Lessons From Acts – Lesson 22
John Mark quit and Paul and Barnabas do not let that deter them. And they don’t cater to him by escorting him back. He must travel alone.
Paul and Barnabas go to another town and go to the synagogue and Paul preaches a good short clear sermon that explains God moving in their history to come to the focal point in time, (the cross) and explains salvation thru Jesus.
And because man has a free will, the sermon is met with mixed reactions. Some believed and wanted this to be preached the next Sabbath.
Acts 13:42 And when the Jews were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next sabbath.
Acts 13:43 Now when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas: who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God.
The Sabbath is on Saturday so Paul preached and then Sunday came and then Monday and so on. And those who believed and wanted it preached again would have been telling others.
This news spread all over town. The new believers were spreading it in excitement and are inviting others to come. And of course those who rejected salvation thru Jesus were also talking about this, and not in a good way.
The normal week in, and week out routine was interrupted. People were not just talking about the weather, fishing, and sports. The conversations at the well and market and in homes takes a different direction this week.
The topic of many conversations was now about spiritual things.
Salvation and eternal life. All week the town was talking about Jesus. Some in a positive way and some in a negative way.
I know this because I read ahead.
Act 13:44 And the next sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God.
Almost the whole city came to hear Paul preach. When you have what becomes this big of an event that has been the talk of the town for a week some come because they are genuinely interested and want to hear. They want to hear for themselves the Word of God preached.
A friend or neighbor or distant cousin heard the preaching and now believes in Jesus. They have heard them talk about it or heard cousin Suzy talk about them talking about it. And so they genuinely want to check this out for themselves.
And there will be others that come simply because it is a big event. They want to be able to talk about it. They want to see the fireworks if there are any.
Some want to see the conflict happen. And as with any large group there are people there for a variety of reasons.
Paul has a crowd of mixed interest levels and he has some who are sincerely interested and some there just because everyone else is and then those who are hostile to his message.
This is not unusual. In fact it is fairly normal with any large crowd. As an emergency backup preacher I have preached to groups large enough to see this. I can remember seeing one person sleeping, one playing games on their phone, some just politely listening. And others hanging on every word.
It is the same message, given at the same time. To one it is important and they are enjoying it. To another it is important and they are under conviction. And to others they could care less. And still others get mad.
So Paul has all of that going on. But he has something else. Those that were in religious power were there. The leaders of the Synogoue and those that support them. They offered Paul to speak at the end of their services a week before out of custom.
It was just a polite respectful custom. And Paul preaches Jesus and starts all of this ruckus. In fact Paul with one short message and one week has got more attention than the religious leaders ever got.
They got a bad case of jealously. It is called envy in verse 45.
Act 13:45 But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming.
The crowd was indeed big. When the Jews saw the multitudes. When they saw Paul get what they thought they deserved. Envy. When they saw their power slipping away they went to work. Speaking against what Paul said. They were contradicting the truth that Paul preached. When they did that God says here that they were blaspheming.
For evil reasons, here envy, but religious leaders will also do it for other reasons. They actually end up preaching things that contradict the word of God. You will see it done for power, or greed, or other things.
Instead of letting the Word of God lead them in all truth. They let their selfish sin lead them to contradict God and blaspheme God. It takes arrogance and self-delusion to contradict God. Sadly it is not uncommon at all.
Catholics do it a lot. Jesus says call no man father, it is obvious he does not mean your biological father. And Catholics have their people call them father.
According to God’s word when you contradict the word of God you are blaspheming. God says confess to Him, they say confess to them in a booth.
God’s word clearly says salvation is by grace. Many teach works. This is a common thing religious leaders actually contradicting the word of God.
Presbyterians say God chooses who goes to hell and they cannot do anything about that. They go to services thinking they are serving God but in reality they are according to the bible blaspheming.
Act 13:46 Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.
Right there is free will. Paul puts it this way the people who were rejecting Jesus were actually judging themselves as unworthy of everlasting life.
They put the gospel from themselves out of their own choice. They rejected everlasting life.
Paul does not say because God made you, or because God gave you no choice. He says because you put it from yourselves. That is free choice.
This is not going to stop them from preaching. The truth is too important.
We have to do likewise. When someone sends us some rejection and or opposition. We need to have the same kind of determination as they did.
Hell is real and eternal life is real and men have to freely choose and to do that they must somehow come in contact with the Word of God. Either by hearing or reading.
Paul and Barnabas got that truth. And so they tell those Jews we will just turn to the Gentiles and keep preaching. And then Paul quotes a prophecy from the O.T. showing God foretold this.
Act 13:47 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.
Hopefully that stung a little Their own scriptures was showing that it was God’s will for His word to go to the Gentiles to the ends of the earth.
One of the things they were upset about was that Gentiles were getting the word of God and Paul reminds them that the O.T. clearly shows that it is what God’s will is. So they ultimately were actually mad at God’s will.
But reason and even the clear O.T. word of God would not prevail with these religious leaders.
The gentiles loved it though.
Act 13:48 And 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.
Act 13:49 And the word of the Lord was published throughout all the region.
And so those Gentiles got busy for the Lord and spread the word of God throughout all the region. All the region. They really got with it.
Which of course just would have made those religious Jews even more angry.
Act 13:50 But the Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women, and the chief men of the city, and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them out of their coasts.
Act 13:51 But they shook off the dust of their feet against them, and came unto Iconium.
Act 13:52 And the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost.
Paul and Barnabas did not let this get them down. Those that got saved were filled with joy. They did not let it bring them down either. Yes Paul was ran off, but the believers remained. And they would continue the work.
Paul and Barnabas just shook the dust off of their feet and kept going.
To do that it takes faith. Faith that the Lord knows all about it. Faith that the work is more important than you are. I mean faith that God can and will use those that live there that got saved. The work will continue there without them.
Some men just don’t get that. They think way too much of themselves. God is very involved in His work and He is perfectly capable of keeping the work going without you.
Paul and Barnabas understand all of that so they just let God deal with all of it and continue on to Iconium
Act 14:1 And it came to pass in Iconium, that they went both together into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spake, that a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed.
The same thing happens. The exact same order of events. They first go to the synagogue on Saturday. They let the visiting Jew preach. A great multitude of Jews and Gentiles believe.
This greatly upsets the Jews in religious power who refuse to believe.
Act 14:2 But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles, and made their minds evil affected against the brethren.
So the leaders obviously schemed and lied and manipulated anyone they could get to listen. And their efforts made the minds of many to be evil affected against anyone who believed.
Evil affected against the brethren so not just Paul and Barnabas.
So what did Paul and Barnabas do? They kept speaking boldly in the Lord.
Act 14:3 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.
Catch it long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the lord. Not just about the Lord but in the Lord. So in His power. Boldly speaking with the leading of and empowerment of the Holy Spirit who was moving in the hearts of men.
And they did this it says for a long time.
That means they took the verbal abuse. They took the if looks could kill type of looks. They took the persecution. They stood in there for God when they got people thinking evil about them. They did not let the lies told about them stop them.
This is not easy. And in and of ourselves alone, it is too much to take over the long haul. But they were speaking in the Lord. They were led by the Holy Spirit. The comforter was working thru them and in them.
To take what they did the way they did, makes me think it is obvious that they were strengthened by the Holy Spirit. He was helping them thru the persecution. Giving them the strength to handle it correctly.
And God empowered them to do signs and wonders. So they healed people. That was always one of the biggest signs that you see over and over until the Bible is finished. You will actually see the frequency of that slow down as more of the N.T. books are written.
And as more of the N.T. is written signs will be less and less.
Paul and Barnabas and God’s word that they preached were under major attack, so God allowed signs and wonders to clearly show everyone that God was with these men and their message.
But religious leaders will not listen to God’s word and they sure will not let signs and wonders from God sway them. And they stay their evil course and the city becomes divided.
Act 14:4 But the multitude of the city was divided: and part held with the Jews, and part with the apostles.
And it gets, you guessed it, ugly.
Act 14:5 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,
Paul finds out that they have a plan in place to stone them. Does he presume himself too important and assume that God must just protect him from that.
Does Paul think that he is too important to this work in this area and stay anyway?
No. Paul and Barnabas choose to have faith. Faith that God knows all about it and faith that God will contine to work with the new beleivers after they leave.
They have done all they can here. Staying any longer would accomplish nothing.
Act 14:6 They were ware of it, and fled unto Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and unto the region that lieth round about:
Act 14:7 And there they preached the gospel.
They just shake off the persecution. There are too many who have never heard to spend any more time on religious leaders and their diehard followers who will not listen to what God’s word says.
People who are operating on feelings and emotion and desires instead of God’s word and reason. People in that state of mind cannot be reached. You are not going to get thru to them in that state.
Maybe later but not when they are like this. Maybe after God works in the circumstances of their lives. Maybe after they have calmed down and after God works on them a while. But not it the state they are in.
And this is a lesson for us. When you encounter someone like that, don’t hang around, don’t fight. Have faith and leave it to God and move on.
The work is too important and there are too many who have never heard. There are others need a chance to get saved.
So Paul and Barnabas leave the situation to God. We see here that there is a time to hang tough and be bold and just take it and take it and take some more. And then there is a time to let it go and move on.
I think that because they were so led by the Holy Spirit, that the Spirit let them know it was time to leave. And I think it is a mark of strong faith to listen to that still small voice and stay and stand and it is also a mark of strong faith to listen to that still small voice when it says time to move on.