If you believe God's great, say amen. Amen. Hope you all had a happy holiday season. We had a wonderful service here on Tuesday night. We had 47 in attendance on Tuesday night and six visitors. It was just a beautiful service. And I thank you all who came for attending and for all who didn't. And thank you for praying for us. We do need your prayers all the time. We are studying or preaching through the book of Acts on Sunday mornings. And today we are in Acts chapter 13 once again. So if you have your Bibles with you, please open them to Acts chapter number 13. Next Sunday, Lord willing, I'll be talking about 2014, the Paul Pitchum things we have planned with the Church family. kind of a vision, kind of a message to cast the vision of the people next Sunday morning. So if you're here next Sunday, you'll hear about it. And again, if you can't be here, please do pray for our travels and the upcoming services next Sunday morning. Acts chapter 13. I'm going to start in verse number four and read down through verse number 12 this morning. Acts 13, beginning in verse number four. So they being sent forth, they being Paul, Paul and Barnabas. So they being sent forth by the Holy Ghost departed unto Seleucia, and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. And when they were at Salamis, they preached the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews. And they had also John to their minister. And when they had gone through the aisle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew, whose name was Bargesus, which was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man, who called for Barnabas and Saul and desired to hear the word of God. But Elimas, the sorcerer, for so is his name by interpretation, withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him, and said, O fool of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. And immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness, and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand. Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of the Lord. And all God's people said, Father, we thank you for this time together this morning. We are asking, Lord, that you would help me to rightly divide the word of truth and that the rightly divided word would be an impact and has some effect on the hearts who are here this morning as we talk about the Spirit and the work of missions. But God also, Lord, it might fall upon the heart of one who's never trusted you as their Lord and Savior. God, I pray your Spirit would do His work this morning and your Word would not return unto you void, but would do what you sent it to accomplish. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Remember, last Sunday of course we talked about the birth of Christ, but two weeks ago on Sunday we talked about what churches do. Acts chapter 13 speaks of the church at Antioch. And what they seemed to do at Antioch was to pray and to preach and to fast and to pray and to preach and to fast. They did a lot of spiritual exercises and God had His hand upon that work there. at Antioch, and during the time when they were praying, and they were preaching, and they were fasting, the Holy Ghost separated two men from that congregation named Saul and Barnabas, and He had a work for them to do. And we have defined that work in our age, you know, from even a theology standpoint or just a doctrinal standpoint, as the beginning of the missionary work of Christianity. Remember that Jesus, before He left the earth, He told the disciples who were there, they were going to be witnesses for Him, right? In Jerusalem, and in Judea, Samaria, and to where? The uttermost part of the earth, right? And so now, finally, the uttermost part of the earth is going to begin to be evangelized. The infancy of it will be starting with these two men going out as missionaries, please understand this, sent from the local church at Antioch. I want you to understand that. These men weren't doing something of their own accord. They weren't being sent out by the church universal. They weren't being sent out by a Bible college. They're being sent out from the local church at Antioch. I think it's very important that we understand that because we still believe today that God still works through his local churches. We do. We believe that. And so I praise God for this local assembly here in Prescott, Arizona. And I was thinking this on the way to the church this morning. Prescott, Arizona, used to be the uttermost part of the earth. There was a time when this area was not evangelized. But somebody had a vision to come this way, and the gospel of Christ came this way, and we can thank God this morning. If you're saved, you can thank God that somebody considered this area or the place where you're from, the place where you accepted Christ, as the uttermost part of the earth, and you accepted Christ as your Savior. Today we're going to look at a little bit of the work of missions that Paul and Barnabas were privilege to be a part of, and really how that same work that Paul and Barnabas started is still going on today and is still making a major impact, even in the life of Liberty Baptist Church. You see, even in our own small church here, we have the blessing of having Two missionary wives who were not really raised in this church, but who were for a time a part of this church. Rebecca Cozell, she married Jeremy Hall, and now Jeremy and Rebecca are missionaries to the nation of South Africa. They've been there for a month now. Isn't that wonderful? And then we have my daughter, Jillian. She married Micah Dorr, the dirty rat sucker in Mexico. Did I say that out loud? I didn't mean to. But they're in Mexico. They've been there for, what, four years now. evangelizing down there and they started a church in Alamos. They're at the point where they're ready to turn that church over to a national pastor when God raises up the man and all those things come into play. But it's just wonderful to see how missions like Paul and Barnabas did it, is still happening today. Where there are just people being called by God to go and to minister to those in the uttermost parts of the earth. And so we're going to look at this this morning. Very quickly, you know the drill, right? I won't keep you long, I never have. So, let's look at this together this morning and maybe get some insight and some help from this. Saul and Barnabas, Paul and Barnabas are going to be sent by the church at Antioch. The Holy Ghost is going to tell them where to go. I'm not even going to go there, but the Holy Ghost is going to tell these two men where they need to go. I am going to say something. I think some of the worst advice you could get is from people. I'm just saying that. If you are going to get advice, can I just caution you to get advice from those who are spiritual people, who believe the Bible is still the Word of God, I'm just saying that's probably the best advice you can get, the best counsel you can get. And Saul and Barnabas here, they weren't told by the church where to go, they weren't told by a board where to go, they weren't told by a Bible college where to go, they weren't told by their pastor where to go. The Holy Ghost sent them forth, and they went to Seleucia, and from thence they sailed to Cyprus. Now, we're just talking about 120 miles. from the church at Antioch, now they are making way toward the island of Cyprus. And, you know, it's amazing to me, I was reading some background about the island of Cyprus. The island of Cyprus, in their day, would be like how Hawaii is to our day. It's a major vacation destination. Maybe if you're living on the East Coast, it'd be like the Barbados, the Bahamas, the Bermudas, Puerto Rico, a major vacation destination. So much so that the island of Cyprus, get this, was known as the Happy Island. Who'd like to go to Happy Island this morning? I mean, that sounds like a great place to go. And you find out that they had a very robust economy, that the climate was optimal all year round, a very temperate, mild climate. Not a lot of the storms that come on the Mediterranean, things of that nature. It was a shielded island from that. A very good economy. People were welcomed. Travelers were welcomed. Tourists were welcomed. The casers were welcomed. And they said that the island of Cyprus was just Cyprus. Cyprus was the happy island. I thought, wow. I'd like to go there, a happy island, and vacation there, and see the sights there, and be a part of that. But you'll find out, though, as you do more study about the island of Cyprus, there was a temple built there to the goddess Venus. Who's heard of her before? Venus is the, let me make sure I get my mythology correct, the Roman goddess of love. There's Aphrodite, and there's Venus. They're the same. They're parallel. excuse me, false gods, mythological gods. There was a temple that was built to Venus and you're not going to believe what I'm going to say next, but every woman of age was required to present herself at the temple of Venus at least once in her life for the sake of prostituting herself. And then to give the proceeds of the prostitution to the temple fund. So what looked happy to vacationers and tourists, maybe the world view was in general saying, wow, Cyprus is the happy island. For those who really lived on the island, can we say this? There was some underlying darkness, negativity, wickedness that went forth. And that's the case wherever you go. No matter how happy things look on the outside, there's going to be some kind of underlying unhappiness, some underlying wickedness, or again, the powers of darkness at work. And so your first thought is this, well, why would God send Paul and Barnabas to the happy island? Because God sees through happiness. God sees through fabricated, manufactured feelings, joy, all those things. He sees through those things and He sees the real need of man. When I talk about perceived needs, when I talk about felt needs, the real need of man, according to the Creator of the universe is this, is that sinful man must be reconciled to a holy, perfect God. So that makes the preaching of the gospel one of the most important undertakings on the face of the earth. It's one of the most important undertakings that one can put into their employ in their lifetime, the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Someone say Amen. We're in church this morning, amen? We proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness. We believe that it is the true way of salvation. We believe that it's the only way that man could enter in through the gates of heaven. Isn't that right? And we find it to be a very important undertaking at Liberty Baptist Church, Sunday after Sunday. So God sends Paul and Barnabas to the Isle of Cyprus, the Happy Isle, knowing this, that underneath that happiness, there's this looming gloom, this pending darkness that must excuse me, oppressive darkness that must be dealt with, with the light who is Jesus Christ. And they went to one town, they were in Salamis, and then they went to another town called Paphos. And Paphos, my understanding, is the town where the governmental seat was on the Isle of Cyprus. And while they were there, they met a certain sorcerer. In verse number 6, and I want you to see some things about this sorcerer that are very eye-opening as to what Paul and Barnabas are going to encounter on this first missionary journey. In verse number 6, And when they had gone through the isle unto Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a what saints? a Jew whose name was Bar-Jesus. This man Bar-Jesus, anytime you see that word Bar, in the Hebrew talking about the son of. So son of Jesus, his father's name was Jesus, not the same Jesus we're preaching right now, but I understand this. He was the son of Jesus. He was a Jew. He was raised in the Jewish traditions. He would have had Jewish ethnicity. He would have had some kind of tie to one of the tribes of Israel and he probably would have known who that was. But he kind of got off the narrow way, can we say that? And instead of being a Jew religiously and being a Jew ethically, he traded that all in, and he said, I'm going to be a sorcerer now, and he was known as a false prophet, and he changed his name from Bar-Jesus to Elimus. Pretty interesting right here, because what he's doing, by being a false prophet, by committing sorcery, and by changing his name from Bar-Jesus and changing it to Elimus, what he's doing is this. He's dispensing with all of his family history. All of his lineage. In other words, he doesn't want anybody to know he's a Jew. He's a false prophet. Hey, there's money in false prophesying. There's money today. and false prophesying. You can find it on your television. Amen. It's all over the place. It's interesting that it's this false prophet who denied his lineage, who denied his heritage, who denied whatever manifestation of the truth he was exposed to in his lifetime. He's also the one who's kind of the sidekick of the deputy of the island named Sergius Paulus. This idea, the word deputy means this, that the Roman government had placed Sergius Paulus as a sort of governor over the happy isle. Pretty good duty station. Somebody say amen. Yeah. Where did you serve? Well, I served at Cyprus. I served at the Happy Isle. Well, wow, what a blessing that must have been. But his sidekick, isn't that funny? Isn't that interesting? His sidekick was this minister of darkness, this sorcerer. Boy, I could go on for an hour about the origin of the word sorcerer and the powers that these sorcerers would call upon. And one of the things they would call upon is something called pharmakia. Is that familiar to you at all, pharmakia? Where we get our word, pharmacy. Pharmacology. They would use certain drugs and potions to put other people in an altered state of mind. What do we do today? I read the news every day. I don't devour it, but I read the headlines and I see what's going on in our nation and around the world. One of the popular Christmas gifts this year were these football-like jerseys. had numbers on the front like they do in football players. Instead of having a name on the back, it said Xanax, Vicodin, Percocet. Yeah, because our country's in love with pharmakia. We don't want to fix the problem. We want to dose the problem. Somebody say amen. And so we get a lot of that altered consciousness. And I'm not trying to tell anybody to go off medication. I'm just saying this follows doctor's orders. But also, understand this, we've got to be careful about thinking that we're lucid when our mind is really under the influence of some kind of drug or other kind of pharmacology. Amen? Do you understand what I'm saying? He was the right-hand man. He was helping the governor of the Happy Isle along. And the governor of the Happy Isle, he heard somehow or another, and news travels fast, good news travels fast and bad news travels faster. He heard that Paul and Barnabas were on Cyprus and he inquired of them. He wanted to know where they were because he wanted to hear the Word of God. That's weird. That's really rare. If somebody were to say, Pastor, can you come over? I want to hear the Word of God. I would think it's a crank phone call. I mean, not from you folks, I'm saying from somebody who was lost and didn't know the Lord, things of that nature. It does happen from time to time, and people will inquire things, but I'm telling you, what a strange request, especially considering that the one who's tagging along with him is this man, Elimus, and you find out this, that Elimus wanted nothing to do with the Word of God and the ways of God, and he began to cause trouble in verse number 8, but Elimus, the sorcerer, for so is his name by interpretation, withstood them, withstood Paul and Barnabas, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith." What are we finding out here? Is that Limas recognizes the truth when he hears it, but he rejects the truth when he sees it. He doesn't want anybody else to be impacted or influenced by the truth of the Word of God. Why? He's going to lose his job. He's not going to be the right-hand man of the governor anymore. The Governor's not going to want anything to do with the powers of darkness, once he sees what the truth is, and understands that Jesus saves, understands the power of the gospel, how it has the power to transform, again, sinful man into a child of God, whereby he has given us a spirit of adoption, and whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The darkness doesn't want that light to come on. Is it true that if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost? And somehow they're lost, because the God of this world has blinded them. It's exactly what happens here, and it's exactly what Paul and Barnabas are seeing here, that Elimas has been darkened by Satan, by the powers again of darkness, by the prince of the power of the air, and he wants to turn away. Paul and Barnabas from preaching the Word of God, but also turn away his buddy, Sergius Paulus, because he doesn't want him to hear the faith. And Paul, this gives him just a little dose here of what Paul's going to do all of his missionary journeys. He says in verse number 9, then Saul, who is also called Paul, filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him, I don't know if he can say this today, but he said it. He said, O fool of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord? The reason I say you can't say it today is because people don't like the truth. It rubs them the wrong way. I don't know how many of you actually watch Duck Dynasty or know what that is. But a man said the truth, boy, he's getting fried for it right now. People don't like the truth. Again, whenever an absolute truth is mentioned or believed, the enemy will try to quash that truth out of existence. We say this, same thing that Jesus told Thomas, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man come to the Father but by me. Pastor, are you saying that the Buddhists are going to hell if they haven't trusted Jesus? Yes. Are you saying that the Muslims are going to burn in hell if they haven't trusted Jesus as their Savior? Yes. Are you saying that good men and good women who give to charity and donate their time and work in shelters and volunteer countless hours of their lives to helping others are going to go to hell when they die if they haven't trusted Jesus? Yes. That's the truth. Don't like it. But Paul said this later on. He said, have I become your enemy because I tell you the truth? That's what truth is. Truth is truth. Truth hurts. Ever been hurt by the truth before? Maybe the truth is hurting you right now. And Paul said, you child of the devil, shut your wicked lying mouth. What he said. That's my hopperism of the Bible, okay? Pervert the ways of the Lord, he says. Pervert the right ways of the Lord. Verse 11, I love this. And now, behold, the hand of the Lord is upon thee, and thou shalt be blind, not seeing the sun for a season. He turns to him and says, let me tell you something, Bob. You're going to pervert the ways of God? You're going to try to hear your buddy from hearing the Gospel? God's going to blind you for a season. Oh yeah, when's He going to do that? As soon as you blink your eyes again, buddy. And a mist fell upon him, and darkness surrounded him, and he was going through life trying to find someone to lead him by the hand. The power of darkness for this time had been defeated. Understand this, that ultimate victory is in the hands of God. The battle belongs to the Lord. The Lord will be the victor of every battle on this earth. Someone say Amen. But understand this, Elymas was now taken out of the way. God did his work on this man's life. He's stumbling around blind for a time, and immediately there fell on him a mist and a darkness, and he went about seeking some to lead him by the hand. Look at verse 12. Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed. Now if you stop right there, it looks like that Sergius Paulus got saved because blindness fell on his body. But keep on reading. Don't stop. in your Bible reading because it will give you bad doctrine. OK, look at this. Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believe, watch being astonished at what, Saints? The doctrine of the Lord. The teaching about Jesus, the one who said that His wounds plead for my sin. Somebody say amen. His blood covers my soul. Praise God to that truth. It wasn't about the fact that some guy who was causing trouble was blinded and surging and said, well, I don't want that to happen to me, so I'm going to believe. Because that kind of belief, God's not going to look favorably upon anyway. He wants people to put their belief in His blessed Son. Paul said this later on in his life. He said, I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. It is the power of God unto salvation. The Jew first, and also to the Greek. Or here, the Cypriot. Or the Roman. Or the American. Or the Presbyterian. It's the power of God unto salvation for every man. Hey man, we're living in a day and age where missions are starting to go by the wayside. It's sad because, and there's a lot of things, I understand this, I understand money's tight. Money's tight at Hopper House too, it really is. It's difficult sometimes to put the money towards missions that you want to put towards missions. Missions has to go forward. Missions was the heartbeat of God at the Church of Antioch. He said, let's send these two out. Let's see some souls saved. Let's see the power of darkness quenched and quelled for a time for souls to be saved. Maybe a church can be started here in Cyprus and it can become a lighthouse on the Isle of Happiness. And then, you know, from there they're going to go to Antioch and Pisidia and they're going to go to all the uttermost places of the earth that God will send them to. And you even find a time in Paul's life where he wants to go this way, and the Spirit says, no, go that way. And again, we have to understand that missions is the heart of God, and we who have been saved by the power of God should have at least this, a burden and a gratefulness for those who came to our part of the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We can't say, well, we're saved, it's all good, we're going to stop. It can't stop. As long as people still have breath, the gospel cannot be stopped. And we must continue to have a burden for worldwide evangelism. Well, Pastor, you don't know, but I just believe in the sovereignty of God. And so do I. And the sovereign God sent Paul and Barnabas to preach the gospel to a lost and dying and darkened world. Amen. Let's not get behind our isms. They say, I don't care anymore. But I'm telling you this, if you were still lost, you'd care. Amen? If you've got lost loved ones, you ought to care. If you've got children who do not yet know Christ as their Savior, you ought to care. I went through a time when I thought I was sure, because the way my son was living, that he couldn't have known Christ, that he must be on his way to hell. But God started to change his heart around, his attitude around. He's doing wonderfully. I don't talk about him much anymore because I'm trying to talk about him. He does something wrong. He's doing wonderfully now. He's starting a job this past week. He's starting a job helping others in a Christian rehab center to break their addictions and to teach them about Jesus. He's been preaching the Word of God in chapels. I'll tell you what, when I thought he was lost, I used to bring down the I try to bring the glory of heaven right into my home to say, Lord, get a hold of Marcus's heart. Even though he's done wrong, you know he's wronged me. Even though I have at times written him off, Lord, he still doesn't deserve the fires of hell. And I can't say that anybody does. We've got to care about people. About missions. about getting the gospel out to those that are, I guess, what's the word today, in our sphere of influence? We work or we're tired. We're teachers. We work in health care. Some are just shiftless people that hike all day. I don't know, you know. No, not you. But, you know, we have to care about people. I'm so concerned because it wasn't originally Paul In Barnabas, who were concerned, it was the Holy Spirit who said, there's a need and you must go. And maybe the need is this is for me to see to tell the Lord that you're you're ready and you're able and you're available. To do whatever he will, maybe he's going to send you somewhere, that'd be fine. I'd love to have a missionary raised up out of this assembly and go into some foreign land, preach the gospel. Bless my heart. Even if it's Matthew one day, I love Matthew. I want Matthew to stay here forever and be my second man. I do. But if God says, Matthew, you need to go to, well, Chino. Chino could use some missionaries. Somebody say amen. Whatever it is, you know, that's God working. We don't want to get in God's way, do we? We don't want to get in God's way with our own lives and say, Lord, you know, you can use me, you can send me. Lord, maybe I haven't been involved in worldwide missions as much as I could have or should be. But today, Lord, I'm ready because I care like you care about people. Amen. Let's all stand. I don't know if God spoke to you this morning or not. I hope he did. I hope somewhere along the line he got your attention about something that we mentioned from the word today. Maybe you're one who's been concealing the truth. It's time let the truth go out and the gospel go forward. Maybe you're here this morning and you know beyond a solid doubt that God wants to use you in a greater way, but you've been resisting his using you. It's a great privilege to be used by the almighty God of heaven if he, in fact, wants to use you for the furtherance of his kingdom. I can't imagine there's a person here this morning who God calls his own child. He doesn't want to use in some shape or form this morning some way to further his beautiful kingdom. Maybe God's getting a hold of your heart this morning because you know beyond a shadow of doubt you're not saved. And you will, when this life ends, if God does not intervene, you will lose your soul for all eternity in a burning hell, a place that the fire is not quenched, where the worm does not die, where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth, a place that ever burns with fire and brimstone. Maybe you're here this morning and God's just saying, you know, pastor, you need to get more involved in evangelism, both worldwide and here in my Jerusalem. I know, to be honest, I would doubt I've not been doing what I could be doing. So come this morning and give your burdens to the Lord, give your heart to the Lord, ask him to help you. Maybe he's going to send you, ask him to send you. Where to go? I don't know the hearts this morning, but God does. If he's spoken to you, please take time and speak to him. Father, we again bless your name this morning. We thank you for the stories we can read. They were written a long, long time ago, but they're for our admonition, for our example. And Father, this church at Antioch in many ways was a model church that prayed and they fasted and they preached and they sent forth missionaries and you used them in a mighty way. Father, why can't this church be a church like that, where we fast and we pray and we preach and you raise up servants and you send them on their way? Our Father, use us here locally to reach our neighbors and our loved ones and those we work with, with the beautiful gospel of Jesus Christ. And God, again, if there's one here this morning that does not know you as their Savior, Father, they need to take care of that today. Father, you know that. Father, I believe that. Please convince them of that truth. In Jesus name, Amen.