Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: One of the things that we shouldn't be surprised at here is that when you preach the Gospel, one thing that will happen is division. The Gospel itself divides. When you choose to follow Jesus, not everybody's going to support you in that decision.

When you preach the Gospel, you will find division oftentimes. Jesus talked about that, didn't he? That's something that is promised here in the Bible. This is what's happening to Paul and Barnabas. We'll see that.

Guest (Male): It's been said that successful ministry creates opposition, and that's what Paul and Barnabas certainly experienced while ministering in Iconium. Though many believed, they were also met by others that not only rejected the message but stirred up others to reject the messengers. Pastor Brett Meador has more from today's word in a verse-by-verse account from Acts chapter 14.

Brett Meador: We left off on our first missionary journey of Paul. Thus far, we saw them bounce to Cyprus and the two main cities there, Salamis and Paphos, then Perga, and then Antioch. Iconium was where we left off, and things start to heat up there in chapter 14.

Let's read verse 1. It says, "And it came to pass in Iconium, that they went both together into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spake, that a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed." Good news! This is people believing. They're hearing the word and believing.

But there's always a "but" there. Verse 2 says, "But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles, and made their minds evil affected against the brethren." Paul and Barnabas are preaching the truth, and what do these people do? They come and dilute the truth with poison and falsities, and sadly, it's going to cause quite the stir here.

Let's take a look. It goes on in verse 3. It says, "Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord." In other words, Paul and Barnabas didn't give up when the poison was being put out. Paul and Barnabas hunkered down and kept preaching.

They kept going a long time boldly in the Lord, which gave testimony unto the word of His grace and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands. Notice how they handled the poison. This is something in a culture of poisonous words we can learn from.

Number one, they started speaking about the grace of God. That's what it says here. While they were bashing the truth, the Jews, Paul and Barnabas just focused, as it says in verse 3, and gave testimony unto the word of His grace.

How can the people of Iconium, the pagans there, turn toward Jesus? It is His kindness. Remember, Romans 2:4 says it's the Lord's goodness that leads men, or kindness that leads men, to repentance. That's the right thing to do. God has a deep love for each person in Iconium, and Paul and Barnabas are trying to reach them with His grace. That's pretty important.

The second thing that they do here is they keep preaching the grace of God to the people, but then they also start doing miracles, signs, and wonders. These guys went and preached the word first. The word was the priority, and it seems to me that the miracles came after.

That's the perfect order. I believe that's the order that Jesus talks about in Mark chapter 16. If you recall, when Jesus is signing off in the Gospel of Mark, He says, "And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

This is what Jesus said. One of the things that I love about this is to remind ourselves what it says at the beginning: "these signs shall follow them that believe." One of the things we've done wrong is following after signs and wonders. It's the signs and wonders that follow after the believers.

I think some churches have got that backwards. They say, "Let's look for miracles. It's all about the Holy Spirit and miracles and speaking in tongues." That's not really the order here. First, the followers of Jesus are saved by the word of God and discipled, and then the signs and wonders follow them that believe, not believers following after signs and wonders. That's a real problem.

All that to say, I do believe in miracles. I don't diminish them, but let's keep our priorities straight. Verse 4 says, "But the multitude of the city was divided: and part held with the Jews, and part with the apostles." Notice here in verse 4, this is one of the places you should note, by the way. This is the first time Paul and Barnabas are called apostles in the book of Acts.

The reason that's important is there's a little bit of a debate: who are apostles? The way I see it in the Bible, and most theologians agree with this, is that Jesus was the big-time apostle. He was sent by the Father. Apostle means "sent."

So Jesus was sent by the Father. The ultimate apostle is Jesus. Then Jesus sent out the 12, and they were also called apostles. That's clear; nobody debates that. But then suddenly you've got Paul becoming an apostle.

Their argument with that one is Paul was sent out by Jesus too because they would say the definition of an apostle is someone who was sent by Jesus specifically. Paul was sent there on the road to Damascus. So some would say, "Okay, we'll let Paul in the apostle program."

But then suddenly you've got Barnabas here mentioned as an apostle. We'll see that even other times in Acts 14:14. There's another time there that they're going to call Barnabas an apostle. So the question is, what constitutes an apostle?

I believe it is simply those who are sent, the "sent ones." But apostles, as far as being sent by God, if you're a Christian, I think we've all been called by Jesus to that Barnabas level of apostleship. It's just something to think about there.

They were called apostles in verse 4, and verse 5 says, "And when there was an assault made both of the Gentiles, and also of the Jews with their rulers, to use them despitefully, and to stone them." Things are heating up in Iconium.

It was just them preaching, and now they're actually talking of stoning people to death. There's almost a war starting, a riot almost between the Gentiles and the Jews. They were wanting to kill them because of sharing the Gospel message. Can you imagine that?

Do you ever wonder if our day might see some of us be alive when it's hated so much to be chased down and killed as an apostle, someone who's called to preach the Gospel? I could see a day in the not-too-distant future, honestly. It depends on how things go, whether you're rewarded for preaching the Gospel or tortured. I hope we don't change. I hope we're quick to preach the Gospel like Paul and Barnabas.

One of the things that we shouldn't be surprised at here is that when you preach the Gospel, one thing that will happen is division. The Gospel itself divides. When you preach the Gospel, you will find division oftentimes. Jesus talked about that, didn't he?

Let me read a lengthy scripture, but I think it's worth reading right now because this is what's happening to Paul and Barnabas. Matthew 10:32 says, "Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."

There's a contradiction in the Bible. Jesus said, "I did not come to bring peace on earth," but the angel said when Jesus comes, "peace on earth, good will toward men." Well, there's different kinds of peace we're talking about there.

There is going to be world peace and global peace when Christ comes. It's because of the first coming that He died on the cross, so the sins of the world will be reconciled. It is His second coming where ultimate peace will be realized through the Messiah, Jesus.

But in the Gospel era here, when you become a Christian and you start sharing the Gospel, don't be shocked if your family members hate your guts. When you choose to follow Jesus, not everybody's going to support you in that decision: family, friends, co-workers.

How many of you, when you became a Christian, had somebody close to you divided from you because you became a Christian? That's really something that is promised in the Bible. That's the bad news, sad news, I guess.

The good news is when you become a Christian, you become a part of a humongous family. We're part of a big Christian family. You say, "But Brett, there's some weird people in a family." Just like everybody else's family! You've always got that Uncle Bob with the lampshade on his head. We have those in the church too.

But I have found the church family to be a glorious family, one that I'm so thankful to be a part of. It's such a wonderful thing to have people in the faith even though your family might have bailed on you. You can know that God's family is here, and they should be.

Now, sometimes church family doesn't behave very well. I hope love abounds. That's what we pray all the time here, that love would abound in this church. When you become a Christian, getting this new family, we get to go to church together, have fellowship, serve with one another, and have watch parties where we're gathered together in a smaller group and have good fellowship.

To spend time, reach out, and love on people and get to know people, one of the most easy ways to get really plugged in is through volunteering. Some of our volunteer groups have huge friendships and links and celebrations of someone's going to have a baby, so they throw baby showers.

Some of the internal stuff I wish would happen with everybody in the church is all happening with volunteers. All that to say, plug in to church. You don't even have to be an elder or a deacon or on staff, but plugging in and getting to know people is how you solve that division of your own family. The sorrow of losing some of your real family comes as your church family becomes almost more real in some ways.

Huge division, riot starting, we shouldn't be surprised. Don't be surprised if that happens in your own house if you're saved. Verse 6 says they were aware of it, of the division and the possible violence. And so they fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia and unto the region that lieth round about. And there they preached the Gospel.

Wherever they go, they're running for their lives. They're fleeing Iconium. So they went from Iconium, and then they went to Lystra. There's something kind of fun about this. I nerd out on this, so I'm sorry.

Some critics claim Luke, who wrote the book of Acts, made a huge mistake saying Lystra and Derbe were cities of Lycaonia. They said that's incorrect; there was no joining of Lystra and Derbe. That was what was the standard thought, and so they all said Luke just got this wrong.

Never a good bet when you say the Bible got something wrong. Sure enough, William Ramsay demonstrated that Lystra and Derbe were indeed together during the Roman province of Lycaonia, but only between 37 and 72 AD. So they were joined together for a very short time. They proved this with archaeological digs. They found the inscription that said they were joined 37 to 72 AD, which would be right at exactly the time period when this story came down.

So again, the Bible is correct and the critics were wrong. Another nail in the coffin to the scoffers and the cynics. What were they doing there? Preaching the Gospel, it says. One of the things I'd like you to remember before we go into the story from the beginning as we read it, if you recall, there was the people of Lystra and Derbe.

They believed a mythological event happened in their cities. Remember, Mercury and Jupiter, or Roman names for Hermes and Zeus, came and visited their towns. There's the Zeus temple just outside of the city of Lystra. It was said to be they were poorly treated by the townspeople there of Lystra and Derbe.

Because of that, Zeus and Hermes were getting a little ticked. But a nice older couple, Philemon and his wife Baucis, were a little old couple that had a suspicion there was something important about them. So they did show hospitality to these gods of the myth.

If you remember what happened, Zeus and Hermes took the couple out in front of the Zeus temple and turned them into trees. There they stood for all to remember as a memorial. You should be nice to Hermes and Zeus. Although after turning them into trees, I didn't really think that was very kind. I'd say maybe kill them next time they come. Anyway, Zeus and Hermes were false gods. They didn't have power, but the people believed this.

So there was this crazy level of respect for Zeus and Hermes in Lystra and Derbe because they thought, "Never again will we allow them to show up in our city without us being kind to them because otherwise they'll destroy everybody in the city like they did last time." That's the vibe in this town when Paul and Barnabas stumble into town.

Then we read on. It says in verse 8, "And there sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother's womb, who had never walked: The same heard Paul speak: who steadfastly beholding him, and perceiving that he had faith to be healed, Said with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked."

Wow, what a cool thing! Now notice a couple things. When the Lord heals someone, He does it thoroughly. I love that. This guy's walking and leaping. He's been crippled from his birth. What a testimony to the people of Lystra!

But there's something that's specific here. You notice that there was this whole thing where in verse 9, Paul is steadfastly beholding this guy. What does that mean? It means he looked at him intently. And it's a funny thing; he was looking for, it seems, faith.

He was looking for faith. When you pray for healing, do you intently look at the person you're praying for and say, "Does this person have faith?" Why intently looking to see if he had faith to be healed?

By the way, Jesus would do this at times. He would intently look upon someone before He healed them. There's something about that I think we can learn from. I think the idea is faith needs to come from the person being healed, but it also needs to come from the person who's praying for the healing.

Are both required? Not necessarily. But faith is required. Do you remember when the Lord healed the man sick of the palsy when the guys lowered their buddy down through the roof? And it says, "and when Jesus saw whose faith?" The man on the bed? No, the four buddies!

When He saw the faith of the four dudes that lowered him, then He turned and said, "Your sins are forgiven you." And then the whole thing, "So you know that I have power to forgive sins, take up your bed and walk." And the guy was healed.

But it's interesting Jesus was looking at these four guys who have faith. Of course, Jesus had perfect faith, unspeakably perfect faith. But there's something about when you're praying for healing to remind the person who's sick, "God is able to heal."

Speak words. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. The Lord is able to heal us of all of our sicknesses. None of these diseases will have a grab on us. Remind people that faith is part of the deal.

So remember what the Bible says about healing. Faith is often really accompanied by that. So I find it interesting that sometimes people may not have faith and they think, "Well, I'm not going to pray even because I don't believe God can heal." But if you have faith the size of a grain of mustard seed, you can move mountains, the Bible says. Don't forget that, and that's what's required.

This guy believed, and Paul saw it in his eyes somehow. This guy has faith. So he walked over and lifted him up and said, "Take up your bed." And he went walking and leaping and, you can pretty sure be like the guy we saw earlier, praising God. You can assume that.

Well, then the trouble begins in verse 11. "And when the people saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voices, saying in the speech of Lycaonia, The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men. And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul, Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker. Then the priest of Jupiter, which was before their city, brought oxen and garlands unto the gates, and would have done sacrifice with the people."

Maybe Paul wore a cool top hat with wings. Why did they think Paul was the Hermes guy? Probably because he was the one doing most of the speaking. Because Zeus in their myth was more quiet but more of the authority, and that's why they thought Barnabas was that way.

It's amazing how people can think other people are like gods and we worship them as gods. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," one of the big ten. But we value things greater than God, if we want to be honest, perfectly honest.

Sometimes we think, "Oh, I would never think that," but are there times where you've valued stuff or been more thankful for something other than God? We have to be careful about that. When you really see the way we sort of exalt humanity and we worship our celebrities and our athletes and the way we throw our accolades to them, it really is embarrassing.

I think we do more homage to some of our celebrities and even our politicians. Watch out for this idea of exalting people. Could this be perhaps one of the most dangerous times in Paul's life? "Well, Brett, that was when he was shipwrecked or bitten by a viper or in this chapter when he's going to get stoned to death. That was dangerous."

I think you might be right, but could it be that really this was dangerous for Paul? Because suddenly they're gods! Was it at all tempting? We don't know that. But I've seen where ministry and ministers can start believing their press.

"I'm pretty amazing. I'm kind of a big deal." And they start believing. They forget that they're wretched, miserable sinners just like everyone else in their congregations. That's something celebrity pastors or celebrities, we should really guard against.

This might just be one of the most dangerous times for Paul. But Paul and Barnabas come through with a glowing record. They rip their clothes as we keep reading here in verse 14, which when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of, they rent their clothes and ran in among the people, crying out and saying, "Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein."

Ripping the clothes, that's a show of real disapproval, to say the least, of their worshiping Paul and Barnabas. But notice Paul is not preaching to this city the same way he preached to the Jews. To the Jews, he was preaching the history of Israel like Stephen.

Here he's preaching more about the extra-biblical proof of God because they're not Bible believers. So we're seeing how Paul does more of what we call apologetics, that is, to talk about and prove the validity of the Bible or of God without using the Bible because there's a lot of people that say, "I don't believe the Bible."

So what does Paul do? He goes to creation. Verse 15: "the living God, which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and the things that are therein." Paul's preaching that there's a God that's true and their god Mercury and Jupiter, Zeus and Hermes, are fake.

He goes to creation. We looked at that. And then he talked about free will is what made the world messed up, verse 16: "Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways." Verse 17: "Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. And with these sayings scarce restrained they the people, that they had not done sacrifice unto them."

By the way, this kindness that's mentioned here from God in verse 17 to all men, giving rain and fruitful crops, this should be seen as a witness of God's power and His love for people. It's something theologians sometimes call this common grace.

We talked about how there's no excuse. Romans 1 says that because of creation, but even the rain that we get is just God showing kindness. People want to attribute that to hydro-cycles of the earth and biology and the world and what's going on with the way water circulates. No, it comes from God. It's a gift from God. And this is what Paul argues with them.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador, noting how Paul and Barnabas faithfully directed believers in Iconium to the living God who reveals His goodness through creation, drawing more of the loving grace of God from today's word in Acts chapter 14.

And I trust you'll stay right there as Pastor Brett will join me here in a moment. But first, today's word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church in the Portland, Oregon area where Pastor Brett Meador is the senior pastor. We invite you to find out more about Pastor Brett and Athey Creek Church by going to todayswordradio.com. If you've missed any portion of this study, you'll find all of Pastor Brett's messages online at todayswordradio.com. All right, Pastor Brett is with me now.

And we have talked many times about your teaching style of preaching verse-by-verse through the Bible. What impact in people's lives have you seen by teaching straight through God's Word?

Brett Meador: I have to admit there's times when I reach a certain book of the Bible, I think, "Oh boy, I wonder how the church is going to receive this book." But every single time, without fail, that passage ministers to our congregation. People come up to me after the service saying, "Pastor Brett, who told you what I was going through at this time?"

And it's because that scripture specifically spoke into their heart. I just found that even in the minor prophets or wherever you might be in the Bible—I've had even people say, "Brett, you teach through Leviticus?" And I say, "Absolutely, yes."

Our church, one of our biggest growth spurts in our church was when I was teaching through the book of Leviticus. It's because the Word of God is in fact living, powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. People are starving for the full counsel of God, not just our favorite passages but the whole book. "Lo, I come in the volume of the book; it is written of me." That's speaking of Christ. So that's why we love every book of the Bible.

Guest (Male): Thank you, Brett, for explaining why going verse-by-verse like you do is never a bad idea. Well, friend, if you'd like more information about Pastor Brett Meador or today's word, you can just go to our website at todayswordradio.com. That's todayswordradio.com.

Well, next time, Pastor Brett will expand on how Paul and Barnabas continued performing miracles, preaching the Gospel, and strengthening the faith of new believers. Today's word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.