Preaching in Chains (Part B)

There is a real evil, and it's got his hands on you. And you better make a choice. You're either going to stampede to hell like a stampeding herd of apples, or you're going to listen to God. You're either going to think for yourself, or you're going to follow the crowd.

Wide is that gate, broad is that way, and it leads to destruction. And you won't have anybody to blame in hell, but yourself. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of Acts.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Now, let's join Pastor Rick for part two of his study called Preaching in Chains, in Acts chapter 28. He knew God held the key, and he lived like he knew God held the key, even though he didn't like it.

Remember my chains. Well, verse 21, Then they said to him, We neither received letters from Judea concerning you, nor have any of the brethren who came reported or spoken any evil of you. Hmm. Well, they heard of Paul's Christianity. I'm going to pause here to point out something, that the Lord opens the doors for church growth, and I believe the Bible teaches that only the Lord is to open the doors for church growth. I don't know if a week goes by where I get somebody telling me, number one, how dumb I am as a pastor, and I need to come to their conference and figure out ministry, or I'm getting, you know, hey, you need to grow your church, you know, you're too dumb to know how to do that, and you have to send us some money so we can help you out there.

Well, does that sound hard? I don't ever get accused of being lovable. I do get accused of being stern, and I don't get it. Anyway, so I'm going to say this backing it up from Scripture, which should get me off the hook, right? Like, hey, he's not stern. He's just quoting Scripture because he enjoys it.

It doesn't mean he's a meanie. Revelation 3, this is the church that was very faithful, very small. God's going to open doors for them. He said, I know your works.

See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it, for you have a little strength, have kept my word, and have not denied my name. This is the church in Asia Minor, Philadelphia. Then in Acts chapter 2, and I'm going in reverse order chronologically, Acts chapter 2 verse 47, we read this about the Jewish Christians that were flooding into the church, praising God and having favor with all people, and the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. Well, would you rather have the Lord add to your church, or would you rather be involved? We don't want the congregants being little salesmen for the church. That's the Lord. He's not a salesman, but he is Lord of the church. He is Lord of the harvest, and as a pastor, I don't want to try to sell the church to convince somebody to return. That's none of my business. That's between the Lord and them.

Zechariah 4, and this is when the temple of the Jews was supposed to be rebuilt, but the Jewish people weren't really moving to get it done, and God raised up Haggai the prophet and Zechariah, and Zechariah, God speaking to him, said, not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord. That's how these things are going to get done. I happen to believe these things, and I try to adhere to them. I don't care if others are not doing it.

I don't mean that in a hostile way. If they're not doing it, that's on them, but I know what I understand the scriptures to say, and I'm going to go with that, and so here, Paul, he is going to lay out to them the gospel from their scripture. He's not trying to appeal to them with anything outside of what the Bible says, and if that doesn't do it, then it's not going to get done. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.

Well, that's spiritual too. He who lives by the word of God dies by the word of God because they don't depart from it no matter what happens, and I hope I go to my grave holding to the Bible, to the word of God. Verse 22, but we desire to hear from you what you think, for concerning this sect, we know that it is spoken against everywhere. Well, it's been less than 30 years since Christ ascended to heaven, the crucifixion, resurrection, ascension of Christ, and Christianity is bad-mouthed in a lot of places, in the Jewish community especially, because they were non-conformist. They weren't asking other people how to be Christians. They were getting that from God and from the Old Testament and from the apostles, and they did something with it, and in so doing they offended people.

Jesus said, I've come to bring a sword. Well, you can sugarcoat the gospel and you won't offend anybody except people who don't sugarcoat the gospel. Anyway, they said, we want to hear from you concerning this sect. They classified Christianity as a heretical offshoot of Judaism, but actually Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism, rendering it obsolete, and moving forward with or without them.

Were they being honest? When they said, for concerning this sect, we know that it is spoken, but that's it, we just know it was bad-mouthed, how could that be? How could Jewish leaders be unaware of Jews in Rome who had become Christians?

As big a city as Rome was, the Jewish community always stays plugged in. There would have been family members that became Christians and did not become Christians and would still remain in touch in some form. And so especially since you had Jews in Rome serving Christ, worshiping alongside of Gentiles, that would have been all over their radar.

So I don't know if they were being so honest, acting and playing dumb, you know, we don't want all we want to hear from you. Well, Paul doesn't get tripped up with that. They wanted to hear Christianity from Paul, they were going to get Christianity from Paul. Verse 23, and when they had appointed him a day, many came to him at his lodging, to whom he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God persuading them concerning Jesus from both the law of Moses and the prophets from morning till evening. Well, he couldn't do or couldn't go to the synagogues as was his custom, as was the custom of the Lord before him, because he's under house arrest. And so the delay allowed for those 13 synagogues to get it on the schedule and the leaders and representatives of the community and the rabbis would show up. He must have had a sizable room given to him.

Well, and that had to be coordinated too. Anyway, he says, to whom he explained, here in verse 23, and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God. Paul never changed his method with the Jews. With the Jews, he first went to their scripture. He did not have to explain when he said, Isaiah said, they didn't say, who's Isaiah? They knew who Isaiah was, and they knew what Isaiah said. And so that just was perfect.

You would think that, man, that is ideal. How could they say no? Well, they did. With the Gentiles, he would go to logic that we know of. He had, I'm sure, other moves, but we remember this from Athens. Either way, he would, both of them, would declare the whole counsel of God. That means he would speak from God's word. And he would do it without any weirdo ideas and private revelations. You know, someone coming along, God said this to me. Yeah, well, he didn't say it to us.

Peter wrote about this, knowing first that no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation. God singled you out, and the rest of us are just going to sit there and listen to what you have to say. Islam does it that way. They have their prophet, and that's it. But that's not Christianity. Persuading them concerning Jesus, that Jesus is Messiah, who came, and they missed it.

But it's even more than that. Our approach, by the way, back to the Gentiles, they said it was a little different. Well, we usually have to point out sin and the guilt that it brings before a holy God.

That's one of the things we get to right away. The other thing we might have to get to fairly quickly is a trustworthiness of scripture. Well, the Jews had both of those. All their blood offerings was about their sin before a holy God. The trustworthiness of the scripture, they had no problem there. Here's where it gets to be.

Here's the wild card. Jesus is the single solution. Now, the Jews would have no problem with Messiah being the single solution. They just had a problem with who's the Messiah. The Gentiles have a problem. Well, it is one way.

Why not? I mean, you've got many ways. Who paves those things? Who maintains those roads?

What proof do you have? All roads lead to Rome, but they don't all lead to heaven. Only one. Well, so that's in method. So it says here, from both the law of Moses and the prophets. I'm in verse 23. This is what he used with these Jewish leaders. Single source, the scripture. This is how Jesus did it. Well, Jesus also had those phenomenal miracles, right? But that didn't save everybody. There were many that saw those miracles and did not convert, and many benefited from them.

Nine of them in one situation didn't even come back to say thank you. Luke chapter 24 verse 27, beginning at Moses. This is talking about Jesus. Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures, the things concerning himself. And the church has been doing this ever since.

Hopefully. The true church. Easy peasy. If you're going to preach to the Jews, Isaiah 9, Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Zechariah 14, just to name a few. It's all over their scripture.

I really have no excuse. Who else can fulfill Isaiah 53 in history? And then there's Genesis 49, 10. You say, huh?

Which says nice things about ball-headed people. Let's get to it. No, that's another verse. Genesis 49, 10. The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet until Shiloh comes.

And to him shall be the obedience of the people. Well, how would you prove that you were a king according to the line of Judah? Well, you'd have the records there in Jerusalem. Short walk to go find that out. Well, the Romans destroyed all those records when they destroyed Jerusalem and the temple Mount and all that was on it. Now you cannot. There's no one on earth that can prove that they're of the line of Judah, which the Messiah comes from.

The window is closed. It was either Christ or it ain't going to be anybody. So you just line that up with Isaiah 53 and Zechariah and just the other scripture verses. And through a logical approach, a problem solving approach, a system of a process of elimination, everything points to Jesus and no one else.

There's not even a runner up. Just even just take some of the words from Josephus and you say, man, that he's the one. Well, this is what he tried to do from the scriptures from morning till evening.

It's a long time. Well, he felt they were worth it because God feels they are worth it. These men were not predestined to go to hell already.

They must have been a waste of time. Rightly dividing the word of God. Verse 24, and some were persuaded by the things which were spoken and some disbelieved. Well, the ones that believed, they were converted without signs and wonders, were they not? Again, the signs and wonders begin to fade out with the apostles. They became the word of God by faith. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, wrote Paul to the Corinthians. The true gospel is a take it or leave it.

It is the ultimate take it or leave it. Truth cannot be affected by your taste. You cannot say, yeah, two plus two is four, but you know, I'd rather it be three. We know that you're, you know, you're off the rails at that point.

Something's not working with you. Well, the gospel is no different. It has to add up. And to walk around saying, well, Christians just believe in the fantasy is quite presumptuous of the accusers. As though we don't look at facts, as though we don't measure, you know, reality. Somehow we make an exception when it comes to religion. Well, some do. But ideally, Christians don't. It says, and some disbelieved.

Well, what does that tell us? That believing is a matter of choice. Some chose to believe, some chose not to believe.

John 3 16, whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Unfortunately, there are elements of the church that doesn't apply. That doesn't apply to everybody. It's just the people that God likes.

Where do they get that from? You can't insert that. You try that with the Trinity or the doctrine of any other doctrine and you'll be called a heretic. But there are those that can do it with that verse.

That's just for the elect, brother. Well, I elect not to agree with you. From the foundation of the world, you're wrong. Anyway, Paul believed the Old Testament and it got him in trouble. He believed in his Bible, got him in trouble. When we believe in the Bible and act on it without sugarcoating sin, we get in trouble too. What our faith forbids and condemns the world demands, demands that we accept it, insists that we are wrong. Oftentimes they become angry towards us for not ignoring sin, for daring to oppose them. This one goes back to Cain and Abel. Cain killed his brother because his brother was righteous and he hated it. And instead of saying, man, what makes you tick?

How can I get some of that? He decided to eliminate him. He wouldn't have to look at his face for having the audacity to call the world, upset with us, for having the audacity to call their craziness insanity. And we're living it unlike ever before. They've moved from attacking marriage to just attacking humanity and demanding we, all right, I don't want to get too much into that.

You all get it. And if you're visiting and you have been drinking the world's Kool-Aid and you think they're onto some new thing, you need to understand there is a real evil and it's got his hands on you and you better make a choice. You're either going to stampede to hell like a stampeding herd of apples, or you are going to listen to God. You're either going to think for yourself or you're going to follow the crowd.

Wide is that gate, broad is that way, and it leads to destruction. And you won't have anybody to blame in hell but yourself. So angry towards us because we like God more than them.

That's a fact that's part of reality. So Paul, he delivers the message. To them it was about who Messiah is, and to us it is about who the Savior is now. It's gone beyond Judaism. Unlike Islam, Christianity is not to be spread or maintained by the sword, the real sword, by violence.

So, back to this. And you know, there have been imposters in Christianity that have used the sword to spread their version of Christianity. That's outside of scripture. And that would put in question the genuineness of their belief. Verse 25, so when they did not agree among themselves, they departed after Paul and said one word.

They departed after Paul had said one word. Sorry, just seeing if you're listening. The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers, verse 26, saying, go to this people and say, hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive. Again, back to the Bible. He uses, he gets the last word in, and he uses the Bible to do it.

It's not his opinion. It's his scripture. The Holy Spirit spoke.

Now this is important. He is quoting the words spoken to Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah's vision in the temple of God. But the one who speaks there in Isaiah chapter 6 verse 9 is Yahweh, the God of the Jews, the Lord creator of heaven and earth.

It is God speaking to Isaiah there in Isaiah 6. Paul here quotes Isaiah and the utterance is applied to the Holy Spirit. And Paul says the Holy Spirit is God and that the Holy Spirit, what he says, God says. This is the Trinity in action. The Holy Spirit is not an it.

He is a person of the Godhead. The members of the Trinity are not three separate persons. There are three distinct personalities in one nature. And perhaps the closest we can get to this is a triangle. A triangle has three distinct corners, but it is one triangle. And they coexist.

They're always in agreement. The Holy Spirit speaks because he is not an it, but Satan also speaks. Satan is not a force in the universe like the yin yang thing going on.

He is a person too. But well, this Lucifer, the head of the enemy, the head of satanic forces, but there are many of them that make up Satan. When Satan speaks to you, it's not Lucifer.

It's one of the minions out of hell. But it was Lucifer who spoke to Eve. And what was the first words out of his foul mouth? As indeed God said. He challenged the Bible.

That's what I talked about. You know, when we share the gospel, one of the things we have to do is establish a trustworthiness of scripture, which the world wants to just get the Bible out of the way. Somehow, some way make you think it's untrustworthy. To do this, they will resort to untrustworthy methods.

They will lie oftentimes. Anyway, knowledge of the Bible without the Holy Spirit is dead religion. Through the Holy Spirit, that's how the Lord is exercising his will right now on earth.

One of the methods, of course. Christ is not walking around teaching anymore, but the Holy Spirit is through people. Rightly through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers. God speaks in order to speak through.

He speaks to his people in order to speak through his people. Religion without God's presence is a dead religion. Who can argue that? Who wants a religion without God? That would be atheism. God has faithful servants, however, in unfaithful churches.

This steams me. This does. It's like, God, I put all this work into it, and others seem to just do loony crazy things, and they get converts. I'll give you a biblical example. In the Book of Revelation chapter 2, we have the church at Smyrna, which was being persecuted. And right after that, we have the church at Progamos, which had the doctrine of Balaam, the Nicolation. They were just doing all sorts of goofy stuff, and God was calling them out on it. And so what we read in Revelation chapter 2, verse 13, to the church at Progamos that was struggling, I know your works and where you dwell, where Satan's throne is, and you hold fast to my name and did not deny my faith, even in the days in which Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells. And so you would think the fine Antipas in the church at Smyrna, where they were being persecuted. And Jesus said, I need you to be faithful to death. When they're killing you, I need them not to kill your faith. You stand strong. That's the church at Smyrna. But then he comes to Progamos, and this is all messed up, but yet there's Antipas. There's a faithful servant.

And even they, as a church, they stood their ground in the face of persecution, but they brought in heresies. And so who doesn't that steam? It's like, I'm fine with that. I'm not fine with that. We shouldn't be fine with that. But we've got to be careful.

You have to be careful. What's the Lord doing? There are faithful servants in unfaithful churches, and I think that is one of the reasons God put that in Revelation, in the seven churches of Revelation. So, yeah, I look at some wacky church and say, man, that's just, you know, they got this and they got that, and it's like unbiblical, but yet you meet people from that church and say, that person loves the Lord.

It's not fair. Of course, I want what God wants, and whatever my flesh wants, I know that's my enemy. Anyway, rightly through Isaiah the prophet—we're back in verse 26—rightly through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers. Now, the zealot Jews were incensed at being told they killed their own Messiah. This is why one Paul was hated, Peter, and the rest of them by their own people.

These Jews that he's speaking to, they're going to have to take that medicine too. They killed their own Messiah just like the scripture said they would. Acts chapter 2, verse 23, him being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God as written in the Old Testament, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death. That's Peter telling them like it is. In chapter 5, Peter says, Jesus whom you murdered by hanging on a tree.

Right out. Then Stephen, who could stand before him, he says, which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the just one of whom you now have become betrayers and murderers. So, you had to make a choice early on if you were living in this time in history as a Jew and coming across these Christians. And then there were the zealot pagans who would persecute Christians after the Jews, incensed at being told that all of their gods were phony.

All of them. And that they were useless concoctions of the God makers club and that Jesus was the only way to heaven. You've been listening to Cross-Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's broadcast, today's teaching is available free of charge at our website. Simply visit crossreferenceradio.com. That's crossreferenceradio.com. We'd also like to encourage you to subscribe to the Cross-Reference Radio podcast. Subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick. You can subscribe at crossreferenceradio.com or simply search for Cross-Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app. Tune in next time as Pastor Rick continues teaching through the book of Acts, right here on Cross-Reference Radio.