“For thus the Lord has commanded us, ‘I have placed You as a light for the Gentiles that You should bring salvation to the end of the earth’. And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed. And the word of the Lord was being spread through the whole region.”
Our text verses follow on the heels of Paul’s first recorded sermon in Acts. In verses 14 through 16 of this chapter we see that Paul and his companions came to Pisidian Antioch and the first Sabbath day after their arrival they went to the synagogue and sat down.
In keeping with the custom of asking visiting rabbis to speak on the scriptures, after the reading of the Law and the Prophets the officials send the invitation to Paul and Barnabas. Paul stands up and addresses the group, “Men of Israel, and you who fear God”
So as will be his method throughout his ministry, everywhere he goes he first brings the gospel to his countrymen, the Jews, and those who are called ‘God fearers’, meaning they are gentiles who have expressed belief in God and been converted into the Jewish faith.
He would later write in his letter to the church in Rome, “I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever, Amen.”
Although his call was to take the gospel to the Gentiles, this burning desire of his heart for his countrymen compelled Paul to go first to the Jew.
In every place they rejected Paul and his message, often violently, and he would then turn to the gentiles who time and time again received the gospel with gladness.
This pattern which marked the entire ministry of Paul is evident here in Pisidian Antioch, and this is what we will focus on today.
THE WORD PREACHED
Noted preacher and commentator of the past century, G. Campbell Morgan, said,
“The supreme work of the Christian minister is the work of preaching. This is a day in which one of our great perils is that of doing a thousand little things to the neglect of the one thing, which is preaching.” Preaching, Baker, 1974
I haven’t been around long enough, nor am I proficient in the knowledge of church history enough to comment on when we began to stray from that singleness of vision and purpose.
But God’s ministers of the first century did not labor under that weight of error. Preaching was their primary purpose from the day that in their individual heart and life they came to realize they served a risen Lord.
When Paul and Barnabas came to Pisidian Antioch or any other city or hamlet of their world, they did not come there to bring social reform or to involve themselves in local politics or join the local PTA so they might make contacts in the community and rub elbows with the movers and shakers so they might begin a church with the really wealthy and desirable people of the region.
They came there to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, and they went first to the place where people were gathered to worship, and they preached.
Paul’s initial approach changed with his audience. To the Jews and God-fearers in Pisidian Antioch he opened with a brief history of the Jewish nation, taking them from the exodus to the establishing of a kingdom and David, whose offspring would be the Savior.
In Acts 14 when Paul and his traveling companions arrive in Lystra God uses Paul to heal a man who had been lame and immediately the Gentiles there proclaim Barnabas to be Zeus and Paul Hermes (Messenger of the gods), and Paul is quick to refute those claims by pointing them to a living God who created all things and is Lord and Protector of all.
When He was invited to speak to the philosophers on Mars Hill in Athens he used their own religiosity as a spring-board, mentioning the idols and altars that lined the Apian Way, and beginning with what they called ‘the unknown God’, he introduced them to the Maker and Sustainer of all things who will one day Judge the world in righteousness.
But he always took it to the good news of Jesus Christ, and wherever he started from, all roads led to the cross and the empty tomb.
This is the Word that Paul preached, and he admonished those who came after him to preach the same Word, the same message, faithfully and in clarity and power.
He used the strongest language available to him in his final words to pastor Timothy:
“I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom; preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.”
In exposing the error of deceivers to Titus, Paul urged, “But as for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine” Titus 2:1
People of God, nothing has changed. God’s Word has not changed and the message of the gospel has not changed. People have not changed and their need for a Savior has not changed.
The proponents of a gentler and more palatable approach to the enlightened modern masses would lay aside the expositional preaching of sound doctrine for the sake of appeasing their hearers and keeping the crowd.
One writer and speaker from one of the mega-churches in one of America’s large cities, who has recently come into the limelight and is gaining in popularity in ecumenical circles, and is unfortunately catching the ear of many preachers across our land, has this to say about preaching:
“Unchurched people today are the ultimate consumers. We may not like it, but for every sermon we preach, they’re asking, “Am I interested in that subject or not?” If they aren’t, it doesn’t matter how effective our delivery is; their minds will check out.”
Bill Hybels, et al., Mastering Contemporary Preaching (Portland, Oreg.: Multnomah, 1989)
The implication is that in order to be effective and in order to grow our churches we need to be sure that we preach on the subjects that are going to interest them. Follow that down the road a bit and you will very quickly come to a fork and a sign post that says, “Sound Doctrine, left, Ear Tickling, right”, and if you choose the wrong road, preacher, you’re going to offend people! You’re going to lose your audience! You’re going to be labeled ‘dinosaur’, and you’ll find yourself preaching to a very small group indeed!
Listen, Christian. Paul and the preachers of the early church and those who are still preaching the Word faithfully and Biblically today, aren’t doing it to grow churches, and they aren’t doing it to gain popularity and notoriety. And they aren’t nearly as interested in what men want to hear, as in what men need to hear.
And what they need to hear, and have needed to hear from the beginning, is the proclamation of sound doctrine of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the imperative that they repent of sin, appropriate to their lives the truth of the atonement and resurrection of Christ, get saved, get baptized, and start to live holy and Godly lives.
If they’re not interested in that subject, then they are going to spend eternity in Hell, and they need to be told that too. And if they’re not interested in that subject then dust off your feet and look for someone else to preach to. Paul did. He didn’t follow them down the street pleading with them to listen, or taking a survey to find out what topic would better suit their mood or speak more directly to their personal value system or their particular brand of entertainment.
So here we have this great Apostle; certainly not his first sermon, but the first one recorded for us, and he unabashedly preaches in this synagogue the good news that the things they’ve been reading from the Law and the Prophets have come true in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.
And we see some mixed reactions to his message. The reactions will always be mixed, and as has been pointed out in your hearing more than once of late, the typical reactions will usually be widespread rejection, some curiosity, and little favorable acceptance of the gospel that leads to faith.
THE WILL EXERCISED
At the end of this lengthy sermon that began in chapter 13 verse 16, we see in verse 42 that as Paul and Barnabas were going out the people were begging that these things might be spoken to them the next Sabbath.
There’s the curiosity. That was a lot to absorb, Paul. Sounded great; we’d like to hear more of what you have to say. Can you stick around until next Saturday? Y’think?
So great was the curiosity that the following Sabbath nearly the whole city gathered to hear… what? “The Word of God” (vs 44). That’s what Paul preached. If you went to hear him you were going to hear the Word of God.
I don’t know how many people would come if it was advertised around town that Clark Tanner was going to be speaking in a public place on a given day. Probably not ‘nearly the whole city’. But whether many or a few, I would want to have the kind of reputation that people would know that what they were going to hear was the Word of God.
If someone came in and at the end of the service expressed surprise that I had preached the Word I’d be embarrassed. I’d be ashamed that I had apparently done something to deserve a reputation for preaching anything else.
But look at the reactions on this new day. The religious people are jealous. The very ones who should have been recognizing the truth and rejoicing in it, even though they were hearing the Word of God, were envious of Paul’s large audience and the fact that salvation was being preached to Gentiles, and it says they not only contradicted Paul’s words, but were blaspheming.
In the sermon they had heard just one week previously they had not been listening when he said, “For those who live in Jerusalem, and their rulers, recognizing neither Him nor the utterances of the prophets which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled these by condemning Him.” (vs 27)
If they had, they would perhaps have been able to see that they were following in the steps of those in Jerusalem who blew it.
Why is it always the religious people who are the most blind?
Well, I’ll answer that. It’s because it is religion that blinds them.
So there was curiosity and there was rejection. The next reaction we see is rejoicing.
Vs 48 “And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord…”
What did they hear that brought this rejoicing? He was quoting Isaiah. Isn’t that interesting? They were Gentiles and most had probably never heard the prophets read.
Paul is quoting the passage to those who had read it and heard it many times in the Sabbath readings, to establish the validity of the good news going out to the Gentiles.
But still they reject, and the Gentiles rejoice! Take a lesson from that Bible student. It’s not necessarily the one who studies and knows the contents of scripture who receives its message to the heart and is blessed. If your heart isn’t right you won’t gain a thing. On the other hand, the receptive heart, though ignorant in mind, can be won over by the Holy Spirit with just a crumb.
All that these folks heard was that God wanted salvation to go to the ends of the earth and they knew that included them and they started dancin’ in the street!
Now here is the common denominator in all these different reactions to the preaching of the Word of God.
They were all a deliberate exercise of the will.
This is a point vital to your safety and your spiritual welfare, whether you are a Christian or not.
When the Word of God is preached the Holy Spirit is in it. If He is not, it is not the Word of God. Because if it is the Word of God it can only be preached, only understood, only applied by the power of the Holy Spirit.
So when you hear the Word preached you are hearing God’s voice. And your response, whether it be passive curiosity and a shrug of dismissal, or out and out rejection, or glorious rejoicing, requires an act of your will.
Because of what I’m going to be saying next, I want to drive this point home as clearly as I can today, and be as certain as I can be that you understand.
Every time you listen to a preacher or teacher who is breaking Bread and feeding you the Holy Spirit inspired Word of God, and every time you sit with your Bible and begin to read it with a desire to understand, with that hearing or that reading comes automatically the opportunity, the necessity, of exercising your will, either to reject it, ignore it, or receive it and let it have its way in your life and act upon it.
If you reject the Word of God for your life, according to what Paul said here in verse 46, you judge yourself unworthy of eternal life.
Now there’s nothing passive about this kind of rejection. The word ‘repudiate’ in verse 46 means to push away, to cast away, to thrust from. It is active and it takes an exercise of the will. A decision. When you hear the Word of God and thrust it away from yourself, you deem yourself unworthy of that which is freely offered to you; eternal life.
You all know where I stand on the doctrine of our security in Christ. But this comes as a solemn warning to the born again believer in Jesus. When you are challenged by the inspired Word of God, brother, sister, do not reject it. Do not fail to surrender yourself to its life-changing force in your life. To do so is a bad plan.
Next, do not ignore God’s Word as though you hadn’t heard it. What’s the difference between rejecting and ignoring? I mean, if you ignore it isn’t that a rejection of sorts?
Yep. No doubt about that. But the fact is that even if you are not actively rejecting the message and the messenger; thrusting it away from you; even if you are listening politely but not applying it to your heart and life, you are in as much danger as the rejecter. The difference is that you’re deceiving yourself into thinking that all is well. It is not. Just because God isn’t forcing your attention doesn’t mean you won’t suffer the consequences that come with ignoring the warnings.
That is a principle as true in the spiritual realm as the physical. If the waiter brings your plate of enchiladas to the table using a padded glove and says, ‘hot plate’, no one is going to stop you from grabbing it with both hands but you are the one who is going to get burned.
Again, the third response is to receive the Word with gladness and you will soon be rejoicing and glorifying that Word.
All these are by exercise of your will in response to the Holy Spirit.
Once more I’d like you to read verse 48.
“And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.”
So here we have the other side of the coin, and it is why I wanted to be very clear about our responsibility to the hearing of God’s call.
This is possibly the clearest statement in scripture concerning divine election. God chooses who will inherit eternal life and He calls them.
That word ‘appointed’ means to ordain or to assign.
The only other use of this specific word I find in the New Testament, is in Acts 22:10 where Paul quotes Jesus as saying to him, “Arise and go into Damascus; and there you will be told of all that has been appointed for you to do.”
But there is no shortage of proof texts for this point of doctrine. I’ve selected just a few for your observation.
John 6:65 “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father.”
Colossians 3:12 “And so, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience”
II Timothy 2:10 “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.”
Titus 1:1 “Paul, a bond-servant of God, and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the faith of those chosen of God and the knowledge of the truth which is according to godliness…”
So it is clear that in His perfect knowledge from eternity to eternity God has ordained for Himself those who would inherit eternal life, and when those who have been appointed hear the good news and the call of God, they then, at some point, will exercise their own will to respond favorably and believe and be born from above.
These several verses in Acts 13, from 47 through 49 give us a complete picture of the sort of partnership God has called us to in salvation and evangelism.
Let’s look briefly at verse 49 before drawing it all together.
THE WITNESS RESULTING
“And the word of the Lord was being spread through the whole region.”
In New Testament accounts of people being saved, being justified, however the passage being considered words it, the result is always some action on the new believer’s part. Rejoicing, witnessing, testifying, worshiping, obeying God.
This very large gathering of Gentiles broke into rejoicing and glorifying… Paul? No. The Word of the Lord, as a result of hearing these words from Isaiah. And the result of their hearing and believing, and because in their hearts they were rejoicing, was that they just had to tell someone!
So the Word of the Lord was being spread through the whole region.
Now look at this circular pattern in these verses.
THE CIRCLE OF EVANGELISM
Paul said in verse 47, “For the Lord has commanded us”. He was referring to himself and Barnabas specifically, but there can be no doubt that every true believer is included in that call.
Do you know how I can be sure of that and how you can be convinced of that?
Because in Isaiah 49:6 and again here in verse 47 where Isaiah is quoted, the word ‘You’ is capitalized, indicating that both Isaiah and Luke understood this to be a declaration from God the Father to His Son. His Anointed One.
Yet Paul says God has commanded ‘us’. So if Paul knew those verses from Isaiah were a prophecy of the Christ and that God was sending Him to bring salvation to the ends of the earth, and yet appropriated that call and command to himself as God’s minister, then it spreads to the rest of us also. It’s an assignment, Christians. An appointment.
The Lord has commanded us, so we go. The message we go with is the good news. The gospel. The Word of the Lord. Got that? Not man’s philosophy, not social reform, not a really great weight loss plan, not the newest set of novels about the last days, … leave all that behind.
The message of the gospel is the power of God for salvation for all who believe. And only that message is the power of God for salvation.
So people hear it, and those God has elected believe it, and they are saved and rejoice in it, and they tell others.
God elects, God calls, men hear and believe, men rejoice and glorify the Word and tell it to others, and those among them who are God’s elect believe. The circle of evangelism.
One final word of clarification. Since only God knows who are His elect and who are not, it is not our job or privilege to make that distinction.
None of us is able or has the right to decide that someone else is rejected from the Kingdom of God.
Only two beings in the universe can decide that a person is going to Hell. God, and that person. God’s call for salvation goes out equally to everyone. The individual who hears either judges himself unworthy of eternal life and rejects the call, or he receives the news with rejoicing and glorifies the Word of the Lord.
John Calvin wrote:
“Reprobation is a biblical reality (Rom. 9:14-24; 1 Pet. 2:8), but not one that bears directly on Christian behavior. The reprobates are faceless so far as Christians are concerned, and it is not for us to try to identify them. Rather, we should live in light of the certainty that anyone may be saved if he or she will but repent and put faith in Christ.
We should view all persons that we meet as possibly being numbered among the elect.” (Institutes of the Christian Religion – J. Calvin)
So we’re talking about appointments here.
If you’ve never recognized your sin and your need for salvation and turned to Christ in saving faith, then your belief in the Gospel and rejoicing and glorifying the Word of the Lord will be your unveiling as one of the elect of God.
If you are a believer, then as one of His elect, one who has been appointed to eternal life, you now have another appointment; the same as Paul claimed in Acts 13:47 and 22:10; to join in the circle of evangelism and spread salvation to the ends of the earth.
There are innumerable ways to do that, but there is only one message. It’s the one you heard and rejoiced in. Spread it around.
You’re appointed.
