I need to correct a mistake that I made last Wednesday.
I said THAT would be our last message from Acts 14.
But, here in verse 27 we find a vein of ore too rich not to be mined for a few minutes more.
Paul and Barnabas had returned to their home church in Antioch, Syria from whence they had been recommended to the grace of God.
They had returned for a period of refreshing,
And to give a report to the church of their mission work over the previous five years or so.
“They rehearsed all that God had done with them, AND how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles.”
Wednesday we just touched on that last phrase, but it deserves more.
So let’s think about Paul’s purpose, Paul’s work, and God’s accomplishment.
Why do men go to war? Why did Paul risk his life in Lystra, Philippi, Jerusalem and Rome?
It doesn’t matter what war you want to investigate, soldiers will explain their purpose in different ways.
During the War Between the States, for example, some joined the army for the excitement, and some for the glory.
Some were trying to ESCAPE abusive homes, and some were trying to PROTECT their homes.
Some soldiers would have said that they were fighting for the right to own slaves,
And yet other soldiers would have said that war had nothing to do with slavery.
They were fighting for the principle of State’s rights over the authority of the federal government.
Paul and Barnabas were soldiers on the front lines for the Lord Jesus Christ.
They were offering their lives to their Saviour, and at times they were severely wounded in His cause.
What was the purpose, or the cause, for which they were fighting?
In II Corinthians 5 Paul spent some time on this subject, and part of his answer was:
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.
For the love of Christ constraineth us.”
We pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.”
That entails not only DOING the will of God, but doing it IN A MANNER that pleases the Lord.
“If a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.”
So across Cyprus, and then into Galatia, Paul preached the pure gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Bible uses the language of warfare to describe the work to which we have been called.
And this is not just metaphorical terminology, because there is a real warfare involved,
Our primary weapon is the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ,
And often times that is called “Gospel of the Kingdom of God.”
I know that the term “Kingdom of God” is rather broad,
But in this case, I’m using it to describe the Lordship of God.
I’m talking about those whose citizenship is in Heaven from whence they look for the return of their Saviour and King.
Paul was wrestling & warring “not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”
He fought with beasts at Ephesus, Athens, Philippi and Lystra.
He was in a fight for the souls of men.
He was striving to bring people into the Kingdom of God, through personal salvation,
And through this to bring glory to God.
So when Paul and Barnabas returned to Antioch, the capital of Syria,
“They rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles.”
The context suggests that this verse summarizes what Paul and Barnabas had been doing with their lives over the previous five years.
And it points out that Paul was NOT trying to make the heathen conform to the laws of God.
There is no reference at all to teaching the Gentiles on how to live the Christian life.
Unfortunately, there are multitudes who think that Christianity is just that:
To them to be a Christian is nothing more than living Christian-like lives.
I hope that there is no one here who thinks that Christianity is the same thing as voting Republican.
One of the statistics on this week’s election involved the voting practices of church-going people.
And that 65% to 85% of those who NEVER attend church voted for John Kerry.
Among those who attend fundamental and evangelical churches the numbers are even more dramatic.
Someone might assume from statistics like that, that to vote Republican is to be a Christian.
AND I hope that you know that to be baptized in a Christian church doesn’t make a person a Christian.
And attending church doesn’t make a person a Christian any more than attending football games makes people football players.
Reading the Bible may give people the gospel and other things which they ought to believe,
any more than reading a recipe book feeds a hungry belly.
His message was “turn from these vanities UNTO the Living God, which made heaven, and earth.”
His warfare was to lead rebellious sinners into surrender to the true Lord and King.
His message wasn’t about church membership, but about the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
His ministry wasn’t a list of do’s and don’ts, but a presentation of the gospel and an urgent plea for people to bow their knee before Christ Jesus.
Like Paul, you and I have been commissioned as soldiers with orders to magnify our Lord.
And among other things, that means teaching the servants of Satan to bow before the throne of God.
That was Paul’s PURPOSE and it should be ours.
Nevertheless, THEY ARE “mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds.”
The Roman deputy of Cyprus was one of those strongholds, but he was pulled down from his sin & pride.
“Then the deputy, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the doctrine of Lord.”
Not only that, but Elymas, the Satanic sorcerer, was brought down in a different way.
And later when Paul was preaching in Pisidia there were quite a few strongholds which came toppling over.
“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.”
Then while they were in Lystra preaching Christ Jesus, the Lord healed a well-known crippled man, and in raising him up He brought other Satanic strongholds down.
People who are not familiar with the overall ministry of Paul, might think, when they read an outline of this first missionary journey, that Paul’s service to God was that of a miracle-worker.
On this trip there was one man blinded and then healed, and another lame man was made to walk again.
There might have been some other miracles, but we aren’t told about them because they weren’t really important.
Those students who go on in their study, will find that Paul’s miracles became less and less frequent.
That soldier of Christ wasn’t so much commissioned to heal the sick and raise the dead, as he was to bring the spiritually crippled and spiritually dead to the foot of Jesus’ cross.
Miracles aren’t the meat of the work of God; they are only the clove of garlic sitting at the top.
The purpose of the ministry of Paul and Barnabas was to present the Lord to Sergius Paulus,
So that he might have the truth to believe.
It was to give the Gentiles of Pisidia reason to glorify the Lord, and so that those who were ordained to eternal life would know and have Christ on Whom to believe.
The work of the missionary is to present Christ to those who are the enemies of Christ.
Thus, when Paul ministered in the synagogue of Antioch Pisidia, he began with some Israelite history.
He talked about King David and the Lord’s promise to him about a son to sit upon his throne for all eternity.
And so he preached “repentance to all the people of Israel.”
“Though they found no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain.
And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree, and laid him in a sepulchre. But God raised him from the dead.
This the weapon that we wield; this the work that we perform for the glory of the Lord.
It is the Christian’s job, whether in the first century after Christ or the last century before the return of Christ, to publish the facts about the Lord Jesus.
We are to magnify Jesus’ deity, His Lordship, and His sacrifice to save sinners.
And we are in effect bringing the soldiers of Satan up to the doorway to eternal life.
The Lord Jesus once preached:
Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”
All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.
I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.”
You see, there is only one way for a person to enjoy the Kingdom of God.
It is to be a joyful citizen of that kingdom.
It means a loving and joyful RELATIONSHIP to the King.
It means a change of heart and mind about the King.
The Lord Jesus has told us, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God; he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.
And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up:
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
But in our scripture they were back in Syria.
“And when they were come, and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them.”
And that brings me to my third point:
We’ve noticed Paul’s purpose and his work,
There are two camps of interpreters when it comes to the last clause of this verse:
“How (GOD) had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles.”
There are many who say that this means that God gave the Gentiles the OPPORTUNITY to believe.
And there are others who say that this means that God gave the Gentiles the FAITH with which to believe.
The first group say that Paul reported to the church how God had given the heathen the opportunity to hear the gospel.
Through Paul and Barnabas, some people who where not raised in the Hebrew scriptures, were told about the Hebrew Saviour.
And they were told that not did the Lord Jesus die for Jewish souls, but for non-Jews as well.
“For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.”
I have no quarrel with the idea that Paul was the Apostle chosen by God to carry the gospel to the Gentiles.
For the most part up to this point, the only non-Jews to hear about Christ were first proselytes to Judaism.
But after the door to the synagogues were closed to Paul and Barnabas, they preached Christ to the Heathen in the much the same way that they preached to the Jews.
And the Lord saved souls out of both peoples.
I agree that God led the missionaries in their evangelization of the Gentiles.
But I also have to agree with MATTHEW HENRY and multitudes of others who say that this was not exactly what Luke was telling us here in this verse.
Let me quote Mr. Henry:
Paul and Barnabas “told (the church) how God had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles;
But (that He) had inclined the hearts of many of them to accept the invitation.
It is God that opens the door of faith, that opens to us the truths we are to believe,
(It is the Lord Who) opens our hearts to receive them, and makes this a wide door, and an effectual . . . .”
From the days of the Egyptian exodus there had been Gentile followers of the Lord.
But this verse is not talking about God proselytizing Gentiles.
It is talking about the gift of God whereby His heathen enemies were given faith to believe on Christ.
As Acts 13:48 says, “As many as were ordained to eternal life believed.”
“Whose heart the Lord opened, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul.”
In other words because God opened her heart, she believed the gospel.
Our scripture this morning is giving God praise for His elective grace.
Not only did the Lord give the people of Lystra, Derbe and other Gentiles communities, the OPPORTUNITY to believe, by leading Paul and Barnabas to preach the gospel to them.
God gave those people the faith to receive and believe that message about Christ.
“The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.”
Those who are dead in trespasses and sins, don’t have the life or ability to believe on Christ.
Salvation is all of grace:
From the BELIEVING of the gospel to the ultimate GLORIOUS END of the believer.
THAT was the report that the missionaries were sharing with their home church.
And that should be the message of the churches of Christ today.
That is our warfare, and that is our weapon.
Are you an enemy of Christ, or have you been conquered by His love and His grace?
Are you kneeling before Jesus’ throne – Jesus’ cross?
Do you possess a heart of faith and love toward the King of Kings?
Are you, because of your faith and love, living a life of obedience to His will?
Is thy heart right with God?