Preaching Another Man's Sermon

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I want to ask you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 13 and hold your place at verse 13.
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Plagiarism is a big problem in the world of business.
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People copyright books, articles, stories, and other writings so that other people cannot come along, attach their names to them, and present them as their own.
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When I was in college, there were rules and stipulations which accompanied the writings of papers so that a person would not be found having committed the violation of plagiarism, and one who did would be not only given an F on the paper, but would have the potential of being removed from the school for having violated the rules.
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Plagiarism is also a big problem in the church.
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Recently, a very famous pastor was found having lifted entire sections of material from other books in the writing of his own bestseller.
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It was also found that the church had bought several thousand copies of the book to help it put it on the bestseller list.
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It's kind of a real deep well of badness that happened there, actually.
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In addition, sometimes a pastor who does not desire to work or study will simply cut and paste a message which he gets from another man and pass it off as his own work.
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That's actually happened to me a few times.
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I've been contacted twice by churches over the last ten years of preaching.
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I've been contacted two times by two different churches.
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One of the guys, I remember distinctly, he asked me, he said, did you write the sermon entitled Thus and So? I said, yes.
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And he said, well, my pastor preached it last week as you.
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I said, well, somebody's impersonating me.
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That's interesting.
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And that's happened twice, you know.
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So I'm confident that plagiarism does happen in the church.
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And I say all that to say this, today I'm preaching another man's message.
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But I'm not plagiarizing.
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Because today I'm preaching the message to the Apostle Paul.
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I'm actually going to preach Paul's message.
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When we go to Acts 13 and we follow along Paul's missionary journey, when we arrive at verse 13, where we find ourselves is the beginning of the longest message that we have recorded from the Apostle Paul.
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The longest sermon that we have in the book of Acts.
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And it's still a synopsis.
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It's not everything Paul said.
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But it's the longest synopsis of a message from the man who I would say is the greatest Christian theologian outside of Jesus Christ in history.
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This is a powerful, powerful message.
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So I just want to preach his message.
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Give exposition as we go, of course, make commentary as we go.
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But I just love this passage and I want us to hear it.
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And normally I wouldn't preach this many verses of Scripture.
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And I don't know that I'll finish it today, but I'll sure try.
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But normally I wouldn't do this much.
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We've been going through Acts now for a while.
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But I want to.
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I want us to hear everything he has to say, for it is valuable to us.
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So let us stand.
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We're going to just read the opening, verses 13 through 16, standing to give honor and reverence to the Word of God.
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And then we'll pray.
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Now Paul and his companions set sail from Paphos and came to Perga and Pamphylia.
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And John left them and returned to Jerusalem.
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But they went on from Perga and came to Antioch and Pisidia.
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And on the Sabbath day they went into the synagogue and sat down.
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After the reading from the law and the prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent a message to them saying, Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.
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So Paul stood up and motioning with his hands said, Men of Israel and you who fear God, listen.
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Father, I thank you for your Word.
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I thank you for the truth of the Word.
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I pray, Lord, that you would keep me from error, as I know that I am capable of preaching error.
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Father, I pray that you would keep me tied to the post of the truth of your Word.
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And I pray, O God, as is with every message, that you will use this as an opportunity to convict hearts.
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Lord, for those who know Christ, that this would draw them ever closer to conformity to Him.
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And for those among us, as there always are those among us who know not Christ, I pray that those who are aware that they are not saved would be convicted of their sin and turn to Christ.
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And those who have deceived themselves to believe that they are and yet are not, that it would be made clear to them of their own self-deception and that they would bow the knee to Jesus Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit, by the power of your sovereign oversight.
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We give you all glory and praise for all that you have done and are going to do.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.
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When we last saw Paul and Barnabas, and those of you who have been with us know that we've been going through this text, they were before the proconsul, Sergius Paulus.
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They have now left the island of Cyprus and they have sailed to a place called Perga in the land of Pamphylia, which is north.
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And then they went to Antioch of Pisidia.
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This is not the same Antioch that they departed from.
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That can be confusing because Paul left Antioch and now it seems as if he's going back, but it's a different Antioch.
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That was Antioch of Syria.
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This is Antioch of Pisidia.
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This time in history, there were about 12 different places that were called Antioch.
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They were named after Antiochus Epiphanus, who was a leader, a very powerful and evil leader during the time of the Maccabees.
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So this is why there are so many places in Scripture called Antioch, and it's usually Antioch of Syria or Antioch of Pisidia, identifying where these towns are located.
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It's the same as in, you know, America.
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There's a bunch of Jacksonvilles.
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Just depends on what state you're in.
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So we understand this is not the same place, and the narrative tells us at this point in their missionary journey, not long after they began, it seems, John Mark, who is their helper, we talked about last week, sort of like their personal deacon, their servant, the one who's there to kind of get them to and from and help them, he stops.
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He leaves the ministry at this time and it doesn't tell us why.
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And let me tell you, commentary writers have made a field day of trying to figure out why John left.
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Some of them have conjectured that he missed the comforts of home.
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We know John Mark's mother was very well-to-do, and here he's gone off on a missionary journey and he's kind of, I hate to call him a rich kid, but he's used to comfort and now he's very uncomfortable.
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Maybe he's ready to go home.
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Others believe that he was upset because at this point in the narrative, Paul takes preeminence over Barnabas, and Barnabas was a relative of John Mark.
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From the time of Sergius Paulus on, up until then, it was Saul and Barnabas, Saul and Barnabas, but from this point on, it's Paul and his companions.
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Paul takes preeminence from this point on, and some have conjectured that perhaps John Mark took offense to Paul's leadership.
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So others think he refused to make the arduous trek from Antioch, or rather from Pisidia to Antioch, which was a long and difficult journey.
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He just didn't want to go.
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What we do know is this, later in the narrative of Acts, the apostle Paul doesn't want to work with John anymore.
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So whatever his reason was, Paul was unimpressed.
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Paul said, you know what, he ain't got the chops.
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What's interesting though is later on, Paul does renege on that and does begin to work with him.
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But whatever the situation is, Paul is unimpressed by his reason for leaving.
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So Paul and Barnabas together are now doing the ministry, having to pick up the slack that John has left behind, and they go together into the synagogue on the Sabbath.
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This would have been the common thing to do.
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It was customary for them to go and worship with the Jews.
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Even though they were Christians, they went in to hear the reading from the prophets and from the law.
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And after the opening of the worship service, where they had recited the Shema, Hear O Israel, the Lord thy God, the Lord is one Lord.
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That's the prayer of Israel from Deuteronomy 6.
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They would have had the reading of the scriptures, and they would have had the prayers.
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And at this point, Paul is invited to speak, which I find very odd.
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I find it odd because if someone came into the church this morning with a clergy collar on and sat down right there, I wouldn't just send a note by Jack and say, Hey Jack, take this guy a note and tell him I want him to come preach.
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No, there would be a vetting process.
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There would be, Hey, I don't know who this cat is.
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We've had that happen.
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I had one guy come to me in my office one day.
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He says, I have a word from God that I have to tell your people.
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I said, Well, tell me.
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No, I have to tell your people.
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Well, hit the bricks.
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If you can't tell me first, if I don't even know what you're going to say, there's no way I'm letting you stand in this pulpit and just spout nonsense.
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It's the elder's responsibility to know that what comes out of this pulpit is in line with the Word of God.
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And if you believe you're a prophet of God and going to speak something about the Word of God, we want to know what it is before we cut you loose.
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That's just the truth, folks.
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That's the way it is.
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But somehow, for some reason, this people had a trust in the Apostle Paul.
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Brian Borgman, who is a pastor who I respect a lot, he said perhaps Paul had something on him that identified him as a Pharisee.
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You remember, Paul was a Pharisee.
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And perhaps he had a garb of some sort that identified him as a leader or teacher.
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And thus he comes in.
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He's a visiting leader or teacher among the Jews.
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Well, let's see what this gentleman has to say.
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Doesn't say that in the text and obviously that can't be proven.
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But it's an interesting thought that there's got to be something about Paul that caused them to have the trust that they would send a messenger to him and say, you, you get to bring the sermon today.
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And so he did.
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Paul begins in verse 16.
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I love this phrase, men of Israel and you who fear God.
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Why did he say it that way? I don't know if you remember back in Acts chapter 10, we talked about Cornelius.
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What was Cornelius? He was a Gentile, but they called him what? A God-fearer.
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Because he was a Gentile who worshipped with the Jews.
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He was a worshipper of God, but he was not circumcised.
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So he was not considered to be a part of Israel, but he was considered to be one who feared God.
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So it seems as if in this synagogue, what we have is we have a mixture of Jews and God-fearers.
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And Paul is seeking to connect with all of them, men of Israel and you who fear God.
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Listen.
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And thus verse 17 begins his message.
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And I've broken it down into three parts.
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The first part, from verse 17 to verse 25, is Paul recounting Jewish history.
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And then beginning in verse 26, he appeals to the work of Jesus Christ.
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That takes us to verse 31.
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And then he concludes with a call to faith, beginning in verse 32.
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So we're going to just walk through these.
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We see now how Paul sort of outlines his message.
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He begins with recounting Jewish history, verse 17.
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He said, The God of this people Israel chose our fathers.
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There's a little reference to election there, if you guys just want to see that.
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God chose Israel.
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That was His choice to do so.
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And let me remind you, He didn't choose Israel because they were the better nation.
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He didn't choose Israel because they were the bigger nation.
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In fact, He said, You're the smallest.
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You're the least among all the nations.
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He didn't choose Israel because they were the most spiritually sensitive or the most righteous.
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There were some straight up hooligans among the Israelites.
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He chose Israel because it was according to His divine counsel and purpose to do so.
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He says in Amos 3, 2, You have I loved.
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You have I known among all the nations of the world.
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I chose you.
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Not because you deserve it, but because I'm God.
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Something to think about.
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He says, You...
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He said, The God of this people Israel chose our fathers and made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm He led them out.
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He's beginning here to talk about deliverance.
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He wants to remind the people of Israel that God is a delivering God.
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He is a God who takes His people out of their bondage.
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So He goes back to the point that they all can sort of sympathize with the bondage in Egypt.
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Now, there were other times when they were in bondage.
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They were in bondage under Nebuchadnezzar.
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They were in bondage at different times in history.
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But this was the time that they all sort of went back to mentally as this is a time of great deliverance from God.
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God led us out of Egypt by His strong right hand.
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And then in verse 18, He reminds them about the wilderness.
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And for about 40 years, He put up with them in the wilderness.
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Didn't He not? Isn't that a great way of saying it? He put up with them.
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It's like I said, there were some knuckleheads in the wilderness.
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There were some times where they were just acting a fool.
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And God was merciful and gracious, and He could have abandoned them.
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In fact, at a certain point, He told Moses, He said, I'll just wipe them out.
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I'll start all over with you.
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And Moses becomes a picture of Christ as intercessor.
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No, don't do that.
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Interceding as a pre-Christ figure.
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Not a pre-incarnate Christ, but a type of Christ interceding for the people of God with God.
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Verse 19, we see the time of their receiving into Canaan.
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It says, and after destroying seven nations in the land of Canaan, He gave them their land as an inheritance.
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And that sort of ends the epic of the wilderness wanderings.
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And He says in the next verse, all this took about 450 years.
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If you think 400 years in Egypt, 40 years in the wilderness, and about 10 years of battles that they all went through, that makes it that 450 year period of the time that they were in Egypt to the time that they were in the land of Canaan.
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So Paul is just reminding them of this great deliverance that God gave them.
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And then he says, and after that, He gave them judges until Samuel the prophet.
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That's a huge bit of history Paul just sort of washes over there.
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But he's making a point.
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He doesn't want to stop, you know, a lot of us, we might stop and talk about Samson.
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We might stop and talk about all these judges and Deborah and all these different things that happened in jail and nailing the guy's head down.
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We know all these neat stories from there, but he didn't have time for all that.
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He's got to get to the most important part.
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So he jumps from the deliverance in Egypt to Samuel, where he's trying to get to David.
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Because what we're going to see is that Paul is making the point that all of Jewish history is pointing to one thing.
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This throne, David's throne, upon which there will be one who sits forever.
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And he's pointing to that.
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So we see this, he goes until Samuel the prophet.
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Then they asked for a king, verse 21.
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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.
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Now we know that Saul was actually a judgment against the people.
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Saul was not a good king.
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And even though the people cried out, God said, I will be your God.
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And they said, no, we need a God like the other nations around us.
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We need a king like the other nations around us.
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And so they cried out for a king, and they gave him Saul.
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Saul, who was taller than all the other men.
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He was big, and he was ruddy, and he was handsome.
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And they said, this is a good-looking king.
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We receive him as king.
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And then, of course, he led them into many negative things and false worship.
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And then we see in verse 22, the rise of David.
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Again, I hate to go through these so fast, but I want to show you where he's going.
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He's going somewhere with this, because he gets to David.
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He says, and when he had removed him...
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Who's him? It's Saul.
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When Saul was removed, he raised up David to be the king.
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Of whom he testified and said, I have found in David the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who will do all my will.
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You see, David wasn't like Saul.
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Not because David wasn't a sinner.
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David was a sinner.
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David was a sinner whose sins are legendary.
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David murdered a man for his wife.
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We know David had many sins, both to confess and to live with.
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But he wasn't like Saul, though.
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Because David had a heart that did truly desire to be obedient to God.
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A desire for obedience doesn't make for perfect obedience.
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Amen? But there is a difference between having a desire for obedience and not having a desire.
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And Saul did not have that desire.
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And that's what made him different than David.
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David actually wanted to do what God commanded.
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And Saul was more concerned with doing what he wanted in God's name.
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Remember when he went out, God said, destroy everything.
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And yet he brought back a bunch of spoils.
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And Samuel came out and says, what have you done? And Saul says, well, hey, I was going to sacrifice these animals to God.
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God wants obedience more than sacrifice.
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Saul had no desire, truly, to be obedient to God.
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He wanted to be obedient to himself in God's name.
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How many of us today maybe know someone like that or maybe have seen that even in ourselves? Verse 23, it says in verse 23, And of this man's offspring God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as He promised.
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You see, all this about David, all this about Egypt, all this about Israel, all this just pointing to Jesus.
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Paul is making a run for the cross.
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I just got to bring you guys with me.
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And the way that I'm going to bring you guys with me is I'm going to appeal to what you know.
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You're Jewish people.
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You understand Jewish history.
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You understand bondage.
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You understand the monarchy.
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You understand the throne.
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Know that all that points to Jesus, the Deliverer, and the King is found in Him.
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And you got to think, because again, I wasn't there.
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I don't know this to be sure.
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But I got to think the guy who sent him the message, as soon as he said the word Jesus, went, uh-oh.
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Because now he's coming with a new message.
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He's coming with a message they haven't heard.
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Or maybe they have heard of Jesus, but maybe in the negative.
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You know, a lot of people knew Jesus died.
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A lot of people knew He died at the hands of the Jews.
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And some people saw Him as an insurrectionist.
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Some people saw Him as a false prophet.
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But very few people saw Him as the Christ.
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And here Paul is preaching Him straight up.
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Out of David, God has brought Israel's Savior, Jesus, as He promised.
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Now, in verse 24 and 25, he seems to take a step back from that.
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Because in verse 24 and 25, he talks about John the Baptist.
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Read it with me.
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He says, before His coming, speaking of Jesus, John had proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.
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And as John was finishing his course, he said, What do you suppose that I am? I am not he.
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No, but behold, after me is coming the sandals of whom I am not worthy to untie.
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Now, why in the world would Paul stop talking about Jesus to start talking about John? Well, we need to understand the position of John in prophetic history.
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John the Baptist is the last of the Old Testament prophets.
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See, we don't often think of John the Baptist as an Old Testament prophet.
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We think of John as a New Testament character because he's in the New Testament.
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But Jesus identified Him as a prophet, as the greatest prophet.
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And He's at the end of what we would call the Old Testament time.
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This is the end of this time period.
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And John becomes sort of the link between the Old and the New.
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He becomes the link between the type and the antitype.
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The type being those things which represented Christ, the antitype being Christ Himself.
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And John is the one who makes that path straight.
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He's the one who paves the road for Jesus to come.
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And Paul's bringing this out.
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He's saying that this man, he is an eschatological messenger.
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That means end times.
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He's bringing about the promise of this.
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By the way, how long have we been in the eschaton, the end times? Ever since Jesus went into heaven? People say we're in the end times.
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Pastor, do you think we're in the end times? Yeah, we've been there for 2,000 years.
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Ever since Jesus went into heaven, what did He say? The angel says He will return as He went.
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And what was Jesus' command to us all? Live like it could be today.
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Live like it could be today.
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Paul thought it could have been in his day.
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There are times when he wrote where it seemed as if he said, Jesus, you know, there are things.
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There are things.
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You know, I do think that there are some things that are going to happen before Jesus returns, but you know what? I think it could be today too.
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I better live like it's today, like it could be.
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So we've been in the eschaton for 2,000 years.
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That may seem like a long time, but on God's eternal clock, 2,000 years is nothing.
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It's two whole days on He whose day is like 1,000 years.
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So John becomes the link between the old and the new.
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And so Paul begins at this point to appeal to the work of Jesus Christ, showing the connection between the old and the new.
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He starts in verse 26 by calling them sons of the family of Abraham.
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He says, brothers, sons of the family of Abraham and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of salvation.
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For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize Him nor understand the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning Him.
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You ever thought how could they have missed it? How could the Pharisees have missed who Jesus was? How could those who had read the Scripture every week in their synagogues, they read from the Torah, they read from the prophets, they read every week, they were there, they were consistently there, and the Pharisees were students of the Word, they memorized great sections of Scripture.
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Whole books written by the prophets were committed to memory.
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They didn't have television, that's what they did.
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They committed whole Scripture to memory.
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It's what they knew, and yet they missed Jesus Christ, their Messiah, and instead of receiving Him, they condemned Him.
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You ever just sat and thought how powerful that is? You know what it makes me think about? It makes me ask the question, how many people go to church every week for 30 years, 40 years, and miss the message of the Gospel? You know, that's why in our communion meditation, and oftentimes, if you come here long enough, you'll hear me say it again and again and again, the Gospel needs to be preached and preached and preached and preached and preached.
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We need to understand the Gospel.
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We need to understand our sin.
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We need to understand reconciliation through the cross.
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We need to understand words like penal substitution or atonement, not so we can sound smart, but so that we can understand the cross.
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We need to understand these things because it is so easy to remain ignorant and simply sit and not be moved or changed.
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These men sat for years, and yet the Apostle Paul says, they did not recognize Him.
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They were committed to their traditions, but not to what the Scripture said.
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And they did not recognize Him.
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Verse 28, And though they found in Him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have Him executed.
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That is an over and over and over thing in Acts.
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Almost every time the death is mentioned of Jesus, it is mentioned along with the phrase, and though they found nothing worthy of death.
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What is that? That is a condemnation.
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It is a statement of condemnation.
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And though He was not worthy of death, they still put Him to death.
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Why? Because their foolish hearts were darkened.
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And then he goes on in 29 to say, And when they had carried out all that was written of Him, they took Him down from the tree and laid Him in the tomb.
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That, of course, is a reference to the promise of God that He would die and be raised again.
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This is just fulfilling prophecy, fulfilling Scripture.
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1 Corinthians 15, if you think about what does 1 Corinthians 15 say? This is the Gospel which I proclaim to you, that Christ was killed according to the Scriptures, He was buried according to the Scriptures, and raised according to the Scriptures.
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So He is saying that this is a fulfilling of prophecy.
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This is a promise that God fulfilled.
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And then verse 30 begins with the phrase, But God.
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If you underline your Bibles, if you make a highlight note in your Bibles, maybe you don't want to write in the Bible, that's fine.
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But the phrase, But God, are two of the most powerful words in all the Bible.
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Think about it when it comes up.
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Romans 5, that we're sinners, but God shows His love for us.
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And while we're sinners, Christ died for us.
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But God shows His love.
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Ephesians 2, we are by nature children of wrath, but God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, He saved us by His grace.
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Galatians 3, 18, it says, For the inheritance comes by the law, it is no longer by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
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But God, but God, but God, is two beautiful words, because that's what changes everything.
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You see, here's the situation.
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Jesus Christ came into the world.
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He was rejected by His people.
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He was placed on a cross.
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He was brought down from that cross.
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He was placed on a tomb, and it seemed like everything was over.
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It seemed like everything was lost.
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It seemed like all of these men who had been following Him, all 11 of these men who stood there crying, wondering what was going to happen, all these men who looked at Him, and they wondered what was going to happen, on the third day, but God raised Him from the dead.
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That's the change.
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And that changed history.
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That split time in half.
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What do we call, why is this 2015? Anno Domini, in the year of our Lord.
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2015.
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Split time in half.
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It was the most important moment in the history of the world.
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Jesus Christ walking out of that tomb, because it vindicated every word He ever said about Himself, and declared Himself King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.
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And verse 31 says, And for many days He appeared to those who had come up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now His witnesses to the people.
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What's so cool about this? And I think sometimes we have a hard time reading back, kind of reading as this is happening.
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Paul is saying this while people who are still alive had seen Jesus.
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He says right here in the text, He says, And for many days He appeared to those who had come up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now His witnesses.
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These people are out there preaching Jesus, who saw Jesus.
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They're going to their deaths having seen Jesus.
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They're willing to have their heads cut off, to be nailed to crosses, to be put on giant...
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You know what? Andrew died on an axe.
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He was nailed.
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Not in a T, like we imagine the cross, but his legs were spread apart, his hands were spread apart, he was spread out and he died, proclaiming Jesus Christ.
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James had his head cut off.
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James, the brother of Jesus, thrown down from the temple and then stoned.
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And Peter, crucified.
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Upside down tradition tells us.
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We don't know that that's absolutely accurate, but there's evidence for that.
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This is what we have.
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This is the testimony we have.
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The truth of the belief in Christ is written in the blood of those who saw Him and believed in Him.
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And yet, we are called more blessed because we believe and haven't seen.
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So Paul uses all this to finally conclude his message with a Gospel call.
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Verse 32.
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And we bring you the good news.
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That's Gospel.
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Evangelion in the Greek.
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Good message.
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I bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, this He has fulfilled to us, their children, by raising Jesus.
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As also it is written in the second Psalm, You are my son, today I have begotten you.
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He specifically uses three Scripture verses to show how Christ fulfilled Scripture.
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In verse 33, he quotes Psalm 2.
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In verse 34, he quotes Psalm 55.
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And in verse 35, he quotes Psalm 16.
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Just showing that this isn't some hiccup in God's prophetic calendar.
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This isn't something that kind of came out of nowhere.
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God was sort of wringing His hands.
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What am I going to do? Well, I guess I'll just send Jesus.
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No, this is what God had planned from the beginning.
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He had prophesied it from the beginning all the way back in Genesis chapter 3 when God says there is one coming who is going to crush the head of the serpent.
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All the way back from that, what we call the Proto-Evangelium.
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The first mention of God sending one who would crush the head of the serpent.
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All the way down through every type, through every picture, through every pre-incarnate Christ.
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We see all through the Old Testament pointing to Jesus Christ.
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And it's fulfilled in Him.
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And he says, he shows us this just in a quick snapshot of three Scripture verses.
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And then he shows the distinction between David and Jesus.
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In verse 36, he says, For David, after he served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep.
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That's a euphemism for death for believers.
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Because for us, when we die, it's not death in the way that an unbeliever dies.
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The Bible, when Jesus talks about the death of believers in Luke 16, He said there was a man who died and the angels carried his soul to be with Abraham.
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He says, but the unbelieving man died and what happened? He closed his eyes and he opened them up in hell.
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There was no angelic escort.
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There was no comfort.
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There was no encouragement.
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There was closing his eyes here and opening his eyes in hell.
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But this, he says, David fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption.
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Now that doesn't mean David spiritually saw corruption.
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It's talking about his body.
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His body went to the ground.
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There was a tomb he was put in and it's dust today.
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His body is dust.
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37, though, says this, But he whom God raised up did not see corruption.
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Jesus' body never became dust.
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Jesus' body never rotted.
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Jesus' body was glorified and walked out of that tomb.
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He wasn't like David.
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David's body decayed and became dust.
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Jesus' body was reformed and was glorified.
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And that's the distinction between David.
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Because David can't sit on a throne forever.
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He longed dead.
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But Jesus can sit on that throne forever and ever.
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Fulfilling the Davidic covenant that his throne will be forever.
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And then in verse 38, Paul gets around to the heart of the matter.
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The issue of the forgiveness of sins.
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He says, Let it be known to you, brothers, I've already explained to you about God delivering.
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I've already explained to you about the monarchy.
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I've shown you how Jesus is delivered.
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Jesus is the king who's going to sit on David's throne.
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I've brought you through all the Old Testament.
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But now, let it be known, Therefore, brothers, that through this man, Forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.
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And by him, everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.
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You see, Moses' law binds you, my Jewish brethren.
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This is what Paul is saying.
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You are bound by Moses' law.
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You have not kept it one day in your life.
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You've not gone one full day where you've not broken some aspect of Moses' law.
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You stand condemned by God.
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You stand condemned under the law of Moses.
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Here is one whom God has sent to free you from that.
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To free you from the bondage.
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To give you forgiveness.
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And then in verse 40, he says, Beware.
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This is very important.
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Beware, therefore, lest what is said in the prophets should come about.
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Look, you scoffers.
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Be astounded and perish.
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For I am doing a work in your days.
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A work you will not believe.
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Even if one tells you.
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You see, he's ending with a warning.
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And that actually does end Paul's sermon.
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Next week, we're going to go into the response to the sermon.
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But I just want to end on that.
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I'm not stopping preaching.
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Don't get too excited.
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I don't want to go any further in the text.
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Because he ends with a warning.
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He says the prophets prophesied that even though you hear the truth, you won't believe it.
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But God will save those who do believe it.
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God has provided everlasting life and glory for those who believe.
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The unbelieving will perish.
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But the believing will have everlasting life.
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We all know the verse.
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John 3.16 I usually say it a little differently than some.
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A lot of people say God so loved the world.
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But the rendering in Greek is actually this.
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In this way God loved the world.
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That He gave His Son, His unique Son.
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Monogenes, only begotten Son.
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That every person believing on Him would not perish.
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What does that say about those who won't believe? Well, it goes on in the text to say they are condemned already.
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But those who believe will not be condemned.
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Those who believe will be saved.
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Who will perish? Those who do not believe.
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Now like I said, next week we are going to look at the response to the message.
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But to bring this message to a close, I want to go through a couple points of application.
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I like to round everything out with a couple points of application.
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These are in your worship folder so you don't have to spend the next few minutes writing.
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But just things to think about as you take the message and begin to apply it to your life.
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The first thing is this.
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There is not a standard way to introduce the gospel to someone.
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Now, where am I getting that from? Well, when I read this message from Apostle Paul in Acts 13, it reads so much differently than his message in Acts 17 when he talks to the Athenians.
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It's so different.
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But it's the same gospel.
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Why is it different? Because Paul is talking to an audience that has a background in Jewish history.
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They have a background in understanding the word, the Old Testament word of God.
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And he can use that as the foundation upon which to build his message.
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But when he gets to Athens and there is no one who understands that, what does he use? He uses nature and the fact that God has given all men a conscience.
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And that every man knows that God exists naturally.
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And he appeals to that differently than he appeals to it here.
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Which shows us one thing.
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When we're out at that fishing hole, when we're talking to people, it's important to ask a question.
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I always ask this question.
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Do you have a church background? Some people say, yeah, I grew up in church my whole life.
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Well, now I can appeal.
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I don't mean he's saved.
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You can go to church your whole life and be very lost.
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But it does at least give me somewhere to start with this man.
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If I talk to a guy and he says, I've never stepped foot in a church.
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I've never darkened the doors.
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Well, if I use words like sin, sanctification, justification, cross, Christ, he ain't going to know what any of that is.
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Other than what he's heard on Fox News, maybe.
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And that ain't good enough.
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I'm going to have to start at the beginning with that guy, you see.
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There's not a standard way.
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There's not a one-size-fits-all in introducing someone to the gospel.
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It's good to know that we can't assume that they know nothing.
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We also can't assume they know everything.
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We've got to ask.
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Ask them, what do you know? Number two.
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The gospel presentation should always show the relationship between law and grace.
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Modern evangelism techniques want to have the gospel without a reference to sin.
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And if sin is mentioned, it's always mentioned like this.
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Well, sin is what separates us from God.
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Let me tell you what sin is.
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Sin is not what separates you from God.
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Sin is what makes you worthy of the wrath of God.
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And there is a difference.
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Because why do we say sin separates us from God? It becomes about us.
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It becomes about my feelings.
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Oh, I want to be close to God.
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Sin separated me from God.
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Let me move this out of the way so I can draw closer to God.
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No, sin condemns you before the law court of God.
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He is the just ruler of the universe, and you stand having committed cosmic treason against Him and deserve His wrath.
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That's what sin is.
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But we don't want to say that because that message is offensive.
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But the Bible tells us the gospel is going to be offensive, and we try to make it palatable.
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Why? Why? Because we think it's up to us to save people.
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It's not.
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It's up to us to proclaim the gospel, and God will do the saving.
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When we share the gospel, it must appeal to an understanding of law and grace.
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By the way, if you notice our banners, law and grace.
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Law condemns us.
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Grace forgives us.
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But if you don't understand that, you won't understand that.
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And so it's appealed to both, and that's why He said in here, you stand condemned by the law of Moses.
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You need forgiveness.
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He references Moses' law.
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Why? Because we need forgiveness.
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Because we've broken the law.
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Finally, and we'll hasten to the end, the gospel presentation should always, always include a warning for disobedience.
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When we present the gospel, we are not presenting people with a suggestion.
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God does not request that people repent.
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God commands all men everywhere to repent.
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People need to know that it is a warning.
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I sat with a young man last night.
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We talked for over an hour about the gospel, and we kept going back and forth about the gospel.
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At the end of our conversation, I looked at him and I said, look, I said, if your house was on fire, I happen to know this young man.
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He lives in my neighborhood.
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I said, if your house was on fire, I'd kick your door in to go in and pull you out.
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I said, if you think I've been harsh with you tonight, and I was very forthright with him.
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I said, if you think I've been harsh tonight, you have to know the reason why.
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You are in a house that's on fire.
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You can die anytime.
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I know you're 18.
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I know you're healthy, but you drive a car and you're 18.
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You need to know the truth, and you need to repent because your house is on fire, and it's burning all around you, and at any moment could consume you.
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We've got to warn people of what it means to be disobedient to Christ.
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Dr.
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Lynn Broughton, the pastor of the Tabernacle Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, tells a funny story, and I want to end with this.
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He said there was a young man in his church that had a little mental deficiency.
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He just had a little bit of a slowness in his brain, and so he didn't really understand a whole lot, but he understood the Gospel, and he loved to share the Gospel with people.
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He said during one Sunday, the pastor had had an opportunity to call men to repentance, and everyone was standing, and the music is playing, and this young man sees another young man standing there all by himself, so he walks over to him, and he just nudges him, and in his very simple way says, Do you want to go to heaven? And annoyed, this very smart aleck man says, No! And the little simple boy said, Well, go to hell then.
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And he walked away.
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He didn't mean it like we might mean it.
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But you know it was that, that that man could not get out of his mind, and ultimately led him to Christ.
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That he knew at that moment when that boy said, well, go to hell, he knew at that moment the truth of what Jesus said, is that there are only two paths.
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There's the broad way which leads to destruction, and there's the narrow way which leads to righteousness.
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You will either go the way of Christ, or you will go the way which leads to hell.
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And that young man said, well, just go to hell then.
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And it was that that broke his heart, and that that led him to Christ.
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You never know what telling the truth will do to a soul.
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And we must warn people of the wrath to come.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the truth.
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I thank You for the blessing of the Gospel, and I pray that it has been faithfully proclaimed today.
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And I pray that You would use it to stir hearts, to awaken dead souls, and to bring them to new life.
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I pray that You'll use this church to reach the community around us with the Gospel.
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And that we would be ever vigilant to warn men, and to call them to repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And it's in His name we pray.
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Amen.