your personal character. Expect slander and expect attacks against your physical personage as well. Now, and by way of correlation, I want to tell my children, if you’re never having a situation where people are upset at you because of the preaching of the gospel, maybe you’re not really preaching it through your life and your word. You know, if we have personal peace and affluence, to use Francis Schaeffer’s terms, maybe it’s because our gospel is not really lining up wholeheartedly with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

As we press the implications of the gospel, we can expect attacks. We know that. We’ve seen that in the last decade. As God has raised up a people, for instance, relative to education and seeing the need to see those things in relationship to God’s word, we’ve seen attacks and that’s good. It’s proper. We want people to respond to the implications of the gospel and the non-elect will respond in a very negative way.

So, I want my children to expect attacks and evaluate their own witness in terms of what kind of attacks they may or may not be receiving. I don’t want to be contentious, but I do want them to understand that as they press the implications of the gospel and their actions, then they’re going to expect controversy and attacks.

The third thing I want my children to understand, of course, based on this is the same thing we said last week.

Persevere. Persevere in the faith, in the means of grace. Yes, be self-examining and make corrections to your own life. Be evaluatory of your own life, but persevere in applying the word of God to everything that you do and say. I we were talking about this yesterday with another couple of people at our son’s baseball meeting, and I said that the older I get, the more I see, well, perseverance is one of the key things my children can have to have success and God’s blessing upon them in this life.

It’s those who fade away and there’s many temptations to do that end up with their faith often either shipwrecked or no longer relevant to much of what they do and say. Perseverance is something I want my children to understand.

And fourthly, I want my children to understand that there is a relationship and they can expect both unity and division. I’ll talk about this more in a little bit, but I think that the scriptures point a picture of what I call Babel division.

When God’s judgments come upon the Tower of Babel, division of the heathen, so to speak, they always fight amongst themselves. Satan’s kingdom is never united until the message of the gospel is preached. And then you see unity developing as we do at Iconium, those against the gospel, those in favor of the apostles and their teaching. So babble division is also accompanied is produces unity. And then word division is what I refer to here in Iconium. The word of God brings division to this city. And really, those are two elements of the same coin, aren’t they? Babel division is the judgment of God against those who reject him. And word division is the same thing. It’s the judgment of God against those who reject him. It’s also the unification of those who believe him.

So, I want my children to understand that as we see the gospel preached forward increasingly in our particular city and area, in our state, and then in this country and world, we can expect a growing unity of Christians, but we could also expect a growing unity of those who oppose the faith. Their divisions will start to come together against the church and against the preaching of the church. But we prevail because the passage ends in this account with the word being preached to even more regions. I call that last portion of the text a strategic advance. It is a retreat in a sense. They’re going away from Iconium. They’re not going to be killed, but it isn’t a retreat. They don’t go back to Antioch Pisidia.

They go forward and in advance preaching the word of God to Lystra and Derby and we’ll talk about that in the weeks to come.

Those are the things I want my children to understand from this text and we’ll go over them a little bit slower now these lessons as we go verse by verse through the text itself.

By the way, one other thing there and I’ll stress this again later but in terms of that fourth so the four points are one I want them to understand gospel preaching yields success people coming to the Lord two they can expect attacks upon themselves both in their character and in their person.

Three, they want to persevere in preaching the gospel. And if we persevere as a church and as a culture, Christian culture, the fourth thing is we’ll see both unity and division occur in the context of the world round about us. And in terms of that unity, it’s easy to see the division of Iconium, to see that they worked hard for to divide the people, the unbelievers did against the church. But remember too that there’s an implication of that we want to work toward the unity of the church of God cross cultures.

cross Christian cultures, cross denominational lines, cross different lines of faith that have come out of the reformation. So, we want to work together for unity in the context of the church. And I want my children to have that mindset that we’re seeking unity amongst the believing body of Jesus Christ in the greater Portland area in the particular place in which we live.

Okay, these are lessons I think that come out of this text and I wanted to give them up front so we can kind of look for them as we go through.

And let’s go through the text now verse by verse. We see first of all in verse one that a great multitude in Iconium believed. Verse one of chapter 14, it came to pass in Iconium that they went both together into the synagogue of the Jews and so spake that a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed. Here we have the same thing in synopsis form that happened at Antioch Pisidia.

Remember almost all the city believed. We’re told and here great numbers great numbers believe through their preaching. And now we read there that they so spake that this great multitude believed. Remember last week we talked about the fact that God has ordained certain people to believe. At the end of the account in Antioch, Pisidia, it’s those who are ordained to believe who did so and who have joy in the context of persecution.

Well, in the context of this text, we see stress the secondary means that God uses. God is sovereign. People come to faith because he has ordained it to them to come to faith. He sovereignly works these things. But we don’t want to ignore the fact that he uses secondary means to achieve his particular ends and decree. And So these men Paul and Barnabas that is so preach that a great number come to the faith.

It is important that men prepare themselves to present the gospel of Jesus Christ and the implications of it for a culture. I mean you don’t want to just rely upon the verse that God says he’ll tell us what to say and we’re hauled before rulers. That’s true. But he also tells us over and over again to study the word of God that it is the word of God itself that’s able to equip us for the battles in which we find ourselves.

And so the secondary means are stress here these men so spake that a great multitude believe. So we see in Iconium here in terms of the development we see this great multitude believing. I want to point out here just by way of kind of putting it away in the back of your minds that there is a progression here as we go from Antioch Pisidia to Iconium and then the next two cities will be Lystra and Derby and there is almost a winnowing down of the accounts here.

Now the account in Lystra is a little longer because there’s controversy over these men being considered gods, Paul and Barnabas. But what’s happening is we had a Sabbath sermon in the synagogue and the action takes place so to speak at Antioch in the synagogue on the Sabbath. Here we had them going to the synagogue, but there’s no reference to Sabbath day activities. This could have been synagogue activity during the week as well.

The Sabbath is not stressed here. The next stop we see, we won’t see the synagogue involved at all. One thing that’s happening is as they go on this missionary journey, heading east on this road that was there. They’re going further and further away from culture, so to speak. But I think in terms of the account we want to see here, and I guess I’ll tell you now what I think, one thing that’s going on. We see what I think could be seen as the idolatry of the institutional church at Antioch Pisidia.

The Jews wanted the institutional church to themselves. There were factions within it. They were idolatrists relative to the church and Sabbath services. And here the stress is the city itself that is divided. Iconium was a very ancient city claimed to be more ancient than Damascus even. We don’t you know think of these things but it was an ancient city and it had a strongly developed sense of city and I think that by way of application at least if not by way of exposition we can see that Iconium the city itself becomes the source of division and that’s I think because the city itself has become idolatrous to a certain extent to the Gentiles that live there.

I think that the church the state or city as well as the family and talk about this later can become idolatrous and replace God and that’s one of the reasons why we have this progression but any event we have this we’ll talk more about it in the next couple of weeks as we go to Lystra and Derby so we have them going on to Iconium here and the gospel meets with success and as I said that’s in more fuller it is again in fulfillment of the prophecies of Isaiah 49:5 and 6 where it is a light thing that he that his servant that is Jesus should raise up the tribes of Jacob res nor the preserved of Israel.

I will give thee also for a light to the Gentiles that thou mayest be my salvation unto the ends of the earth. Pretty clear message. God’s salvation will go to the ends of the earth. Those will come as doves to the window as another reference in the book of Isaiah. The nations will come to the preaching of God’s word. Paul says later on in Acts 28 and again he states that they will turn to the Gentiles and the Gentiles will hear the word.

Paul says, how did he know that? It wasn’t prophecy on his own part. He knew the prophets. He knew that the prophets said that Gentiles would receive the word and that all the world over time would become converted. And so it was in his time and so we should have that confidence in our time as well.

Okay. So we have a great success bringing a sinful reaction in verse two.

Verse two reads, “But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and made their minds evil affected against the brethren.” So we have on your outline, you know, my typewriter didn’t break.

My word processor wasn’t goofed up. I put that jag in there to give you the jag of the account here. We have success, then we have persecution, then we have the perseverance of the apostles in preaching the word. Then we have intensified persecution, but the word prevails at the end. Back and forth, but God’s word prevails. Well, here is the first jag of persecution. And we note here a couple of things from this verse.

First of all, it is the unbelieving Jews who are the source of the problem. Now, this word unbelieving, it’s necessary to point out a couple of things about it here. It more literally translated could say that those Jews who refuse to allow themselves to be persuaded. It’s made up of a negative and then a word that means to allow oneself be persuaded and so they refuse to allow themselves to be persuaded.

It could be literally translated that these were disobedient Jews. That’s the clear implication of the Greek word involved. You see in the scriptures belief and obedience are tied inseparably together. So much so that here the word isn’t primarily belief that’s being spoken of. The word is primarily action will on the part of the Jews who refuse to believe. We said that if you’re not ordained to believe, if you’re not elect Jesus Christ, you can’t come to salvation.

You’re a walking dead man. As I said term I used a few weeks ago, you’re a flatliner. Spiritually speaking, the scripture said you’re dead in your trespasses and sins. You cannot come to faith. But it’s just as true in verses like this. point this out that those who are outside of the Lord Jesus Christ and not elect also are not willing to come to the faith. They make a self-conscious effort to resist that as these Jews did.

Okay. So, it’s important we recognize it’s not as if God doesn’t choose some people who want to believe. These people do not want to believe and they cannot of course as well. They’re disobedient. The other side of that implication is that in our own lives we must recognize that if we say we believe but we continually disobey God’s word. Now we none of us can keep it perfectly. It’s only the grace of Christ, his imputed righteousness, his remission of our sins through his blood that gives us right standing with God.

Nonetheless, if we refuse to obey that says something to God should say something to ourselves and it also should say something to the church of Jesus Christ, those Christians that you know of about your faith. James tells us that faith without works is what is only half the thing. No, he says it’s dead. Not there. So faith and obedience are tied together. Belief and obedience are tied together in the scriptures.

We have to repeat that over and over. We live in the context of a culture that is involved with great intellectual constructs thinking that somehow creates reality. We print these this money up that says that it’s money and we think it actually has value then when all it has is the trust of the people. There’s nothing behind it. See, we live in continually in a world in a realm of ideas, but we fail to recognize that in God’s in God’s understanding, ideas and belief are inevitably tied to what we do.

And we do not believe the gospel of Christ if we continue unrepentant, breaking his law and not striving for obedience. There’s a warning here to us.

Well, any stir up the Gentiles. And how do they do it? They do it by making their minds evil affected. Now, the root here of this evil affected is that Greek word that means nothing. It’s that same kind of rooted that says that money is the root of all or all sorts of evil in the world round about us.

That word evil really means base of no value. And by way of implication, it becomes evil as well. But they stir up the Gentiles by causing their minds, their thoughts about the brethren to become illaffected. They think nothing of the brethren anymore. In fact, they positively turn against them.

You know, we when My wife and I we still sing it occasionally with our family. When our kids were younger particularly, we’d sing that little song, you know, be careful little eyes what you see and be careful little ears what you hear. Well, here’s one where it’s a good warning to us again. Be careful little ears what you hear. The father above is looking down in love. So, be careful little ears what you hear. These Gentiles open themselves up to hear slander and accusation against the brother on the part of the Jews. And as a result, their minds became illed or evilaffected. They thought nothing and they debased and slandered the brethren, the believers in Christ.

It’s a warning to us. We’ve said this over and over and over, but the Jews, they never go just from opposition to killing people. they probably morally, and it’s not I don’t think it’s a matter of practicality in their mind. You don’t get from here to there in a jump. You get there by working yourself and others up by continually maligning people, whispering in the ear against people. And over time, People get all worked up and then pretty soon they cannot stand the people that they’re speaking about and slandering and that’s what leads up to eventually and it will in this text to an attempt to kill them and murder them.

So it goes slowly by but surely. Had an example of this yesterday at my son’s son Elijah have his last uh baseball game this year. He’s in this Hillsboro boys baseball association. But in any event, he was kind of a real controversy happened in the last game of the year for us. He was batting and the pitcher hit him in the behind and umpire said, “Well, take your base.” somebody went up to take the base.

Then the other coach who had been working the umpire the entire day, the entire game came over and started telling the umpire, “No, no, he was faking it.” And the audience from the other side, the fans, the other team said he was faking it. He was faking it. So pretty soon the umpire says, “Okay, come on back here to my son.” You know, and my wife then I was I was up with on first base making sure Elijah was okay because he really got hit hard.

Uh my wife then said to the empire, “What are you talking about? He got hit. My son isn’t lying. You know what’s the deal?” And he said, “Okay, keep your base.” See, the Empire is being worked upon by people to be have his mind twisted in a particular way. And this other team has done this all year. Apparently, they did it all game. They kept every time the coaches would talk to the umpire. And what they were trying to do is over a period of time get the umpire turned against the team that my son played for.

In this case, against my son directly. Well, that’s the way things work. People talk, they start slow. They start with the word in the in the ear. It reaches a rumble then and then the fans start shouting and pretty soon decisions are made and things come down. By the way, my son actually has a little bruise from where he got in. We could have shown that to the empire. I don’t know though. I probably would have been not in good taste.

But it’s very important for us to recognize here that we must be very careful with our speech and also recognize as I said and you should teach your children that they’re going to receive slander against them on the part of those who want to work people up against God’s people. So we have that in 2 Corinthians 2 we read that while this preaching of the gospel of Christ is a sweet savor of Jesus Christ to them that are saved and and but it is at the same time to them that perish the saver of death unto death.

And so it is here. When the gospel is preached forth in its full implications, it is a saver of life to those who believe, but it’s also the aroma of death to those who don’t believe. And as a result,, they are motivated against God’s people. I mentioned in the text Jude 1:12. Remember that these Jews are not outside of the institutional church at this particular time in the development of the New Testament church.

We’re talking about people within the context of the church. We see in the book of Galatians, we’ll see it in the council of Jerusalem in Acts 15. these people came out from a particular church in Jerusalem and bothered the saints with this doctrine of legalism. So Jude 1:12 talks about spots in your feasts of charity in your love feast. We have a love feast here every Lord’s day. And it’s very important to recognize that even in the context of the church, you may have those there who will speak against the faith of Jesus Christ and the implications of it.

So you want to expect that, not be you know all bothered by it when it sees it. self manifesting but recognize this is God’s plan being worked out.

Now, as I said before, it’s important for us to remember that the term devil means to slander. The term Satan means accuser. And it’s an intensified form really of slander. The devil becomes Satan. The slanderer becomes the accuser. And that’s the progression we see here.

And that’s the progression we want to stop at its early inception in our own hearts and in our own families particular particularly relative to other believers. We want to train ourselves to think well and to speak well of all men and not to slander or disparage anyone but particularly in terms of the household of faith.

Okay. moving on then in verse three after this happens the apostles persevere in what they do.

In verse three we read that long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord which gave testimony unto the word of his grace and granted signs wonders to be done by their hands. So we read a long time therefore abode they there. Now what this means it doesn’t mean that they stayed a long time because of the persecution. That’s not what the text means. But it does want us God does and Luke did and God working through Luke wants us to see the relationship of this long time staying there to what has just gone on.

Okay to this persecution. In spite of persecution they man their station. They do what they’re supposed to do. They stay there enough time, that really long time might be more better translated, enough time to present the full implications of the gospel of Christ. They persevere, in other words, in the task given them by God. And we see there again that they’re speaking boldly. Remember from last time, boldness is not simply having courage.

Boldness also means plainness of speech, no hidden agendas, nothing held back, being transparent as it were with the pre Preaching of the gospel clearly and plainly speaking the word of truth in spite of persecution. Remember we said that this you know you don’t want to think this was natural for Paul because he was a feisty guy. Paul remember ask people to pray for him that he might indeed be bold and clear and not intimidated in his preaching.

You think of people as being feisty guy. You I may be an example myself. I was a kid who I would send my younger brother to the store to buy the candy bar for me or go up to the shelf and I was, you know, very reticent to talk or speak. I don’t, this isn’t natural for me to do this kind of a thing. And it’s not natural for most of us to say things that we know people won’t like to hear. And when it isn’t natural, when we don’t feel confident in that, we kind of mess it up sometimes.

We obfuscate the message. We cloud it up, etc. We should pray for each other to be bold, not to be intimidated, but to be clear and open in our presentation of the gospel. Pray for that. Paul says, pray for him for that way. The church prayed that way. in Acts four, remember with the persecution there and God granted the spirit of boldness to them. And so we should pray for that one for the other.

And as we said last week, importantly, we have confidence to approach God on the basis of Christ’s work. That’s the boldness with which we entered in here. The text from Daniel is to remind us we come before God in and of ourselves. We are dead. He lays us low because of our sin, but he raises us up in Christ. So our confidence must be rooted in understanding of the atonement of Christ on our behalf. And it must also be the result of a righteous life. The righteous have the courage whereas the wicked people flee when none pursues.

See our sin makes us afraid and unclear in our presentation of the message. Well, they’re bold. They again are bold here. They give the Lord Jesus Christ actually gives testimony through signs and wonders. Signs and wonders. A picture of what God is doing. Probably healing things going on. It’s a picture of the restoration of men to be able to do the task God has called them to do in terms of vocation etc.

Signs that he has brought us to wholeness in Christ and wonders they’re to give a sense of awe and amazement h you know is what the culture roundabout says when it sees this testimony the lord Jesus to the word of grace and notice too that this is to the word now of his grace it’s specifically identified as you know grace is a funny word in our Christian culture we always say grace is unmerited favor and that’s good you know and we know we stand by grace etc and grace becomes a real good positive word for us as well.

It should be. But you know, as Lenski in his commentary in this text points out, grace always has along with it the connotation of sin. We need grace because we sin. And so when we read about the word of his grace, it again should humble us. And that keeps us away from the folly of an idea of cheap grace that somehow grace is extended and God makes no requirements of us anymore. He does make requirements to evidence that life, not be like the disobedient unbelieving Jews, but to believe and obey.

It’s the word of grace. So, we’re so grace is a reminder, as we’ve said before, those first few questions of the Heidelberg Catechism. What three things do you need to know to live and die happily in the comfort of Christ? The first, how great my sin and misery is. The second, how I’m redeemed from all my sins and misery. And the third, how to be thankful to God for such redemption., in the growing kids God’s way that several groups now are going through at the church.

He talks about how your kids will never understand grace until they understand justice. If you don’t understand justice, and much of the Christian culture, unfortunately, doesn’t anymore. If you don’t understand justice, how can you understand grace? If you don’t understand what you deserve from God, then you won’t understand the grace of God either. Well, this is the word of grace that they preach forth boldly, testified to by the Lord.

They persevere in what God has called them to do. The text there that I reference,, another reference is Ezekiel 3 where this very thing I think is spoken of. We read in Ezekiel 3, the house of Israel will not hearken unto you. And yet in verse 8 of Ezekiel 3, I have made thy face strong against their faces and thy forehead strong against their foreheads. As an adamant, harder than flint have I made thy forehead.

Fear thou not, neither be dismayed at their looks, though they be a rebellious house. So God makes his people with a face like flint. Now our savior applied that to himself and we see here the position of the church and the messengers of the church in Jesus Christ. Their face is made like flint in the face of opposition. They persevere. They man their station. They keep going on with what God has caused them to do.

Alenski said here that the gospel will always cause offense. Too many try to preach it with an eye to their personal interests, toning down unpopular doctrines. flattering themselves at their upto-date, progressive, even wise. Not so these two great heralds. In the face of opposition, they man their station. They keep the word of God’s grace on the lips that they have been given to by God. And they use that new breath as new creations of God to preach forth that gospel boldly and strongly in spite of opposition.

And so we should as well teach ourselves to persevere in the face of persecution. Okay. And from there one other thing I might mention there one of the other scripture references, you can look up some of these in at the rest of the day. Good Sabbath activity to take the outlines and look up the verses. But in 1 Corinthians 16:9, Paul said that a great door and effectual is opened unto me and there are many adversaries.

That’s usually the way it works. If God is going to call you to a task, there’s going to be many adversaries. And Paul said, in the scriptures that when I am weak then I am strong. When the adversaries are around and problems happen, persecutions, afflictions, infirmities, he recognizes God’s sovereign hand behind that to make him strong. Why? Because of reliance in that gospel of grace again. And so our strength increases as these things come upon us.

Okay? And in response to this then the you have an intensification of persecution. In verses 4-6, the multitude of the city was divided and part held at the Jews and part with the apostles. And when there was an assault made both of the Gentiles and also the Jews of their rulers to use them despitefully, and to stone them, they were aware of it and fled into Lystra and Derby, cities of Lyonia, and unto the regions that lie round about.

Here we have really what I’ve titled the sermon, Iconium, a city divided by the word. They had carried in this city a long time. a sufficient time to preach the gospel but not simply to preach a truncated gospel but to drive home the implications of that gospel in the context of that city. And what is the result? The city becomes divided by the word of God. Some holding to the Jews, some holding to the apostles, the scent ones of the Lord Jesus Christ representing him.

And so this intens intensification of persecution results in the division of the city and attacks then upon what? Upon their character. The scriptures tell us here that they were they treated them uh dis despitefully. That means that they maligned their character and then they also planned to stone them. But God, as he does before with Paul, and he will do it again later, he lets Paul know about the attacks when it’s necessary for him to move on in good and proper to do God’s work in another city.

He does that then in the context of this text. So division is what happens here. And this is what I want to really stress that indeed the gospel brings division. It has always been so. It will always be so because the gospel reveals the thoughts and hearts of men. Remember last week with Simeon at the temple as he speaks to Jesus’s parents as he’s brought there by his parents and he says that you know that he will be a sign he’ll reveal the hearts of many.

Even your own heart he said to Mary will be pierced through that he might reveal the hearts of many. God through the preaching of the gospel brings clarity to the world round about us. where there is no clarity, the spirit of God comes and brings the word of Christ and that clarifies things to bring two things separate from one another and to make this division that exists in the eternal council of God evident in the world round about us.

And so the divisions that happen here are typical of the divisions that happen throughout the history of man as the gospel is preached forth. Jesus said himself of course that this division would occur and we know that it does. The forces unite. Now the forces of pagan man are themselves divided of course. Now remember we have here several groups. We’ve got Jews and we got Gentiles. We got rulers described as well.

And we know that in the context of what’s happening in these cities, there’s lots of divisions. These are not united cities. They may have an external appearance of unity that comes to a head when the gospel comes. But pagan man is never fully unify. because God has put an end to that at the Tower of Babel. We live in the context of a culture here where division and breakup is everywhere around us. You know, it’s happened right through the churches into the civil state and now families as well.

It’s the last kind of structure of society is being broken apart by the forces of our culture. You know, Bob Dylan had a song several years back. Everything is broken. And indeed, it doesn’t take long to be walking around in this world before you realize that is true. Division and separation and conflict fill our age.

In this last incident a couple of weeks ago at the famous incident down in Southern California, here we see and we’re going to hear it a lot now about the divisions and violence that occurs in the context of within the family walls themselves. Well, you know, we could take it even further into the womb of the unborn to see the divisions that this culture has brought where mothers themselves consent to have their children murdered by abortionists. Even in the safety of the womb, there’s no safety anymore.

Part of this is the judgment of God. The book of Micah, God said indeed that this is what happens in a culture that’s filled with judgment. He said, “The son dishonors the father, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies are the men of his own house.” This is what I talk about in terms of babble division. As a culture replaces the center of the culture, the binding force of the culture, which should be Jesus Christ and what it was in this culture, the word of God. As they move away from that, but yet want to have the peace and order that gospel presents, God doesn’t allow it.

He breaks it up. He brings judgments. And so, we take away the word of the scriptures and he gives us then a a rubber yard stick in terms of the Constitution that’s used to tear the country apart further. God brooks no rivals. And when man seeks to push God out the back door and yet maintain the house that really an understanding and obedience to God has brought, God smashes the house down. That’s what Micah tells us and that’s what our culture shows us as well.

We live in a time of babble division, polarization over everything. Political polarization, moral polarization, church polarization. You know, I thought about the application of this to, as I said before, the church, the state, and the family., since the time of the reformation, divisions and splits have been the norm for the church. Now, I don’t see the reformation as a schism. What the reformation did was to go to a city Iconium and bring clarity and division along the lines of biblical faith.

The Reformation sought to preach once more the gospels of grace, the doctrines of grace. They did so effectively into a church that had external unity and yet was perverse and corrupt within and had much internal division. The reformation was much like the preaching of the gospel at Iconium. And indeed, it’s it’s interesting to note of course that the word iconium has its root in icon or picture. or image and we see in Iconium a picture or image of our world and also of the world at the time of the reformation as well.

A church supposedly united and yet when the gospel comes forward in the full thrust of God’s grace solely by grace are we saved through faith. When that message comes forth division occurs but it is a division that is word division and not babble division anymore. God brings the word and things coalesce in two camps. Those that affirm the doctrine of God’s sovereignty and those that reject the doctrine of God’s sovereignty.

Well, but since that time, the church has not split over such issues. The church has split time and time again in many ways. And I think that is is much to our chagrin and shame. and as a result now, I think what’s happening is the gospel again is being preached forward with its full implications for education, politics, monetary systems, etc. And so a growing clear ification is happening outside of denominational or church lines.

Okay. Well, this is the model that goes through and this is the model that’s happened in our culture. We have a civil state that has also been judged by God and broken up into factions and sections all over the place. Here in Oregon, remember we had a bill the last session of the legislature to take away the right of local counties to pass anti-sodomite pieces of legislation. See, there’s a war going on.

Not a hot war yet, but it’s still a war. And believe me, I’ve heard more this last 6 months to affirm this than ever. There’s a growing sense of conflict and division and polarization between county levels of government, state levels, and the federal level.