Well, please take your copy of God's Word and turn with me to the book of Acts, as was mentioned by Pastor Smith a few moments ago in Acts chapter 13. Acts chapter 13. I want to read a couple of verses at the end of Acts chapter 12 to introduce the passage and then drop down to verse 13 of chapter 13. But the word of the Lord continued to grow and to be multiplied. And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their mission, taking along with them John, who was called Mark. And then we hear of them being set apart and sent out by the Spirit, and we read in verse 13, Now Paul and his companions put out to sea from Paphos and came to Perga in Pamphylia, but John left them and returned to Jerusalem. But going on from Perga, they arrived at Pisidian Antioch, and on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down. After the reading of the law and the prophets, the synagogue officials sent to them, saying, Brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the people, say it. Paul stood up and motioning with his hand said, men of Israel and you who fear God, listen. The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with an uplifted arm, he led them out from it. For a period of about 40 years, he put up with them in the wilderness. When he had destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan, he distributed their land as an inheritance, all of which took about 450 years. And after these things, he gave them judges until Samuel the prophet. Then they asked for a king, and God gave them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years. After he, that is God, had removed him, that is Saul, he raised up David to be their king, concerning whom he also testified and said, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all my will. From the descendants of this man, according to promise, God has brought to Israel a Savior Jesus. After John had proclaimed before his coming a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel, and while John was completing his course, he kept saying, what do you suppose that I am? I am not he, but behold, one is coming after me, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie. Brethren, sons of Abraham's family, and those among you who fear God, To us the message of this salvation has been sent. For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, recognizing neither him nor the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning him. And though they found no ground for putting him to death, they asked Pilate that he be executed. When they had carried out all that was written concerning him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb. but God raised him from the dead. And for many days he appeared to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now his witnesses to the people. And we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers, that God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that he raised up Jesus as it is also written in the second Psalm, you are my son, today I have begotten you. As for the fact that he raised him up from the dead, no longer to return to decay, he has spoken in this way, I will give you the holy and sure blessings of David. Therefore, he also says in another psalm, you will not allow your Holy One to undergo decay. For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid among his fathers and underwent decay. But he whom God raised did not undergo decay. Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. And through him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the law of Moses. Therefore take heed, so that the things spoken of in the prophets may not come upon you. Behold, you scoffers, and marvel and perish, for I am accomplishing a work in your days, a work which you will never believe, though someone should describe it to you. And Paul and Barnabas were going out. The people kept begging that these things might be spoken to them the next Sabbath." We'll stop our reading there at this point in time. Let's once again ask for God's help as we come to his word. Let's pray. Our Father, tell us in your word that you are not a man, that you should lie, nor the son of man, that you should repent, that everything you have said is true. Lord Jesus, you said while you were here on the earth that you are the way, the truth, and the life. And Holy Spirit, we acknowledge that you are the spirit of truth. And so we come to you, our triune God, and plead with you that you would be merciful to teach us the truth as it's in keeping with your character, as it's in keeping with the work and the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, and as it is the Spirit's work to reveal the truth and to enlighten us to understand it. Help us. Help me to declare the truth faithfully. Help us to understand the truth. for the good of our souls this day, and for the glory of our Savior, for the glory of your name, we ask in the name of Jesus Christ this morning, amen. Well as I noted some time ago in Acts chapter 13, we're seeing this verse in chapter 12 worked out to the verse that describes the Word of the Lord continuing to grow and be multiplied. And we're seeing that spread out before us in chapter 13. We've already seen in chapter 13 in verses 1 through 3 the servants of the Word of God there in Antioch. And then in verses 4 through 12, we looked at the opposition to the Word of God there on the island of Cyprus. This morning, we want to come to the proclamation of the Word of God there in Pisidian Antioch in verses 13 through 41, and Lord willing, we'll actually finish the chapter this morning. As we come, again, keep in mind this reality that we're seeing something of the Word of God growing and being multiplied. We need to ask ourselves, how is that happening? Well, let me just give you a summary as to how that happens in this chapter. It happens geographically because it's in this chapter that we read of what was commonly called the first missionary journey of Paul And so we see the Word of God going out from Jerusalem, it's gone to Antioch, now we're seeing it go to Cyprus, and then we're going to see it move on to Asia Minor in a place called Pisidian, Antioch. And so geographically, the Word of God is spreading, it is growing. We're going to see it grow in terms of its clarity. It's going to be more and more understood what the Old Testament says about the Lord Jesus Christ and how he is the fulfillment of that word. And so we're going to see something of that word growing and as a word being multiplied. In verse 44, there's something of its popularity, at least for a flash of a moment, where nearly a whole city wants to hear this word of God. But then ultimately what we're seeing is the Word of God growing ethnically. And that is it's going beyond the bounds of the Jewish nation. It's going beyond the bounds of the Jewish culture. We're going to see it begin to spread out into, in a fuller sense, out into the Gentile world. So we've seen something of that already in terms of the servants and the opposition. Come with me now to Acts chapter 13 and verse 13 as we look in the third place at the proclamation of the Word of God in Pisidian Antioch. The proclamation of the Word of God in Pisidian Antioch. And the first thing we note is that we've got a new direction. They had left Jerusalem, they'd gone to Antioch, and in Antioch, the Word of God, they were set apart, Paul and Barnabas, or Saul and Barnabas were set apart, and they went across the Mediterranean a bit there to the island of Cyprus, and there they went completely across that island preaching in the various synagogues. And then they leave that island and they go up to Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, and they make their way up to Pasadena, Antioch. Now, the passage just tells us that that's what they did. It doesn't tell us why, and so there's a lot of questions. Why? Was Paul strategizing? Did he choose to go there because of a strategic city, because Antioch was somehow an important city? It was a Roman colony. It had political clout, and there was economic clout, and so there was a lot of people coming and going. Is that why he went there? We're not told. Did he go there because of health? We read in Galatians chapter 4 in verse 13, when he writes to the Galatians, you know that it was because of bodily illness that I preached the gospel to you for the first time. And some say, well, you got malaria. And so he went someplace where he would be able to recover for a time. And so that's why he went to Pisidian Antioch. He may have, we don't know. or connections. It's said that in history that Sergius Paulus had some notable family there in Pisidian Antioch. And so maybe having preached to Sergius Paulus, he now goes up and he wants to minister to the rest of his family or some of those connections. We don't know. We do know that there was a sizable Jewish community there, because when he gets there, he goes to a synagogue. And so there's enough Jewish people in that city to have a Jewish synagogue. So that's where he went. This is a new direction for him. The gospel's never gone there. It's a whole new realm of time in history. Jesus Christ has died and risen again, and now these people have never heard these things. Or if they have, it's just been somebody that was passing through. And so it's a really remarkable time when the gospel is coming to new places. So having seen the new direction, I'll just have you note as we looked at his sermon, it's really nice to preach somebody else's sermon, just kind of have to read it, just want to read it over again and say, did you get it? Amen, let's pray, because Paul did such a good job. But let's look at it a little more carefully here, a little more thoroughly. We see here the same distinctiveness. Up until this time, all the preaching has been to Jewish people, predominantly in Jewish culture. And again, we see that here. Notice the setting in which they began preaching was on the Sabbath day. We read in verse 14 that it was on the Sabbath that they went into the synagogue to preach. And so there's the time and there's the place. We learn about synagogue worship. from the rabbis, and it seems to parallel what was taking place here. It's recorded here that there was a reading of the Law of Moses and then some related texts from the prophets. There may have been a corporate recitation of the Shema from Deuteronomy chapter six, hear O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. There were some prescribed prayers that would have been prayed, and then there would have been an exposition of the scriptures. And the rabbi or the leaders would then either stand up and speak, or if they had a visitor, they would call upon them and invite them to come up and speak. And so that seems to be just a normal synagogue worship, and that's what Paul has engaged in. And I'm sure he went in there hoping that they might ask him to preach. It's like, just to see him going, OK, are they going to ask? You know, because he really does have something he wants to share, he wants to speak, he wants to teach. The audience then, as you notice here, is in Paul's words, are men of Israel. So Jews and you who fear God, God-fearers, Gentiles that have added themselves to this group and are there meeting with them. Adherents, you might say. At one level or another, they've embraced the Jewish religion. In verses 26, he's gonna say, he's gonna relate, speak to them as sons of Abraham's family and God fears. There's this distinctive, clear Jewishness to all that's being said here. I just have you note that though Saul was studied under Gamaliel, though Paul was clearly a brilliant individual, notice how courteous he is in addressing these people in the synagogue. He addresses them on a common note, men of Israel. He addresses them as brethren, sons of Abraham's family. And so he's very, very courteous, he's proprietous in his approach of bringing the word to these people. And yet I would have you note something else in verse 16. For he says, men of Israel and you who fear God, listen. Now I won't go so far as to say that he demanded a hearing, but there's a sense in which he certainly called for one. He didn't just hope that somehow this might just kind of filter down and maybe somebody's going to catch it. He grabbed their ears and he said, listen to me. I have something to say. And so there's a boldness right at the outset, even in the midst of all of his courtesy. And then as we look at the message, he begins with some Jewish history. Again, I'm just looking at this Israelite, this Jewish distinctiveness there, both the setting, the time, the audience, but also the way he unfolds it. He starts with Jewish history in verse 17. He talks about the people of Israel and our fathers and what they went through. In verse 23, he's saying this came to, the promises came to Israel. Verse 24, his message, or the message is to all the people of Israel. And then he's going to tell them, verse 27, about what's happening in Jerusalem. This is what people of that Jewish culture would have wanted to know, what's happening back at the capital, back at the center of our religious heritage. And then, of course, he quotes from the Psalms and the prophets. And I wonder if God in his providence on that day had made the reading to be those particular passages that he wanted to address. I don't know, but I have this romantic notion to try to think that God already orchestrated it so his text had been read. Kind of like it was on the day when Jesus stood up and he says, the things which you have just heard I proclaim to you. But whether it was or not, Paul has his text ready at hand. He knows what he wants to say at least, and so he does. He launches into it. So there's the new direction. There's the same distinctiveness now. Thirdly, a similar discourse. A similar discourse. This sounds very similar to what's been recorded of Peter's preaching in the past. And it has a similar focus. It has a similar emphasis. And the primary emphasis is this. Jesus is a risen Savior. That's his point. That's his main point. Jesus is a risen Savior. And that's the point that he wants to drive home in his proclamation of the gospel there in the synagogue in Pisidian, Antioch. And he has, guess what, three points to his sermon. Or at least I found three points in his sermon. three points, right? God's promise given, verses 16 to 25, God's promise fulfilled, verses 26 to 37, and God's promise applied, verses 38 to 41. God's promise given, God's promise fulfilled, God's promise applied. This is his similar discourse. Now notice with me, first of all, God's promise given in verses 16 to 25. The first thing that he does, and this is a little more difficult to outline this section, because he just starts something of a flowing historical account. But I want, I think what he's doing in verses 17 to 22, at least in part, in a major part, he's highlighting the faithfulness of God toward Israel. In verses 17 to 22, if you were to go through and highlight what is spoken of, notice the main actor in all that's said here. First of all, in verse 17, it starts off, the God of the people of Israel chose our fathers. And then this God made this people great during their time in Egypt. And then this God led them out from that enslavement. And then in verse 18, he put up with those people in the wilderness. And in verse 19, he destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan and then he distributed to them the land of inheritance. And all of this took about 450 years. We'll come back to that number in a minute. And then he gave them judges until Samuel, and he gave them Saul, the son of Kish. And after he'd removed Saul, he gave them David. He raised up David and testified of him. In verse 22, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after my heart who will do all my will. And there's one more act, but we'll come to that in a minute because that really goes into the next point here. But you see how he's just highlighting God's faithfulness. Whether it's in Egypt or in the wilderness or in Canaan, God is being faithful to his people. Whether it's providing protection for them and delivering them from oppression, or whether it's providing for them judges, Whether it's providing for them a king, he's giving them leadership and structure and order to help them to be established in the land. And something else that Paul highlights and that Luke records for us is that he's especially highlighting God's faithfulness to his covenant promises. He says in verse 17 of the people of Israel when they were in Egypt that God made the people great. Well, that was one of the promises that was made by God to Abraham, that he would have a numerous seed and that they would have a great name. And when they were in Egypt, we read in the book of Exodus many moons ago when I was preaching through Exodus chapter one, and we came and saw that even in the midst of all the darkness, yet God was fulfilling his promises. His people were prospering in terms of numerical growth. They were exploding. That's one of the promises that God had made, that they would be a great nation. And then notice in verse 19, he destroyed seven nations and distributed the land as an inheritance. And here again, one of the fundamental promises made to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and to the people of Israel, I will give you the land. And Paul highlights in his sermon God's faithfulness to his covenant promise. He gave them the land. As Nehemiah highlights and as the Levites highlight in the book of Nehemiah that these promises were fulfilled, not one of them was left undone. And then in verse 19, I mentioned the 450 years. When God wanted to reassure Abraham that the promise was going to be certain, he gave him a prophecy. He says, this prophecy will be something of a reassurance to your seed, not really to Abraham because it didn't happen in Abraham's day, but to your followers, your offspring. And he said, 400 years they will be in captivity. And so Luke highlights for us and Paul highlights in his sermon that he said, you know, this all took about 450 years. It sounds like a contradiction. Well, no, because it was 40 years in the wilderness. And then there's the conquest that's added in there as well, and there's also the 400 years. So this rough number is saying, look, God kept his word. He made a prophecy 400 years. Sure enough, he kept it. So Paul is going to his audience here, and these people have been reading the scriptures, and he's saying, you know what, do you see God's faithfulness to us, these people of God, the Israelites, the one whom he's chosen, those whom he's chosen? He says, but there's one more promise, there's one more act of God that I want you to see, and there's one more promise which I'm driving to and leading up to, and his little summary is very well selected, because in verse 23 we read, or verse 22 we read, that he comes to David. At the point where he starts talking about David, and then he says, verse 23, from the offspring of this man, that is David, according to promise, God has brought to Israel a savior, and then he drops the name Jesus. Now they may have thought he got a little confused at this point and was using the Greek name for Joshua, and he got his outline out of order. But I think Paul knew exactly what he was doing, and he's introducing this reality that there's gonna be a Savior. A Savior who's going to come from the line of David. And this goes clear back to 2 Samuel. So now take your Bibles with me, we're gonna do a little history lesson, because I want you to get some information about what Paul's working with and what he believes his hearers are referring to. So turn with me to 2 Samuel chapter seven, This is known as the Davidic covenant. God making his covenant with Abraham, or excuse me, with David. We read in verse 12. When your days, again God speaking to David, when your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you who will come forth from you, I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. And then these words, I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me. So David's son is God's son. And we with our New Testaments, that sounds pretty clear. But then he ends in verse 16, your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever. Your throne shall be established forever. So there's where the foundational promise is. And that's picked up by the prophets. Isaiah chapter 11 and verse one, we read, then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse. After Jesse has been cut off, after Israel's been cut off, his little stem is gonna come up. There's still going to be that promised one. And he's gonna be like a branch from its roots, from his roots will bear fruits. This little one is gonna grow up from the seed of Jesse. Or as he says in the couple chapters before in Isaiah chapter nine, for a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulders, and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of his government or of peace. on the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness. From then on and forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts has accomplished it." Every Jew who knew his Old Testament, who'd ever been sitting in synagogue long enough to hear these kinds of promises was thinking, okay, I hear this and that's my great hope, Messiah. son of David. He's going to come, he's going to set up his kingdom, he's going to rule over us in peace and righteousness. But turn with me to Jeremiah because here's where we see something of the mention of salvation. Jeremiah chapter 23. And something in me wants to challenge everybody with their electric phone to see who can get there before I can with my Bible. but I won't because I might lose. But Jeremiah chapter 23 verses five and six, notice what it says, behold the days are coming, this is the Lord speaking, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch and he will reign as king and act wisely and do justice and righteousness in the land, in his days Judah will be saved. In other words, he's gonna be a savior and Israel will dwell securely and this is his name by which he will be called Yahweh, our righteousness. Turn over to 10 chapters to chapter 33. Chapter 33 and verse 14. Behold, days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the good word which I have spoken concerning the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days, and at that time, I will cause a righteous branch of David to spring forth, and he shall execute justice and righteousness on the earth. In those days, Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell in safety. And this is the name by which she will be called, the Lord, excuse me, he will be called, no, she will be called, the Lord is our righteousness. For thus says the Lord, David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man before me to offer up burnt offerings, to burn grain offerings, and to prepare sacrifices continually. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying, thus says the Lord, if you can break my covenant for the day, if you can stop the sun from coming up, and you can stop the seasons from happening, just like I said they would until the end of time, Genesis chapter 8. He says if you could break that covenant, then you could break this one, but you can't break that covenant. The word of the Lord have you not, excuse me, my covenant may also be broken with David, verse 21. So if you could break that covenant in their appointed time, then my covenant may also be broken with David, my servant, so that he will not have a son to reign on his throne. And with the Levitical priests, my ministers, as the host of heaven cannot be counted and the sand of the sea cannot be measured, so I will multiply the descendants of David, my servant, and Levites who minister to me." And it goes on to continue to speak of that established covenant. For the purpose salvation, an inviolable covenant, an unbreakable covenant made with David that he would have a son to sit upon the throne and to reign and he would be the Savior of his people. And then if you take all of that that you've just heard about this Davidic covenant and how that should encourage the people, and then you go read Psalm 89, and you read about enemies that are plaguing the people of God and how it seems like God has forgotten them and has left them and is not caring for them, and yet the psalmist pleads the covenant made with David as his hope that God will once again deal with them and establish them and protect them. Then you understand something of what Paul is doing as he grabs the ears of his hearers and says, here's a faithful God, a faithful God who's kept every one of his promises, and a faithful God who promised a savior from the house of David, a faithful God who has never failed in any of his promises, in any of his words, and this promise, he has brought about the answer. But then, he's not done with his point, Paul is not done with his point of God's promise given. Because in verses 24 to 25, he's going to tell us, though I've told you he's brought about a Savior, Jesus, I wanna give you a little historical background about how that actually happened. And here's his bridge, his transition, as it were, from ancient Israel to present time reality. He says, I wanna tell you about a man named John the Baptist. And John the Baptist came and he preached a message of repentance, a message of baptism of repentance for the people of Israel, for all the people of Israel. And it was this one who said, What do you suppose that I am, verse 25, I am not he that is the one who's come as the Savior, but behold, one is coming after me, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to untie. So after looking at the faithfulness of God toward Israel and then examining this outstanding or setting before them this outstanding promise, a savior, he then comes along and Paul sets forth this final prophecy, a prophecy made by the last Old Testament prophet. The last Old Testament prophet was not named Malachi. The last Old Testament prophet was named John. It was John the Baptist. He was also the first New Testament prophet. He was also one of the first preachers of the gospel, and he preached a baptism of repentance, calling men to be united, to express their union with God, their belief, through repentance and baptism. He preached to the same audience all of Israel, and his prophecy was, one is coming. It's more fully described in John's gospel, in John chapter one, where he says, I'm not the one, but one is coming after me. I am just the one, the voice in the wilderness that Isaiah spoke of. I'm just the voice in the wilderness, make smooth the desert, the highway for our God. That's my role, but the one is coming. He's still coming. This is Paul's first point in his sermon. God is faithful, he keeps every one of his promises. And he has made one final promise that we all need to recognize. That is, he sent a savior, a savior into this world of the seed of David, and his name is Jesus. And he came. And so that's what we then come to in the second point, God's promise fulfilled. Verses 26 to 37, God's promise fulfilled. Notice in verse 27 and in verse 33, the use of this word fulfilled. He says, for those who live in Jerusalem, at the end of that verse, fulfilled these, that is these utterances of the prophets. And again in verse 33 he says, God has fulfilled this promise. And so now he transitions from the promise to the fulfillment. The promise given, the promise fulfilled. Now you might expect that his focus would be upon the incarnation. I mean, that's the first thing that I would think when I would hear the words, for those who live in Jerusalem, and the rulers recognizing, start hearing about Jerusalem and the rulers, and I think, okay, Jesus was born a babe in a manger in Bethlehem, and then went up to Jerusalem at the age of 12, and so we're gonna hear about the incarnation. There's nothing about the Incarnation. He doesn't go to what Luke does in his gospel when he starts off with Luke chapter 2 verse 11 where the angels say, Could have gone there. He could have gone to the incarnation like Matthew did in Matthew chapter 1 and verse 21, that she shall bear a son and shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins, but that's not the fulfillment that Paul wants to focus on. It's not the incarnation that he wants to focus on. He wants to focus on a different part of the fulfillment. Now notice, first of all, the first way that this is fulfilled. The first fulfilled in verse 27. The promises, the utterances of the prophets are fulfilled by blind and deaf Jews. Not literally blind and deaf, but spiritually blind. For it says, for those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, recognizing neither him, in other words, this Jesus, this son of David who walked, they didn't recognize him. They didn't know he was the Lord of Glory, and so they crucified him. They didn't know him. They didn't recognize him. And this body of Jews that also went to the temple and went to the synagogue, they heard those prophets read on a regular basis, but they didn't hear them. They heard the words, but they didn't understand them. They didn't believe them. And so these blind and deaf prophets fulfilled the prophecies, excuse me, these blind and deaf Jews fulfilled the prophecies that were written and read in their hearing, and how did they fulfill them? By condemning him. Because that's exactly what he said in Isaiah 53, for instance, where he would be rejected by men, and he would be crucified. You go on to read Isaiah 53 of his being sacrificed like a lamb. And you read in the Old Testament about his being buried with the rich. They fulfilled, these spiritually blind and deaf Jews fulfilled the promise. But then we read further in verse 33 that God fulfilled his promise. And again, not by sending his son into this world, per se, that's not the focus. But notice how it's emphasized in verses 30 to 37. Notice the phrase, verse 30 itself, but God raised him from the dead. And verse 37 ends this section, he whom God raised did not undergo decay. And twice in the middle in verse 33, God has fulfilled this promise to our children in that he raised up Jesus. In verse 34, and as for that fact that he raised him up from the dead. You get a sense that Paul's kind of focusing in on something. His whole focus at this point in time is that God proved himself faithful and true by raising Jesus from the dead. And then he buttresses that in several ways. He buttresses it by saying it was witnessed. These people who are standing here today who saw him are witnessing that they saw him, that he was raised from the dead. Go ask him. The one who stands before you is one who has heard him, and the other apostles are those who preach this message that God raised him from the dead. We preach this good news of this promise, that God has fulfilled his promise. And then just so that he can support it from the scriptures, because again, he's not just there to tell them what he thinks or even what he's experienced. He's there to tell them what the scriptures say. And so he goes to several passages in the Old Testament. He goes to Psalm 2. And in Psalm 2, he says this has reference to Jesus being raised from the dead. He says in verse 33, God has fulfilled his promise to our children in that he raised up Jesus as it is also written in the second Psalm, you are my son, today I have I begotten you. That phrase in Psalm two is not about the incarnation, it's about the resurrection. On that particular day, he was raised up. He says, this is the day I've begotten you. And for whatever reason, that's language that describes him taking on his role as the messianic king, sitting at God's right hand. And that's what Psalm 2, verses four through seven is all about. He has installed, he says, I have installed my king upon Zion, my holy mountain. I will surely tell you of the decree of the Lord. He said to me, you are my son, today have I begotten you. And then in verse 34, he quotes from Isaiah 55. Turn with me to Isaiah 55, because I want you to be able to see this. Some of this, I think, is what's commonly called pointer texts. Paul expects his hearers to know more about the context, and there's really much more in Isaiah 55 that if he actually then opened it up, but Luke didn't take the time to show us that he opened it up. We don't know how long his sermon was or what else was there, but this is what he highlights for us. He points out this text, and in verse 1 we read, come buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to me and eat what is good and delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to me. Listen that you may live and I will make everlasting covenant with you, notice here's the phrase he picks up on, according to the faithful mercies shown to David. So the promise he made to David and the mercies he shows to David will come to you. Paul says this was made clear through his raising him from the dead. And in case you missed it, he quotes one other passage, he quotes Psalm 16. And from Psalm 16, He quotes this fact, that you will not abandon my soul to Sheol. You will not allow your Holy One to undergo decay. And he says, just like Peter, he says, yes, David died and his grave is with us and we know he's died and he's dust. So this can't be talking about David. but it's talking about David's son, it's talking about his one who will sit upon the throne, this is talking about the Lord Jesus Christ who he raised from the dead, he did not allow him to undergo decay. So all of this that he sets out here, all of this in talking about how the word was fulfilled by these Jews who hated Jesus and crucified him, or sent him to be crucified, and all that God did in raising him from the dead was fulfillment of his promise to David that he would have a son to sit upon the throne as a savior. And that's the word of God that is growing and being multiplied in Acts chapter 13. The clarity of who Jesus is and why he came. He is a Savior who came to save his people and he accomplished that by being raised from the dead to sit at God's right hand. And then in verses 38 to 41 we have the promise applied. Paul then turns from just giving them information and then helping them to understand it. The first is just facts. He just opens up facts from the Old Testament. The second is not application, but it's exposition. He says, I want you to understand this. And then the third is application. God's promise applied. Let it be known to you, brethren. He doesn't give any kind of explanation. He says, now, I don't care whether you're Jew or Gentile here. I just want you to know, brethren, listen. that through him, this one that God raised from the dead, this one Jesus, who's the son of David, is the forgiveness of sins. It's proclaimed to you. Paul, as it were, says, I stand here, and he's gonna write to the Corinthians, he's gonna say something that's, I beg you on behalf of God. I beg you, as it were, in the name of Christ, be reconciled to God. Paul is saying, as it were, is saying, I'm here proclaiming to you that you can have your sins forgiven. In Christ, your sins can be forgiven. You can actually know what it is to be washed clean and to be free from the guilt and free from the condemnation and the judgment that's coming. How do I know that? God fulfilled his promise. He raised Jesus from the dead. And then he goes on, he says there's another promise, not only forgiveness, not only the promise of forgiveness, but the promise of being freed. And this promise of freedom, it's a word that's related to the word justify. He says you can be declared righteous. You can be freed. You can be freed from what the law could not do for you. You can be freed from trying to fulfill the law in order to have a relationship with God based on any kind of performance. You don't need that. You can be freed from that. You can be freed from the law of sin and of death. You can be freed, Romans chapter 5 and verse 1, by faith and have peace with God. You can be freed from your enmity with God and be reconciled to him. You can be freed from the curse of the law, Paul's gonna write to the Galatians. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. He says, you can be freed. You can be freed, he's gonna say, to be free from that oppressive influence called the flesh. which drives you so that you can be freed through him. I don't know you can be freed through him because he rose from the dead. He conquered death. So Paul's coming to his application and he sets out these wonderful applications and he says, you can have your sins forgiven and you can be freed But he kind of hints at something there, he slips something in for us. In verse 39, it's for the one who believes. For the one who believes. That's the one who can be freed. And then like every good evangelist, he ends with a gracious, sweet appeal to come to Jesus, right? Man, he doesn't. He does just about the exact opposite. Kind of like Stephen did at the end of his. You stiff neck. And if I ended every sermon like that, I don't, you know... Anyway, but Paul, Paul goes on and he ends his sermon, he says, I've told you these wonderful things, now I'm going to forewarn you. You've been forewarned because I'm gonna pull something from those prophets that are read in the synagogue. Take heed so that the things spoken of in the prophets may not come upon you. Behold, you scoffers and marvel and perish, for I am accomplishing a work in your days, a work which you will never believe, though someone should describe it to you. The prophets were saying, you are hard-hearted, stiff-necked, and they wouldn't believe no matter how much they were preached to, to turn and turn and turn. Why will you die, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel would say. They wouldn't turn. He said, don't let it come upon you. What they said would come upon God's people. They would perish for their unbelief. He actually quotes the book of Habakkuk. And you want to know what he says? Come to the men's conference. But the essence of the application is this. Stop scoffing and believe. Believe. Lest you perish. So brethren, here's his message, a very simple message. The promise was given, the promise was fulfilled in the raising of Jesus from the dead, and the promise is applied. In that one who was raised from the dead, there is forgiveness of sins. In that one who was raised from the dead, there is freedom like you've never known before, freedom from the bondage of sin, freedom from the guilt of sin, freedom to approach God and to know communion with God. This is freedom like you've never understood, forgiveness like you could never have experienced before, and if you don't believe this, you will perish. So believe. This is the Word of God expanding. You notice it hasn't really changed much. It's not like Paul had to invent something new to say here in Pisidian Antioch, because, well, yeah, it didn't work too well after the first days in Jerusalem, where they had lots of people get saved, but after that, it kind of died out, and maybe should have changed their plans and done something a little different, but he doesn't change the message. He doesn't change the approach. But do you see how much Paul understands the Word of God? What an amazing grasp he has on God's Word. What an amazing ability he has to look at all these Old Testament passages and draw out these biblical principles and apply them to his present congregation and bring all of those facts of the gospel, of what happened to Jesus Christ, which are central to the gospel. He says, these are facts that you need to see that are part of that gospel. And he could do all of that. So one of my applications here, and it's really the only application I'm gonna be able to get to today is this. This is part of the reason why we need well-educated ministers of the gospel. Because they need to understand biblical theology. They need to understand how God unfolds his plan from beginning to end. They need to be able to see those connections as how all these pieces start fitting together. And they need to be able to draw that out and then be able to try to explain it so that the people of God can feed upon it and they can understand it and so that it can be then applied specifically to the people of our day. So we need people who understand. We need men who understand biblical theology. That's why we have this Saturday morning class on Old Testament biblical theology. And we need to know hermeneutics, how to dig this stuff out of the scriptures and how to exegete it and find it so we're not drawing things out that aren't really there and making it up. And we need men who know what it is to be able to preach it. They need homiletics. How do you take that then and package it in a clear, bold, gracious way so that it can be rightly understood? We need men who are well-trained. We need men who ultimately are dependent upon the Spirit of God because all that takes place in this chapter from beginning to end is under the work of the Holy Spirit. Any man who just thinks because I'm trained well enough I can do this doesn't have a clue what it is to try to stand up here and speak for God. Because apart from the Spirit of God, it's worthless. It's empty. But I've got to say, do you see what a glorious passage we have? What a glorious gospel we have. I'll end with this. Turn with me to Titus chapter 1. This passage in Acts chapter 13 is a passage given to us brethren as the people of God to strengthen our faith in a God who is faithful and fulfills his promises, who is trustworthy in everything that he says. It is given to us to increase our knowledge of the truth and what God has done and how God wants us to understand ourselves and Him and His relationship to us. And it's given to us to increase our hope. Notice what Paul says was the focus of his ministry as we heard not too long ago from our brother Frank DiWana. Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, and he says, here's my focus, here's what I'm all about. As an apostle, as a bondservant, I am aiming at your faith. You who are the chosen of God. And what I'm doing, I'm doing for the knowledge, for your knowledge of the truth, which is according to godliness. I want you to understand the truth. I want you to recognize it. I want it to bear fruit in your life into godliness. He says, I want you to increase in faith, I want you to increase in knowledge, and I want you to be encouraged, notice his focus, encouraged in the hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised long ages ago, but at the proper time manifested, even his word in the proclamation with which I was entrusted according to the commandment of God our Savior. God gave me a command. I'm supposed to proclaim His Word. Why? To strengthen your faith, to increase your knowledge of the truth, and to encourage your hope in eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, has promised long ages ago and has sealed in the blood and in the resurrection of His Son. Brethren, when we read passages like Acts chapter 13, and we read things we've read many, many times before, we need to plead with God that we would not pass over them without our faith being strengthened in this God who fulfills all of his promises, who is trustworthy in everything that he says. We should not come away from these things without something of an increased knowledge of the truth, which is given to us to give us foundation and to direct our lives. And we must not come away from it without a measure of hope. Hope, brethren, our hope is fixed on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness, but even something more. It's fixed upon the fact that he was raised from the dead and sits at God's right hand and can never be kicked off his throne and one day is coming again. We have hope of eternal life, whatever you're going through. This gospel message is meant to give you hope, because we have something which the world knows nothing of. And if we'd had time, we would have gotten to the point that those who reject and perish what they're giving up is not just a nice life here, not just a nice community to be a part of here, what they're giving up by rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ is eternal life. And what you are accepting You are judging yourself unworthy for eternal life, and you are judging yourself as only worthy of eternal judgment. You will perish in your unbelief, but you don't have to. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ today, and you will have a Savior and be saved. Let's pray. Father in heaven, be gracious to write your word upon our hearts and help us to learn from the Apostle Paul. We ask that you would do this and that you would even be merciful to those who sit in darkness, who hate your word and neglect it. Would you be pleased, O God, to open their eyes this day, that they might see, that they might believe. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.