The Word Made Plain

Guest (Male): 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 7, verses 1 through 8.

Tony Clark: Now Haran is halfway between Ur and the land of Canaan. And they stayed there for 15 years. Haran in the Hebrew means barrenness. It is like God said to get out of Virginia and go to Florida, but you stopped in South Carolina. And you stayed there for 15 years.

So Abraham partially obeyed God by taking his father Terah, whose name means delay. And he was delayed 15 years in Haran from reaching the place God wanted him to go. Haran is another amazing word in the Hebrew; it is a word that means barrenness. So, not only was Abraham delayed because he brought his father Terah along, but he was also in the place of barrenness in Haran. Why? Because of family.

Oh, this is big here. Maybe you are here and I just described you. What is Terah in your life delaying you from the place of blessing that God has for you? What is it that God has told you to leave behind but you just partially obeyed God? God wanted you to go to the land of Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey, not stopping in Haran, the place of barrenness. No wonder you are unfruitful in your life. No wonder it seems like nothing is going right in your life because you partially obeyed God.

We do not want the awesome plans of God to be delayed in our lives because we did not fully obey Him. I am talking to some people here today. But once Terah died, like verse 4 says, then God spoke to Abraham again in Genesis 12 verse 1. He confirms once again to get going, Abraham. And he did.

This is God speaking to you again to leave. What is Terah in your life? I have to ask you one more time. That needs to die before you can get going to the land of Canaan. Maybe it is an ungodly relationship you are involved in. Maybe it is some websites that have you barren, that have you unfruitful. Some weekend hobby or some habit.

I do not know what Terah is in your life that needs to die, but it needs to die. God has been speaking to your heart telling you to get out for the longest. Get out of that relationship, get out of that situation, get out and get going. You have just been delayed; you have been in a place of barrenness and unfruitfulness.

This is what Stephen is reminding the council of. Look what he says there in verse 5. "And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on, but even when Abraham had no child, He promised to give it to him for possession and to his descendants after him." Now once Abraham came to the land of Canaan, God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on.

Why is that? Because Hebrews Chapter 11 and verses 8 through 10 tells us that Abraham came to Canaan dwelling in tents. That is a great phrase that we need to be mindful of. A tent is a temporary dwelling place. God was showing Abraham this world is not your home. You are just a pilgrim passing through. This is what the Lord is saying. "I want you to dwell in a tent to remind you that this world is not your home." Hebrews 11:10 says Abraham was waiting and looking for a city with foundations, whose builder and maker is God. And this is not found in this world.

God was telling Abraham that this world is not your home. The same is true for us. This world is not your home for those of you who are believers. We too are waiting on a city with foundations whose builder and maker is God. This world's foundation is like sand. It is constantly shifting and moving. Things that were once okay back in the day to say are no longer okay to say. It is not politically correct to say today.

Things and technology and styles are constantly shifting and changing. You get the new phone and you think you have the newest thing, and then tomorrow you look out and they have the next newest model. This world is unstable. You cannot trust it. It is constantly changing like shifting sand. We are looking for a city with some solid foundations whose builder and maker is God. Only God can build it, and it is not in this world.

I am reminded of what Revelation Chapter 21 and verses 9 through 21 talks about this city and how it has 12 foundations, streets of gold, and pearly gates. We can never find that kind of stuff here in this particular world. Because we are looking for a city with foundations, we are looking for something solid, something we can stand upon, not like this world that is constantly shifting and changing.

This is what Abraham was looking for. So the land of Canaan was for his descendants, as the last part of verse 5 describes. All Abraham had was God's promise and he believed it by faith. Look at verses 6 and 7: "But God spoke in this way that his descendants will dwell in a foreign land and that they would bring them into bondage and oppress them for 400 years. And the nation to whom they will be in bondage I will judge, says God, and after that they shall come out and serve Me in this place."

In these verses, God tells Abraham that his descendants will dwell in a foreign land, which is a reference to Egypt, for 400 years according to verse 6. The actual time the Israelites were in Egyptian slavery was 430 years. Stephen is rounding the number that he gets from the book of Genesis. Then God tells Abraham that the nation that placed his people into bondage, He said, "I will judge, and after that they shall come out and serve Me in this place."

You have to put yourself in Abraham's sandals. God tells him to go to the land of Canaan and when he finally gets there, He tells him that his descendants would be in bondage and oppressed for 400 years. Abraham does not even have one child at this time, let alone descendants. This is why he is called the father of faith. He believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness according to Genesis 15:6.

Can you believe God's promises for you? Or maybe you are here and you stopped believing them. God has some amazing promises in His word. Can you believe His promise of Malachi 3 and verses 8 through 12 that He promises that He will open up the windows of heaven when you tithe? Can you believe that?

Can you believe His promises in 2nd Peter 3:9 that says God isn't willing that any should perish, but all come to repentance? This includes your spouse and your children that you have been diligently praying for. Can you believe that promise? Can you trust His promise that says in 2nd Thessalonians 1:6 that it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you? Can you trust God's word or do you have to see it first? 2nd Corinthians 5:7 says we walk by faith and not by sight. We, like Abraham, are told to walk by faith. And this is what Stephen was telling this Jewish council.

Sure enough, after they came out of Egypt, they came to the land of Israel. He is giving them an incredible history lesson. Look what it says there in verse 8: "Then He gave him the covenant of circumcision and so Abraham begot Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day and Isaac begot Jacob and Jacob begot the 12 patriarchs."

In this verse, Stephen reminds the council of the symbol of the covenant God was making with Abraham, which was circumcision. Circumcision is the cutting away and the dealing with the flesh so we can have a greater emphasis and sensitivity to the Spirit. Even though circumcision is dealing with the outward, it is also a symbol of what is happening inwardly. It speaks of cutting away of the old life and the old way of doing things so we can put no confidence in our flesh. What circumcision is to the Jews, baptism is to us as believers: burying the old life of the flesh to focus on the things of the Spirit.

This is why we do not believe in sprinkling water, plucking water on you, or spitting on you. No, we believe in taking you down because of what it symbolizes. It symbolizes the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is why we do what we do because it is burying the old life. It is symbolic of burying the old you, the old life, the old way of doing things.

This is what circumcision was to the Jews. The Apostle Paul speaks of the circumcision of the heart in Romans 2:29, the cutting away of the fleshly things in our heart. What do you need to circumcise out of your life? Look at the things you are doing causing you to live after the appetites and the inclinations of your flesh. Is it a relationship you are involved in? A group of friends? Some hobby? Alcoholic drinks? Every time you drink alcohol, you get involved in fleshly things.

Whatever it is that is causing you to live according to the fleshly appetites and the inclinations and desires of your flesh, it must be circumcised and cut out. It could be TV, that idol that we have in our homes. Many of us have several of them to bow down and offer up food offerings in front of them. That thing is a trip. Maybe movies, overeating, or partying on Saturday nights.

Then you come in here and think you are going to lift up holy hands to God? You are not; you are unclean. You think you are going to party on Saturday and come into this holy place and trample this holy place like a tourist? No, you are unclean. Unclean. You cannot come in this holy place. I say holy place because the Bible says where two or more are gathered together in His name, He is in the midst.

You come into this holy place and try to worship a holy God and you have been just trampling in the flesh all evening long. You are unclean. Who told you you could do that? Who told you you could live after your flesh, then come into this holy place and think you are going to worship God? Who told you you could do that?

Don't believe your lie and think that things are okay between you and God. You think you can come in here and just walk over this place like you are just doing your thing. You are unclean and you need to repent. You need to get right with God. America, America's Christianity, we need to get right with God. We need to repent.

Our Christianity is a farce. It is a joke, our Christianity here in America. The rest of the world already looks at us as a joke. We think we are all that because there are over 330,000 churches in America. Most of them are a joke. A joke because we are the most ungodly nation in the world today. We even make Amsterdam blush. We are wicked, though we boast about our Christianity.

We are unclean and we need to repent as a nation. We need to get right. We need to circumcise our hearts and our lives and cut away the flesh. We watch that idol all night long and we come in here and we wonder why we have no appetite for spiritual things. We have no appetite for the word and for prayer and for holiness. We have no appetite for those things because we sit in front of our idol for hours on end.

We wonder why we do not want to live for God. We wonder why our Christianity has just been reduced to whenever we feel like coming and sitting in a chair in a church and then we go back to our idols. We go back to our lives. And it is a joke here in America. We need to repent and we need to get things right with God. God has been speaking through natural disaster and we better listen. We better listen to what God is saying. I have said this for years that we need to pay attention to what God is doing. He is speaking. God judges nations in this life; He judges individuals in the next life. He judges nations in this life through natural disaster. That is how God judges nations.

I have had pastors try to argue me down about this. I said, "Let me tell you something." This world is so wicked God can close His eyes and say, "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe," and send a natural disaster somewhere and He would be just. He would be just. It is not like these people down there are more wicked than them over there. It has nothing to do with that. We are all wicked. And God is just to send one anywhere.

At one point, we had the West Coast on fire, we had the Midwest flooded out, and we had hurricanes about to blow the East Coast out. And we just think, "Oh, it is global warming." Are we kidding? Global warming, are we serious? It was global warming. The West Coast felt it; it was fires. That is what it was. The whole West Coast was on fire. Better pay attention.

We need to repent. I live here, too. We need to repent. All these things need to be circumcised out of our lives and our hearts. A lot of people say, "Well, you know, I'm drinking, it's a disease." Cut it out. There is no disease of alcohol. No such disease. It is a sin that needs to be repented of. You might have learned that behavior from somebody, but it is no disease. Cut it out, world. Quit fooling around. It is a sin that needs to be repented of. It is called sin. God calls it the flesh that needs to be circumcised.

Then we can come and humbly offer ourselves to the Lord in prayer and repentance and in humility. We as Americans, we come strutting in churches like we are just all that, like we are some tourists. We need to get right with God and we need to repent. Abraham was not the only one circumcised, but he was to circumcise his son, Isaac, as well, showing that our faith must be passed down to our children.

Our faith needs to be passed down to our children. Did you know that you are passing down something to your kids? We are supposed to be passing down the faith. You know what you are passing down? Many of you are passing down drinking alcohol, smoking, partying, cussing, and watching filth on TV. This is what a lot of you are passing down.

You are passing down living together and not being married. You are passing that down to your children. You are passing something down. We are told to pass the faith down. If you are not passing the faith, you are passing something. You are passing that stuff down and then your kids grow up and they are doing it and you wonder, "Why are they doing that? They should have learned from me." They did learn from you. That is why they are doing it. They learned from you. Need to repent.

Then God told Abraham that this circumcision was to be done on the eighth day. Why? Because the clotting agent Vitamin K is at its peak on the eighth day. God knows what He is talking about. He made the body. Then this was to be passed down from Abraham to Isaac, from Isaac to Jacob, and from Jacob to the 12 sons according to the end of verse 8.

I have to come back to this idea: are you passing down the faith, the Christian faith to your children? Or should I say what version of Christianity are you passing down to your children? American Christianity? Which is a joke. I mentioned we are the most wicked nation in the world. I agree wholeheartedly with what Billy Graham said. He said if God does not judge America harshly, He owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology. And I say, yeah.

We are more wicked than Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom and Gomorrah did not have the technology that we have today. We are wicked as a nation and we want nothing to do with God. I can't believe I am going to help raise a granddaughter who would never know that this nation once used to respect God. I am not going to say it totally was a Christian nation. You do not have American slavery like you had in this nation and say it was Christian. But they tried.

She will know nothing about that. She will know nothing about how there used to be prayer in schools. There is nothing about Bible reading and God and all that sort of stuff. In the 1940s, in order to graduate from Dallas High School, you had to take a test that was equivalent to a first-year Bible college seminary test. She will never know that. My grandson will never know that. My other granddaughter will never know that.

So what version of Christianity are you passing down to your children? We go to church, we do this church thing, but then you just do what you want to do at home. That is American Christianity, which is a joke. Do you allow your children to stay home from church to do homework? Or to travel with their AAU team? Or to go to football practice? Really? Football practice? We talking about practice? Practice?

Yes, I believe that if your children are gifted in athletics that they should play, but not at the expense of church. You are not spending time passing down to them the Christian faith. Ask yourself, parents, ask yourself: do I spend more time with my children in the stands cheering for them or angry at the coach for not playing my child? Your child is not that good. That is why he is not playing.

Stop giving that coach a hard time. He is not that good. She is definitely not that good either. I have been there; my kids are grown up. I have been where you are. If they were good enough, they would play. You know, like in the old days, in the second quarter they put them in and let them fool around out there on the court. Do you spend more time cheering them in the stands than you do teaching them Bible verses and praying with them? Ask yourself this question and what answer did you come up with? Stephen is basically telling this council we are here today with the promise of God that He made to Abraham.