And I invite you tonight to please open your Bibles to Acts, chapter 14. Acts, chapter 14. Acts, of course, is not a book of doctrine. It's a book of history. The development of the early New Testament church. Under the direction of the Holy Spirit's guidance. Obviously, it was a missionary-minded church. It was an evangelizing church. It was a church that got out from behind its four walls into the community and into the fields of the world all over that region. And I'm afraid that so often our churches all over the world today, that where we call ourselves New Testament Bible-believing churches, maybe we really aren't. Maybe we really aren't. When we come to the pattern of the early New Testament church, and we see what God intended for His church to be, many of these churches in the New Testament, to which the epistles were written, had some big problems in them, like churches today all have. These letters were written to address those problems. I mean, from the day of its infancy, the church had problems. It was never a perfect church because it's made up of imperfect people like all of us. And I used to hear my father say to people, if you're looking for a perfect church, don't join it because it would become immediately imperfect. And so it is. But the Lord of the church has a lot to tell us about how he wants his church to be. what he expects us to do, and that we must aspire to. And this New Testament church in the book of the Acts was a church that was in conflict with the culture wherever it found itself, particularly in conflict with the religious culture of its day, as true today. The New Testament church in an unhealthy and hostile soil where it was planted. And so too must the 21st century church. The New Testament church of the scriptures indicates that Christianity, the spread of the gospel, the spread of the knowledge of Jesus Christ was more important than the church's existence or the pastor's existence. They went to jail. They went to death for the sake of the Savior. It was all about Him, not about the church, certainly not about a building, not about the existence of their congregations. They knew that because of the Roman Empire and the hostility of the Judaism of their day, they would likely die for the Savior. And there was a boldness, there was a virility. They understood that the preaching of the message of the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ and His bodily resurrection from the grave would awaken the consciences of men, that there was power here to awaken dead consciences, religious consciences, pagan consciences. And unashamedly and untimidly they went into all the world proclaiming the gospel to every creature. And they were met with hatred and with rejection. And I want us to look at just a little slice tonight, briefly, of the sort of thing the New Testament church was all about. Lest we should think that when we are opposed And we're not much opposed today, are we? If a church doesn't believe much and doesn't practice what it believes, nobody cares. Opposition comes when the message that this world hates is brought onto their streets, is exported from behind our walls into all the world. Let's pray and ask God's blessing upon this first message. Father, help us to see, to understand, and to embrace. We've not come here, Lord, just to hear and to know. We've not come because we want to hear some new thing or to be reminded of how comfortable we are being secure in the Beloved, our Savior. Lord, forgive us for seeking our comforts, for seeking the embrace of a world that has put our Savior on the cross, because they didn't want Him in their world. And Lord, You put us here to bring the knowledge of the Lord Jesus to our world. Our mission is not just to assemble behind closed doors to sing the songs we love and hear the messages we love. Lord, we need you to stir our hearts. We're not much like your New Testament church. And you've given us an understanding of what the church should be. So we can please you, help us tonight, intersect us where we are, send us out differently than we are, in Jesus' name. Amen. I'm going to begin reading at verse 8 of chapter 14. Paul and Barnabas are on a missionary journey, as they often were. It started in Antioch, the Antioch that's in Central Asia, what is now Turkey. And it went to Iconium, another Turkish city today of Turkey, and of Lystra. It all happened in a small geographical location. And they were cast out of Antioch. We read in the 13th chapter And verse 50, But the Jews stirred up the devout and honorable women and the chief men of the city, and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them out of their coasts. But they shook the dust off of their feet against them, and came to Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost. And it tells us what happened in Iconium. And they were cast out of there, because these same Jews that had stirred up the people of Antioch came to Iconium and then they came down to Lystra. We begin in Lystra at verse 8. There sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother's womb, who never had walked. The same heard Paul speak, who steadfastly beholding him, and perceiving that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked. And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lyconia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men. And they called Barnabas Jupiter, and Paul becurious because he was the chief speaker. Then the priest of Jupiter, which was before their city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gates, and would have done sacrifice with the people, which, when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of, they rent their clothes, and ran in among the people, crying out, and saying, Scourge, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that you should turn from these vanities, unto the living God, which made heaven and earth and the sea and all things that are varied, who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways, nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. And would these say, scarce, the strange they, the people, that they had not done sacrifice unto them, And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and having stone-pauled, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead. Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up, and came into the city. The next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe. And when they had preached the gospel to that city, that's to Derbe, and had taught many, They returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and to Antioch. I want us tonight to witness an ugly scene that took place in Lystra. Here is a man lying dead. From all appearances, he was dead. He was battered, bloody, dying, and badly broken. And around him is a pile of stones with his blood. And I can imagine a message in Paul's blood written upon each of those stones. Everywhere the gospel went in the New Testament, it ran into conflict with the prevailing culture. It awakened men particularly religious men like these Jews and pagan men like the people of Lystra. It awakened them to an awareness that they are condemned if Paul and Barabbas are right. The message that you and I take of the saving grace of Christ into our community is an offense to people who are church people and most people are church people or some kind of idea about religion, and I believe more people go to hell through church doors than through tavern doors. And when you come with a message of salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, it's an offense, because they don't believe that. No religion of the world teaches the substitutionary death of a righteous one for unrighteous people. It all teaches about the works of righteousness which man can do to try to impress God and gain His favor. And so we go with our message. And if our message is right, their message is wrong. And they don't like to admit that. And it brings them into conflict with our message and our Savior. So there's a pile of stones around Paul. I look at one of those stones with his blood on it, and I believe that message in that stone in his blood says, Paul, we don't like your God. What kind of God did Paul preach to these pagans in Lyconia? Look at verse 15 again. We are men like you, with the same passions you have, and we preach unto you that you should turn from these vanities, these pagan idolatries, unto the Living God, which made heaven and earth and the sea and all things that are therein." They'd never heard of a God like that before. Our Living God, our Creator God, our Eternal God, our Personal God, God not formed with hands, or from men's imaginations. In our country, the religion of humanism, which by the way has twice been defined as a religion by our U.S. Supreme Court, by the way, the worship of man, man at the center of his universe, And the humanists, they have the public school classrooms for their Sunday school. We can't preach Christ in the public schools. The word of God is illegal in the classroom. Prayer is illegal in our American classrooms. But the humanists can preach their religion there every day. Their humanist manifesto, there have been two of them, the most recent in the early 1970s, This is their dogma. This is their doctrine. This is their manifesto. Here's what it says. Here's how it begins. First, we believe that traditional dogmatic or authoritarian religion that places revelation, God, ritual, or creed above human needs and experiences do disservice to the human species. As non-theists, we begin with humans, not God. Nature, not deity. No vehicle would save us. We must save ourselves. They don't like our God. The living eternal creator God, who ruled this universe and gave his son to redeem rebels like us and make us part of his eternal kingdom. And so we're in conflict with a world that says, no place for God, at least not your God. Paul preached to them a revelatory God who has given witness of himself, even to his goodness and his provision, even to his enemies. He sends the rain on the just and the unjust alike. He sends the sun to shine on the just and unjust alike. Look at verse 17. He described God this way. He left not Himself without witness, in that He did good and gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. God said, this is what I'm going to do for my creatures, even those who hate me, who deny my existence. I'm going to even bless them with good things to enjoy, to sustain them in this world. God is revealing Himself to this world that denies Him every day and in every way. The whole creation witnesses to God as man would listen, God is speaking. He speaks through His Word. And according to Romans chapter 1, He speaks through that which He has created, that men who do not have His Word, if they want to know who God is, He reveals Himself. And so it is, my friend, that you and I are here to take the speaking of God to a world that denies He even exists, let alone that He speaks. He speaks. He reveals Himself, and you and I have the privilege to tell the world who this God is, who has revealed Himself through His Son and through His Word that tells us of His wondrous works. One of those stones says, Paul, we're killing you, Because we don't like your personal, creative God. You told us about it. And I see another stone with his blood on it, and the message is there. It says, Paul, we don't like you. You. Now, they liked him a lot when he came to town. They worshipped him in Barnabas. They thought, this is the greatest thing in the world. This man's been healed. Why, these must be gods here. But when they found out from these people who had heard Paul and Barnabas in Antioch and Iconium, and then they came here and said, you don't know what these guys are saying to you. You need to hear what they said before they got to you. These are not friends. These guys shouldn't be allowed to live. And one of those stones that had Paul's blood on it says, Paul, we don't like your non-conformity. What was his non-conformity? He wouldn't let them worship him. He understood there was going to be conflict. He understood they would be insulted when he would not allow them to worship him. He understood when he didn't try to synthesize the message he had come to bring with the message that they believed and said, let's see if there's some common agreement that we can both exist, maybe we're both somewhat right together. That's exactly what liberal and unbelieving and apostate religion would love for a congregation like this to one day do. Let's see what we agree upon and let's forget all these things that divide us. Paul said, I'm not going to let you do this. It's not your way and my way together. This is the heaven way. This is God's way. And I'm not going to let you make me accept what you believe because it's patently false and straight from hell. New Testament Christianity has always been nonconformist Christianity. Gospel preachers are always being asked to change their message just a little bit to be less offensive so we can get along together. What concord has Christ with Belial? None. None. And the religion of the culture of every generation, including this first Christian generation, was, let's see if we don't have something in common. And when Paul said, no, there's nothing in common with you. We're not going to worship together, and we certainly are not going to be worshipped. We're here to tell you of the eternal, really true and living God. And they said, well, if we can't get along together, if we can't be somewhat alike, then we don't want you in our world. Paul was out of the mainstream of what the religions of his day did, and you and I are going to have to be out of the mainstream. We're going to have to refuse to let the pagans of our day, the religious leaders of our day, convince us that we have more in common than we have difference, and we just need to agree on what we have in common. That's the way to destroy the message of Jesus Christ and to send them to a crisis eternity. They wanted Paul to be God. They wanted him to be worshipped. You know what man has always wanted since the Garden of Eden? Man wanted to be like God. Man didn't want to worship God. Man in the Garden was convinced of Satan and the woman in the Garden convinced of Satan that they could be God. Throw off the shackles of God. Don't let God dictate for you. You are God-like. I was sitting in the Washington D.C. airport one time, waiting on a plane, reading. I looked up and a guy walked in with a shirt that had these words written on it. Providence under construction. God in the making. That's the New Age religion. I mean, what else is left after evolution? You know, if man came from a microbe in a swamp somewhere, and after billions of years decided that it didn't want to be a microbe, it wanted to be a man, Some female microbe halfway around the world in another swamp somewhere decided she didn't want to be a woman, a microbe, but wanted to be a woman. And after billions of years of trying to do this, they made themselves what they are. And they swam the oceans and got together, and here's this wonderful human race. And people who want to swallow the lie, the myth of evolution, If they could come from a microbe to a man, what's to keep them from becoming from a man or a woman into a god or goddess? It's the next step on the ladder of evolution. And here they were, wanting to make Paul and Barnabas gods. And they said, we won't buy into that stuff. We're just here as messengers of the true God. And they said, well, we don't like you. You're not able to be malleable enough to suit us and to conform a little bit to us, and we can conform a little bit to you. We don't like you, Paul. And I see another stone there with his blood on it that says, Paul, we don't like your message. Well, what message did he preach? Well, these same people heard him preach this message In Antioch, and that's recorded for us in Acts 13, look at what he preached. This was the message that they came in hatred of. Paul said in Acts 13, 35-38, Wherefore he saith in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine holy one to seek corruption. He's quoting here from the Old Testament, of course. For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers, and saw corruption. But he whom God raised up again saw no corruption." That's our Savior. Just as he said he would rise again on the third day. They preached unto these people Jesus and the resurrection. That was a message they couldn't stand. You see, my dear friend, everything the Lord Jesus preached and taught during his earthly ministry is authentic if he's alive from the dead. It was the proof of everything he claimed about himself as deity, everything he taught. He's proved it by his resurrection. declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, Romans 1.4. It was the authentication. If he told his disciples, I'm the resurrection of the life, He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And he that believeth in me shall never die. If he taught that and he had died and stayed in that grave, there would be no reason to believe anything he taught. None. I was flying over Saudi Arabia years ago, sitting next to a Muslim man, witnessing to him about Christ. He said, Oh, we believe in Jesus Christ. We're Muslim. Jesus is one of our prophets. I think they have what, 13 or 14? Adam and Moses, Abraham and Moses, and he went on down the line, Jonah. And Jesus was one of our prophets, and our last prophet was Mohammed. I said, where is Jesus, your prophet, Barry? Well, he said, I don't know. Well, I said, where is your prophet Mohammed? Oh, he's buried in Medina. We can go see his bones. Okay, I said, he's buried in Medina, you know that. But you don't know where Jesus buried your prophet. No, he said, I don't know. Well, I said, he was buried in Jerusalem. Three days he was dead. He rose again the third day as He said He was. And you know what? If Jesus Christ got Himself out of the grave, He's more than a prophet. He did what your prophet Mohammed could not do. And all the prophets that you claim you believe before Him could not do. He's God. He's not a prophet. And if He's God, you need to bow before Him and worship Him and make Him your God through His Son. And neither one will talk about that. Paul and every one of the New Testament preachers made much of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the grave. It's the keystone of the arch of our faith that binds all the rest of the span together. If you take the keystone out of an arch, it will collapse. You take the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ out of our faith, and it collapses. Every day, every Sunday, we come to worship on the Lord's Day. We come on the Lord's Day because it's the day of resurrection, the first day of the week. We're celebrating his bodily resurrection every Lord's Day when we assemble ourselves together. They didn't like that message. The world doesn't like that message today. But we need to never be silent about that. We need to sound it out everywhere we go. And every time we get a chance to witness to people, we ought to try our best to talk about our living Lord Jesus. And then quickly I see another stone there with Paul's blood on it that says, Paul, we don't like your divisions. Your divisions. Look at verse 4 of chapter 14. Here's what it says about Paul's preaching and Barnabas' preaching in Iconium. The multitude of the city was divided, part held with the Jews and part with the apostles. The Lord Jesus said, I didn't come to bring peace, but a sword. The message of the gospel divides, it divides families. It cuts. It makes a separation. It requires that people take one side or the other with Christ or living and dying in lostness. No middle ground at all. Paul's world was an ecumenical world. The Roman Empire was an ecumenical world. Our world was an ecumenical world. When the Roman legions would conquer their enemies, They would have great victory parades through the streets of Rome, and they would carry the images of the conquered nation at the front of the parade, showing that we have conquered the gods of these people. The early New Testament church was fed to the wild beasts, were sawn asunder, suffered terrible atrocities, Because they wouldn't bow and worship the emperor, the Roman Caesar, the god of the Roman Empire. Everywhere the Christians went, there were divisions. Are you going to worship Caesar, or are you going to worship Jesus Christ, the living God? Divisions. an ecumenical world, a world that wants oneness, a world that wants global everything, military, economy, everything. The world that will welcome the Antichrist one day as the one world ruler, that will unite this pagan world, claiming to be Christ himself, the Antichrist. All religions saying we really are one, we all worship the same God, Even in the days of the early church, there was division over who Jesus Christ is. And his name still divides and still creates hostility toward believers who love Jesus Christ. And lastly, in verse 10 of chapter 14, I see a stone of Paul's blood that says, Paul, we don't like your influence with God. Verse 10. Well, let's go back to verse 8. There sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, being crippled from his mother's womb, who never had walked, the same heard Paul speak, who steadfastly beholding him and perceiving he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet, and elite, and walk. The Apostle Paul didn't have enough influence to stay out of jail. In any town where he went, he headed straight to jail because of the message that he preached. My grandfather used to say, Paul didn't ask when he came into a town what kind of hotel he had there. He said, what kind of jail do you have there? He knew that's where he'd spend most of his time. And so he did. He didn't know the mayor. He didn't know the city council. He had no influence of men. He didn't have enough influence with these people in Lystra to keep from being stoned. He couldn't call out the police. They killed him. But he had enough influence with God to be raised up after he was stoned. Verses 20-22, As the disciples stood round about him, he rose up and came into the city. Then he departed with Barnabas to Derbe and so forth. Didn't have enough influence with man from being killed, but he had enough influence with God to be raised up. Now, my friends, in conclusion, what does it take to stop us? Intimidation? Threats? Sneers? Rejection? No, don't give me that track. I don't want to be part of that. Humiliation. This was all a part of New Testament Christianity. It's the reproach of Christ. It's bearing the reproach of Him who bore our reproach on the cross. Can we not bear His reproach as we seek to be ambassadors for Him and make Him known to this world? What kind of Christians are we if we shun the reproach of the Gospel? How much do we love souls? What personal sacrifice are we going to go to to tell the world who Jesus Christ is? I find it very interesting to note that Timothy, Paul's son-in-the-table, who inherited his mantle, if you will, the one in whom he invested so much, was a citizen of Lystra, where this atrocity against Paul took place. You read in verse 21 that after he departed from Derbe, can't you see him leaving Lister, can't you see him leaving Lister after he rose up and departing unto Derby? His friends maybe tore their shirts up and put bandages all over his head and bound him up. Maybe his arm was broken, maybe his leg was broken from those stones. They made a makeshift splint for his arm. They took some limbs and made a little splint for his leg. made another limb for his crutch, and they gathered around him, and he's limping out of town, and they're all trying to help him. And verse 21 says, when they had preached the gospel to that city, Derbe, had taught many there, they returned to Lystra, and to Iconium, and to Antioch. They were unstoppable. They didn't flee. They came back. They loved these people. They loved their souls. God had sent them. My grandfather used to say, the test of your character is what it takes to stop you. My friends, it costs something to take the gospel to this world. The gospel is free, but the cost to get it there is not free. The cost is personal. Will you pay this personal price to take the gospel to your neighbor? Colleague at work? Somebody you're able to engage a little while in the conversation? When Paul was writing Timothy in the second epistle to him in the third chapter in the tenth verse, He said, Timothy, you had fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, charity, patience, persecutions and afflictions, which came to me at Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra, and what persecutions I endured, but out of them all the Lord delivered me. There probably would not have been a Timothy in the ministry if Paul had not gone back to Lystra. If he had not that kind of tenacity where this young man saw the Lord means everything to this man and his companions. He must be a wonderful God, a great Lord. He must be somebody worth giving your life to. This message must be more important than their lives. Maybe my life would be made of some value if I could take this message that this world so desperately needs, and there's so few to tell. So it is, my friends. This is New Testament Christianity. It's lived outside of these doors. May the Lord put in our hearts a mission to become real New Testament believers. of the sort that the scripture says the early church was made up of. Father, thank you. Thank you that you can use dust like us that you have redeemed, put your spirit into, put your message into, given us a commission to take it everywhere. day after day, locally and to the ends of the earth. Lord, maybe we'd become weary in well-doing. It's so easy. Lord, I pray you'd stir our hearts. Maybe there's some in this room who have, in years past, been zealous for your name. It might have cost them a job. a good income. They may have paid some kind of price in their own family because of Christ. They may have been disowned by their parents. Many people are when they get saved. They may have paid a price, and they loved you, and in recent years have just cooled off. They're happy to come here and get fed. with the manna from heaven to relish in the riches of grace and just to be so happy to be saved and lost all vision for a world that needs to be saved. So Lord, maybe we just need to have a flame of sacred love rekindled in these cold hearts of ours. We're all susceptible to that. I have been susceptible to that so many times, Lord. You've rebuked me. You've rekindled that love. Lord, if somebody here needs to have that freshness, that fresh remembrance of how thankful and excited they were when they came to Christ, when you've redeemed their soul, Lord, it's just getting to be kind of old. The old, old stories getting old and old in our hearts. So Lord, I pray that you stir us up. We're going to stand before you one day. Going to be in thy presence. To give an account to me of the works of our stewardship. Of our ambassadorship. Lord, it might be soon, it might be today. What we do, we must do quickly. In Jesus' name, Amen.