This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
Waffer, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland, County
of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
God's still answering prayer, and you might say, well, why was
James martyred and Peter was set free?
I don't know. God does everything according to
the counsel of his own will. Why do some people get healed
and other people don't? God does everything after the
counsel of his own sovereign will, we conclude.
And what happens to Herod? You know you can get mad at
whoever it is. It's messing things up in the
world right now. One thing to be encouraged, the
Bible says vengeance belong to the Lord.
Amen. I will repay evil for evil.
Every dog has its day, right? When we look out over the
landscape of culture right now, it's challenging not to feel
completely hopeless. The division we see in our world
feels like it's at an all time high.
Not to mention the political polarization.
We want to see the justice of God rain down.
We question why God allows certain things to happen.
As you just heard from Pastor Clark, you need to put your
trust in God's perfect will as perfect.
You can't always see the justice of God, but you can know that
beyond the shadow of the doubt, it will come.
God will have his day of vengeance now.
Here's Pastor Clark in the book of Acts Chapter 11 with today's
edition of Living Waters of Grace.
Now Barnabas, he is now on the scene.
You remember Barnabas, He's the guy that gave the property to
the early church in the beginning.
He donated property and Anis Anias and Sapphira was sort of
jealous of what he did and they wanted to be recognized like
Barnabas. So they they lied and they said
they were given whatever to God that they didn't give and ended
up dying and getting dragged out of the church.
The Lord just dealt with her. They're lying and quite sobering
experience in those early days. Barnabas was a, a man of great
comfort and he was an encourager.
And this is just the way he always was.
A matter of fact, whenever Paul, Saul got converted on the on the
road there to Damascus and, and everybody's afraid because Paul
was a persecutor of Saul was a persecutor of Christians before
he was called Saul. Barnabas was able to meet with
Saul and see that his conversion was legitimate, that what
happened to him was a miracle, and that he really got saved.
And then he was able to go up with Barnabas to Jerusalem later
to meet the religious leaders at the time, the Judaizers, and
tell them, hey, don't be afraid of Saul.
He's one of us now. He's our brother.
And so Saul also is aware of the fact that whenever Saul was
called into the ministry that the Lord told him he would take
the gospel to the Gentiles. The Jewish member of the
Sanhedrin, a Pharisee now born again, becomes an apostle
because he's an eyewitness of Christ on that road.
And he goes up after his meeting in Jerusalem and they sent him
to Tarsus for they figure, 8 to 12 years.
So he's up there by himself, not with anybody else, studying,
learning. He didn't go into the ministry
the next day after he got saved. He was used the next day after
he got saved. He did speak in the synagogues,
but there was a lot for him to learn and hear from the Lord.
Eventually he wrote most of the New Testament.
So Barnabas in his mind, they're sending him.
We'll continue to read here. Now verse 19.
Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose
over Stephen, you remember Stephen was martyred few
chapters back, the first martyr, Christian martyr in the, in the
New Testament. These people then were
persecuted and they travelled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and
Antioch. So they're, they're spread out
and they're preaching the word to no one but the Jews only.
So initially these people that are in in Jerusalem are, are
being spread out because of the persecution, but their focus
again is just Jewish people. But some of them were men from
Cyprus and Cyrene who when they had come to Antioch spoke to the
Hellenists. You remember the Hellenists were
the Greek cultural Jewish people preaching the Lord Jesus and and
the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number believed
and and turned to the Lord. Now now recognize in this
section of Scripture here that these were people like you and
me. They weren't, I'm not an
apostle. You aren't either.
You know, we're, we're just like normal believers.
We all have different spiritual gifts, but we're just like
normal everyday people, right? These people were normal
everyday people that were pressed out because of the
persecution and they were out there telling other people about
what Jesus did for them and as a result of their communication in
their marketplace and their neighborhoods where they live,
that kind of stuff. A great number of people
believed and turned to the Lord. None of them said, well, we got
to wait till the apostles come up or wait till Peter comes up
or Barnabas or Saul or James or whatever.
No, like it was so infectious the the work of God's Spirit and
the lives of people like you and me, which it should be that way
still right? That's why we're studying Acts
to get revived, to learn more about how we can be used by Lord
in these kind of situations, right?
That they had an impact and all these people believed and turned
to the Lord. Then news of these things came
to the ears of the church in Jerusalem.
So they're hearing what's going on.
The Lord is bringing a harvest. People are getting saved.
So they think about who they sent out already that God has
used. Now Barnabas is going to go as
far as Antioch. They're sending Barnabas up
there as a leader. And when he came and had seen
the grace of God, the grace of God, right?
When you see the grace of God, it attracts you.
I want the grace of God to be poured on in here, that there's
not enough room for people to come, not because of us, but
because of the grace of God. I'll tell you an interesting
story. I was on a Zoom call this week
and I was with a man who is a devout Roman Catholic.
Him and his wife, they happened to live in a garden apartment up
in North Jersey, right by the Calvary Chapel, the large
Calvary Chapel up in North Jersey.
Pastor Lloyd Pulley, who's on our radio pastor's at church,
and they would watch every Sunday these cars come and there
was an overflow so people would park in the garden apartment
parking lot. And he said to his wife, this
guy Nix's name, he says, honey, what's what's going on here?
Is that like a cult up there or what?
These people, they get out of their car and they have an aura
about them. He, the Holy Spirit, was helping
them to see the glory of God on the faces of these families.
And it was attracting him, the grace of God on these people
like us just getting out of their car, walking into church.
He said, you know, we had to go over there sometime.
She says, yeah, why not? Why don't we go over there?
So they went over and the first Sunday there for the first time
in their lives, he told me this after the business Zoom call.
He said, I want to talk to you about something off the record.
I see you're involved. Involved with Calvary Chapel.
Yeah. And I said, yeah.
And so then he begins to open up.
Well, I want to tell you what happened.
He said he went in. And for the first time in their
lives, they heard the simple gospel.
They got saved. Then they began to develop all
these friends and all this stuff.
And the story goes on. And I said, well, the business
conversation was interesting, but this made my day.
This is what it's all about, isn't it?
As a man in the industry that I'm part of that started the
largest manufacturing frame company in Italy many years ago
in his early 20s. His name is Leonardo de Vecchio
and he rags to Rich's story. He was worth billions of
dollars. I have no idea about his
spiritual life, never met him, but he's dead now at 87 years
old. He died last week, left
everything behind. The only thing and I said to
Nick, it's going to matter when we leave this world is our
relationship with the Lord, whether we had one or not,
right? And he said Amen to that.
All the sudden the business conversation wasn't important.
What was important was our conversation about Jesus and
what he's done for us. And so Barnabas is seeing the
job that needs to be done. It says when he came and he saw
the grace of God, he was glad and encouraged them all that
with purpose of heart, they should continue with the Lord.
And that's what we do here every week, right?
Wednesday, Sunday, whenever meetings gather. 1 Encourage
each other to keep, keep on keeping on with the Lord, right?
We need that encouragement, all of us.
And he was a good man. The Bible says about Barnabas,
full of the Holy Spirit and of faith, and a great many people
were added to the Lord. I mean, the importance again, we
hear over and over and over again the importance of being
filled with the Holy Spirit in our lives.
And then Barnabas departed for Tarsus in verse 2025 to seek
Saul. He's got to find Saul.
Because I remember this guy was specially called by God to
preach to the Gentiles, and when he had found them in verse 26,
he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for a whole year
they assembled with the church and taught a great many people
and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.
This is the first time they were identified by the unbelievers as
Christ's followers, Christians, Jesus freaks, people who belong
to the Lord didn't say this is where first, where they were
called Catholics or Orthodox or Calvary Chapel or Baptist or
Methodist or Luther. We're Christians, for crying out
loud. We're Christians, right?
We attend this church, but bottom line is we're Christians.
And Christians should be able to relate to Christians everywhere,
no matter what church you're in or where they're from, right?
We're one body, one church, Jesus Christ the head.
And so this is the beginning of this ministry of Paul.
And in verse 27, in those days, prophets came from Jerusalem to
Antioch. A lot of stuff going on in
Antioch. Antioch was a Pagan city.
It made Las Vegas and New York look calm.
Immorality, Pagan worship, prostitution, that's all kind of
Pagan rites. A very, very difficult place to
be a Christian. Nonetheless, the spirit of God,
the power of God, was saving souls in the midst of a society
and culture that was godless. They weren't depending on a
leader in government as Christians at that time because
there was no leader in government to have special favor
with, right? I mean, in our country, we have
the privilege of electing officials.
Hopefully that can be believers. It can make things a little bit
easier for us. But right now things aren't real
easy for us. But doesn't mean that God isn't
in control or God still can't work, or God still can't move,
right? We need to depend on that
authority, the authority of God on the throne in His Kingdom,
that nothing happens outside of His will.
And so they had no one to depend upon but the Lord, and they did
this ministry and the power of God and salvation and the life
of the Holy Spirit was so alive in that early church in this
city of Antioch, about 300 miles north of Jerusalem.
So this prophet comes up, one of them named Agabus.
He stood up and showed by the Spirit there was going to be a
great famine throughout all the world, which also happened in
the days of Claudius Caesar. Then the disciples, each
according to his ability, determined to send relief to the
brethren dwelling in Judea. There was no pressure on tithe
or you give this amount or give that.
They gave as they were able to and and that's what we do here.
We give as we're able for the glory of God and the furtherance
of his Kingdom. And they were able to provide
relief to these people struggling in the area of Judea.
This they also did and sent it to the elders by the hands of
Barnabas and Saul. So this offering was collected,
and then Barnabas and Saul were then responsible to take it.
So this violence now begins to occur in chapter 12.
Now about that time, Herod the king stretched out his hand to
harass some from the church. Now this is the descendant of
Herod the Great who was responsible for having all those
babies killed back in the days when Christ was born.
This whole family of Herod is evil and wicked and all they
want to do is come against the Kingdom of God.
And and so he's going to harass some from the church.
And what happens verse 2? Then he kills James the brother
of John with the sword. This isn't James the brother of
Jesus who was head of the church in Jerusalem.
This is the James and John whose mother went to Jesus and said,
can they sit on the right and left hand side of your Kingdom?
And Jesus said in order to to have any kind of experience in
the Kingdom that is of some exciting value, you have to
suffer much for what it is you believe.
And sure enough, they did suffer and James was beheaded, the
first apostle that was martyred. And because he saw that it
pleased the Jews, Herod saw the Jews were clapping all excited.
He wants popularity. He proceeds further to seize
Peter also. Now it was during the Days of
Unleavened Bread this is. And so when he had arrested him,
he put him in prison and delivered him to 4 squads of
soldiers to keep him, intending to bring him before the people
after Passover. So it's Passover, Peter's
probably thinking about what Christ went through again,
remembering this, he's in prison.
They this time remember before he got out of prison in the 4th
chapter, they're thinking this guy's, he's got some tricks, he
can get out of prison. We better put more people with
him. So, so many hours a day.
There would be 4 soldiers. One would be chained to the
handcuff and 1:00 on the other side to make sure he wasn't
going to get loose. There'd be two by the door to
prevent him from escaping. So four people Peter in verse 5
was therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer was offered
to God for him by the church. So we pray, we intercede.
We have groups that in Church of pray about every possible thing
you can imagine. It comes through the prayer
chain. We're we're praying all the
time. I know you're praying too for
the work of God and the and the movement of God's Spirit.
So Peter's in trouble and James, this was martyred and Peter's
probably thinking I'm going to be next tomorrow morning.
My life is over. And when Herod was about to
bring him out that night, Peter was sleeping bound with two
chains between two soldiers. And the guards before the door
were keeping the prison. So Peter, he's not like
obviously uptight or nervous. If it was me, I'd be like, I
can't sleep. But Peter was trusting God, no
problem sleeping. And he's between these guards,
it says, now behold, an Angel of the Lord in verse 7 stood by
him. Angel comes in, a light shines
in the prison. He struck Peter on the side and
raised him up. So Peter had to actually be hit
to sort of come to consciousness from his sleep.
And he tells him arise quickly and his chains fell off his
hands. And no sooner did he stand up
miraculously these chains fall off.
This is a result of the move of God, the prayers of God's
people, the will of God, the purpose of God.
Peter's ministry is certainly not over yet.
The Angel said to him, Gird yourself up and tie on your
sandals. Now the Angel could have
obviously made sure everything was put together miraculously,
but no, there was some work that Peter had to do.
He had to get down and tie his sandals.
He probably never thought of forgot about this story, right,
this experience. Every time he tied his shoes.
I remember when the Angel was telling me to tie my shoes.
And so he did. And he said to him, put on your
garment and follow me. So the angel's helping, helping
them get together there and get ready to go.
So he went out and followed him and did not know that what was
done by the Angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision.
So I'm sure it was sort of like, is this some kind of like thing
I'm thinking has happened? But it really isn't happening.
You know, you can have a dream sometimes and you're like, wow,
that was amazing. And then you find out it was
only a dream. Sometimes you're thankful it was
only a dream. Other times you wish it was real
because it turned out to be a good, good story, right?
So when they go by the 1st and 2nd guard posts, and they come
to the iron gate that leads to the city, it opens to them of
its own accord. Miraculously this door opens and
they went out and went down the street.
And immediately Angel departed from him.
And when Peter had come to himself in verse 11, he said,
Now I know for certain that the Lord has sent his Angel and has
delivered me from the hand of Herod and from all the
expectation of the Jewish people.
So when he had considered this, he came to the House of Mary,
the mother of John. This is the mother of John Mark,
who's going to be a missionary to cousin of Barnabas that we'll
catch up later on in the weeks ahead, whose surname was Mark,
where many were gathered together praying.
So there's this prayer meeting going on on behalf of Peters
Deliverance. And as Peter knocked at the door
of the gate, a girl named Rhoda came to answer.
And when she recognized Peter's voice because of her gladness,
she didn't open the gate but ran in and announced that Peter
stood before the gate. She's so blown away and excited.
You think she would open the door?
Peter can't even get into the prayer meeting for himself.
He's still outside and I'm sure he's looking around thinking,
man, one of these guards going to know that I'm out of prison,
that someone's going to come down the street.
Hey, that's a guy that we just arrested, you know, so he's
probably paranoid. He's standing at the gate and
they they said to her, you are beside yourself, basically.
You're crazy, lady. And she kept insisting that it
was so. So they said it is his Angel.
They think it's just a reflection of who Peter really
is, his guardian Angel, whatever.
Now Peter continued knocking. I'm sure he was desperate.
And when they opened the door and saw him, they were
astonished. Isn't that encouraging?
You ever pray and God does something and you're just like,
you just don't get it. You're, you're almost like, I
don't believe this happened. I mean, that's just the way we
all are. These are deep prayer warriors
here. They're asking God to do a
miracle. God does a miracle and they
just, they just can't grasp everything that's happening
here. They open the door.
They're astonished, but motioning to them with his hand,
he's telling him keep silent, be quiet.
He declares to them how the Lord had brought him out of the
prison and said, Go tell these things to James.
That's the guy that's leading the church in Jerusalem, not the
one that was martyred. And he departed and went to
another place. Then, as soon as it was day,
there was no small stir among the soldiers about what had
become of Peter. But when Herod had searched for
him and not found him, he examined the guards and
commanded that they should be put to death.
That's a serious crime that they've committed, letting Peter
get free. And they were all put to death,
all 16 of them. And when he went down from Judea
to Caesarea and stayed there. So we see all this stuff going
on, these wicked rollers, God's doing these miracles in spite of
the culture, in spite of the society, in spite of the things
not being fair in the world at that time.
But God's still answering prayer.
And you might say, well, why was James martyr and Peter was set
free? I don't know.
God does everything according to the counsel of his own will.
Why do some people get healed and other people don't?
God does everything after the counsel of his own sovereign
will, we conclude. And what happens to Herod?
You know you can get mad at whoever it is.
It's messing things up in the world right now.
One thing, be encouraged. The Bible says vengeance belongs
to the Lord. Amen.
How will we pay evil for evil? Every dog has its day right now.
Herod had been very angry with the people of Tyre inside and in
verse 20. But they came to him with 1
accord, and having made Blastus, the King's personal aid, their
friend, they asked for peace because their country was
supplied with food by the King's country.
So everybody's want to kiss up to this terrible leaders just so
they can have their food and prosperity, whatever.
So on a set day, Herod arrayed in royal peril.
He's sitting up there like a big shot with all his robes and, and
regalia. He's sitting on the throne and
they're giving ovate oration to him how great he is and what is
this and that? I mean, it's disgusting, right?
And the people kept shouting the voice of a God and not a man.
So they're attributing Herod as being like a God, the voice of a
God and not of a man. Then immediately, and this is
how God deals with judgment, an Angel of the Lord struck him
because he did not give glory to God.
What's going to happen to those in our own government?
One day there will be a judgement.
If it isn't in this world, it will definitely be in the next.
No one's going to get away with this godless agenda and this
immoral in the face of God. And look what's happening in our
country. But they're not going to get
away with it. God's going to be faithful.
And this is what, you know, what would happen if this happened
right now in Washington? I don't know, man.
It would be pretty exciting. I think immediately an Angel
Lord struck him because he did not give glory to God, and he
was eaten by worms and died. That's so gross, isn't it?
Like, like worms are coming out of him, man.
It's like yuck. Yeah, he's ugly.
You know, this. I don't want to think.
I don't want to have lunch next after reading that but what was
beautiful in verse 24 it says, but the word of God grew and
multiplied. Jesus said he will build his
church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
How exciting the book of Acts is.
It's a living book. The Lord is still moving by his
spirit. A man in a prison.
Here's Grace FM other prisoners here in Grace M passing notes
talking about the Lord pretty much all day long listening to
certain teachers on there being encouraged.
Someone told me this morning they turned it on this and then
it happened to hear a thing about family and she said it was
really encouraging because she wants her family to be a family
that walks with God and be blessed by by God.
You turn that thing on any time of day and you're going to be
blessed. You're going to hear something
that's going to encourage you. The Word of God.
The word of God. Amen.
We're so glad you joined us today on this edition of Living
Waters of Grace. Pastor Clark is teaching through
the Book of Acts, which is the only book that chronicles the
history of the early church immediately after Jesus's
ascension. It gives us a front row seat to
how the Gospel began to move outwards, starting in Jerusalem
and reaching into the heart of the Roman Empire.
In just three decades, a small group of frightened ordinary
believers became a bold, spirit empowered movement that
transformed the known world. Acts is not just a history
lesson. It's a reminder of what God can
do when His people are surrendered, obedient and filled
with the Holy Spirit. Their perseverance still
inspires us today. May we follow their example and
live faithfully for Christ in our own time.
We hope today's message encouraged you.
Living Waters of Grace is a ministry of Calvary Chapel,
Westmoreland. If you're in the Greensburg, PA
area, we'd love to have you join us in person.
Our Sunday service begins at 10:30 AM at 400 E Pittsburgh St.
Unit 6B. Be sure to visit
calvarychapelonline.com to confirm times and learn more.
If you are in the Greensburg area, you can listen to Grace FM
on the new 91.7 frequency. Please pray about supporting
this outreach. Gifts can be sent to Grace FMPO
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Join our e-mail list, submit prayer requests, and give online
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Be sure to join us again for Living Waters of Grace.