So back in Acts chapter 20, and working our way through here. How many of you are familiar with this story where Eutychus is raised from the dead, falls out the window and is killed, and the apostle brings him back? I want to look at that passage, but understanding that there's a strong emphasis there on a miracle and the miraculous work of Eutychus being brought back to life, the Apostle Paul having a part in that through the power of Jesus Christ. Note that that's not something that's of Paul. That's the power of Christ working in him, just as it was the power of Christ working in the Apostle Peter when Dorcas was brought back to life. So understanding that and that kind of being an emphasis of this passage, there are some nuances here that I want to touch on. And that is the overall aspect of the church. And how many of you think Eutychus was impacted by this event? Fair to say, right? I think he probably was impacted quite a bit. If you had the personal experience of saying, hey, I fell off a third story window, I was killed, and an apostle brought life back into me through the power of Jesus Christ. That's powerful testimony. And so that's there and one of the points of emphasis of this text. But I want us to consider the surrounding aspects of what's going on with Eutychus, and in particular with the church. And that is that this church in Troas, which is near what we would understand ancient Troy. They're only about four or five miles apart. Troas is where Paul has traveled through on his missionary journey. It was kind of a launching point to go over to Greece. Now he's back over there again, headed back towards Jerusalem. But the church here seems captivated by the word of God. And we'll dig into that. But why is it that they're captivated by the Word of God? Of course, there is some aspect that the Holy Spirit is encouraging and opening their ears to hear. That's a given. But I think also there's the aspect that Paul's preaching was not just empty words, that it was, in fact, it was a preaching that was teaching. And so there's a couple of things that we take note of here. There is a danger of preaching losing its teaching in our society. And preaching must never be devoid of teaching. But as we look at this text, why is it that the people were captivated? Why is it that they were enthralled with the Word of God or encouraged by the Word of God? That's because the preacher was sitting down encouraging them in a way that they could understand. And telling them, hey, this is what God says. This is the Word of the Lord. This is how it applies to your life. This is what you should be doing. This is how we should be living. This is how we should be gathering together. All these things come together in this text. And so I want to kind of dig into that, and it's unfortunate that wherever you live in this age, in the time in which we live, even ones who call themselves Christians, they don't enjoy the Word of God, nor do they enjoy the company of God's people oftentimes. How is it that I can say that? Because years ago, I called myself a Christian, but I did not enjoy the Word of God, and I did not enjoy the company of God's people. We call that a liar. I was living a lie. And now, I enjoy the Word of God. I enjoy the company of God's people. I love to do deep studies of Scripture. I love to sit around And just talk about the deep things in scripture. How many of you love to have those conversations? That it brings a joy to your life to sit and say, man, you know, it's hard to wrap your mind around what Paul is saying here, but this is the way we should live. And this is how God's helped me learn about this truth. So this is how God's helped me learn about this truth. or where God's brought me along my way and my journey. All these things are there, but don't let us be blinded because of the society in which we lived to think that everyone who calls themselves a Christian loves the Word of God and loves God's people. You realize that And it is sensitive. This is sensitive. So I don't want anybody here to feel like I'm singling you out or like, you know, Jenny, this is directed at you. Candy, I know you've got obligations with your mother, but church is proud. I don't want you to feel like I'm singling anybody out because I have this problem. My family has this problem just as much as everybody else has this problem. But I want us to really take a strong consideration of when we start talking about Scripture, when we start talking about the Lord's Day, Sunday, the first day of the week, do you realize that schedules are being made and events are being planned that strictly line up with church times and services? And to the point to where we go, all right, it is 1220 and we made an appointment at one. So we have to get out of here. I think we're all guilty of that. We're all in that boat to where we've put ourselves in situations to where we've fashioned and shaped our lives, even on the Lord's Day, around a schedule and a set of obligations, where, like here, we no longer do Sunday evening services. Why? Nobody came. Why didn't anybody come? Do what? Plans. Obligations. There's a lot of different reasons. Some, elderly can't drive at night. Some, it's difficult to drive 40 miles one way twice a day. It's a lot of gas money for some people. So there's a lot of different reasons. And then they said, well, let's set aside one Sunday a month where we come together and we fellowship You know, on the Lord's Day, we'll have a fellowship meal and we'll have several hours where we just get to spend together, pray together, talk together, encourage one another. And where has that gone? Eat, clean, get out the door. We've got somewhere we've got to be. Right? And so, as we go through and we kind of look at where things are, in the eyes of many, the service has to end At 12 o'clock. Do y'all know anybody like that? You have those, literally there are people who will do this. We don't have them here. But, I've actually seen it when we, the rare occasion that someone gets lost and finds our fellowship, And then they sit towards the back. They're visitors. They've never been here. They have no idea what to expect. And they're back there going, hey, you know, we've got that thing. And it's like 1230, and he's still going. People are not conditioned for that. I get that when you talk about the culture and the expectation that's been set. But that's exactly my point. The expectation has been set that the preacher should be done at 12 o'clock. And that's what's set forth. We make plans at 1230 because you're supposed to be done at 12. And that's how we've shaped and fashioned our lives. And even though there is no immediate plans following the service for some, there's often a boredom that sets in for the hearer. They might not have plans at 1230, but they sure are tired of sitting there after 12 o'clock. And they start to squirm in their seat and huff and look around. In some cases, I got to preach in Centerville. Brother Bruce walked in on a conversation. Days later, the kid just goes way too long. You really want to have that argument with me in light of this passage? Did any of y'all catch on as Pastor Bruce was reading this passage, how long this church service actually went on? Let's read the text again. Verses 7 through 12. On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, and that is them, this is the church gathering at Troas, if you go back to verse 6, You'll see that they're in Troas. So, here's a gathering of the people. They've got this three-story house or building or whatever it is. They're meeting up there in this upper room. And Paul prolongs his speech. He intended to depart the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. Now, who prolonged the speech? He did. Paul did. It wasn't, this wasn't a scenario where the people came and said, you know, Paul, I know you've got to get, but would you, we really would just like if you would just take some time to elaborate and hang out with us longer. No, Paul understood that whatever, we don't know exactly the text he was dealing with. We have no idea. But whatever it was he was dealing with, he, the apostle had the understanding, it's going to take longer than 20 minutes to get the point across about this. Now maybe that was a bunch of stuff. Verse 8, there were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered. So that right there, Luke is giving us this account. He's giving some really nice details now. How is it that they could go this late into the evening because there's many lamps up there? Somewhat of an uncommon thing for common people then to have a bunch of lamps in their home if there's a home or some building somebody's letting them use which we don't know. But there are enough lamps there that they can gather together and they can continue to converse until late into the evening. A young man in Eutychus sitting at the window sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer. And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. Now there's a couple of points here. Number one, don't fall asleep in church, you might die. That's first and foremost right there. Number two, don't go hanging out in third story windows, just climbing up there. Keep in mind, they don't have beautiful stained glass and all that stuff back in the first century. This is an open hole and this kid has climbed up in there. and he's hanging out and he falls asleep and he falls and he dies. But Paul went down and bent over him. Now the text here to bend over him actually gives you the The visual illustration of him laying himself or sprawling out over the body of this young man. We see this in Kings. Both Elijah and Elisha both prostate themselves over someone who was dead and brought life back into them through the power of God. We see this illustrated several times in scripture. But he bends over him, he lays himself upon him, taking him in his arms and said, do not be alarmed for his life is in him. He's been brought back to life. And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while until they broke. And then departed. And they took the youth away alive and were not a little comforted. They were a lot comforted. Not a little comforted. They were a lot comforted. They were just amazed at what had taken place. But there's a few things here that we want to walk through. Let me ask you a question. What does this phrase mean? How many of you have ever heard this phrase? You know, that service just ran too long. Have you heard that? I've heard it. I've had people accuse me of it. In some cases, that might have been true. In some cases, I might have just rambled. I might have chased a rabbit. I might have legitimately ran too long with a topic or a text where I shouldn't have. I'll concede that. But what does it mean when you commonly hear the service ran too long? First, there's a clear indication that the person making the statement has a greater desire to be somewhere else rather than with God's people under the teaching of God's work. Well, that service ran too long. Why do you say that? Because I had chicken to pick up at Walmart at 1.30 and I couldn't get out of P.U. till 1.15. So that's a problem. Well, that's your problem, right? So we have to look at it and understand. Think just for a moment of how the average Sunday goes for the majority of people. How, just in your mind, kind of create a workflow. And what does that workflow look like for the majority of people? Number one, they come in, they maybe say hello to a couple of people, and they sit down, right? Fair? Come in, greet somebody, maybe two people, and sit down in your spot. They sit down and they lay claims to their domain, right? Obviously, they're assigned seating area. Nobody else can sit in that area. We all naturally gravitate to the same. I can take roll at church just by on the seating. I know if I look here, and that's empty, Bruce and Becky are not here. Candy always sits right there. Christie and my family sits here. The Shrinkies are always here. Weds are always there. Sonny and Nadine's always here. I can take roll just simply because of that. Number three, oftentimes people demonstrate their superior knowledge by not listening to the teacher or preacher. What do I mean by that? They don't listen. They don't pay attention. Because they already know. Well, why should I listen to you? I don't have to listen to you. I've already got that down. I know everything. What are you going to teach me? There are folks like that, that sit in the pews every Sunday, every weekday. It's interesting even by age group. In some cases, the older people get, the more wisdom they do accumulate. I think it's a true observation. But at the same time, Just because you're 80 doesn't mean you can't learn something from somebody who's 10. And the person who's 10 needs to recognize that they can learn a lot from the person who's 80. We determined this morning in the men's breakfast that our children would literally burn our houses down if there was a grease fire. I asked them, said, well, what would you do if the grease caught on fire? Pour water on it! Blow the whole place up! And so there are things to be learned. There's knowledge to be transferred, and it doesn't matter your age. Paul told Timothy, do not let them despise you for your youth. There's another aspect. People come in and they say hello, they sit down, they claim their domain, they demonstrate their superior knowledge by not listening to the teaching and the preaching, and they then await a lot of time to come to an end so that they can get on with their day. How many people do you know or how many of you have been in that boat, maybe even last week, maybe this week, where you say, I need to get to church and get it over with because I've got things I've got to do. I've got things I've got to get done. And so this needs to get a think about it. This is the reality for a lot of people. Every single Sunday, let me go meet my obligation with God and then get on to the things that are more important to me that I need to do. Now this morning, as we get into the text, there's three key elements that I want to point out here. Number one, being the order and elements of a church service. We get this right out of the gate here. The order and elements of a church service. Look at verse seven. On the first day of the week, when we gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day. He prolonged his speech until midnight. Now, we open this passage with a critical phrase, right? On the first day of the week. How many of you are familiar that we as Christians worship on the first day of the week? Preston, what's the first day of the week? Do that? That's the first day of your school week. If you look at a calendar, what's the very first day? Sunday. Why is it that Sunday is the first day of the week? Is Sunday the first day of the week everywhere? Yes. Sunday's the first day of the week everywhere. Does everybody count Sunday as part of their weekend around the globe? No. If Sunday is the first day of the week, then shouldn't I go to work on that day? I mean, after all, what's the only day that I should have off in the Jewish calendar? The Sabbath. The Sabbath is Friday to Saturday. So I'm off Friday to Saturday, and I go back to work on Sunday. It's that way to this very day in Israel. When I had to go over for this new job and was going to the training classes in Israel, it started on Sunday. It tells you to be there probably Friday because You got to kind of somewhat of adjust on Saturday because Sunday you're in class for like 12 hours. So get ready. So this phrase, on the first day of the week, how many of you think that it's fairly common in scripture? Have you heard it? Does it sound familiar, first day of the week? You know, it only appears seven times in the New Testament. Seven times. Out of those seven times, if we kind of break it down, We see it in all three Synoptic Gospels. Four times it appears in the Synoptic Gospels. Matthew 28, verse 1, Mark 16, 2, and 16, 9, and then also in Luke 24, 1. In all of the Synoptics, every single time we see the first day of the week, it is in direct reference to the empty tomb. That's a fact. Also in John's Gospel. John's Gospel, it appears twice. In John chapter 20, verse 1, The context is the empty tomb. Mary Magdalene and they're gathered, the tomb is empty. It's the first day of the week and they're going, right? And they find the tomb is empty. Then John chapter 20 verse 19, we read this. On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for three of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, peace be with you. That's the sixth reference in the New Testament. The disciples were gathered together in the locked room and Jesus comes in and appears to them, somehow gets in the locked doors and comes in through the walls or something. However it is he did it, he got in. And he makes himself manifest to them. This was the disciples' gathering when? The first day of the week. So we have the day of his resurrection, the first day of the week. We have now a precedence has been set. The disciples seem to be gathering the first day of the week. And then now we have the final instance. It is the final instance that we see in Scripture, but it actually is setting a precedence, right? It's the last, but yet it's the first in Acts chapter 20, verse 7, right here in our text today. I say it's the last and it's the first because it is the last time we see the direct phrase, first day of the week. But it's the first time that we see it in all of Scripture giving us reference to an actual church service. It's the first time we see it. So right here, we're actually seeing the first documented church service in all of the New Testament. Now note what they are doing. One, they're gathering on the first day of the week. They're gathering on Sunday, our Sunday, the Lord's Day, the Day of the Resurrection. And what is it that they're gathering to do? What does the text say? It says that they're gathering to break bread on the first day of the week when we were gathered together to do what? To break bread. They're gathered together to break bread. Paul talked with them and came to Paul the next day who prolonged his speech until midnight. So we kind of get what's going on. I want you to pay close attention to the text here. There's two different times that the breaking of bread is mentioned. In verse 7, They gather together for the breaking of bread, to break bread, right? Everybody see that? And now look at verse 11. And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while until they break and so departed. So we see there is the second reference to the breaking of bread. Now, is this just a gathering for a fellowship now? What is meant by, quote, the breaking of bread? Does that mean they're just going to have a fellowship meal together, or is it talking about the Lord's Supper? How do we know? Have you ever heard of the Lord's Supper referred to as the breaking of bread? And can the breaking of bread also mean a fellowship meal? It can. So when Luke writes this, when he says, on the first day of the week, when we gather together to break bread, What is he actually referring to? Is he referring to just sharing a meal? Or is he referring to the Lord's Supper? Now, I truly believe that he's referring specifically to the Lord's Supper. And here's why. Look back at verse 11. Now, Pastor Bruce is the only one that gets to cheat, because he's using the NASB. But, when we look back at verse 11, those of you using the King James, the New King James, the NIV, or the ESV, you will pretty much see Paul had gone up after this event with Eutychus had taken place. He goes back up, and what did they do? They broke bread, right? He got up and had broken bread and eaten. But there is something here that gets lost in translation. When we talk about taking the Greek and translating that into English, there's something that gets lost here. In the Greek, right here in verse 11, it doesn't, it's not there in verse 7, but it is there in verse 11. There is a definite article. There's the article. That article, you know, an article is A or B, right? In this case, it's D. It would be translated as thee. The NASB actually puts it there. So I want you to see this in the NASB. When he had gone back up and had broken what? The bread. That's there in the Greek text. Now most of our translations we don't see that. And so we just have to try to figure out what is it? Is this just a meal? Or is this actually the Lord's Supper? And I think that little article right there gives us a key indicator that it is a very specific bread that's being spoken to. It's not just some general bread like, hey, go to Outback and you get a loaf of bread before your meal as an appetizer kind of thing. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about something that's very specific. Now note this. Paul is dealing with the specific, not the general. And this leads us to another question. At what point in time in this gathering, in this service, did they break the bread that they were gathered to eat? It says that on the first day of the week they were gathered together to break bread. But did they just come together and break the bread? No. It wasn't until after Eutychus has fallen out the window. Now when did that happen? After midnight. So my intent this morning with the Lord's Supper is to keep you here until after midnight and then we will partake. Now, not really, but I want you to begin to think about how important this must have been to these people. How did they look at the Lord's Supper And how do you look at it? How valuable was it to them that they were willing to sit and listen and anticipate and anticipate and desire to partake in the body and blood of Christ, not in the transubstantiation kind of way, but in the way of just simply relating and remembering what Jesus Christ had done for them? the willingness and the desire to sit until after midnight, if it means it, in order to partake of the bread and the cup. What we see here is that the breaking of bread, or the Lord's Supper, traditionally speaking, in the order of a worship service, takes place after the preaching has taken place. And so I think from a traditional perspective, if we're looking at it, well, how is it that the early church did this and should that be a good model for us? I think it is good for us to set the table of gathering together with the proclamation of the Word of God and then setting the anticipation for what's to come with the supper. It's something that the congregation looked forward to. after a period of instruction. So pertaining to the order of the elements, one, they gathered on the first day of the week. Two, they gathered for biblical teaching and instruction. And three, they gathered together to take the Lord's Supper. We can take those things right just very simply from this text and get a really good understanding about the order and elements of a church service, some real basic understandings there. And then as we kind of move through the text, we talk about Should Christians be captivated by the Word of God? And what does that mean? What does it mean that we are captivated by the Word of God? If you look back at verse 6, I mentioned this is taking place in Troas. Troas, this is a Greek area, right? This is not over in Israel and Jerusalem. This isn't a Greek area. And so, there may have been Jews in the room, We don't know. Luke doesn't give us those details. But what we do know is this is not the Sabbath. It's the first day of the week, right? So in Greek culture on the first day of the week, even in Jewish culture on the first day of the week, what do you think people had been doing all day before gathering together in this church service? That's part of it, getting it ready. Work. Work. Now, culturally, let's think about this for a minute. Culturally, can we really relate to that? How many of you went to work this morning before coming to church? Very few. But understand that that is a cultural distinctive. You follow me? That's a cultural distinctive. But here, well, you see, it is the first day of the week. This is a work day and people have to go to work. It's not the Sabbath. The Jews are obviously not off. And so most everyone, most everyone has gone to work. And my point is, is that after a long day of work, these Christians have gathered together and have been listening to Paul roll into the night. Now, Eutychus is, he's obviously exhausted, right? He's obviously tired. He's worked all day. Now, does anybody know the timing of when this event takes place? If you rewind just a couple of verses, you'll see it. This was just after the time of Unleavened Bread, which is actually the Passover period, which puts this into probably late April, mid to late April. So they're mid to late April in the Mediterranean. It's warm. It's not cold by any stretch of the imagination at this point. So we're talking about having worked all day, been in the heat all day, now you go in. How many of you struggle to stay awake in preaching services that are an hour? I've struggled. I've caught myself, oh my goodness gracious, your head begins to bob and we want to stay awake. But we get tired. Imagine if you've been out in the heat all day, you've worked all day, and now you come in, there's no place for you to sit because it's crowded, so you crawl up in a windowsill, and you're listening to Paul preach, not one hour, not two hours, not three hours, not four hours, not five hours, not six hours, and now we're like well into the seventh hour or so of teaching. You think you might fall out the window? Eutychus is tired. And he falls out. This demonstrates a couple of things. One, it demonstrates a love and a passion for the Word of God. And I want you to take note of something. Just because you fall asleep in church from time to time, that doesn't mean that you don't have a love or a passion for the Word of God. There's a lot of variables and a lot of facts. Some people are just flat out ignoring you, and they get better rest in these pews for some reason than they do at the soda mattress at their house, for whatever reason. But, I know people who love the Word of God, and I've seen their head bob in church. Secondly, it shows that in this particular case, that this gathering of people were captivated They were captivated by the Word of God, by the teaching of the Apostle Paul. And I'm reminded of our brothers in the Philippines. I know Brother Wes got a call and he had to leave, so he understands it's the first day of the week. I don't think he has any other day of the week than the first day of the week. It just constantly keeps going for him. But Brother Wes and I were traveling to the Philippines, and when you take that flight from here to get over there, you wind up landing in Manila, Typically, it's around 9 or 10 at night. And so Brother Wes and I had flown in, and Brother Timoteo, Pastor Tim, he had told us that, hey, we would like for you, you know, we always stay on their little church campus, which their church campus is maybe as big as the parking lot area here. That's their church building, Pastor Tim's house, the school that they have, you know, and that's it. And I got a couple of stories on some things. But it's a small little area, but they do a lot with it. The brother Wes and I come rolling in, and it's 9 at night, 10 at night, and the church is full. Like literally, like a room about this size is packed. How many of you know how many people this room is built to hold? Any guesses? 250. This room is designed to seat and hold 250 people. Can you imagine 9 or 10 at night coming in to 250 people? What, for me? Really? My wife won't wait up for me. She's like, I'm going to bed. But why? They heard there's two men coming who want to share the word of God. And they waited. You know what time they got there? Six o'clock. They waited for four hours. Four hours. Just for us to get there. Do you really think after traveling that distance, I was fired up and keyed up to get up there and just preach the scriptures. I was exhausted. I was tired. They were tired. We were all tired. But even though we were tired, they were tired, I was tired, we had one thing in common, and we were passionate about the Word of God. We loved the Word of God, and we gathered together around the Word of God just for a brief period of time. If you arrived here at 9 o'clock this morning, and the preacher didn't show up, what would you do? And the word that you get is, he's on his way. We know, we've made communication. The pastor, the teacher, the preacher, he's on his way. Brothers, sisters, if you would, just bear with us. Let's wait on our brother to get here to bring us a word. How would you respond? Ten o'clock rolls around. Brothers and sisters, he is on his way. Eleven o'clock. Twelve o'clock. One o'clock. Would you be gone? Honestly, how many of you would sit and wait If they kept telling you hour after hour, He's coming! He's coming! How many of you would wait? How many of us would sit and wait? Look again at verse 11. And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while until daybreak. So not only did they stay after midnight listening to Paul preach, after Eutychus is brought back to life, they go and they have a Q&A session. He conversed with them until daybreak. They sat through hours of preaching and then had a Q&A session until the sun came up. Is that not a demonstration of the love of the Word of God and a love for God's people? And I'm again just thinking about that. I'm reminded of the brothers in the Philippines. We came in late one evening on the way back to them. And it was, I don't know, 10 o'clock or so when we got there. And when we got there, Pastor Tim said, I want you to meet with some of the brothers when you get here. There's several of them that are part of our school here and probably 10 or 11 of the brothers, they want to meet you and they want to talk with you. I'm like, Pastor, it's probably going to be, you know, 10 o'clock or so before we get there. They said, no, it's fine. It's fine. And so we get there. It's late in the evening. It's 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock. They had prepared snacks for us. And they put us in a small little room with these other brothers, about 10 or 11 of them, and they asked us theological questions, one right after the other, until 1.30 in the morning. Pastor, tell me your thoughts about this. Pastor, tell me, what are your thoughts about this passage? Pastor, tell me, how would you deal with this situation? We had a Q&A session until 1.30 in the morning. How many of you were up for that? And as we bring this to a close, preaching should never, never be devoid of teaching. A preacher's preaching should never be devoid of teaching. I had someone tell me one time, oh, you're one of those teaching pastors. It was not intended to be a compliment. But Paul says that God has given to the church the pastors and teachers, the pastor-teacher. A pastor is a teacher. A sermon's primary purpose is to provide biblical instruction and truth to its hearers. That's the primary purpose of a sermon. And some may say the primary purpose of the sermon is to impart the gospel. Well, that could be true. But not every sermon is directed as an evangelical message to convert someone. Brothers and sisters, let us not forget the role of the pastors to feed the sheep. It's to feed the sheep. They said, well pastor, you're not preaching Christ and you're not opening up the altar for an invitation. Do the sheep need to be converted? Now there might be false sheep. There might be wolves in sheep's clothing. But brothers and sisters, the sheep need to be fed. not coddled with shallow Christianity. They need to be taught. They need to be instructed. And it's too often that modern preachers cut their sermons short for the sake of time. How many times have you heard this? Well, brothers and sisters, there's so much more to cover, but we're going to have to stop right there. Why? Why? Why are you stopping right there? Why? Any takers? Why does the pastor stop his message for the sake of time right there? Why? The door's open. Do what? Pleasing the people. So now, who's leading the flock? Are the sheep leading themselves, or is the shepherd guiding the sheep? Why must the message be cut off? And yes, I am familiar with the phrase, the brain can only absorb what the rear end can tolerate. I am familiar with that. I know you get to a point where you're like, I have to get up, I'm hurting physically, right? I've been on those 18-hour plane rides where it's physically painful. I get it, right? I get it. Uticus, however, is sitting in a window sill. A stone window sill, not a padded pew. even after he fell out of the windowsill and was killed. Get this. Did somebody tell him, hey, Brother Paul, the people are obviously a little tired, might want to reconvene some other time. What did they do? They went back up to the third floor and went to David. They're not done! No, no, no! Death does not stop us. Eutychus is given life back, and they go back upstairs. Not only do they go back upstairs to finish their Bible study and have a conversation with Paul, and it says there, notice it's different, he prolonged his speech at the beginning, right? That is preaching. That is proclamation, a sermon-type instruction and teaching. In verse 11, we see that he conversed with them. That's a back and forth dialogue, this conversation. Right? So there's a difference in what was going on. But, notice when Eutychus fell and was killed, one of the primary reasons they had to go back up, they hadn't had the bread yet. They hadn't broken the bread yet. That was still sitting there prepared, waiting for them. I've read many books on this. I've read a lot of books on sermon preparation. I'm well aware that there are some who say that the sermon should be no more than 20 minutes. I even had somebody come to me and tell me face-to-face one time, said, you know, brother, it just went long. You know, somebody told me once that if you can't say it in 20 minutes, it probably doesn't need to be said at all. Well, why don't you go tell your pastor to tell the Apostle Paul to shut up? Right? There are some things that cannot be illustrated and proclaimed in 20 minutes or less. Length does not a sermon make. You hear me? Length does not a sermon make. Is the Word of God being proclaimed? And if so, how long does it accurately take to proclaim that Word? That's the length of your sermon. Is it 20 minutes? In some cases. Is it an hour and a half? In some cases. John MacArthur says, as long as it takes to cover the passage adequately. It's a good way to put it. John Stott says, it doesn't matter how long you preach, it should feel like 20 minutes. Now maybe that's where the 20 minute stigma comes from. But John Stott did not say a sermon should be 20 minutes. John Stott said, it doesn't matter how long it takes. But the people should be engaged with the Word of God to the point where it feels like they've only been sitting for 20 minutes. Look at verses 7, 11 one more time as we close this out. Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight. Verse 11, he conversed with them a while longer until daybreak. Paul intended to depart the next day. He had plans to leave, and it was paramount that the people in this church gathering get the instruction that he was providing, even if it took all night long to do it. He's like, I have somewhere I have to be. I'm leaving tomorrow. And by golly, this information is critical. Having points and poems in your sermon is fine. Having great illustrations and alliterations is wonderful. But if a preacher does not take the time necessary to teach and feed the sheep, then the flock is being deprived. And it's my prayer that God would give you a hunger, give you a passion for the Word of God. To not just sit through a Sunday service and say, wow, God's Word is amazing. But then Monday, God's Word is amazing to you. And Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, that God's Word is amazing to you. That someone can say, oh, you know, well, I was reading my Bible the other day. And you go, oh, what were you reading? And they say, I was reading from John 14. And you go, oh, my goodness gracious. You haven't really thought about what that's talking? And then you're just, you stand in amazement at the Word of God. I pray that God would give our church a passion for His Word. To be together. Half a day, half a night, all day. Whatever it takes to say, let's sit down and talk about this text. Pastor, what do you think about this? Hey brother, tell me your thoughts on this. And not only do we have preaching and teaching that are taking place, but we're able to have conversations around the Word of God. And that you would have the mentality about you that would say, I mean even if it went into the wee hours of the morning. I don't care Because I love the Word of God Let's pray together