Turn with me in your Bibles to Acts chapter 14. Using your pew Bible, you'll find tonight's passage on page 923. Here now, the word of God beginning with verse one in chapter 14 of the acts of the apostles. Now at Iconium, they entered together into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way that a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of His grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. But the people of the city were divided. Some sided with the Jews and some with the apostles. When an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews with their rulers to mistreat them and to stone them, they learned of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lacaonia, and to the surrounding country. And there they continued to preach the gospel. Now at Lystra, there was a man sitting who could not use his feet. He was crippled from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul speaking and Paul looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well, said in a loud voice, stand upright on your feet. And he sprang up and began walking. When the crowd saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices saying in Lakaonian, the gods have come down to us in the likeness of men. Barnabas they called Zeus and Paul Hermes because he was the chief speaker. And the priest of Zeus, whose temple was at the entrance to the city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates and wanted to offer sacrifice with the crowds. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard of it, They tore their garments and rushed out into the crowd crying, men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of like nature with you. And we bring you good news that you should turn from these vain things to a living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations, he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he did not leave himself without a witness. For he did good by you, giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness. Even with these words, they scarcely restrained the people from offering sacrifice to them. Here ends the reading of God's word for this Lord's day. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you that you never do leave yourself without a witness. Your most blessed means of witnessing unto yourself is the reading and preaching of your word. Your word is transformative. It changes us. It has changed us. No longer can it be said of us that every intention of the thoughts of our hearts are only evil continually. By your spirit, enable us now to think your own faults after you, that by the renewal of our minds through testing, we may discern what is the will of God, what is good, acceptable, and perfect. For Jesus' sake, we pray this way. Amen. Counting the city of Antioch from last Sunday evening sermon and including the three cities listed in today's passage, there are a total of four cities that the apostolic preaching team have targeted for gospel evangelism. We saw in Sean's sermon last week their ministry in Antioch of Pisidia was primarily directed to well-educated and biblically literate Jews. At the beginning of our passage tonight, the apostles enter the city of Iconium, a sprawling, economically thriving city with a Jewish synagogue and sophisticated, well-educated pagans as well. Iconium was located in a high mountain plain. You can think of it as the Denver, Colorado of the ancient world. When Barnabas and Paul ran eventually, as we read tonight, into a buzz saw of Gentile and Jewish opposition in Iconium. These two servants of the word then flee to Lystra and to Derby. And how should we describe those two towns? Well, someone from their chamber of commerce might say they were rustic, quiet backwaters filled with simple bucolic Gentile folk. Others more honest might say they were illiterate, superstitious pagans, many of whom made their homes in caves with a reputation for thievery, little regard for civil law. In fact, they had become, by all accounts, a real thorn in the side of the Roman governors. Very different communities indeed, these four. Different religious and ethnic identities, different educational levels, even different languages. The one constant in this travelogue recorded in these sections of chapters 13 and 14, the one constant are the apostles themselves, the travelers themselves. Paul and Barnabas are center stage here. So I've chosen tonight to focus on them and on their ministry. In other words, I've chosen to focus on ministers and ministry. While pastors in our day are not identical to these apostles, mainly in that supernatural miracles of the sort the apostles saw and which are recorded again here, you know, in verse three, signs and wonders accompanying their ministry. Those kinds of things do not regularly accompany our work. But on the other hand, the apostles did not have the blessing we enjoy in a completed canon, a full New Testament. We have, in fact, despite these differences, far more in common with these witnesses than we do not in common as gospel preachers. You know, I love pastors. I have great affection for pastors. I love working with the pastors here at Sovereign Grace. Much of my work beyond the Sovereign Grace Church involves encouraging and counseling other pastors. It's a role that really just sort of developed over time. I meet also monthly with a group of pastors and several elders for study. Another group I meet with about four times a year for a full day for accountability with them and close personal prayer. Most of my best friends, not all, most of my best friends are ministers of the word. In fact, we actually came to Charlotte years ago in large part because we felt I could mentor young aspiring pastors who would be attending Reformed Theological Seminary. Now I want to be clear, I know full well that pastors are not an end in themselves. Pastors are just servants of the church and of the gospel. The church does not exist in order to give pastors employment. I've told a seminary intern or two along the way, that I thought he should wrestle with the question of whether the Lord was calling him into the ministry of the word and sacraments. And I've even told a few ordained pastors that I believe for the good of the church and really for the good of themselves that they should consider leaving the ministry. Pastors are not the be-all and the end-all. I've also been put in the position of trying to help lay people better understand pastors and pastoral life, something I think I've not really succeeded at very much. I hope tonight to do more of that. As I reflected on these 18 verses for this evening, I realized that we could really glean a lot on this subject through this passage. First of all, we see above everything else that faithful ministers are committed to the word of God and to preaching. This is our central passion. This is our primary purpose. Even as Paul and Barnabas preached at Antioch, so now they preach the gospel in the Jewish synagogue in Iconium, where they remained, Luke tells us in verse 2, they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord. And so we must boldly speak for the Lord. We must preach his word. And when we encounter challenge in that work and trouble in that work and seeming lack of fruitfulness in that work, we do not change our strategies. We preach more, even for a long time in a place, as Paul said, or as Luke said. For God, we believe, according to Paul's first letter to the Corinthians and the entire pattern of the New Testament, God has put his special blessing upon preaching. In the words of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the word, an effectual means of convincing and converting sinners and of building them up in holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation. In choosing to specially bless preaching, our God has chosen to bless what is in many ways the least of these. In the ancient world, and just like today, The favored means of communication were drama and music and rhetoric and poetry. Preaching was then considered, and I would argue is still considered, to be the red-headed stepchild of communication methods. Yet it is the primary means the Lord God chose to save sinners and to sanctify them by his grace. You know, I think there's also a parallel to the way God has chosen particular men as preachers for his people. Truth be told, we preachers are often the least among our brethren. The chief of sinners, as the Apostle Paul called himself. For indeed, we know better than you do that we have this treasure of the gospel in earthen vessels, as we heard this morning. We also know we communicate that treasure of the gospel through the most humble of methods, And that is exactly the way our exalted God would have it. And so we must pursue faithful preaching with all that is in us. Frankly, many men in the ministry just don't work hard enough at preaching. I told one of you just this last week that if you think about it, all ministers really have at the end of the day, all we preachers really have is personal integrity and our speech, our words. If either of those is ruined or lost, if either personal holiness or commitment or competency with holy words is lost, we're done for. There's nothing else that we can give people of value. So as we read here, the apostles continued to preach in Lystra and Derby, verse seven. So we, brothers and sisters, We who are called to it must continue to preach in season and out of season to large crowds and to any crowd when it is received with gladness, when it is received with madness. So still we must preach and we must go on preaching. And when others retire at age 65, we'll wish them well. We're going to continue to preach as long as we can preach. As long as there's someone to preach to, we must preach. And that dedication to the means of grace which is preaching, we do not only study the word of God and the doctrine of the church. We also have to study people. You know, men who do not understand people, and nobody understands people perfectly. And those who do not empathize with people. Do not make good pastors and preachers, no matter what technical skills they may have. Otherwise, Paul and Barnabas, you may have noticed they preached everywhere they went and they preached Christ everywhere they went. But they didn't preach Christ in exactly the same way everywhere they went. Think of how they preached to those educated and primarily Jewish folk in the congregation at Antioch, which Sean detailed for us last week. They drew on the whole history of the Old Testament, going all the way back to Abraham. But if they had preached that exact same sermon in Lystra to the illiterate Gentiles, it would not have connected with them at all. So we read in the last part of our passage that in Lystra they preached about the God the local people saw in nature. The God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. The God who gives them rains and fruitful seasons and satisfies their hearts with good food and gladness. In other words, they preached from a context the people would understand. And then they begged them to turn from the worship of idols to a living God, which would hardly, if you think about it, would hardly have been an appropriate appeal to make back in the synagogue in Antioch. You see how they they end with Christ, but they start in different places because, in fact, they're in different places with different people, and yet they've read their listeners well. Faithful preachers must not only read the word, we have to read human beings. We have to study how human psychology works, how the fallen human heart works. We also have to study how the spirit of God works. You know, when Paul is speaking to the, to the rough pagans in Lystra, crippled man there begins to pay especially close attention to his words. We read in verse nine that Paul looking intently at him and seeing that he had faith to be made well said in a loud voice, stand upright on your feet. Paul was studying his congregation as he preached to them. So also we must intently study people as the spirit of the Lord begins to work in them. We need to learn what that looks like. You may not know this, but sometimes when we're preaching, We sense and we see the Spirit of God move across a congregation like a wave, and especially upon certain people. The great Presbyterian preacher, Dr. Donald Gray Barnhouse, put it this way. He said, there have been numerous times in my own ministry when while I was speaking from the pulpit, I've seen a response on some particular face in the audience, and I knew the Holy Spirit had begun a work of grace in that person. Frequently, after the meeting was over, that person would come to me and tell me that at that precise moment he knew he just knew that Christ had died for him. And that he was now truly born again. What a joy it is to see that. The ministry is joyful. And yet there are paradoxes within all of this. Though we are servants of the Prince of Peace, whose reconciling word we gladly preach, and though we are servants of people as well, people to whom we seek to minister with empathy and understanding and friendship, nevertheless, we are promised conflict in life precisely because we do these things. over and over again in the book of the Acts including in last Sunday's message about Antioch and today's passage about Iconium and we'll see next Sunday in Lystra where Paul is stoned again and again we see the servants of the word run into opposition and conflict. You know when you see something over and over again in the Bible you might deduce and you should deduce that God is repeating things for the sake of our learning to come to full confidence in what he's teaching. I was reading in my devotional reading earlier this week about the time Joseph was interpreting the Pharaoh's dreams. You remember that? You recall how Pharaoh had two dreams, one about seven emaciated Egyptian cows eating seven plump cows. Yet the said cows remained gaunt and ugly afterward. Another dream about seven withered thin ears of wheat which consumed seven healthy ears of wheat and how these dreams both pointed to the same seven-year famine that was coming upon the nation of Egypt. And so why do you think there's two dreams to teach the very same thing? I never noticed, I think, until this week what Joseph said about repetition in those dreams. Joseph said, And the doubling of Pharaoh's dream means that the thing is fixed by God and God will shortly bring it about. Repetition. So what do you think the assumption is that we should make about the repeated opposition and conflict which so often followed fateful preaching in the book of Acts? I'll tell you what we should assume. we should assume that the relationship between faithful preaching and conflict is fixed by God and he will shortly bring it about. Whether it is local unbelievers who right quickly label us holy rollers, fundamentalists, homophobic, oppressors of women. I once had a phone call when we lived in Hendersonville at the church office and the man just said, You people believe women should be in burkas, right? Slams the phone down. Unconverted church members who complain about the frequency of the theme of sin and repentance in our ministry. Folks who drift in and out of the church and its membership rather casually and never expect to be challenged about this. Anonymous letters that pastors get, unsigned letters. You wouldn't believe the letters we get sometimes. Or men in our own presbytery who would grumble about us, that our doctrine is too tight or too loose or something. The hits just keep coming. And we should not think of something, that something strange is happening to us when they do. For the differences between people that the gospel produces, not just reveals, but produces, are not merely differences of opinion. They reveal differences that cut deep into the core of what it means to be a human being. When Luke tells us in verse 2 that the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their mind against the brothers, the word he uses for unbelieving can more literally be translated disobeying. People oppose the gospel, not just because they disagree with it. They oppose the preaching of the gospel because they oppose God himself through their disobedience. Unbelief is disobedience and all disobedience is based in unbelief. Moreover, when Luke tells us in verse four that the people of Iconium were divided by this preaching ministry, there the word he uses for divided is the same root word that the English word schism comes from. So you understand faithful preaching brings division. It brings schism. And you see, it has to be this way. For before the gospel is preached in a place, when the gospel has never come to a place or never powerfully come to a place, there's relative peace in the community. Because all is subdued under the dark rule of Satan and the looming specter of coming judgment and eventual death. Gospel preachers create a schism, a divide within that controlling darkness. Indeed, our goal is to create schism, not within the Church of Jesus Christ, but within the megachurch of the devil by preaching the gospel of God's great grace with its power to unify people in a new way, by grace instead of by fear, by love instead of by hate, by service instead of by manipulation and domination of others. So we're not We preachers are not only to be found to be gentle shepherds, ministers of the word are to be holy warriors, warring against the evil one and plundering his treasure through conversions to Christ. It was said of J. Gresham Machen, who was Presbyterian professor, preacher who was persecuted by the mainline Presbyterian church almost a hundred years ago now. and who helped found Westminster Seminary, and whose photograph, by the way, is now on our senior pastor's office wall. It was said of Machen, who was a warm and gentle man by every account. In fact, he was almost always, in every faculty where he taught, the student's favorite professor. It was said of Machen, we loved him because of the enemies he made. Or to put it another way, we loved him Because regardless of the consequences, regardless of the opposition, he stood for the truth of God's word. Because we are warriors for the truth and warriors against the principalities and powers, faithful ministers are especially subject to the attack of demons and their captain, the devil himself. I don't say that lightly or for effect, and I do not find demons behind every bush. People are usually their own worst enemies in life. But it's different with pastors. How often I have felt, and how often my dear pastor brothers have felt this awful Monday morning, sometimes even Sunday night, late Sunday night, depression. You've done your best on Sunday. You think of a hundred things you should have done better, but you did what was your best that day. It all seems woefully inadequate. The people in your church seem woefully unmoved and unchanged by it all. And right then, the evil one slides alongside your mind and whispers to you, wouldn't you like to be doing something else with your life? You know God doesn't care. whether your ministry is well-received or not, the enemy has gospel preachers in his sight at all times. There's another thing. Though we have this exalted work which is part of the great cosmic battle which Christ has already won by striking the deciding blow, in other words, though we are on his triumphant team, doing truly holy work. We are mortal men like other men of like nature with you as Paul said in this text. And we must live in the world like everyone else must live in the world. In verse 6 we see that Paul and Barnabas have to flee from Iconium when the lynch mob begins to form. You know, I think one of the most common misunderstandings that people have about pastors is they assume that because we're doing the Lord's work, therefore we have a special protection, an aura of blessing in our lives and over our families, which keeps us from having to endure the miseries everyone else must sometimes endure. It is not so, beloved. Paul and Barnabas have to get out of town when their deaths appear imminent. Pastors have to take care of our families and go to the doctor and the dentist and pay our bills and keep intruders out of our homes at night and maintain our marriages in the same way you have to maintain your marriages. Put down our sick dogs, deal with disappointing children, cranky neighbors. Sometimes, frankly, we have some challenges others typically don't have. I know I've probably told you all this before, But when Nancy and I left the mainline denomination in 1998, but stayed in the same town where we had been before, former church members with whom we had had the warmest relationships would turn their grocery carts around in the store so they would not have to come by and speak to us. At another time in our ministry, when I and the session I served with had strong conflict with a delusional and we thought dangerous young man, I kept a loaded 38 caliber gun next to my bed for several years. Now Paul and Barnabas just had to leave town. We are not immune and we have no special advantages over others. Finally, in our reading, we see what is the most subtle danger of all in gospel ministry. Most subtle danger. The most subtle danger is not what happens when we struggle and don't seem to prosper in the ministry or grow depressed over things. The most subtle danger is what happens to us when we succeed. In verses 8 or 11 through 18. Immediately after the miraculous healing of the crippled man, we see the citizens of Lystra and even the local priest of Zeus declare that Paul and Barnabas were gods who'd come down in the likeness of men. And that priest, that pagan priest brings an oxen along. He's going to sacrifice to make sacrifices to these two men. Now the background on all this is really quite interesting. John Stott writes about it. He says, about 50 years earlier, the Latin poet Ovid had narrated in his work Metamorphosis an ancient local legend. The supreme god Jupiter, or Zeus to the Greeks, and his son Mercury, Hermes to the Greeks, once visited the hill country of Phrygia disguised as mortal men. In their incognito, they sought hospitality but were rebuffed a thousand times. At last, however, they were offered lodging in a tiny cottage thatched with straw and reeds from the marsh. Here lived an elderly peasant couple who entertained the two gods out of their own poverty. Later the gods rewarded them, but destroyed by flood the homes which would not take them in. And John Stott writes, he says, it's reasonable to suppose that both the Leisteran people knew this story about their neighborhood and that if the gods were going to revisit their district, they were anxious not to suffer the same fate as the pitiable Phrygians. And then Stott goes on to point out that there is also recent archaeological evidence that the local population worship Zeus and Hermes along with other local deities. So no wonder When they saw an authentically supernatural miracle, they thought Paul and Barnabas were Hermes and Zeus visiting them again. The gods had come back. They were testing them again regarding their welcome and hospitality. It was interesting that they thought Paul was Hermes and the larger and more physically impressive man, perhaps Barnabas, was Zeus. Hermes or Mercury in the Latin was a fleet footed messenger. In fact, Hermes, or Mercury, is the figure represented today on the FTD florist emblem. You may think about that. So Paul, the great traveling communicator, the messenger of the gospel, was naturally thought to be Hermes by them. Now, all this just appalled the servants of the word, of course. The apostles tear their garments and rush out into the crowd saying, men, why have you done these things? We also are men of like nature with you and we bring good news that you should turn from these vain things to the living God. Faithful ministers, faithful preachers want nothing to do with preacher worship. Faithful ministers detest the cult of personality that now commonly forms around the most popular evangelical preachers in America. Faithful ministers of the word are sickened by the thought that after they might leave a church or leave this life, the congregation they once led would collapse because it was built on them and their personalities, not the enduring truth of our Lord Jesus Christ. I've even told young pastors, Never say the words, my church, or speaking of another preacher, so-and-so's church. Church doesn't belong to any man other than Jesus Christ himself. You've heard this story before, but it's one that must be told again. One of the great biographers or one of the biographers of Charles Spurgeon recounts the time in the 1880s when a group of American tourists were visiting England and they had a special desire to hear some of the celebrated preachers in that land. So on a Sunday morning they attended the city temple where Dr. Joseph Parker was the pastor. Some 2,000 people filled that building and Parker's forceful personality dominated the service. His voice was commanding, his language was descriptive, his imagination lively, his manner animated. The sermon was scriptural. Congregation hung upon his words. And the Americans came away saying, what a wonderful preacher is Joseph Parker. That evening they went to hear Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle. The building was much larger even than the city temple. And the congregation was more than twice the size. Spurgeon's voice was more expressive and moving, his oratory more noticeably superior, but they soon forgot about the great building and the immense congregation and the magnificent voice. They even overlooked their intention to later compare the strengths and weaknesses of the various preachers when the services were over. And as they left the Metropolitan Tabernacle, they were heard saying, what a wonderful savior. is Jesus Christ. That's what gospel preachers want more than anything else. For people to say, even through the ministry we give them, what a wonderful Savior is Jesus Christ. We want to decrease so that he might increase. That is our joy. In contrast, The danger of preacher celebrityism is a poisonous threat to the church. We must increase. We must decrease. So brothers and sisters, see how many dangers there are on every side for us. Yet at the end of the day, I can honestly say from my heart, for all those who are truly called to it, being a minister of Jesus Christ, is the greatest calling on the world. For despite everything, we are privileged to declare such good news so that men and women and boys and girls can turn from the vain things of this world to worship and serve the living God. The God we represent is so good, sending rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying even his enemies' hearts with good food and gladness, and then sending his only begotten son to make natural enemies into true friends and beloved sons. It's the gospel itself that makes our work so wonderful. And part of that gospel, and we'll end with this tonight, Part of that glorious gospel is that the ultimate success of our preaching does not depend on us, but on the very one whom we preach. Look would you at verse 3. This is, of all these wonderful verses, this is my most treasured verse in this text. So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace. Let me repeat that. Who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. It is Christ himself who bears witness to himself, to the word of his grace through us. What an inexpressible privilege it is to be used by God in any way, but especially in this way. What a good hope. What a strong confidence we gain when we see that Christ Himself is the real preacher, bearing witness by the Spirit to His own person and work. He must increase. We must decrease. For He is everything. For in Him, not in us, but in Him, truly God has come down to us in the likeness of a man. Let's pray together. Our Lord Jesus Christ, we praise you, Lord, for bearing witness to yourself through the ministry of the word. You are the great preacher. You're the great minister of the gospel. You enable us to turn from vain things to the living God. We see in our ministry People coming from opposition to God, to love for God, from being lost and bound in sin and darkness and judgment to liberated and joyful in the light of Christ. These are the great signs and wonders that attend our ministry today. They are indeed miraculous works of your spirit. We do thank you for the instruments you use. We thank you for the pastor preachers of our lives, even those we knew as children. who helped us along the way. We thank you supremely for Jesus Christ, who bears witness to himself through these means of grace. In his name we pray, amen.