Well, our text is Acts 8, verses 1-4. Acts 8, verses 1-4. Again, appreciate the effort that you put in for this today. People brought food and everything else. I know there was enough food there for everybody, okay? So, appreciate everyone doing their part, praying. You know, I was thinking about this today. Every unsaved soul that came to our church service today was led to Christ. Not all of them received Christ, though. And you see, that's our responsibility. Our responsibility is to lead people to Jesus Christ. But we don't save them, okay. We lead them, we urge them to receive Christ, but they have to do it. And we'll see that in Paul's ministry, where he went to Athens, not many people got saved there. Okay, not many would receive it. That happened in Jesus' ministry. That happened in the various ministries, but they were led to Christ. Reaction that people made and and really whereas I'm reading the eighth chapter here of Acts tonight If you read the seventh chapter of Stephen's sermon, he read he led a large group to Christ, but they stoned him Okay, but he led them to Christ And says our responsibility is to lead people to Jesus Christ giving them the gospel But that's all we can do after that. It's up to them to respond. It's a personal decision. They have to make And so let's do our part, let God work through what we do, and then the results are between that person and God. But we need to do our part in love for God and in love for our soul. We don't want anybody to go to hell. Why would we want anybody to go to that place? I can't think of a good reason to. All right, Acts 8, verses 1 through 4 is our text. And Saul was consenting unto his death. And at that time, there was a great persecution against the church, which was at Jerusalem. And they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house and hailing men and women, committed them to prison. Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere, preaching the word." Now, shall we pray? Father, as we look at this church history, Lord, the beginning of the local churches, Lord, as they were getting off the ground there in the book of Acts, we see your great work. And Lord, we see people that were willing to pay the price of faith. that the faith might spread. We're here tonight because there were people then that paid the price. You worked in them, you worked through them, and Lord, you still want to do that today. So I pray, help us, Lord, to be the ones that you work through, in Jesus Christ's name, amen. Saul, in our text, is the man who will later be saved, and eventually his name will be changed to Paul. But right now they're in Jerusalem, In Acts 2, 3,000 people got saved that day. That was a great, great day of salvation. Now, understand, not everybody that was there got saved, but 3,000 did. In Acts chapter 4, just two chapters later, 5,000 get saved. Near the end of chapter 5, we see that a great multitude gets saved. I mean, people are getting saved. It's great. You get to chapter 6. And you find out they had, you know, the 12 apostles, those guys were the pastors of the church. They not only had the office of apostle, they had the office of pastor. And so they pastored the churches. Now, I guess they were the first itinerant pastors because many of the churches met in homes because they didn't have the big places to meet in. so they would go from house to house preaching the Word. As a matter of fact in Acts chapter 20 when Paul says that he went house to house we like to use that for soul winning visitation nothing wrong with that but he was talking about meeting with the Church at that time and gave them the testimony. But nonetheless 12 pastors were there and they set up deacons in chapter 6 that these pastors may give themselves to prayer and study in the proclamation of the Word of God through teaching and preaching the Word of God as it is to men as they are." Those deacons were appointed to look over the business of feeding the multitude, the business of the church, and yet you have Stephen who preaches in Acts chapter 7 who's a deacon. Philip is also one of those deacons. And we'll see in chapter 8 after our text that he's used mightily of God as an evangelist. started out as a deacon. And both of these men were deacons and preached the Word of God. They gave the Gospel to lost and dying men. And so that is our work. Now, a lot of people look at what happened in Acts chapter 6 where they were feeding all the people and understand they had multitudes getting saved that had come to Jerusalem for the feast. God saved and they stayed there. don't have jobs, they don't have incomes, and so forth. So people that were saved that did live there began to sell properties and other things to give that these people may be taken care of. However, in Acts chapter 1, verse 8, Jesus said that they would be witnesses unto Him both in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. places. He says both. He means doing both at the same time. That's why a local church does both here and missions. Okay. And so, at the same time, we have faith promise, and yet, here in our own area, we are to be witnesses. And so, I believe the Lord allowed the persecution that hits in our text because these people are staying in one place. They need to get out and spread the gospel. And so, that happens as a result of what happened there with the great persecution. A lot of people like to look at this in our text, in Acts chapter six, should I say. They want to look at that as, you see, you have Acts four and five where they were selling their things and giving them to take care of people. And they say, that is socialism. No, that was not socialism. That was not socialism at all. You see, the difference between Christianity and socialism is this. Socialism says, what's yours is mine, so they take it from you. Whether it's through taxes or any other way, they're going to take it from you. That's socialism. Christianity says, what's mine is yours. As they're led by the Lord Jesus Christ, they give. The first one, socialism, takes it by force. The latter one gives it by love of heart for the Lord Jesus Christ as he leads them to give. Now understand, the Lord actually gives us guidelines in the book of 1 and 2 Thessalonians about giving. If a man won't work, he doesn't eat, he says. You know, we don't help anybody just to let them be lazy and just give them money to eat. Go to work. Go to work. Not because I say so. It's not a Republican or Democrat thing. That is a Bible thing. And the Bible's always right. Regardless of what man says, the Bible is always, always right. You've heard me quote on several occasions from the book of Ephesians in chapter 6, verse 13, where it says, Wherefore, taken to you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, having done all to stand. The men of God and the people that were saved took a stand for the Lord. and they gave out the gospel there in Jerusalem. But they were now under great persecution for doing so. And now they're finding out the price of faith. Faith has a price. I'm talking about living by the Word of God. Not just believing what it says, but living by it. That's faith. Believing it is only a doctrinal statement. It's faith when we live by it. Today we live in an age where 7 out of 10 nations that are killing and imprisoning Christians, and doing great physical persecutions to them with rape, and starvation, and beatings are Muslim nations. We know the last or two there ago when we had the raid and killed the top guy there for them in Islam. It was called the Kayla Mueller raid. Kayla was a Christian. She was over there to minster among them. When they caught her they did the most unthinkable, unfathomable things that you don't mention in mixed company to that young lady until they finally killed her. So the recent operation that was carried out successfully by our military also revealed the savage, the very savage hatred for the Gospel of Christ. Seven out of ten nations are Muslim that hates Christians and persecutes them. Two of the other three are communist countries. China being the biggest one. North and South Korea, North Korea should I say. So they are persecuting Christians, putting them to death, beating them, putting them in prisons, and doing whatever else that would come to the mind in the area of persecution. All for their hatred of the Gospel of Christ and His righteousness. But that brings a question. If our church was attacked, threatened to stop or they would burn us out or some other thing they would do to us. Would we stand? We may not be facing that today, but it's not too far away in America. Would we stand? Would you continue If you were chased out as those in our text was speaking about, if you were chased out as they were, would you continue to stand for the Lord Jesus Christ? Do we have eternity in our hearts so much that even if we were hit with the horrible torture that are carried out by the enemies of Christ, that are carried out by the enemies of the cross, that are carried out by the enemies of righteousness and of the faith. Do we actually believe Romans 8, 18, where he says, for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us, speaking of eternity. Now, as I told you, Kayla Mueller, I don't know about her spiritual life, but evidently she had some backbone to her. But she went over there and died for her faith. And when you read of some of the atrocious things they did to this girl over a period of time, you say, how could anybody call themselves human and do those things to her? And yet as Christians we believe, and obviously Kayla believed this, that the sufferings that she had, as great as they were, are minute in comparison to the greatness of the glory that shall be revealed in us. That's faith. That is a living faith. True faith believes as these apostles believed. And as all these people in our text believed. In our text, we first see the circumstances in verse 1. And notice there are three things about the circumstances there. First, Saul was consenting until Stephen's death. And I just preached this sermon in chapter 7. Saul, at that time, was a member of the Sanhedrin. And as a member of the Sanhedrin he had a power, he had the power, governmentally, politically to consent to this death, to this stoning of Stephen. But what I find is interesting that there's an ing at the end of consenting. Meaning this happened over and over, but it was right there. Obviously there were people that were there that heard the sermon did not get saved did not react to it in the way that Those those priests and the others ascribes and so forth reacted. He didn't they didn't react that way and Obviously they thought this did not demand the penalty that Stephen was paying They had not Converted to Christianity, but they knew this was wrong and they were asking him over and over in other words Saul had a chance to change his mind had a chance to stop it and he did not. But Stephen's boldness for Christ, his utterance that did not allow anyone to be indifferent to the Word of God caused those people to have respect for him and for the stand that he took. The second thing I see the circumstances caused him to be under such persecution that scattered abroad. After Paul is saved and Barnabas tries to bring them to the local churches to introduce them to the Apostles, they're so scared of him they're hesitant to allow him in because they've heard of how much damage he's done to the church, to the people of God. They want to make sure that this is not something that's underhanded and just another tool of the devil. also find it interesting that when Paul does get saved he immediately takes a stand, preaches Christ, and the people of Tarsus want to kill him, or Damascus should I say. They want to kill him and he's let over the wall in a basket to escape. I do like basket theology, okay. Sounds pretty good. And it is the wise thing to do at times. You see, it's not cowering, rather it's regrouping in order to continue the mission that's been given. You see, they don't abandon their mission. They're going to witness in Jerusalem, and Judea, Samaria, and the other most parts of the earth, they're going to carry that on But you see, they realize they can't carry too much further if they don't escape from the present moment. Today in which we live, we can look back at that generation and say, man, what a generation of Christians they were there in Acts chapter 8. But that generation cannot lead our generation to Christ. That's our job. That's our job. Ours is to evangelize this present generation. There's a vast difference between cowering and regrouping. Cowards do not go back to the fight. Cowards will no longer take a stand. And then the third thing I see in this first verse, they are scattered from their homes. Some may go back to the areas they came from. witnesses there. Some will be scattered to areas where they never lived. But what I find also is interesting it said there in verse 1 that they were scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the Apostles. You ever wonder about that? Why weren't the Apostles scattered when everybody else was scattered? Well, God established the first local church in Jerusalem. when you read those Apostles, because they were actually reading the words of Jesus Christ, they weren't putting their own words in there, whether it's James, whether it's Peter, whether it's Paul, or any of the other Apostles, John. When you read what they have written, you realize that that doctrine that they wrote in the Bible, every word that the Holy Spirit breathed out to them, they didn't write their own words, they wrote the Spirit of God's words. But if they went by those words, we know one thing, get some backlash on this, but we know one thing we know they were Baptists. Alright, they might not have even called themselves Baptists, but their doctrine was Baptist because it was Bible, true Bible doctrine. Now, so they were scattered from their homes. They went all these different places to but they were empowered by the Holy Ghost. I think one of the reasons the apostles weren't scattered is the fact that these people had to realize it wasn't the apostles who empowered them, it was the very Holy Ghost of God. This preacher doesn't empower anybody, it's the Holy Ghost of God. Now, I have said it in a position of authority, it says we need to do this, we need to do that, or whatever, but I do not empower people, the Holy Spirit of God does that. Now, that tells us then to be in the Word of God. Do what He says. Find out what He's talking about. Stay in the Word of God. Pray daily. Be a witness. Go all out regardless of the circumstances. Eternity will prove that it was worth it all. You know, unpersecuted Christians may come from very nice homes and have long life on this earth. But I sincerely believe when they would not stand for Christ, although they knew Him as Savior, when they would not stand for Him in this life out of fear, they'll find out that what they had in this life was not worth it. It wasn't worth it at all to not stand because they're going to be ashamed and not be able to do anything about it. they get to heaven, it's too late. You can't add. You can't make up. It's, that's it, saved so as by fire. And in this short lifespan that we have here on earth compared to eternity, it was not worth it at all. Well, we see in verse 2, Devout men in Jerusalem take a stand regardless of the circumstances. Look at that again. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. Now that speaks of compassion. Compassion is your pain in my heart. That's what Christians have. That's what godly Christians should have. persecuted people continue to stand because of compassion. First for the Lord Jesus Christ, for fellow believers next, and then for the souls of men for whom Christ died. They are filled with compassion. Devout men who have a solemn and fervent attention to God are totally devoted to honor Him in all their actions. whether those actions are used towards God, towards brethren for God, or to be supportive of those who stand righteously and unashamedly so, they are there. They're with them. It's not like those in 2 Timothy 4, verse 16, Paul took a stand and the others wouldn't stand with him. And Paul's prayer is, Lord, lay not that sin to their charge, just like Stephen would pray. They would not stand. He said, in my first answer, no man stood with me. Well, these guys, in verse 2 of our text, they'd watched Stephen stone for preaching the Word of God. There were others around. They saw how those men reacted to it in stoning him. They don't know what the reaction's going to be of those people towards them when they go in and take Stephen's body to be buried. But they honored Stephen. They did not worship Stephen, but they honored Stephen for the stand that he took for the Lord. Sometimes we'll talk about preachers of the past. We'll talk about a Lee Robertson, a Jack Howes, a John R. Rice, and go on down the line of preachers of the past. Say, oh, they just worship those people, they're people worshipers. No, we honor men that took the stand. Not the men that are living now and have nothing but criticism and never stood any time in any way, except to be a devil's advocate. And so these men, they stand. And they do it regardless. Their compassion is willing to pay a price so Stephen, would not be thrown in a potter's field as was Judas. And they take him and give him a proper burial. Devout Christians are Christians who stand for Jesus Christ. And they stand with those that God has placed in the position of preaching and teaching and are doing it with boldness and utterance. Stephen's sermon may have seemed hard, people around. You read that sermon in Acts chapter 7, I mean, it's hard. As your fathers have done, so have ye. I mean, he preached Jesus, but he also preached their sin. He named it. He told them what they were. They got so mad they stomped on them, they bit them, they did all kinds of things to them. And finally stoned him to death. But what was Stephen's reaction? Well, chapter 7, verse 59 and verse 60. And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And he kneeled down and he cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. Isn't that a beautiful language for a Christian to die? He fell asleep. That speaks of peace. He had peace when he was being stoned to death. He spake the truth, but he spake the truth in love, and his prayer shows that. Jesus did that in Matthew 23. Understand in Matthew 23, it'll be within a week that he is crucified. But after telling the, uh, the scribes and the Pharisees, you whited sepulchers, you hypocrites, you vipers, you serpents. I mean, he laid it out there and he named their sin. People say you shouldn't name sin today. You're going to offend people. I'm not out to offend people, but I'm certainly not going to offend God to keep from offending people. I want people to realize that their sin is sin, and they need to get it right with God. They need to be saved, but they're not saved, and they're backstabbed, they need to get right with God. But after Jesus preaches that sermon, He looks over at Jerusalem, and He says, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sinning to thee, How often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings? And ye would not. Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. Now what did He tell us in that? He said, I sent people to you that you might be saved. I sent people to you that you might get right with God. I sent people to you so you would not go through what you're going to go through. But you would not. You see, they had a free will. They would not do it. And as a result, their house is left unto them desolate. So we see the circumstances, we see the compassion of these men in these verses, but next in verse three, the Christians in conflict. There we read again, as for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house and hailing men and women and committed them to prison. Saul now is a real enemy. As these Christians are in conflict, I believe Saul himself is personally under the conviction of the Holy Ghost. He'll be asked by the Lord in Acts chapter 9 when he is converted, is it hard for thee to kick against the pricks? We're told that he made havoc of the church, but when he does get saved, we find three different times he gives his testimony, and each time he mentions Stephen's preaching. He's had them stoned to death, but the words that he said remain in his heart because God's words are living words. And they don't go away. So Saul made havoc at the church. That word havoc means to destroy, to lay waste, to devastate destruction. And the fullness of those meanings is what he was trying to do throughout his time away from the Lord, or his time that he was not saved, should I say, as a member of the Sanhedrin. It's in a Greek tense that would imply that this became an obsession with Saul. You see, that sermon, because Stephen was preaching God's Word, cut very deep. Saul manifested the out and out meanness religious devil he had in him, just like we mentioned the illustration of the Muslims, what they're doing to Christians. The meanness of devils manifesting themselves through them. Yet Saul was one of the most educated men of his day. But understand, I'm not against education. We have a Christian school here. We always want to improve the education. But education is not wisdom. You can educate a guy that is a petty thief, educate him, and then he embezzles millions. See, education doesn't change the heart. Men can be stark, raving, mad, they have a GED or a PhD. They can just be stock raving mad. 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 7 though tells us as Christians that God hath not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind. That's what we get from Him. We see that this persecution, this havoc is against the local church, and therefore Jesus considers them attacking Christ. Look over in chapter 9, verses 4 and 5. And he, that is Saul, fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, who art thou Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. Is it hard for thee to kick against the prince? That light shone down from heaven, caused him to fall off his horse, camel, whatever he's riding. And then he was there, the light so bright it blinded him. But finally he was brought face to face with Jesus and he got his heart and life right with God. Jesus can save an evil wicked tyrant like Saul and Make him the Apostle Paul What makes you think that we have anybody whether it's in our family whether it's in our circle of friends whether it's in our neighborhood Whether it's in our city or wherever what makes us think that they can't be saved If Saul can be saved can be saved. And they might react to your witness as badly as Saul reacted to Stephen's witness, but they can't do away with the words that Stephen spoke to him from the Word of God. And it lays there to convict. As we said earlier that day, they met in homes, not having access to great buildings. And they met daily. we go to church regularly, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and some people say, well that's too much. There they met daily. And they didn't have a cut off time. They met daily. I was born in the wrong era. But, As they found out that the homes they were meeting, Saul would get his soldiers together and they would go to those homes and violently haul off those men and women, we're told. As a matter of fact, the word hailing there in our text has the idea of dragging physically. It is believed that they would be bound and then dragged through the streets And that hard ground that is over there, they'd be drugged through that, unable to resist. And then after being drugged through the stony streets and terrain, they were cast into prison. You know, the word hailing has the idea, it was used oftentimes that same word to speak of catching a fish in that day, of dragging it in against its will. hook the fish, they'd drag it in against its will. Well, no fish wants to be brought back out of the water. But that's the way they used the word of catching a fish with a hook. It's the same way as dragging these people off into prison. As they were unable to resist, just like a fish would be unable to resist that hook. The Holy Ghost the right word to describe what was happening to those Christians. The prisons, they weren't well lit. They weren't what we have today. Often people must depend on, in that day, on friends for food. Now some they would feed them, but others they had to depend on friends to bring food, bring clothing, or whatever. They'd be chained. And you'll notice, was men and women. No exceptions were made for women. They were just as hard dragging them off as they did the men. Being a woman did not keep them from torture. But they were willing to pay the price of faith in order to reach souls for eternity. And as Saul had those people drug off, I wonder seeing the peace that those Christians had just was another prick. Because Jesus said, is it hard for thee to kick against the pricks? And everyone just seemed to be a sword sticking deeply into his spirit that he just could not understand. So yes, conflicts, there were men of compassion, the circumstances were terrible. But let's look there at verse 4, and I want you to see that consecrated Christians are committed Christians. Notice verse 4 again in our text it says, Therefore they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Word. They responded to the persecution in a way that that people are supposed to react, and who are going to react, and are willing to react, when they pay the price of faith. We're told they were scattered abroad, because that's what they did in that day. They consecrated belongings. You see in that day they looked at everything they had as only temporal. These Christians said, it's all for Jesus. And when they'd come in and haul these men and women off they'd take their furniture, they'd take the things in their homes. Sometimes they'd move in and take possession of their homes. These men and women were scattered abroad. But everywhere they went, they went preaching the word. It did not quiet them. The word preaching there is a Greek word, euaggelizo, which has the idea of to evangelize. That's where we get our word evangelize from. In other words, They got stopped there. They lost their possessions there, but they didn't lose the important things of the soul and spirit. And so they went witnessing the gospel. They witnessed to the loss wherever they would go. And these are lay people. That's another reason I think he says, accept the apostles in verse one. are lay people, men and women, they aren't quieted by cruel persecution. They believe the words of Jesus Christ in Matthew 5, verses 10-12 where He says, "'Blessed are they,' and this is Jesus speaking by the way, "'Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all matter of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you." In other words, the Lord says, those people are thinking they're doing you evil, but all they're doing is building your reward. I've got to admit, I don't like it when people And if you're going to be a pastor, it's going to happen. Okay. Constantly. They'll lie about you. They'll, they'll make false accusations about you. And if you take a stand as a Christian, you don't have to be a pastor. You take a stand as you ought to. That same thing will happen to you. It happens. Lord said, rejoice. They're building your reward. They're building your reward in heaven. The Lord rewards somebody that not only gets persecuted for the cause of Christ, but they stick with it even though they're persecuted. They don't quit. They don't run. They don't leave. They stay true to the Word. No matter what they say, what's said about them, what's said against them, they stay true and nothing makes them leave. And if they're scattered, They're scattered witnessing the gospel. They realize the same truth that you and I must realize. Again, there's no other generation that can evangelize the present generation, but we who are saved. They paid the price of faith. And you and I are saved because they paid the price of faith. The question is, am I, are you willing to pay the price of faith for this generation that's on the fast track to hell? Are we willing to pay the price of faith? want to talk about it sometime, you talk to Brother Mark Hopper. Every time I say something, and he's going to have to write this down, every time I say something about the sin of abortion, the sin of homosexuality. And by the way, people aren't born homosexuals. The sin of adultery. You know, what, it doesn't make sense. Well, if you're born a homosexual, you obviously were born in adultery. Well, people don't say that. Well, it's just as dumb to say people are born that way. No, people become that, they learn that, and they need to be saved. Now, everything I just said, he's got to put that in a thing somewhere because this goes over radio and internet. And he's got to write that, he's got to log that. You're welcome. But we don't, avoid saying the truth, because if we do, then we've given up on this generation. Will it cost something? Yes. But the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory. shall be revealed in us." The greatness of the suffering that can be, even if it's a Kayla Mueller, the suffering of that is going to seem minute, and it's not minute to us. When you read of what happened to her, it's not minute. But it seems minute in its greatness compared to the greatness of the glory that's going to be revealed. What is that glory like? I can't describe it. but it takes you to make a conscious decision now. Most of these people we're talking about in our text are not apostles and pastors. They're lay people, men and women, who had some backbone, spiritual backbone, to take a stand for Christ because they believed the truth of God's word. So I close with, are you willing to pay the price of faith for your home, for your loved ones, for your country? It's a question you answer. Because paying the price of faith means you don't cower when the first volley of bullets come in. Rather, you stand and then you withstand, having done all to stand. Let's bow our heads, please. Precious Father, in a moment we're going to sing hymn 476, I Surrender All. That's what this is talking about tonight. I surrender all. I'm willing to pay the price. All that I have, all that I am, I'm willing to pay the price. I believe that whatever price I pay here on earth will seem minute to the greatness of the glory in heaven. I'm willing to pay the price. And Lord, that is a statement, but that's also a commitment of compassion, a commitment of love, dedicated love, true love for Christ. And I pray that that people, each of us, would consider making that commitment tonight. In Jesus Christ's name, amen.