Breaking the Mold - 2

Greetings and welcome once again to the midweek service of Beacon Baptist Church. I'm broadcasting from the empty auditorium of the church facilities on Kirkpatrick Road in Burlington, North Carolina.

Thankful for the opportunity to come into your presence, your home, or wherever you may be in this way, this manner that the Lord has provided for us. Looking forward to the time when we will no longer say broadcasting from the empty auditorium. We hope that it won't be long until we'll be meeting again. But for now, we continue this schedule, waiting as much as anything for the governor to tell us that the COVID has died down enough that he wants to open things up in something closer to a normal fashion.

At least get to phase three. So we are moving forward with our pattern that we have followed for the last several months now, which is having services on Sunday morning with people present, 930 Sunday morning, and we've been having some wonderful services. And then Sunday night and Wednesday night, we are broadcasting by live stream, coming to you by means of the internet. Thankful when it's working.

We've had some outages lately and grateful that it's working tonight. And that's the way it'll be for a while. However, we are coming quickly to our fall Bible conference. We're going to break the pattern in October, the first Sunday in October. And we will have not only our Sunday morning service, but Sunday 96 and Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday night at 715.

Our Bible conference, our fall Bible conference with Jim Orrick from Louisville, Kentucky. We are looking forward to that time. Please put it down on your calendar and plan to be with us during those dates. But after that, we'll go back to the present schedule unless things have changed in our state regulations, our state requests from the governor's office. We're not doing anything contrary to the government regulations by conducting in-person services because that was settled in court a long time ago.

We're perfectly legal in doing these things, but we are being careful. And we recognize that COVID is still there. People are still being infected. Thankfully, we don't know of anyone who has contracted COVID at church, Beacon Baptist Church. We have had a couple of members who picked it up either in their home or at work and they're doing fine. They're over it now. Well, we have one member now in a rest home that has also become infected with COVID.

So that's usually where it takes place. But we are being cautious and trying to find a proper balance between just not meeting at all, which we think would be a real problem for the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ to completely forsake the assembling of the saints, but on the other hand, not meeting so often and not meeting in a careless way so that we can increase or will not increase the possibility of spreading the COVID virus. Now, I might remind college students or parents of college students that we are putting together a list of students that we'll be featuring on our Wednesday night prayer sheet. And also that means that when that particular student is the student of the week, we'll be sending them a letter from the church assuring them of our prayers and encouraging them in the course of studies which they are following. And we would like to have your college student on that list if you will let us know.

So be sure that if you have a student at college, either at home commuting to a nearby college or away at college, we would like to include them on that list if you will help us to be able to do so. Good advice, more than advice, good scriptural instruction from 1 Peter 3, 10, 11 and 12. He who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good.

Let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their prayers. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. I don't want to have God opposing me to you.

So let us submit to his authority and obey his commands. We are praising the Lord that Alyssa Long had successful oral surgery. That's the three year old granddaughter of Mary Harper and had successful oral surgery on Monday and is doing well. We're also thankful that Beacon member Debbie Red is improved from the very severe case of vertigo that sent her to the hospital about a week and a half ago. It's good to see Debbie along with her husband, Mike, in church this last Sunday. Ann Whittington is struggling with a case of the shingles, but she is improving and we're grateful to be able to report that. Our government official of the week is Village of Alamance Alder member Mike Baldwin.

Please pray for him. And our college student of the week this week is Jonathan Freeman at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. He is an online student at this time.

For those who are interested, I did get a letter, a form letter that was sent out to a lot of people from the president of BJA that came in the mail yesterday and reported that. In spite of the COVID, their enrollment is actually up this year. They're on campus enrollment.

Just a little, but up, not down. And with about 20, more than 2500 students on campus, they have so far only had three cases of COVID and they have a good program in place to deal with that. Special facilities for them to isolate them and so forth. And so everything is going very well. And I hope the same is true at other Christian universities in other locations.

I just don't happen to have a report on any of the others. We continue to pray for Rob Conrad, one of our members who has been back and forth from the hospital to home, to the hospital to home, still not completely well. Please pray for Rob. Pray for Drew Guthrie as she continues to deal with with cancer and cancer treatments. Pray for Leanne Michael Hannon, who is recovering from thyroid surgery that she had last week.

And she's still suffering quite a bit of soreness and pain and difficulty swallowing and the things that can go with that. Art Pope is waiting on the results of an MRI, but he's doing very well and feeling good. In fact, he came by the church, I think yesterday, to report and to tell us that he was doing well and he sounded good. And he says, by God's help, he intends to be in church this coming Sunday. We trust the Lord will honor that desire. Please also pray for Shirley Watkins, who fell and bruised her left knee, but fortunately no broken bones and she's back home recovering.

Several on the other section need our attention tonight. Tiana Bethea, the granddaughter of Henry and Dorothy Campbell, who are members of our church, will be having shoulder surgery on September 24. That will be, I think that'll be a week from tomorrow, if I'm not mistaken.

That sounds about right. 17-24, yes, a week from tomorrow for a tear in her shoulder. And then we're praying for Beacon member Louise Day at the cottage of Blakely Hall.

She has tested positive for COVID and a number of folks there, 13 residents and 5 staff members have tested positive for COVID, so there has been an outbreak there. Please pray for all of the people living at Blakely Hall. We're praying for Rebecca Ellis, the granddaughter of Paul and Gail Ellis, who will be having a heart catheterization in Charleston on tomorrow.

I'm looking at my sheet, that's tomorrow in Charleston, South Carolina. We're continuing to pray for Stephanie Leonard, who fell and fractured her skull a few days ago. She is back home, spent some time at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, but was released on Sunday and she's home. But with a fractured skull, she is having headaches, as you might well imagine. Please pray for her. Under the sympathy section, we are praying for the family of Marie Hobbs. She was a believer and is a friend of Steve and Suzanne Lynch.

We're happy to report that missionary Stuart Waugh continues to do well. He had liver transplant surgery. I've forgotten how long ago now, maybe as much as 10 days, it may not be quite that long. And that was followed up a few days later by another surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from his adrenal gland. And that went well, and they couldn't find any evidence of any spreading or any additional cancer. And in the meantime, he is now recovering satisfactorily and his liver is working well and his other organs are functioning. He still will be spending a few more days in the hospital, but at the rate he's going, we would anticipate that he will be released before terribly much longer. And finally, under the cancer section, we continue to pray for Ben Vestal, former member of our church way back in the early days, who has lived for many years in Lynchburg, Virginia.

He is a brother to Laurie Craig and a brother-in-law to Sue Vestal, and he is now under hospice care with cancer. Please pray for Ben Vestal. I'm going to read the words of a hymn written by James Montgomery Boice based upon Revelation 1, 5 through 7. And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead and the ruler over the kings of the earth, to him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and has made us kings and priests to his God and Father. To him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Behold, he is coming with clouds, and every eye will see him, even they who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of him, even so. Amen. To him who loved us long ago before we came to be, who left his throne for earth below to save a wretch like me, all praise to Christ from grateful men forevermore. Amen. To him who freed us from our sin by dying on the cross, to make us whole, without, within, redeemed from dreadful loss, all praise to Christ from grateful men forevermore. Amen.

To him who comes arrayed in light, when sinners here shall see the one they pierced and mourn the sight God promised it shall be, all praise to Christ from grateful men forevermore. Amen. With angels, saints, and seraphim, the new creation sings, all glory, power, and praise to him who made us priests and kings, all praise to Christ from grateful men forevermore. Amen.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we bow to worship you. We bow to give you praise. We bow to praise your eternal son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who left heaven's glory and came to earth in order to die on the cross, and to provide a satisfactory payment for sins in the place of we who are the sinners who deserve that judgment. And our God, how merciful you are to place our sins upon Christ and to credit his righteousness to our account for all of those who trust in you. And so we do look forward to that day when Jesus Christ shall come arrayed in white, when all the world shall see the one whom they rejected, the one whom they pierced. Oh Lord, we pray that by the work of your spirit you will cause yet a great multitude to trust in Christ, to repent of their sins, to embrace him, to bow before his throne now, before he comes in power and glory to judge. Father, how grateful we are that we have a Savior and we indeed give grateful praise to him forevermore.

Amen. A few letters of communication tonight. A short one from the Christian Law Association that we will send gifts to from time to time. It's an organization that helps defend Christian freedoms in court that are very much under assault.

There are a good many similar organizations across the country. We need them all. These are perilous days in which we live. Dear friends of Beacon Baptist Church, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things. This verse came to mind when we thought of how your financial contributions and prayers impact the world for Christ. Thousands of believers across the country are directly impacted by your recent donation. You enable our ministry to be a lighthouse in this storm for many pastors and ministries.

Many unique legal situations are arising that no one could have foreseen. And we ask that you pray for wisdom for our legal team and the Christians involved in legal trouble during this time. While pastors are trying to lead their ministries through wisdom and discernment, join us in praying for God's blessing in America.

And it's signed David Gibbs, Jr. I have a letter from Tony and Kathy Payne in South Africa which actually precedes the letter that I read recently. And the one that I read recently was their latest communication, just a short one that they sent after they arrived in the States where they've come to visit his mother who is in declining health. But this letter gives the background for their being able to come and also gives us a bit more insight into their ministry in South Africa.

So I would like to read that at this time. Dear Pastor Barkman and Friends at Beacon, Greetings from Cape Town where we are still under lockdown which began on March 26. Many of you have been praying for my mother Lorraine Wood who is declining in her kidney function and is having other signs of end-stage renal disease even with her dialysis three times a week for the past four years. She is having episodes of dangerously low blood pressure. In a previous letter almost a month ago I wrote that she had fallen and broken the two lower leg bones that formed the ankle when her blood pressure bottomed out when she was standing in her kitchen. She knows that she will not become any better. She has asked me for the last six months to please come and visit her.

I feel that it's something I should do. He talks about consulting with his mission board and with his home church pastors and they all agreed. But the problem was getting out of South Africa because there were no flights. He says we were not sure that it would be possible since the airports have been closed to international flights since lockdown began in March. But we have been praying that the airports would be opened up by August to allow us to visit her as had been originally planned before COVID-19. About a week ago received an email from the U.S. Embassy advising us of a few repatriation flights offered to Americans who wish to travel to America. We see this as an opportunity from God. Lord willing, we will depart from Cape Town to Atlanta on August 9.

Of course, that was a little over a month ago. At this point, our gatherings for corporate worship are still not possible. So even with me traveling to the USA, Endovan Baptiste Kirk will continue with distance worship and preaching as we have been doing these past four months. I will go on with the new series of messages from the book of Galatians as well as a daily scripture text for believers to read and study with the notes that I provide them in the texts. I think none of us ever knew what a blessing technology could become for the body of Christ. Our men will continue to help by providing some of the Wednesday evening messages and by giving oversight to the needs of the flock.

So even though he's in America, he is still preaching to his church in South Africa at the scheduled time by means of the Internet technology. Please pray for our hearts and our believers hearts to remain strong. Many of them came to Christ through our ministry of the gospel.

So we carry them in our hearts as our children in Christ. The decision to come to America was not an easy one, especially with COVID-19. Our prayer is to return to South Africa in October if the airport reopens by then. And of course, we had Dave and Julie Rudolph, also missionaries to South Africa, with us this last Sunday. And they're trying to return to South Africa.

They still don't have a time when they will be able to return. Tony Payne continues to write, our believers have been so supportive of the need that I feel to see my mom again because this is her wish. Will you pray with us for all of the believers at Ed, Hovind, Baptist, Kirk to be faithful and persevere in faith.

Pray that they may remember to enjoy their new residence, mercy and peace. From Sunday, Galatians 1-2 message. And to thank the Lord daily for the Old Testament dogs goodness and favor that pursue them. Psalm 23 6. Praise our Lord God for his rich blessings in our lives. The world thinks their life is nice, but it is empty.

We have kindness, mercy, grace and peace that abide with us. Isn't that a sweet, sweet letter. Well, I have a letter from David and Nikki Vaughn in France that I had intended to read.

But as I look at the clock and I look at the letter, which is a fairly long one, I don't think I'll have time to read that. So I'm also holding in my hands the most recent letter from Paul and Trish Snyder from Papua Indonesia. And they are home because of medical needs. As are Trevor and Theresa Johnson from the same field who work together in partnership with these folks.

And they're also in the states because of medical issues. I'm not going to try to read the Snyder letter either. It's too long to fit into the space that I'm contemplating as I look at the clock. But having it in my hand at least allows me to update you a bit by summarizing some of the things that are in the letter. And primarily to tell you that they recently relocated to Radford, Virginia. We'd already reported that so you probably already know that. And they report that they are doing well there. They've settled in. They are involved in the church that is there. They are involved in the mission board, a hearts cry missionary society with which they have had a working relationship in Papua, even though that's not their board.

But they are working with other missionaries who are with that board and have found that to be a very fruitful relationship. Paul tells us that his health is improving, still not completely well, but is better. He also reports that their daughter Marianne is improving. She's had some issues of various kinds and they were very perplexing, but they are now improving. She's doing well, doing well in school and is much improved.

And their son Lane, who really didn't have any issues that I know of, is doing well, has made the adjustment and is in school and is doing well. And then he reports on the work back in Papua. He has photos of some of the workers, some of the believers, and all seems to be going on well there in their absence for which we praise the Lord.

So I'm happy to be able to give you that update from Paul and Trish Snyder. I will, Lord willing, next time I come to this Wednesday night pulpit give you the letter from David and Nicky Vaughan in France. With that, I now open my Bible to Acts chapter 11 and I would encourage you to do the same. Last Wednesday we opened our Bibles to Acts chapter 11 and I read verses 19 through 30 and then gave you what was best described as an introduction to the message from this passage.

So I can't spend much more time on introduction, though there are a number of other things that I would like to say and I think would be profitable. But let me simply report to you that what is going on here is a record of the beginning of what we now call missions. They didn't call it that then, they just called it proclaiming the gospel to, well as they eventually understood, to the ends of the world, to every creature, exactly as Jesus Christ had commanded. Though as we know, the first Christians were a little perplexed, befuddled, and uncertain as to exactly how that was to be carried out. Because the first several thousand Christians, all from the Jewish community and most of them from the city of Jerusalem, were therefore Jewish believers in Jesus Christ. And they still had this erroneous idea that the way Gentiles were to become members of the family of God, like the Jews, was by way of Judaism. That they should become Jews and then as Jews should embrace Christ and become Christians the same way that these Jews had done. And that was their concept and that was their error. And so for a long time they had difficulty just simply preaching the gospel to Gentiles.

The gospel of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ for sinners and that those who trust in him will be saved from their sins. But to them it seemed like you had to first be a Jew, you had to first be a follower of Moses, you first had to be submitted to the authority of the Old Testament before you were prepared to hear the message that Jesus is the promised Christ, the promised Messiah, promised from the Old Testament Scriptures. But if you didn't know anything about the Old Testament Scriptures, then how could you understand about Christ? I mean this is the way they were reasoning. And even though that seems very strange to us now, as we think about what they were dealing with, what they believed, why they believed it, we can see it makes a certain amount of sense. But it's one of those things that though it may make sense, it certainly made a lot of sense to them, though it may make sense, it was wrong.

And the caution is to realize that we could be doing something similar in a different realm. We don't embrace their error, but it's very easy for us to pick up things in the realm of Christianity that make perfect sense. Well, to us they make perfect sense, though if they're not right, and this certainly wasn't right what these people believed, it wasn't perfect sense. It was a measure of sense. It was a category of logic, but it really wasn't perfect sense because it was wrong. And sometimes we think we have things that make perfect sense, but they're wrong. It isn't perfect sense. It is a factual error. It is a scriptural error. And just that caution to remain humble and teachable and to realize that you may embrace something, you may believe something that is not actually biblical. You think it is, but it's not.

You're wrong. I may be embracing something like that as well, in fact. I think I'm going to make that a little stronger. It is without doubt that both you and I are embracing some things that are not factually biblical. If we knew what they were, we could reject them right now and change them. We don't understand what they are because up until this time we've been unable to see it clearly.

We've been blind in that particular area. And so may God teach us. May the Holy Spirit of God open our understanding.

May our understanding of Scripture be enlarged so that we can see our errors and deal with them, reject them, and correct them according to the Word of God. Well, back to Acts 11. What's going on here in this account of the spread of the gospel to Antioch and the first substantial Gentile church? I don't know if there were any Gentile churches before this time.

There's no record of any. So when I call it the first substantial Gentile church, that's just based on the supposition that there may have been some that aren't recorded. But as far as the Scripture is concerned, there weren't any Gentile churches. It wasn't the first substantial Gentile church. It was the first ever Gentile church. And that's what we find in Acts 11.

Now I read the text, verse 19 and following. Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but to the Jews only. But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who when they had come to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists. Some translations say Greeks. Some say Gentiles. But they spoke to the Hellenists preaching the Lord Jesus.

A Hellenist is another name for a Greek. And verse 21 tells us the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. The news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent out Barnabas to go as far as Antioch when he had come and had seen the grace of God was glad, and encouraged them all that with purpose of heart they should continue with the Lord. Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul, and when he had found him he brought him to Antioch, so it was that a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people, and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. And in those days prophets came from Jerusalem to Antioch. Then one of them named Agabus stood up and showed by the Spirit that there was going to be a great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea. This they also did and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. I have an outline for the passage. I don't have any inclination that I'm going to be able to cover the whole message tonight, so it will be continued on a future Wednesday night. But let me at least give you the four point outline of the entire passage that I just read.

We could call this breaking the mold. And what we have is first of all evangelism, verses 19 through 21. Secondly, church planting in verses 22 through 26. Third, deprivation in verses 27 and 28. And finally, response in verses 29 and 30. First of all, evangelism.

That's the beginning of what we call missions. Preach the gospel. Jesus said go into all the world and preach the gospel. He actually said make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.

And lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age. Go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations. That's Christ's command. Christ has now been back in heaven for several years and still this command is not being carried out with a great deal of energy or intentionality or success because, as I already explained, these early Christians didn't seem to be able to figure out how to do it. They were still thinking in terms of preaching the gospel to the Jews so that they might believe that Jesus of Nazareth is actually the Messiah, the Christ promised by God in the Old Testament Scriptures. So somebody had to come along and break out of the mold, this mold of error, this mold of erroneous belief that was holding back the work of missions, holding back the spread of the gospel. So how did this evangelism unfold in Acts chapter 11?

It started with faithful evangelists. Back to verse 19 again, now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word. But that's not where the verse ends, preaching the word to no one but the Jews only.

They were selective, weren't they? But they were going, Jesus Christ said, go into all the world, more literally, as you are going into all the world. And persecution had pushed them out of the nest in Jerusalem, that's where the persecution was now so intense that it wasn't safe to stay there. So they were being scattered, they hadn't really intentionally said, we think we ought to carry the gospel to other places. They were living their lives in Jerusalem, enjoying the fellowship of the saints there, preaching the gospel to their fellow Jews in Jerusalem, and weren't giving much thought to going into all the world, but persecution was scattering them. And so they were going, even like Jesus said, as you are going, as you go into all the world, preach, make disciples of all nations. Now prior to Acts chapter 11, we find a couple of outreaches to Gentiles. You remember Philip who went to Samaria. It's hard to know exactly how to categorize Samaritans. Were they Gentiles?

Maybe. Were they Jews? The Jews certainly didn't think so, but they claimed a Jewish relationship and they claimed to worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They claimed to worship him on Mount Gerizim. You know all of that from John chapter 4 and the woman at the well.

So they related themselves to the Jewish nation, to the Jewish religion, to the Jewish promises, but they had already broken away from the worship of Jehovah in Jerusalem, the place where he had appointed his worship to be centered. But Philip went to Samaria, and in doing that he broke barriers. Jews hadn't been going to the Samaritans, but Philip did, and a number of people were saved. Philip also went to the Ethiopian eunuch, and that is also in Acts chapter 8. The Ethiopian eunuch was definitely a Gentile.

No confusion about what category he fit into. He was a Gentile. He was the treasurer of Candacy, the queen of the Ethiopians, but God was working in his heart. He had an interest in the Bible, the scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures, of course, for the New Testament hadn't been written yet.

He had journeyed to Jerusalem to worship there to learn more about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You can see the Holy Spirit working in hearts. He was preparing the heart of this Ethiopian eunuch, but he was going back home, traveling in a chariot with a retinue, no doubt, back home, taking with him a copy of the book of Isaiah, which he was reading in the chariot.

But not understanding very much about it. And the Holy Spirit of God had picked Philip up from his, we'd call it a revival, pretty successful evangelistic effort that was going on in Samaria. And the Holy Spirit of God had picked him up and dropped him down along the roadside where this Ethiopian eunuch was coming along.

This is pretty amazing. And so here comes the Ethiopian eunuch in his chariot, and who does he see but a man out there standing by the roadside, I don't know if he was doing this, I don't think so, but God prompted the eunuch to stop his chariot, to find out who this man was. He found out that he was a Christian, a Jewish Christian, and he invited him up into the chariot, and Philip notices that he's reading the prophet Isaiah. And he was reading from Isaiah 53, of all the places in the book of Isaiah that he could have been reading from, there is none that would be a better place to preach the gospel than Isaiah 53.

There are other passages that speak about the Messiah, but you can't find a better one than Isaiah 53. And so he's reading about the one who was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a sheep before he shearers his dumb, he opens not his mouth, and he was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. And so he's reading these things, he knows that these are the words of the prophet Isaiah, and he says to Philip, who is the prophet speaking about here in these words?

Is he speaking about himself or some other man? This one who is wounded, this one who is bruised, who is this? And Philip, the Bible tells us, began to explain to him about Jesus.

This is Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus the Christ. The eunuch believed in Jesus, knew something about the Christian religion because as they were driving along and Philip was explaining things to him, he had gone on from the gospel to talk about other things, we really don't know what all was said, but they come to a pond or a body of water, I presume it was a pond, a lake, some body of water, and what does the eunuch say? Look, here's water, what prevents me from being baptized? And Philip said, tongue in cheek, well here's the canteen, let's sprinkle a little bit on your head.

Oh no, that wouldn't work. Down to the body of water, down into the water, immersed into the water, raised up out of the water. That's the baptism that is described and prescribed in the scriptures. Sprinkling a little water on the head does not meet the biblical doctrine of baptism at all. But here's another Gentile who has come to faith in Christ, but we haven't heard about the establishment of a church in Samaria, though I can't rule it out. There were good many believers there, that would seem to be the next logical step, but we haven't been told of one, there's no description of one in the scriptures. The Ethiopian eunuch certainly had no church to attach himself to, he went back to Ethiopia and I presume at that time was the only believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, again my supposition is that he witnessed the gospel and God blessed his witnessing and others were saved and who knows? There may have been a church established before too many months passed and as we know there is a whole population of Ethiopians who call themselves Christians, we call them today Coptic Christians. And they live in Egypt and they live in Ethiopia and no doubt trace their spiritual heritage all the way back to Acts chapter 8 to the Ethiopian eunuch. But still there had not really been a serious evangelistic outreach to a distinctly Gentile community.

The Samaritans are as close as we come to a community of Gentiles, but they really weren't. So now these faithful evangelists are being scattered from Jerusalem, they are going northward up the coast, they traveled we read as far as Phoenicia, Phoenicia is modern day Lebanon. In those days that would have been the cities of Tyre and Sidon, they preached the gospel there.

They went to Cyprus, that's the island, they didn't restrict themselves to staying on the mainland. Some of them, maybe all of them, we don't know, got in a boat, traveled over to the island of Cyprus, preached the gospel there and Antioch, some of them finally reached the city of Antioch in Syria 300 miles north of Jerusalem, a great Gentile city, a great Roman city in those days. But still up until this time all of these people who were fervent evangelists preaching the gospel were preaching we are told to no one but to Jews only. They found the Jews in Tyre and preached to them. They found the Jews in Sidon and preached to them. They could find the synagogues, they could find the Jews. They found Jews in Cyprus and preached to them.

They found Jews in Antioch and preached to them. They didn't know any other thing to do. They were pressed into a mold of their own wrong thinking but it was a cultural thing. It was a heritage issue. It was a matter of their upbringing, a matter of their training.

It was a matter of carrying over their Jewish upbringing and the concepts they brought from that into their Christian faith. And they brought in some concepts that were erroneous but they hadn't seen that yet. They hadn't corrected these things.

They hadn't shaken them yet. Again I have to ask how many cultural concepts have you been endued with and brought into Christianity from your background that could be just as erroneous, just as culturally based rather than biblically based but you somehow have confused in your mind, they're all mixed up together these biblical ideas and these cultural ideas and somehow you think they're all biblical. You don't realize that some of them are cultural. That's the way these folks were. They were faithful evangelists but they were restricted in their focus. They preached to no one but to the Jews only until, we come to verse 20, and now we find some bold innovators among the faithful evangelists.

This wasn't all of them but this was some of them. Verse 20, but some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene who when they had come to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists preaching the Lord Jesus. From Cyprus, we've already mentioned that, the island of Cyprus, and Cyrene, that's a city on the north coast of Africa, and some of these were men who had come from these places. They were Jews, Jews of the dispersion, the diaspora, but even Jews from the diaspora had synagogues in their places where they lived and many of them traveled to Jerusalem on major feast days in order to continue to be faithful to the regulations of Moses who said you are to go to the major feast days in Jerusalem and many of them did.

And of course at that time, in one of those feast days on the day of Pentecost, what happened? Three thousand were saved, many of whom were people from the dispersion, from Cyprus and Cyrene. In fact, we've got a whole list of places where these people were from and many of them were saved. The difference is these men from Cyprus and Cyrene, though they were Jews like the others, hadn't come from quite the same strong Jewish cultural heritage as the others. These things can be regional. People who are reared up in the south have certain cultural concepts that maybe those who are reared up in New England do not have and vice versa.

And different from some that are raised in the midwest and vice versa and some that are raised in the far west and vice versa and some that are raised in Texas, they have their own cultural concepts that they grow up with. And so these from the dispersion were Jews but their Jewish cultural hang-ups were not nearly as strong because they had lived their lives among Gentiles. They were a minority of Jews in a Gentile community and so they had gotten to know Gentiles, they had done business with Gentiles. If you lived in Jerusalem you could avoid Gentiles your whole life and have no contact with them, virtually have no conversation with them.

You wouldn't need to. You could go to the market and always be dealing with a fellow Jew. Any place you went you could be dealing with a fellow Jew. There were a few Gentiles there but they were outsiders and didn't, for the most part, wouldn't have spoken Aramaic, the form of Hebrew that was spoken by the Jews in that day so you could tell them immediately.

We have the same thing in America, don't we? Sometimes we go into a store and we hear people speaking a different language. We know immediately they didn't grow up in North Carolina. They're from someplace else and it's real easy not to have any direct contact with them. They're not particularly usually seeking direct contact with us and it's easy for us to know they're not from here.

In fact we don't even know how to converse with them in some cases if they don't speak any English. So Jews who grew up in Jerusalem could live their whole life without having any contact with a Gentile. I suppose it's possible some of them had never had a conversation with a Gentile. So it's not surprising that when they went out preaching the gospel they were looking for Jews, preached the gospel to Jews. If they'd never talked to Gentiles before they really didn't know how to do that, did they? It was very awkward for them.

It was a mental barrier, a mental hang up, a cultural problem, but it was very real and very strong. But those who grew up in Cyprus, those who grew up in Cyrene, entirely different story, they had mingled with, talked with, befriended Gentiles all of their lives. So when they went to Antioch, they found it very easy to strike up conversations with Greeks, with Gentiles, unlike their Jerusalem friends who found that very difficult.

They had done it all their lives. And so whether they had planned to do it or not, whether it was just a matter of their enthusiasm for the gospel spilling out and they couldn't hold it back any longer, couldn't contain themselves, whatever happened, they began to preach the Lord Jesus to Gentiles and a great number believed. The hand of the Lord was with them and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. And now for the first time, there is a significant number of Gentiles all in one city, all in one community, who are believing in Jesus Christ. And what you have, and we'll see it developing and unfolding as we go further in the passage another night, but what you have is the beginning of the first identifiable Gentile church as a result of this mission's effort out of Jerusalem.

And now we will have to conclude with prayer. Father, how we thank you for your word, how we thank you that the gospel did break out from the Jews and went to Gentiles for where would I be, where would we be if the gospel had been spoken to the Jews only for all of these centuries. We thank you that your river of grace is deep and wide and has flowed throughout the whole world and has brought many, many Gentiles into the fold of salvation. We thank you that Elisa Long's surgery went well and we pray that you may continue to touch and heal her. We thank you that Debbie Red is doing much better and we pray that you'll help her with these issues of vertigo. We pray for Anne Whittington rejoicing that she's improved and praying that she may continue to recover from these shingles. We pray for Village of Alamance alder member Mike Baldwin that you might give him wisdom from above, guide and direct his thinking, and help him, Father, to be a good representative of truth and righteousness and justice in his place of civic responsibility. We pray for Jonathan Freeman as he's taking some courses online and preparing himself to go away to the university next year if all goes according to plan.

We pray for Rob Conrad, please strengthen him. We pray for Drew Guthrie, please minister to her. We pray for Leanne Michael-Hannon that you will ease the pain that she is experiencing from surgery and bring her to recovery.

We thank you that Art Pope is doing better. We pray that you'll get a good report from his MRI. We thank you for protecting Shirley Watkins from breaking any bones and we pray that you will minister to this dear, sweet sister, this sweet member of our congregation. We pray for Tiana Bethea who will be having surgery on her shoulder on September 24, a week from tomorrow.

Please prepare her for the surgery and prepare the ones who carry it out. We pray that it shall be successful. We pray for Louise Day, please protect her from serious COVID symptoms. We pray for all of those at Blakely Hall that you might keep them from having a major problem with this virus. We pray for Rebecca Ellis as she has her heart catheterization in Charleston tomorrow. We pray for Stephanie Leonard that you will help her to recover from this head injury. We pray for Stuart Waugh that his recovery may continue and for Trevor Johnson and Paul Snyder and their families here in the states. We pray for the family of Marie Hobbs that you might minister grace to them. We pray for Ben Vestal, this dear brother in Christ, that you might minister much grace to him. May he know your presence. And now Father, thank you for allowing us to gather in this way. Oh Lord, help us, help us to be faithful, fervent, and fruitful servants of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.