Sermon Central
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Studies In Acts
Contributed by Glenn Pease on Mar 20, 2021 (message contributor)
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1. Pentecostal Power
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
The early church celebrated this day long before they did Christmas. If we are unaware of this day it is due to the lack of understanding of the place of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church.
One of the oldest festival days in history is the Festival of Pentecost. It was one of the favorites of the Jews for centuries before Christ, and it has been a significant day in the church for two thousand years. It became the third great Christian feast after Christmas and Easter. It marks the ...read more
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2. The Throne Of David
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
In verse 30 we see David was writing about one whom he knew would come because God had promised that a Messiah would set on his throne.
A. M. Fairbairn said, “The task of reason is to make impossible all religion save the best.” This was the attitude of Peter and Paul the great evangelists of the early church. They were determined to use all the reason and logic at their disposal to persuade men to see that Jesus Christ was the ...read more
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3. Prophecy Fulfilled
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
Prophecy is also perverted in every generation by those who feel it was all written for just their day. There is a whole graveyard full of old prophecy books that died along with the people who are suppose to be the anti-Christ.
In no area of biblical studies have Christians been more often deceived then in the area of prophecy. The early church fathers got caught up in wild spiritualizing of the Old Testament. They found profound revelations where there were none. It became so subjective that you could make Scripture ...read more
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4. Pentecostal Results
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
Peter didn’t even give an invitation. There does not appear to be an invitation given anywhere in the early church. People were so moved by the Holy Spirit that they cried out for conversion.
A pastor was telling his visiting grandchildren a fascinating bedtime story. They listened to him breathlessly, but when he was finished one of them took a deep breath and said, “Grandpa, was that a true story, or were you just preaching?” This attitude could be learned by a child in ...read more
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5. Layman And Evangelism
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
It is one of the most agreed upon factors in the world today among Christian leaders that layman must get into the act of evangelism for the show to go on. The church dies whenever it fails to stimulate an adequate birth rate through evangelism.
Sirhan Sirhan, the convicted slayer of senator Robert Kennedy, had considerable opportunity to be saved. From the time when he was 12 years old he went to Protestant, fundamental, evangelical Baptist Sunday Schools and churches in Pasadena. He was not impressed with the Gospel, however, but was ...read more
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6. An Act Of Obedience
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
Baptism is an act of obedience to Jesus who said to go into all the world and baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It was an act of obedience on Philip's part to baptize the Ethiopian and act of obedience on his part to be baptized.
Some of the best things in life can be so bad. It is somewhat shocking, but Lewis B. Smedes in his book Caring and Commitment points out that even commitment can be a bad thing. The purpose of the book is to get Christians more committed, but he points out the negative side of this very ...read more
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7. Dorcus The Doer
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
When it comes t winning prizes for creativity with thread and needle, women have it sewed up, and we want to focus our attention on a woman who sewed herself right into the fabric of biblical history. Dorcas is her name, and her needle was her fame.
Grace Synder was born in 1885 and grew up on a lonely prairie in Nebraska. She lived in a sod house that cost about twelve dollars to build. Water was scarce, and so they used their Saturday night bath water to water the flowers. There was not much to do, and so Grace took up quilting. She ...read more
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8. Racism
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
Peter said it was unlawful and against his conscience to enter into fellowship with Gentiles, but God broke through the barriers of both law and conscience to show him that all men were to be accepted as equals in the church.
George W. Gradleck, a German psychiatrist, said that it is truer that our lives live us than that we live our lives. What he meant was that repression, early loyalties and prejudices can get such a grip on one’s life that they compel one to be what he is. Once the attitude of racism, for example, ...read more
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9. Barnabas The Encourager
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
Barnabas was the friend that helped Paul overcome his bad image and become an accepted spokesman of the faith. Barnabas went on to play a major role in the history of Paul
Words are powerful tools of influence. All of us can speak words and so all of us have the power to encourage or discourage others. The life of Victor Sirebianca is a radical illustration of the power of words. His teacher said to him, "You are a dummy. You will never graduate. You will ...read more
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10. Guardian Angels
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
Guardian angels are real, and there can be no doubt of that, but they are not our business. We have no control over their activities, and no claim on their protection.
There are few stories more exciting than escape stories. One of my favorite kinds of movie when I was a kid was prison escape movies. They are so full of suspense, and the obstacles to overcome are enormous. There is a great need to be clever, and best of all, they are not fiction, but are based ...read more
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11. Lydia The Business Woman
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
Lydia was so grateful that Paul brought her the good news about Jesus that she immediately went into home missions. She asked Paul and his fellow laborers to come to her home. Her hospitality led to her home becoming the first church in Europe.
We may not see them very often, but they are out there in the world, and they have always been there, and in our day there number is increasing. I am not talking about UFO's but about those women who are wise in the ways of the world of wealth, and, thus, are rich and successful women ...read more
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12. Earthquakes Examined
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
The first thing I learned about earthquakes in the New Testament is that they can be completely positive with no harmful effects. Our text is a case in point. Paul and Silas are delivered from prison by the violent earthquake that opened all the doors.
It was in Santa Clara, California, in the summer of 1988 that Lavonne and I experienced our one and only earthquake. We were in a motel and the bed began to vibrate like it does when you put a quarter in the machine at the side of the bed. It only lasted a few seconds, but even that made ...read more
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13. Three Babies And A Man
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
The whole idea of discipleship is that every Christian is to be so trained that they can reproduce and train another. Reproduction is the bottom line. It is the only way the Great Commission can be fulfilled.
Maybe some of you saw the Donahue Program where he wore a special outfit designed to help men feel what it is like to be pregnant. It was an awful experience for him as he felt the pressure and the pain involved in bearing a child. The whole idea is that men just do not understand the cost of new ...read more
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14. A Baby Maker
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
It has been a major issue all through history-how can we get a baby? And this has to be a major issue in the realm of the spirit as well. We need to want to have babies for Jesus as desperately as Paul. He gave his life and suffered greatly in order to have babies for Jesus.
Men are trying to have babies. Some are experimenting with the idea of surgically implanting an embryo into the male and then surgically removing the child when it is grown enough to love on its own. But there are things even more bizarre. In 1978 science writer David Rorvik wrote In His Image. ...read more
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15. Complications Of The New Birth
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
In the spiritual realm it has always been possible to have babies after you are dead. The Apostle Paul gave birth to many new babies for the kingdom of God in his lifetime, but he has given birth to millions more after his death.
Can dead people have babies? If you think not, you have not kept up on modern technology in baby making. They can now freeze human embryos in liquid nitrogen at a temperature of 321 degrees below zero and keep them for up to 600 years, and then implant them in a woman, and she will have a baby. ...read more
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16. Practicing The Presence
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
Theologically Jesus is always present with us, but practically we experience His absence because we are not aware of that presence. He promised He would never leave us nor forsake us, but we need to become aware of His being ever present.
An atheist and a Christian were debating the value of prayer, and the atheist said, "I never pray." The Christian said, "But you must have prayed at sometime in your life." "Yes," he admitted. "I did pray once. I was on a hunting trip in the Yukon and got ...read more
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17. Fatalism Or Faith
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
America is Christian in its thinking in that we are a nation that says folly does not need to be repeated. We can learn from our mistakes and go on to change the future for the better and prevent tragedies that otherwise would be inevitable.
A young man driving through the rich part of the city could not believe his eyes when he saw a sign on a Mercedes Benz that said, "For Sale $100.00. He pulled into the driveway and went to the door, and he asked if the sign was correct. The woman assured him that it was. He asked, "Is ...read more
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18. Idolatry Is Not Dead
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
We tend to dismiss idolatry because we think only of those who have visible forms of idols. This is still a part of our world, and it is amazing that people in the modern century have been just as foolish as were the pagans in the days of the prophets.
Does it ever bother you that good things that should happen don't, and bad things that shouldn't happen do? Dr. Larry Crabb whose book Inside Out was a great seller tells of the parents who decided to enroll their 13 year daughter in a Christian school. One of the teachers introduced ...read more
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19. Educational Evangelism
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
Paul knew that nobody could be saved without the knowledge of the Gospel, and so in preaching he imparts to Jews and Gentiles alike the knowledge which can, if they believe it, lead them to eternal life in Christ.
Marcus Bach tells of vacationing in Arizona where his 7 year old son came in to the house with a snake in his pocket. "What kind of a snake is this daddy," he asked? "I don't know," he responded. "Some harmless snake suppose. You wouldn't be carrying it around if it ...read more
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20. Intellectual For Christ
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
We want to look at the only man we know of in the New Testament who rivaled Paul for the title of the greatest intellect of the New Testament. Apollos is his name, and everything about this man is a challenge to the intellect.
Arthur Constance and a friend were watching squirrels and chipmunks gathering nuts in Queens Park in Toronto and then looking for a place to bury them. He made comment to his friends that the Indians use to watch squirrels and chipmunks to gage the severity of the winter. If they were very busy ...read more
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21. Paul-A Victim Of Slander
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
Paul trying to bring peace produced as much violence that we see anywhere in the New Testament. The whole plan backfired, and now Paul is the most hated man in town.
When Irving Berlin visited London as a young man he gave the doorman at the station the largest tip of his life. He did it because when he held the door open for him he was whistling, "Alexander's Ragtime Band." That was Berlin's first big hit. That doorman was in the right ...read more
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22. Secular Salvation
Contributed on Mar 20, 2021
Secular salvation gets nobody into heaven, but it is often the stepping-stone on the way to eternal salvation. Every time we experience secular salvation we are given the opportunity to do for Christ what we could not do if we were not so spared
My father used to say that he had a piece of meat that was so tough it was like trying to eat shoe leather. I doubt that he ever knew that there was a time when Americans actually ate shoe leather. It was back in the year 1610 in the first English settlement called the Virginia Colony. The ...read more
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23. Rejecting Rejection
Contributed on Mar 22, 2021
Jesus was despised and rejected of men, but he was only rejected by the leaders of Israel, and the mob they got to support them. Paul had all this plus. He was rejected all over the world, and not just in Jerusalem and by Jews.
Paul is the most traveled man in the New Testament. He covered much of the known world of his day, and his ambition was to go to the end of the world. The furthest point West that man could then go was Spain. Spain is only mentioned twice in the New Testament, and both times by Paul in Romans 15. ...read more
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24. Christian Courtesy
Contributed on Mar 22, 2021
Paul could very well have another honor added to his impressive record. He could be considered the most courteous man in the New Testament, next to his Lord.
Timothy Eaton became the most successful business man in the history of Canada by the simple virtue of courtesy. Back in 1869, when he started his first store, he instituted a new policy. In those days a customer was almost compelled to buy something. He was coaxed and implored, and even bullied, ...read more
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25. Paul's Unique Experience
Contributed on Mar 22, 2021
This is Paul's personal testimony, and it fits nobody else in all of history. As far as the record goes, nobody else on this planet was every converted by getting knocked to the ground and blinded by the presence of Christ.
America was at war with Spain in 1898. One of the most unusual incidents in the history of naval warfare took place. One night Captain Freemont of the American ship Porter detected some strange object coming toward the ship. As it came closer he saw that it was a torpedo. Ensign Irving Gillis ...read more
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26. Spirituality And Speed
Contributed on Mar 22, 2021
God said, "Quick, leave Jerusalem immediately." God is usually not in a hurry, but in His dealings with Paul in this chapter, the name of the game is speed.
Jamie Buckingham has written 20 of the best Christian book of the past decade. And in one of them called The Last Word he tells of how, even for a Christian sometimes, everything can go rapidly wrong. He lived in a quiet country home, but it was one with an unusual water system. He had a cut off ...read more
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27. The Challenge Of Change
Contributed on Mar 22, 2021
Paul becomes an ideal subject for the study of a Christian in a world of change. He went through the most radical change of any of the Apostles in his conversion. He had the most radical change of career, and faced the most radical changes in theological commitment.
On a dark November day in 1884 the people of Chicago passing over the bridge near Clark street were surprised. Below them at the dock was a ship piled high with Christmas trees of all sizes. The news raced through the city, and soon there were reporters there sensing a story, and they ...read more
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28. Learning To Listen
Contributed on Mar 22, 2021
Listening to God's Word brings us into the kingdom, and it is by listening to it that we grow and become sanctified. That is why Jesus says to the churches in Revelation over and over, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit has to say to the churches."
Benjamin Franklin decided to take stock of him self one New Years, and try to figure out why he seemed to alienate people, and why he lost friends so easily. He discovered that one of his major flaws was that he was not willing to listen to others. He had all of the answers and was arrogant. ...read more
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29. Our Lord And Our Land
Contributed on Mar 22, 2021
Paul was proud to be a Roman citizen. It was not because the empire was perfect, but because his citizenship gave him rights that were vital to his personal dignity, and to his service for God.
Human rights is a major issue in our world today, but it is not a new issue. Even under the Roman Emperor men had rights and they were precious. The Apostle Paul was unjustly arrested. He was about to be beaten when he calmly asked the Roman Centurion in charge if it was lawful to scourge a man ...read more
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30. The Power Of Observation
Contributed on Mar 22, 2021
Paul saw many things others did not see, and his powers of observation are noted by Dr. Luke. In chapter 27 he saw a dangerous storm in the atmosphere when the captain of the ship was blind to it. He saw solutions to problems that nobody else saw.
Paul and Socrates had so many things in common. Both were trying to enrich their own people. Paul was trying to enrich the Jews, and Socrates was trying to enrich the Greeks. But both were brought to trial before the Supreme Court of their cultures on charges of corrupting the people. Both were ...read more