Paul, Elymus, and Paul.
Shell Point Baptist Church Sept 4 2011
“Then the proconsul, saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching of the Lord.” Acts 13:12.
We continue our journey in Acts w/Paul’s first missionary trip.
CYPRUS was by no means a reputable island—
• devoted to the goddess Venus and you can imagine what her worship was—
• What fruitful licentiousness came from it.
• It was the native country of Barnabas
As the leader of the missionary party sent by/church Antioch.
• Isn’t it fitting for Barnabas and Saul/begin preaching there.
Landing at one end of the island, the two apostolic men journeyed till they came to Paphos, where the Roman governor resided.
• Paphos was/central city of the worship of Venus and was the
scene of frequent parsimonious processions and repulsive rites.
• You might call it, “the place where Satan’s seat is.”
Athanasius styled its religion “the exaltation of lust.”
Neither men nor women could resort to the shrine of Venus without being defiled in mind and depraved in character.
Yet it was no business of the Apostles to stay away, either from
Cyprus or Paphos, the Holy Spirit had ordained their sending.
There was a special need for them to go there
• To carry the purifying waters of the Gospel.
• The more wicked the locality, more the need for Christian effort in that very spot.
•
The Holy Spirit had sent the missionaries to Cyprus
• So they safely enter the caverns of dark obscenity
• Proclaiming the word/salvation among the openly abandoned.
• They needed not to fear success, God was with them!
They claimed, Isaiah 41:10, “Fear not for I am with you, do not..
Do we have that absolute assurance in our minds?
Even the vilest people of open sin cannot compare with the heart of the doctrine of the Cross.
Let us not refuse to plow any kind of soil in our path!
• Great harvests come from broken rocks!
• God had prepared/Saul/Barnabas’ way as He prepares the way of all His servants
Whenever God sends you and me to sow, it’s not all fertile..
• part of the land we sow may be rock
• Trampled path or it may be an impossible situation.
• Yet there is always a portion which is plowed for us.
God has a prepared people wherever He sends us.
He does not mock us by sending us on fruitless errands.
Remember God sent Philip to the desert tundra!
• Philip did not find the desert isolation absent of the Spirit!
• Philip found one of the sweetest flowers that ever bloomed in the garden of the Lord! “The Ethiopian Eunuch!”
Hey, how many deserts has God sent you on?
• How many have you recognized? Have seen God move?
So now, when Barnabas and Saul come to Paphos, it’s not to break their hearts over the filthiness and obscenity of its idol worship
• It is to find for the Lord a jewel amid the corruptiveness!
And it was the chief magistrate of the island “Sergius Paul”
• He was candid, studious, prudent man.
• He possessed an intelligent and inquisitive spirit, and was desirous to know all that could be known.
This man was anxious to discover the truth if it could be discovered—he had said with Pilate, but not as Pilate, “What is truth?”
Now here comes the Rocks in the path of the sowers.
A certain Jew who was expert in the dark learning of the East and practiced sorcery had obtained considerable influence
over Sergius Paul.
• He did not teach Sergius the truth, but imparted…
• The mysteries of the Magi, superstitions of sorcery.
• Do you not think the devil had play severing the Lord’s path?
• This sorcerers name was Bar-Jesus.
• His name ironically meaning son of salvation a false prophet.
• His Greek name, “Elymas” vipers/in Satan’s realm.
Now Sergius Paul was dissatisfied with the teaching of Elymas.
• The rocks in the path are crumbling!
• It doesn’t surprise you that they are crumbling?
• God provides the path to His mission.
So Sergius Paul sent for Barnabas and Saul……
• Two men unknown to all….and the governor wants to converse with them? To teach him the Word of God.
• What a door of hope for this prudent man!
• What a splendid opening for the two preachers of Christ!
Now Barnabas and Saul can go to court in the proconsul’s palace with one of the best hearers at the center of their congregation
• For men who are prudent are the most hopeful listeners of the Gospel!
• They are not curdled in sophistication or self-righteousness.
• They are free from prejudices and open to truth.
Barnabas and Saul accepted the invitation.
• Good will surely come of such an opportunity!
• We are all looking for memorable results, but stop!—
• we must postpone our hopes, awhile, and look around upon facts.
I. Notice first, opposition TO THE FAITH.
Sometimes we do not to have it all our own way.
Elymas, “withstood them, seeking to turn them away from the faith.” This is no surprise in opposition to the gospel.
• Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses/ so Elymas opposes the ministers of Christ.
Leading someone to Christ is not just an academic exercise.
• Now is it a matter of making a successful sales pitch.
• It involves all-out war against the forces of hell.
• Satan uses this external attack to derail the mission.
Should the glad tidings be denied?
Should the Doctrine which God has given by express Revelation be held up to scorn?
Woe to the men who dare provoke God!
No man can set himself against God and against Christ without frightful peril to his own soul.
The greatest of men fall when they rebel against the Light of God.
Read Psalm 2:10, 12.
Rivers of water should run down our eyes because of the wicked who do not keep God’s Law.
• Our hearts filled with horror at the blasphemy and presumption of those who set themselves with deliberate intent to oppose the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ—
• Especially when they do it knowing something about it
To oppose Truth when it is seen to be Truth, and to shut the eyes to the Light of God when it is admitted to be Light, is a heinous offense against the God of Truth and He will certainly avenge it.
Let us pity with all our hearts the men who oppose the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ!
• Let us pray for their conversion as in Sergius Paul.
If half the talk in this country for the unbelievers wishing to exercise the rights of American citizens were spent in prayer for their conversion, and not talk about them, it would have been more profitable use of time and would have been far more likely to bring down God’s hand of blessing upon the nation.
• We are too apt to ban and curse antagonists instead of pitying and praying for them.
• It is not yours and mine to shut the door in any man’s face,
• however depraved they may be!
• We are to stand and implore them to come to the Savior,
•
Sometimes those who were the most opposed to Christ have been the first to yield and have become the bravest champions of the faith!
• Saul of Tarsus, himself, here he is opposed by Elymas,
• Wasn’t he a furious enemy of that Gospel which now he earnestly proclaimed
• And this fact must have sustained his courage under the sorcerer’s attack.
Elymas willfully perverted the right ways of the Lord with premeditated malice, to keep back an enquiring soul from the true faith.
Notice that opposition is eminently overruled for good
• It would be unbecoming in us to lament or dread it.
• Never think of opposition so bad that you need to cease your testimony, tone it down, or omit a portion of it!
•
Paul said in 1 Corinthians that “a great door for effective work will open for you, but there will be many adversaries.”
• It would seem that the second clause is as good a sign of success as the first!
• Wherever there is likely to be great success in your path.
• the open door and the opposing adversaries will both be found.
• If there are no adversaries, you may fear that there will be no success.
A boy cannot get his kite up without wind, nor without a wind which drives against his kite. A contrary wind does much more for us than we suppose.
• Adversaries advertise the Gospel and so spread it!
• Opposing work, although in itself, evil, is wondrously overruled by God for the best purposes
• persecution often awakens natural sympathy, and this becomes a ladder by which love climbs up into the heart.
•
The devil is growing a little wiser than he used to be, but he still remains a fool, for if he looked back over his own history, he would see that he has been the means of spreading the Gospel by the attacks which he has made upon it!
• Look at the stoning of Stephen! Imprisonment of Peter….
• The great stone Satan placed in Herod!
“Divide and conquer,” said Satan—he divided—but he did not conquer! His raging winds simply carried the precious seed of Divine Truth!
Every uproar Satan raises speeds onward the boat of the Church!
Now, look! Saul of Tarsus desires to preach and tell Sergius Paul about the eternal Truth of God
• And Elymas must interfere. “What good could that be?” “How can that be overruled?”
• It was overruled—the Lord made the wrath of man to praise Him and brought to nothing the subtlety of Elymas!
In all probability, the opposition of Bar-Jesus may have called the attention of Sergius Paul more intently to the Doctrine of the Word of God.
This Elymas finds fault with the Gospel
• Saul and Barnabas are called to clear up the issue
• by refuting the magician’s malicious errors
• they make the Truth of God more apparent to the mind of the proconsul!
So far so good. But this man’s opposition was overruled when Saul looked at him and pronounced upon him the solemn judgment of God
• that he should be blind/should not see/sun for a season
• then the proconsul saw what power attended the Word of the Lord
• he saw how truly it came forth from the Almighty!
God, by that solemn judgment, set His seal to the Truth and let all men know that it could not be reviled.
Blinded Elymas, seeking someone to lead him by the hand, was a visible witness for the Truth against which he had fought!
• His sightless eyes were a just judgment from God.
• He had shut the eyes of his mind to the Truth of God
• As he groped for the wall, he was, against his will, a most convincing witness to the Truth of the Gospel—
• And of the Divine commission of Barnabas and Saul!
•
Depend upon it SPBC, the Lord will baffle all opposers
• He will establish His Truth above all of men
• His adversaries
• He will confound and confuse unbelieving people
• their blindness shall bear evidence to the light of His Word,
• Which blinds the proud and self-sufficient.
• Men will again see how “professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”
This Elymas, being overthrown, made the victory of Christ to be the more conspicuous.
How can Barnabas and Saul hope to destroy his influence and establish the Cross of Christ in its stead?
• Saul drew forth the sword of the Spirit
• Paul told him plainly he was the son of the devil
• The victory was speedy and the vanquished sorcerer begged for help to make a retreat!
Courage then, Brothers and Sisters, whenever you are trying to serve your Lord!
• If you are troubled, take heart/hope that a great victory/ near!
• Satan will leave you alone if you were doing nothing of any consequence against his kingdom.
• But as he fears you, he attacks you.
• Since he sees you to be a living servant of the Lord, he raises up an Elymas, with smooth and slippery tongue, to speak against you.
Be bold, you will find even the most crafty and cruel enemy to be the unwilling agent of bringing greater glory to God!
• Be not afraid of a man that shall die
• Go forward resting in the Lord, for greater is He who is for you than all they that are against you!
• With a brave heart defy all opposers, crying,
• “I will trust and not be afraid.”
• Never let us be discouraged, for the Lord is on our side.
• What can man do to us?
Look forward with the expectation that wherever the Gospel triumphs, it will meet with opposition
and wherever it is opposed, it will win the victory!
II. We are done with the opposition; now let us consider certain AIDS TO FAITH.
Sergius Paul, “when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the Doctrine of the Lord.”
Kindly notice the words I have selected to this second part of my discourse—“aids to faith.”
I have not called it miracles, causes of faith, for they do not cause it, although they may lead up to it.
What Sergius Paulus saw did not make him believe, but it helped him to believe.
• What did he see? He saw what was done.
• First, He saw the great courage of Paul.
Saul of Tarsus, fixed his eyes/Elymas with confidence/situation
• as indeed he was—and without hesitation, or apology, addressed him,
• “You are a child of the devil, and an enemy of everything that is right.”
What made Paul bear himself so bravely? So boldly?
What had given courage to Paul to come into the front and speak like a hero, as he was?
Brothers, I believe the courage of the saints is made a great blessing to undecided and trembling spirits.
Therefore, when you go to teach and preach, never exhibit doubt or fear.
• The man who himself doubts, may bring about doubters,
• The Psalmist’s statement, “I believed, therefore have I spoken,”, is a wise one!
Intense conviction on the mind of Paul led him to speak plainly, sternly and even indignantly.
• His warmth was not the heat of his own spirit
• but the fire of the Spirit of God
• For we read that he was filled with the Holy Spirit!
Let every teacher of Christ be filled and then let him speak boldly to the power of Christ!
Don’t come forward with your “ifs” and “buts” and “perhapses,” to prove Gospel of Jesus Christ!
Tell the message God has told you, as from Him, and not as your own opinion!
Deliver sound Doctrine because you have been delivered to it,
• Speak because you cannot be silent!
• Speak because the Holy Spirit has stirred you
• Speak of the fire of the Spirit burns within you.
• Speak out your soul before the sons of men!
•
It must have been an aid to Sergius Paul’s faith to have seen the fearless outspokenness of the greater Paul.
But when he saw Elymas blinded, that gave a further impulse to him.
When God works in judgments among the sons of men,
• many are astonished
• many are inclined to hear what this Word may be
• The Word that bears a seal from the God of Judgment.
•
Many of us have seen men die in their sins.
• Many have seen the drunk in his rags, possibly in the streets, at home.
• Some have seen the unchaste diseased in the despairing soul.
• We have seen the decadence in poverty and dishonor.
• We have seen the sluggard hungry and homeless.
We have learned the result of sin upon other men if we have never felt it upon ourselves.
The blinded Elymas is not before us, today, but we know that the narrative is true and, therefore, without our actually seeing it, the lesson should come home to every thoughtful mind.
We have seen how the sins of our neighbor have come to him and what sin can do to the fabric of our manhood!
We have seen with our own eyes instances that ought to create in us a horror of all evil and incline us to hear what the remedy of sin may be.
He that has once seen the sickness will long to know the antidote.
• The antidote, the cure is Jesus Christ.
• The one and only Savior of the world!
•
Blessed be His name
I cannot show you, today, a man blinded because he refused the Gospel.
But I can show you a great many whose eyes have been opened by receiving the Gospel!
• They did not believe it, nor wished to know anything about it
• but they were persuaded to come and hear the Word of God preached
• And while they listened, there fell from their eyes the scales of understanding , and they began to see!
The glorious Light of God which gleams from Jesus’ brow was suddenly visible!
The Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ came streaming into their once darkened minds and they saw and believed!
Many of us who are now present were once as blind as bats to the saving Truth of God,
• we have been brought out /darkness into marvelous light
• and we gladly bear our testimony to the power of saving Grace!
I, for one, can say, “One thing I know, that I was blind, now I see!”
• What I could not understand is now clear to me!
• What I could not receive has now stamped itself upon my very being, to my heart’s intense joy!
I know, Brothers and Sisters, that tens of you would rise if I ask you to testify of how the Lord has renewed you in the spirit of your minds and has brought you into spiritual life, light, and liberty!
• Glory be to God for it!
• It ought to be a great help to enquiring minds when they see numerous conversions all around them
• for conversions are the standing miracles of the Gospel,
and if any man will only look into them and consider them, he will perceive that they are the best attesting seals the Truth of God can have!
I knew a man once who had a fierce temper—a troubler to his own household when he happened to fall into his fits.
I should not like to tell all the wild things which he would do.
I have seen that man, since conversion—and he has had things to test him, provoking the saint.
• But he bore them patiently and in a manner which his brothers would desire to imitate!
• The lion has become a lamb!
• He is gentle and tender—no one could think that he was the same man!
• Indeed, he is not, for Grace has made him a new man in Christ Jesus!
•
Have you not seen persons reveling in licentiousness who sinned greedily, who could not be satisfied with any common Sin
• Then they hear the Gospel and become delicate in purity, and the very mention of their former crimes shocks them and makes them weep!
They have been afraid to go near their old ways, or to mix with their old companions.
This singular phenomenon of regeneration is not to be denied, for its witnesses are countless!
These people, worked by the finger of God and proofs the Gospel is supernatural and true.
III. Lastly, let us observe THE SOURCE OF FAITH. “Then the proconsul, when he saw what was done, believed, being astonished at the Doctrine of the Lord.”
It is Doctrine, then, or faithful teaching, which brings men
to Christ.
• Let those who despise the Doctrine of God mind what they are doing, for the Doctrine of the Cross is only foolishness to them who perish!
• Under the influence of the Holy Spirit, the plain teaching of the Word of the Lord leads men to believe in Jesus!
• I do not think it is any good for a preacher to stand up and cry, “Believe, believe, believe,” if he never tells you what is to be believed!
Poor souls say,
• “We are ready to believe, but tell us what to believe!
• We are ready to trust, but tell us what to trust in!”
If we do not preach the great Doctrine of the atoning Sacrifice.
• If we do not lift up Christ as suffering in man’s place
• we have not put before them the basis on which their faith is to be built!
Justification by faith and regeneration by the Spirit must be continually taught.
The proconsul was, no doubt, astonished to see Elymas blinded, but he was a great deal more astonished at the Doctrine which Paul preached
When he heard this good news, he might well be astonished and yielded his heart to Jesus!
Dear Friends, the most astonishing thing in the world is the Gospel!
“We have heard it for a long time,” says one. Have you?
• You may have listened to it for years
• and all the while it may have gone in and out of your ears
• and you still may have never have heard it.
Listen! In the Gospel, God is just and yet merciful!
• In the Gospel, everything is of Grace
• there is no respect to human merit or human virtue
• God gives freely to undeserving sinners!
• There is nothing like the Gospel for fostering holiness and making men zealous for good works.
• It creates good works as the fruit of that life.
• All the really good works in the world are fashioned upon the anvil of Free Grace.
• Nothing ever produces holiness but faith in the Holy Savior.
It is the glory of the Gospel that it can, at one blow, save the sinner and slay his sin, absolve the rebel and end his rebellion.
This supernatural effect is not produced for a short time, only, but forever!
The Gospel does not renew a sinner for a season
• and then leave him to relapse
• it gives an endless life
• implants a deathless principle
• and secures ultimate perfection.
It is written, “He that believes and is baptized shall be saved.”
“He that believes in the Son has everlasting life”
• not a life that comes and goes
• But a life that endures to all eternity!
• All this can be done in a minute
• Heavenly life commences in less time than it takes your clock to tick
• is not this an astonishing work of the Holy Spirit
As Sergius Paul heard of this, he was amazed and believed—do you wonder?
Here is a Doctrine which is always news, always glad tidings—
• hear and your soul shall live!
• Turn from it and you will perish!
• Angels have not yet grown weary of gazing into the depths of the Gospel.
Come then, my Hearers, come and candidly study what is to be believed!
• Come and be astonished at the Doctrine of Christ Crucified!
• Incline your ears, awaken your minds and yield your hearts!
• Be eager to be instructed of the Holy Spirit who waits to teach you.
• If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land!
• If you desire to know God, you shall know Him!
• The great Father is not far from any of you.
• There is the light! It is not dim, nor far away.
• The fault is in your eyes if you do not see.
Oh, that your prayer would be, “Lord, that I might receive my sight.”
Then you would see and believe—and live forever!
God grant it this very morning, to the praise of the glory of His Grace.
The Rest of the Story!
Sergius Paul was one of the great ones of the earth—in those days comparable to a king—and when he believed, it was a
noble gain to the cause!
Saul, after such a glorious winning of Sergius Paul for Christ, might himself become Paul.
Although we aren’t told why there was a shift, here is a possibility:
Saul was also the name of the first human king of Israel (God was the first king) that Saul was very tall (1Sam. 9:2) and he also became a very bad king .
King Saul was a good king when he was ‘small in his own eyes’ (1Sam. 15:17) when he was a humble person.
When he became proud he became a wicked king.
In contrast, Paul means little or small — perhaps Paul himself instigated the shift from being referred to as Saul to being referred to as Paul because once he had been a bad person, proud (Phil. 3:4-6), like king Saul, but now he was a Christian trying to be humble (Phil. 3:7-11).
Perhaps he saw ‘Paul’ now as the more fitting of his names.
Another possibility is that Paul chose ‘Paul’ over ‘Saul’ because he was, by and large, a preacher to gentiles (Rom. 11:13), so his gentile name would possibly be more preferable in such circumstances.
regardless, the shift occurred in this morning’s text.
We will find out when we reach our heavenly home.
