Bible In A Year - Acts

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Well, good morning, everyone. I have some reverb let's open in prayer
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Lord what a great day it is to be here to be among your people To have your word before us
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Lord to have some time to spend in fellowship and in study
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Father, would you just bless this time that it might be honoring to you that it might Encourage us father convict us in Christ name.
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We pray. Amen Well again, good morning And it is great to be here.
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If you had to talk to me yesterday afternoon after the CBD sale I don't know what I would have said Wake up at 3 30 in the morning for those things, but it was fun well, the book of Acts is where we are in our current series of Through the
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Bible in a year or two or three However long it takes and Hopefully you've received one of the handouts there
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And I thought as I as I looked through this I thought you know, this is such a key book not just because It's in the
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Bible not just because it's inspired by the Holy Spirit But because when you think about it, we would know just about nothing
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About the early church or about how it grew unless we had the book of Acts. We'd see the epistles we'd see the the great inspiration the
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Insights that are given throughout the epistles, but we wouldn't really understand how the church was built up.
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I saw a Special not too long ago on the history channel well,
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I've seen a few of those but one talked about Paul I Mentioned this the other night in the
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Bible study that during the course of his life. They estimate this is historians estimate that he walked 20 ,000 miles 20 ,000 miles it was time for a new pair of tires or something
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But he 20 ,000 miles and you know, they they've unearthed a lot of these roads and everything
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But it's still an amazing thing to think about walking that much Another another show
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I saw talked about How many know about Hannibal? Hannibal of Carthage not any other
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Hannibal that you might have heard Hannibal Was a General of a family of generals and he marched his and you probably go.
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Well, where's this in the book of Acts? I'll get there. It's not in the book of Acts It comes before the book of Acts But it's just so important to see the providence of God and that's what we see in the book of Acts what happened was
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Carthage and Rome were rivals and Rome had beaten
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Carthage in a war and Hannibal being the son of a defeated general thought I'm gonna try a new strategy
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And he built up this huge force in what is now Spain And he took Carthage by the way is in North Africa So think of it as like basically
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Tunis that kind of area and he took his army that he built up in Spain And he marched it through through southern
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France through the Alps and down into Italy and he took of course We know about the elephants that he took with him what we mostly don't know though is that those elephants actually died before they ever got into a battle because as early battles were so Easy that he never used the elephants a bunch of them died crossing the
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Alps and by the time they got to Italy and actually Got into a battle where they could use the elephants. They were all dead So all that work getting them through the
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Alps and it did absolutely no good whatsoever, but he defeated Rome In fact, he was he could have sacked the city of Rome His thought was that he didn't have enough troops to hold the city of Rome.
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So he didn't attack he asked for reinforcements He never got it. So what's the point? The point is that God preserved
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Rome God preserved Rome and if he didn't the entire world governmental system would have been different when
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Christ was born The church would have been hindered It would have been a whole different set of circumstances and you look in the
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Empire of Rome hung by a thread and God preserved it Gave us the Greek culture, which was the common language by which because if there hadn't been a common language
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The scripture would not have been spread so easily the gospel would not have been spread so easily and there would have been a number
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Difficulties so we come to the book of Acts and What we're going to see is
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People typically think of it as the history of the church. It's called what the acts of the
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Apostles Well, okay But what it really is is the work of God through these men through these earthen vessels through these
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Weaklings as it were and we're going to see some of that today Written by Luke in fact in seminary.
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Well, they kind of group them together a group acts together with Luke They would call it Luke acts because it's the second
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Part you might look at it as the sequel of the gospel of Acts and he just picks up where he left off more or less
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The opening I mean I could go through all the reasons why they think it's written by Luke But that's not really very important some of the key people in Acts you have there
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Peter John James Stephen now
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Stephen I Have a special affinity for Stephen But I remember
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I mean some things as you grow and you read the Bible just really hit you hard and I can just remember
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Being a new believer and reading through Acts and you know I have to tell you that I don't know if I'd ever read it before or not before I got saved
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But when I got to act 7, I thought I'm named after the first, you know martyr of the
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Christian Church I thought that was pretty cool, even though my parents weren't Christians Paul obviously is very important in the book
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Barnabas Cornelius as several people down there Luke a doctor which is important just because of Of his precision if you read the gospel of Luke you see the precision precision and how he gets into the the details and how he
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Even talks about the crucifixion in a way with the specificity that only a doctor would bring to it
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Talking about background and setting his purpose for writing the gospel of Luke and the acts of the
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Apostle Apostles form a powerful parallel. It says there in the notes He wanted to write an orderly account of what
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Jesus accomplished in his earthly ministry and here he gives us an orderly account of what?
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Jesus accomplished through the church It is dedicated to Theophilus Very nice to think about I mean, it's nice to get anything dedicated to you
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But how would you like to have a couple books of the Bible dedicated to you? Pretty nice key doctrines in Acts the establishment of the church
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And the work of the Holy Spirit and we're going to Focus on the latter this morning Christ in Acts the book of Acts gives us the account of how he passed this ministry on to the
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Apostles Their mission and the disciples their mission was to proclaim the resurrected Christ and fulfill the
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Great Commission key words I'm gonna skip that entirely Okay does down at the bottom of the page page two does acts fit in the central theme of the whole
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Bible God's Providential and redemptive dealings with mankind. Yes Again, when you think of all the circumstances that went into the spread of the gospel, there are so many religions that have been
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Formed and are being formed All the time that you you look at all of the circumstances that had to be just so For the
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Christian Church to grow It wasn't spread by the sword In fact, you could say that it was spread by the blood of the believers in the early days
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Had to be in a system Kind of a bigger system for it to spread as quickly as it did a bigger system of government namely the
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Roman Empire Which again God preserved had to have a or made it was made more easy to spread
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I don't know if that makes any sense, but it was spread more easily because of the Greek culture because of the the the work of Alexander the
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Great in spreading the Greek culture throughout the entire known world and so we come to the book of Acts and we're going to Well a couple more things.
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Let me look at a Couple of issues before we get into what
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I want to talk about What can we learn about the Holy Spirit's special role from the book of Acts? first I want to talk about the difference between Description and prescription and I was thinking about this and I thought now who wants to take a shot at explaining the difference between description
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You can raise both hands Description and prescription. What's the difference who took the hermeneutics class and wants to describe that for us?
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Okay, how many took the I'm gonna embarrass somebody who took the hermeneutics class from Pastor Mike. I Want to see every hand some of them are like short arm in it alligator arms
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Okay, one of you who got an A in the class, please describe description and prescription anybody
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Yes, Pat Okay, description is just giving us an account of the facts
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It is a description. You know what one car hit the second car. That is a description now a prescription is a command a
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Command in the case of two cars would be don't hit the other car Oh, he's always good to do yield the right away that way you won't hit the other car
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But what we see in Acts because it is a history. We do not take the description of the activities that are presented there and Presume that they are normative presume that they are what ought to happen all the time.
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There's description I see what happened. I'm making an eyewitness account and there's prescription where I am
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Commanding you as it were from God. This is how you are to live your life
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So Setting aside the book of Acts for a minute. What would be an example of prescription or I'm sorry of description
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That we maybe ought not to try ourselves from say the Old Testament What is described in the
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Old Testament that we should probably not try to do ourselves? Yes Part the
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Red Sea, that's exactly when I thought of I just like can you just imagine? Well, I can do whatever it says in the
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Bible Bad yes Dallas Murdering a rebellious child that might get you in problems.
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I don't know, you know, but that's what they would do in the Old Testament. So Which if there are any kids here, that's something for you to keep in mind to be thankful You don't live under the
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Old Testament law anything else Walking in the water that would be
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New Testament But you know what if you if you want to know what the difference between Jesus and you is just go out and try to walk
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On the water. It's very very difficult There are a lot of other differences, but that would be one thing that you would quickly learn.
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You cannot defy physics So we have description and prescription.
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Okay. Now what would be an example of a prescription? from the Old Testament Thou shalt not murder
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Yeah, thou shalt not murder thou shalt not kill right? Okay, so One is a clear command of what to do.
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So when we see things like in Acts 2 when the Holy Spirit falls on these people at the on the day of Pentecost and They begin to speak in tongues.
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The question would be is that descriptive or prescriptive It's descriptive there is no command there in Acts 2 you can argue it from other places
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But you'd have to argue it from other places and we're not going to other places this morning You can't look at Acts 2 and go.
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Hey if they did it next to we should do it here. I Mean there are other issues with that, you know
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If you want to say that everything in Acts ought to be normative ought to be the normal activity in which we participate in Then you should be out raising people from the dead, you know, etc.
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Etc. Etc. It gets Rather crazy, but this is how a lot of people teach now they'll take and if you want to know if Somebody is really trying to reach when they're teaching if you happen to be in the bad habit of watching
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TVN or something else And you're watching this guy and he wants to make a theological point
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And the only place he can go is to a narrative passage of Scripture either in the
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Old Testament or the New Testament You know, they're in trouble Because they're just they're taking a description of saying that's the way it should be so All right also with regard to the
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Holy Spirit he was the promised helper that Jesus promised to send he said look
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I'm leaving and it's better for you that I leave why? Because I'm sending you somebody who is going to be a
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Comforter to you. He's going to lead you into all truth So better for them that Jesus should leave because Jesus was gonna have to leave sooner or later
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Anyway, he had a human body was not going to stay forever But getting back to the filling of the
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Holy Spirit just for a moment even in Acts itself It says this in your nose genuine conversions did not necessarily lead to an extraordinary filling by the
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Holy Spirit For example on the day of Pentecost 3 ,000 people believed and were baptized on that day
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But even though it starts with the Filling or the speaking of tongues. We're not told that those 3 ,000 people spoke in tongues
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So we would have to wonder if that should be considered normative or not and there's more on tongues But I'm not really going to go into that what
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I want to focus on is a few different aspects
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First I want to talk about the power of God in this book
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Let's look at Acts 16 14, of course
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It helps if you stay in the book of Acts once you go to Romans all the Acts notes that you have pretty much go out the window okay, a woman named
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Lydia from the city of Thyatira a seller of purple fabrics a worshiper of God was
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Listening and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul Now just from that short verse, what can we learn about the power of God?
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First of all, let me ask you this. What is a worshiper of God a Religious person, right?
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Right. She exists. She believed that God existed Right. She would have been a
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Gentile adhering to the Jewish religion But not yet a believer in the sense that she was a
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Christian so what does it mean? Obviously she was listening to what was being preached and then it says the
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Lord opened her heart To respond to the things open or respond to the things spoken by Paul.
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What can we draw from that? preach it
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Salvation is of the Lord because she's dead in her sins sins and trespasses unless God opens her heart.
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I Mean the implication would be there that the Lord opened her heart. Well, what was it before he did that?
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closed She was not open to salvation until God opened her heart
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The power of God is such that he can open the heart of someone Now I want to look secondly at the power of Christ.
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Let's look at Acts 9 Acts 9 and we're going to be reading verses 1 through 9 now
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Saul Still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the
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Lord Went to the high priest and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus so that if he found any belonging to the way, which is the
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Church of Christ Christianity, right both men and women he might bring them bound to Jerusalem as He was traveling it happened that he was approaching
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Damascus and Suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him
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Saul Saul why are you persecuting me and he said who are you
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Lord and He said I am Jesus whom you are persecuting But get up and enter the city and it will be told you what you must do
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The men who traveled with him stood speechless Hearing the voice but seeing no one
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Saul got up from the ground and Though his eyes were open He could see nothing and Leading him by the hand.
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They brought him into Damascus and he was three days without sight and neither ate nor drank
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Now what are some principles we can draw out of this passage here there was a road to Damascus Charlie did not take the hermeneutics class with Pastor Mike Yes There was a road to Damascus, yes
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Correct. Anything else? Paul was not a seeker and you know, that's so key.
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We're talking about the power of Christ Paul was not a seeker. Well, he was a seeker, but he wasn't seeking salvation.
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He was seeking Christians You know, I was wondering I was trying to figure this out. Was this I we don't know this
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Definitively, but it's kind of like if we were to describe Paul nowadays, I would think of him in terms of a bounty hunter
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Right. He basically went to the high priest and said hey give me some give me some warrants For people and I'm gonna go out and drag him back here and throw him in a jail now,
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I don't know if that didn't pay anything it's pretty hard to see how he how he made the rent but He delighted in this
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He describes himself later as a zealot for the truth. He was a Pharisee of the Pharisees He hated the people of the way.
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Why did he hate them? I think there are a few reasons here. Why did why did he hate?
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Christians because it was against the church of the
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Pharisees I'm gonna say, you know, it was against the Jewish faith with what it had grown into absolutely against what he believed
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Why else would he hate them? There were blasphemers in his eye. Yep Yeah, all the pride he had in himself and I think there's something else
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He was manifesting outwardly What unbelievers have in their hearts a hatred of God and a hatred of God's people, you know in first John It says that we know that we love him because we love the brethren.
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We love other Christians And he did not distinctly did not love them but he was not a seeker and what's the point of that, you know
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I was debating it's interesting because Unbelievers want to Unbelievers and others believers.
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I'm not saying you have to be an unbeliever, but they want to Throw in this idea of seekers or they want to throw in this idea of a free will now
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I'm again, I'm in favor of a will we all have a will we all make decisions But I look at this passage in particular and I'm going and I could go to other passages
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So it's not like I'm pulling this just out of the narrative here But I look at this and I'm going okay, we don't see
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Paul exercising a free will He certainly didn't want to be visited on the road to Damascus And he certainly doesn't say, you know
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God during these three days Christ Lord. I want to I want to just mull this over and You know, maybe
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I'll choose you. Maybe I won't but I think it needs to be of my own free will otherwise one famous person on the radio says that The Lord is too much of a gentleman
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To change anybody's will this isn't gentle This is a confrontation
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Jesus Christ doesn't come up and just say you know what Paul Saul You're doing the wrong thing
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You know what? I'd like to do is give you a couple choices and you tell me which sounds best to you
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He strikes him blind and he goes on and He I mean everything we see the
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Lord say to Paul is a command we don't see anything else and Again that the power of Jesus Christ is that he takes a man who was persecuting the church who was
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Taking Christians and throwing them in jail. What does he make that man? The most profound missionary who has ever lived the most profound author who has ever lived
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This is just it. This is an amazing transformation Okay, we're also going to Look at the power of the
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Holy Spirit The power of the Holy Spirit and for that I first want us to go to Acts 1 starting in verse 3
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To these talking about his disciples he talking about Jesus also presented himself alive after his suffering by many convincing proofs
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People want proof that Jesus Christ existed. I cannot even imagine Some people still being so ignorant, but I again
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I read it this week that there's no historical proof that Jesus existed Well, that's not true Appearing to them over a period of 40 days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God Gathering them together.
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He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the father had promised which he said
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You heard from me for John baptized with water But you will be baptized with the
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Holy Spirit not many days from now So think about it this is the inauguration basically or the
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I guess How would I put it? This is kind of like the the preamble like the preamble of the
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Constitution. This is the preamble of the church He's telling them what's going to happen and what happens is on acts in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost The church is filled with the
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Holy Spirit 3 ,000 people come to faith and These men as weak as they were who had been scattered gathered back together
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Commissioned by the Lord and they would literally turn the world upside down not because of their own might and their own wisdom
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But because of the power of the Holy Spirit The Holy Spirit worked mightily through them and how do we know it was the
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Holy Spirit because I Mean just think about who was Peter Peter was a guy who fumbled and as as you've gone through the
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Gospels already you already know that Peter was first of all open -mouthed insert foot but secondly he was somebody who
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Was not a Great thinker was not a great speaker.
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He was not a great leader He was prone to all sorts of things. I mean my favorite example is in Matthew 16 where he makes the confession you are the
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Lord, you know, you are the chosen one you are of God and the Lord says
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You know upon this rock and we can debate that I will build my church and then it's just a few verses later
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We don't get the time but it's just a few verses later that Jesus says don't get behind me Satan So Peter is not somebody that we would think of as a rock
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Peter is somebody who is constantly Failing And yet if we look at him in the book of Acts, this is a guy that the
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Holy Spirit uses mightily probably the the preeminent preacher in the entire book
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Let's also look at Acts 5 and this is a
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Personal favorite passage of mine in fact when Pastor Mike was doing a baptism here not so long ago and the microphone fell into the baptismal
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And Mike said, you know, he was concerned that he was going to get electrocuted or something I said well not to worry.
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I was ready to preach and I was gonna go right to Acts 5 He didn't
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I Think I think he's moderately. I think we've patched things up since then but I think
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I have something else. Well, yeah, I do but we'll go back to that So, all right acts 5 chapter verse 1 but a man named
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Ananias with his wife Sapphira sold a piece of property and Kept back some of the price for himself with his wife's full knowledge and bringing a portion of it
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He laid it at the Apostles feet Look at me. I'm so good But Peter said
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Ananias Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the price of the land
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Well, it remained unsold. Did it not remain your own and after it was sold was it not under your control?
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Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? you have not lied to men but to God and as he heard these words
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Ananias fell down and breathed his last and Great fear came over all who heard it the young men got up and covered him up and After carrying him out, they buried him and the same thing then happens to his wife
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Now what can we learn from this passage here? First of all, this is a great passage for showing that the Holy Spirit is
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All -knowing and He's God which is exactly where I was going and Carl said all -powerful
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How would we how would we say that he's all -powerful because he has the power over life and death
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Just as God would I this is always one of my favorite things here now Verse 5 not because I love the fact that Ananias died
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But acts 5 and as he heard these words Ananias fell down and breathed his last and great fear came over all who heard it
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Great fear. Well, I'd say so Peter's up there and you know, they probably think very highly of Peter They didn't know he could read minds and then he says, oh,
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I'm not reading minds. This is the Holy Spirit But great fear came out.
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Why? What does this also tell us about the Holy Spirit? Why would people be fearful not just because he had power over life and death but because He's serious about sin
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Very serious about sin. This is one of the great Examples in all the New Testament where you could just go well, okay
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God is a God of love But the same God from the Old Testament still exists in the
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New Testament. There is no difference It's not God was mean in the Old Testament and now he's love in the
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New Testament. He's still the same He always was love in the Old Testament and he's always Wrathful in the
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New Testament and this is an example of the unrestrained wrath of God one sin one lie
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Gone the power of God the power of the Holy Spirit. All right, let's also look at The power of the
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Word of God. Let's look at Acts 4. We're gonna go right before that passage there and starting in verse 31 and when they had prayed the place where they had gathered together was shaken and they were all filled with the
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Holy Spirit and began to speak the Word of God with boldness and The congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul and not one of them claimed that anything
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Belonging to him was his own but all things were common property to them and with great power the
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Apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and Abundant grace was upon them all
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For there was not a needy person among them For all who were owners of land or houses would sell them and bring the proceeds of the sales and lay them at the
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Apostles Feet and they would be distributed To each as any had need
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Why do I say this is an example of the power of the Word of God They hear it says and that's exactly right what
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Carl said how many people are gonna do this sell all that they have and Give it for the common good and you know, whoever has need let them take it.
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That's not our natural Proclivity we don't normally say, you know what?
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I've got Thus and such and I'm just going to give it for the good of all.
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That's not how we think and It is the Word of God. Why because it says here in verse 31 that they began to speak the
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Word of God with boldness That's pretty evidence. And later on it says
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They were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord They were preaching the gospel they were talking about the things that they'd seen they were preaching the
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Word of God from the Old Testament and What happened? people's lives changed
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People's lives changed their attitude towards things changed we think about this and again
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It is not the natural order of things to be selfless. Our natural inclination is selfishness
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I I've used this illustration on a number of occasions You could take a couple of babies and put them in the same room put one toy there
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And if they're old enough to crawl around or move around at all, they're going to fight over that toy Well who taught them to be selfish it must be the parents fault not hardly
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You could take twins who've been Perfectly taught every step of the way until they're six months old and boom
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They're gonna fight over the toy why because they come out of the womb selfish They don't go. Hey, you take it. I don't want it. No, no, no you this is just our nature our sinful nature
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Let's also look at Acts 8 verse 26
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But an angel of the Lord Spoke to Philip saying get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza This is a desert road
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So he got up and went and there was an Ethiopian eunuch a court official of Candace Queen of the
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Ethiopians who was in charge of all her treasure And he had come to Jerusalem to worship and he was returning and sitting in his chariot and was reading the prophet
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Isaiah Then the Spirit said to Philip go up and join this chariot Philip ran up and heard him reading
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Isaiah the prophet and said do you understand what you are reading and he said
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Well, how could I unless someone guides me and he invited Philip to come up and sit with him?
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Now the passage of Scripture which he was reading was this He was led as a sheep to slaughter and as a lamb before its shearer is silent
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So he does not open his mouth in Humiliation his judgment was taken away
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Who will relate his generation for his life is removed from the earth?
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The eunuch answered Philip and said, please tell me of whom does the Prophet say this of himself or of someone else?
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then Philip opened his mouth and beginning with from this scripture, he preached Jesus to him as They went along the road.
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They came to some water and the eunuch said look water what prevents me from being baptized and Philip said if you believe with all your heart
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You may and he answered and said I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God And he ordered the chariot to stop and they both went into the water
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Philip as well as the eunuch and he baptized him Now again talking about the power of the
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Word of God here we have the Ethiopian eunuch who was again, what we might call a proselyte he was a
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A Someone who knew that the Jewish God existed and he believed in that God but not savingly and he had gone to Jerusalem to worship and He's on his way back and I've Preached through this the circumstances of this are just amazing
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Why because Peter's or Peter Philip is told to go a route that most people wouldn't go
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It's not just a desert road. This is basically a deserted road This is this is not the right way to go
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But Philip answers the call does everything that he's ordered to do including basically running to catch up to this chariot when he sees him and he walks him through a portion of Isaiah 53 and he preaches
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Jesus to him and the Word of God is so powerful that it
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Convicts this man of his sinfulness and immediately he believes and what's the first thing he wants to do as a believer?
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he wants to be baptized and so he sees a little puddle of water and they jump in no
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I Couldn't resist that He says look water what prevents me from being baptized nothing and he is immediately obedient to the
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Word of God to the command to be Baptized And we could presume that at some point when
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Philip was preaching that to him that Peter had said You need to be baptized as a first step of obedience and then they're cruising along.
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There's the water boom Let's get baptized So we've seen the power of God the power of Christ the power of the
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Holy Spirit the power of the Word of God all of These aspects of I think we could say overall the power of God working through these men to build the early church
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Now there's one more thing I want to cover this morning and again, we're
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Talking about I mean, there's so many issues and I mean we could get into all kinds of Problem texts and whether acts 837 even belongs in the
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Bible or not all those issues But this isn't a seminary class There is a description in the book of Acts Where it talks about the
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Holy Spirit falling on or filling or coming upon people When I kind of separate the baptism of the
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Holy Spirit From the filling of the Holy Spirit. In fact, let's look at 1st
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Corinthians 12 13 I'll read verse 12 as well
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For even as the body is one and yet has many members and all the members of the body though They are many are one body
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So also is Christ for by one spirit we were all baptized into one body whether Jews or Greeks whether slaves or free and We were all made to drink of one spirits
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This is the singular act of becoming a Christian When you are saved all your sins are forgiven
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You are promised eternity in heaven with God with Christ You are given the seal of the
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Holy Spirit you are going to be sanctified conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, but you are also
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Baptized by the Holy Spirit, which means you are placed in the body of Christ Being baptized by the
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Holy Spirit does not mean That you receive the ecstatic gift of speaking in tongues.
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That's not what it means It means you are placed into the body of Christ now We are baptized by the
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Holy Spirit, but that is not the same as being Spirit filled who wants to take a shot at talking about what being spirit filled is
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The fruits of the Spirit we can look at Galatians 5 and that's exactly what it is Why why would it be
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Why would there be a difference between being filled with the Spirit and being baptized by the Spirit? That's right
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That's exactly right. One is a single act and the other is a process of sanctification We are commanded to be filled with the
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Spirit. Will we be filled with the Spirit at all times? No, why not?
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You can quench the Spirit because you do what? You sin as I mean if we if we read
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Galatians 5 We'd see that listen here are all the bad things that all the sinful things that Christians do and unbelievers do all the time
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Christians don't do them all the time and he gives the contrast there in verse 22 He says but the fruit of the
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Spirit is love joy. Peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self -control Against such things there is no law
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Now those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires if we live by the
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Spirit Let us also walk by the Spirit the idea here is
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We are baptized into the body of Christ. We are baptized by the
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Holy Spirit. We are filled When we are walking We're filled by the Holy Spirit when we are walking with the
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Holy Spirit when we are doing these things exhibiting these fruits and then we basically pour out that filling
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When we sin as we separate ourselves from the work of the
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Holy Spirit So we have a command to be filled why? Because we have a command to obey we have a command to do the right thing.
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We have a command not to sin so the idea of being filled is The Holy Spirit is most at work in you when you are being obedient to him and his
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Word Any questions about baptism versus being filled?
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So when we see To fall back on the TBN hobby horse again when we see people being filled with the
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Spirit and doing all manner of things what they're doing is they're taking a
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Description from the book of Acts and they're making a prescription and that's not what it is They're saying that look being filled in the book of Acts Acts 2 means that you speak in tongues
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Well, that's not what it means being filled with the Spirit means that you're walking with him
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That you're manifesting the fruits of the Spirit that you're being obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the
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Holy Spirit All right. Well, let's let's pray our great
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God and Savior We look at the way you providentially
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Spread the gospel built the church Father how you used flawed men
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To spread a truth that was offensive to the world that received it
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To open up the hearts of those that had previously closed their hearts how you yourself met a man who
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Was your enemy in a most decisive way how you turned his heart completely?
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Lord we look at the book of Acts and we just give you all the praise and glory for the great things that you have done for your people
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Lord we think even of places now that undergo great persecution China other countries were being a
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Christian is a sin or a not a sin but a crime against the law think about the young Teenagers recently beheaded in Indonesia Simply because they were
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Christians Lord, let us be grateful for your word
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Let us be grateful for your church Let us be grateful for your Holy Spirit and for your power by which you have
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Granted us salvation. You have built your church. You continue to build your church even in the face of remarkable odds
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Humanly speaking the Church of Jesus Christ should not exist But you do not do things according to our reason