All right, we'll go to Acts chapter number six. Acts chapter number six. Good to see all of you here tonight. I'm gonna deal with Acts chapter number six. It's a very short chapter, only about 15 verses, and I'm gonna deal with that. Brother Cecil Armstrong asked me a question after Wednesday night last week, and I'm gonna try to take the remainder of the time and deal with that question because it's a good question. and something you might uh... have wondered yourself and uh... we'll get to that here in just a little bit act chapter number six once again it is good to see you and i heard a lot of kids up there that is a great sign uh... for your tax six i want you to notice everything here in the blue in this blue here Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Everything in these seven chapters of the book of Acts is centered around Jerusalem and all of that. Very heavily Jewish. Peter is the apostle to the Jews. And so he's the main character. Once you get over into chapters 10, 11, 12, 13, you know, so on and so forth, it'll transition from Peter being the main character to the Apostle Paul. And then by the time you get to chapter 16, you won't see Peter very much anymore. It's focused on the Apostle Paul. Now, I said all that to say this, in chapter two of Acts, we have the birth of the church, okay? When I say that, I'm not talking about a building, I'm talking about a people. So in Acts 2, you had what? 3,000 saved, okay? And then was it in three or four, chapters three or four, there was two more thousand got saved, right? Or vice versa. And so you've got, what is that? 5,000 saved so far. So you know already 5,000 people, they don't have a building big enough to hold 5,000 people. They're in a synagogue over there that holds 5,000 people. So that's why these early churches, you see them started in somebody's living room, on somebody's rooftop where they had the big opening up there, whatever. And so you got all of these people So what is happening, you've got 12 apostles, and so this is what I'm thinking. The Bible doesn't specifically say this, but it's what I'm thinking. All of these groups, 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 people, okay, are all scattered. Let's say you got 1,000 people meeting over here under this oak tree, and you've got one of the disciples over there, apostles, you know, pastoring them. Okay, you got another thousand over here on the other side of South Jerusalem over here. They're on a hillside, this, that, and the other, and they got another apostle pastoring them. You get the, you know what I'm saying? You got 12 apostles, and they've got all these people scattered out. They don't have buildings, but they are gathered up in these little groups, and these 12 apostles are trying to pastor these people as the church begins to grow. Now in chapter six, we're fixing to find out a problem. All right. And so let's look at a verse number one. And in those days, when the number of the disciples were multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians, that's the Greeks, against the Hebrews, that's the Jews, because their widows were neglected in the daily menstruation. Now, so what's happening in this predominantly Jewish church, there are people that are non-Jewish that are getting saved, and joining up with these different churches all over, okay? What happens, this happens in any church, anytime. This is not a discredit to you or anybody else. This is just plain facts. Anytime you have a big gathering of people, you're gonna have murmuring and complaining. You ain't gonna satisfy everybody. No matter how hard you try, you ain't gonna satisfy everybody. Monica, I think there may, you might wanna go check on that up there. Because there's a bunch of them up there. And so you may wanna check on that, just see if they need you. All right. And so anytime you have people, I've always said this, and it's funny, but yes, it's true. There are no such thing as perfect church. If you ever find one, don't join it, you'll mess it up. Anytime you have people, you got a difference of opinions. You got people that are, they think different than somebody else. And you wouldn't believe, you wouldn't believe just what it takes to keep people going in the same directions, like herding cattle. And one of them wants to veer off and go this way, and you try to head him off. So what happens? You got all these people, and they're starting to murmur and complain. Well, you went to see so-and-so in the hospital, and you didn't come see me. Well, now, Brother Jeremy, I stubbed my toe. You didn't call, you didn't. Well, I didn't know you stubbed your toe. Well, I put it on Facebook. You should have known. Now I'm not talking about, I'm talking about other churches I've passed. And so it's a lot of pressure. The more people, and this goes for us as well, as we grow, we want to grow, right? But with that comes a lot of things you have to overcome. and um the murmuring and and getting people going in the same direction very very difficult so this is basically what's going on uh some of the widows some of the widows now what's happening this shirt we've seen some of these early chapters They're bringing, selling possessions, they're bringing the money, they're taking care of these folks, the widows and the orphans and the churches, trying to take care of these folks. And then what happens is they call the preacher and say, well, you took care of this family and you didn't take care, we didn't get, you only give us 50, you gave them 300. And we, so here we go. We got a problem, we got murmuring going on, okay? Verse two. Then the 12 called the multitude of disciples unto them and said, it is not reason that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. Okay, wherefore brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. But we will give ourselves continual Continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. Y'all see that now. In the church, you got these pastors, these actual disciples, these apostles that are trying to pastor these people. And then what was happening is, this, I'm just gonna call him a pastor right now. This pastor is spending more time at the hospital. He's spending more time putting out a fire over here. So-and-so got something in their crawl over here and they're tore up about something and he's going over to their house. and he's having tea over at somebody's house. Then he goes over here and has coffee with them to keep them quiet. And then he goes over here and has a piece of cake with so-and-so. And then he goes to visit. And then by all of this, he ain't had time to prepare nothing for Sunday. So all these people gathered on Sunday and the preacher said, well, I hadn't had time to study. I've been over at y'all's house the whole week. Keep y'all from fussing. So what they said, we've gotten big enough now to where we're gonna have to seek out, pick you out, seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, so they can tend to the widows and serve tables and all of that kind of stuff. And then the preacher can keep reading the Bible and praying and studying and get something for Sunday. Now, chapter six doesn't mention deacons at all, but I believe this is where they first started. You won't hear the word deacon until the apostle Paul gives you qualifications of a deacon in first Timothy chapter three. He'll give you those qualifications. Now that's not out of the ordinary. I'll give you an example. In the Bible, you'll see where in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, where they, you know, a dragon or something, a fire breathing dragon over here or whatever. And we're going, what in the world? I didn't even know we had dragons. Well, what, I mean, we call them dinosaurs. That dinosaur word wasn't in the Old Testament. They didn't know what a dinosaur was. They called him a dragon. You see what I'm saying? The word hadn't surfaced yet. So in Acts chapter number six, the word deacon hadn't surfaced yet. And so by the time you get to 1 Timothy, that word has become what we know as deacons today. Now, Number one, let's look at what these deacons are supposed to do. Now, let me preface this and say this. Uh, when I get into all of that, uh, we have, we have great deacons here. Uh, matter of fact, Charles and Cecil, y'all was over brother. Terry is what? Whenever Monday I was over on Saturday, James went over on Saturday and some of you others might've went, I just don't know about it and that's fine. Um, and, and that's, that's what they do. I had time to go cause you know, we were just, but there will come a time if we get big enough, you know. that I can't be at everybody's birthday party, and everybody's anniversary celebration, and everybody's graduation party, and everybody, and I gotta go here and go there, and if you don't go here and you go there, they're gonna get mad, because you went to theirs and didn't go to theirs, and you do, and you, Charles and Cecil, go to them birthday parties, would you? Make an appearance for the church at the birthday parties. Now I'm joking about that, but you get the idea. And so looking out some men that can take care of this stuff. Now let me say this, deacons, they can be a tremendous help or a tremendous hurt. Deacons carry two buckets. They got water in one and gasoline in the other. When a fire starts in the church, they can either put it out or throw gas on it. One of the two. And all churches, they have both kinds. Now, it's exactly right, we're talking about other places. And now, Like I said, this chapter doesn't deal with, or doesn't say the word deacon, but this is the early start of what these guys are supposed to be doing. Now, so they're looking out, these men, now let me say this, I don't know how many people we're dealing with. They chose them out seven. Why the number seven? I'm not sure. But when you're dealing with this many people, let's just say 7,000 people, that's a deacon per thousand folks. That's a lot of people to handle. And so I don't know. I don't know. There's not a Bible verse that says, okay, you're supposed to have three, or you're supposed to have two, or you're supposed to have seven. I've been in some churches, and I've preached in some churches, they had, their membership was 75. 35 of them were deacons. For what? You don't need that many for that many people. I don't know what the magic number is for each church, but you don't need 35 if you ain't running but 75. But a lot of times, and again, I'm talking about other churches not here, but a lot of times, they get the big wigs to come in. We want the president of the bank. And so, hey, if you start coming to your church, we're gonna give you the title of deacon. He don't know how to pray. He hadn't read his Bible. All he knows is how to count money. He couldn't fill in when the preachers, you know, on a Wednesday night, he couldn't fill in. And when the preacher's out, he couldn't fill in, but we're going to give him a title. That's not the way it ought to be done. This is a serious matter when you start picking out these men for that purpose and that reason. What are they supposed to do? The word deacon means servant. The word deacon means is a caregiver. And we're going to get into it here in just a minute of what that caregiver does. There's a lot of things. I mean, Paul's, there's a lot of stuff I could say. Matter of fact, I wrote a booklet on, on the actual office of deacon. I have, I have a Bible for what I believe and a lot of churches, they do a lot of different things. And, and, and, you know, like I said, whatever, but, um, This is the way I see. When you get ready to choose deacons, you don't choose somebody and then they have to come to you and say, okay, what does a deacon do? You choose somebody that's already doing it and say, hey, you be a deacon. What I do? Keep doing what you've been doing. You see? But he's a deacon without being, whether he's I'm, good point. I'm gonna say this, and I, look, when I start calling names, I don't mean to, if I leave your name out, don't say, well, he didn't leave, then we'll, you know, we got murmuring and all that. But you got people in this church, you got, we got a construction situation over here going on right now, trying to expand our church. I don't have much, if anything, to do with all that. there's somebody that's overseeing that. That's what a deacon does, but the man overseeing that don't have that title. But he's still performing the servanthood of the church. You see what I'm saying? There's a man in this room, repainted all the parking lines out there. Whatever. You know, doing, serving the church without the title. You see what I'm saying? You don't have, well, I ain't gonna do nothing until I get, you know, I'm not supposed to do anything until I get a title, you know. And that's not the way to look at it. You start working and serving and all that kind of stuff, and that's the way it ought to be done. Now, look at, Look at 1 Timothy 5. Now I didn't use the screen because everything I've got is just 1 Timothy 5. Let me show you something about the widows. 1 Timothy 5. Look at verse 3. 1 Timothy 5, 3. A lot of people don't realize this is the responsibility of the church. Honor widows that are widows indeed. Now, we'll explain it in just a second, what a widow indeed is. But if any widow have children or nephews, let them learn first to show piety at home and to requite their parents, for that is good and acceptable before God. Now, may Paul say this, it's the church's responsibility if you have a widow in the church. It's a responsibility of the church to make sure those widows are taken care of. Because why? They don't have a husband, or they don't have a wife anymore. Maybe they need a ramp built so they can get their wheelchair into the... Nothing wrong with that. Widows indeed, but it says if they have children, you see, I'll give you an example. My mother, she's a widow. My dad passed and my mother's a widow. Now, as long as her children, we take care of her. She shouldn't be a responsibility of the church. But when those children, you know, our situation, if she didn't have children, nobody to take care of her. Then that church steps in and those deacons, especially, Hey, how can we help you? You know, where can we be of assistance to take care of our widows? Um, now, uh, verse, oh, let's say verse five. Now she, that is widow indeed and desolate trusting in God. In other words, widow indeed means you don't have any body to take care, help, uh, children, nephews, everything in verse four. Uh, trusting in God, continuing supplication and prayers night and day. Now, the church is responsible to take care of her. She's doing her part. She may not be able to attend service, but she's a godly woman, prays for the church, et cetera. Verses, verse six, but she that liveth in pleasure is dead while she liveth. You say, what does that mean? That means it's not our responsibility. If a woman, a man, woman, either one of them can be a widow that's lost her husband, and they're out in the world, and they're just, you know, whatever, and this, that, and the other, and our hands are clean. You understand? All right, verse seven, but these things give in charge that they may be blameless, But if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he that denieth the faith is worse than the infidel. Let not a widow be taken in the number of under three score years old, having been the wife of one man, so 60 years old, under 60, in other words that's that's the cutoff is where they're saying uh... you know sixty i guess sixty i guess uh... they're expecting her to marry again i guess he's young enough to marry again i've seen them eighty years old get married again uh... anyway those are the things that the church's responsibility and that's what deacons do they serve they take a load off you know, and all of that. And again, I'm not talking about here, I know we've joked about that, we're not talking about here, but there, and I don't remember, but I remember other preachers talking about that. And boy, they'd say, man, if I preach past 12, man, them deacons are calling me in on the office. That sounds weird to me. well if I preach pastoral of a deacon, man we're having a meeting and they're getting on me it's about you know what kind of stuff is that? you know that's not the job of a deacon and a lot of times in a lot of churches you know uh... and this is where they get that from and I'll show you Verse 3, Wherefore, brethren, look out ye among seven men, honest report, follow the Holy Ghost, wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business. And so what they'll do, they'll say, oh, see, the deacons are over the business of the church. You got to read every word. Over this business. What business? Taking care of the widows and the orphans. That business. You see that? This business, what business are we talking about? We're talking about widows and orphans and matter of fact, it appears that in this church, they were having, they were feeding. widows and orphans and homeless folks and all of this. And the preachers were having to go serve tables and pass out chicken and fill up tea glasses and all of that. And they said, well, hey, why don't we find us some men in the service of the church to do that? And I could continue working on my sermon for Sunday. That's the idea. Okay. Now, uh, if you want to know the, um, uh, qualifications are found in first Timothy chapter three, that's where they're at. Also the qualifications of a pastor Bishop. Uh, deacon, all that kind of stuff is in first Timothy chapter three, and that'll give you the qualifications. Um, uh, let's see, I'm going to give you the verses. I don't, I don't want to read the whole thing because I want to get onto some other stuff. Uh, but verse eight, it starts in verse eight. Likewise, must the deacons likewise. So in verse one through six, you have the office, the qualifications of a pastor. And then in verse eight, it says likewise. So what this gives me the sense, if you compare the qualifications of a bishop, pastor qualifications of a deacon, you know, actually what a deacon is. This is what a deacon is an assistant pastor. If you look at the qualifications, He ought to be able to teach, and they have here. When I'm gone, they step in if they have to, and teach when he's not Bible study, whatever. And those kinds of things. A spiritual, it's a spiritual office of taking care of that, and that's what that situation, if it works right, is all about. Now, let's look at verse four. But we will continue ourselves continually, or excuse me, we'll give ourselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the word. That's the idea. Take the load off. I know I keep pausing and saying this, but you think about Bellevue. How many of you are familiar with Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis? I don't know how many members they have or have had, whatever, this, that, and the other, but when Dr. Adrian Rogers was there, it's a massive church. Do you think he went and visited everybody that was sick? He couldn't, there wasn't no way. You had to have, and matter of fact, I've done this and we're not that big yet, but I'm praying we get there. You go through the membership, you divide them, A, B, C, D, and all of it, last names start A, B, C, D, E, F, G, whatever. Brother Charles, your people are from A, if their last name starts with an A, all the way to G, F, whatever. That's your folks. Cecil, you start with S and go all the way down to Z. I don't know, you know. That's your folks that you're looking after. You see the idea? And that's the way those big churches like that have to be. That preacher, there's no way he could go to every funeral home with a church that big. Somebody's always gonna be in the hospital. Somebody's always gonna be sick. Somebody's always gonna be dying. Somebody's always need somebody to marry, you know. And so that's the idea. And in a smaller church, it's not as like ours. You know, the pastor's still able to take care of most everybody, you see. But it's always good to have that help. Um, all right. Look at verse five and the saying, please the whole multitude. And they chose Steven, a man full of faith, the Holy ghost and Philip and him and all these others, a proselyte of Antioch. Verse six, whom they set before the apostles and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them. Now, let me pause and say something about laying hands. This is not the idea of, okay, let me put my hands on you and all the power that I have, I'm fixing to put it on you. When you put your hands on somebody, you're giving the approval. you're approving what they're doing. So when a church, whether it's an ordination of a pastor, whether it's an ordination of a deacon or whatever, and we put our hands, let's just say we had somebody in the church, they say, brother Jeremy, I feel like God's calling me to the mission field. And God wants me to go and preach to the, the Amazon, whatever. And as a church, as a church, we would send them out and say, okay, from our church, we're sending you out to go preach, represent our church, preaching the gospel over there. Come down here, kneel down, we're gonna pray. Some of the men, we're gonna come around, put our hands on. We're not, we're not sending shockwaves through our arms into them. We are saying we approve of what they're fixing to go do. They have the approval of Christ Church Baptist Fellowship. We put our hands on them. So the apostles put their hands on these men saying, we approve of the ministry they're fixing it on take. So verse seven, and the word of God increased. Look at that, how that happens. It increases when everybody pulls together. I keep thinking of, Illustrations. That piano's not too heavy. I have picked that one up before. But let's just say, let's just say, had a big nine-foot grand piano up here. One person can't pick that up. Two people, I doubt. Three people, I doubt. But you get all, let's say, probably 10 or 15 together around that piano, we can move it pretty easy. You can get it done with more, you see. You can't expect a preacher to move the piano by himself and get stuff done. It takes everybody to take some of that load, you see. And all right, here we go. Maybe I won't think of another illustration. All right, but the word of God increased in verse seven. The number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem, notice Jerusalem, greatly. The great company of the priest were obedient to the faith. Now verse eight, and Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and miracles among the people. Then there arose certain of the synagogue. Anytime you, I mean, everything's going smooth. Listen, you gonna have somebody Raise her head up. Then there arose certain of the synagogue, which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, the Libertines, the Libertarians. Um, the, well, uh, I'll explain the Libertines here in a minute and the Serenians and the Alexandrians and of them of Sicily and of Asia disputing with Steven. now steven has just been appointed as a decade and then things are going good below the words increasing people getting saved some of the bridge to get inside and then here we go and bought some of the libertines now these libertines are uh... the free spirits the tree huggers the uh... don't kill the whales and uh... and uh... the free spirits and liberty I can do what I wanna do, you see. Well, let me explain liberty to you in the Bible. You don't have the liberty to do wrong. You have the liberty to do right. God don't give you liberty. People say, well, I got liberty in Christ, so I can do anything I want. Mm-mm. He don't give you liberty to do wrong. He gives you liberty to do right, you see. And, uh, and so we've got all of that thing turned around so bad today. Liberty and the people say, well, don't judge me. You can't judge me. And I can do what I want to do. And you're, you're trying to judge preacher. You're judging me, right? I ain't that Bible. Will people have to remember God is the judge. God is the judge. He is the ultimate one that does the judging. But don't forget, there's people all around you in your life that are sitting, there's 12 people sitting over there in the jury box, listening to all the evidence. So let's say, is there enough evidence to prove that you're a Christian? Well, I'm not gonna ask you. Well, yeah, you're gonna say, yeah. No, we're gonna ask the 12 over in the jury bar. The 12 people you work with. The 12 people at your house. Is there enough evidence? No, not what we've seen. Your honor, the verdict is... I mean, don't shut me down while we're preaching good. You know, and it's like, you know, everybody's, don't judge me. I'm not, I'm not, the Bible is. All right, so here we go. We got, let's see, we got these Libertines, we got these Cyrenians and Alexandrians and all of that. And I could, I could, if I really wanted to, I could bog down right here. You've got the first mention of Antioch in chapter or verse five. You've got the first mention of the Alexandrians in verse nine. The, uh, the people at Antioch full of the Holy ghost and of faith and the people at, uh, in Alexandria are stirring up trouble. Now, I could take probably an hour right here and trace down all the Bible versions and tell you which ones come from Antioch and which ones come from Alexandria, but y'all probably wouldn't believe me anyway. And verse 10, and they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake, talking about Stephen. Verse 11, then they subord men, bribed. That word is an old Elizabethan term, means bribed. They bribed men, which said, we have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God. That sounds like the same thing they said about Jesus. They paid people. Remember when they had the five mock trials before they crucified Jesus? They bribed people to speak accusations against him. You say, okay. So they're doing the same thing to Stephen verse 12. And they stirred up, they stirred up the people. You remember I told you about the gas can while ago, they stirred up the people and the elders and the scribes and came upon him and caught him and brought him to the council. and set up false, y'all see that right there? Set up false witnesses which said, this man ceases not to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth shall destroy this place and shall change the customs which Moses delivered to us. Now y'all remember when Jesus, before one of the things they had against Jesus, he said, y'all see this temple? In three days, I'll tear it down and rebuild it. And they took that as blasphemous words. Stephen, we've heard him say this Jesus of Nazareth. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, well, what does the Jews have against, what is their problem with Jesus? All through the Old Testament, in chapter seven, we'll get into it, probably won't tonight, but in chapter seven, we'll get into it. They believe God the Father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. But then when you come into the New Testament and Jesus claims to be that God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the Jews say, mm-mm, you ain't Him. They have a problem with Him claiming to be God. Verse 15 and all that set in the council looked steadfastly on him saw his face as It had been the face of an angel you've got Stephen there full of faith the Holy Ghost and a face of that innocent man trying to tell and preach the truth and they ultimately They ultimately gonna kill him But the Word of God increased And then you have any time, listen, this goes on in churches and we're gonna get into Brother Cecil's question here. But anytime you have a church, you have people in that church as the church grows. Again, I've been in places that were, there have been folks that could stir up more trouble in 10 minutes than you could preach down in three months. They stirred up and stayed on the phone. Hey, what do you think about this? Well, I don't know, I ain't never thought about it till you brought it up. Well, I'm gonna tell you, I just don't, I'm telling you, I don't like it. And I've already called Sue and Billy Bob and all of them, and they agree with me. I mean, you know what they're saying. You know what everybody's saying. Now listen, I've done this, for a good while. Started pastor when I was 22. Promise you, with my hand up, 99.9% of the time, when they say, everybody's saying, everybody ain't saying it. It's them and a couple more. And translate that as, well now everybody, I'm a preacher, everybody's saying that. Everybody's saying you're preaching too long. And Sharon's the only one saying it, you know? I mean. But when she tells the story, she's like, everybody says it. That's stirring up the people. Again, that illustration of the bucket of gasoline, the bucket of fire, that's just not only just the deacons, that's everybody. uh... and i'll tell you how to put water on it real quick when they call jerry uh... so-and-so uh... let me get so-and-so on a three-way call well you just put water on it it just went out but now if you sit there and listen and yet i'm gonna tell you you ain't even got a grunt on the phone All you gotta do is just sit and listen. And if you listen to their whole spiel, let me tell you how that's gonna come around and bite you. I'm gonna tell you, I got a little experience. I don't know much about much, but I know a little bit about this. They're gonna say, when I talked to Brother Jeremy about it and he agreed, I didn't even grunt on the phone. I just listened. I didn't say, mm-hmm. I just listened. And when they tell the story, Yeah, I talked to Brother Jeremy about this and he agreed with me. Wild stuff goes on in church. All right, now, that's chapter six.