The Lord’s People – Acts 18:9-11

I tease my wife periodically about the many superficial differences that there are between us.

I tell her that it’s amazing that we’ve been so happily married for 35 years.

(If she tells you that it’s NOT periodic, don’t believe her.)

Let me give you an example,

Judy eats her boiled eggs like a barbarian, and I eat them in a refined semi-British fashion.

Judy takes her boiled egg, splits it open, scoops it onto her plate and crushes it into scrambled eggs.

When I was a child and served a boiled egg, it was put into a egg-cup, and I was given a tiny spoon.

I was taught how to crack the egg from the side, slide a knife through it to remove the top, and then with the half-size spoon, to slowly scoop out tiny bites of egg yoke and egg white.

Unfortunately, my barbaric wife serves me my eggs just as she does herself, without an egg cup.

But, holding it in my hand, I still take the top off my egg and eat out the insides without dumping it on the plate and making it into a scrambled mess.

As I say, it’s a wonder that we’ve been able to stay together all these years with all these differences.

The other day we were playing out this periodic little ritual, and I was struck with a dilemma:

As I was studying my egg, I discovered that it wasn’t egg-shaped; it wasn’t elliptical.

I actually had to ask my barbaric wife to help me determine which end of the egg was the top.

I don’t know that I could eat my egg properly if I didn’t know which was the pointy end.

Of course, I am being silly this morning, or at least YOU THINK that I am.

Eggs always have one end that is a little more pointed than the other.

But is the egg inside the shell different at the top than at the bottom?

In other words, does an egg have a top and a bottom; a peak and posterior, a crown and a seat?

I bring this up, because I would like us to look at the same text and the same subject that we studied last Sunday afternoon.

But in the way that I handled these verses a week ago, I made it elliptical; I made it egg-shaped.

Last week, I looked at it as though the heaviest part was Paul’s need for support and encouragement, and I left my third point pretty pointed, but small.

This morning I’d like to turn that egg upside down, making the last part of verse 10, the weightier part.

And just to maintain my theme about eggs, I hope that I don’t scramble it for you.

Let’s begin where we very often begin: with the “who” question.

Of course, it was the apostle Paul to whom this vision was given.

As I’ve said several times, I think that Paul was, for whatever reason, discouraged and perhaps depressed.

If this took place early in his visit to Corinth, and there is reason to think that this was the case, then he was alone in a city where he didn’t even have a single acquaintance.

He may, or may not, have fled from Athens out of fear for his life.

Yes, there were lots of fellow Jews in Corinth, and there was a major synagogue,

but he knew from experience that those Jews would very quickly turn on him once he started sharing the gospel with them.

And that was exactly what happened.

The fact that the Lord encouraged him, “be not afraid; no man shall set on thee to hurt thee,” indicates to me that he was afraid and worried that he would be attacked once again.

Remember that the unbelieving Jews of Thessalonica had followed him to Berea and stirred up hatred there.

He could have been thinking that they had followed him, or even preceded him, to Corinth.

Anyway, it goes without saying that it was Paul who was visited by the Lord that night.

The second primary character in this vision was the Lord.

This may appear to be obvious and unnecessary to mention, but actually it’s quite important.

All that Luke tells us is that “the Lord” spake to Paul in the night by a vision.

Okay, specifically, Who is it that you talking about, Luke?

Perhaps considering Paul’s first visit from the Lord might shed some light on the answer.

Please turn to Acts 9:1

“And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, a

And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem.

And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven:

And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”

Now skip down to verse 10:

“And there was a certain disciple at Damascus, named Ananias; and to him said the Lord in a vision, Ananias. And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord.

And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and enquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus: for, behold, he prayeth,

And hath seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in, and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight. Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy saints at Jerusalem:

And here he hath authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on thy name.

But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:

For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.”

I have no fear of contradiction in saying that the “Lord” who visited Paul on the road to Damascus, was the Lord Jesus Christ.

And this Lord told Ananias that Paul, whose name was Saul at the time, was His property: “for he is a chosen vessel unto me.”

The Bible tells us that the Lord has quite a few distinctive and meaningful names.

Most of these are seen in the Old Testament Hebrew language.

For example there is the wonderful story of Abraham taking Isaac up into Mount Moriah, to offer a sacrifice.

When Isaac asked where the sacrificial animal was, his father replied:

“My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering.”

Then when the Lord did provide a ram to be the sacrifice, Abraham called the place “Jehovah-jireh,” which means “the Lord will provide.”

Jehovah-jireh is one of the many colourful names of the Lord.

After the Amalekites attacked Israel during the exodus years, the Lord enabled Joshua to defeat them.

“And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.

And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it Jehovah-nissi:

For he said, Because the LORD hath sworn that the LORD will have war with Amalek from generation to generation.”

There are many such descriptive names given to the Lord throughout the Old Testament.

We won’t look at them all, but please turn to Jeremiah 23:5 for one more example:

“Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.

In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely: and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS (Jehovah-Tsidkenu).

Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that they shall no more say, The LORD liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;

But, The LORD liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them; and they shall dwell in their own land.”

This scripture teaches that just as Jehovah once delivered Israel out of Egypt,

He will come again in our very near future,

and he will save Israel from her sins and out of all the nations into which she has been scattered.

The Name of the One who will do that is Jehovah-Tsidkenu or the “Lord our Righteousness.”

These and a dozen other names point us past some faceless deity to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It will be the Lord Jesus Who saves Israel from her sins, just as he has so many individuals in our day.

And, Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth telling them that Jesus is this Lord our Righteousness.

“But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.”

What I am trying to tell you is that –

The One who visited Paul with this vision in the night, was the Lord Jesus Christ.

And the Lord Jesus Christ is was known to Israel as “the Lord” – “Jehovah.”

The thrust and purpose of the vision was to encourage Paul.

He was told not to be afraid, because he was not going to be murdered or hurt while there in Corinth.

“Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace: For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee.”

Now, I’m sure that it was a genuine blessing to have this assurance of the safety of the Lord.

When the Lord builds a hedge of thorns around us, there is no wolf or lion in the world that would endure the pain of those barbs in order to break through to hurt us.

When the Lord builds a fence around us it is embedded with broken glass, and topped with the sharpest razor-wire.

When the Lord wants His people protected, there stands beside us an army of unseen angels with their swords drawn and their eyes alert.

I am sure that such thoughts were a comfort for Paul.

But that was not the ultimate purpose of the vision.

The primary thing that the Lord wanted Paul to realize was that he had a lot of work to do in Corinth:

“Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace; for I have much people in this city.”

As I tried to point out last week,

and as has been taught in other scriptures that we have looked at in recent weeks,

there is not going to be a single sinner saved in Corinth or anywhere else,

who does not repent of his sin and puts his faith in Christ Jesus.

I don’t want to bore you with this theme, so I’ll try to say it only one more time:

“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

But, “how then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?”

In order for any of the people of Corinth to be delivered from their sins, they were going to have to be evangelized.

They were going to have to be told, and to learn, that they were worthless and hopeless sinners.

They were going to have to learn that they were under the wrath of God – condemned in their sins.

They were going to have to be told that the wrath of God can only be stanched by the blood of a God-proscribed sacrifice.

The people of Corinth were going to have to be told to repent towards God and to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And they were going to have to learn that Jesus Christ, God’s Son gave his life’s blood on Calvary, becoming the only sacrifice that God would ever accept.

And just as I have been commissioned to tell you these things this morning,

it was Paul whom the Lord had commissioned to do that work of the gospel in Corinth.

He was encouraged to carry out the work of reconciliation.

“Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace; for I have much people in this city.”

The purpose of the vision was to help Paul to stay focused on his commission.

Don’t be blinded by fear; don’t be distracted by worry.

“Preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.”

And why? “For I have much people in this city.”

Spiritually-speaking, there are only two kinds of people in this world.

I’m talking about the spiritual division of people.

I’m not thinking about male and female, rich and poor, adult or child, or any other such division.

There are two kinds of people in this world:

I could say that they are “Christian” and “non-Christian” people, and that would be accurate,

but this is confusing, because just because someone claims the Christian label doesn’t make that person a Christian in the sight of God.

Just because someone attends church every Easter, that doesn’t mean that he’s a Christian.

Other ways that we could properly describe the spiritual division of people, would be to go through each of the Biblical terms that talk about salvation:

There are those who have been redeemed and those who have not.

There are the justified and the unjustified; the converted and the unconverted; saints and sinners

Each of these terms have their place and are perfectly appropriate.

But this morning, we need to focus on what our scripture says and implies.

There are some who are the Lord’s people, and there are some who are not.

A lot of folk hate the theology which is contained in these simple words.

And when I say that they hate it, I’m not using an euphemism;

They loath it with all the passion that their sinful hearts can muster.

And therefore they do their best to hide what the Lord says, or they try to hide themselves from what He says, but the truth cannot be hidden.

When the Lord says that He had people in the city of Corinth, it was obvious that He was not talking about all the people of that city.

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who belong to the Lord, and those who don’t.

Those who do not belong to Christ, are given several descriptive titles:

Not the least of which is: “children of the Devil.”

It was none other than the Lord Jesus Himself who said to a group of Jews:

“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.”

He wasn’t being mean – the Saviour is incapable of such a thing – He was being factual.

And YOU, too, are either one of the Lord’s people or one of the Devil’s people.

There is no other category in which to place you; you are in either one or the other.

One of the questions which might be asked at this point is:

HOW IS IT that some people are the Lord’s people and some are not?

Part of the answer is that within the God-head a covenant was made between the Father and the Son.

I realize that this is a deeper theology than most people like to reach,

But the Bible teaches that God, the Father, covenanted to gave a multitude of people to God, the Son.

Listen to the Lord Jesus’ prayer in John 17:

“These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:

As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.

I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me;

Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.”

Four times in eleven verses Jesus said that the Father had given certain people to Him, in order that they would be saved from their sin.

In John 6 we read:

“And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

But I said unto you, That ye also have seen me, and believe not.

All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.

And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.

And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.”

And then in John 10, the Saviour said,

“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. I and my Father are one.”

There was a large group of people in Corinth whom the Father had gaven to the Son,

And the Lord Jesus told Paul about that fact.

And secondly, that group of people were even more the property of Christ because he had bought them with His own shed blood.

In Revelation 5 there is a glorious scene that takes place in Heaven:

“And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.

And … the four beasts and four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, and golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.

And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;

And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.”

When Paul was exhorting the Christians of Corinth to live and to behave as Christians should, he said,

“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?

For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

Later he said, “Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.”

Who should Christians serve? We should serve and glorify the One who has bought us – the Lord Jesus.

And what was the price that He paid? The purchase price of our salvation was His own precious blood.

When the Lord gave Paul that Corinthian vision, He told that missionary that there was multitude of people in that city who were property of the Lord.

But at that point, they had not yet turned to God from their idols and sins.

They were still unrepentant, and they had not yet put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus.

And yet, within the plan and purpose of God, they were the Lord’s people.

This was not just a kind of prophecy.

The people to whom Jesus referred were already the people of the Lord, even though they had not yet been saved in point of time.

“The Lord knoweth them that are His.”

And the “Good Shepherd knoweth His sheep,” even when they are still covered with the stench and corruption of their sins.

In other words this vision touches on the subject of predestination.

Everyone of these people of the Lord will joyfully and thankfully trust Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

And everyone of these people of the Lord will first hear, and by the grace of God, will understand the gospel.

It is all according to the PLAN of God; not the HOPE of God, but the plan and predestination of the Lord.

That is the way that the Lord works: He really is the Lord of all things and is in complete control.

How many of the Lord’s people are there in OUR community?

And how many of the Lord’s people are there in this church service who have not yet bowed their knee before the Cross of Christ?

Do you need to hear the gospel this morning with your heart as well as your ears?

Have you been resisting the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and not yet repented of your sin?

Is your love and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ today?

Have you acknowledged the Lordship of Christ and submitted yourself to His dominion?

Let us share with you the good news about the love and grace of the Almighty God.

As we close with a hymn, humble your heart before the Lord, repent of your sin and trust Christ Jesus.

And then step forward and let me know, that we might share this good news with all the world.

“Jesus is the Saviour, the Lord, the King of Kings, and He has saved MY wicked soul.”