Why the First Christians Were NOT in Jerusalem (Acts 11)

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, good to have everybody back, and this is, I guess, our fourth program ready this afternoon. So, those of you on television, or watching us on television, rather, we'd just like to welcome you, and we appreciate the fact that we can come into your living room or whatever. And we just trust that you get your Bible, and this is what thrills us when so many of you write, that you're following our references and you're learning, and that's the only reason we're here. Most of you know by now I'm just a layman, I don't claim to be a theologian, I don't claim even to be a scholar, anything but. But if we can just get people to study the Word, because God has promised us that if we get into the Book, the Holy Spirit will reveal the truths to us. And so, those of you on television, if you've missed programs and you're interested in everything that's been taught before, you write to us. We have tapes and books available that'll help you catch up. And so many are starting home Bible classes, we've got a lot of churches that are using our tapes in various Bible teaching situations. And that thrills our heart, because as I've said so often, we aren't attached to any particular group, we've got no one that backs us up, and probably a lot of us that chew us up, but whatever, we're just here to get people into the Book. And as so many have written, I've read the Bible all my life, but I never understood it before. And we just give the Lord the praise for that. All right, for those of you then here in the studio audience, I've told you already to go back to Acts chapter 11, and we're going to pick up where we left off in that chapter. After Peter has come back to Jerusalem from his experience at Cornelius, he's still not going out to the Gentiles, and as we saw last program in Galatians chapter 2, he understood he was not supposed to. He was to confine his ministry to the Jew, to the circumcision, and they agreed that Paul was to go to the Gentiles. Now as I've stressed so often since we started the book of Acts, it's a transitional book, and here we're going to see the transition kick in to a little higher gear. So far it's been all Jewish. We saw the conversion of Saul on Gentile ground outside of Damascus, and then we noticed in the next chapter that Peter goes up to the house of Gentiles at Cornelius, at Caesarea, and now in chapter 11 we're going to see a little more of a transition to the Gentile, and a little more slipping away of the Jewish program. So in verse 19 of Acts chapter 11, Acts 11 Now they who were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose around Stephen, traveled as far as Phoenus, and Cyprus, and Atioch, preaching the word to none but Jews only. Now that's the one verse that just opened my eyes some 15 or 20 years ago, because I'd always been of the same mindset that as soon as you got into the New Testament you were in Christianity, and that the whole world was now being given the Gospel. No it wasn't. It has been confined to Israel, and even these Jewish believers have no concept of going to Gentile, and so it says they that were at the persecution around Stephen. Now let's go back to it for just a moment. Acts chapter 7 where Stephen has given that long dissertation about Jewish history, leading up to the coming of their Messiah, and he like Peter accused them of having killed him, of murdering him, and they finally turned on him of course, and stoned him to death. We call it Stephen's martyrdom, and as I had it on the board I guess I've got it flipped now. But we had it on the board, and that was in 36 A.D. Crucifixion I put at 29, and this is 7 years later. So in 36 A.D. we have Acts chapter 7, and then you see in verse 59 it says, "...they stoned Stephen, who was calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. He kneeled down, and he cried in a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep." Now in verse 1 of chapter 8, and Saul was consenting unto his death, that is Stephen's death. Now when Paul writes in his letters that it just plagued him throughout the remaining parts of his life that he had persecuted the Church of God, that is this church at Jerusalem, no wonder, because he was the leader of this terrible persecution to stamp out any Jews who had embraced Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah. Now in fact, keep your hand here a minute, we're going to come back to Acts 8. Go all the way over to chapter 22, when Paul for the second of three times that his conversion is recorded in the book of Acts, he's recording in the first person how on the road again to Damascus the Lord had stricken him and converted him, brought him to a realization that Jesus was indeed the Christ, and Acts 26, the third time that he's rehearsing it. It's three times, Acts chapter 9 Luke records it, in chapter 22 Paul tells it in the first person, and again in Acts 26 Paul rehearses his conversion in the first person, and now he comes all the way down to verse 9 of Acts 26, verse 9, "...I verily thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, which thing I also did in Jerusalem. And many of the saints did I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests, and when they were put to death." Now do you see that? These Judaizers, and you know I've said it on this program since the start, there is no one so vicious, there is no one so ready to kill as a religious person. That's religion. Now I'm not talking Christianity, that's religion. Look at the wars raging around the world right now today, it's all in the name of what? Religion. And the same way here, these Judaizers, oh they were so wrapped up in their Old Testament religion, but they were ready to kill anybody that opposed them. And so Paul says, "...when they were put to death," these believers that Jesus was the Messiah, "...I gave my voice or my vote against them." In other words, Paul was so glad to see these people condemned to death that he thought he was doing God a service, to get them off the scene because they were imposters, they were blasphemers. Now if you'll come back to chapter 8, this is the persecution that arose about Stephen against these Jewish believers. They're at Jerusalem and Judea, and then of course as Saul tried to do, even go on up to Damascus because there were some Jewish believers up there. So verse 1 of chapter 8 again, "...and Saul was consenting unto Stephen's death, and at that time there was a great persecution against the church," or I prefer to call it the assembly, "...which was at Jerusalem. And they were all," all these Jewish believers that Jesus of Nazareth was the Son of God, the Christ the King, "...they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria," and we emphasized this several weeks ago, except who? Except the apostles. Now think, think, and you out there in television, I'm talking to you, think. If they were embracing the Great Commission, where should they have been 6 or 7 years ago, throughout the whole Roman Empire? And where are they? Jerusalem. And not only are they in Jerusalem, they won't even leave under intense persecution. Now that should tell us something. Why won't they leave? They know they had no God-given right to. They were to stay and present this to the nation of Israel, in hopes that Israel would still accept their King, and Christ could have come and set up the Kingdom. And then they understood, yes, once they had the King and the Kingdom, they knew the Old Testament prophecies. I showed it to the class again last night, Zechariah chapter 8, "...ten men of all the nations shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, and they will say to that Jew, We'll go with you." Why? Because we know that God is with you, in the person of the King, of course. But these disciples, these 12 are not going to leave Jerusalem, but all the rest of the believers have. Now back to chapter 11, so that you get the timing. Here we have a flashback to the 7 years after Pentecost, at the time of Stephen's death, but now remember in chronology we are already up about, oh let's see, I haven't got my timeline on there anymore, but we are now beyond Saul's conversion, so we are about at 41-42, and we are about 12-13 years after Pentecost when these believers who had been scattered out from Jerusalem now, are more or less migrating up to Antioch, up there north of Palestine, in the area of what we would call Lebanon today. So verse 19 again, they went everywhere preaching, but none except the Jew only. Now verse 20, and some of them, that is that were being scattered abroad, some of them were men of Cyprus, the island, and they were of Cyrene, a city on North Africa if I'm not mistaken, and Antioch, the city up there in Syria. When they came to Antioch, they spake unto the Grecians preaching the Lord Jesus. Now I'll probably raise the ire of some, but I think that this is one place where the King James isn't exactly perfect. I think the word here should be the Hellenes, and not the Hellenes, and a Hellene was a Greek, and a lot of good Bible scholars are of the same mindset, that the word here should be Greeks, because, and I've got a lot of arguments to support that, it wouldn't have been at all unusual for these Jewish believers to talk to fellow Jews, because that's what a Grecian was. A Grecian was a Jew who was a citizen of some other nation except Palestine. A Grecian was a Jew who was not a native of Palestine. A Greek is a Gentile. So it wasn't at all unusual for Grecians to be approached with this. In my land we had Grecians clear back in chapter 6. The widows of the Grecians weren't getting their fair share. But to approach Greeks, this is a change in venue. This is a complete change of what? Modus operandi they call it, because they hadn't been talking to Greeks, but now they are. Why? Oh God started the ball rolling toward the Gentile world when He saved Saul, and then He speeded it up a little bit when He sent Peter up to Cornelius. But now Saul has already come back from his 3 years of learning, and the revelation of the mysteries, and now we're ready to get down to brass tacks, and get the Gospel out to the Gentiles. And so these Jews who had been preaching to none but Jew only, are now beginning to speak to Greeks, and preaching the Lord Jesus. Verse 21, "...the hand of the Lord was with them." Indeed, because God is ready to move things out to the Gentile world. "...and a great number believed, and turned unto the Lord. Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the assembly which was in Jerusalem, and they sent forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch." Oh, what was the problem again? Gentiles? Hey, Gentiles got no business. This is for only the Jew. And so the wheels down to Jerusalem again, just like I think I've given the illustration before. I don't care what denomination you may be from. If your denominational headquarters heard that there was a heresy some place out there in Timbuktu, what are they going to do? Hey, they're going to send some emissaries down to check it out. Are you people really following this kind of false teaching? Same way here. When they heard what was going on up at Antioch, they sent Barnabas, good old Barnabas. Hey, check it out. See what they're doing up there, because it's not right according to the Jewish thinking. Now verse 23, and isn't it amazing how God always chooses the right man for the right place at the right time. And so when good old Barnabas came in verse 23, and had seen the, what's the next word? Grace of God. Now I had to explain to someone again the other night. As the people of Eden and Adam and Eve were hiding behind their fig leaves in the bushes, who went looking for them? Well God did, the Lord did. Why? Grace. He could have just forgotten about them, and zapped them, and started over. But His grace took Him to pursue them. And so His grace has always been evident. But, I think I told this individual the other night, if you want to make a search of Scripture, get a good concordance, and you start from Genesis all the way up through Scripture, and count the number of times that the word grace is used. And you'll get something like 30 or 40 times, until you get to Paul. And then count how many times the word grace comes on the scene from Paul on, and you'll get something like a couple hundred. And what's the reason? Oh, because beginning with Paul, it's the grace of God that takes the preeminence. See, before that it was just more or less mentioned as one of His attributes, and so on and so forth. So now then, when Barnabas saw the grace of God, now very few people even today understand God's grace. Very few. I read a good book the other day somebody gave me, it was more or less an exposition on a few verses in Romans, and he made the statement that if you are not accused, and I shared this with a class last night, if you are not accused of teaching a Gospel that gives people the idea that now they can do as they please because they're under the grace of God, unless you're accused of that, you're probably not preaching the Gospel of the grace of God. Because that's what some people are going to do. And Paul said it. He said, I am falsely accused of preaching that just because God's grace is great, go ahead and sin as you wish. But that's not what grace means. I've said it a thousand times that grace is not license. But on the other hand, very few people comprehend that the grace of God is greater than any person's sin. It's always greater. And so here again, these Gentiles no doubt had come out of immoral idolatry, and yet God saved them. And He saved them by His grace. And Barnabas was seeing that. And he was glad, and he exhorted them all with purpose of heart that they would cleave or maintain their spiritual position. Verse 24, "...for Barnabas was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit, and of faith, and much people were added unto the Lord." Now that's up there at Antioch. Now verse 25, I love these little tidbits. This is what makes Scripture study so interesting. When Barnabas saw the sudden influx of Gentiles into the assembly at Antioch, the Holy Spirit moves him, and who does he go looking for? Saul. Why? Because he has the message for Gentiles. And so Barnabas is moved to go up into Tarsus. Well I don't know if I got room for my map on here or not. Can you get the lower part of the board Sharon? I'm going to try it. Down here again is my own Mediterranean sea coast, and my Sea of Galilee, and the Jordan River, and the Dead Sea, and here's Jerusalem. Well up here at the curve of the Mediterranean Sea a few miles inland was Antioch, up in Syria. And just around the corner of the Mediterranean in this river valley was Tarsus, the city of Tarsus and the country of Cilicia. And so it's not that far. So Barnabas, who had come from Jerusalem to Antioch, makes his way up into the river valley on which Tarsus is located for the distinct purpose of what? Finding Saul. Now watch these words. It says that he departed to Tarsus to seek or to look for Saul. Now why? Oh because Saul has now had three years of revelations that no one else has had. He's the man that's got all the answers. Verse 26, and when he had what? See how accurately the Scripture keeps itself together? He left to look, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. Can't you just see those two men as they met? And Barnabas says, Saul things are happening down there at Antioch, and I know God has revealed to me that you are the man that we have to have. You are the one that has the message now for these Gentiles. God has opened their hearts, God is opening the door, and evidently God is going to move out into the Gentile world. We can see it coming. And so verse 26, and he brought him to Antioch, and it came to pass that a whole year they assembled themselves with the Church, and they taught much people. And then I like that next statement. And the disciples, or these believers who are primarily now Gentiles, these disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. Why not Jerusalem? The Jerusalem Church has been holding forth already for 12 years. The Bible never calls them Christians, I've said it on the program before. Never does the Bible call the Jewish believers at Jerusalem and Judea Christians. They were under the Judaistic umbrella. They had only believed that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel, but these Christians believed that He had died for them, His blood had been shed for their sin, and that He had been raised from the dead. In other words, now Antioch is being presented with Paul's Gospel. And he differentiates it from everything that's ever gone before, because like I showed you a couple of programs ago, it was a secret held in the mind of God until it was revealed that now He's going to do something totally different. He's going to save the whole human race, Jew and Gentile, by the Gospel that Christ died, was buried, and rose again. And you know I've said it on this program, and I'm going to say it again. Too many times, and I've probably been as guilty as any of them, we have reduced the Gospel to clich�s. You know what a clich� is? A little frame of words that we use that are handy. What am I talking about? Well come and take Jesus into your heart. Oh just believe in Jesus. Take Him as your personal Savior. Now those are all well and good as far as they go, but that's not the Gospel. Multitudes have been invited to come down the aisle, and take Jesus as your Savior. Just take Jesus into your heart. That's not the Gospel. And I'm going to stand on my heels and proclaim that the Gospel is only one thing, and that is that Christ died for me, and He died for you. He paid my sin penalty. He suffered in my place. His divine, pure, precious blood was shed in total payment for your sin and mine. He was buried, He was really dead, and He arose from the dead powerful, victorious. And because He lives, you and I know that we live and will live. And that's the Gospel. Now once they understand that, that that's the Gospel, and you believe it, then you're taking Christ into your heart. Then He becomes your personal Savior. But see, most people are being neglected, and not are being told that. My, I hear it constantly. I don't hear the Gospel. I'm hearing everything but. And no wonder the church has become powerless, see. And we have to constantly remind people. Like I said in the last program, I'm afraid too many people are reading too many books instead of the Book, because how many books I've even read myself where they neglect this part of the Gospel. They talk about how to cope with problems. They tell me how to get along with my wife, and how to get along with the kids, and hogwash. That's not where it's at. We get into the Book. You get into the Book, and all these problems will take care of themselves. But oh, the devil is using every ploy that he can deny. I've been sharing my classes lately. We happened to be down in Macalester class in Matthew 24, when the disciples asked Jesus, what are the signs of your coming in the end of the age? Do you know what word He started out with? Deception. Beware, be not deceived, because the world tonight is set up for the biggest deception that has ever hit the human race, and they're falling for anything and everything that comes their way, but they refuse to get into this Book and search for the truth. And you and I have to warn people, listen, we are living in an age where Satan is the master deceiver, and he's doing a tremendous job of it, even in the church. And I'm not pointing my finger at any one group, or any one congregation. I'm saying in general terms, Satan is infiltrating the church with everything but what the church needs. And it scares the death to me, because people are being given something less than the truth. And it's up to you and I to let them know what it is. Well our time is just about gone, but let's finish the chapter, and we'll be ready for chapter 12 in our next program. But they were called Christians first in Antioch, because these are Gentiles who are being saved now by the Pauline message of God's grace. Verse 27, And so in these days there came prophets from Jerusalem up to Antioch again. And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the Spirit, that there should be a great dearth throughout all the world, which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the disciples, these Gentile believers, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren who dwelt in Judea, which also they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul. You remember back in Acts chapter 2, what did all the believers do? They sold everything. They sold their land, they sold their houses, they cashed in their CDs, and they put it in a common kitty. And it was glorious, and nobody wanted it. But when you start living out of a common kitty, unless you've got 50% interest, what's going to happen? It's going to run out, and it did. And it was glorious, and nobody wanted it. And it was glorious, and nobody wanted it.