Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: Well, let's take our Bibles this evening and open them to the Book of Acts chapter 18 and verse 27. We're going to cover verses 27 and 28 this evening. I have a little announcement to make at the end, so if I forget to make it, will you guys remind me?

So here we are in the Book of Acts. The outline of the book, I think, is recorded in Acts 1:8, where Luke records Jesus' words that you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem—that's chapters 1 through 7; Judea and Samaria—chapters 8 through 12; and then the remote parts of the earth—that's chapters 13 through 28.

That third part is the longest part of the Book of Acts, and you can see it has several subparts. We are towards the bottom there of that outline where we're on Paul's third missionary journey. We just started it last week. There's what it looks like. This is a section that starts in chapter 18, verse 23, and goes through the middle of chapter 21.

There is where he went. He always leaves from Antioch. The blue line is the trip out, the red line is the trip back, and he's left Antioch for the last time. He won't see Antioch again. This one will end in Jerusalem, and as he heads to Jerusalem, he will be warned not to go to Jerusalem because he's going to be arrested. He went anyway, was arrested, and that's actually how the book will end with him getting the gospel all the way to Rome. So that's coming.

He started off from Antioch on this third missionary journey, traveled through Galatia and Phrygia, which we studied last time. There is Galatia that he traveled through, and then right next to it is Phrygia. He's making his way to Ephesus, which is right here. He's leaving from Antioch. Then we hit chapter 18, verse 24, and we start probably his most fruitful, productive ministry as an apostle. Other than writing his books, his ministry in Ephesus, chapter 18, verse 24, through chapter 19, verse 41.

Here is Paul making his way to Ephesus, and here is another map showing you exactly where Ephesus is, the red circle there. It's kind of interesting the way Luke does this. He records some things happening in Ephesus before Paul gets there. The first one is the conversion—well, maybe it's not a conversion, but a man named Apollos is brought into a full theological understanding of Jesus. His information was limited.

That story or account is going to pave way to chapter 19, verses 1 through 7, where there's going to be some people that are unsaved. Apollos is saved, he just doesn't have the full picture. Chapter 19, verses 1 through 7, record some people that are unsaved. Their salvation is recorded there. Those two accounts kind of go together: Apollos being brought to a fuller understanding, chapter 18, verses 24 through 28, then some people get there in Ephesus that were unsaved, they're brought to Christ, and then Paul shows up.

So that's where we are, right there, studying Apollos. The people that are unsaved that get saved are John's disciples. Apollos is a disciple of John the Baptist, but he was a believer, we think. The folks coming in chapter 19, verses 1 through 7, for a lot of reasons, are also disciples of John the Baptist, but they're unsaved.

Apollos is brought to full understanding, and that dovetails into chapter 19, verses 1 through 7, where some unsaved people get saved. Why is this stuff here? It's there to show us the development of the church. The church has developed now to the point where people with just an Old Testament understanding are brought to full light. Saved are brought to full theology—Apollos—and then some people that are unsaved are brought to salvation.

Luke is recording these two accounts; they sort of go together to describe the birth and the growth of the church in every conceivable way. Last time we were together, we were talking about this man Apollos. Here's an outline of verses 24 through 28. Some of this is review. Apollos was introduced to us in verse 24. He was a Jew. He was from Alexandria, Egypt, which was known for its education, library, and the translation of the LXX, which is the Septuagint—the Greek translation of Hebrew Bible created a couple centuries before Jesus even showed up.

This man Apollos, verse 24, was very eloquent. He had the gift of gab. He was a debater and he was mighty in the scriptures, meaning that he was extremely effective with what he knew. But verse 25, as we studied last time, he didn't have a complete understanding. The only thing he really understood was the ministry of John the Baptist to the point where John the Baptist identified Jesus as the coming Messiah.

He didn't have any knowledge of the death of Christ, the burial of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, the ascension of Christ. He had no knowledge of the birthday of the church, the body of Christ that started in Acts chapter 2. He was a believer in the Old Testament sense of the word. He believed in a coming Messiah. We might call him Apollos, an Old Testament saint, and he was extremely effective with what he understood or with what he knew.

It's kind of like telling Larry Bird you can play the first quarter with your left hand. He did that, by the way. He told the other team he was going to do it, and he did it. He played the whole first quarter with his left hand and played very well. But can you imagine Larry Bird with his left hand and his right hand, how much more effective he would be? That's sort of how to understand Apollos. He was knowledgeable in the scripture, had a tremendous education coming out of Alexandria, Egypt.

He was probably in the land of Israel to see John the Baptist, who Jesus would later call the greatest prophet of the Old Testament age, point Jesus out as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world. Then Apollos probably left Israel and went back to Alexandria. Here he shows up in Ephesus, debating with unbelieving Jews in the synagogue. He would go to the synagogue because he was Jewish himself and he was extremely effective, but he had a very limited understanding.

If this guy is this good with part of the story, how much more effective is he going to be with the complete picture? That's why Paul, as directed by the Holy Spirit on the second missionary journey as he was traveling through Ephesus, left Priscilla and Aquila behind in that very synagogue and in that Ephesus area because Priscilla and Aquila, a husband and wife team, are going to see this man Apollos, brimming with potential. They're going to take him aside and they're going to teach him the way of God more completely. Then Apollos will be not just effective, but ultra-effective, understanding the full story.

This is what Apollos understood: John the Baptist saying, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," pointing to Jesus. After that, that's all he knew. Arnold Fruchtenbaum says his, Apollos's, basic message was that John was the forerunner of the Messiah, that he had pointed out Yeshua—a Hebrew name for Jesus—as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world, and Yeshua was the Messiah. Apollos understood all of that, but that was as much as Apollos knew because he only knew the baptism of John.

When John gave his message, he baptized people. That's why he's called John the Baptist, John the baptizing one. People that publicly identified with John's message were baptized by John. Apollos was one of those guys. His knowledge was incomplete, though, in that he did not know about the death, burial, and resurrection of Yeshua. For that reason, he did not have the believer's baptism, only John's baptism.

When a person gets saved in the church age, they're looking back at what Jesus did for them. Baptism doesn't save them, but it identifies them publicly with Christ's message. We're thrilled; we're going to be baptizing 24 people this Sunday in Sugar Land Bible Church, right in that box right there. Did you guys know that there's a baptismal pool in there? It's a little smaller than the Karsas pool, but we're going to get it done. We're going to get it done 15 minutes after our service.

I invite you to stick around for that. You've got to come here to see it because we're not livestreaming our first attempt at this. Apollos had John the Baptist's baptism only. Those who were baptized by John committed themselves to accept whomever he pointed out to be the Messiah, which John the Baptist did. Apollos had done this. However, he probably left the land of Israel to go back to Alexandria without ever finding out how the rest of the story developed.

There's a Priscilla and Aquila telling him the rest of the story, taking him aside and completing the picture for him. Now Larry Bird is playing with his left hand and his right hand. Apollos goes right back into that synagogue and he has an even more fruitful ministry of evangelism and debate, contesting with the unbelieving Jews. He gets this further education through Priscilla and Aquila.

That's where we left it off last time, and now Apollos wants to leave Ephesus and go across the Aegean Sea to Achaia, nearby Corinth. We pick it up there with his transition to Corinth. That's the first part of verse 27. Notice first of all his journey to Achaia. Verse 27 says, "And when he wanted to go across to Achaia, the brethren encouraged him and wrote the disciples to welcome him; and when he arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace."

He wants to leave Ephesus after getting the whole picture and he wants to go across, it says, to Achaia. There's Ephesus here where he was, and he wants to go over here to Achaia. When it says across, it means across the Aegean Sea. Here's another map that shows you those two places. Here's Ephesus where he was. Here's Achaia; it's that big area there, like a county. One of the cities that he's going to have a very prominent ministry in is Corinth. When it says across, it's across the Aegean Sea. Did he take the land route, did he take the sea route? I'm not sure it really says, but that's where he's going.

It's kind of interesting that when he wants to go, the brethren—that would be the fellow believers there in Ephesus—encourage him. You see that in verse 27: "the brethren encouraged him." That word encouraged is so important because we desperately need that in the body of Christ. We need encouragement. The reason we need encouragement is we're living in the devil's world where we're perpetually being worn down by the world, the flesh, and the devil. It can get very discouraging.

To remedy that, God has actually put a spiritual gift into the body of Christ called the gift of encouragement. You see that described in Romans 12, verses 6 through 8, as it describes the various gifts of the Spirit. All of the gifts of the Spirit have as a target somebody else. When God gave you a gift, he intended to bless others through your use of that gift.

It says, "Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; or he who exhorts"—some translate that encourage—"in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness."

It's kind of like a softball team in the sense that everybody takes a turn at bat, but some people are good at it and they can hit the ball a lot further than others. Those are people that are gifted in those areas. We're all called to give, but some people are particularly gifted in that. We're all called to encourage. We're all called to show mercy. But some people are particularly good at it. We're all called to exercise faith, but some people are particularly good at it. That's how you start to discover what your spiritual gift is.

We're supposed to be encouragers of each other. When one suffers, everyone suffers. When one rejoices, everyone rejoices. It's like getting some kind of problem in my foot. I could have a pebble or something in my shoe, and my whole being is suffering until I get rid of this pebble. That's how the body of Christ is really supposed to function. If someone is elevated, we should all be happy for that person and not jealous.

When someone is down, we should all feel some kind of empathy, sympathy, or compassion because we're part of a body. We're connected one to another. I need your spiritual gifts, and you need my spiritual gifts, and the person sitting next to you needs your gifts, and vice versa. This whole subject of encouragement is big. It's so important that God put a spiritual gift in the body called the gift of encouragement.

Some people think that their spiritual gift is the gift of criticism, and criticism is not on the list. It is so easy to go into any situation, particularly in the church world, and find something wrong. That doesn't take an awful lot of ability to do that and point it out and magnify it. But it really takes a different kind of person to sense, "Yeah, maybe I don't like this or that," but you know what? God is working here, and I'm going to support, I'm going to encourage what God is doing, rather than constantly pointing out what's wrong.

There's nothing wrong with pointing out problems at appropriate space and time. I just sometimes wonder in the church world if criticism takes precedence over encouragement. As I'm reading the New Testament, I'm not seeing a lot there about criticism. What I'm seeing a lot about though is encouragement—encouraging the brethren. That's what they did with this man Apollos. He wanted to go to Achaia, he now had a complete understanding, and the brethren encouraged him. They actually wrote a letter of recommendation for him.

You see that in verse 27: "the brethren encouraged him and wrote to the disciples"—that would be in Achaia—"to welcome him." Wouldn't you like to read that letter? How did they write that? It's been 2,000 years; we don't have a record of it anymore. It's a lost letter. There are those places in the New Testament that tell us about lost letters—letters Paul wrote that we don't have. We don't have everything Paul wrote.

In 1 Corinthians 5:9, he wrote a letter that we have no record of, but he refers to it there. He says, "I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with immoral people." Then there's another letter Paul wrote. Boy, if any of them I'd love to read, it would be this one. It's called the painful letter, the sorrowful letter he calls it, where he just took the Corinthians and took them to task. I wouldn't mind having a copy of that, but we don't have it.

It's referenced in 2 Corinthians 2:4. He says, "For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears; not so much that you would be made sorrowful, but that you might know the love which I have especially for you." He refers to that same letter in 2 Corinthians 7:12: "So although I wrote to you, it was not for the sake of the offender nor for the sake of the one offended, but that your earnestness on our behalf might be made known to you in the sight of God."

What we do have is Paul's 13 letters. Those have been preserved for us. You might think to yourself, "Well, do we have incomplete information? Why can't we have all the letters?" This is where we have a doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture. We don't have everything, but what God has allowed us to preserve over the last 2,000 years is enough to equip us for all matters of faith, practice, and godliness.

We have this promise here in 2 Timothy 3, verses 15 through 17: "and that you have known from childhood the sacred writings"—Paul writing to Timothy—"which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequately equipped for every good work."

Do I know everything there is to know about every letter that was circulating in that time? No, I don't. But God has preserved enough of the scripture to equip me for every good work. What I have will teach me how to come to Christ. What I have will teach me how to grow in Christ and it will equip me for every good work that God has for me. So you shouldn't feel gipped or slighted just because you read about some letter in the Bible that we don't have anymore.

In fact, there was a ton of stuff that Jesus said and did that we have no record of today. John makes reference to this at the end of his book. He says in John 20, verses 30 and 31, "Therefore many other signs"—the John's Gospel gives us seven signs, and then his resurrection, and then the miraculous catch of fish at the end, maybe nine signs total—John says there was a lot of other stuff he did that I saw. He says, "Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book"—John's Gospel.

Well, gee, I feel cheated. Well, John says don't worry about it: "these"—the seven or nine, however you count it—"these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in His name." John says don't worry about it; what you have is enough. It's sufficient. It's sufficient to lead you to Christ, it's sufficient to give you the gospel, it's sufficient for you to believe the gospel and have eternal life, it's sufficient for you to grow in Christ. So this is what we call the sufficiency of the scripture.

In fact, at the very, very end of his Gospel, in the next chapter, it's in chapter 21, the very last verse, you start to see why John didn't give us everything. John was an eyewitness for three years. He could have written on and on and on, but he didn't. He says at the very end of his Gospel, "And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that could be written."

So he's using hyperbole there to say, "If I told you everything, your Bible wouldn't be this big; it would be like the tax code from the federal government or something." It would just go on and on and on. In one sense, I'm sort of grateful we don't have everything because you wouldn't be able to consume, literally, everything that Jesus said or did. But what you have is enough. It's enough to accomplish God's work and God's will in your life.

Rather than pouting about what we don't have, rejoice in what we do have. Most Christians haven't even read what we do have. Do you realize that? Very few Christians have actually read the Bible, like started at the beginning and read the whole thing. Very few Christians, statistically, have done that. I would encourage you to do that. Take a chapter or two a day and go for it. There's all kinds of Bible reading plans you can get on. Do at least that. Even if you don't understand every little thing in it, at least say, "I've read the Bible." Don't depend on your preacher, because your preacher can't cover it all. How long have we been in the book of Exodus on Sundays? Are we ever going to teach anything besides Exodus? Well, if I live long enough, we will.

So praise the Lord, a letter goes out. We pick it up there with the second part of verse 27. He wrote this letter, the saints in Achaia welcomed him, and it says at the end of verse 27—and this is now describing what he did in Achaia, specifically Corinth—"And when he arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace." Then if you look at verse 28: "for he powerfully refuted the Jews in public"—this is Larry Bird with two hands now—"by demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ."

One of the things to notice here is there's two kinds of ministries being activated in Apollos's life. Number one, he has a ministry to the saved, verse 27. Number two, he's got a ministry to the unsaved, that's in verse 28. The first one we would call a ministry of edification, the second one we would call a ministry of evangelism. So, as you know, there are different gifts placed in the body of Christ. Some are evangelists, some are pastors and teachers.

Paul writes in Ephesians 4, verses 11 through 16: "He gave some as apostles and prophets"—now those are the foundations of the church. You build a foundation once (Ephesians 2:20). So people, when they introduce themselves to me as, "I'm apostle so-and-so," I usually say, "Wow, you look good for your age," because you probably should be 2,000 years old because Christ built the church on the apostles, and that ministry's over.

"Some as evangelists"—those are people that lead unsaved to Christ. And then there's ministries like I do: pastor-teacher is the way it actually reads in the Greek. You've got the Granville Sharp rule at work there with the definite article, two nouns. The definite article in front of the first noun, and they're joined by a conjunction "and"—like "kai" in Greek—meaning the two nouns are equal. Meaning there's a spiritual gift in the body of Christ called pastor-teacher.

There are pastors, and then there are teachers, and then there's pastor-teacher, which is a unique gift that is needed to bring the body of Christ into maturity, as the rest of this paragraph explains. "For the equipping of the saints"—see that? Pastor-teacher's working with the saints, saved people. "For the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ." That's where we start learning that the ministry doesn't just belong to the preacher and the piano player, but belongs to the body. God has gifted us all uniquely to do different things within his body.

As we work together in harmony with each other—just like my body right now is working in harmony with other parts. My hand is not off here doing its own thing. It's working in harmony with everything else that's going on with my physical body. That's how the body of Christ is supposed to work. This is consistent use of the gift of pastor-teacher, which is basically the ability to teach the Bible in a way that's understandable and applicational so people can grow.

As that gift is consistently employed, people start maturing "for the building up of the body of Christ." It talks about what maturity looks like: "until we all attain unity"—we're not bickering with each other over every little thing—"and of the knowledge of the Son of God"—I've got more than a John 3:16 knowledge of God now; I'm growing in my knowledge of God—"to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming."

Immature Christians are like children; everything they see on the ground they put in their mouth. If it's on the ground, it goes in the mouth as the infant is crawling around. They have no capacity for, "Well, that's bad for me, that's good for me. I shouldn't eat that, I should eat that." It just goes in the mouth. That's how a baby Christian is. Everything they hear from some someone that has the gift of gab—those are the three G's in ministry, right? The gift of gab, good looks, and a guitar. If they hear something they like from someone with the three G's, they just absorb it as gospel truth.

But as you grow as a Christian, you start to discern. You have a grid saying, "Well, that doesn't sound right," and, "that part over there does sound right." So you're not just putting everything in your mouth; you're discerning because there's people out there trying to trick you, this says. They're trying to fool you. It doesn't really tell us why their motives are—probably popularity or prosperity—but you just say, "You know, someone has a big following, and they have a YouTube channel with a million subscribers, and they've got a million followers on X, and they're at the top of the Amazon bestseller list, but you know what? Some of the stuff they say is wrong, and I know that because I can compare what they say to the Bible." An immature Christian doesn't do that. They just absorb everything as true.

And then as we grow, we can speak the truth in love, and that's a tough one. Speaking the truth is easy if you don't care about love, and being loving is easy if you don't care about truth. But Jesus was both. The woman caught in adultery: he never told her what you're doing is fine. He said, "Leave your life of sin," but then at the same time, as you know, he wrote on the ground. What was he writing on the ground? I don't know, the Bible doesn't say. Maybe John knows, because he said there was many other things he said or did which are not recorded.

But he could have been writing on the ground—this is all in John 8—the sins of people that were wanting to throw stones at the woman, saying, "You want to condemn her, what about your sin?" That's a plausible conjecture. But the accusers all left, and then Jesus says to her, "Where are your accusers? Neither do I condemn you." That's love. But then he said, "Leave your life of sin." That's truth. He was both.

I say, "Lord, whatever you've got to do, I want to be like that. I want to be able to speak the truth in love." It's hard. The mature do it; the immature can't. We speak the truth in love, we grow up in all aspects to Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body is fitted together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part—meaning the ministry belongs to all of us—and this causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.

You see the brethren loving Apollos. Priscilla and Aquila loved him enough to take him aside and explain the full picture to him. And the brethren loved him enough to encourage him in his ministry. And the brethren loved him enough to write a letter of recommendation for him as he moved to Achaia. So he gets to Achaia, he gets to Corinth, and he does two ministries. He's got a ministry to the saved, verse 27, a ministry to the unsaved.

Look at what he does amongst the saved. Verse 27: "and when he arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace." So he's ministering here in an Ephesians 4 kind of way to the saved. These are people that had believed through grace. Now, again, how many conditions are necessary to get saved? It says they believed. It didn't say they walked an aisle, or raised a hand, or filled out a card, or repented of all their known sins, or all of these conditions that the religious world puts on people.

It's just they believed, which means they trusted in the provision of Jesus Christ for salvation. Your Bible says this 150 times. Lewis Sperry Chafer writes upwards of 150 passages of scripture condition salvation upon believing only. One of the most famous is Genesis 15:6: "Then he, Abram, believed in the Lord; and He," that's the Lord, "reckoned it to him as righteousness." All he did was trust what God said, and he was saved.

John 3:16 you know: "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life." There's only one condition necessary for justification. And then we've already studied the Philippian jailer, Acts 16:30 and 31: "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" They—Paul and Silas—said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved."

Why does God do it this way? Because faith is the one thing you can do in the mind of God that is non-meritorious. It's the one thing in the mind of God that the lost sinner can do which is not a work. If justification was resting on any other thing in addition or besides faith, then that's a work. I raise my hand. I filled out the card. I walked the aisle. I had courage. I had willpower. I, I, I, I—bad case of the I's. But when you trust Christ, that's not a work. So "I" is taken out of the equation because all you really did is you received a gift.

This is what Romans 4, verses 4 and 5 clearly say: "Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor"—you don't show up at work and get your paycheck and say, "Thanks for the gift," because you logged in hours. So salvation doesn't work that way. "Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work but believes"—see that? What is the one thing a lost sinner can do that's not a work before God is to believe according to that verse. And not just believe, but believe in Him. You've got to have it in the right object. "Who justifies"—declares righteous, in other words—"the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness."

So it's in that sense we become the spiritual seed of Abraham because he was saved just like we are. The only difference is he was looking forward to a Messiah that would come—he didn't know his name—and he was saved on credit because it hadn't been paid for yet. Our only difference with us is we're looking backwards 2,000 years; he was looking forward 2,000 years. We do know his name, and we're not saved on credit because it's been paid for. But both parties, whether it's Abraham or us, are justified the exact same way.

That's what Galatians 3 is talking about when it says we're the seed of Abraham. It's not the way the replacement theologians are now trying to hijack the verse and make it sound like we take Israel's place in God's eschatological plan. That's not what Galatians 3 is talking about at all. It's just saying we're justified the exact same way as Abraham was justified. The promise at the end of the chapter is singular. We don't take over Israel's place the way the Tucker Carlsons of the world want that to read. It's just saying we're justified like Abraham was, by faith alone.

And that's Paul's way of saying this plan of salvation by faith alone is not something new. Don't think it's a New Testament plan. It is in the New Testament and it's most developed in the New Testament, but that's as old as Abraham, 2,000 years before the time of Christ. So you'll notice that there's one condition here, and that's who Apollos is ministering to.

But did you catch this? "When he arrived, he greatly helped those who had believed through grace." See that? They believe, but God graciously allowed them to believe. Now the Calvinists have a field day with this. They make it sound like, well, they're given the gift of faith, or they were regenerated first so that they could believe. And that's not what this is teaching. Calvinistic doctrine can't be dumped into this passage.

The only thing it's saying is they believe because God graciously brought them to the place of decision, which God wants to do and is doing for the whole world. Jesus talked about it in the Upper Room. They were very panicked about him leaving, and he's saying don't panic because when I leave, the Paraclete—the Helper—will come. And when he comes, he will convict—which means persuade—the world. This is something God's doing for everybody right now: "concerning sin, righteousness and judgment; sin, because they do not believe; righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged."

This becomes a very important set of verses in how to evangelize the lost, because you want to tailor your evangelistic message according to what God is already doing in the life of the unsaved person. You see, the Holy Spirit has ministries in the Christian, he has ministries in the church, but he also has a ministry into the unsaved world. He's got two of them—this one here, the other one restraining Antichrist, which we're not doing tonight—but this is the ministry of worldwide conviction.

Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper"—Paraclete, the one who comes alongside to assist—"will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And when He comes, He will convict the whole world"—not just a narrow group of people, but everyone—"concerning sin"—which is a singular noun, not sins. The Holy Spirit is not trying to morally reform unsaved people.

He's not bothering unsaved people about gambling, pornography, prostitution, alcoholism, spousal abuse, profanity. He's not bothering unsaved people about that. He's bothering them about the one sin that they're currently committing, that if they die in this state, they're going to hell, which is unbelief. So when you're talking to unsaved people, that's what you focus on. "Yeah, but what about the age of the earth?" "Okay, we'll talk about that later. There's a bigger problem in your life. You're an unbeliever, and you need to believe."

"Concerning sin, righteousness and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me. Concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you will no longer see Me." In other words, you need the transferred righteousness of Jesus. You need the righteousness of Christ transferred to your account, which you'll get the moment you believe. "Well, what if I don't accept that?" Then what awaits you is judgment. "Concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world"—who would that be? The devil—"has been judged."

Satan and this whole world system is going down. It's like that movie Frequency. Remember that scene where he's talking to a guy that in the past he knows has already been arrested? It's like one of those time warp movies. Did you ever see that? And he sits down with this guy and he says, "Pal, you went down 20 years ago, you just don't know it yet." That's Satan. He's going down. Has it happened yet? No, but it's inevitable.

And if you die in a state of unbelief, never having trusted Christ as your savior, that's your destiny. You're going right into the Lake of Fire with him. "Concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged." So when you're talking to unsaved people, those are the three things you talk about. They want to talk about dinosaurs and all this stuff; you just say, "We'll talk about that, but let's get the main issue fixed here: unbelief, transferred righteousness, and you're on a losing team if you reject this."

I was listening, I think it was to Hal Lindsey, and he was talking about how before he got saved, he was in New Orleans and these Christians were going by with their parade and they were campaigning against alcohol and bars and all this kind of stuff. He said, "If just one of those Christians had focused on this rather than alcohol and all these other things—gambling—I would have been a Christian a lot sooner." Because we have a tendency to focus on the fruit rather than the root. We don't really deal with the root of the problem; we're dealing with symptoms. Spousal abuse, profanity, all that stuff, that's just a symptom of the fact that they don't have Jesus inside of them through the Holy Spirit.

Now don't get me wrong. When a person gets saved and regenerated and the Holy Spirit takes up residence inside of them, He'll start dealing with people on profanity, and spousal abuse, and pornography, and all of that kind of stuff. But that comes later. Let's keep the main thing the main thing. Apollos is ministering to these believers who were saved through grace. What does it mean to be saved through grace? The Holy Spirit, through the work of conviction, brought them to the point of decision.

But the Holy Spirit won't believe for you. The Holy Spirit will convict you of your need to believe, but he will not believe for you. This is where we're different than the Calvinistic system that says God imparts faith to the to some. I don't think the Bible teaches that. I don't think that's what this verse is doing or saying. However, you cannot be saved unless the Holy Spirit, by grace—unmerited favor—is working. He's working constantly to bring people to the point of decision, as Jesus said he would.

Lewis Sperry Chafer called this true evangelism—evangelism that focuses on the things in evangelism that the Holy Spirit is already doing in a person's life. See that? Now your evangelism takes on a new dimension. You just keep directing the conversation back to sin, righteousness, and judgment. We all say it in different ways, but those are the main things: unbelief, transferred righteousness, and you're on a losing team if you reject this.

So they believed through through grace. Yes, they were believers, but the grace of God brought them to the point of decision. And this guy Apollos is so gifted. He leaves his ministry amongst the saved, and now he's going out to the unsaved as an evangelist. He's doing Jewish evangelism and you see that in verse 28: "for he powerfully refuted the Jews"—unbelievers—"in public, by demonstrating by the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ."

Now if you go back to verse 24, he was already mighty in the scriptures, but he had an incomplete knowledge of them. Priscilla and Aquila gave him the whole picture. God might give you that kind of a ministry where you're not the star, but you're there to help the star. Priscilla and Aquila—I don't know if we know much about them from this point on in the Book of Acts, but they sure played a big role here.

They just they loved this guy enough to take him aside, they taught him the whole truth, and then Katie-bar-the-door, they released him in ministry and the guy is more effective than he was before. Who do you give credit to in this ministry? Do you give it to Apollos or do you give it to Priscilla and Aquila, or do you give it to both? I think the last option because I don't think you could have an Apollos reaching his potential the way he did without a Priscilla and Aquila.

God is using all of them in different ways. So there he is in the synagogue now amongst unbelievers, refuting the Jews in public, by demonstrating that Jesus was the Christ. Now when it says he was using the scriptures, what scriptures was he talking about? His NIV version of Romans? We don't have Romans yet. By and large, we don't have a New Testament yet.

Maybe James was on the books at this time, Matthew, Galatians, the two Thessalonian letters, but that's not what Apollos was using. He didn't know much of those books. He was a disciple of John. He was using the Old Testament. Now he understood that Old Testament—Hebrew Bible—pointed to Jesus. So he's arguing with the Jews on their terrain, so to speak.

There's a lot of verses that talk about how Hebrew Bible—what we call Old Testament—points to Jesus. Jesus in John 5:39 says, "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me." That's what Apollos is using here. Emmaus Road, post-resurrection: "Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, He"—that's Jesus—"explained the things concerning Himself in the Scriptures." What scriptures? Old Testament.

Now he said to them, verse 44: "These are My words which I have spoken to you while I was with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled." Those are the three major divisions of Hebrew Bible. So it all points to Jesus—the Old Testament, what we call the Old Testament. Paul did this constantly.

It says in Acts 17, verses 1 through 3: "Now when they had traveled through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. And according to Paul's custom, he visited them for three Sabbaths and reasoned from the Scriptures, explaining and giving evidence that Christ had to suffer and rise from the dead, and saying, 'This Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you is the Christ.'" And of course the scriptures here is what we call Tanakh: T-Torah, N-Nevi'im, K-Ketuvim, the three major divisions of Hebrew Bible.

1 Corinthians 15, verses 3 and 4: Paul says, "For I handed down to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried and raised from the dead according to the Scriptures." So what did Apollos know before the ministry of Priscilla and Aquila came across his path? He knew that Hebrew Bible pointed to Jesus as the Messiah, which is what John the Baptist pointed out.

But he didn't know that Hebrew Bible could be used to talk about Christ's death, Christ's burial, Christ's resurrection, and Christ's ascension. That's what Priscilla and Aquila equipped him with, and his ministry just takes off from that point to an even higher level. You know, it's kind of interesting. You could be really at a high level and God could say, "We need to go higher." He was already at a high level, but God wasn't satisfied with that. Let's go up further.

Josephus, the great Jewish historian, talks about how Jesus was the Christ, the prophets of God foretold these things. So even in extra-biblical writings like those of Josephus, he acknowledges that Hebrew Bible points to Christ. This is what makes Jesus so different is he stepped into the world and fulfilled a script right down to his birth and death that was written hundreds and in some cases thousands of years in advance. Show me one other person where that has ever happened.

What did Apollos talk about with these unbelieving Jews? I don't know, it doesn't say. But I'm thinking he talked about Isaiah 7:14, Christ's virgin birth, written 700 years in advance; Micah 5:2, where he would be born, 700 years in advance; his nationality as a Jew, Numbers 24:17, written 1,400 years in advance; what tribe he'd be born from, the tribe of Judah, Genesis 49:10, written 1,800 years in advance.

The time he would show up to Israel, the exact day proclaiming his Messiship and how they would respond to him by rejecting him, written 600 years in advance through the prophet Daniel, Daniel 9:25 through 26. Probably talked about the fact that he'd be crucified between two thieves, written 700 years in advance in Isaiah 53:9. Maybe he talked about how Christ would be pierced, written 700 years in advance in Isaiah 53:5.

Maybe he talked about how none of his bones would be broken when he died, written in Psalm 22:17, 1,000 years in advance. Maybe he talked about how they would gamble for his clothing as they killed him, written 1,000 years in advance in Psalm 22:18. Maybe he talked about how he'd be born or buried, excuse me, in the tomb of a rich man, written 700 years in advance, Isaiah 53:9.

So no more Apollos in the Book of Acts. This is our last reference to him. He does show up though in Corinth. You'll find him in 1 Corinthians 1:12: "Now I mean this, that each of you is saying, 'I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I am of Cephas, I am of Christ.'" There he is. 1 Corinthians 3, verses 5 and 6, he's mentioned: "What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth."

There he is in 1 Corinthians 4:6: "Now these things, brethren, I have figuratively applied to myself and Apollos for your sakes, so that you may learn not to exceed what is written, so that none of you will become arrogant in behalf of one against the other." There he is in 1 Corinthians 16:12: "But concerning Apollos our brother, I encouraged him greatly to come to you with the brethren; and it was not at all his desire to come now, but he will come when he has opportunity." It stands to reason he would show up in the Corinthian books since that's where he went.

And then there's one other reference to him in the Book of Titus chapter 3, verse 13: "Diligently help Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their way so that nothing is lacking for them." So he's going to have quite a ministry in the rest of Paul's letters, most of which haven't been written yet. But this is how he got his start: how he was made complete theologically, how he was encouraged, and how he was sent across the Aegean Sea to Achaia.

The church is maturing to the point where it's even taking people with a partial understanding and bringing them to complete fullness. That account flows greatly, nicely into the next paragraph in chapter 19, verses 1 through 7, where we get more of John's disciples in Ephesus. Now I think I'll be showing you when we teach this that I think these people didn't know Jesus at all because they say some things that make me think that they were unsaved, yet they're brought to salvation.

So that's what's coming and we're done for tonight. Just a couple of announcements: I've already announced our baptisms this Sunday. Now it is true I did just get back from sabbatical, but I'm leaving again for three weeks. It's not, "Hey, more vacation!" This is something that was on the calendar for two years. It's a trip that I'm doing with Bill Perkins to the very places we're reading about here—an Acts Paul trip.

Five days in Jerusalem, we're going to be in Ephesus. I'm going to be looking for some graffiti that says Apollos was here or something like that. So I'm not going anywhere unless I'm arrested in some Middle Eastern country, which I hope, pray will not happen. But just pray for our safety and God's traveling mercies as we go. There's some people in our church that are going with us: Georgia, do you guys know Georgia Trudeau? She's going. And one other person I can't remember—Amelia, Ethan and Casey Cunningham are going. Amelia, BD is going, and I really hope I'm not missing anybody—well, my wife and my daughter.

I was there with Clyde; he was there on the last one we did in 2023. We were headed to Israel on October the 7th, and the cruise line—because it's a cruise/hiking type thing, which I'm grateful for because I need the rest on sea days—we were headed to Ashdod where all that whole thing happened October 7th, 2023, and they fortunately kept us out of there. So just pray for our safety and just understand that everything I learn there, I bring back here. It makes me a better teacher, kind of like Apollos. I get a fuller understanding and you guys are the recipients of it.

So on Wednesday, one of our elders, Ed Allstead, is going to be teaching the Book of Job the next three Wednesdays. You guys don't want to miss this. He'll talk about it, but his study of Job has arisen out of some of his own health issues and challenges that he's gone through. So I don't think the Book of Job has ever been taught from this pulpit as long as I've been here. It's a needed book, so he's a very good teacher and he's going to be teaching the next three Wednesday nights. For the three Sundays I'm gone, Gabe and Jim will be teaching the different sessions, and I believe on October 11th, Nick Thompson, who's on our elder board, is going to teach the sermon. So you guys are going to be in good hands. Amen?

Let's pray. Father, we're grateful for Your word, grateful for Your church, grateful for this man Apollos. Help us to walk these things out by faith. We'll be careful to give You all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus' name. God's people said, "Amen." I'm leaving the 23rd, but I will be here this Sunday to baptize these folks. So God bless you guys and see you Sunday.