trying to be done, there is opposition, right? And we see this as we turn to the book of Acts, the book of Acts in chapter 7, Acts chapter 7. Just a reminder to silence your cell phones if you can. And John, if you'll just, John, if you come down just a hair on the, just a hair on the mic. And so we are in Acts chapter seven. And what you find as we look at Acts chapter seven is the immediate opposition to the evangelism that is coming through the apostles. the immediate opposition coming to the evangelism through the apostles. So let me bring you up to speed on the book of Acts. The book of Acts picks up where the book of Luke leaves off. Jesus began His work in the Gospels, and He continues His work in the book of Acts. And of course, we're the 29th chapter of Acts, I guess you'd call us. And so what you have is Jesus actively at work. However, the work of Christ is too overwhelming for us to embark in by ourselves and have the strength for by ourselves. So Jesus gave the Holy Spirit to indwell His disciples. And I want you to see something as we look at this just for a moment. Go back to Acts chapter 1. Acts chapter 1. And look at verse 8. Acts 1.8, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. So the work of God requires the power of God, the resources of God, the indwelling Holy Spirit. And you ought to be witnesses. Is that what it says? You shall be. This is not a command. This is a promise. And what's interesting is In our day, in 2023, people have to be exhorted to evangelize, whereas in the book of Acts, they were threatened if they did. They were commanded not to evangelize. So Jesus spent 40 days with them, teaching them, proving that He is Almighty God in the flesh, and then He ascended up, and they all saw Him. They spent over a month with Him, understanding who He is and being reassured that He truly is the Son of God. And then in chapter 2, the promised Holy Spirit falls. The Holy Spirit falls upon the disciples. The Holy Spirit empowers them. And what is the very first thing that they do? You get the very first sermon in all of church history. And the sermon in church history is an evangelistic sermon. So, Jesus in the Great Commission commands us, go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature. I'm going to give you the Spirit of God as the resource to empower you to obey that. Understand, here's what's going to happen. When you do that, Jesus said, here's what's going to happen. There will be opposition as we read, as Brother Leroy read this morning in 2 Corinthians 11, opposition from outside and opposition from false brethren inside the church. I never thought that I would have to fight opposition from within the church on the topic of evangelism and making changes that are necessary for a church to be more evangelistic. Isn't that insane? And yet that's exactly what happens throughout church history. And Paul warned the Ephesian elders. He says, all right, I'm going to leave. He had planted the church in Ephesus. He says, now I'm leaving and I want to warn you very severely. There will be wolves that will come into the church. They won't spare you. They don't care about you. The proof is they just take their toys and go home. They don't care about the health of the church, the safety of the church, the financial stability of the church. They get angry at something and they pick up and wander off. And then what they'll do is they'll swing lassos into the church and try and get as many more out as they possibly can. That is the consistent uniform practice of wicked people. And the Bible says factions have to happen in order for those wicked people to be exposed. How do you know they're wicked? Because instead of working for peace and unity and participating in the Great Commission, they're working and laboring on their phone ministry to complain and gossip and sow discord. I'm just making it very down to earth so that we can understand in a very real way what happens. And in chapter three, as he preaches the word, he's going into the temple and he meets a lame man who has been lame from his mother's womb. And as he walks by, he sees the man and the Spirit of God empowers him to heal the man. Well, you can imagine the first thing that happens then is they get arrested. And so they get arrested and they get dragged before the Supreme Court of Judaism. Chapter 4, as they spoke to the people, verse 1, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, being greatly disturbed. That's how religious hypocrites, religious phonies are. The Pharisees, the Sadducees were blind guides. They were hypocrites, Jesus said. We saw that last week in Matthew 23. Over and over, more than seven times in a row, He says, woe to you blind guides, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, woe to you hypocrites. He just pounds and pounds and pounds away. He's never severe with humble, repentant people. He's never severe with lepers or with outcasts or with tax collectors or anyone like that. But he is very severe with those who name the name of God, who claim to be representatives of God, who are laboring to hinder the Great Commission. So it says in Chapter 4 is where we've been working through. Now we're up to chapter 4 and verse 16. We got the first part of chapter 4, and now what's happened is this. The Sanhedrin, the Jewish Supreme Court, has put the disciples out of the room. They said, go aside for now. Peter and John and the lame man, we don't want to see you right now. We're going to have our confab. We're going to talk amongst ourselves. The question was this. This is verse 16. What shall we do to these men? What are we going to do? Now, isn't that an interesting question? That's the question I'm putting before you this morning. What are you going to do about the Great Commission? What are you going to do about those who advance the Great Commission? What are you going to do about living holy lives? What are you going to do about being on fire for Christ? Let me give you a couple of solutions that have come up over the years. Understand, here's what's happening. The religious hypocrites want to stop evangelism. they will slander and lie. What did they say about Jesus? He is illegitimate. He's demon possessed. Jesus is demon possessed. You know what Jesus did? He didn't run around trying to get everybody to say, I mean, you know, that's what we do in our flesh. It's like, they're lying about me. They're lying about me. You mean they called you and said that on the phone to you? That's a lie. That's not true. That's not how, Jesus didn't do that. Jesus just kept preaching the Word. He kept preaching the Word. He kept living a holy life. He kept making disciples. Because this is a plan and trap that Satan gets us into where we have to run around and correct everybody and try and say, no, that's not true. That's not how it happened. That's not true. That's not how it happened. and then you end up exhausted, and the time you should have been spending out evangelizing and making disciples and preparing a sermon and in prayer and studying the Word, you're running around trying to get all of Satan's demons settled down, and they will never settle down! Because the issue is not the preacher, the issue is not the layout of the church, or I don't like the way the lights are on, or why does he want the can lights on in the platform when he's preaching, or why did he put the flowers over here instead of here? That's not the issue. The issue is they hate the gospel. They hate the gospel. They hate evangelism. They do not want you to evangelize. They want it to stop and stop now. Now they're happy if a few givers show up at church. They want some extra bucks in the plate. But they don't really love God, they don't really want those people to be evangelizing because it exposes them. They don't have the Spirit of God, as a result they're not evangelizing. And if you have more people that are evangelizing, it makes those dead religious hypocrites even more exposed. And so what you have in verse 16 is that age-old question, what shall we do? Let me give you a couple of things that they've come up with over the centuries. This has been going on for 2,000 years. Every country, right brother? It happens even in Jamaica. I've talked with pastors from India, it happens in India. I've talked with pastors from Africa, it happens in Africa. When I was in seminary, I had pastors from Haiti, from the Dominican Republic, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And we all in seminary shared the stories and they all were like, yep, same thing happens here, same thing happens there. It always boils down to this question and that's this. The Great Commission is the command of God. It is not a great suggestion. It is the command of God, go into all the world and preach the gospel. And so what they started off doing was what happened in Acts chapter 2, and that was severe threats. Severe threats. They start playing mind games with Christians. They play psychological warfare with Bible-believing Christians. We know the Bible teaches that, and they'll say, well, it doesn't really teach that. And then as a young believer, you're kind of wobbly. You're like, well, I thought for sure it says that. But then you're wobbling because they're telling you, no, it doesn't say that. I shared the example with y'all that happened to me when I was a young man. Excited. Laurie and I weren't married yet, but she was in the church. And I got a call from the pastor who never evangelized, who never took anybody out evangelizing, who didn't obey the Great Commission in making disciples, but he called me on the phone and he said, we need to talk to you. So I show up at the church and there's a little Sanhedrin, a little semi-circle. And of course, I've got a little short chair in the middle of the thing. And we have so many people at the church that are upset with you. I said, why? Well, you're going up to people after the service and evangelizing them. I said, isn't that horrible? I said, now, please help me to understand why that's wrong. Now, I didn't have all the scripture and the theology. I hadn't gone to seminary. I didn't know the original languages. I just knew that the Bible says go into all the world and preach the gospel, right? Share the gospel with everybody. So, what was interesting, as they were in their little Sanhedrin, a light bulb went off over my head, and I looked at this person here. I said, let's say Mr. Jones, I said, Mr. Jones, didn't I lead your son to the Lord six months ago? Well, yes, you did. Are you upset about that? Pastor Bud's saying, well, they're not upset about that. What they're upset about is the preaching should settle it. That's all they need. They don't need any more evangelism afterwards. We don't need people badgered. We don't need people talked to about the gospel. So I went to the next one. I said, it seems like, Mrs. Smith, that I led your sister to the Lord about three months ago. Well, yes. Are you upset about that? No. And I went around the circle. It was the Spirit of God that gave me the reminder of each of these people. And got to the last person in the circle, little skinny, gray-haired old lady, I remember her name, Mrs. Toot. And she was sitting there fussing and fuming. Well, the pastor said, we don't need this and we don't need to have this done at the end of the service. And it's badgering people and it's bothering people. I said, no one else here seems bothered. I said, who is the one? And remember, I'm a young man, I'm nervous, I'm shaky, and I'm like, I'm not used to being called in front of the Sanhedrin. And I said, pastor, who was it that called you and organized this meeting? It was Mrs. Toot. There's always a demonic plant There's always that little yapping chihuahua voice that won't shut up. It's like the farmer. You know, man, he couldn't get any sleep. This poor farmer couldn't get any sleep. He's got frogs all night. So he says, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to drain the swamp. So he did that. He said, I'm going to drain the swamp, I'm going to catch all of these frogs, and I'm going to kill them and sell them for frog legs. Once he drained the swamp, he realized there was just one big, fat bullfrog making all the noise. This is what Satan does. You've got this big, fat bullfrog of a Sanhedrin in verse 16. What shall we do? Well, they use mind games. They use threats. Then later, what happened, we know, is they started infiltrating the church. They started joining the church. So then you've got a little band of genuine believers, and an unbeliever joins, and another unbeliever, and another unbeliever, but they come in in disguise. So they pretend that they're right with you, man, they're on board with you. Oh, we believe the word, yeah, hallelujah, brother. Well, hey, why don't we start evangelism? Well, now, hold on a second. Why don't we start a ministry? Why don't we start a nursing home ministry first? Why don't we start a, I remember one guy wanted to have a yacht club ministry. I thought, that's a neat ministry. How does that work? Well, I'm going to buy a yacht and I'm going to go down to the boat slips and commiserate with the other boat owners. And as the Lord opens the opportunity, then I'll share Christ with them. I said, well, first of all, you don't have to have a yacht to do that. You could just go down to the boat slips right now. And I said, are you gonna wait for the Lord to open up? You're gonna sit on the dock with a Mai Tai or something and wait for someone to walk up to you and say, you just look like such a fantastic Christian, would you tell me about Jesus? That's not gonna happen. I mean, if you're following Christ and you've been following Christ for any length of time, you tell me how many people have walked up to you and said, you look like such a wonderful Christian. You're so peaceful and joyful. Can you tell me how to be a Christian? They don't do that. The Bible doesn't say to the world, I command you to go up to a Christian and ask about the good news. It tells the Christian, I command you to go out into the world and tell them the good news. Amen. Another thing that they tried was ignorance. The Roman Catholic Church made it a death penalty offense to own a Bible or to read a Bible. In fact, all you have to do is read Foxe's Book of Martyrs or World History, and the standard operating procedure was the Roman Catholic Church would find out who had the Bible, they would arrest him, chain him up to a post, pile up the Bibles that they found around his feet, pile wood on top of that and light it on fire and burn him at the stake with the Bibles. So if they can't get you to shut up by threatening you and they can't get you to shut up by infiltrating your church and opposing everything and undermining things that you're doing, it's just shocking to me how people will do that. Then there's the next step we know from world history where they'll just kill you. And that's happening in countries, our brother shared that in Manipur, India, and I shared that also a couple of weeks ago. What about liberalism? Oh, yes, we are a Bible church. Bring your Bibles. Now, we just want you to know the story of Moses, of course, it wasn't the Red Sea, it was the Sea of Reeds. And I don't know if you all have heard that nonsense, but they'll say, oh, it was the Sea of Reeds. That's a big one they'll say on TV. And it was only four inches deep. And so that's how Israel crossed. They didn't cross the Red Sea that was deep. They crossed the Reed Sea, which was a marshy little, you know, puddle. And they just slopped through the puddle. And I thought, hallelujah, that's an even greater miracle. The entire Egyptian army drowned in four inches of water. Wow, so liberalism will come along and will undermine all of the truths of the Word of God, telling us that it's not true, that Moses couldn't write, that creation didn't happen, we all evolved. And of course, the churches swallow that because they want to be accepted by the world. Hell isn't real, that's another approach. That's another, what shall we understand? We're answering their question for them. We're showing you how in verse 16 that question was answered by people throughout the last 2,000 years. What are we going to do to stop this evangelism? Let's just stop it dead right now. We've got to stop this. People are getting saved. And we're on, you know, like one lady. There was a church. And it just had 20 years of undermining, 20 years of discord, 20 years of going through a pastor and another pastor because they're just so worn out from being harassed. And then there was a massive lightning bolt at the pulpit. And poof! There is Satan standing there. And all the believers ran for the doors except one little old lady on the front row. Had her arms folded like this. And Satan was appalled. Aren't you afraid of me? No. You're not going to run? No. Well, why aren't you afraid of me? Well, I've been your faithful servant in this church for the last 20 years. And I'm telling you, that is more true than funny. What shall we do? We'll infiltrate them. We'll make ignorance so they can't have the Bible. We won't teach the children the Bible in the children's ministry. We'll have nice little songs, but they won't have Bible pages coming home. They won't be taught the Word of God. They won't be taught to memorize Scripture. They will have all kinds of fun little activities, but nothing that talks about holy living, nothing to reinforce spirituality in their life. And if that doesn't work, we'll tell people there's no hell. When is the last time you heard a sermon about hell other than this pulpit last week? Amen? I mean, hell is just like, we don't want to talk about that. It's not politically correct. It's going to get people upset. It's going to get them nervous. And they'll come up with all kinds of things. And the next thing that's very popular now is there are many paths to God. I mean, there are brothers. There are brothers. I've heard of spiritually dead churches that openly oppose the Gospel, do not preach the Bible. Well, there are brothers in the Lord. No, they're not. They're wolves in sheep's clothing. They're undermining the truth of God's Word. Another one that came out in the 80's. This is one of the more recent ones. When I was in seminary, a book was written and it was called Lifestyle Evangelism. And it was written by a man named Joe Aldrich, the president at the time of Multnomah School of the Bible. So I thought, oh, he's the president of the School of the Bible and it's about lifestyle evangelism. That sounds like me. I want to read that. I want my lifestyle to be all about evangelism. So I bought the book. I started reading it. Here's what he says, you do not have the right Get that word. You do not have the right to walk up to a total stranger and tell them about Jesus. You have to earn the right to be heard. That's what he said. So these people who go out and just knock on doors and go up to people in parks and go up to people in stores, they're doing more damage than good. And he has a scale in the book called an Engel scale. There's a negative 10, 0, positive 10. And he said a negative 10 would be a hostile, unbelieving atheist and a positive 10 would be a missionary. What he said is you're not gonna get someone from a negative 10, hostile against Christ, wanting to kill Christians, to being a missionary in a conversation. You've got to establish a relationship and invite him over for dinner and feed him T-bone steaks and babysit his children and make sure there's ashtrays and beer put out for him. You don't have to participate, but he likes that, so make sure he's got that. And just make the guy feel real comfortable And after about 18 months, you can see what he says to you and what he should be saying to you after 18 months is, you're such a good person. Why are you such a good person? You mow my lawn when I'm on vacation. You painted my house for free. You de-fleed my dog. I mean, you're just the greatest guy around. How come? Whatever you do, don't bring up Jesus yet. You'll put the kibosh on the whole deal. Just say, well, I just want to be a friend to you. And as I'm reading the book, hearing this nonsense, I thought, you know, I'm learning how to do Bible study in college and seminary, so let me just open my Bible, and I got a legal pad, and I said, I'm gonna look at every conversion from Matthew to Revelation, and I'm gonna list every single verse, every single conversion, and was it a conversion that someone had spent months or even years building a relationship with somebody, or was it a cold turkey, walk up to a lost person you don't know before, and you win them to the Lord? Wow. Take a guess, which overwhelmingly woman at the well? Total stranger. Gadarene Demoniac? Total stranger. Ethiopian eunuch? Total stranger. The woman caught in adultery? Total stranger. Do I need to keep going? You would be very hard-pressed to show me one example, one example of anyone in the New Testament who got saved as a result of building a relationship over months, and you finally earned this relationship, and they thought you were such a nice guy. Now they're ready to hear about Jesus from you because you're such a nice guy. Let me tell you something, we are sinners. The only nice guy is Jesus. He's already earned the right. When He died on the cross and paid for our sin, He earned the right to be heard. We are simply His messenger boys. You don't say to the postman when he comes to the house, now before I allow you to deliver that bill to me, I need you to build a relationship with me for about 18 months to know if you're a nice enough guy to give me that mail. That's crazy, right? No matter what the guy is, he gives you the mail. That's us. We are God's mailmen. We're going to lost people and giving them... This is the whole lie of the seeker-driven church movement. The seeker-driven church says this. Do not open the Bible and preach verse by verse through the Bible. You will bore people to tears. Let me share something with you. Yes, people will be bored to tears, but you know who the people are that are bored to tears? Lost people. The church is not for lost people. Yes, if a lost person comes, you're welcome, but we're not designing the church for a lost person. The church is for equipping the saints, it's for teaching the believers, for discipling believers. You come in the door, you're saying, I believe the Bible, I want to know the Bible, I want to obey the Bible, and that is what my job is in opening the Word of God for you. So many other tools have been used. Oh, it's not my gift. I'm too old. I'm too tired. We've got missionaries. We hire missionaries for that. You know, Brother Lee, we'll send you 10 bucks. You go do my job for me. Right? So what shall we do? Verse 16 says, what shall we do to these men? Well, I'll tell you what you should have done. Instead of coming up with all your plans to disobey God, you should have brought them back into the group and said, Peter and John, we have blown it big time. We've sinned against the Holy God. We've been in opposition against the true God. We've undermined the work of God. We need to be saved. That's what they should have done with these men. They should have turned to them and said, lead us to Christ. But here's what they do. For indeed, the evidence is irrefutable. A notable miracle has been done amongst us, but I don't want to hear about it. La, la, la, la, la, la, la. Miracle, miracle, I'm not listening. So that's what they did. Instead of saying, wow, a notable miracle has been done. We can't deny it, so let's believe it. And who does miracles? Who does miracles, amen? Does Buddha do any miracles? Do you realize that even the Muslims will tell you, Muhammad never worked a miracle. He's not known as the miracle working prophet. He didn't work miracles. So, I'm not about to follow him. I'm going to follow the only one who can do real miracles, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ. In the power of the Holy Spirit, He did that all through His ministry. And of course now in Acts, He's doing it through His apostles. In order to establish that they are His messengers, and this is His message. So, what shall we do for indeed a notable miracle has been done through them is evident. It's evident to all who dwell. Do you see the radical hardness of heart these people have? Do you see how they have blinded themselves? They don't want this to be true and they can't change the truth of it. And so, just disobey their plans. Verse 17, so, but, so that, that's a purpose clause. Verse 17, but, so that, the purpose is this. Here's what we're going to do. So that it spreads no further among the people. That's their goal. They do not want Jesus Christ to be known. They don't want people to talk about Jesus Christ. They don't want people to evangelize. That's what we're talking about. So, what do we do about that? How do we do it? So that it spreads no further among the people, let's severely threaten them. This, again, is more psychological warfare. It's the threats. Do not do that if you do. Now, Satan will do that in a church. Here's what he tells a young pastor. Don't preach hard. You'll empty the church. Don't preach on evangelism. No one wants to hear that. You'll empty the church. See the threats? Satan threatening. Now, young guys, they get nervous about that. When you're at the end of the ministry, it's like, man, I've heard it enough times. I'm not changing. I'm not getting quieter. I'm not getting less bold on evangelism. I'm not going to do evangelism less. I'm not going to stop attacking the wicked. I'm going to pull the sword of the Word of God out and run screaming at those people. You've got to have a backbone in the ministry. And that's what you learn after 50 years of proclaiming the gospel and witnessing, is Satan, you can give him an inch and he'll take a mile. You say to Satan, all right, all right, all right, I hear your threats. I'll sit over here and I'll get Mrs. Jones' approval for everything. Mrs. Jones, do you like the way we're doing this? Mrs. Smith, do you like the way we're doing this? Or do you follow the Word of God and do you follow the Spirit of God? That's what you have to do. And so it says here in verse 17, so that it spreads no further, let's severely threaten them. fearlessly disobey their severe threats. All through the Bible, God's men have been threatened. You look at Isaiah, they threatened him. Jeremiah, they threatened him and threw him into a sewer. All of the prophets under the kings. Elijah, good night. Obadiah had to find a cave to hide the prophets when Jezebel and spineless Ahab started wiping them out. You know, there's always going to be more goats than there are sheep. Did you know that? The Bible says straight is the gate and narrow is the way and few there be that find it. But broad is the road that leads to destruction and many there be that go in there at. There's always going to be more goats going off to hell than there are believers. Don't despise the day of small things and don't let size or the extortion or the threats of Satan cause you to quiver in your boots. You stand on the Word of God boldly and fearlessly. This is what God's Word says. We're going to obey it whether nobody likes it. I was speaking with Brother Lex and he said that when he was in the military, he took a church and the church had 50 people in it. And he realized that the church was overrun and controlled by wicked people. And they had a facade of peace. Because when the wicked are in agreement, I mean, the Sanhedrin, they weren't arguing with each other. They went home and they had a nice lunch together and they're all in agreement. Yeah, don't you hate Jesus? Yeah, I hate Jesus. Oh man, those disciples, they're false. I mean, there's lots of unity in that, lots of peace in that. But like I said, what he ended up doing is whittled the church to 12. Just ended up whittling it down to 12. And within six months he had 350. Amen? So this is what I'm trying to say is don't let people severely threaten you with their wicked threats. Here's what they said at the end of verse 17. from now on that they speak to no man in, and watch what's the next two words, this name. They so hated Jesus, they wouldn't even say his name. They just said this name. Because the name of Jesus is the source of power. The name of Jesus is the source of salvation. The name of Jesus is the source of everything that matters. They didn't want to say this name. So they called them back in. Right? Verse 18. They call them back in. In comes Peter. In comes John. And Brother Cartwheel. Right? The guy who's leaping and hopping and praising God. I mean, the walking example of the power of God is right there. A notable miracle has been done. We can't deny it. This guy's known all over the place. He's been laid at the temple's beautiful gate for maybe 40 years or near that. He's over 40 years old at this time. And can you imagine getting the healing? You realize when you are genuinely converted, man, your legs start jumping. You're like, I want to leap and jump and praise God and hop and shout hallelujah. I want to follow Christ and tell others about Christ. But people who are still lame in their sins, they don't want that. And you've got it. And now you're beginning to praise and glorify God. Verse 18. So they called them and commanded them. Underline the word command. Commanded them not to speak at all. Disobey those kinds of commands. Elijah disobeyed them. Daniel disobeyed them. Daniel said, oh, you were not supposed to pray for how long? Is it 30 days? Well, I guess I could not pray for 30 days. I guess I could maybe mumble quietly when I'm out in the field and just pray to myself. Is that what he said? Not at all. He said, oh, you don't want us to pray for 30 days? Let me open my window. Great God, I worship you. I'm praying to you. Is everybody out there? Yeah, I see you under that window there. I see you. I'm praying to the true and living God. Don't be in the slightest bit intimidated by these godless threats of these wicked extortioners. They will do everything they can to hinder the work of God. God's work will roll on. God is the great juggernaut, and His great work will move forward, and move forward, and move forward, and you'll either be on board or off board. I'm on board, amen? And so he says, verse 18, command them not to speak at all, ignore those commands, disobey those commands, and rebuke the people that give them. Rebuke the people that give those kind of commands. And Peter and John answered and said to them, all right, now here's kind of, you know, they didn't set up all night wondering what should we say? How can we compromise? They didn't say, how can we compromise with this godless pack of wolves that hate our Lord? They might say they love God, but Jesus said, if you love Moses, if you believe in Moses, you would believe in me. And he says, here's what the deal is, guys. Peter and John answered and said, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. And it's interesting, you judge is a command. He's commanding the Sanhedrin. He's turned the tables on them. Peter has now said, oh, you're commanding us not to talk about Jesus? Let me command you about something. I'm going to command you to make a wiser judgment, and the command is, you are in opposition to God. You with your wicked hands, your lawless hands, have murdered the Prince of Life, and God has given His approval by raising Him from the dead, hallelujah. We serve the true and living God, and God has put His hand of approval on Him by raising Him from the dead. And not only that, Brother Cartwheel, would you like to hop across the stage for us? Would you like to leap? I bet you he can leap over that Sanhedrin chair and back again. I would not doubt he was doing all kinds of things, demonstrating in front of them. And they're like, I don't see it. I don't see it. I'm not watching. I don't want to see this. I don't want to see this guy. But when you follow Christ, people are going to see you're sold out for Jesus Christ. There's a very important verse in verse 19 and 20. Verse 20. We cannot but speak. That's how it's in the English. In the Greek, it's a very strange phrase. We are unable not to stop talking. The cannot is actually a verb. It's dunamis. We do not have the power to stop speaking. And I thought, wow, I'm going to ponder that for a minute. They don't have the ability to shut up. Isn't that something? We cannot stop. We are unable to not talk. We don't have the power to stop talking about Jesus. Now I thought, well why is that? Let me give you a couple of reasons. First of all, because God Almighty makes us unable to stay silent. Why? Because the Great Commission commands us to be verbal about the cross. Go into all the world and preach the Gospel. We are commanded. The command of God says you cannot be silent. The Spirit of God comes to live within us. Have you ever had a persistent cough? that you, it's not like cough, cough, cough, cough, cough, but it'll come up on you and you just can't stop. You might, right? Or a sneeze and you're like. I mean, you're trying not to sneeze, but boy, you're unable not to sneeze, right? You don't have the power to stop from sneezing. That's what he's saying is the Spirit of God is not going to allow you to be silent. If you have a new nature, you're regenerated, you're born again, the Spirit of God will not allow you to be silent. He's going to arrange situations where you have to open your mouth. And if you're saved, He's changed your mind, so you want to open your mouth. You're just like, Lord, I'm still scared, but I'm going to be bold, and maybe I can go with Lori, because she's bold. I'll just stand there and watch Lori witness. And that's good. That's a good start. You know, you start getting... And all of a sudden, you've got Penny out there, and Penny's standing on the street corner, holding the Bible up, preaching the Word. And Kim's right there with her. And they're shouting, you see, this is a fascinating term. Verse 20, we cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard. These aren't little ideas. These aren't theories that they thunk up somewhere. They said, we have handled him, John, in 1 John 1, the things that we have seen, the things that we have heard, the things that we have examined, that we have looked at, we've gazed upon, we've stared at, thoughtfully, is the way that it's put in 1 John. They don't have the power to keep their mouths shut. Why else? Let me show you an important verse. Go over to 1 Corinthians 9. 1 Corinthians 9. Watch this, verse 16, 9-16. Four, if I evangelize, well, wait a minute, that's not what my Bible says. What does your Bible say? You realize if you have a Greek New Testament, the word for preach the gospel, the problem in English is when we hear the word preach, we think of standing up on a platform, preaching the word. Right? There's actually two words for that. One is a kerux. A kerux is a herald. So when Paul commanded Timothy, keruxon ton logon. He is saying, preach, herald the word. Be just like when the Caesar would send out. Let me clarify something for you. Paul says, I'm not trained in rhetoric. I could care less about bedazzling you and befuddling you and tantalizing you with the latest string of logic and illustrations and whirlybob thinking so that over here you're like, ooh, wow, isn't Leroy just so smart and so amazing and he's so handsome and wow, I hope my daughter can find a man like him, right? That's what Greek rhetoric was all about. baffling and befuddling and bedazzling. They would put on a show. In fact, the early history says they would rub lead or mercury onto their face so it would shine. Of course, they didn't understand the problems of that. But as they tried to wow people, they had a wow factor, right? They use the gel in their hair and they've got the right way to say stuff so that, oh man, I want to hear him again. Paul says, I'm not trained in that nonsense. What I am is I am not a rhetorician, I am a kerux. A kerux is a herald. The rhetorician was all about the wow factor, the herald was all about the content. What was being proclaimed from Caesar? Caesar would send you, and you would stand up, open it up, hear ye, hear ye, and that herald was only worth his salt if he got every single word communicated clearly to you. He didn't care if you liked the color of his sandals, or the kind of horse that he rode into town on, or anything like that. He's like, hear ye, hear ye, Caesar says such and such, such and such. Alright, next town. That's at Kerouks. But there's another word, and it's evangelize. When we go out and preach the gospel to the lost, we're evangelizing. When we go out door-to-door, we're evangelizing. We are doing the euangelizamai. And that's the word that's being used here. I preach the gospel. Those four words are one Greek word, evangelize. So if I evangelize, I have nothing to boast of. Isn't that interesting? In our world, if you meet someone and they evangelize, oh boy, that guy's really something. Tell us how you did it. Paul says, no, I've got nothing to boast of. Why? Because necessity is laid upon me. Let me show you what necessity being laid upon you. I've got a little baby. The fire alarm goes on. I run down the steps. I say, Flo, take this. And I'm gone. Whoa! Flo's now got a baby in her arms. Flo has necessity thrust upon her. The necessity that is thrust upon us is the Great Commission. If we don't evangelize, they will not get saved. Did you understand that? We are plan A and there's no plan B. Now, if you were to ask me and I was God, first of all, I'd mess everything up. But what I would do is I'd say, okay, we want angels at every single door at six o'clock in the morning, and don't bother knocking, just kick the door down. Walk in, put your sword at their throat while they're in bed, and say, you better turn or burn. Turn or burn. Every day, that's what I would do if I was running the show. But God has said, no, what I'm choosing is not angelic warriors to proclaim the Gospel. I'm choosing slaves. I'm choosing broken people who have been washed in the blood, who have been forgiven a cartload of sin, because when you talk to lost people, that's you. Amen? They need to be washed in the blood. They need to be forgiven of their sin. He says, watch this, in verse 17. If I do this, if I do what? If I preach the Gospel. Go back to verse 16 again. If I evangelize, preach the Gospel, euangelizamai, I have nothing to boast of because necessity is laid upon me. It's dumped in my lap. There's nothing I can do but do it. Yes, woe is me if I do not evangelize. You ever see that verse before? Woe is me if I do not evangelize. Woe, W-O-E, the wrath of the eternal. Under the wrath of God. It puts you under the wrath of God if you refuse to tell people about Jesus. So he says in verse 17, now, there's two ways you can fulfill your responsibility. One is willingly, right? And that's what he says, verse 17. For if I do this, if I evangelize willingly, then I get a reward in glory. But if you get up and it's like, Lord, I don't want to do this, you're Jonah. Right? Remember Jonah? He didn't want to do it. And as Jonah, you're like, Lord, I don't want to do it. These worthless people. They don't love you. They deserve to burn in hell. But you've commanded me. Okay, trudge, trudge, trudge. Off we go. And we obey the Great Commission. You've done your job. Right? What does it say in verse 17? If I do it willingly, I have a reward. If it's against my will, you've still got the job to do. If you don't want it, you've been entrusted with a stewardship. It's thrust upon you, it's laid, it's pressed into your hands, and I'm going to press it into your hands just as the way God put a precedent into me. I mean, you see, I hope and pray what you can feel is that this is not optional. Obeying the Great Commission, serving God, living for Christ, talking to lost people about Christ is something that God has thrust upon us, and we have to do it. Verse 18, what then is my reward? That when I evangelize, I preach the gospel, again, euangelizamai, I may present the gospel of Christ without charge. That's what really made Paul happy in Corinth. So when it says we are unable, we do not have the power, we are dunamai, we are unable to stay silent. Why are they unable to stay silent? Because God's great commission, because the indwelling Holy Spirit, because it's thrust in your arms, also your identity. Do you know the Bible says you are a witness? Can you imagine if you were the witness of a crime and you either come forward and say something in court or the murderer goes free? You are obligated to step forward, aren't you? Amen? And so that's Acts 1.8. Let's go back to Acts 1.8. He says, when the Spirit of God comes upon you, you shall be my witnesses. Another term, very important to get. Go back to Ezekiel 3. If you don't know your way around, start learning your way around. Ezekiel 3. And watch this. Verse 16. Now it came to pass at the end of seven days that the word of the Lord came to me saying, Son of man... He's talking to Ezekiel. Ezekiel, I have made you a what? What is a watchman? I'm sure there's a military term for it. The watch guard or the guard on duty, the overnight guy who's got a... security guy, someone else said what? Sentry, I like that, sentry. So you're the sentry on duty and you're the watchman and you've got a job to do. If you see the enemy coming and you're like, oh, I sure wanted to go to sleep. And you go to sleep. Are the enemies still gonna come? The enemy doesn't look through their binoculars and say, or their telescope, hey, that guy went to sleep. Okay, we got a few minutes, or maybe a couple of hours. Guys, take a break. He's taking a break, so we'll take a few hours. That's not how it works. They're like, oh, good. The guy on duty is asleep. He says, I've made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Therefore, hear a word from my mouth, not from whoever the church boss is, not from whoever the wicked guy down at the seminary who doesn't believe the Bible anymore. You hear a word from my mouth, not a word from the local politician. I don't care what politicians say, because they're always speaking out of both sides of their mouth anyway. I can't get it straight. Both sides. I'm sick of both sides. And so it says here, when you hear a word from my mouth and give them what? Comfort? Are we to go up to unsaved people and give them comfort from Me? Are we to go up to a lost person and say, you poor thing, I know life's been hard, and I know why you're shaking your fist at God, and yeah, you ought to shake your fist at God, because what kind of a God would let bad things happen to you? No, He says, here's what you do, you warn them. And here's the message, it's very simple. Verse 18, when I say to the wicked, you shall surely die. That's the message. Our message to lost people is not, you can live your best life now. We have a way for you to raise your children in a crazy world. How to get along with your co-workers. That's not our message. When an unsaved person comes into the church, when we go out evangelizing, our message to them is, you shall surely die. Well, now Ezekiel has a problem. He says, and, verse 18, you give him no warning? You don't speak to warn the wicked to turn from his wicked way? There's plenty of big box churches that don't do that anymore. They don't preach that the people should turn from their wicked way. They put on a rock concert and they give a TED talk. And he says, and you don't speak to warn the wicked to turn from his wicked way to save his life. That wicked man will still die in his sin. It's not like God says, well, if the church just decides we're not going to evangelize, we're just not going to obey Christ. We're not going to obey the Great Commission. We're not going to obey the warning in Ezekiel. We're just going to sit on our hands and complain and grumble and fuss. The guy's still going to die in his sin. But then what does he say? But his blood, I'll require at your hand. In other words, you will be guilty of soul murder. I remember asking a professor at Dallas Seminary. I said, wow, I mean, this is like really important. This isn't like, well, if you don't evangelize, I'm just not going to be happy with you. God says, if you don't warn the wicked to turn from your wicked way, you're going to be guilty of murder. And the professor said at that time, oh, that was for Ezekiel. And for a few years, that kind of placated me. It was like, oh. But then I realized, as I started preaching through the book of Acts, Paul uses exactly the same image. in the book of Acts, in chapter 18 and chapter 20. He says, I am innocent of the blood of all men. Where did Paul get that imagery from? My hands are clean from the blood of all men. Paul says, why are your hands not bloody? Why do you not have bloody hands? Because I faithfully proclaimed faith in the Lord Jesus and repentance from sin. That's what the Lord said. So, does that sound optional to anybody? That's why they are unable to keep silent. Once you understand what we're talking about, the stakes are too high. And I'll wrap up with a couple of these other ones. We are ambassadors. Doesn't the Bible call us ambassadors in 2 Corinthians? What is an ambassador? He represents the king of another country. We're representatives of the king of kings. What about slaves? The Bible says you are doulos, you are slaves. Does the slave determine what he wants to do or does the master tell the slave what to do? The master tells the slave. There's another verse in Romans 1.14 that says we are debtors. We are debtors to the Gentiles, to the heathen. Well, how are we debtors to the heathen? If I have $100. And I say, I can't put this $100 in Leroy's cup. Would you give this to Leroy? Now you are in debt. because that's not your money. That goes to Leroy, right? Christ has given us the gospel and has said, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. If you say, no, I'm going to hang on to it, I'll keep it in my pocket, you're in debt. You better go out and give that gospel to everybody. The stakes are too high, hell is too hot. Great examples, the example of the martyrs, the example of Jesus and the first disciples, the example of the prophets. Let me show you real quick before we close, Jeremiah chapter Jeremiah chapter 20. This one was burning on my heart so I thought I wanted to share this with you. Jeremiah has an unpopular ministry. The Bible says all those who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. If we are proclaiming God's Word, we're going to be generally unpopular. Now the people of God will love it. Amen? Wow, you're like, oh man, this is the first time we've really been digging into the Word of God, seeing these things. But they were giving Jeremiah a very hard time. Look at verse 2, 20 and verse 2, chapter 20, verse 2. Then Pasher struck Jeremiah the prophet. He just punched him in the face and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the Lord. Drop down to verse 7. Here's what Jeremiah said, Lord, you induced me and I was persuaded. You're stronger than I am. You prevailed. I am in derision daily. Everyone's mocking me. It's like, Lord, you didn't even ask me. Jeremiah, would you like to have a nice, happy ministry or where people mock you and disobey you and talk about you? He says, Lord, I'm in derision. And when I spoke, I cried out, I shouted violence and plunder because the Word of the Lord was made a derision and a reproach daily. So here's what I said. That's it. I'm done. I'm not preaching anymore. He says, I'm not going to mention your name anymore. I'm not going to talk about you. They don't want to hear you anyway. They don't want to hear me preach anyway. But His Word was in my heart like a burning fire. It was shut up in my bones. I sat there and I'm like, Lord, no, I'm not going to get up and I'm not going to go through that again. I'm not going to go to another dead church and have them gossip and lie and refuse to obey the word of God. Forget it, God. I'm not going to do it this time. I'm not going. And Lord says, I'm stronger than you are. And the Word of God was burning and churning and churning and burning. And the Lord was like, no, you've got to preach My Word. There's people going to hell. Stop letting wicked people intimidate you. Stop letting wicked people severely threaten you with all kinds of words. And he says, God, I'm going to speak Your Word again. I'm weary of holding it back. I'm not going to be silent. I'm going to open my mouth. And I'm going to do it faithfully, week after week, and year after year, God willing. And he says, I simply couldn't hold it back anymore. That's what Peter is saying. We are unable not to speak. I can't be silent. I've heard many mocking, verse 10 says. You know what they say? Fear on every side. Oh, you're going to listen to old Mr. Fear on Every Side. All he has is a negative message of fear and damnation. Mr. Fear on Every Side. This is interesting. Look back at verse 3 of chapter 20. It happened on the next day that Pasher brought Jeremiah out of the stocks. And Jeremiah said to him, the Lord has not called your name Pasher, but he has called your name Magor Masib. You know what that means? Fear on every side. So they took what he had preached and turned it into a mockery. He says, report, they say, in verse 10. And we'll report. Okay, Jeremiah, go ahead. Tell us what the message from the Lord is today, big mouth. And we'll go tell other people about your message. All my acquaintances watched for my stumbling. They're just watching. Isn't that a sick person? Isn't that a sinful, evil person who's sitting there waiting for Jeremiah to do or say something? that they can leap on and clutch on. Perhaps, they say, He can be induced and then we'll prevail against Him and we'll take our revenge upon Him. But the Lord is with me as a mighty and awesome one. Amen. So, wrapping up saying this, we are simply unable to be silent. Because of the Spirit of God, the call of God, the mission of God, the command of God, the responsibilities that we have, the identity that we have as watchmen and slaves and ambassadors, all of those are on the back of your notes. I pray you'll take the time and look those up. I wanted you to have the actual scriptures that you could look up. As we wrap up in Acts again, Acts, he says this, chapter four, the last verse, he says in verse 21, so when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way of punishing them. Now they'll figure a way later, because the people, since they glorified God for what had been done, and the man was over 40 years old, on whom the miracle of healing had been performed. Heavenly Father, we come before you in humility, acknowledging that you are our master, you are our slave master, and we are your slaves. You are our king, and we are your subjects. You are our shepherd, and we are your sheep. And your word is crystal clear that we're to serve you wholeheartedly with all of the boldness that we have. I pray you would protect this little flock. These are the sheep of your pasture, and I know that they have been worried and harried and harassed. But Lord, I pray that they would stand strong and firm, and that you would give us a wonderful harvest of souls for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.