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Acts - Empowered: Salvation to the Ends of the Earth, part 1 (Acts 12:25-13:12) Pastor Jeff Kliewer July 22, 2018
That never happened. Today, we're talking about God's plan to bring salvation to the ends of the earth. And here in our text today, His plan becomes the church's intention. Follow this. From the beginning, from Acts 1 -8, the thesis statement of Acts, as the Gospel's going out, first in Jerusalem, then Judea and Samaria, the church is reacting to persecution.
And so, because one of their own is killed, Stephen is killed, in response to that, they're fleeing persecution, and wherever they go, they preach the Gospel, and they settle in new places. But here in the text today, it's no longer a response to persecution, now there's intentionality.
The church begins to send people, on purpose, intentionally, to the ends of the earth. This is the birth of missions that we're studying today. So turn with me to Acts chapter 12, we left off at verse 25 last week.
This is the birth of missions. Acts chapter 12 verse 25 says, and Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had completed their service, bringing with them John, whose other name was Mark. You have to go back a couple chapters to see what happened there.
At the end of chapter 11, the church in Antioch, in Syria, is thriving. There are prophets and there's teachers. Paul has been there for a whole year, but someone named Agabus stands up, and in the spirit, prophesies that there's going to be a famine that will touch the whole world, and especially Jerusalem will be hit by this famine.
So in response to that prophecy, they begin to save up money. The church in Antioch saves up money, and finally, when the famine begins, they have an offering to bring to Jerusalem. Paul and Barnabas are selected to bring that down to Jerusalem.
They take the money and deliver relief to the church, and now they are returning back to Antioch in Syria. Well, notice in verse 25, it says when they returned, they had completed their service. If you have the NIV, 1984, my beloved 1984, that actually says mission.
If you have the NASB, it also uses the word mission, but I think the ESV and the King James here are correct. That word service, in the original Greek, is diakoneia, the same word that gives us deacon.
Dia, throughout, and koneia refers to dust. Throughout or thoroughly kicking up dust, a deacon was one who served, one who ministered. And this mission trip, you can call it a mission trip, that's fine, but more accurately, it's a service.
Their role, what they were planning to do was to take money and deliver it to bring relief to Jerusalem and then come back. It's not properly a mission trip as we're gonna see in the text next. It's a service trip, it's a ministration.
But in verse one of the next chapter, notice here, we're gonna read three verses. This is the birth of missions, proper. Now there were in the church at Antioch prophets and teachers. Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manion, a lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch, and Saul.
While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and sent them off.
And so, missions is born. Notice in verse one, something prophetic is happening. Something prophetic. God's speaking through people. There are prophets just like Agabus who was in Antioch, now there are prophets and teachers.
And the Holy Spirit will speak through them and say, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. The prophetic ministry, speaking in some sense from God. Notice here that it's joined with teachers.
There are prophetess, prophets, and they are teachers. Didaskalos, those who can go through and break down the text. The key to understanding this is to look back one chapter, 11, at the end of chapter 11, verse 26.
At the end of chapter 11, verse 26, it says, Barnabas went and got Saul from Tarsus. And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch for a whole year, they met with the church and taught a great many people.
Before you have any kind of prophetic ministry, there must be solid Bible teaching. The prophetic and the teaching cannot be separated. How many of y 'all like to play volleyball? Volleyball's a fun sport, but in volleyball, the ball is always loose, and you can hit that thing way far away from where you intend to put it.
However, do you guys remember that game growing up out on the gym called tetherball? Tetherball, the ball was connected by a rope to a pole, and it could never get outside of that sphere of the point of contact with the top of the pole.
Genuine prophecy is never outside of what the scriptures teach. There are prophets who claim to be prophets who are in fact false prophets who say anything and everything that comes to their mind. They have dreams, they have visions, and new religions are born every day.
We can't even keep track with the number of religions there are in the world. Each one claiming to be led by a prophet. Joseph Smith and the Mormon church, Muhammad founding Islam, each claiming to be prophets of God, but the genuinely prophetic is only and always anchored to the text of scripture.
So what was Paul teaching for that year when he was with the church at Antioch? What was he talking about? He was doing didactic study, teaching through the scriptures the whole counsel of God, which at that time was what we call the Old Testament.
Now many of us when we think about the Old Testament, we think the story of Israel, the nation of Israel. God is only dealing with the Jewish people, but that is not the case at all. In fact, what we have in missions is born out of the Old Testament.
I want to give you a quick preview. I won't spend time on all these scriptures, but if you have the notes from your bulletin, you have the references that you can look these up later. Here's what I want to show you briefly, that God's love for the nations, His intention for missionaries to go to the ends of the earth that all of the world would know the name of Jesus and worship the Son of God, that He would be glorified among the nations.
This was the plan of God from the beginning. Genesis 1 .1, He creates all things. By the end of the first chapter of Genesis, He says, it is very good. All that He made is very good, and that refers especially to humanity.
Not any particular ethnic group, but Adam and Eve from whom every ethnic group of the entire world will derive. Then there's the fall of man in Genesis 3. And the first promise of the gospel in 3 .15 applies to all of humanity, that some human, a new Adam, a descendant of the woman will come and crush the serpent who deceived them in the garden.
A new Adam representing humanity. Someone who can save, as sin entered through one man Adam, now a savior will come, a new Adam who can rescue the fallen lot of all of us. Those who will call on the name of Jesus.
Of course, in chapter 12, one man is selected from among the nations, and to him is given a special promise, a land and a law that will come, to be a chosen people. His name, of course, is Abraham. But if you read chapter 12, verse three, all of the nations will be blessed through him.
So although God chooses a particular people, it is to bless the nations through Abraham. Genesis 49, we see that the king will receive tribute from the nations, that all the peoples, plural, will come to him.
In Exodus, we learn that God has called out of Egypt a particular people. Out of slavery, they come. But this treasured possession is part of an inheritance that's bigger than that. We're told in Exodus 19 .5, they are treasured among all peoples.
And then God says this, for all the earth is mine. All the earth is mine. We read the book of Ruth and the story of this poor Moabite, not an Israelite, not belonging to the chosen people of God. And yet, Boaz marries this widow, and the descendant of Boaz and Ruth is King David.
And from David's line comes King Jesus, not just a savior for Israel only, but for a Moabitess like Ruth as well. Second Samuel chapter seven, verse 16, you have the King David, who's now mediating blessing to the world.
And in the next chapter, you can look this up later, first Kings four, verse 34, we learn that all of the nations are streaming to Jerusalem to hear the wisdom of Solomon and to understand that the true God is in Israel.
The Old Testament is picturing the reach to the end of the world. In chapter 10, the Queen of Sheba comes up from Africa and she brings tribute to King Solomon. And she recognizes that the God of Israel is the true God, the one true God.
Isaiah 66, Isaiah chapter two, Isaiah 45, verse 22, turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth. Chapter 49, verse six, I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.
Do you see the heart of God in the Old Testament? He has a particular people, this chosen people Israel. But his design ultimately is to extend salvation to the ends of the earth. Jonah didn't understand that, did he?
He thought that God would never be merciful to anyone who wasn't Jewish until God sent him to Nineveh, that Assyrian capital, a murderous place and a violent place. Jonah was sitting under a tree, pouting that God would be merciful to them.
And at the last verse of that book, the book of Jonah, he says, shall I not care and be compassionate about 120 ,000 people who do not know their right hand from their left? It's the point of the book of Jonah.
And finally, my favorite Old Testament verse about God's heart for the nations. Habakkuk 2 .14, for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. This earth, there's coming a day when people from all tribes and tongues and nations will be saturated, dripping wet with the knowledge of the Word of God to the glory of God the Father in Jesus Christ the Son by the Holy Spirit.
There's coming a day. It was foretold in the Old Testament. So now we come back to Acts chapter 13 and believe it or not, we're still in the first verse. We won't linger this long over every verse, but I thought it was important to show that the prophets and teachers are united here.
It's not a random prophetic word, but Paul has been teaching for a year everything that we just talked about. I'm sure Paul cited every one of the verses that we just studied and taught them what God's intention was.
And so the prophecy that's about to happen is derived from the text. It's not against the text. The leader here is probably Barnabas. Notice his name is listed first. It was also the case in verse 25 above.
Barnabas and Saul return. He's the son of encouragement. He has gathered kind of a strange group of people. First of all, they're very ethnically diverse, which I love. Cyrene is in Northern Africa. So you have Lucius from Cyrene.
Simeon who is called Niger, that word Niger means dark. So he had dark skin, probably from somewhere in Africa. You have Manion, a lifelong friend of Herod the Tetrarch. Now, anybody that would hang out with Herod the Tetrarch and be lifelong friends with a murderous psychopath has some problems of his own.
And Saul, who was responsible for the killing of Stephen. I'd be kind of scared to hang out with these guys, wouldn't you? But here's a common denominator with all of them. The killing of Stephen. It was the synagogue from Cyrene, from Northern Africa, that rose up against Stephen.
And others from Cilicia, which is where Paul was from, from Tarsus. You have Herod who's king and his best friend probably watching all this happen. Stephen was murdered while preaching the gospel. It looked like he was defeated and done, buried in the ground, and yet his preaching now is bearing fruit.
Many years later, Stephen preached the gospel. And Stephen, by the way, knew the word of God. Read Acts chapter seven. He recites Israel's history. He understands the word. He's saturated in the scriptures.
Verse two, while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said. You see that worshiping the Lord, and then again in verse three, after they've heard from the Holy Spirit, what do they go and do?
They go and fast and pray. Guys, if you want to encounter the Holy Spirit, if you want the living God to be alive in your life, fasting, prayer, and worship often precede a powerful work of God. Get serious with God.
Abstain from food for a day and devote yourself to prayer. Or maybe abstain from watching NBA basketball, that's what I need to do, for a time. And devote that time to prayer, seeking God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
And now the definitive moment in our text. This is monumental. This changes the world. Guys, we're all sitting here today because this gospel has gone out to the nations. We are at the ends of the earth.
It all starts here. Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Set apart missionaries, Barnabas and Saul, for the work to which I have called them. Now I don't think the Holy Spirit spoke audibly here.
I don't think a voice boomed through the room. I think as you continue to read the book of Acts, often the Spirit will somehow give an impression that's so strong and confirmed by others that it's a leading from the Holy Spirit.
And maybe one of these prophets and teachers were the ones to speak this. Notice in verse nine, when Saul has something to say, he's filled with the Holy Spirit. And he says something that nobody could have known.
It's beyond human knowledge what happens next. We'll get to that in just a second. So I think the Holy Spirit is speaking through the believers. Calling missionaries. I don't doubt that there's somebody sitting here right now that could be a missionary to the ends of the earth.
And you might be sitting here thinking, I hope it's not me. Please don't let it be me, I don't want to go where I might die for the gospel. Hey, guess what? If you don't want to go, don't be nervous. Because if you're called to be a missionary in that time, the thing you'll be afraid of is not going.
Your heart will burn to preach Christ to another place. And the thing that you'll be afraid of is that something would stop it. That's how it was with our brother that we talked about. The only thing he was afraid of is that something would stop him from going.
He was trying to overcome every obstacle so he could get there. It came from worship, and fasting, and prayer, and being saturated in the Bible. Who is the next one among us called to go to the ends of the earth?
Could be you. It could be you. Next, verses 4 and 5. We're going up to 12 today, so brace yourself. So being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia, and from there they sailed to Cyprus.
When they arrived at Salamis, they proclaimed the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews, and they had John to assist them. So the first missionary destination was the island of Cyprus. The gospel has now spread north from Jerusalem, and just where the Mediterranean Sea is kind of curving off, there is Antioch in the part of Syria.
Right off the coast in the Mediterranean Sea is an island called Cyprus. And they intentionally leave their family, they leave their friends, they leave all of their recreation and everything that mattered to them in this life, and they go fully aware that they may never come back.
They're going to Cyprus to preach Christ. Now, what is missions? I said it's not so much service, it's not just diakonia, not just ministration. What is the heart or the essential work of missions? We see it here in the text, verse 5, what do they do when they get there?
They go through Salamis, they make it to Cyprus. Salamis is the first town that they'll come to on the eastern shore of Cyprus. In Cyprus, what do they do? They proclaim the Word of God. The essential work of missions is katangalo.
Proclamation is the Greek word there. That word means to declare exactly and precisely the Word of God. To bring it down decisively, to point it down to a point. And that is the work of missions. To take, what?
The Word of God, according to verse 5. And to proclaim it with authority, not just as a suggestion, but to take what is written, and to bring it down to a point, and to bring it to bear on an audience.
That's the first part of it. The second part is that you go and do that in a new place. You cross some ethnic barrier, you cross some religious barrier, you go to some new geographical place that doesn't have the gospel.
You go and you proclaim. That is the essential work of missions. Notice also in verse 5, they had John to assist them. The work of assisting missions is part of missions itself. John here is an assistant.
He might not be preaching, but he might be going to fetch some water, he might be going to find a meal, maybe a place for them to sleep that night. And all of these things are part of the work because it's serving the greater cause of Christ.
And so it is with us. When we build hospitals, we have some of our missionaries that are doctors in China. There's others that are doing a leadership institute in the Philippines. In Portugal, we have a place that's like a seminary for training.
There's different things that we do, but all of it is in support of the mission, the proclamation of the gospel. Now, the final point this morning is when we go to advance the gospel, there will be opposition to this.
Not just human opposition, demonic spiritual forces will stand against the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we must overcome those things in the power of the Spirit. So it gets real interesting now, let's read it.
Verse 6 and following, when they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they came upon a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet named Bar-Jesus. He was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence, who summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God.
But Elymas the magician, for that is the meaning of his name, opposed them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. But Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him and said, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?
And now behold, the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun for a time. Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about seeking people to lead him by the hand.
Then the proconsul believed when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord. Notice in verse 6, they go through the whole island. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life.
The goal of missions is to get the gospel to anybody and everybody, crossing every ethnic boundary, every religious boundary, every geographic boundary. You go over mountains, you go over rivers, you go wherever people are to tell them about the love of God in Jesus Christ.
It's the whole island that they're after. They come to Paphos, and they meet Bar-Jesus. Now this is interesting. He is Elemis, the magician, for that is the meaning of his name. So he's a wizard, named wizard, who is called Bar-Jesus.
Very strange. A magician named Magician who's also known as Bar-Jesus. Bar, the prefix, means son of, and Jesus means Yahweh is salvation. He is hanging out with the proconsul, the leader of the island, this Roman appointed man who's running things in Cyprus.
He's right there by his side, and he's claiming to be a Jewish prophet. He puts himself right in line with Elijah, and Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and Micah, and Elemis, proclaiming himself a prophet, calling himself the son of Yahweh is salvation.
False prophets disguise themselves as angels of light. I think of the author of the Twilight series, Stephanie Meyer. Never written a book before? One night has a dream, and the next morning writes it down, and that becomes the first chapter of a book.
Within three months she's written Twilight, and it blows up and takes the world by storm. What was that spirit that empowered her? J .K. Rowling says, It felt like when I conceived of Harry Potter, I felt like he walked up and introduced himself to me.
What is that spirit? What is that magic that bewitches? You know, the angels that are fallen, they don't present themselves with horns, and tails, and pitchforks. They come like angels of light, and they look good and attractive, and they even say many true things.
You see Bar-Jesus? He's a Jewish false prophet. You get that? He says he teaches the same thing in line with what we have here, but he doesn't. He's a false prophet. Elemis, the magician. Notice thirdly in this little section, a man of intelligence.
The proconsul is no fool. He is the Roman appointed leader, and yet he's completely duped by Elemis, the magician. Intellect. I'm talking to the smart people in the room now, so the rest of us can just sort of doze.
You trust in your intelligence. You think, I would never be deceived. Intelligence is no protection whatsoever against the deceit of the enemy. It's not about how smart you are. Some of the smartest men in the world utterly reject Christ.
There are smart people like Newton, who believed in Christ, and there's others who consider him false. Intelligence is not the dividing line of humanity. His intelligence did not keep him from being deceived by a blatant false prophet.
Some of the smartest people in America are Mormons, but they believe the prophet, quote-unquote, Joseph Smith, who was deceived himself. Deceived and being deceived. A deceiver of others. The fourth thing I want you to see is that the opposition is to the faith.
Verse 8. Jude chapter 3 talks about how this great apostle, Jude, a brother of Jesus, wanted to just write positive things and delight in their common salvation. He says, but I found it necessary to write to you to contend for the faith.
And he spends the rest of the book telling them that there's certain people that will creep in unaware and they'll deceive as false prophets. Here's what I want to say about that. When we go preaching the gospel, we will be met with opposition, and as a result, we need to be able, through the scriptures, to give a defense of the gospel.
And it is appropriate to argue, even in a polemic kind of way, attacking what is ultimately an attack upon Jesus Christ. So there are people who will oppose the Savior, Jesus Christ, with all kinds of false gods and false doctrines.
It is appropriate to stand up against them. You want me to prove that to you? When Paul heard what Elymas said, he turned to him and said, you have your truth, I have my truth. And then he got on his donkey, and he rode off into the distance, and on the back of the rear bumper of the donkey, it said, co-exist.
That's what our text says, right? That's the teaching of the scripture. Okay, here's, I think, the limit of what we're able to do. Although I don't know that this has ever been repeated since this moment.
This would be the upper limit. He says to him, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? That's the upper limit of what we can say.
I think he called him a son of the devil, because Elymas called himself what? Bar-Jesus, son of Yahweh is salvation. So this is not your ordinary evangelistic encounter. This is an encounter against a false prophet.
So in my dealings with people, when some missionary, who actually came last week, knocking on the door, I'll sit down with them, and be very direct that Joseph Smith is a false prophet, Mohammed is a false prophet.
But in an ordinary conversation, you may not need to be that direct, or even be attacking anything, just preach the truth. This is a unique situation. Here you have a false prophet, he needs to be dealt with head on.
That's what Paul does. He calls him an enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy. Will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? He calls, I don't know how he does this, but he says, now blindness will fall upon you.
He strikes him blind. But the last thing I want you to see in the text today, is that the proconsul, a man of intelligence, when he sees this all go down, he becomes a Christian. Why? Because he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord.
It doesn't say that he was astonished by that kind of miracle. Guys, God will sometimes do signs and wonders and various miracles to confirm the testimony. That's what he does here. But there is even more power, and there is converting power in the Holy Spirit applying the Word of God.
It's the teaching, the proclaiming of Christ crucified and risen that can convert a heart. So in closing, what do we take from this text? If you look in the application section of your notes, a couple lines here.
Recognize where we are. As we sit here today, we are the ends of the earth. We're at the ends of the earth. It went from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. Here we are on a continent far, far away from the starting point of Jerusalem.
So step up out of your comfort zone and speak the Word. Proclaim. Even to those ethnically different from you. Remember, Antioch was born as a church when people, the Jewish believers, began to speak to Gentiles also.
They got out of their comfort zone. They went beyond what they ever would have thought they could do. They began to preach. So every one of us, in a sense, is called to be a missionary. A missionary to Mount Laurel, and Marlton, Cherry Hill, all the surrounding areas.
You are called to be a missionary. So speak. That is the essence of missions. But there's a different kind of missions, more properly a mission which is leaving your home, leaving everything. Maybe there's somebody here called to leave it all behind.
So how do you know if that's you? Here's what you do. Now, you saturate yourself with Spirit-filled Bible teaching until you drip with desire to see salvation to the ends of the earth. Saturate yourself in the Word of God until your desire to see the name of Christ proclaimed to the end of the earth just takes over and overcomes all other desires.
Let's pray that one of us will go by 2020. Another missionary by 2020. And assist however you can. Like John, the assistant. Find ways to help missions continue to proclaim salvation to the ends of the earth.
Expect that as we do this there will be more opposition, but every opposition will be overcome in Jesus' name. And this Gospel is going forward through this church in the power of the Holy Spirit. Worship team, would you come on up?
