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That's connectwithskip.com. Now, let's get into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Now when the congregation had broken up, many of the Jews and devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God.
Now think about keeping the laws. Go to verse 46. Paul and Barnabas grew bold and said it was necessary. He speaks to the Jewish audience that the Word of God should be spoken to you first, but since you reject it and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. For so the Lord has commanded us, I have sent you as a light to the Gentiles that you should be salvation for the ends of the earth. Now when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the Word of the Lord, and as many as been appointed to eternal life believed. Chapter 14, verse 1. Now it happened in Iconium that they went together to the synagogue of the Jews, and so spoke that a great multitude of both Jews and of the Greeks believed.
Down to verse 23. So when they had appointed elders in every church and prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed. It was all just faith alone, by grace alone, in Christ alone. Now what was the basis of their faith? The basis of their faith was the Jewish Messiah predicted in Jewish scripture. They understood that. Paul made that clear. That we have a book, we have a Bible, the Old Testament at that time. He was quoting from the Tanakh, the old, what we call the Old Testament. And when he mentioned, he told them that the Messiah was predicted by our prophets, our scriptures, and His name is Jesus. He has come.
If you believe in Him, without keeping the law of Moses, you can be saved. They got all jazzed about that, excited. We'll do it. I can be forgiven. I'll do it. So place after place, that was the message they brought, and that's what the people responded to.
And it was on that basis. Enter the Pharisees. They're saved. Okay, they're saved.
They're from Jerusalem, but they're Pharisees. Now I don't doubt their sincerity when they say, you have to keep the law of Moses, you have to be circumcised, or you can't be saved. I totally do not dispute their sincerity. They were sincere, but they are sincerely wrong. And sincerity is not enough when you match sincerity up to the truth. You might sincerely not believe the truth.
You are sincerely wrong. And so the people from Jerusalem, Judea, go up to Antioch. It says down to Antioch because the elevation of Jerusalem was higher than Antioch. So you're going downhill, effectively, lower elevation.
But they're going from south to north. They go to Antioch, and they bring this message. Hey, if you want to be a saved person, you first have to be a Jewish person and then believe in the Jewish Messiah. But you can't just willy-nilly not keep the laws of Moses.
You have to keep them and be circumcised to be saved. Now the region Paul has been in, what region did I tell you he was in? Galatia.
He was in the region of Galatia. He writes a letter to the Galatians later on. And by now, Paul's gospel that he preached in Galatia, the Judaizers, the Pharisees who were saved, who were saying you have to keep the laws of Moses to be saved, have gone from Jerusalem to Antioch and to all the places where Paul started churches. Interesting how heresy develops. A lot of people, they won't start their own church. They'll just find churches that are already started and try to just sort of work their way through.
So they made it all the way over to these places in Galatia. And when Paul writes his letter to the Galatians, he calls these people troublemakers. So let me just read it to you if you've got a Bible handy. You can turn to Galatians 1. I'm in verse 6. He says to the Galatians that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel.
Which is not another. They're not preaching a whole different gospel. I mean, they're saying they believe. They are believers. But there are some who trouble you. These are the troublemakers. Who want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. Now that's pretty hefty language. That's pretty strong stuff that he's dishing out here.
Let him be accursed. Why is it so dangerous? It's dangerous because they're trying to mix two mediums.
Like oil and water. They're trying to mix law and grace. They're trying to add to the finished work of Christ. They're trying to stitch up the torn veil. You remember in Luke 23 the veil of the temple was torn in two?
A signification that God was opening the way freely for those in the future to come to a relationship with him through what Jesus did on the cross. The Judaizers, the Pharisees who are now saved, who have a Jewish background, think you have to go through the laws, what they're effectively doing is saying, hey, let's stitch that veil back up. Let's make it harder for people, not easier. God made it easier. We'll fix that. We'll help God out. We'll add rules and regulations that God never intended. They're trying to stitch up the veil.
Now, why is this so ludicrous? Well, if it's a finished work that God did, you coming along and trying to add to that is as stupid as me being in the Rembrandt Museum looking at one of Rembrandt's pictures, taking out a pencil and saying, I'm going to fix that. I'm going to add to that masterpiece. Standing in front of a Van Gogh or a Rembrandt or a Picasso and thinking, you know, he wasn't really on it that day. I can see some of the flaws. I'm going to fix what he did.
It'd be even more ludicrous for a child with crayons to have that mentality. That's what it's like to approach the finished work of God on the cross and say, I'm going to add my works to that. So he says, be careful of these troublemakers because they are perverting the gospel.
And he says, let them be accursed. Part of me thinks poor Paul and Barnabas. Man, they're flying so high.
It's been so awesome in Iconium and Lystra and Derby and Pamphylia, Perga, Cyprus. People are getting saved. Now they come back to the church to send them. They find it's divided. Not everybody's so happy about it.
There's the legalist who scowl. The gospel has often been hindered by closed minds who stand in front of open doors and keep people from getting in. The door had been flung open. The veil had been wide open.
But these are the gatekeepers. We're not going to let you in unless you're circumcised and keep the law of Moses. Now, think for a moment if those Judaizers would have had their way in Jerusalem and Antioch. And what if the church would have just started this way? No, no, no, you have to be circumcised, keep the law of Moses. What if that's the foundation?
What if they would have won? Well, our hymns would certainly sound different, wouldn't they? We'd be singing, Amazing circumcision, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Our anthem would be, What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the law of Moses.
But it's amazing grace, how sweet the sound. And anything other than that is a perversion of the gospel. Now, verse 6, Acts 15, the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter. And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them, Men and brethren, so they're back in Jerusalem now, they've gone from Antioch to go check out what the apostles have to say, the big wigs, the men in charge. When there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them, Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago, God chose among us that by my mouth, the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.
What's he referring to? He's referring to Acts chapter 10, when he went down to Caesarea, and there was a centurion named Cornelius, a God-fearer, a Gentile, but he's interested in Judaism, the God of the Jews. But he's received a revelation to go get Peter. Peter tells him about Jesus. This Gentile God-fearer comes into a personal relationship with Christ.
The door has been opened to Cornelius and his family by Peter's mouth. Then verse 8, So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us. And he made no distinction between us, Jewish believers, and them, Gentile believers, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore, and I love this verse, now therefore, and I love Peter for standing up and doing this, because, you know, Peter wasn't always like this. If you know your book of Galatians, you know that Paul said that in Antioch, when Peter was up there for a while, that Peter was two-faced. He would eat with Jewish people and pretend like he was kosher, but he was with the Gentiles.
He would pretend like he's all full of grace, but not with the Jews, like, no, no, we don't do that. So Paul had to rebuke Peter publicly to get him back on a course correction. But now, at this council in Jerusalem, Peter's standing up, and he's got it right.
And so he says, verse 10, now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? Oh, I love that. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, we want to help you learn more about God's radical love for all people by sending you four booklets by Skip Heitzig that will encourage you in God's abounding love and challenge you to love even the unlovable, just like Jesus did. This resource is our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share solid biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copies when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Now, let's get back to today's message from Pastor Skip. Peter's saying you're putting something, now a yoke was a steering device that put on an animal to pull a plow.
The animal would often chafe under the yoke. And so you are laying a device, you're laying a yoke on the Gentiles, but he says it's interesting, though you're telling them what to do to be saved, it's a yoke, this Jewish yoke, is something we've never even kept. We, the Jewish people and our forefathers have never kept fully the law. He could have gone into the reason for the Babylonian captivity, the Book of Judges, the Book of Joshua, on and on and on.
He had a lot of historical record against them. Why are you putting on them a yoke which neither we nor our fathers were ever able to bear? We couldn't do it, we don't do it, and now you're telling them to do it. You're telling them to do something that nobody's done yet. Jesus said of the Pharisees, by the way, they bind heavy burdens and lay them on men's shoulders, but they don't pick up that burden with one finger. They don't do anything to fix it. Peter's basically saying the same thing.
Why? Well, by this time, Judaism didn't just have the Old Testament, they had the oral law. They didn't just have the Ten Commandments.
The rabbis that said, oh no, they're more than ten, there are 613 commandments, and you've got to keep them all. 613 commandments divided up into two groups, positive and negative. 148 positive. 248 positive, excuse me. 365 negative.
365 to 248. 365 prohibitions. One thou shalt not for every day of the year.
That was their mentality, that's how they lived their life. 613 commandments. Broken by those who espouse to keep them, and now trying to lay it on other people. Don't have the time now, but if you want some kind of brainiac fun, go look up the 24 chapters written in the oral law, the Talmud, 24 chapters on how to keep the Sabbath. Imagine 24 separate chapters on how to keep the Sabbath laws down to can you carry a fig on the Sabbath?
Can you carry a comb in your hair on the Sabbath? And the disputes back and forth. How much weight can you carry? How far can you go?
Down to the craziest detail. So Peter stood up and gave that testimony. But we, verse 11, but we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus, we shall be saved, and I like this, in the same manner as they. He didn't say they can be saved like we are. He says we can be saved like they are. We Jews can only be saved by faith in Jesus, just like them. Then all the multitude kept silent and listened to Barnabas and Paul declaring how many miracles and wonders God had worked through them among the Gentiles.
Now they get up and go through their first missionary journey. And you know, there are speeches in the Bible that just tell you that they said something but they don't tell you what they said, and I always go, man, I hate that. I wish this was recorded. Just like Matthew 24, the road to Emmaus speech that Jesus gave, the first post-resurrection teaching, and it was a prophetic sermon. Not recorded.
This one, not recorded. But I'm sure he started in Cyprus and talked about Sergius Paulus, the intelligent man who was interested in the gospel, but Elomis, the sorcerer, came and withstood him, and so Paul said, you're going to be blind, and he was. That was a miracle. Then he gets to Iconium, and we read that many signs and wonders were done at the hands of the apostles. But then we got to Lystra, and there was a guy who had been blind from birth, but he had faith to be healed, and I knew it, and I, by the power of God, stretched out my hand, and the man was healed. But then it got really weird, because they thought that we were their gods come down from heaven, Zeus and Hermes, and they started to worship us, and so I told them not to, and they didn't do it, and they took me out and threw stones at me instead, and they thought I was dead, but then when I got back up again, I went back into the city, and I started talking again. What a great, great, great message this must have been. Sorry it's not recorded. Though it's not recorded, I ended something.
I ended our time last week saying something that I just want to flesh out a little bit. Some believe that when he was stoned, and you know when I say that what I mean by that, right? I don't have to go through the modern idea of being stoned versus the ancient biblical term of being stoned.
He had stones pelting his head. They thought he was dead, and some believe that it was at this point in that state while he was on the ground that God did something to him and for him that changed his whole ministry and gave him a focus and an impetus like nothing else, and that is something that is recorded in 2 Corinthians chapter 12 where he says, It is doubtless not profitable for me to boast, but I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ who 14 years ago, whether in the body I do not know or whether out of the body I do not know, God knows such a one was caught up into the third heaven.
The word is harpazo, same word as rapture. He was immediately taken up into heaven, the third heaven. And I know such a man, whether in the body or out of the body I do not know. God knows how he was caught into the paradise and he heard inexpressible words which is not lawful for a man to utter.
Of such a one I will boast. In other words, Paul's saying, I'm the guy that I know. I've been speaking about me all along in the third person, but now I'm just saying, I'm the guy. I had an experience. I couldn't tell you if I was in the body or if I had actually died and gone to heaven. But I was caught up into the third heaven. That's the abode of God. The first heaven is the atmosphere, birds and clouds. The second heaven is the celestial realm of interplanetary stars, et cetera. Beyond that somewhere is the heaven of heavens where God is.
He was caught up there. And he saw paradise. He saw a vision of heaven. And it could be from that stoning experience that he developed what he calls a thorn in the flesh also in this chapter. An impairment could have been an eye disease, could have been epileptic seizures of some kind after that experience. We don't know. But it could be that he was taken up into heaven.
He had this vision. But then he says, and it was just so amazing, you know, it's not even lawful. It'd be like a crime for me to even try to describe it, so I won't. And there's, again, there's another one. It's like, really? You got to see that and you won't give me a taste of how utterly cool that must have been?
He goes, no, I just, words wouldn't do it justice. I've always found that fascinating because I've heard of people who claim to have left earth and gone to heaven. And they write very extensive books about it.
And they'll, 25 bucks, they'll tell you what it was like. But it's interesting. The biblical descriptions of heaven are very sparse.
Now, we can examine them and get some information, but it's very little information. So it could be that during this time is when he was caught up into the third heaven, couldn't be sure, but many believe so. So he goes through his speech in Jerusalem about what happened on that first trip, how God worked among the Gentiles. Verse 13, and after they had become silent, James answered, saying. And you go, what do you mean, James? I thought he was killed.
He was. This is another James. The James that was murdered, killed, beheaded was James, the brother of John. This is James, the half brother of Jesus.
After Jesus was born by a virgin birth, Joseph and Mary had normal husband and wife relations, had many children. One of them was James. So James is the half brother of Jesus. Also James, this James, is the author of the book of James. He is known as, in history, James the Just or James the Righteous, if you've ever read the book of James, it's very fitting, because it's a very righteous oriented book.
And he was also, because of his prayer life, known as James the Camel Kneed, because the stories say he spent so much time physically on his knees in prayer that he developed these gnarly looking calluses like camels do. This is that James. Now, James stands up after hearing the testimony of Peter and Barnabas and Saul, and he's going to make the final deliberation.
Why is this important? Because it shows you that historically, biblically, Peter was not the first leader of the church, James was. So if you try to say, well, we have a papacy that is based on historical evidence that goes all the way back to the first pope named Peter, you have a real problem with Acts chapter 15. Because Peter is not calling the shots, Peter is being sent out and dispatched by James, the half-brother of Jesus, who is the first leader in charge of the church of Jerusalem. So James stands up, not Peter, and he speaks. And notice what he says in verse 14. Simon has declared how God at first visited the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name. When he says Simon, who's he referring to? Peter, but why didn't he say Peter? Now, I'm asking you the question, because I want you to start asking those kind of questions when you read your Bible.
And you'll look and you'll find the answer, but let me just tell you so you don't have to do a whole lot of digging. The issue he's dealing with is a Jewish issue, a Hebrew-oriented issue, so he uses his Jewish name. Not Peter, not the new name Jesus gave him, but the birth name, Hebrew birth name, Simon, Shimon.
So he uses that name because it's a Jewish issue. We're glad you listened today and hope you've been strengthened in your walk with Jesus. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resource, the Jesus Loves Them bundle, which comes as thanks for your support of Connect with Skip Heitzig today. Request your bundle when you call and give. 800-922-1888.
That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. We'll see you next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast your burdens on His word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever-changing times.
