Acts 14

Acts 14:1-28

PAUL AND Acts 14:1-28. WHEN we parted with our Apostle a week since, he and his brother Barnabas were shaking the dust from their feet as a testimony against Antioch of Pisidia. From that city they made a straight line to Iconium where their words in the synagogue resulted in the conversion of “a great multitude both of Jews and Gentiles”. It looked as though they had escaped the furnace and found the hearthstone; as though they had rushed from the cruelties of fiends to the open arms of ‘friends. But, alas! the fact is that ease is not divinely appointed for the saints of God, and certainly not for the Apostles of His Gospel. The unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and “made their minds evil affected against the brethren”. The trouble in the new; town will exceed that in the old.

The difficulties from which they have fled will be exceeded by those which they are to find. Peace is not the product of apostolic preaching.

Every now and then I go into a city and listen to some evangelist or Bible teacher denounced, excoriated; the harshest language is too soft for his critics’ uses, and when I inquire, “What was wrong?” they tell me he was a disturber of the peace; that before he came there was unity in the church and unanimity among the denominations, and brotherly love between the various sections of the sheepfold. But he spoiled it all. He preached on debatable subjects; he excited controversy; he created factions; he left behind him an uproar that will not down. They do not know it, and I do not take the pains to inform them, but I am commonly impressed that a true apostle must have been in their midst.Christianity is no palliative. Sound theology is no sleeping potion. An apostle of grace is no cradle-rocker.

Christ came not to send peace on earth, but a sword; not to bind men together irrespective of their opinions and characters, but to set “the son at variance with his father” and “the daughter-in-law in opposition to the mother-in-law”.Debate walks in the wake of a true apostle and it must forever remain so, because he finds things wrong and attempts to set them right, and they will not come to the new relationship without a wriggle, a groan, a fight. The Word is “sharper than a two-edged sword”.

When Paul preached it, “the multitude of the city was divided and part were with the Jews and part with the Apostles”, and you may make up your mind now that you are going to hold with those who reject Jesus Christ or with those who accept Him. You can’t hold with both. Christ affirmed, “He that is not with Me is against Me”. Take your side! There is no place for neutrals in His camp.Now this walking, arguing, working, suffering saint suggests reasons for our study. I ask your attention to The Moving Apostle, The Apostolic Marvels, and The Apostolic Method.THE MOVING APOSTLEThey shook the dust off their feet against the Antiochians and came into Iconium. They were both together in the synagogue. Why this travel?

What is the objective?The Apostle moved in response to opportunity.When Antioch was closed against them, Iconium presented an open door. There is always a door open. “Behold I have set before thee an open door and no man can shut it”. One door may be shut, but turn your head, there is another. Men complain to me that they have lacked “opportunity”. Absurd! Life itself is an opportunity. Every city in the land is opportunity, multiplied. That is the meaning of “metropolis”.

That also is the meaning of country. Philip went down the South way, which was desert, but he found a man there, and he availed himself of his opportunity, and he sent the Gospel into the heart of Africa.In Carey’s day, the ports of heathen countries were closed, but Carey contrived a way to pass them and make his appeal to the people beyond.Far back of that time, however, Paul had a vision and saw a man of Macedonia standing and saying, “Come over and help us!” and he made haste to answer.I meet a great many ministers who tell me they are waiting for “doors to open”. Surely they must be blind! Open doors are so many they act on one’s mind like the maze of mirrors. They bewilder, and the question is, “Which one shall I enter? Through which one can I pass and not break my nose”?I get impatient with men who are hunting for “fields”.

They write and ask me if I know of any “field”. My impatience is born of the circumstance that the whole world is a field, “white already to harvest”, and the sore need of the day is the same as that of Christ’s day—harvesters.

I take my automobile and drive a hundred miles to my farm. Every town through which I have to go (and there are a dozen or more) is an opportunity, a wonderful field, a promising field, and the most promising thing about most of them is the characteristic of Iconium—dangers, difficulties, hardships. These challenge the apostolic spirit. What we need to-day is not an opportunity. Our need is an apostle, and we need apostles of the Pauline spirit.He stood, in answer to opposition. “The unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles, and made their minds evil affected against the brethren. Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord, which gave testimony unto the Word of His grace, and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands” (Acts 14:2-3).

How different from the present-day preacher!Let the Jews and Gentiles get together against him, and he “hikes”. In the language of the day, “he hits for the road,” and makes letters fly to every part of the country, inquiring for an easy place, a chance to preach where his character will be esteemed, and his real ability appreciated.

It is most amazing how many men there are looking for easier jobs and larger opportunities. They tell us a pathetic story about “how the people oppose the truth at their point”, and “will not hear the Word of God”, and how useless it is to remain any longer in their midst, and cast their “pearls before swine”, and they beg us to secure for them a better opportunity; to help them to “locate” (Mark the word “locate”) more auspiciously.Paul never counted himself “located”! I doubt if he even concerned himself as to where he was beyond the double inquiry, “Are there men here who need the truth?” and, “Am I doing the mind of the Spirit?”I cannot escape the conviction that the man thus guided and impelled will find himself always in the right place, and that that place will always yield its converts; that a church in that place is always possible, and if persecution rage, progress will also be marked, and the Divine preservation will be signally seen. The Word of God to many a minister shut up and shut in, hard pressed, facing danger, is what it was to Moses at the shore of the sea: “Stand still and see the salvation of God”! The curse of the modern ministry is “movement”, non-inspired, nondirected!But this Apostle did depart when threatened with death. “And when there was an assault made both of the Gentiles, and also of the Jews with their rulers, to use them despitefully, and to stone them, they were ware of it, and fled unto Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and unto the region that lieth round about” (Acts 14:5-6). Paul had no nonsense about “being a martyr”.

Paul was not such a fool as to want to be a martyr for martyrdom’s sake. You know, don’t you, in the days of the martyrs many people killed themselves in order to secure the glory of having died a martyr’s death?

Paul never needlessly exposed his person, nor ran useless risks. Courage is not incompatible with caution. Pluck is not an opponent of prudence!When at Lystra these opponents, having followed Paul, persuade the people to stone him, draw him out of the city, leaving him as one dead, Paul will face that without flinching, and illustrate again what Gunsaulus once said of truth, “It never discloses its power to a man until he risks his life with it.” I am in entire sympathy with the poet who said of this Apostle,“Would I describe a preacher such as Paul Were he on earth, and could hear, approve and own, Paul should himself direct me. I would trace His master strokes, and draw from his design; I would express him simple, grave, sincere! In doctrine, uncorrupt; in language, plain; And plain in manner; decorous, solemn, chaste, And natural in gesture; much impressed Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds May feel it too; affectionate in look And tender in address, as well becomes A messenger of grace to guilty men.” But I think the description is a bit tame. Paul was all of that, and more, so much more that the poem misses his true measure. In spiritual things he was a Saul among his fellows, from the shoulders and upward above the heads of the people. As God’s prophet or spokesman, he was another Boanerge, a son of thunder. When he moved, the air all about him became vibrant, and the earth under his feet shook; assemblies divided; sanctuaries blazed with debate, and the whole earth seemed excited and moving with his march. Give us such a moving apostle today and the church will move, marking progress; and the world will move “to stone” and, if possible, destroy him; and heaven will move to approve and applaud him.And in keeping with all of this areTHE MARVELSRead Acts 14:8-18.“There sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother’s womb, who never had walked;“The same heard Paul speak; who stedfastly beholding him, and perceiving that he had faith to be healed,“Said with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet.

And he leaped and walked”, etc.He restored the utterly impotent. This man was a cripple from the womb.

This man had never walked. This case was past physician’s power. This sickness evaded all skill. It is interesting to see what an Apostle can do where the physician has failed, and the explanation is found in one fact and in one only, namely, this Apostle was in touch with the Physician of all physicians; the Healer of all healers; the Potent one of all potentates.Why should it be thought a thing incredible that the God who can raise the dead can make the paralyzed limbs to pulse with power, the lame to walk, yea, even to leap! There is a natural suggestion here which throws a sort of sidelight on this Scripture. Joseph Parker reminds us that the Church is the place where the door opens to the poor.

It is the one society that will receive social nobodies. Every world circle is very careful about its membership.

The Church of God does not have to exercise such care. Its Captain said, “I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance”. The Church of God does not have to exercise such care. Its Lord said,“The Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek; He hath sent Me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;“To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn” (Isaiah 61:1-2).My spirit is often tried and my patience well-nigh exhausted with those people who run with the world until it wrecks them; who upon the world waste their substance in riotous living; who come at last to penury, suffering, fellowship with hogs, and the sustenance of husks; and who, when they haven’t a friend on earth (not one of their wicked fellows who will lend them a penny), pull themselves up and make a bee-line for the church and work their way straight into the pastor’s study, and put up a false report of why their hardships and a pathetic plea for help. And yet, after all, that is the glory of the church. Somehow, after 2000 years in the world, it has made a reputation for keeping a door open to the helpless in body, to the harlot in conduct; a door open for the poor, for the ignorant —yea, for the debased.

In fact, there is little question that the church has commenced its conquests always with what society deems the lower classes, and it is not even a desirable thing that any church should quit those classes, bar them from its sanctuary and boast itself “rich and increased with goods and in need of nothing.” That day it injures itself because it cuts itself off from Christ. The church is for the impotent; the church is for the outcast; the church is for the poor; the church is for the oppressed; the church is for the imprisoned.

Christ is the Friend of them all! Let the world hear it.“For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called;“But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;“And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not to bring to nought things that are:“That no flesh should glory in His presence” (1 Corinthians 1:26-29).Some time since, the Unitarians put into certain newspapers a most elaborate ad, with cuts of ten famous Unitarians, and with them one of Billy Sunday, and headed it, “Are these men in hell as Sunday says?” “No! they are in the Hall of Fame,” forgetting that they might be in both, as Dives was.It is written, “He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:26-31).He resented the attempted worship.“And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, the gods are come down to us in the likeness of men,“And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul, Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker.“Then the priest of Jupiter, which was before their city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gates, and would have done sacrifice with the people.“Which when the Apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes and ran in among the people, crying out,“And saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein” (Acts 14:11-15)You can tell every time whether a man is a true minister of the Gospel when you find out who is his god. If he is a self-worshipper, set it down he is not an inspired spokesman. If the personal pronoun has a larger place in his thinking and speech than the Name of Christ holds, he has no Gospel. If he is talking forever in the terms of “the divinity of man,” he is as absolutely mistaken as was the priest of Jupiter who brought “oxen and garlands unto the gates, and would have done sacrifice with the people”.The point of cleavage in present-day theological thinking is just here.

Whom shall we worship, man or God; some striking spokesman, who for the moment has done marvelous things or uttered enticing words, or that Mighty One whose Word affected creation? It is no use for us to go with tributes of praise to men and expect a true apostle to. accept them.

He won’t! He knows man too well, and he is too honest to deceive himself and to suffer you to deceive him. He has looked into his own heart. He has given thought to the conduct of his fellows. He has studied history; he has followed the serpent’s trail through human experience. “Man worship” is an idolatry of which he will not be guilty. He knows its debasing effects.

He knows we grow like the things we worship, and if he would lift himself up he must get a more exalted vision. His eyes must be “unto the hills, whence cometh our help”.Paul reemphasized the object of praise. “Turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein”. * * Who “gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14:15; Acts 14:17).

What? Yea, this Gospel preacher has turned to the Law again. He has commenced at the first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me”. He has reemphasized the second, “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them; for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love Me, and keep My commandments” (Exodus 20:3-6). He has put every saint, as an object of worship, out of commission—Mary included.

What men need is not to bow the knee, cross the chest, sprinkle themselves with holy water. What men need is God, and to know the way of getting into His presence.Joseph Parker once said, “If you can’t preach, you can read, can’t you?” And if 50,000 men volunteered to go to the streets of London and each of them read to the passing crowds John, third chapter, without a word of comment, a Pentecost would sweep the whole city.

That is the need of the world—to point men to God. That was the ministry of John the Baptist. That is your ministry—to reveal God in Christ.THE METHODWhen Paul was stoned and left for dead, the disciples stood round about him. Suddenly he rose up and came into the city, and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe. Doubtless a miracle! I am not at all sure he was not dead.

I am not at all sure but this was the time when the spirit was out of the body, and he was caught into the heavens and saw things and heard things it was not lawful to reveal; but I am sure that when he came to himself, his method changed not one whit, for in Derbe he “preached the Gospel to that city, and had taught many”, and then with his friend Barnabas he “returned again to Lystra and to Iconium and Antioch, confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the Kingdom of God” (Acts 14:21-22), and so on to the end.Three things in conclusion. He added to teaching exhortation; he added to encouragement organization, and he added to preaching a full report.He added to teaching exhortation. “When they had preached the Gospel to that city, * * he exhorted them to continue in the faith” (Acts 14:21-22).

Exhortation is as essential as preaching. Preaching may proclaim the way, and if it is right preaching, it does; but men need to be exhorted to walk therein, and men need to be shown that the walk is not to be terminated at the first bit of opposition, and is not to end, lest it lead to tribulation. The trouble with many of us now is that we are hunting for smooth paths for our feet. The trouble with too many preachers is, they are hunting for applauding crowds and are anxious to secure the approval of the world. We have forgotten what Jesus said, “When men persecute you, rejoice”. We have adopted the smooth speech that leaves the persecutors unperturbed.

We have concluded that exhortation was not desirable, and that tribulation is only the product of indiscretion.In recent years I have heard scores of ministers berating some brother who was unpopular in the town, laying it all up to his indiscretion in speech; to the fact that he had not tempered his words to the tune of the public opinion. That was not the apostolic method.

Paul learned little of how to soften his Sentences as a result of suffering. Paul never decided to adopt the smooth speech in order to escape sorrow, nor has any other minister who made aught of loyalty to God and faithfulness to His Word.The Apostle added to encouragement, organization. “When they had ordained them elders in every Church, and had prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, on whom they believed” (Acts 14:23). Paul believed in church organization. Paul believed in officers for the church. Paul believed in ordination for the officers. Paul was not a “come-outer”. He was a “regular”. Paul was not a Plymouth Brother.

He was a Baptist in the matter of baptism (see Romans 4:6), and a Presbyterian in church government (see our text) — Ordained elders in every church”, and an old-time Methodist for passion.Organization is a power if it be divinely appointed and divinely inspired. The true church, the church worthy of the name, is both, and you will never dispense with it until the kingdom comes.Paul added to preaching a full report. “And when they were come, and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them” (Acts 14:27). Gathering the church then was not accomplished by the ringing of a bell; it didn’t result ‘from an announcement in the Sunday morning newspaper as to time and place. Thank God, they had no Sunday morning newspaper! Gathering the church then was a difficult undertaking. The poor, hunted, hiding disciples had to be secretly communicated with and quietly assembled.But Paul was set on seeing his brethren, and determined by a full report to inspire them every one.

He wanted their faces to glow and their hearts to leap for joy as they heard what God had done for both Gentile and Jew.You might imagine that if you couldn’t come to church in the open and couldn’t join in singing “Hallelujahs” that could be heard for blocks, if you couldn’t read the Bible so that some passerby on the outside might hear it, if the assembly itself had to be in some secluded spot and the members had to speak one with another in a whisper, it would be a poor sort of service. But alas!

How; much false emphasis we put upon mere environment. It is not your beautiful house that makes the church assembly worth while. . It is not your well timed music that makes it a pleasure to the God of Heaven. It is not the eloquent preacher in the pulpit that makes it worth while for the people to come to the pew. It is the fact that God is at work; that He is revealing Himself and regenerating the hearts of Gentile and Jew, redeeming by opening the doors of faith.All that is the occasion of the assembly, and if you are permitted to attend on messages of that sort, your heart will sing and you will want to attend the service. You won’t fuss if it exceed the twelve o’clock limit, but like the disciples of old will “abide a long time” and count every moment blessed.