1865. Three Comforting Realities

Welcome to The Daily Platform. Our program features sermons from chapel services at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Every day, students are blessed by the preaching and teaching of the Bible from the University Chapel platform. Today's sermon will be preached by evangelist Dr. Steve Pettit. Please take your Bibles and turn with me to the book of Acts chapter 18. Acts chapter 18. This morning, I'd like us to look at an incredible event that takes place in the life of the Apostle Paul as he is on a missionary trip to the city of Corinth. This is his second missionary journey.

And in this missionary journey, there's been great blessing, but there's also been great opposition to the work of evangelizing, spreading the gospel, telling the good news. And in Acts chapter 18, it seems to be implied that Paul was facing some real fears and he was fighting with struggles in his own heart while he's doing the work of evangelism. And so the Lord appears to the Apostle Paul in a night and he receives a vision. And that vision was to encourage him. And in that vision, we see three comforting realities. Let's begin reading in verse nine.

Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision. And here we see the comforting of his presence. He says, be not afraid, but speak and hold not thy peace, for I am with thee. Paul, I'm not going to leave you or forsake you. My presence is with you.

I am with you everywhere I go. Then notice secondly, he comforts Paul with his protection. He says, for I am with thee and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee.

Paul, not only am I going to be with you, but I'm going to protect you. And then finally, we see his comfort through his purposes or his plans, or you could say his sovereignty. For notice what he says at the end of that verse. He says, for I have much people in this city.

And then notice the result. And Paul continued there a year and six months, that is 18 months, teaching the word of God among them. So the Lord comes to Paul in the midst of his busy life. And by the way, we all experience a busy life, don't we?

And yet in the midst of a busy life, we also have our own internal heart, the way we feel about things. Paul, and he gives him comfort. The presence of God gives comfort to us. The comfort is he's with us. His presence is not going to leave us or forsake us. He gives us the comfort of his protection.

His hand is going to be upon us. And then he gives us the comfort of his control, his purpose, his plan, his sovereignty. And in this case, it was his sovereignty and the salvation of people. Because our emphasis this week is on the emphasis of sharing the gospel, this morning, on the mystery of God's sovereignty in evangelism. Because the Lord makes this statement that's just a passing statement that is a statement that is powerful, in some ways is perplexing, and in many ways should move our hearts. For what does he say to Paul? He says, for I have much people in this city.

What do we see here? We see the purpose and the plan and the sovereignty of God in saving people in a community that are not saved yet. For I have much people in this city. Should we not not take heart in that statement? That wherever we go, we know the Lord has people in this city who are not saved yet. But through the ministry that God gives you, God is going to bring forth fruit. Why? For I have much people in this city.

This morning, I'd like to talk about. First of all, let's dig a little deeper and ask the question, what does this mean? What does it mean when he says, for I have much people in this city? Now, I would assume that as you read that, you would think that there are people in the city that are going to get saved, but they're not saved yet. That's what he's encouraging him with.

So what is the idea of that? Well, let me first of all say that God is not saying that I know the future and who is going to make a decision to accept or reject me. Now, that is true. Because the Lord knows who is and who isn't.

Who will and who will not. God knows that because he knows all things. But that's not what this verse is saying. Let me also say that God is not saying that he looked down the corridor of time and saw who would choose to love him and therefore God chose to love that person because that person chose to love God.

We know that's not true. Because we know 1 John 4 19 says we love him because he what? He first loved us. The love of God didn't start in your heart. It started in God's heart. You don't love God and then God decides to love you. God chose to love you and therefore as he worked in your heart, you chose to love him. So what does he say?

He is saying that there is to me or there belongs to me in this city many people who are mine already. Now Paul, you don't know who they are. And Paul, they don't know who they are. But Paul, I want you to know I know who they are. Because I have chosen them to be mine through my son Jesus Christ.

So the point is this. Because God is in control, Paul do not be discouraged and don't live in fear. But continue in your evangelistic work. Give the gospel out. Because in my purpose, in my plans, I am directing and ordering your work in order to fulfill my own eternal plan to save my people through your preaching. I am directing and ordering you. Now everybody in this room who's ever shared the gospel know that what I'm saying is true. How many of you have been moved to the Lord to share the gospel with somebody in some form, some way, and you know the Lord led you to do this?

How many of you have ever experienced that? Raise your hand. Hold your hand up. Okay. How many of you felt like when you shared the gospel the Lord was with you in doing it? Raise your hand.

Okay. How many of you walked away from that with a sense that you couldn't explain it? It was a mystery. But it's almost like God had already planned this out and somehow in this divine way, God brought this person across your pathway and there that person was, you were able to give them the gospel and you knew this was the direction of the Lord. How many of you have ever experienced that? Raise your hand. Yeah, that's the whole point. My wife and I were flying not long ago.

I don't know, a year or so, a year and a half ago. My wife sits down on a plane next to a lady and she's like any of us. We sit down on a plane and we really don't want to talk to the people next to us and we're so glad that they have headphones on so we don't have to talk to them.

And they watch their movie and you sit there and you never have a conversation. Well, my wife sat down next to this lady and immediately this lady starts talking. And there was immediately a sense of in conversation and need.

And my wife began to share the gospel with this lady and over the course of the trip, my wife led this lady to the Lord on the plane and when we got off the plane, she introduced the lady to me as we were getting off because I was sitting in a different seat. And we look back on that and what do we sense? We sense that there is this mystery.

I don't understand it, but I get to be a part of it. To share the gospel, but to be a part of what God is doing in the world. And we see this throughout the book of Acts. When you read Acts, there are clusters of verses that reveal the sovereignty of God and salvation.

Let me read them to you. Acts 2 23. We see this in Jesus's death. The Bible says him being delivered by the determinant counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken him by wicked hands of crucified and slain.

The Gentiles killed Jesus, but it was determined in the counsel of God in eternity past that Jesus would die for our sins. Listen to Acts 4 27. They all gathered together, not even knowing God, but then suddenly the book of Acts says, and they were doing God's bidding.

You know, one of the mysteries of life is that we go through all kinds of situations in life and in the middle of it, we can't see maybe necessarily the hand of God, but we can believe the hand of God because he's in control. We read in Peter's sermon on Pentecost. He announces this truth. He says in Acts 2 39. The Lord our God shall call. Nobody gets saved if God doesn't call. The calling of God is the working of the Holy Spirit and the heart through the preaching of the gospel. It's the difference between one sinner hearing the gospel and another sinner. You sit there, the gospel is preached and suddenly it's like one guy, his whole eyes are open on that day and sees Christ, just like Paul on the road to Damascus when he was converted. So what do we find in the Bible? We find the working of God in the power of God.

Listen to what Luke acknowledged. He acknowledges in Paul's success in his first missionary journey. He says it's attributed to God's sovereignty, Acts 13 48. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

And then let me read this one to you. This is when God opened the heart of a lady named Lydia in the city of Philippi, Acts 16 14 and a certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple of the city of Thyatira, heard us whose heart the Lord opened and she attended unto the things that were spoken of Paul. Who opened Lydia's heart? Did Lydia open the heart? No, the Lord opened the heart. May I say to all of us, we should marvel in our own salvation that God opened our hearts and we saw him. Your eyes are blind. Your spirit is dead.

Your ears are deaf. The Lord opened your heart. Years ago when I was a youth pastor up in Michigan, my wife and I went to a revival meeting one night at a church at Calvary Baptist Church in Midland, Michigan. And there was an evangelist preaching there. And my wife at that time was deeply, deeply burdened over the salvation of her father who was an unbeliever. And my wife would lay in bed at night and she would weep and cry because she was so burdened that he would get saved. And I'll never forget going to that revival meeting and speaking to the evangelist after the service. And my wife looked at the evangelist because he was known as a prayer warrior.

And she looked at him. His name was Tom. And she said, Brother Tom, would you pray?

Not Tom Farrell, but a different Tom. And she said, Brother Tom, would you pray for my dad to be saved? And I remember he bowed his head and he said, Oh Lord, I pray that you would open up the heart of Jim Elkins like you opened up the heart of Lydia in the city of Philippi. And do you know, in short order, in a very short period of time, God worked in my father-in-law's heart. And this, I mean, he was the hardest, roughest, toughest, he had all kinds of preachers witness to him.

But God opened his heart and God saved him. And what do we see? We see the power of God. In our comprehensive ability, the sovereignty of God is a profound mystery. But in God's infinite wisdom, his purposes are as good as accomplished.

As God said to Paul, for I have much people in this city. So, what then are the implications of this statement? Let's put it in practical ways. And let me give you some negative and then some positive implications.

The negative are this. Number one, the sovereignty of God, God's control in people's salvation, is not a hindrance to our responsibility to evangelize. I want to be very clear. Paul's vision in the night came while Paul was in the midst of an extremely busy time of evangelism. He was doing the work. In other words, he's not Dr. Stuff Shirt, sitting in his theological ivory tower, pontificating on the intricate mysteries of salvation. This was a church planting evangelism. So we must be clear, evangelism is the duty of all believers. The old theologians called it this way, God's will of precept and God's will of purpose. God's will of precept means that God is publicly declared of what man is to do.

Here's what you are supposed to do. God's will of purpose means that God has decreed what he will do and what his purpose is, but that is largely a mystery and it is a secret held with God. Listen to Deuteronomy 29, 29. The secret things belong unto the Lord thy God, but those things which were revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. God's purposes and plans, his decrees are a mystery. That's his will of purpose, but his will of precept is clear. He has revealed to us and to our children what we are to do and the principle of evangelism is the rule of duty. It is a precept.

It is a command. Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. We have not fulfilled the will of God until every person hears the gospel. It is our responsibility to obey God's revealed will, not try to figure out his secret will.

He has many people in this city, so what am I to do? Preach the gospel to everybody in the city. So the first thing is the sovereignty of God is not a hindrance to our responsibility to evangelize. Secondly, the sovereignty of God is not a hindrance to the necessity of evangelism. The Bible is very clear. People are not saved by visions. People are saved by hearing the gospel.

Do we not see this in the Gentile named Cornelius in Caesarea who has a vision from the Lord, but that vision was not sufficient to save him? So what happened? They sent people down to the city of Joppa where the apostle Peter was and Peter came up to Caesarea. He walked up there. It was a day's journey and when he got there, what did he do? He preached the gospel and Cornelius got saved. How do people get saved? They get saved by hearing the gospel. Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How shall they call on him in whom they've not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? God who has ordained the end, that is salvation, has ordained the means.

What is that? The preaching of the gospel. If people don't hear the gospel, they cannot be saved. Perhaps you've heard of the missionary William Carey. He developed a great burden for foreign missions. One day he addressed back in the late 1700s what was called the ministers fraternal or fellowship of the North Hampton Baptist Association in Northern England. It was 1787 and he talked about sending out missionaries because they had not sent out missionaries. And one of the pastors, a well-known pastor named John Ryland Sr. replied and said to William Carey, sit down young man. You are an enthusiast. When God pleases to convert the heathen, he will do it without consulting you or me.

Well, that reprimand spurred William Carey to greater zeal for missions. You know, sometimes you hear things preached and it all irritates you. Why? Because it's stupid. How many of you have ever heard anything said in public, stupid, raise your hand. Yeah, that all irritates you. You know what it all irritates you to do?

Not get mad at the guy that's stupid, get mad about doing something. And that's what he did. And in 1792, Carey wrote an inquiry into the obligations of Christians to use means for the conversion of the heathen. And when he talked about means, he talked about the preaching of the gospel.

And what did he do? He set sail and he moved and he sailed to India and there he began the working of God. The point I'm trying to make is that it is our responsibility to evangelize. Yes, God knows who his people are. He has people in every tribe and tongue and nation and people group.

So what are we to do? What is the duty of the believer? We are to go to every tribe, tongue, nation and people group. And we are to tell them the gospel. We are God's mouthpiece.

We are standing in his place crying out to people to be reconciled to God. So the sovereignty of God is not a hindrance to the necessity of evangelism. And then number three, let me say the sovereignty of God is not a hindrance to our inviting people to come to Jesus. In other words, let me say this, embedded in the nature of the gospel is an invitation. All gospel preaching should not be declaring just the facts of the gospel, but it should be declaring the call of the gospel. What did Jesus say over and over?

Repent and believe. God offers eternal life to whosoever will. God invites all men to come to him. It is a free invitation.

It is an unlimited invitation. John 6 37, all that the Father gives me shall come to me and him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out. Every man is responsible to believe. The Bible does not say men miss heaven because they are not elect, but because they neglect so great salvation. And this is the condemnation that light has come into the world and men love darkness more than they love the light because their deeds are evil. This is important because this this this allows us to avoid extreme isms.

What does he say? Go preach the gospel. I have much people in this city do not be discouraged, but take the gospel to every person so that they can hear the message and God will do his work in people's hearts. So that's the negative implications and let me conclude with the positive implication.

And that is this. The sovereignty of God is the basis for confidence in evangelism. In this case, it seems very clear that Paul was being encouraged by God.

I have much people in this city. There's some people who have said or suggested that the sovereignty of God is the death of evangelism. It kills evangelism. Well, in Paul's case, it appears to be the life of evangelism. Isaiah 55 11. So shall my be my word be that which goes forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please.

And it shall prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it. Folks, I'm going to tell you something. God's going to do his work if we do the work that he's called us to do.

I've seen it for years. I can't tell you how many times I have met people who said, I preached in a meeting or in a conference or in a stadium and I brought my brother and he got saved that night. And this is like 20 years later. And he said his family is now living for the Lord and other members of his family have gotten saved. I can't explain that other than this. God says preach the gospel and let him do the work. Charles Spurgeon was asked if he could reconcile the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. And he replied, I would not try because you don't have to reconcile friends.

Friends always work together. The more I understand human nature and the more I'm involved in the work of God, I have no hope that my work will ever be successful apart from divine intervention. The fact of the matter is evangelism is pointless apart from the work of God other than the fact that brings judgment upon the hearer. Because the Bible says no man can come to me, Jesus said, except the father which sent me draw him. Man's nature is of such that the clarity of the message, the fervency of the messenger, the organization of the work, the promotion of the work, the methodology of the work, the technology of the work has no effect apart from divine intervening grace. All is vain unless the spirit of the holy one come down. But thank God he does work.

He says I have much people in this city. So what should we do? We should be bold about it.

We should be living in fear. We should be patient because God is at work. The servant of the Lord should not strive but be gentle unto all because over time God will work in heart. And then finally we should be very prayerful. Everybody who does any gospel work knows that unless God works in the heart people won't get saved. Everybody knows that. Whatever your theological persuasion of what that work actually entails, everybody believes God must work. And so what should we do?

We should pray and God will work. First time I heard the gospel I was 17 years old sitting out in front of my public school in Columbia, South Carolina where I grew up. A friend of mine who had just become a believer, his name was Bill Kneff.

We used to call him Wild Bill. He asked me, he said, Steve if you died would you go to heaven? This was out in front of my public school. I had never had anybody ask me that in my life. And he explained the gospel to me for the first time in my life and I understood it and I didn't get saved. I said I'm not ready yet. It was sometime after that I went out to eat with him and some other friends and I remember going out to a restaurant. We went to Shoney's, big boys. And we sat there and they shared the gospel with me and I said I'm not ready yet. When I was in high school the legal drinking age at that time was 18 years old and when I turned 18 years old my senior year of high school there was not one day that went by my senior year except when I had to have surgery on the removal of my appendix.

There was not one day that went by that I did not drink at least one alcoholic beverage. One night I was walking into the Twilight Lounge and I was standing out front passing out gospel tracts. That's why I always believe in gospel tracts. We'll have them available.

Hopefully you'll have them available when you leave today. He handed me a little tract. It was a cartoon tract called a Chick tract.

It's called This Was Your Life. I sat down, ordered a draft beer and began to read it and came under the deepest conviction. But I wasn't ready yet. I went to college in Charleston, South Carolina at the Citadel and it was a very challenging first year and I played on the soccer team and there was one other guy on the soccer team that was a freshman.

We were the only two that made the varsity that year. His name was Maxie Birch from Beaufort, South Carolina and Maxie was saved his senior year of high school and as we would walk back and forth to the stadium he would say to me, Pettit, you need to get saved. I said I know I need to get saved.

But I wasn't ready yet. But God was working. God was working within my own heart what I didn't understand at the time. He was working within me an attitude of repentance. And on Easter weekend 1975 I went to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for spring break. And that weekend was the most miserable weekend of my life and as I was driving home to Columbia over the weekend I turned on the radio on Easter Sunday morning and I listened to a preacher over the radio and he preached the gospel and I don't know who he was.

I'll probably never meet him I'm sure but maybe one day in heaven I hope. And he preached the gospel that day and that day God is so worked in my heart that I repented and I believed that I received Jesus as my savior. It was a mystery. God was working. And my point is this, no one of you know, you have no idea what God is doing. That's why we work by faith.

We believe God. And we go out with confidence and assurance that God has in this city much people. I hope your heart will be stirred at the opportunity, yes even the calling, the privilege to be involved in his work and giving out his word to the world today. Father we thank you that you're in control of all things.

No man can say unto you what are you doing. We thank you that you encourage the apostle Paul and if he needed to be encouraged we need to be encouraged. Thank you Lord that you have in this city much people. So Lord help us not to be fearful. Help our emotions not control us but help us to obey your will of precept, your command to go give the gospel. And thank you that you're going to save people in this city in Jesus name. Amen. You've been listening to a sermon preached by Dr. Steve Pettit. Thanks for listening and join us again next time as we study God's word together featuring speakers from Chapel Services at Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina.