The Word Made Plain

Guest (Female): Welcome to the Word Made Plain with senior pastor Tony Clark of Calvary Chapel Newport News in Virginia. Currently, Pastor Tony is teaching a study in the book of Acts. Please open your Bible to Acts chapter 18, verses one through two.

Tony Clark: Amen, God bless you. Thank you so much. All right, turn with me in your Bibles to Acts chapter 18. Acts chapter 18, we're going to be looking at verses one and two. As we continue our verse-by-verse study through the book of Acts, we find ourselves in chapter 18, looking at verses one and two. We're only covering a couple of verses because we have some background that we have to cover to give us a better understanding of the verses that we're dealing with.

The title of this message is Alone, Discouraged, and Depressed. Alone, Discouraged, and Depressed, this is part one. What a set of triplets this is when we are alone, discouraged, and depressed. This set of triplets has caused many, many people to do harm to themselves and to other people.

Whether you believe it or not, this was the emotional condition of the great Apostle Paul at this particular time. Let's see how he dealt with this dark time in his life, and it's so important that we look at this. Because maybe you're in a good season right now. Maybe you're going through some great times.

But there are going to come some dark times. They come to all of us, and we need to know how God would want us to navigate through these difficult times. Paul had just left Athens, Greece, after delivering this awesome message to them about God being the creator of all things. Athens was the intellectual capital of the world at this time and was the home of Socrates and Plato and Aristotle.

But not much fruit came from his preaching there other than, according to Acts 17 and verse 34, a few people believed the gospel Paul preached to them. Knowing this, he came to Corinth discouraged and let down. The Lord is going to come to him in verses nine and 10 and encourage him in this low point in ministry. We know this because 1 Corinthians chapter two and verses one to three, Paul tells the Corinthians, "When I came to you, I came in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling."

Some of God's greatest servants experience discouragement. You hear me from time to time quote the great C.H. Spurgeon. He told his ministry students that ministers will experience a greater share of discouragement so they can learn sympathy with the Lord's suffering people and make them fitting shepherds of God's flock. Moses was discouraged, and he expressed it in Numbers chapter 11 and verses 11 through 15.

Joshua needed the Lord to encourage him in Joshua 1 in verses five through nine. Elijah knew the pits of despair in 1 Kings 18 and verse 20. Finally, in 1 Kings 19 and verse four, he was even suicidal. Even Jesus is described in Isaiah 53 and verse three as a man of sorrow acquainted with grief.

Even in John 11:35, it says that Jesus wept. And here the Apostle Paul was no different. He experienced his own pit of despair and discouragement. Normally this comes right after a great time of success. We saw this in John chapter six in verses 15 through 21.

Right after a great time of successful ministry when Jesus fed the 5,000 men with just five loaves and two fish—counting women and children, it was over 15 to 20,000 people. It was a great time of success. Everybody's belly was filled. It was just a great time.

In John chapter six, it says that they were about to come and take Jesus by force and make him their king. It was a great time of success, exciting times. Right after that, Jesus sent his disciples away right in the midst of a storm. Every time Paul experienced success in ministry, Satan stirred up enemies to run him out of the city, and it was no different in Athens.

Let's see what happens in verse one. "After these things Paul departed from Athens and went to Corinth." "After these things" refers to Paul debating with the Greek philosophers on Mars Hill in verses 22 to 34 in the previous chapter. So after these things, Paul left the city of Athens and went to the city of Corinth, which was 53 miles away from Athens.

He arrived there alone. Now let me stop here, because this is one of the greatest traps used by the enemy of our souls, Satan, and that is to get us alone. To get us to isolate ourselves from church and other Christians. We know that he arrived there alone because Timothy and Silas don't arrive in Corinth until verse five.

If you're here and you are a loner, a maverick, a lone ranger, let me beg you to get other Christians around you praying for you, encouraging you. If Satan can get you to isolate yourself, he can bombard you with arrows of discouragement like never before. Proverbs 18 verse one says, "A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire. He rages against all wise judgment."

Let me unpack that verse for you a little bit further. The Hebrew word for "isolate" is "parad," and it means to spread, to scatter, to separate, or divide. The Hebrew word for "rages" is "galah," and it means obstinance or stubbornly refusing to change one's opinion or course of action. This is how it works.

When we isolate ourselves or separate ourselves from other people, all we have left is our own thoughts. You would think that you're right in everything and in all matters. When someone comes around you and questions your thoughts or behavior, you become obstinate or stubbornly refusing to change your opinion or course of action like this Hebrew word means.

This is why the translators translated this Hebrew word "rages," because you get violently angry at the people who would dare challenge your viewpoints or course of action. As we become more and more sophisticated as Christians, we say, "Well, the Lord is leading me to do this." So when you put the Lord on it, it means "don't you dare think you're going to challenge my course of action."

Get people around you. Get into a small group. Come to church and surround yourself with Christians to pray and encourage you to walk after God and His word. When you isolate yourself, you're left to your own devices, your own thoughts. You think you're right because all you're doing is talking to yourself.

You are insulted when someone comes around you and questions your behavior or course of action. If you are sophisticated as a Christian, you say, "Oh, the Lord is leading me," meaning "don't you dare even question my behavior." You need other people around you. Another reason to get Christians around you and not isolate yourself is because of what happened to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 25 in verses 17 and 18.

It says, "Remember what Amalek did to you on the way as you were coming out of Egypt, how he met you on the way and attacked your rear ranks, all the stragglers at your rear, when you were tired and weary and did not fear God." These are some powerful verses because our Amalek, Satan himself, comes at us the same way. He attacks us when we have fallen back in our walks with God.

No longer on the front lines of the battle. Now we're in the rear. We used to say in the Marine Corps, "in the rear with the gear." We become stragglers at the rear. We have put it in neutral spiritually. This happens when we become, notice what the verse says, when we become tired and weary.

Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is take a nap. Notice Satan attacked them when they were tired and weary. While we were gone, we actually went on a vacation. Can you believe we did that? And you know what I did? Woke up, got in the word, read, prayed, went to go work out, came back, took a nap, went to eat, maybe took another nap, hung out, woke up, did it all over again. Took another nap.

I think I was averaging maybe two naps a day. It felt so good. I didn't feel no guilt. My phone wasn't working. I was out of the country, and I felt good. My phone wasn't beeping and booping, and I felt good. Nobody could contact me, and I was happy about it.

I took me some naps and I woke up when I wanted to wake up. Didn't have to go to a meeting, didn't have to do another thing, didn't have to counsel anybody, didn't have to talk anybody off the ledge. It was just a beautiful thing, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is take a nap. Take you a nap because Satan attacks when we're tired and weary.

Satan has attacked me in this area time and time again when I was tired and weary from ministry. Now, what is the result of all this? We no longer fear God like the Israelites. We falsely believe that God—we got it. We'll call you for the big stuff, but right now we got it. We don't need God, is our mindset.

So here is Paul in Corinth alone, tired, weary, discouraged from a busy time of ministry. Now, let me take a few moments to describe the city of Corinth because what kind of city was Paul entering in? By Paul's day around AD 50, Corinth had replaced Athens as the leading political and commercial center in Greece.

It had a population of approximately 650,000 people and was the capital of Achaia. Nearly all traffic between Northern and Southern Greece passed through this city. Because of its location and traffic, Corinth became very, very corrupt, to the point that to be called a Corinthian was synonymous with a bad name.

Several words with Corinthian in them were found in Greek literature, such as "Corinthianizomai," which means to Corinthianize or to practice sexual immorality, was part of the Greek language. "Corinthiastes" was another word was equal to being a whoremonger. And even Plato himself referred to a prostitute as "Corinthia kore," kore being girl in Greek. Corinthia kore was equal to being a prostitute.

For almost every city in America today, this has been said, and the major cities in our nation have negative connotations said about them. Chicago is now referred to as Chiraq because of the killings and the shootings there. When people hear you're from Newport News, "Oh, you're from Bad News?" I just heard from a police officer last service that Newport News is known as Newport Afghanistan. Some kind of word he used and it's a negative connotation to it.

Gary, Indiana, where I was born and raised, at one time was known as the murder capital of the nation. The list goes on and on throughout the cities here in America. According to the viewpoints of those who live overseas, the term American carries the same negative connotation as Corinthian did at this time.

It used to be at time where people wanted to come to America, the land of the free and all that sort of stuff. Now several countries are forbidding their people from traveling here to America because of the constant violence and the mass shootings here. Finally, towering some 1,500 feet above Corinth was the temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, which 1,000 temple prostitutes would come out each evening to offer themselves to the men as an act of worship to the goddess of sensuality.

Today, these temple prostitutes will come to you by the thousands in the form of call girls and call boys, webcams, and porn sites. So this is the city Paul entered alone, discouraged, and depressed. What happened next? Look at verse two. "And he found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla (because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome); and he came to them."

God knew that Paul needed someone else to help him shoulder the burdens he carried, showing that we can never do ministry alone. You heard me say that many times. So Paul found that desperately needed companionship in a certain Jew named Aquila and his wife Priscilla. They came to Corinth from Rome because the Emperor Claudius decreed that all the Jews leave.

Now we had a little background from the secular historian Suetonius. He tells us why. He said in his writings, "The Life of Claudius," that there were Jewish riots instigated by a man named Chrestus against Christians. Rather than deal with the situation, Claudius simply ordered all the Jews to leave Rome. And so this is how Aquila and Priscilla ended up in the city of Corinth.

So Paul and Aquila and Priscilla became close friends. I'm just wondering have you found that Aquila and Priscilla for your life? Have you found that couple that you know that you can call on to get you some encouragement from or to someone to pray with you? In a small group or marriage fellowship are places to start.

This is so important to find a couple like this because eventually you will be discouraged or depressed and need an encouraging word spoken to you or need someone to pray for you. Listen to what Proverbs 12 verse 25 says. It says, "Anxiety in the heart causes depression." That is incredible. Anxiety is worry. Worry causes depression.

You're worried about something that has not happened yet, and it so grips you, you're depressed over something that hasn't happened. Ladies, this is where you come in. You worry about everything, and it can cause depression. This is scripture here. But notice what it says: "But a good word makes it glad."

This is where we come in when we have found an Aquila and Priscilla for our lives. When we are worried about something and we're depressed about it, guess what? This person can come with a good word to make us glad again, to bring us up out of that which we are discouraged and depressed about. We need these people in our lives. So often we isolate ourselves. We isolate ourselves and we stay in our state of depression when we need someone that's going to speak a word to us to make us glad, to bring us up out of it.

But if you isolate yourself and say, "I don't need an Aquila and Priscilla up in our business." That's normally us men and our pride. We're the ones that come with that kind of mess. We don't want them folks up in our business. They were nice to hang out with and go eat with, but we ain't going to be just having them all up in our business. See, men, that's us.

You better have somebody up in your business because everybody else knows your business. Your wife has told her friends, her coworkers. She has already told folks. You're the only one that still thinks that this thing is private. Everybody know about it. So you might as well get somebody up in your business. You struggling. You need an Aquila and Priscilla to get in your business.

But in our pride, we say, "I can do it alone. I don't need anybody else." You're setting yourself up to be a target by Satan. Paul needed someone, and he found Aquila. Please notice that he found Aquila, meaning he was looking for him. That word means "found" after a diligent search. The Bible says if you want friends, you've got to show yourself friendly.

Some of you don't even know what that is, just nasty. Some of you have the countenance that what you're saying by your look is, "Don't come within 10 feet of me." Then you go home, "I wish I had an Aquila in my life." You need an Aquila to be all in your life that's going to encourage you. We need this because things are great now. Amen. Thank God you're in that season.

But there's going to be some times that you're going to need a word. There's going to be some times you're going to be worried about something—worried about where the next paycheck is coming from, worried about how the bills are going to be paid, worried about whether you're going to have a roof over your head—and that worry, that anxiety, is going to cause depression. The Bible says but a good word makes you glad.

You need someone that's going to be able to be in your life that's going to speak a good word to you. When you isolate yourself, you're left to your own devices, your own thoughts. See, we need this. So Paul was not sitting back in isolation and seclusion saying, "Lord, send me an Aquila." No, Paul went looking and found Aquila.

Where did he find him? You've got to wait until next time because where he found him was a good place. It's a good place to find that person that's going to speak a good word to you. Let me conclude with this. In this message, we saw that loneliness, discouragement, and depression come to all of us.

When we isolate ourselves, we become perfect targets for Satan to attack us. The solution is to find an Aquila and Priscilla, a godly couple that can encourage and pray us through these dark times. Aquila and Priscilla can be found in marriage fellowship—we just got an announcement on that—small groups, singles ministries, men's and women's groups. You can't do it by yourself.

We need each other, especially in these dark times we live in. We can easily hide—don't miss this—we can easily hide or isolate ourselves behind our phones or some computer screen and try to find comfort in someone on social media. But we need human contact. We need interaction with each other face to face. Oh, this is so important, this is so key.

Even while we were gone and we were out of the country, my wife reminded me after first service, she said there was several times, several times she FaceTimed our kids and grandkids. Face to face. We have—now, because I make my living talking, my family knows me, my siblings—my sister knows I don't like to talk on the phone.

I make my living talking. So I don't like to talk. Once I leave here, I don't like to talk. I'm real quiet. Our roles reverse in the home. She becomes the more talkative one. I'm quiet. I'm talked out. Done, done with talking. So my sister knows that. So we would text back and forth, but there's times she calls and I look and see, "Oh boy, she's calling. Oh, what's happened now?"

And then she said, "No, nothing's happened. Everything's good." She said, "I just had to hear your voice." See, we need human interaction. This generation today, many of them they have social awkwardness. They're kind of strange because they don't know how to interact with people because they're playing some war game with somebody in England and China, and they're playing some game with somebody in another state, and they think they're interacting. No, no, they're just behind a screen.

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