Keep sharing good news without ads.
Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/brody-thibodeau/felix/
Let's pray before we read together our father. We are thankful for our Lord Jesus Christ. We are thankful For the one who has already satisfied God on account of sin. We are thankful for the one who was buried and rose again the third day.
Surely it thrills our hearts tonight to know that he is he that liveth and was dead. And he could say behold I am alive forevermore. Tonight as we are preaching the gospel. Let us remember that while the death of Christ is so important and a focus The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ is a reality.
Help us all to consider eternity. Father there are many young people here, and they've been excited and being with their friends all day, but father. We pray that there will be an ability to concentrate on the Word of God.
And that tonight we will know what it is to have a meeting where the Spirit of God moves, and we are blessed for eternity. Help us we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Turn with me, please to the book of Acts chapter 24.
Acts chapter 24. Acts 24 and beginning at verse number 22 and When Felix heard these things having more perfect knowledge of that way he deferred them and said When Lycius the chief captain shall come down.
I will know the uttermost of your matter and he commanded a centurion to keep Paul and to let him have liberty and that he should forbid none of his acquaintance to minister or come on to him and After certain days when Felix came with his wife Josiah, which was a Jewess he sent for Paul and heard him concerning the faith in Christ and as he that is Paul reasoned of righteousness temperance and judgment to come.
Felix trembled and Answered go thy way for this time. When I have a convenient season, I will call for thee. He hoped also that money should have been given him by Paul. Her up Paul that he might loose him.
Wherefore he sent for him the often earned communed with him. But after two years Portia's festus came into Felix room and Felix willing to shoe the Jews a pleasure. Left Paul bound. I think that's all we need to read.
For those of you who were in Garneville last night, you will know that we did read. This is one of three different passages in the gospel meeting. And we use this man Felix as an example of a person who was spoken to by God.
He heard the voice of God. And he trembled. When he was spoken to. We saw that Felix was moved as the preaching of the gospel reached his ears. But no matter how much Felix trembled. No matter how much he was moved.
He lost his soul. I think it's good for us just to go over some ground here at the beginning of this meeting what we are preaching to you tonight is a message that is life-changing a Message that will change your life here.
And now in Fact the Bible insists that a true conversion is a life-changing experience. It is something whereby a person is taken from death and placed in life. They're taken out of Adam and they're placed in Christ.
According to the Bible they are made a new creation in Christ. It is a real experience. But what we are preaching has more than just implications for this life. It's not just about how you are going to improve your current situation.
Although I am convinced that salvation improves your current situation. But what we are preaching really has eternal implications. That is we are preaching about where you will be forever. After you die in preaching a biblical scriptural gospel, I will tell you that there is an after this.
Many will doubt the reality of the afterlife. Some will reject the notion of the afterlife but according to the Bible there is an after this. The Bible tells us it is appointed unto men once to die but after this the judgment.
If you read your New Testament carefully, you will find that there are only two places that are possible. Destinations for after you die one of them, of course is heaven. Heaven the Bible speaks of as a place of joy as a place of bliss as a place of peace.
But the Primary focus when people preached about heaven and talked about heaven was that it is the place where God is. The place where there is no sin the place where a believer goes to be with Christ.
The same Bible that tells me about heaven also tells me about hell. In fact, there are many who reject the words of the scripture In their totality and only accept the words of the Lord Jesus and try and deny the fact of eternal punishment.
But it is the Lord Jesus himself who tells us the most about eternal punishment. It is the Lord Jesus himself who tells us about a place where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. As I'm going over these things. I'm just caused to bring all believers to remember hell is real and every sinner to consider Hell is real.
When the Lord Jesus said where their worm dieth not He was saying their soul will never go out of existence. According to the Bible you will never burn up. You will never be annihilated. You will never disintegrate.
You will always Be there. But when he says the fire is not quenched He's insisting that not only will the person exist. But the fire will continue to burn while the person exists for all eternity. To be absolutely doctrinally clear on what the Bible teaches a soul that Refuses Christ and enters eternity will suffer the torments of fire forever.
That's really what's at stake as we are preaching the gospel. And I look at the case of a man like Felix and I see the tragedy. The tragedy for me is that Felix had an opportunity and He missed it. And if there's anything that I've been impressed with in my all my years of coming to Iowa it's that some people Are receiving their last opportunity.
Maybe someone in our audience tonight is receiving their last opportunity some young. And some old some listening closely some choosing not to listen. Some interested in their soul and some interested in this world and yet in a mixture of people this size I am certain that I'm speaking to someone.
Probably for the last time and as the Apostle Paul was preaching to Felix we get a lesson in how to preach the gospel. Those of you who choose to take part and are asked to take part in gospel preaching.
Whether it be in a regular Sunday night or as part of a series of gospel meetings. Read the New Testament and how they preach the gospel in the book of the Acts. This is going to be a gospel meeting where Paul is called to stand before a man and a woman and I'm sure in this room There would be other people who are looking on but the primary focus would be Felix and Josiah as they are there and he is having an opportunity now as Felix calls him and says.
I would love to hear of the faith in Christ. I Want everybody to think with me just for a second. Even those of you who are saved if someone came to you and asked you tell me about the Lord Jesus. Tell me about the faith in Christ.
I'm sure that many of us would go to our favorite gospel verses wouldn't we. I Would love to tell people to behold the Lamb of God. I love Old Testament typology. I would go to the Old Testament and I would show them how the lamb that died in Egypt on that night where the blood was placed on the door was the security.
It was the redemption for those who were delivered from the bondage of Egypt and Just like the lambs blood on the door was proof that a death had taken place and it secured redemption. There's a lamb, but he's the Lamb of God and his death has secured redemption for everyone who will trust him.
I Love to preach that. I love to preach that God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world. But that the world through him might be saved. And I love to tell people that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
I love to tell them that verily verily I say unto thee he that heareth my word and believeth on him that sent me Hath everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation. But is passed from death unto life and I am sure the Apostle Paul loved preaching that too.
But that's not where he starts. Here's your lesson. Paul begins by preaching righteousness. The preaching of righteousness is not easy, but it's a simple concept. The preaching of righteousness is preaching the character of God.
We can preach about God's power in creation. We can preach about God's goodness when it comes to God's benevolent goodness. We can preach about mercy. We can preach about love. We can preach about kindness.
We can preach about grace. But preaching the righteousness of God is focusing on the part of God's character as it relates to sin we focus on the holiness of God and Put forward from the scriptures that the God of the Bible is completely and polarly opposite to sin.
Sin cannot be in his presence. Sin cannot be tolerated. Sin cannot be ignored. Sin cannot enter heaven. Sin keeps people from God. Sin has stained people in the sight of a holy God as he is preaching righteousness.
He is preaching about the character of God. And I think that's something that's essential in an audience like this is not to assume that you know What God is like if? You look at the world you will think that God is a malleable changing God.
That is God is whatever I want him to be. Right. So you look at a world a religious world and they decide to change the creed of their religion in Changing the creed of their religion. They're going to allow for different things that generations in the past did not allow for.
Some of the things the generation in the past did were wrong anyway, and you say okay, it doesn't matter but really what at the core of it is this is that they believe that as society changes God changes in thinking about morality and immorality in our society as our legislatures and our Politicians change the laws of society and courts uphold those changes in the laws of society.
We view it when in the big picture and we think as a society now that. Surely the God of the Old Testament the God of Genesis who condemned those activities. Surely he has changed to keep up with the times and has become more tolerant.
Perhaps that's what you see. God is. But God is on bending in his holiness. God is on changing in his righteousness. That means that the sin of disobedience in the Garden of Eden is still sin today. That means that the sin that we have been hearing about the sin of defiance by Cain would still be sin today.
That means that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah would still be sin today. That means that the sin of lying is still sin today. That means that the sin of murder is still sin today. And Transcendent and consistent from the beginning of time to the end of time and into eternity.
For the ages and the ages to come God's righteousness never changes. Never I believe in preaching righteousness. There would be a preaching of the resurrection. I don't know. Maybe that's my imagination.
You know the upholding of God's righteousness was the cross the upholding of God's righteousness was a resurrection vindicating the cross. But in preaching righteousness, he is preaching the person of Christ.
He is preaching the nature of Christ and he is preaching the holiness of God and he moves on. You would think now he can go on to the cross, but he doesn't because now he preaches temperance righteousness the character of God temperance self-control that is your behavior and After he has laid out the standard against this this backdrop of God's perfect White and bright light holiness.
He now begins to preach about temperance and I think that when the Apostle Paul preached about temperance. He would hit some very sore spots in the life of Felix. He might even be able to point to the woman that Felix has chosen as his wife and say that's wrong.
God forbids that relationship, you know, God forbids certain relationships. I hope we understand that and he would talk about the sin that Felix would have been committing perhaps and all of the corruption that He was taking part in in government.
That was his sin. That was his lack of self-control. He would talk about Felix and all of the parties that he may have taken part in. He would talk about Felix and all of the stealing and all of the lying that he would have been doing but he would be focused on bringing Felix to remember.
Because God is holy and I am sinful. This is serious. That's what I'd like to impress upon the minds of every one of my listeners tonight. Because God is holy. Now watch and you are sinful. This is serious.
Because God is holy and you are sinful. There's nothing more serious. So you listened. As he preached of righteousness. He listened as he preached about sin temperance. And what does he move on to next the cross?
No, not the cross yet. Judgment to come judgment to come. He made sure that this man who is now made aware of his need and his sinfulness before God. Understands that he has to meet this God. There is coming a day that Felix will stand before God and remember Felix.
God's standard is perfect holiness and remember Felix your past is stained by all of the sins that you have committed. Your Standing is faulty because you have never been removed from your sins. You remain in your sins.
You Must meet God in this condition and as you follow his preaching through. I'm not sure how many minutes he had to preach and I'm not sure how much Felix could take but can't you see it? You can see as he is presenting the character of God where the man Felix might turn white thinking about this God.
As he begins to preach about sin, he might turn red. Blushing from the embarrassment of his sins, but as he preaches about judgment to come he trembles. A Man who had worked his way to the position that Felix was in was not a timid man.
He was not a man who was easily scared, but he was a man who was being spoken to by God. He was a man who is hearing the voice of God in the preaching of the gospel that changed everything. Just to briefly recap what we touched last night the man named Belshazzar in Daniel chapter 5.
He was spoken to by God. He was spoken to by God when the fingers of a man's hand came and wrote on the plaster of the wall over against the candlestick. When God spoke to him through the written word.
Everything changed. His countenance changed. That means his face changed. You know what it means. The smile was wiped off his face. Because God was speaking. And his knees smote one against another. What does that mean he was trembling.
The man understood God is speaking to me. He trembled and then we went after this one. We went to the Philippian jailer and the Philippian jailer was spoken to by God. He wasn't spoken to by God in a gospel meeting and he wasn't spoken to by God through a written word on the wall.
But he was spoken to by God through the circumstances of life. Something happened in his life that woke him up and That really is the prayer of every believer on the Lord. Jesus that sinners as they hear the gospel would wake up.
And I'm not talking just about the physical sleep that some people are in tonight. I am talking about the spiritual sleep whereby you have your eyes closed and are oblivious to the eternal realities that are being presented and.
And when the earthquake came this man was awakened and the earthquake comes. Sometimes the earthquake is a near miss in a traffic accident. That can be if it makes you think about eternity. Sometimes the earthquake is a diagnosis of a terminal illness.
Makes you think about eternity, doesn't it? Wakes you up. For some people it's the passing of a relative. Or a tragic accident in the community, but God is speaking. And he trembled and for this man God is speaking to him.
I will tell you out of the three different people the situation that I would prefer myself to be in is listening to the gospel preached and Responding by faith in Christ. But here is I can almost see it.
I can see a lot of things. Maybe I've got a big imagination, but I can almost see it. Paul is just leaning in like this. So this is what God is like. So this is your sin and you have to meet God. So this is what judgment is like and he's just getting ready to present The Lord Jesus and the resurrection and as he's just about to preach the cross.
Felix says no Stop this is bothering me. Scaring me and I don't want to hear it anymore. Let's be honest. I always say I Was once where you are and you can't fool a fooler. So you might as well be honest this scares you to think about meeting God and your sins is scary.
But you know, it doesn't go away. By just not thinking about it I believe with all my heart if Felix had allowed the gospel preacher to continue. He would have heard the message of deliverance and he could have gotten saved and See tonight what you're going to hear in the second part of this meeting is a message whereby you can be delivered from your sins.
Don't turn away. Trust Christ. He reasoned of righteousness temperance judgment to come and Felix Trembled.