WWUTT 1057 The Dispersion of the Church?

WWUTT Podcast

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

When persecution came upon Israel, well, they were being punished because their hearts were hard against God, but when persecution has come upon the church, we're actually supposed to rejoice in this, when we understand the text.

00:24

You're listening to When We Understand the Text, committed to the sound teaching of the Word of God. For questions and comments, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

00:35

And don't forget our website, www .utt .com. Here's our host,

00:40

Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We're moving on today in our study of the book of Acts. I know we covered one whole chapter yesterday, but we're going to move on to chapter eight, and this is picking up right after the stoning of Stephen, Acts chapter eight, verse one, and Saul approved of his execution.

00:59

And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.

01:10

Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house.

01:20

He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.

01:27

Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ, and the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip when they heard him and saw the signs that he did.

01:40

For unclean spirits crying out with a loud voice came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed.

01:50

So there was much joy in that city. Let's come back to verse one, where it says that Saul approved of Stephen's execution.

01:59

Note again that Saul was there at the stoning of Stephen. It says in verse 58 that they cast him out of the city and stoned him, and the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named

02:15

Saul. So he was like the coat check guy. He's watching everybody's garments while they go out and stone the first martyr.

02:26

The first victim of persecution in the church to the point of death.

02:31

Now we know that the apostles had already been beaten for what it is that they preached.

02:37

Things have been escalating and finally up to this point where we have the first person who has been put to death for the sake of the gospel.

02:44

The first person after Christ. So at first the apostles were arrested. They were thrown in prison.

02:50

They were told, hey, stop saying what you're saying, wagging a finger at you guys. And then they kept doing it.

02:56

So they got arrested again. And this time they were beaten and let go. But this time Stephen is arrested and he's actually stoned to death.

03:04

So he becomes the first martyr, one of the first deacons in the church, as we had read back in Acts chapter six.

03:10

And he's not the only deacon that gets mentioned a second time. For now, we have Philip come into this story.

03:17

And Philip was one of the other men who was named a deacon. So Stephen, one of the first deacons, he's stoned to death for sharing the gospel.

03:25

Then Philip is the one who goes out and is sharing the gospel. Now note what happens following the execution of Stephen.

03:32

Saul approved of his execution. We have the introduction to Saul here and then his conversion is going to be coming up in chapter nine.

03:39

So our introduction to Saul and then everything that kind of takes place after that, it all rolls rather quickly here.

03:46

There arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles.

03:57

Now this is the dispersion. This is referred to as the dispersion. Now there was a dispersion that happened in Israel or the diaspora of the

04:08

Jews. But this dispersion, this is a good dispersion for the Jews. It was because they were being punished.

04:15

Their enemies had come against them because their hearts had hardened against God. And so he sent an enemy against them to persecute them and they scattered.

04:23

In this particular case, this dispersion is good. The persecution is even good. Jesus had said, and I mentioned this yesterday in Matthew chapter five, that when there are those who hate you for my name's sake, rejoice.

04:38

So this persecution has come against the church. But unlike the persecution that happens against Israel, this persecution is good.

04:46

When Israel was persecuted, it's because they had done evil in the sight of God. And so he turned them over to their enemies.

04:54

But for the church to be persecuted, this is not a punishment. They are actually sharing in the sufferings of Christ.

05:02

It is good to receive this persecution. The disciples had already rejoiced for being counted worthy of the name, and they knew that they had because they were being persecuted for what they were teaching.

05:15

Jesus had told the disciples in Luke chapter 12, verse 11, you're going to be brought before the synagogues and the rulers and authorities and the

05:22

Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say. In first Peter chapter four,

05:29

Peter says, Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening to you.

05:38

But rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

05:51

If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed.

05:57

Let me say that again. And that's almost countercultural. It's like not the way evangelicalism goes in the

06:06

Western world today. We try to avoid persecution at all costs. We don't want to be ridiculed or made fun of for anything.

06:12

But listen again, first Peter 4, 14. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

06:28

If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify

06:34

God in that name. So let me ask you this. Some of us try to avoid persecution, and I mentioned that.

06:41

We try to stay away from it. So is the reason why you don't go out sharing the gospel, you don't go door to door or stand downtown and hand out tracts?

06:51

Maybe you're not the kind of a person that can stand on a soapbox and preach. You don't even know where you would start with that. Okay. But going with somebody else who can, to be somebody who hands out tracts or answers questions, doing inner city evangelism, any of these things, however evangelism might go in your church, why would you not go out and do that?

07:14

Is the reason why you don't want to go do that because you're afraid of persecution? Well let me tell you, you are depriving yourself of sharing in the sufferings of Christ.

07:27

Rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed.

07:37

Now some of us, we just don't even know where to start when it comes to doing evangelism. There's lots of videos that help with that.

07:44

Or talk to somebody else in your church. Talk to somebody who has gone out and done evangelism and say, what do

07:49

I need to do? Can I come out and help you? Do we go door to door and hand out tracts? What is it that we do?

07:55

And in so doing, you are obeying the command to go out, sharing the message of the kingdom of God.

08:03

Just as we have it in Acts 1 .8, Jesus telling his disciples, so the rest of us are charged with this same thing.

08:09

In Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20, that we are to go out, baptizing in the name of the

08:16

Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, making disciples, teaching them to observe all that Christ has commanded.

08:24

We're supposed to go out with the gospel. That's what it is that we're supposed to do. And we are going to be persecuted for that.

08:31

Now there are situations where you're just simply not going to be able to avoid persecution. For as Paul said to Timothy, those who desire to live a life of godliness in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

08:42

So I've had occasions where I've confronted somebody with the truth and they hated me just for that.

08:48

Just telling somebody, hey, you're in sin. You need to repent of that. You need to do this.

08:54

I'm warning you where the judgment of God is going to come upon you. Now I've been blessed to see friends be convicted over that word and repent before God.

09:04

But then I've had other occasions where I've confronted a friend with evil. I knew that they were in,

09:10

I confronted them with evil. I confronted them because of the evil that they were in and told them to repent.

09:17

And they hated me because of it. I've experienced that before. That's being reviled for standing on the truth, for pursuing godliness.

09:26

And there are people who are going to hate us for that. We simply can't avoid it. If you can't handle that, then don't be a

09:33

Christian. I know that's kind of counter evangelical as well. That's not a good selling point for Christianity.

09:41

Hey, if you can't deal with persecution, then you shouldn't be a Christian. Well, this is Jesus presented this to the people that he spoke to the cost of discipleship in Luke chapter 14.

09:51

Stephen Lawson has written a terrific book on this, by the way, it's called the cost, but it's on what

09:57

Jesus says here in Luke 14. If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.

10:11

Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

10:18

For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it.

10:27

Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish.

10:35

Or what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10 ,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20 ,000.

10:48

And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.

10:56

So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

11:04

Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?

11:10

It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away.

11:16

He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And remember, we've been told in the book of Matthew and the

11:22

Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, you are the salt of the earth. We are the light of the world.

11:28

We are to go out with the gospel. It is what we have been called to do. Yes, there are people who are going to hate us for it.

11:34

There are people who are going to hate us just because we are pursuing godliness. But it is the cost of discipleship.

11:40

It comes with the territory. We should rejoice in these things, knowing that we share in the sufferings of Christ and the persecution that we endure for his name demonstrates to us that we've been counted worthy to wear the name of Christ.

11:56

So again, this persecution that has come upon the church here that has resulted in a dispersion.

12:01

It's good, especially considering that the message of the gospel is going to go out with the spreading out of these

12:09

Christians. Now the Christians had all gathered in Jerusalem for the most part up to this point.

12:14

It's not that Christians are exclusively in Jerusalem. There were others that came back to Jerusalem for Pentecost and then probably went back to their homes throughout different places in the

12:24

Roman Empire. So there was somewhat of a dispersion that had already happened. But this persecution that came upon Stephen and now

12:30

Saul is going to go out and start rounding up Christians and putting them in prison or even putting them to death.

12:36

This has caused Christians to be scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria in fulfillment with what

12:42

Jesus said in Acts 1 .8. You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria.

12:50

So now they're spreading out throughout the region, taking the gospel out as Jesus had commanded would be done so.

12:57

This is not a punishment that is coming upon the church. It is the providential hand of God moving pieces in place so that those whom he has elected will hear the gospel and believe and so live.

13:10

Now the apostles remained in Jerusalem that said here in verse one and we go on to verse two where it says devout men buried

13:18

Stephen. The apostles may have been among them and made great lamentation over Stephen. But Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house.

13:29

He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. So the stoning of Stephen really energized

13:36

Saul, who would eventually become the apostle Paul right now. He's Saul of Tarsus, persecutor of Christians, persecutor of the church.

13:45

Stephen's death has really motivated him into stepping up his game. And with great zeal, he is now rounding up Christians and throwing them in prison.

13:55

Now Saul is an understudy of Gamaliel and we have already seen

14:00

Gamaliel's name come up in this. This was back in Acts chapter five when the apostles were beaten for the first time for preaching the gospel the way that they were.

14:11

They wanted to put the apostles to death. The chief priests, those who were in the temple, the Pharisees, they wanted to kill the apostles.

14:18

But Gamaliel was the one who stood up and called for peace. And he said, hey, if these guys really are against God, well, then persecution is going to come upon them.

14:28

Nobody's really going to follow them. But if God is on their side and we persecute them, well,

14:34

I mean, we're going to be found guilty as coming against a servant of God. So we got to be real careful with this.

14:40

They took his advice to heart and ended up punishing the apostles by scourging them and then letting them go.

14:48

So Paul, as well, Saul now, as an understudy of Gamaliel, I kind of wonder what's going through his head because he clearly is not looking at what he is about to afflict the church with.

15:01

He's not looking at this as peacefully as Gamaliel did. So does Saul see himself as the persecutor in the sense that he's the fulfillment of exactly what

15:10

Gamaliel said about them being about God not being on their side? Now, when

15:16

Paul wrote to the Philippians, he said that he had great zeal in his heart. His zeal was even greater than any of the other

15:23

Pharisees, because he had zeal for the law to the degree that he was persecuting the church whom he thought was undermining the law.

15:34

He thought they were throwing out the law of Moses and everything by worshipping this Jesus, whom the Pharisees considered to be a blasphemer and put him to death.

15:43

Well, they're worshipping Jesus instead of following the law of God. So therefore, they're against God.

15:48

And watch, I'm going to persecute them and put them to death. And it's going to succeed because God is not really on their side.

15:54

Was that what was going on in Saul's mind? Because he did not have as peaceful an approach to this matter as Gamaliel did, most certainly.

16:02

Either Saul saw himself as like the fulfillment of that side of Gamaliel's deal with the rest of the chief priests and elders and scribes, or Saul, just in his zeal for his position, was just going to persecute the church, regardless of what it was that Gamaliel had said.

16:20

So then we get to verse four and we read about Philip here, Philip proclaiming Christ in Samaria.

16:27

Now, those who were scattered went about preaching the word. So again, we've got the dispersion that has taken place, this diaspora.

16:34

And we actually have references to this dispersion in a couple of places in the

16:39

New Testament, in the epistles themselves. When James opened his letter, he says,

16:44

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ to the twelve tribes in the dispersion.

16:50

Now, some have taken this to mean that he's writing exclusively to the Jews because they're of the twelve tribes dispersed about the

16:57

Roman Empire. But no, James is writing in a very spiritual sense to the church.

17:03

Twelve tribes would be in a spiritual sense as having received the gospel from the twelve apostles.

17:10

So James is taking Old Testament language and applying it to the church who's been scattered throughout the empire in this dispersion due to the persecution.

17:20

Peter also says to the church, and this is in First Peter, chapter one.

17:25

At the start of his letter, he says, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God, the father in the sanctification of the spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for the sprinkling with his blood.

17:48

So Peter even says here, writing to those Christians who have been dispersed, he says here that they've been dispersed by the sovereign plan and foreknowledge of God.

17:57

This is exactly how God predestined this to be, so that the message of the gospel would go out and those who have been called who have been elected for salvation would hear the gospel and believe it and so live.

18:13

So you have those couple of places where there is a dispersion that's even mentioned at the beginning of these epistles.

18:19

This is being written to Christians in the churches that have been scattered throughout the Roman Empire.

18:25

Again, it's a good kind of dispersion, for it means that the gospel is going to go out even farther.

18:32

And it's because of this dispersion that you and I have come to hear the gospel of Christ and know it and believe

18:38

Romans chapter 10, verse 17. Faith comes through hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

18:45

And we're going to consider even further what it is that we're reading here. I only got into verse four talking about Philip, but we'll pick up there tomorrow and even read about Simon, the magician that's coming up in the next portion of Acts.

19:00

Let's conclude with prayer. Our heavenly father, we thank you for your sovereign hand, your providence that has been over us, that has led us to this place that we have heard the gospel and so come to believe in Christ and live.

19:14

And this is all been by your will. Even the Holy Spirit that is working in our hearts to cleanse us of our sin and the fleshliness in which we once walked before we came to Christ and is making us more like Christ, growing us in holiness and in an understanding of your word.

19:35

And it's in understanding of your word, may we also be filled with boldness to go out with the message of the gospel so that others may hear it and so believe and live.

19:45

Thank you for this great salvation that we have received in our Lord Jesus Christ and let us not keep it to ourselves, but share it with others that the full number of the kingdom of God may come in.

19:57

And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you for listening to When We Understand the

20:03

Text. Pastor Gabe is the author of the book, 40 of the most popular Bible verses and what they really mean.

20:08

Available in paperback or for your Kindle. Found at our website at www .utt .com.