The Rage Of The Heathen

We're going to go over to the edges here. We will be doing that throughout the book of Acts here. So let's turn to Acts chapter 4. Some of you were not here the last couple of weeks, so I just want to do a little bit of reviewing in Acts chapter 4 because we looked in Acts chapter 3 that Peter and John go into this temple and they see a lame man and they go up to him and through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ they heal this lame man and that causes a stir.

There are many people that are gathered together. People run into the porch, this open area, and they begin to wonder what's going on. This man was known.

I mean, he's been there for years and everybody knew him. They probably said, hey, Sam, how's it going today? And he's laying on his cot, it's all right, it's all fine. Every day they come to the temple there, and all of a sudden they see him walking.

It causes a stir. So they rush in to see this great miracle, and Peter takes this opportunity, and I think we ought to do this. You know, Peter was a fisherman.

He was not a learned scholar. He was not in the Bible schools of those days, but he learned from the Lord that when you get a crowd, you speak to them. Peter did.

He starts preaching the Word of God. Most of the Book of Acts, or Chapter 3 here, is his sermon. And then we came to Chapter 4, and we looked at what happened when Peter started to speak openly and in the public.

It says in Chapter 4, verse 1, And as they spake unto the people, the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, being grieved. Here's what upset them, that they taught the people and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid their hands on them and put them in hold until the next day, for it was now even time.

The first persecution that the early church faces comes because of their willingness to speak openly about the Lord Jesus Christ. And I shared with you last time that they had broken bread together. They were fellowshipping together.

They were selling their goods and giving them to one another. They were having many body community type things, but they didn't bother. It's not until they get out in the open arena and they begin to preach the Lord Jesus Christ that this causes the persecution.

So we looked at that, I think, a few weeks ago. And so they're put in hold. It starts out with being held, and then it moves to threat.

Verse 18 of Chapter 4, it says, They called them and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge you, for we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. So now they're threatened, and they're threatened no longer to speak.

And Peter has some boldness here. Peter's changed. Praise God for that.

Peter's changed. He's received the Holy Ghost, and he is no longer running from a little damsel while they're warming their hands by the fire in fear and shame of the name of Jesus Christ. Now he is standing up.

I don't know what they were threatened with. I think they were threatened probably with a beating. Maybe they were threatened with imprisonment, because it's going to happen here in the next chapter or two, both of those.

But they were threatened. And Peter stood up and said, I don't care. Beat me.

I don't care. Send me to prison. We're going to keep preaching the Lord Jesus Christ.

As David said, our voice is going to be heard in this city, and you're not going to stop. So persecution is coming. And I shared this, and I think it's so important for us.

We know that the Lord Jesus, as he looked ahead in the future, he saw these dear men, these apostles of his, his disciples, having to go out and to face the same type of persecution he faced. And he says to them, carry you into Jerusalem. Don't go out.

Don't go out starting this preaching ministry and sharing the Lord Jesus, because I know you need something. You need power, and you need the grace of God. And so you wait until I send the Holy Spirit of God.

And then once you get that, then you're equipped to go. And Acts 1.8 says, you shall receive power. After that, the Holy Ghost will come upon you, and you shall be witnesses.

And that word witness is the word martyria, which means martyr. You're going to go out and preach Jesus and suffer for it. You need grace.

And those people in Hades need grace. They need God. They're in the midst of their affliction.

It's not human. It's not in our strength to do those things. So they're beginning to taste this persecution.

And I say this to you, and I just be honest, totally honest. I don't believe that you and I are going to be filled with the Holy Ghost until we are willing to go forth and speak the name of Jesus and be bold about it. Because the Holy Ghost was given for that purpose in large part to give you the power and the grace to speak boldly.

We talked last time about boldness. To speak up in the midst of persecution and fear and even threatening. That's what God gave His Spirit for, boldness.

This is all reviewed. We were here last week, but I gave the illustration. It was the second children's lesson, if you remember, of the Roman soldier.

And you see the soldier mentality in Ephesians 6, how we're girded about with a helmet of salvation. And we have a breastplate, and we have the loins girded in. We have the feet, and everything is girded up in defense.

And we talked about how the Roman soldier just having those things is almost like a museum piece. You go up and look at him and say, oh, he's so cute. Look at that nice hat, and he's got that nice breastplate on.

And we'll go up and probably touch him, and he looks so nice. And many Christians are that way. Everybody can get along with a soldier until the soldier pulls the sword.

And the sword is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Once the soldier pulls the sword out and starts to wield the sword, watch out. And unless we as Christians begin to pull this sword out and begin to take it to the lost.

And by the way, Jesus said, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me to go and set captives free. You see there's a devil out there that's holding Christians, his captives. And he's not going to deliver them by you going in and saying, oh, please, please, please, please, let it out.

You have to bring the sword. It's going to be a fight. You're going to have to deliver the captives.

And it's in that fight where people get beaten up. And it's a war. And I know that we're to fight the good fight of faith, and we have a fight in our own hearts against temptation.

And yes, that's a good fight. But there's another fight, and that fight is to deliver captives. And I'll tell you what.

If you put on your armor and you bring the sword out and start preaching the word of God and speaking forth God's word, you'll find that somebody will bite you. They'll get into a fight. But if you just stand there with your armor, don't pull the sword, people will go by and say, oh, that's nice.

Look at that. It's so pretty. It's so cute.

Isn't that nice? You know, many Christians are amused seeing these special looking people. Look at how they look. I'll tell you what.

Just pull the sword out. You won't be cool and cute anymore. And you say, hey, listen.

Divorce and remarriage is a sin. In love, I say that. Homosexuality is a sin.

Whoa. Okay. Okay.

Now we're talking about opposites. Oh, I saw something yesterday. It's happening all over the place.

Yesterday was a wedding. One of my relatives, walking, the men come in. They're standing up there in the front, six of them, and then the women.

I'm watching. One lady. Second lady.

Third lady. A guy. And a girl.

A girl. A guy. Okay, there's four girls and two guys.

Four girls. Four. What do we get? It's a mess.

So the world's a mess. And God is calling on us to be soldiers. So let's keep reading here.

This is the first persecution that the early church is facing. I'm going to start reading here in Acts chapter 4, in verse number 23. They have just been threatened.

Let's pray before we read this passage. Dear Heavenly Father, we acknowledge you in all of our ways, Lord. May you change us, Lord.

Change the way we think. Change our behaviors. Change our schedules.

And most importantly, change our priorities, Lord. May we think outside of this box that we have in our mind. May we receive the word of God.

May we be able to save our souls. It's been granted, Lord. So we pray your blessing on these words as they're shared.

In Jesus' name, amen. A lot of things I could share. I was going through the message and cutting things off.

And we've only got an hour or so. But many things. This subject is dear to my heart.

You've heard me speak on it many times. But we're going to have to touch on it again here this morning. Look at what it says in verse 23.

And being let go, they went to their own company and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. Now this company is the 120 that were in the upper room on the day of Pentecost, plus new converts. Those 3,000 that were converted.

The church is growing. And I don't know how many people are in this company. But they go unto their own company and they tell them the threats that they have been receiving from the authorities for their speaking out and preaching the Lord Jesus Christ.

Look what it says in verse 24. And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord, give us a cave where we can hide out. What does your Bible say about that? Lord, help us to go underground.

Now it says, Lord, thou art God, which is faithful. Heaven and earth receive thee. And we don't care about it.

Lord, give us the boldness to go forth in the midst of persecution and difficulty. But now I'd like to share something. And I've tried to share this over the years.

And I struggle with it myself. But in verse 24 here, there's some principles about church prayer life and group prayer. It says when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord.

And you go down through this prayer. I've brought out three things here I'd like to share with you about how we should pray or guidelines for prayer in the early church. First of all, this prayer was a sincere desire to obey the Lord.

I mean, they had just heard a month or two earlier, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And they're being threatened. And they're being forced to try to stop the preaching of the word.

And so their prayer comes down to, Lord, we want to obey your commandment. Lord, we want to do the will of God. That's a good heart there.

If you want to have a lot of answers in prayer, that kind of heart is certainly something that's required. A heart that wants to obey the commandments. So we find in 1 John, if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

And God is in heaven waiting to hear us. Hey, this is my will. I told you to go and preach the gospel to every creature starting in Jerusalem.

That's what you're doing. You're doing exactly what I commanded you. I'm in to answering this prayer.

So first and foremost, we come together. We ought to have a heart to do the will of God and to obey his commandment. Secondly, I noticed here that everyone was on the same page.

There's a lot of people that had this kind of heart. It says they cried out in one accord. And that means in unison.

It's good to sing in unison. We're all singing the same song, the same words, the same notes, most of us do. That's okay.

It gets drowned out with everybody else. But unison in one accord. And can you see this beautiful prayer meeting? That they prayed to God in unison.

I'm all for, and I love the idea of all of us praying together at the same time. And I believe that's what it says here. And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord.

Accord. Accord, meaning bass and soprano and alto and tenor blended together in one chord. An accord is a bunch of things wrapped together into one.

Accord. A group prayer. So they lifted up their voice.

That's the third thing I'd like to mention here about discriminating. They lifted up their voice. I like that.

Lord! God, help us, Lord! We are wanting to do the will of God and they're threatening us, Lord! Lifted up their voice. Peter lifted up his voice on the day of Pentecost and preached. He lifted up their voice.

It wasn't a... They lifted up their voice! It was so self-confident. I know I'm that. So self-conscious just to release your heart and release your spirit and just to cry out to God.

It says Jesus cried with strong crying and tears. Have you heard Jesus pray? Wow! That guy has passion! It's prayer! And we're missing passion. I think a lot of it is due to the fact that we're not really wanting to do the will of God.

But these people wanted to do the will of God and they were threatened. And they just lifted up their voice with one accord. And they cried out to the Lord.

I think that's a good thing. It's a good example of group prayer. Well, they begin with praise.

And I always encourage you to start out with praise. If you go through the Bible, when you find people coming to great men of dignity and kings and authorities, they don't just walk in and say, you know, hi, Joe, I want this. They come in and say, you're most excellent, most noble people.

And they compliment them and they honor them and they give glory to them before they bring their request. And Jesus taught his disciples, when you pray, say, first of all, our Father which is in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Glorify him.

So when we pray together, we ought to get on our knees and cry out to God and just first of all say, this is what they said, God, thou art God which has made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in this. You are the creator of everything. And get it off.

Praise. Then their prayer goes something like this. Who by the mouth of thy servant David has said, why did the heathen raise? And the people imagined vain things.

The kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, thou hast anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done. How interesting about this prayer.

I believe God's spirit is giving them direction here. You know when you pray, the spirit of God, the Bible says to pray in the Holy Ghost. I think the Holy Spirit also enables us to pray and gives us the words to pray.

But it's interesting the Holy Spirit directs them to the Bible. Directs them back to the Psalms. They didn't have the New Testament at this point.

And so the Holy Spirit says, let's go back to Psalms. And let's pray a psalm. And they quote Psalm chapter 2. And I think to be an effective prayer, you ought to know and understand the will of God.

The prayer of faith is built upon the word of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So I often pray the Bible.

I pray, God, you said. God, you revealed in your word this. So this is, I'm going to have faith in what you said.

And I'm going to pray according to the will of God. Pray in faith. So they go back.

And they pick out Psalm chapter 2. The first question that comes out of their mouth after being threatened is in verse 25 when they pray. Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine vain things? Why are these people so angry? Why are they so stirred? When we go out and preach unto them, Jesus. I'd like you to go back with me to Psalm 2 and to this passage.

And actually it says here, Psalm 2, why? It answers the question. Why do the heathen rage? Why are those people in Haiti, those gang leaders, so angry? Why when you go forth and preach the gospel to people, they rage? Well, I'll tell you why they rage. And here's what it says in Psalm 2, verse 1. Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed.

Now, I'm just not, I don't want to just read these and not have you miss this point. But the Holy Spirit of God is bringing to their mind in this prayer a certain passage to try to teach them something about what they're facing. That's reality.

And we need to learn that same thing too. Okay, Peter, John, this whole company, why are these people so angry at you? The Holy Spirit doesn't want to show you. He's discouraged.

I want to show you why they're angry. And so he directs their hearts back to Psalm 2. Here's what it says. Verse 3. Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us.

He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. Now, John tells us here why the heathen are raging.

And it's in verse number 3. Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us. What are bands and cords? These people are saying, oh, let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us. You know what they're crying out here? They're saying, I don't like these restraints.

I don't like these cords these preachers are giving us. I don't like these cords and bands that John and the apostles and some of the others are giving us. Let us break these bands asunder and cast away these cords.

Well, you know what these bands and cords are, don't you? Jesus said, go and teach them all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And one of the things that the people in the world just despise, they don't want any restraint. We hear this often on college campuses.

I don't want anybody to tell me what to do. I'm going to be my own man. I don't want any restraints.

I want to have sexual pleasure any way I want it. And you're here to tell me I have to restrain my lust. I hate you because you're putting bands and cords on me.

And you're telling me that I'm wrong. I'm just pursuing my own body. And they are.

And it also produces a guilty conscience. So the reason why they keep rage is simply this. Preaching the word, thou shalt not.

Preaching the standard of God causes them to get raped. By the way, the law does that. The law of all things serves all manner of evil.

It disturbs us. It disturbs us. I was going to have a children's lesson this morning, but we wanted to pray a little bit for those in Haiti.

I was going to bring one of those large glass jars that my wife puts milk in. And early in the morning, put a little dirt, maybe two or three inches on the bottom, and put water in there and let it settle. By the time I get there, set it up here.

And have the dirt, you know, to be on the bottom, two or three inches. And it looks like the water is all nice and clear. That's the way people walk through life.

They look good. They seem to be moral people. But there's some dirt in there.

It's the fallen nature. It's those skeletons in the closet. It's that sin that they're hiding.

All that stuff is laying dormant. They look at it and it's pretty clean. They even go to church with it.

Then you come as a preacher. It's the word of God. You take a big spoon and you go in there and say, This is dirt.

All of a sudden, all that muck starts to fill the whole thing. Oh, this is not clean water. The law does that.

It exposes. It exposes people for who they really are. It causes that anger and rage to rise up in someone.

And Lord willing, like on the day of Pentecost, that stirring up, that pricking of the heart, they say, Oh, my God, I'm a wicked man. My heart is being stirred up and exposed. And they fall down before Jesus in their confession.

But sometimes in action, that dirtiness that's brought to the surface causes them to get angry. And they don't. They're calling upon the name of the Lord.

But you know, our responsibility, here's where we get in trouble. Our responsibility is to take the word of God and stir it up. People say, Whoa, I am stirred up.

But here's something I want to caution you. I believe this with all my heart. And I've shared this in the past once or twice.

But just plan on this. I think this is true as anything. Here's our problem with the church.

We don't want to go over here and stir that up any by preaching the words of them, the law, the commandments, because what happens is we get blowback. We get persecuted. When we stir it up, they hate us.

They rage. Why do they hate us? They rage. They rage.

And they persecute us. What we say is we're not going to take the persecution. We're not going to stir them up.

We're just going to stay in our community, our church, and let them go to hell. I'm going to say that one day you're going to stand before God. Here's what's going to happen.

He's going to say this to each one of us. Because you were unwilling to be persecuted by a rage in stirring up the heathen, the heathen could never see themselves, the law could never bring them to Christ, and therefore the church's desire to live comfortable and at ease and not be persecuted hindered me from saving their souls. I agree.

It's your desire to save your life instead of losing it. I believe that's wrong. And the Bible teaches that.

So our desire to have ease and comfort is ultimately going to be costly, not only for us but also for those who are out there in the world. And I know they get angry. I know they persecute.

But sometimes they fall on their face and say, God be merciful. And let's make sure that we're not trying to save our lives. In actuality, hindering the Lord's work in reaching the lost.

And so the heathen are raging. And that's reality. Preaching the word of God, teaching sinners right from wrong is like throwing gas on a fire.

They rage. And a lot of people say, well, I don't want to make people rage. Well, all through the book of Acts you're going to see the rage.

And that rage is going to cause them to print in prison and beat and kill. And some of the early church leaders said, I'd rather live a nice, quiet life. You have a choice, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Someday God's going to call you into account. But what you do with this word is how you went to those who are lost. And you spoke to them about their sin.

So have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reproof them. So when I go and preach in a public arena and I say one man, one woman for life, that's the boundaries for sexuality, they rage. And I know why they rage.

Because in their hearts they don't want any bands and cords. They don't want God to restrain them. I love how Jesus was talking to the Pharisees.

He said to them, you know, give them a parable. And at the end of the parable he said, they said, Jews said, we will not have this man to reign over us. And they cast him out and killed him.

No, your rules, your laws, your regulations, they're not going to rule in our life. We're going to be our own God. We're going to make our own rules.

Nobody can tell me what to do. So that's what's happening here. And I think the church needs to, we and others, need to recognize that the heathens are going to rage.

It's not a bad thing for the heathens to rage. It's something that's God's will. And God is going to use that to bring conviction.

So when you put all these things together, put this passage together, when Jesus said, take up a cross, deny yourself, and follow me. And then he says, whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and my words, that's those laws in the sinful and adulterous generation, so shall the Son of Man be ashamed. I don't want to be.

I just fear God. I don't want to be. So let's not be ashamed and draw back in fear from this world.

So Jesus said this in John 7, all these things tied together, the world hates me. The world rages because I testify of it that the works are ever evil. I go in and stir this thing up, and I preach the standard of God, and they rage against me.

So Jesus said these words, as my Father has sent me, so send I unto you. And I believe that the world is crying, and we hear this cry, and even the devils. When Jesus came into Nazareth there to preach, the devils cried out to the synagogue, let us alone.

Let us alone. You know, the world would just be fine if you just let them alone. Let us alone.

You have your own place over there, your community, that's fine. You just let us alone, and we'll be all right for a while. You know, if you let them alone for so long, they're going to come here out these doors, let me say, and they'll pound them down, so they'll come in and take us back.

I say better off get out there in the world. Jesus said, don't wait for persecution to pound our doors down, and we can take them to jail. You've waited way too long.

That's why the Bible says, all that will have godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. We should be living out there now, and enduring persecution. You know, they're in Haiti.

It's a difficult thing to be brought into a difficult scenario here. God brings them first by bringing them into hold, then being threatened, then they get imprisoned, then they get beaten, and then finally they get killed. So they're brought to this place.

Well, I believe that the church that stays in its community will only be a defeated church. Many people are frustrated there. They like community.

I like community. I like church. Sunday's my best day, I told you.

But Christianity is half community, half outreach. And it's the outreach that brings the hardship. We're supposed to be out there getting beaten, then coming here and having our brothers put to death.

So that's a balanced experience. So let's keep reading here in the book of Acts. The bands and cords are what cause the heathen to rage.

Let's come down here to verse number 29. Again, this is amazing to me, and it's the Holy Ghost that's doing this. There's no mention here of hiding.

There's no mention here of being quiet. There's no mention here of trying to save themselves. Their cry is, we need to go forth and speak thy word with boldness.

So friends, our greatest goal is not security. It's doing well. Many times as human beings, our natural response is security.

How can we find a place where we're secure? But I've heard this said many times over my Christian life. The safest place to be is where? The center of the world. So our greatest goal is not to find some place where we're secure.

Our greatest goal is to take the gospel to the whole world. And they understood that. You can see this.

They felt the force of the commandment from Jesus. They heard it themselves in their own ears. Start in Jerusalem.

Go to Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. Okay, here's what we're doing. They were threatened.

They said, listen, give us grace, Lord, to get this done. And that's just the early church. They lost their life for Jesus' sake and the gospel.

Well, we talked about boldness last time. What boldness is is courage to speak up in the face of opposition. That's what they prayed for.

Grant unto thy servants that with all boldness they might speak forth thy word. We might speak forth thy word. So praying the will of God.

Boldness. Boldness is a great quality in the life of Christians. Verse 30, by stretching forth thine hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.

Now we've seen this over and over again already in the book of Acts. That signs and wonders follow the preaching. Signs and wonders follow the preaching.

Jesus says this, if you're willing to obey me, and you're willing to go out and face opposition, and even get a beating for it, I'll come behind you with signs and wonders. And the Bible says they went forth and preached everywhere on March 16th, and the Lord worked with them, confirming the word with signs following. In other words, they preached the word, and the word went forth, and God said, I'm right behind you with signs and wonders.

That's how it works. Many of us would rather signs and wonders go ahead of us. Signs and wonders follow us and obey us.

God always rewards and blesses, obeying. Now I know that this message is pretty far out for many, and we look at the early church, and I don't know what to read these messages. I think our minds just kind of check out, and say, well, that's for back then, and I've got a job to do, and I've got all this, and I can't do this kind of stuff.

But I want you to get outside the box a little bit, and start taking steps to reach outside the box, and say, yes, but this is an example of the life of Jesus. Jesus said, follow me. Where was he going? Signs and wonders.

Well, verse 31, I love verse 31. And when they had prayed, the place was shaken, for they were assembled together, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with hope. No doubt this has been great, folks.

This has got the heart of God's attention, and they hit the mark. A desire to obey. Lord, disobedience.

I think we should learn from this. Disobedience, Lord, is above us. Somebody read here this morning, the despised, the weak.

Disobedience is so far above us, Lord, and we're going to lose our lives, and we're going to be imprisoned, and we're threatened, Lord. We need something outside of this. The Lord said, I've got the power.

I'm going to give it to you. And that power came to the place of shaking. They were assembled together.

You say, I don't have the power to do this. Well, praise God, you're in a great place. You're in the same place they were.

I cannot do this. And I'm sure that those in Haiti, and I'm going to bring this in, but those in Haiti, after about eight or nine days, are saying, I can't do this. I cannot endure this.

This is so out of the American lifestyle. I am going through things that I simply cannot in my own ability endure, and I need to pray to God. I've got to get outside of this and get some grace.

And so they're praying for something outside of themselves. I know we sit here and say, hey, we're not even being threatened. We need grace.

We need boldness in our daily lives. I'm not talking just about going out in the public arena, but just in our daily lives. Granting unto thy servants that with all boldness.

That's a good prayer. Let me ask you this. I've got this in my notes.

Can you pray that prayer in all sincerity? Great. Lord, I want to obey your commandment. Go and preach the gospel to every Haitian in the world.

Well, here's something that we need to address, because many people have lies, philosophies in their minds. They're inside this box. Sometimes that box has a little black area that's actually a lie, and they're holding on to something that's a lie.

But look what it says in verse 31. And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together. I believe there's an earthquake.

Something shook the place. You know, God brings earthquakes. He did it throughout the book of Acts.

He did it when Jesus was resurrected. And the place is shaken where they're assembled together. And notice this, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.

Notice this is all of it. Here's something that people have a hard time with. They think maybe it was just those apostles.

No, it says, and they were all filled. We had a prayer meeting here. We were threatened.

God give us the power to speak boldly in the name of Jesus. And he shook the place, and the Holy Spirit came down. Every one of you who are children of God would be filled with the Holy Spirit.

And God would say to you, okay, do you not hear this? You speak boldly. You men, you women. You young men, you young women.

Do you remember Acts chapter 2? Peter explains. Your handmaidens, your servants, your young men, your old men. I'm going to pour out my spirit upon all flesh.

Does that mean you need to be loud? Remember, boldness is not loud. So they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. I don't know how many there were.

It says they had their own company. They went back, and God didn't differentiate. Many people think, well, it's apostles.

It's some special, it's elders. You know, it's the guy that's behind the pulpit. He's supposed to be doing this bold stuff.

No, God wants us all involved. As a matter of fact, as I go back there on the Day of Pentecost, it says in chapter 2, verse 1, And when the Day of Pentecost was full to come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as the rushing mighty wind had filled all the houses.

They were sitting. Here's another shaking. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as a fire, and they sat upon each of them, each of them.

And then it says, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. It's 120 there. They're all.

It says they all spake in tongues. The Spirit gave them utterance. It's a philosophy that, well, these things, I read the book of Acts is just for those apostles.

It's just for special people or gifted people. It's for all of us. All of us.

So let's embrace that. And let the book of Acts minister to us personally. Don't just keep saying, well, that's for them.

That's for some gifted people. That's for the apostles. God wants to do it in all of us.

Being filled with the Spirit of God. So the Spirit of God falls upon them, and they spake the Word of God before them again. When God's Spirit comes upon them, it seems to move their mouth.

And you'll find this in life. And as you go and speak forth the Word of God and teach people the truth, you'll find people get upset and rage. Don't find it.

Don't make it unusual. People don't like bands and chords. And as we get more and more wicked, this world moves further and further away from truth, you're going to find that as you speak into their life, morality and God's laws, His commandments, they're going to rage.

Don't think, well, what did I say that wrong? Did I not have love or what? All these things. No, just realize that that's what happens when you speak into people's lives. And I think you ought to speak with love.

Speak the truth with love. Either go forth and weep. I need more tears.

Having anxiety, but you still ought to speak the truth. And so the Lord here, and I'll close with this, the Lord here is sending these people out on a mission. And He realizes ahead of time that this mission is going to face great opposition.

If they're going to take this gospel to the ends of the earth and teach men all things whatsoever I have commanded, they need help. And I'm going to pour out my spirit upon them to give them the grace and the boldness they need to accomplish this. So when you think about this book, why don't you just kind of erase the box that you have in your life and just say, I receive thee and grant thee glory.

Save and save. Lord, grant unto me that it all boldens. I'll tell you what.

Your prayer closet might move a little bit. When you pray, you'll see your heart. I want to obey your commandments.

I want to talk to the people I see in the streets, in the markets, the gas stations, people visiting my home. I want to speak boldly as I would. Give me that grace.

Well, starting in verse 32 all the way down here to verse 37, we're going to talk back more about the body, the body life. But there's two aspects, balance, body life and reaching out. Body life, reaching out.

You only have body life, you'll be very imbalanced, and I'll tell you this, you'll get frustrated. It's like sitting and eating and eating and eating and eating and eating. Life requires you to eat, but then it also requires you to exercise.

If all you do is eat and don't work, you're going to find yourself very sick. And God calls us to have fellowship and eat, enjoy the word of God, but then go to work. Exercise is good.

So let's do that. We're trying to make opportunities for all of us to learn to reach out and talk to people that are way out. And people that are raging.

And those gang leaders are raging. I don't know what their motive is for their rage, but I'm sure, well, they're there with these 17, and these 17 are loving them and preaching Jesus and making them rage even. Let's continue to remember them this week in prayer, but also let's pray for God to give us some hope to speak for them.

All right, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for the revelation of your word. We pray.