12-28-25 Study of Acts Chapter 14:1-28 The Call and Qualities of a Discipler Part 2

➡ This Bible study on December 28, 2025, focused on the Book of Acts, particularly chapter 14, which discusses the transition of individuals becoming the church. The study emphasized the importance of identifying and using the spiritual gifts given by God, which can only be fully realized through a continuous relationship with Jesus Christ. The study also highlighted the importance of teaching and confirming the gospel, and the role of these actions in establishing a strong foundation in Christianity. Lastly, the study stressed the need to eradicate evil in the world by following the teachings in the Book of Acts.
➡ The text discusses the Book of Acts and its teachings about establishing a relationship with God and the role of the Church in combating evil. It delves into the origins of Jews and Gentiles, emphasizing the importance of understanding true history and the Bible’s teachings. The text also highlights the importance of recognizing and utilizing one’s spiritual gifts within the Church, and the power of prayer and faith in achieving desired outcomes. Lastly, it underscores the importance of courage in spreading the teachings of the Church.
➡ Paul, a figure from the Bible, used his past connections with the Sanhedrin and knowledge of scripture to spread the Gospel. He faced various reactions, from acceptance to anger, but his joy came from ministering to Jesus Christ. The text emphasizes that Christians should expect adversity and persecution, but should remain bold and truthful, using these challenges to grow in faith. It also encourages Christians to conduct all dealings in life with Jesus Christ in mind, aiming for the benefit of Christ and others, not just oneself.
➡ The text discusses the challenges of being a Christian, emphasizing that it often leads to division and adversity due to differing beliefs. It encourages believers to remain bold and courageous, even when faced with opposition, and to continue spreading their faith. The text also highlights the importance of understanding one’s audience and adjusting one’s approach accordingly. Lastly, it underscores the belief that God provides protection and guidance, urging believers to trust in divine direction rather than relying solely on their own instincts.
➡ This text talks about the power of faith and belief in God’s promises, using the story of Paul from the Bible. Paul, a great speaker, saw a crippled man in his audience and, trusting in God’s power, told him to stand up. The man did, showing that God’s power can work through us when we have faith. The text encourages us to claim and use the power God has given us, rather than doubting or questioning it.
➡ The text discusses the power of faith and the importance of humility in Christian discipleship. It emphasizes that believers have the power of God within them, which they can use to share Christ’s teachings. The text also recounts a story from the Bible where Paul and Barnabas were mistaken for gods after performing a miracle, but they humbly rejected the praise. The author encourages believers to claim their spiritual blessings and serve God, rather than seeking recognition for themselves.
➡ The text discusses the importance of humility and persistence in spreading the gospel. It emphasizes that God’s work should be done from a humble perspective, not seeking personal glory. It also highlights the story of Paul and Barnabas, who despite facing persecution and hardship, continued to preach the gospel with determination. The text encourages believers to overcome personal obstacles and to remain steadfast in their faith, using Paul and Barnabas as examples of such perseverance.
➡ The text discusses the importance of being a good church member and living a Christ-like life. It emphasizes the need for qualities like courage, power, humility, and persistence. The text also mentions the concept of karma, suggesting that our actions, good or bad, will come back to us or our descendants. Lastly, it highlights that the only way to break any generational curses is to live a life like Christ, not just through prayer alone.
➡ The text discusses the concept of forgiveness and judgment in a spiritual context. It suggests that while one can ask for and receive forgiveness for past actions, judgment for those actions is inevitable. The speaker emphasizes the importance of educating oneself and others about spiritual realities, and the consequences of failing to do so. The text concludes with a prayer expressing gratitude, seeking wisdom, and asking for protection and blessings.

Well, welcome. This is December 28th, year of our Lord 2025. This is our Sunday morning Bible study, the last one for this year. We’re in the Book of Acts. We’re, we’re migrating it through it, taking our time and understanding everything about this transitionary book in the creation of the Church. We, we began last week looking at chapter 14 indicated. Chapter 14 was the transitionary chapter. Excuse me, for you, the individual becoming the church. And we got to the point where we looked at the calling of being a disciple, because in the Scripture we have identified that your only role in this whole Christianity process, Fathers of Christ, is disciple others, after which you will disciple.

And you do that in accordance with the offices that were, that you were called to do in Ephesians 6. We already know that we’re all called to be teachers, so we can just leave it at that. If you’re called for more than that, then you, you’ll know that the calling is the same no matter what you’re called for, whether it’s for salvation or a particular service. And that’s what we mainly focused on last week in regards to this. We did begin looking at what makes a good discipler, and we went through a couple of those. And I’m going to, went through one and started on the second one, but I’m going to back up and I’m going to go over the first again to put all this in perspective, because I want you to get all of these in a package and we’ll tend to be done within this chapter today.

So we looked at the first element of being, of understanding. A. An effective discipler would be the administering of your gifts that God has given to you. And that in itself could be a discussion session for at least one, maybe two sessions. Because God gives you a whole laundry list of gifts that are available to followers of him. But he doesn’t give everybody everything. So in order for you to understand and to be of the gifts that you have and effectively use those gifts, you first have got to identify the gifts that you have. And you’re not going to know those gifts unless you have begun or in a continuous mode to study yourself to be sanctified in Christ.

Because it’s through the sanctification process that those gifts become instituted into your life. Because those gifts are given from God, they’re not given by you. So therefore to institute them in the process of your life, the only one that can do that is the Holy Spirit. So you might have the gifts you might have, might understand what those gifts are but if you’re not working in sanctification, growing yourself in your relationship with Jesus Christ, those gifts pretty much said dormant, unavailable for use. So the first element is to minister the spiritual gifts. And we find these beginning in, in verse 3 of chapter 14, which introduced the thought that is with Paul, Abomos here in the city of Iconium is not, which is known today as Galatia.

We find that these are abode with them. In other words, they’re part of them. And if you study the chapter in detail, you’ll see these gifts being used everywhere. For example, if you look at verse 21, you’ll see the gift to preach it. And when they had preached the gospel to the city, it’s verse 25. And when they had preached the word in perga, you’ll see also the gift of teaching in verse 22, confirming the souls of the disciples. And the word confirming there is associated with the term teaching and, and the reason why it is confirmed there in Acts.

And that is because the dispensation of how you became a follower of Christ had to be confirmed by the apostles. So that’s the reason why those two terms in Acts chapter 14 are sort of hooked together. Because teaching without confirmation didn’t get you anywhere. So they had, they had to do the confirming of the souls. And the only ones that had that ability to do was the disciples. You confirm people by teaching them. All right, that is something that you need. We’ve talked about this for at least a year, probably now, two years of your, of your self assessment.

You need to confirm to yourself the status of your relationship with Jesus Christ. And you need to do that every day. In addition to that, as you move out into whatever ministry that you’re going to end up doing, whether or not that is, you know, just meeting and having coffee or tea with a woman’s grip or having, going to men’s breakfast or whatever, whatever it might be, whatever your calling is. You can look at the confirmation of your ministry by what? The fruits? All right, you measure everything by fruits. What is going on in the world based upon what you’re doing.

And if nothing is going on based upon what you’re doing, then you need to reassess what’s going on. Okay? So you’ve got to confirm people by teaching them. And the word confirm in the Greek means to establish, to fix them subtly, to give them roots or give them a foundation. You cannot change them, that is not confirming them. And you can’t turn them from their wicked ways. The only thing you can do is plant that seed of confirmation, plant that seed of foundation, and give them the ability of understanding the alternative of this world, which is basically the love of Jesus Christ, the gospel.

So here, Paul and Barnabas, using the gift of preaching, the gift of teaching, verse 22, it goes a little further in, in identifying that that’s exhortation. They were using the gift of exhortation. Exhortation to teach people the love of Christ. So verse 23, when they had ordained elders in every city. Okay, now this goes back to the positioning of the Great Commission. Remember, And I’m gonna. Something came in my mind. I’m gonna talk about here just a moment. Remember that when Christ gave the Great Commission to the disciples, again to two charges. One, go out and preach the gospel to the people, and number two, go change the nations.

The first one was dealing with individual people. The second one was dealing with government. And you’re getting that in the, in the study of the mystery, the return of the gods. You’ve now gone. We’ve now gone through what the apostles had in their, in their toolbox. What they were able to do, what their charge were, was, and what they ended up doing, which was to take in all the pagan evil systems that were existing in the areas where the gospel had taken hold and removing them into hell. And it wasn’t until later on when the people went back to worshiping the pagan gods, that the pagan gods had the door opened by us.

And they have returned. And if, if we were to have any ability of removing the stronghold over this world today, we must do it. As stated in the Book of Acts. There’s no other way to do it. I happen to watch Dua’s film with Yesterday with Misty on the Red Dragon of prophecies. And a lot of things we could talk about in that, that documentary. But there was a couple of key points that I do want to bring up. The rabbi, Jewish rabbi who had turned to Christianity and now was not only a rat and understood the law, Judaism as a law, but Judaism as a, a tradition, a culture, and now understood the Gospel, he said a couple of things that really were biblically spot on.

I’m not going to get into the fact that basically all they talked about was white people. They didn’t talk about the black Diaspora. They didn’t talk about the. They, they, they, they got to the point where they said that the nation of Israel is the state of Israel today. We already know that that is not true. Okay, we. And they also commented that all Jews are all Jews. That is not True either. Christ said the Sanhedrin that you know. So. And he also talks about the, what will happen in, in the future when, you know, the Jews who are not Jews won’t receive the benefit of, of salvation.

So. But he said a couple of things that were, that were biblically sound that I want to talk. One is he may. He made the point of saying exactly what we’re studying on our Monday night Return of the Gods. He indicated, and he gave you scripture reference of those who watch this, just like we have in our teaching that the apostles remove the pagan system. And he also indicated that that pagan system has come back because the people have allowed it to come back. And he. The third thing he says is the only way that we will be able to eradicate this world of the evilness is to eradicate it in accordance with Acts.

That’s it. Okay. That’s the reason why we’re studying this. That’s the reason why you need to apply it to your life. If you want to remove evil from you, there is only one way to do it. The playbook is the same playbook, and that playbook is the Book of Acts. You’re getting the individual application of getting your relationship with God set up in Ephesians. But that doesn’t give you the playbook to deal with the evil system. It tells you how to eradicate, how to regenerate your life in order for you to become the church so that then you can fulfill the, the commission of the Church, which is to evangelize, disciple and eradicate evil.

That’s the Book of Acts. That is what our focus needs to be on. So we get into verse three and it talks about signs and wonders, the gift of miracles in verse 10 and talks about the fact that at this time, because we were dealing with the Jewish community in addition to the Gentiles. And see, this is the other thing that, that, that, that film did not differentiate. Our whole world came from three individuals. One of three individuals. Your seed, your bloodline seed came from one of three individuals, Ham, Japheth or Shim. If all of those three were Jews, how did Gentiles get here? All right, the world is still teaching you disinformation and the Bible is teaching you the truth.

And if you don’t correlate the two together, you’ll never come to the understanding of what truth is. And you have to understand that the Hebrew bloodline came from Abraham and Abraham came from the seed of Shem. Didn’t come from Japheth or Ham. Jews was a religious term given to the Hebrews in Ezra, associated with the nation of Israel, God’s chosen people, which are the bloodline of Abraham, not the bloodline of Japheth or Ham. We’ve already learned, if you’ve done anything in your bloodline, study with me, that, that the Sanhedrin bloodline came from Japheth and Ham. And we’ve already identified, if you’ve done any reading of the historical documents that I put out.

The nation of Israel is not the state of Israel because the state of Israel is an owned piece of property by a gentleman called Rothchild, who is a descendant of the Ashkenazi Jews of Jacob’s bloodline. If you, if you don’t study history, you will not know the truth. And Christ stood up in front of the Sanhedrin and says, you of are your father the devil. He’s talking to the Sanhedrin. And he didn’t say, oh, Joe, Jerry, Sam, whatever. He said, you collectively whole the Sanhedrin are from your father the devil. And knowing that the world is created from that process, because we’re still in the Roman Empire history.

You’ve already been taught that history. And we know that the Roman Empire was the one that structured the conditions of the futuristic Nazi nation. And we know that we’re not out of World War II yet foreign. We’re still in the condition historically of exactly what Jesus went through in the Sanhedrin Council. So how can people just listen to what somebody says and think that they have every answer out there without a lick of, of trying to research true history? Now, I like the movie. I thought it was well put together. I thought it had a lot of great content to it.

But it, but I also know that there were some, some, some information that should have been really put out. Like Ted Cruz should been put in his place. Ted Cruz is a liar. So if you’re going to be bold in your calling, you need to be bold in the understanding of truth. And you’re not going to get that by watching mainstream media or any other type of media that you don’t have the Bible in your hand to understand what the truth is. It’s not going to happen. So back then, because we were dealing with Jews who were under the law and because we were dealing with gentiles, the newness in the church, God had to create a process by which the Jews would understand something.

Spirituality was happening. So it gave the gift of signs, wonders and miracles to the apostles. Now, we saw this again all the way through the first. I’m not saying that Paul wasn’t Jewish, but the Jewish apostles applying Jewish dispensation to Jewish people in order to bring them into the Church. And then when Corneas receives the gift of salvation through Peter, a change occurs in the Church. Paul comes on the scene. Paul comes on the scene in Acts chapter 14 in regards to setting up the Gentile church. Chapter 13 is a transition from Peter to Paul. And chapter 14 is a transition from, with Paul, from the Jewish focus of the Church to the Gentile Church.

You. So you now have, with Paul and Barnabas teaching in Antioch, you now have effective disciplers understanding that they’re not sitting around doing nothing. They’re not sitting there waiting for the telephone to ring. They are in vital involvement with their gifts. See, they unders. They understood for them to be a functioning discipler into this organization called the Church, they had to understand what their gifts were. And as soon as they begin to understand what their gifts were, they begin to use those gifts. Walking in the Spirit and seeing God manifest himself through their abilities and manifestations of the Spirit.

What do we talk about? The closer you get to the relationship with Jesus Christ, the more frequent your manifestations of those blessings become. Do you want to know why things are not happening faster and faster and faster in your life? Look in the mirror. Some things are going to happen faster than others. Some things are going to take more time to get your spiritually correct in order for those things to be manifested into your life. It’s called preparedness. Remember, you’re called and then you prepare. Because God’s going to keep calling you and calling you and calling you till you give the positive response.

And as soon as you give the positive response, he kicks in high gear and prepares you to go to the next step. He can’t prepare you if you’re not willing to go, so he’s not going to waste his time. True story. You know, my, My. My best friend, Sherry, she. She was a director of a 501C3 that dealt with all kinds of mentally challenged individuals. And when I moved back to take care of my mother, their organization was in dire straits and, and she asked if. If I could come assist her in reorganizing the 501C3 in order for it to be sustainable, in which we did.

But one of the. She’s. She is a. She’s a devout Christian, but her spiritual life wasn’t quite to the level that, that she thought it was. And what we begin to do is every meeting that we were going to have with either a third party group that would allow us to provide service for pay or for an investor or whatever. She and I prayed together and we, and we asked specifically the outcome that we saw it. And I’m not saying every time was the, the same outcome that we had, but I’m going to tell you that 80% or better, when we begin to chart them, came out exactly what we pray for.

And she began to change in a manner about what she understood is how to pray. Remember, you got to understand how to pray. You got to understand what you’re asking for with the right intent. And you got to what, see it as you pray for it, do you already have it? And not question the outcome. That organization began to drastically turn around. That is how your life will turn around as well. So in chapter 13 and verse 13, chapter 1, there were prophets and teachers. In verse 2 of chapter 13, they were ministering to the Lord and they were fasting.

You do not minister to the physical being of anybody. We’ve talked about this. This physical life is Satan’s. If you minister to this physical life, who are you ministering to? Christ in his healing never administered healing to the physical. He administered healing to the spiritual and allow the spiritual to manifest itself into the physical realm as he designed this host body system. So when Scriptures say to you, verse 2 of chapter 13, they were ministering to the Lord and they were fasting, they were ministering to the people through their spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ. So when you begin to be a, an effective discipler, you’re going to minister to the Holy Spirit inside of each individual and allow the Holy Spirit to do what he does.

You cannot change anybody. In chapter nine it says, as Peter was going everywhere, God brought him to Lydia. Remember this, this now this is getting into the story of Carneus. And, and basically all Peter had to do is present, open his mouth and God said, shut up, I’m doing it, I got it. All right, just go there, be the witness, the third party witness that has to be there for calling, and I’ll do the rest. That’s how it works. So we get to that little foundation and stringing us together now with the second thing of an effective discipler and the second characteristic disciple is that you see in the message here is courage.

In chapter 14 it begins, they go into Iconium. And this was Galatia, of course, as I mentioned earlier, and they preached in the synagogue first. And of course you know what the reactions were because we’ve already gone through that. Paul was connected to the Sanhedrin. They knew his connection, they knew he knew the scripture, the Old Testament lies. They would allow him to speak. And as soon as he got the audience to speak in accordance to the traditions of the synagogue, he immediately went to the Gospel. He used his relationship of his past. Remember, God doesn’t change your past.

He utils, he utilizes your past for his benefit. He said, Paul, you’ve got this relationship with the Sanhedrin. They know you, they know that you, you know the, the lies. You can, you’re going to go into the synagogue first because it’s a, it’s a audience already known to you. You’re, they’re going to ask you to say a word and what you’re going to do is you’re going to start with the law and you’re going to transition from the law to the gospel and you’re going to save the people of the Son of God and then you’re going to use that as the platform of going into the community to reach the Gentiles.

That was Paul’s M.O. throughout his whole ministry. See, some people listen planting a seed. Some people actually get saved because that’s the condition of where they’re at their night. They need that third party confirmation. And Paul happened to do that. And some just got mad, which is fine too. Oh, now that sets a condition of your understanding of your relationship in ministry. You’re not going to get a positive outcome in total. Not going to happen. Some are going to be willing to listen, some are going to get, get, get upset and either get mad or leave.

And some are actually going to go through the whole thing right in front of you. Your joy is not in any one of those three events. Hear me out. Your joy is your ability to minister to Jesus Christ who is inside of them, unallow Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit to take charge. You can’t change a thing. So in verse 2, in chapter 14, the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and made their minds evil effect affected against the brethren. Okay, here we go. This is the war. This is the spiritual war. This is a spiritual war that’s going today.

And it was a spiritual war. I saw in that documentary yesterday of decision. Even though a lot of biblical things in it, they didn’t present it as all of the truth. The war is this. The world is operating in a condition of control and it’s not just a mind control. It is a slavery, a tyranny. They want to control every aspect of your life. On the other hand. Oh, I like this too. They also talked about the law of duality in the film, that was kind of cool. You know, they didn’t mean. They didn’t say the law of duality, but they said the law of opposites.

Okay? So the. The. The thing that is important for you to understand is you are not to conform to this world. You are not to associate with this world. You are not to have any conditions that you deal with this world other than through the calling and ministering to Jesus Christ. When you do business with an unsaved person, you do business not with them, but you do business with Jesus Christ. You hear what I’m saying? Number one, you want Jesus Christ to protect you from anything that this world may spin off on you. Number two, you want to make sure that whatever you’re doing is for the benefit of Christ.

So you plant the seed of Christ in their life. And number three, you want the positive outcome for them, not you. You have to give of yourself. You have to give your grace in order to receive grace. So they spoke boldly, you see, in doing that, what you’re creating for yourself. And this is why Christ says you’re going to be persecuted as they persecuted me. Because when you boldly speak the truth, you’re going to get push back. You do that. You do that to me. I’ve gotten so used to it, it just sort of rolls off my back.

Okay. Really doesn’t bother me anymore. But you do it. That is a natural, natural human response. Because you don’t think. If I were to speak bold and truth to you and you was not of your liking, you’re going to come after me. However you might do that, In some cases you’re gonna say, well, that’s not what you said last time. Well, okay, so what? You seem not to tell us the truth. Well, yeah, I’m giving you exactly what I know. See? So what was happening to Paul and Barnabas. That the Jews who got mad. Oh, oh, self assessment here.

The Jews who got mad decided to go stir the gentiles. Oh, women, you do this all the time. I reminded of. Oh. Two move two. Two things. One is. White Christmas where the busybody attended at the front desk, listened into a phone call that she got three words and put together her whole context of what Crosby was going to do about helping out a retired general. And she started a harness this up that was major. And then I liked Barney Fife. You know, the were Aunt B. Aunt B was the most busy body person on the show.

Okay, It is okay to be upset. It’s a sin to make Somebody else upset with you. And you’re stirring the pot is just that. See, God says, be thankful for everything. Oh, what does that mean? Well, if I don’t like something, I’m gonna go call Susie or Joe or Mike or whomever and I’m just going to start, you know, circling the wagon and stirring the pot and, oh, we’re going to get up in a, in a wad here and, you know, what are we doing? You’re sinning. And what did God say to do? Take everything to him and be thankful for whatever’s going on in your life.

So persecution always makes Christianity an issue. And Christianity becomes an issue when you have something to speak. And that’s a good thing. Be bold and be truthful. So the more persecution you have, think about this. You’re over the target now. The more persecution has in your life, the more you grow. If you’re sitting around on the couch waiting on the phone to ring and nothing’s happening in your life, you’re not growing. That’s the reason why God’s not going to use you. See, in Paul, Abraham’s days, that’s all they talked about 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

And the more they talked about it, the more they had to talk about the subject because the more people wanted to know. That’s discipleship. If you don’t open your mouth, you will never understand discipleship. And you might say, okay, how long does this, how long does all this take? Well, I’m just going to put the word infinity. It never stops. If you read certain scriptures, it talks about events for weeks and for years and months. And then as it, then it goes to seasons, it’s infinity. This never stops. The only time it will stop is when Jesus Christ comes back and builds his millennial kingdom and removes all evilness from this universe.

Until that time, put on your alligator skin, put on your big boy pants, and know that you’re going to get persecuted. See, that is the only way that revelation works. Why does God reveal to you something for you to just sit on? You know, I thought about that. What good is that. He reveals something for to you, for you to share? And he did that with the apostles in granting them signs and wonders to be done by their hands. And that was in order for God to confirm the word of truth as divinely provided. Because God gave the law, now God’s giving them the truth.

And he had to show them a change. So here they are, Paul and Barnabas. They’re boldly speaking. And in this boldly speaking, they had to have the courage to do that. Now, this is not the kind of person who isn’t daunted by adversity. If you guys don’t understand that Christianity is an adversity position in life, you need to reevaluate this because you are set apart. In that. Setting apart means that you’re different in your difference, means that not everybody’s going to like you. And it means that you’re going to have to go through challenges of adversity.

You’re going to deal with confrontation. And it’s the process of dealing with that confirmation that shows your Christ like faith. So this person is not one who immediately upon an adverse phrase or an adverse sentence or coming in contact with adversity conflict, they say, oh, I’m clos, I’m folding up my 10, I’m going home. Self assessment. Guys, think. What you’ve done is just closed your fields, you’ve closed your avenue of teaching. Realize you’re going to be met at the door. With adversity. And if you think any other way, then you are acting foolish. Even in the church, the corporate church today you go in with courage and boldness and you tell the truth, you’re going to have adversity because it’s going against their doctrine.

Say I, I, I get, I used to get really frustrated by this, but I don’t anymore because just the human nature and some people just need to grow more. I had, I had many times somebody came so well, I tried to witness to my next door neighbor and they shut the door in my face. So therefore I can’t do that again. What. You know, have you ever evaluated your approach? Do you ever understand you got to know your audience to, to be able to communicate with them. And you should always seek to give them the benefit.

Not you. You made it about yourself. Say this, this thing called discipleship which you’re called to do, it is a commandment, it’s not a choice. You are to go boldly out and do what God has called you to do. You’re to walk worthy of your calling, as Ephesians says, and you are to be willing, oh, here it is. To have happen whatever is supposed to happen. Verse 5, it says the multitude of the city was divided. Well, I’m going to tell you something guys, Christianity is a division. You’re going to divide your home, you’re going to divide your family, you’re going to divide your kids, you’re going to divide your friends, you’re going to divide your workplace, you’re going to divide.

Everything around you is going to split. And if it doesn’t, you ought to look at yourself. You’re going to split your town. You’re going to go to dinner at some restaurants that you used to go to and everybody used to say, hey, hey. So Joe. Hey, hey, what’s going on? Come sit with us. They’re now going to look at you. And what did Jesus say? I didn’t come to bring peace. Unconditional love. Here’s my philosophy of life. I think we ought to love everybody. He came to bring a sword. He came to divide. He came to conquer.

He came to. To. To cut you up and remove you from you the sin in your life. If anyone to bring priests to the world, all they had to do is say peace to the world. Everybody gets it. No, the peace comes through Jesus Christ. How do you get that? You have to get saved and regenerated to get it. And just because you have it, everybody else does it. Christianity will always divide. Somehow. That the Jews and somehow were held with the apostles means that they split. The synagogue split. And what happened? There was an assault.

On whom? Paul. Do you get the picture? Courage, boldness is not something that you should shy away from. In the Greek this term assault means a rush, like a mob, a mob lynching. That’s what they wanted to do to Paul. They wanted, they wanted to kill him because he was not telling them what they wanted to hear. And this wasn’t in Rome, by the way. This was in Jewish communities. This reference in this part of the scripture means that it is close to home. And the mob rose up and they wanted to have a lynching and they were going to use stones.

And the Jews apparently had convinced the gentiles that these people had blasphemed. And so the Jewish execution for blaspheme was going to be carried out. So it was time to stone them guys, mostly women. Stop stirring the pot. You got to stay in the lane. So what happened then? Verse 6. Well, Paul and Barnabas were aware of it. They knew it was going to happen and they fled to Lucia and Derby. God gave them an out to guide. Always provides the protection. If you’re listening, Let’s walk through a scenario. Oh, you’re bold. Let’s go up. Let’s just talk to these people.

Then they, then there’s a little mob come up. And now you, you begin to think about, oh what about my safety or whatever and you say, oh I need. Now need to, I need to fight or flee. Well that is a Self response, that is not a spiritual response. And you tour, you, according to scripture are supposed to accept whatever happens. Now you’re in that situation, you’re going to tuck and run, tell, are you going to say holy Spirit, what should I do? And give me an out, show me my out. If this is my end, it’s my end because it’s for you.

If it’s not, then show me where to go. That’s what scripture tells you to do in this discipleship. But what did Christ, what, what did Christ tell him? You’re g, you’re not going to be any, any off better there than where you’re at. They’re just like everybody else. Christ says it’s not time for you to go yet, there’s still a ministry to be done. So if you go to verse 21, it’s pretty easy to prove. And it says they weren’t gone very long until they came back, right back to Listra to finish what they had started.

They had more business to take care of, But they did leave when it was time to leave. And God said this, if you go into a city and they don’t receive you, go to another city. You can’t change them. They don’t want to receive you, just go to another city. You guys sometimes want to browbeat your closest friend into obsessing your obsessment. And they never wanted that to begin with. And what have you just caused? What God did in utilizing that by having them go to another city is they planted the seed, a very unforgettable mark on that city.

In fact, one of the only descriptions we have of the looks of the apostle Paul was found in 2nd century writing that was found out of Iconium. When he was there in Iconium, he made enough of an impression on the city, he must have been there long enough. So they wrote this about him. Listen to what they said. He was a man, small in size. Oh, what do they do? They tear him down, everything. He was a very, very large man. Okay, now they’re saying, oh, he’s just now a small man with meeting eyebrows, a rather large nose, bald headed bull legs, bowlegged, strongly built, full of grace.

At times he looked like a man, and at times he had the face of an angel. That’s what the people took away from Paul’s visit when he first met them, when they rejected him, he left a seed. He left an unforgettable mark about what he was, what he was about and what his message was to them. He made a big impression. Maybe that’s all God wanted him to do at that time. Maybe that was the only. Maybe that was the time that where God was saying, okay, I’m calling. You’re going to listen like he does with you.

But it was time to leave and they left. Where did they go? They went to Listia in Derby, which is only about 18 miles south of Antioch. And in verse seven, they preached the Gospel. And very persistent, very committed, courageous and very bold. They didn’t change. They had a tremendous persecution and threatened to take their life. And yet they had the courage of what they believed God had called them to do. Even in Lister and Derby, there was no difference. Christ said, you’re not going to have a difference. Still the same guys. Remember, you’re going to be persecuted, but go bullet.

And how would you like to make that road trip. The most vital thing in this relationship with Jesus Christ? As disciples? No, it doesn’t matter where you’re, where you are, or whoever it is that you’re called to win or to teach or to build up. The most vital thing is you have the courage to go right at it. Can’t pussy foot around. Can’t wait. Some Christians never experience God’s providential courage. Okay, let’s. Let’s break that word down. Providential. What does that word mean? If he owns you, he owns you. He protects you. He provides for you.

You’re his right. Providential. I got a receipt. My blood is your receipt. You have a contract with me. You accepted faith, my saving grace, and I have now regenerated you to your new self. That’s providential. He owns you. And most Christians never experience that providential courage because they never allow themselves to get in a place where they’ll ever have to experience it. Your control of your world, you’re not allowing the Holy Spirit to control your world. If you were, you were experiencing almost every day. Now, I’ve been in situations where violence has occurred. Knives are out, guns are out.

And I got experienced this at a very young age thanks to my father. So I didn’t have what one would expect in all cases. About as soon as that came out that you should run. Over time, as my faith in Christ became more and more prevalent in my life, I began to receive confidence and a tremendous amount of strength. And God’s present that overpowered that situation. I began to remove myself. I began to take on the position of what Scripture says. Whatever happens, happens. And if I tell you to go, go. If I tell you to stay.

So the position of life in the face of adversity is not to turn to your mind. It’s to turn to your heart. I’m going to tell you something. The very first time that I felt that presence, I could have floated on clouds. I felt I was in, you know, Star Trek. I had a bubble around me. There’s no darts going to penetrate my bubble. I was like a kid in a candy closet. The feeling was unbelievable. All right. A third thing in this discipleship thing, His power. Anybody who’s going to be an effective in discipling others is going to have to count on.

On power. You cannot change it. And I think this is probably. The most beautiful situation that you could ever encounter. For lack of. I was trying to think of a masculine word, but I couldn’t. So I’m just going to say beautiful. It’s the most beautiful thing you probably ever incur. Here’s Paul. He’s preaching his heart out there in Lista, just really laying it on them. And all of the people are sitting there taking it in. He’s a great preacher, and depending upon who you study, he’s probably one of the greatest speakers that ever lived outside of Christ himself.

As a great orator who was a great communicator, he was well educated. And he sees in the audience a certain man impotent on his feet. It means that this man’s feet had never worked. Therefore he had no power. He couldn’t do anything. He was totally paralyzed. And no doubt the musk muscles were all atrophied and he was just a cripple. Scripture doesn’t tell us was most likely because of the time, time period that Scripture does tell us. This individual could have probably has never walked in his life. And Paul spots him in the crowd. Paul begins to watch this guy, and this guy is watching Paul.

He’s. He’s listening to Paul and by God’s revelation to his own brain, This is the guy that’s the cripple. Just in the process of watching and listening to Paul and taking in what the Holy Spirit is telling him, God sends a revelation to this guy’s own brain. This is scripture, perceives that he has faith to be healed. Paul says this, not calling out by name, but he says. He says, here’s a guy that really believes. Here’s a guy, here’s a man who’s ready to believe this gospel if only he could be cured with divine. And if I did a miracle, it would convince him.

Paul saw his faith. Paul saw the spirit inside of him. And look what he does. With a loud voice, he’s got the whole crowd there. And he spoke. And to this one guy, he says, stand up on your feet. You, you over there, stand up on your feet. I want you to think about that. That took a lot of faith on Paul’s part to do that. Because if Paul was going to be wrong, what happens to his gospel message? Paul could have stood there and says, wow, I’d like to see that that guy be healed. But what if he doesn’t work? So he says, what if I say this, Stand up and be healed.

And he just sits there or he jumps up and falls over. I can say these words, but is, is it going to take shape? Paul goes out on a limb, bold, courageous, with power. Lord, do you think he had the battle in his mind? Do you think Peter had that battle when he saw the guy at the gate? And the guy said alms? And Peter says, john, can we try it? We could. Let’s go back and pray for a couple of hours and then we’ll come back and try it and see if it works. No, they stepped out on faith and he said, rise up and walk.

Why did he do that? Because God had promised him power. He simply claimed it and exercised it. Guys, I went through this piece of scripture for one point. This is already given to you. Your issue is you haven’t claimed it. And when in needed, you don’t declare it. See, there are Christians who may say, well, I could witness. I could, I could do that. I, I suppose I could try it. Maybe a couple of hours of prayer and I could sneak out of the house so nobody know that I’m really going to do anything. And I could go try it on somebody I don’t even know.

That’s the same thing, guys, They don’t have the confidence in the power that God has given them. How can you on faith declare something that is given to you, already given to you? Ephesians 1:3, I’ve given you all the blessings of ever. How can you not? How can you do that without the declaration of confidence in your life so that you can declare what’s God’s already given you? If you don’t believe that you have the power to go out and win, heal somebody to Christ and disciple that somebody. You have a lack of faith in God and you question God’s promise because God said, you shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you shall be my witness and you shall be able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all you can.

What? Ask or think according to the power that works in you what in that do you not understand? When you have trouble believing that your. Powers in God, it’s when you begin to question God’s promises. You see, If God said you have it, why do you question it? Oh well, let’s back up. If God said you had it first you got to know he said you had it. So you need to study the Bible so you get there. And if you’re not willing to study the Bible to get there, you’re not going to know it in the first place.

So you’re going to question everything anyway. Now if you have trouble, belie believe that you’re questioning God’s promises. And if you question God’s promises, he that believes not makes him a what? A liar. What have you just done? God says, I’ve given you everything. That means you don’t have to ask for it. All you have to do is claim it. Manifest manifestation comes by your relationship to Jesus Christ. And in that manifestation you declare it is yours. Why? Because he’s already given it to you. And if you don’t believe that that’s the case, you are calling God a liar.

A s. Want a self assessment. I want you to see what an affront to God it is when you won’t do what you’ve been empowered to do. Your unwillingness. Is a sin. Paul didn’t stand there mumbling around in his beard saying, well, I could give it a whirl there God, if you really wanted me to do that, but you got to give me a sign. He’s already told you you have it. Now give me another sign so I know that I know I got it. Let them jump up before I say something so that I don’t look, you know, like I’m stupid.

How about let him come across the street with a Bible to me so that I know that you’ve already got him walking. So when I do this, I can say, oh, see what God did. Or I could say, God, could you explain this to me how this really works so that I may now be a witness, but not a cold turkey witness. Okay? I can’t go out on a limb. Can you just uncripple this guy and let’s get on with this business? All of those things are what are natural to you. In your mind. Paul didn’t do that.

See, Paul didn’t fight that battle because Paul had absolute belief in God’s power. I can imagine Paul doing this, standing there looking at the guy, trying to decide when to open his mouth. And I believe it was led by A little chuckle, huh? It’s fixing to happen, Satan. Watch this. And then he opens his mouth and he destroys the entire credibility of the town by having this guy get up and walk. And guess what happened? That’s exactly what happened. He leaked and walked. And I, I, I, you know, just thinking about this, thinking about our natural reality, my gosh, if that happened to you, your heart’s going to go absolutely just.

And so thank you, God, that you get done with. You look stupid. Okay? We don’t come boldly with the understanding of the power that we actually have in this thing called Christianity. And oh boy, I bet the anxiety that you might felt on that one. And I’m pretty sure from a guy’s point of view, we were probably sweating our clothes off. Paul didn’t do that. Paul just went right on preaching. It was just like a matter of fact, in the course of all of this, God’s going to do this because he’s giving me the power to do it.

And I know that he’s telling me to do it. I’m going to do it. I’m just going to keep preaching. I’m going to watch the crowd, watch this guy leap up and come walking to me. That’s exactly what happened. Here was a man who knew God had promised him power. What he did was he claimed it, he used it and he declared its response. You know, as a Christian, you got the same thing. You don’t have the apostolic gift of miracles and healing, but you’ve got the power of God by the indwelling Holy Spirit, to share Christ in His power.

And it is through his power that healing is done. So to me, this thing called power is beautiful. It’s an exciting principle of discipleship. A true discipler, an effective discipler is somebody who believes that the power of God is his. He claims it, he steps out on faith, he uses it and declares its outcome. I’m going to tell you something. When you do it, it’s really exciting. Why? In your own eyes, you see God’s work. You want God to reveal Himself to you. Hear me out. Reveal yourself to God. That which you give, you get. So if you want God to reveal himself to you, you need to reveal yourself to him as a servant.

It must be absolutely frustrating to guide somewhat to have to sit back and wait for us to claim the thing he’s already given us. Can you imagine, can you imagine all your frustrations of prayer that you think you don’t have things when if you just read the Scripture and understand the Scripture, you’ve got every heavenly blessing that he has to offer his son in Ephesians 1:3. But yet you don’t claim it. Can you imagine how frustrating might be be by you continuing to come him asking him for the things he’s already given to you? And he’s just, he’s trying, he’s trying to hit you over the head by the 2×4 and say when you just wake up.

So the true disciple experiences the ministering of, of his gifts. Courage, power and fourthly, hum. Humility. This is not about you. But boy, you like to take credit for it. He illustrates this here with Paul and Barnabas. Watch what scripture unfolds for us. And when the people saw what Paul had done, this is the healing of the man. Of course they were not only shocked, they began to scream. They got way excited. And the whole crowd went in, outside of the synagogue, into the marketplace. All right, now just think about that. You got a guy that you know that’s been crippled all his life.

You’re sitting next to him, he jumps up and starts running over you. You are going to freak out and run the opposite direction, screaming that there is something going on which you have no idea that could ever occur. Put yourself in the same situation. That’s what they did. They freaked. They lifted up their voices and they said in their native languages, which Paul didn’t understand. Why? Because Paul was speaking to them in Hebrew. Jews. The gods are come down to us in the likeness of a man. Your first inclination in your natural sense of your brain is to think natural circumstance, that which you can only see.

They said these aren’t people, Paul Bartimus. These are not people. These are gods. And they’re back again. Paul just took them out, right? Sent them to hell. Now they’re coming back in Paul and Barnabas, they’re back again. Now they had an interesting history because the only time in history that the pagan gods were removed from any system was was the apostles. They had an earlier experience with the gods. Yes, they did. The gods managed their governments created slavery societies, tyranny for the people, sacrificial sacrifice of babies. They believed in their own polytheistic religion. Religion, corporate church have what happened in Paul in a corporate church today you will take that corporate church to its knees.

It didn’t actually happen, but this is what they believed. They believed that the two gods, Zeus and Hermes had visited them. Why? Because in this territory that Paul and Barnis were in, in Conan, that was the two gods that were the pagan gods over that territory before Paul had Removed them. They believe that Zeus and Hermes had descended on the town of Le ler some years earlier and they had gone around disguised as men just to check out whether they, the Listra people were really true worshippers of the pagan gods. And everywhere they went they were asked for lodging and food and no one would give it to them.

So Hermes and Zeus went through the whole town trying to get somebody to put them up for the right, for, for the right price a night and feed them and keep them a few days and no one would do it. So as the story goes, they finally came up to an old poor peasant by the name of Philemon and Bicus, a man and his wife. And they took them in and gave them everything they needed and kept them and fed them and gave them the best that they had. And see, as a result of that, Zeus and Hermes were so mad at the whole town of Austeria they killed everybody in the town but those two people.

And those two people became the guardians of, of a splendid temple. When they died they were turned into two great big tall living trees. It doesn’t really sound like a really hot big deal to me but I guess if you believe in their religion, being a tree wasn’t something great anyway. So they figured they were thinking of what they did did deal was and they figured, hey, they’re back again and we’re not going to blow it this time. All right? So as the deception goes with evil, well, I did it the first time this way if you don’t do it this time, you’re going to get the same result.

So everybody thought in the township after Paul had raised this guy up in a healing miracle that here are the demons back. And oh, by the way, if we don’t conform to the demon’s request, we’re going to get the same thing that is going to happen to us, happen to our ancestors then. So what they did was they changed their names. They used the Roman names for Zeus and Hermes which were Jupiter and Mercury. Oh, what happens today? Demons change their name. So you can’t figure out who the demons are in history. Playbook. Always the same, got to start over with somebody so you really don’t know the history of somebody so that somebody can do what they’ve been doing for thousands of years and nobody figures it out.

Test the spirits discernment. Now this was the king of all guides and they named Barnabas that. Now that tells me that Barnabas must have been a great big handsome, imposing, statuesque type figure because that was Zeus and Hermes was the God of speech. And they decided that Paul was that. And that tells you that they were evaluating Paul’s speaking and said, this has got to be the God of speech. What a speaker, a great orator. And the reasoning for both is they would parallel what both Paul and Barnabas would do. So here are these two guys that don’t know what’s really going on because they can’t speak Laconian.

All right, this is not. Remember, the tongues had already left. All of the tongue gifts had left. That’s another reason why I say in Scripture, speaking in tongues is no longer available. Some say, well, I’m speaking to the Holy Spirit. Well, I don’t care what, what. You’re speaking to the Holy Spirit. If you think the Holy Spirit’s hearing you, then the Holy Spirit can interpret it. But if you’re speaking to man, man can’t interpret gibberish. You must have an interpreter to understand that Paul and Barnabas could not speak Lacania. So Paul and Barnes was just standing there and saying, there’s something going on, but we don’t know what it is.

And they begin to shout and call Barnabas Jupiter and Paul Mercury because he was the chief speaker. And then the priest of Jupiter, now he comes flowing out and he brings the oxen and the garlands and they’re going to get ready to sacrifice to those two guys. They were setting up their pagan worshiping activities for Paul and Barnabas because that’s how they identified this miracle as a pagan God. Miracle. Now here’s Paul and Barnabas. They’re standing there, they know something’s up. There’s a lot of screwing around going on. They can’t understand any word that somebody’s saying.

But here comes a bunch of oxen, here comes flowers, here comes all of the stuff. And all of a sudden they realize what’s going on in verse 14. When they understood it, they began to rip their clothes and they ran throughout the crowd crying out sins. Why are you doing this? Something very interesting about this. This was one chance, one chance of a glory setting for Paul and Barbas. They could have took credit for this. This is was, was one chance they could get by with it in the people’s eyes. They could arose ask not much.

They could have had fun with this and let it go for a while. But God took. Listen, guys, I know a lot of false prophets, preachers and teachers who have been trying to get all of the recognition deity wise in your life. Matter of fact, I’ve said this many times. I wish God Just let me open my mouth so I can tell you won’t do it. All right, but I’m telling you, they’re there. There are false prophets who have just had all of their life ambition that somebody would think that they were our guide. Self assessment.

Let me ask you a question. Who praises you the most? 1, And in this case, Paul Barnabas had been there and they’re trying to say, I’ll take my palace over there and the temple over there and the treasure over there and the harem over there. I’d like a large backyard with a pool. This could have been the one opportunity in their life to get everything they wanted. Self assessment. Paul could have said, well, hey, Barnabas, man, if we play our cards right on this baby, we’ll get that whole thing set up and we’ll be in a position to tell these people anything, whatever we want, and they’ll believe us and we can preach gospel, whatever it might be, and they all get saved and we will live like kings.

See, we must do all of God’s work from the vantage point of humility. That you got that in Ephesians 4. Never from the vantage point of human exaltation. Always. God doesn’t want Christian superstars. Self assessment. Those. You think that you got something more than somebody else or God’s gift to that group of people, or you think you know more than what they know, or you know what. That’s just who I am. See, I think the vantage point of humility is always the vantage point from which God’s work has to be done. Paul and Barnabas didn’t want any exaltation in this.

They didn’t want to see it as a means to an end. They wanted to do God’s work and they wanted it to do it God’s way. And see, Jesus is our example, because that’s exactly what he did. Jesus came into this world. He came as a serpent servant. And he said, when you go into the world, go as servants. And when Jesus came into the world, he humbled himself. He says in Ephesians 4, humble yourselves, walk worthy of your calling, lowliness, purification. And when he sends us into the world, he humbles us. If we exalt ourselves, we violate that and we get what the world has to offer.

I want you to think about this. There’s two persecutions. There’s one persecution that the Holy Spirit allows to take place because you’re. You’re teaching the Holy Spirit. There’s another persecution that you bring on yourself, and that’s yours. You don’t get help for that one. And so none of that was set. You find in verse 15. We are men like you, with the same passions. We’ve come here to preach that you should stop these vanities. We’re not trying to get you to worship vanity. These gods were trying to get you to quit it and worship the living God.

And he goes on to describe who that living go. God is using natural revelation. You talk to them on their level for understanding. He doesn’t use the Old Testament because they don’t know it. They didn’t. They weren’t raised by the law. Remember, God gave through Christ, Paul, the keys of the kingdom of God. Why? Because the kingdom of God he had to teach from heaven to earth. Peter had to teach from earth to heaven, which was the keys to the kingdom of heaven, because we live in the kingdom of heaven on this earth. So I would say as a footnote, any good discipler is going to speak to the people in the context of their own culture and traditions for understanding.

And Paul does that. Know your audience. Now let me give you a fifth because we’re coming to close. Persistence. This is so good, guys. If you first, don’t exceed, try, try again. Verse 19. I think a true discipler is somebody who doesn’t quit, doesn’t give up, doesn’t walk away from a battle. Now the question is, where’s the battle? Majority of the battle that you’re going to face is not from a confrontation with the person that you’re addressing, because the Holy Spirit’s in charge. You see what I’m saying? Majority of the battle you’re going to face is inside of you.

How do you become an overcomer? You got to overcome you. What are the situations you need to overcome those situations that are controlling you? It’s not easy. It’s a struggle. Matter of fact, it’s a daily contest of who’s going to win. I want to run the race, right? Process. I want to win. Therefore I’m going to die daily. Paul uses the word about athletic so many times. Philippians 1, he uses the verb ethio, which means athletics. He uses agono, or agonized struggle. Persistence was always a part of his life in any true discipler. You’re going to have walls.

You’re gonna have walls. Some walls are going to be small. Some walls are going. To. And you have got to charge through them. Faith of a mustard seeds, moon, mountains, what is that? Those walls? The condition of the walls are not physical walls. You’re not going to have to climb Mount Everest to go find somebody. You have to get over your own self in order to even get started. So that’s, that’s what the walls are so faithful as a mustard seed moves the mountains inside of you to go through. Now, some of the people that came to see Paul and Barnabas came from a distance of 100, 120 miles away on foot.

And they, they came to see Paul and Barnabas, not to hear the message, but to persecute them. So these people arrived and they persecuted the people and they stoned Paul and threw him out of the city. They just threw him out on the dump. Heap, trash dump. They stoned him thinking he was dead. Now, wherever, whether he was dead or not is hard to know. Scripture doesn’t tell us. But they thought he was dead. Well, we know from scripture after that he wasn’t dead because he went somewhere else. Okay, so that’s, that’s satisfied. They polarized his body with boulders.

They’ve crushed his. They broke his bones to pieces, threw him on a dump, assuming him dead. Now, in verse 20, it says, nevertheless, the disciples stood around him. So all the people stood around. You can just probably imagine for those believers in Christ, the sadness that they must have felt. Sorrow, the weeping. And guess what? And he rose up. I like that. That’s power. That’s power. Guys, he just got up. Give out, Marine. Woo. He got up. It was such a big deal for such a small statement in scripture. He rose up. There’s got to be at least five paragraphs there that talks about that.

In my condition, I would have loved the scene reproduced. I would have liked scripture to be detailed of what that looked like, you say, well, he got up. Certainly he retreated away for a little time of rest and regathering his thoughts. Oh, no, he didn’t. No, he didn’t. Scripture tells us he rose up and did what? Went back into the city. He wasn’t finished. Oh, self assessment. You get broken and battered, your feelings get hurt, you feel like you’re, you know, you’re not liked, you’re not loved anymore, but you know, whatever, and you retreat. You retreat to what? Your own sin.

And when he got into the city, he didn’t say, oh, Lord, the door is closed to listeria. He went back in and finished what he wanted to say. Now that’s persistence. He preached there and the next day departed and went to Derby. The next day, after he had been stoned to death or near death, his body pulverized with permanent scarring. The next day he went right back and Finished the sermon. Now listen, Derby was 30 miles away, broken body, bone in pieces. On a mission with persistency. What? 30 miles to do what? Do it all over again.

And when he finished, guess what he did? He went back to aia, back to Iconium and back to Antioch. He never stopped any of the time. Now that’s really hard to believe. Absolutely incredible. But that is the truth of the scripture. His body scarred for life, I bet tension packed weeks and months of preaching and preaching drags him his beaten body off of a dump and walks back in the city, finishes his misses, goes 30 miles, preaches some more and turns back to the whole 150 mile trek the other way, going back the same direction all the way to Antioch.

Demand was persistent. What he knew was how to redeem his time. See, There was a great reformer that wrote that. He. And he kept a record, written notebook of Paul. And he said all of the hours of his day not spent for the Lord. Were zero. Now I like that count of persistence. Sometimes I wish I could maintain that. Humanly impossible sometimes. But when we look at the Christian life and we look at what we have identified as your individual requirement of adjudicating yourself through the regenerating process to a life with Christ and for Christ, then in that process to say, I’m giving you my will and testament that my father gave me.

As the Church, We need to now understand that the role we play is a much bigger role than ourselves. We must be the church. We must be the church in such a way that we defy this world. We must be the church in such a way that we remove the evil in this system exactly as it’s laid out in Acts. With that we will close chapter 14. Questions? Yeah. No, Jean, Persistence was number four or number five? Five. So I. In my notes, I’m missing what you said. Number four was power. Okay then. Okay, I’ve got Power is number three.

So I must have missed number three. It was courage. Okay, have that as number two. So I’m missing wholeness. So courage and boldness are separate. Yes. Okay. There’s humility. Humility. Humility is there too. Humility is there too. I’m going back to my thoughts. Okay. Yeah. I mean the first one was gifts, right? Gifts. Humility was the humility was before persistence. So persistence. Humility. Go back. Persistence, humility, power, Boldness, courage util. Utilization of gifts. Right. I’m going to have all this posted out there in the. When I post it online. This is again, it’s an extended Bible study.

It’s got more than what we covered on this video. Right. Thank you. I, I had the notes I just had misnumbered, so appreciate that. I have another question. So the Antioch of this is the anti. Antioch, which is different than the Antioch north of Damascus. That is absolutely true. Okay, thank you. Mar. Hi. Can you hear me? I can. Okay, great. I just have actually a comment and two questions. My comment is about, like, when they persecuted Paul and during the time when he got blinded and he was quiet. I don’t know for how long. Sorry, maybe for months.

He was just probably thinking about this, the stoning of Stephen and how. I don’t know. It’s just like, like, like he got so convicted by the Lord that he thought about the stoning of Stephen and the persecution of the church that when he’s being persecuted, you know, it’s like, you know, it’s like that quiet moment that he has with the Holy Spirit and, you know, just talking to God about, wow, I did all of this, God, I, I, I, I’m so sorry. I’m, I, I hurt your people. And now this very thing that he, that the he witnessed and how bold the disciples were, he’s actually doing it.

And he’s also getting persecuted and getting hit. And I, I just want to say that he’s just so convicted of his calling that he, you know, like, like this, this, this, this persecution was just like, you know, I’m gonna still do whatever you want me to do, God, because I’m so persuaded by what you, you called me to do. I’m just saying that it was just, he was just so, he must have been so concerned, convicted with, with whatever God, what God has called him to do. And then just in his quiet time, he’s thinking about how he persecuted the church.

And I could just imagine him just crying and pouring out his soul to God and then just say, God, I’m so sorry I did this to you. I did this to you. You know, I mean, I just wanted to say that. And also those are all good points, but you also need to also need to remember this, that there is a law of this universe. That which you give, you will receive. That means both good and bad. Paul persecuted the church. Paul got persecuted. Paul murdered. Paul was murdered. That what you do, you’re going to receive, good or bad.

Yep. And I also want to ask you, when you’ve mentioned earlier about Ted Cruz, are you talking about the senator? I am. You said you are. Yeah, I am. Oh, okay. I didn’t, I thought it was somebody else or yeah, no. Okay. That. I was just wondering if I misheard you say. What did he say? I said, okay. That’s it. Thank you. Ted Cruz came out in this film and indicated that the Jews took across and asked him a point blank question. The Jews of the state of Israel, the same Jews as the nation of Israel.

P. Says yes. And went on to explain the. Yes. I guess I missed it. Where. Where can we see the documentary? I saw it on Angel. Angel. Red Dragon prophecies. Okay. Angel. Okay. Thank you. Yes. S. So the signs, wonders and miracles. This is a triangle in his circle, God’s circle. Because they all revolve around each other. Signs are indications. Wonders are omens, which is faithfulness and truth. The prodigy is a miracle performed by anyone. And then the miracles are supernatural forces of power. So it just constantly revolves when you hold that spiritually? Yes. Sometimes I teach that concept using a wedding ring.

Okay. Because it’s a circle without end. Correct. It’s infinite, like you were saying before. Yeah, yeah. And as you indicated as well, Jim Paul got what he did. Yep. So that’s in there. We’re not going to avoid that. If we’re doing that, it’s coming back to us. And it doesn’t matter whether you were saved or not. You. Whatever you have provided to this universe, at some point, you’re going to get it back. You know, the irony of that is people always say, well, he died what he had enjoyed doing. Yep. So. And that says it all too.

Yep. And if it doesn’t come back to you, it may come back to your children and somewhere down the line to your descendants. Yeah. Whatever decision you make, you remember the scripture says it can affect four to five generations. It could be your generation. It could be to the fifth generation. Somewhere in there. Whatever you do is going to come back. Yes. What we do and the way we live affects our generations to come after us. My point is it not only affects us, not only do we have, you know, suffered through the consequences or whatever it is, our decisions, our choices affect our children and our grandchildren.

Okay. Yeah. And let’s. Let’s take it. Let’s just peel the young and back. One more. One more layer. It’s your thoughts. It’s in your thoughts. You’ve already done it. Regardless of whether you take an action or not. So that which you think upon is what you become. That which you think upon is what’s going to happen. That’s the reason why scripture says, think of things above and not the things on this earth. Know your place. And Jim Isn’t that true also as to what our parents, grandparents, great grandparents all the way back, however many generations, what they did impacts our lives.

So I guess with that question, and I understand that because you’ve taught that before, is there is a way to break that curse. Okay? A curse, A curse on generations. Yes, you can do that. Okay. But you have to, you have to break the curse. You have to break the curse. Right? Right. You have to leave the conditions of how that curse was generated. You can’t. Let me just, let me give you an example, all right? I’m going to make it, I’m going to make it as crude and as elementary as I can make it so I can make the point.

Your father was a murderer. All right? You say, I want to break that curse on me. The only way you’re going to break that curse on you is for not for you not to be the same. Your fruits will define the outcome. You could say, well, I’m a murderer too, but I can break the curse off of me because I can pray for my father, who is a murderer, and because I’m praying for my father and the will of God to for forgive my father, I’m going to break that curse for me. That is not how it happens.

Okay? Some people think that they can just pray this away and continue on with their life. That is not how this happens. If you don’t understand the curses that are coming your way from five generations back, know your history, how in the world are you going to break those curses? The only assurance that you have in breaking those currencies is live a Christ like life. That’s it. Because you don’t know all the curses. You don’t know what they mean. But you might say, oh, I prayed about boy, I prayed my pray God forget that does not happen that way.

Bingo. Okay? Only way you break a curse is to live a Christlike life. Life. And I’m, I’m, I’ve, I don’t know how many conversations I’ve had this week of just this subject. That does not happen that way. So don’t think you can pray yourself out of a curse. It won’t happen. That’s the reason why it says for you. You, you need to understand that what you think about, you’re going to generate five generations of issues that that fifth generation doesn’t have a clue about what it is. That’s their issues. And the only way that they’re going to know how to deal with it is to live Christ life like that is their only saving Grace.

And your own repentance and asking for forgiveness, does that break? Let’s say I did something six years ago and I’m recognizing the effect that it has on my children, my grandchildren. And I go to the Lord in prayer conversation, and I recognize what I’ve done, what I’ve said, and I ask for, and I ask, I repent and I ask for forgiveness. That. Does that break? That then for those future generations? All right, now I’m going to get. I’m going to. I’m going to answer your question by going to script. Paul was blinded on Damascus Road. He was saved.

He asked for repentance how many times over. What he did. And everything that he brought into this world, he experienced. So to answer your question is this, you’ve got forgiveness. Judgment has not been occurred yet. And the judgment is what you can’t get rid of. Thank you. And we all have those experiences that we are judged for what we bring into this world and co create. You can get forgiveness. Israel got forgiveness. How many times did Israel get forgiveness, but they still got judged judgment. You cannot remove. Any other points. And I want to say something else on that, And I’m g to say it as a parent.

I would, I would, I would take everything back that I did to have the judgment of what I did only apply to me. I would, I would take it all back. I would. Now, I, I would take all the judgment on me now. But that’s not going to happen. Okay. As parents, when we or fail to educate ourselves in the reality, the true reality of the spiritual beings that we are, we fail to recognize that while God forgives you, he judges everybody because of you. Some of the Israelites were obedient to God even in the fact when Babylon came down and God said, kill him, take him into captivity, those that are run, kill them.

Okay, you need to understand who you’re dealing with here. The failing of a parent to educate their children is probably the worst, worst. Activity in any human life. When they come to the realization that had they just done what they were supposed to do, judgment would not be as harsh. Any other comments, guys? Sure. All right, let’s pray. Father, thank you for a marvelous time with you this morning. I know that basically this is the turning point of understanding life with you, life as an individual with you, and life as the church collective with your son.

Father, may you continue to open up our minds, give us scriptural history and wisdom, and may we understand how to take that. And using the tools of Ephesians 3, 4, 4, 5 and 6 be able to apply all of that into our life, to understand that it is that collective whole that can only turn this to society around. Just like what the Bible has told us, we can’t do it ourselves. The power comes from you. The structure comes from you. The courage is all yours. And we’re just a servant. Graciously thanking you for your son’s death on the cross.

That ultimate price that sometimes we just continue to forget that we’re not. We don’t own this body. This body was a gift to us to live in these elements. This body’s a gift to us to get us out of these elements so that we can go back home. This body means nothing to us other than a physical presence in this human realm. May we seek you always from our heart. May we always give you the glory. May. May we always sing you praises. Father, thank you for a glorious holiday season. Thank you for giving us the protection and all of the things that we have declared that you provide to us.

You know, see by evidence of the family returning that you were faithful. Father, just be with us as we continue through this next phase, the holiday season. Again, we we declare on all of your claims and blessings that you’ve given to us through heaven, that we be well provided for, protected, made safe, whole, giving a loving heart and being humble and generous to the people around us. Father, we ask all these things in my son’s name. It.
[tr:tra].