The first half of Acts 15 deals with the question of the salvation of the Gentiles.
What is it that people who are raised in heathenism and idolatry must do in order to be delivered from their sins and received as sons by the most holy God?
This is an extremely important subject and which makes the study of this chapter vitally important.
BUT, there are two questions which are greater and more important than the salvation of those Gentiles:
Perhaps the greatest of all questions is found in Acts 16:30: “What must I do to be saved?”
And the second is like unto it: “What must YOU do to be saved?”
The reason that I put this before you this morning is to remind you that our study should not be a mere academic exercise.
Sure, I hope that in another year we all might be able to say that we basically know the Book of Acts.
But far more important than that is knowing the Lord Jesus Christ and the free pardon of sin.
If you can’t tell someone that Acts 13 describes Biblical missions, but you can say,
And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God” . . .
However, if you learn to give me an outline of every chapter in this book,
Then our time together will have been a total waste – an eternal waste.
Pastor James listened to Paul’s report about his missionary trip with Barnabas and John Mark.
Then he heard Peter’s testimony about his evangelism of the Gentile Cornelius.
He recalled that what these men described had been prophesied by several Old Testament writers,
And he concluded: “Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God.”
This morning I would like to add three other scriptures to what James says here,
And I would like us to think about what it is for someone, Jew or Gentile, to turn to God.
I’d like us to think about its CONDITION, its COMPLEXION, its CAUSE and its COMMAND.
But what he didn’t realize was that he was headed in the wrong direction as far as God was concerned.
In Acts 9 we learn how God blocked the road, turned Paul around, saved his soul, and gave him the task of serving Him by turning others as well.
Several times Paul referred back to his life-changing meeting with the Lord Jesus.
Please turn to Acts 26:13 where Paul told King Herod Agrippa about his conversion:
“At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me, and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And I said, Who art thou, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. But rise, and stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee; Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision: But shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and TURN TO GOD, and do works meet for repentance.”
Notice that Paul explained his God-given commission by saying that he was to show to Jews and then to non-Jews that they should repent and turn to God and do works appropriate for repentant people.
In Acts 14 when the people of Lystra were planning on offering sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas,
Because they thought that they were heathen Gods, Paul plead with them:
And preach unto you that ye should TURN from these vanities unto the living God.”
I could take you to other scriptures, but I think that these should be sufficient to prove that among the many terms that could be and should be used to describe what happens when sinners are saved, one of the most clear is that those people turned to God.
There is a common misunderstanding today about religious people who sometime turn away from the Lord.
A young man, whose parents are Christians, is raised in a Bible-believing church, but when he reaches 18 and leaves home he turns his back on God and begins to live a life of his own choice – apart from God.
Despite being in church, he never faced the Lord in the first place.
As I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, Ephesians 2 says that we are “dead in trespasses and sins;
Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.”
We are as interested in the true and living God as water is in running up hill.
And the early life of Paul is a perfect example of that fact.
Like every other human being, YOU need to be turned unto God.
Paul told the people of Lystra that they needed to turn from their foolish idolatry unto the living God.
And when Paul described his ministry to the King he said that he preached to the Jews as well as the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God.
There is not a person born who doesn’t need to turn to the Lord.
YOU need to turn from your sins – which are, in fact, acts of rebellion against the will of the Lord.
YOU need to acknowledge and turn from your sin, which lies at the root of your human nature.
Listen to these words from Ezekiel:
“Therefore, O thou son of man, speak unto the house of Israel; Thus ye speak, saying, If our transgressions and our sins be upon us, and we pine away in them, how should we then live?
Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?
Therefore, thou son of man, say unto the children of thy people, The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression: as for the wickedness of the wicked, he shall not fall thereby in the day that he turneth from his wickedness; neither shall the righteous be able to live for his righteousness in the day that he sinneth.
When I shall say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his own righteousness, and commit iniquity, all his righteousnesses shall not be remembered; but for his iniquity that he hath committed, he shall die for it.”
Christians are people whom God describes as having turned from their wicked ways unto the Lord.
They are ordinary people who have done the extraordinary thing of repenting of their sin.
“God commandeth all men everywhere to repent.”
“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.”
“Thus saith the Lord GOD; Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations.”
In other words “turn to the Lord Jesus and be converted that you may be saved.”
it can be said that people who have turned unto God can be recognized as having turned.
Once again, that scripture from I Thessalonians describes the Christians in Thessalonica:
“And ye became followers of us, and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost:
So that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia.
For from you sounded out the word of the Lord not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God-ward is spread abroad; so that we need not to speak any thing.
For they themselves shew of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God;
And to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come.”
Let me ask some obvious questions:
Can a former member of A.A. say that he’s no longer a drunk while he drinks his fourth martini?
Can someone say that he’s lost 50 pounds and plans to keep it off while he orders two #3 meals at McDonalds?
Vice is the enemy of the AIDS patient, and of all society.
His love of the world and the things of the world will diminish.
There will be the evidence of a growing holiness in his life – sanctification.
And if that person has truly turned, then he will not be offended when Pastor James tells him that the pollutions of idols, fornication, and the eating of blood are offensive.
In fact he won’t be offended at anything Pastor James proves from the Bible is sin.
A person who has turned unto the Lord will be able to prove his turned condition by the way that he lives.
And so what evidence would you call to the witness stand to prove that YOU have turned unto God?
I didn’t ask your age, I asked what evidence is there in your life that you have turned to the Lord.
I didn’t ask if you were living at home or if you had an apartment of your own.
I didn’t ask if you’ve been to Bible school or not.
I asked, What evidence is there that you are one of these Gentile believers?
To be a “Christian,” to many people, is nothing more than to wear a religious title.
But to turn unto God and to live in that condition is real.
It’s a life not a name-tag.
Now we come to the difficult part of the message:
It doesn’t matter to some of these people that I’ve done nothing more than repeat what the Bible says.
To their discerning ears they think that they have heard me place salvation in the hands of the sinner.
Now as I move into our next point, those people may reluctantly applaud, but the rest of Christendom turns to condemn me.
You and all the other sinners of the world have been commanded to turn unto the Lord.
And I cannot stress that command enough; I cannot preach it loud enough; I cannot say it often enough.
But the fact is, there is not a single sinner on earth who will turn to the Lord of his own free will.
The tentacles of sin have reached into every part of man’s being and corrupted everything good in him.
And as a result, to the all-seeing eye of God, “there is none that doeth good, no not one.”
I can’t tell you that I understand all its nuances,
But I have recently been confronted with opposing arguments about HOW depravity has corrupted us.
Some theologians say that sin makes man PHYSICALLY unable to repent and to believe on Christ.
When the Bible says that the sinner cannot please God these people believe that the sinner is physically unable to do so.
Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”
They saw no beauty in him that they should desire him.
Their minds were made up that this man of Galilee could not possibly be the Messiah.
It wasn’t that they couldn’t believe, because they did believe many other things.
The problem was that they couldn’t make their hearts want to believe the truth.
He said that the problem was that they would not come.
And why is it that people do not believe on Christ? “Because men love darkness rather than light.”
So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels.
Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!”
It’s not that sin hasn’t corrupted our physical bodies and our minds; it’s obvious that it has.
But the more dangerous corruption has been of the heart with its affections and will.
Our real problem as sinners is that we WILL NOT turn and come to the Lord.
The command of God is “turn unto me, ye sinners.”
But the sinner replies, “No, I don’t want to. I will not have this God to reign over me.”
So getting back that theological argument to which I referred:
I’m not sure that it’s really important whether or not man is physically capable of turning to the Lord.
The deciding factor is that man’s heart is so wicked that he will never choose to make that turn until the Lord gives him a new will; in other words, a new heart.
“For by grace are ye saved.”
You are commanded to turn unto the Lord.
And, like Paul, I have the commission to exhort you to repent of your sin and to believe on Christ.
Don’t concern yourself with whether or not you are willing or capable to turning to God. Turn.
Don’t point a finger at the Lord, at the Bible, or at the theologian and say that you can’t turn because you are a sinner.
Turn unto the Lord. Repent. Trust in the Lord Jesus Christ to save you from those sins.
As we sing our closing hymn, step out from where you stand and kneel before the cross of Christ.