Now, if you have your Bible with you, we invite you to turn with
us, please, to the book of the Acts of the Apostles, the very
familiar chapter, chapter 26. We're going to read from verse
19, that passage of Scripture where the apostle Paul was
brought before King Agrippa. And of course, as a man says
just at the drop of a hat, Paul was always willing to give a
word of testimony and to tell exactly what the Lord had done
for him and how God had worked in his life.
And we break into the story, as Paul has been rehearsing before
King Agrippa and those who were with him in that court that day,
how the Lord and mercy and in grace broke into Paul's life.
And we're reading there from verse 19.
And Paul says, Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient
unto the heavenly vision, but showed first unto them of
Damascus under Jerusalem, and throughout the course of Judea,
and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to
God, and do works meet for repentance.
For these causes the Jews caught me in the temple, and went about
to kill me. Having therefore obtained help
of God, I continue on to this day, witnessing both to small
and great, saying none other things than those which the
prophets and Moses did say should come, that Christ should
suffer, that He should be the first that should rise from the
dead, and should show light unto the people and to the Gentiles.
And as he thus speak for himself, Festus said with a loud
voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself.
Much learning does make thee mad.
But he said, I am not mad. Most noble Festus, but speak
forth the words of truth and soberness.
For the king knoweth of these things before whom also I speak
freely, where I am persuaded that none of these things are
hidden from him. For this thing was not done in a
corner. King Agrippa, believe us thy the
prophets. I know that thou believest.
Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thy persuadest me to be a
Christian. Paul said I would to God, that
not only thy, but also all that hear me this day.
We're both almost and all together such as I am, except
these bonds. Now when he had thus spoken, the
king rose up, and the governor and Bernice, and they that sat
with them, and when they were gone aside, they talked between
themselves, saying, This man doeth nothing worthy of death or
of bonds. Then said Agrippa onto Festus,
This man might have been set at liberty if he had not appealed
unto Caesar. Amen.
May God bless to us the public reading of His own inspired and
His infallible Word. Let's just bow once again we
word of prayer and ask the Lord's help upon the preaching
of His Word. Father in Heaven, we thank Thee
again for all Thy goodness to us.
We thank Thee again for the love of God in Christ.
We thank Thee for the Gospel of Christ that reaches down and
takes men and women from the depths of sin and cleanses them
in the precious blood of the Lamb and fits them out for
heaven and for home. Lord, we thank Thee tonight that
the Gospel is still the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believeth. We pray just now Lord, that you
will shut us in with thyself. Come by thy spirits power and
granted thy word may go forth, and the power and demonstration
of God the Holy Ghost, and that someone within the hearing of
our voice and the House of God are on line, may come to know
Christ, whom to know his life eternal.
I take the promised Holy Ghost, the blessed power of Pentecost
to fill me to the uttermost. I take.
Thank God he undertakes for me. Amen.
As I said, the 26th chapter of
the book of the Acts of the Apostles, a very familiar one
where the great apostle Paul gave his testimony as he often
did before King Agrippa. You remember when Paul was saved
in Acts Chapter 9, and when Ananias made his way through the
city and went and laid hands on on Saul of Tarsus, as he was
known then. And Saul received his sight and
began to rehearse the things that the Lord had told him.
He began to tell him that God had spoken to me, Ananias.
And God has told me that I will bear his name even before kings
and before rulers and before the Gentiles.
And I was thinking about these lovely words and this incident
and very familiar text of Scripture down there in verse
28, where Agrippa said to Paul, almost thy persuadest me to be a
Christian and I want to take for a theme or a title tonight.
What is a Christian? See, there are many, many
different philosophies and ideas and theories in this world.
And yet if I was to say about a communist or a Socialist or a
Conservative or Labour or some other title like that, people
would, generally speaking, know what we were speaking about.
And those systems of thought and ideas are well known.
I might speak about an evolutionist and we would know
what an evolutionist believes. It's no coincidence that when
God was sending a great revival across the nation, Darwin
published his book The Origin of Species, which was, in my
opinion, badly named. It should have been fairy tales
for adults. That would have been a better
name for it. But I remember a young fellow in
the town where I ministered and he'd be very, very well
educated, he'd become a doctor, He'd been in the Royal Navy, he
had went up the ranks but in a incident he was shell shocked
and so eventually he was retired out of the Navy.
But everybody knew him in the town.
He was a lovely young man, very well spoken and he walked all
the time. He, he walked in and out the
streets and up and down and everybody called him by his name
and called him the Walker. But everybody knew him and he
was friendly to everybody. When he met me in the street he
said hello vicar. He always called me vicar.
And then he, he used to say how are your parishers doing?
I think he meant parishioners. I hope they weren't perishing.
How are your perishers doing? But I remember one day I was in
a a men's shop, clothes shop. And he came into the shop and he
looked to the the owner of the shop and he said, what?
What kind of jackets have you have you anything, you know,
flamboyant? Have you anything Brighton and
gay? That word gay did not have the
connotation that it has in this day in which we are living,
shows how much the language that we use has changed.
He was talking about some. It was a nice colour, it was
bright, shiny, it was beautiful to look at.
And he was wanting to to get dressed up either on what
occasion he was looking for that, but that's the way things
are. But none, no word has been
bandied about and everybody claims it like the word
Christian. I remember we used to have a WE
group come to sing for us in Mount Marion Free Presbyterian
Church and one of the WE girls one night was giving a word of
testimony. I was just talking about people
being Christians and says, you know, some people say if you're
born in a Christian country, you're a Christian.
She says if you're born in the garage, it doesn't make you a
motor car. And you can be born in a
so-called Christian country, not be a Christian.
And some of the great big cults call themselves Christian, and
in reality, there is nothing Christian about them.
So I want to think with you for a moment or two as we read this
incident about Paul. What is a Christian?
And you'll notice that when we read Paul's testimony and he
tells King Agrippa Har that he saw this light brighter than the
noonday sun, and he heard a voice, and a voice spoke to him
from heaven. And he cried out, Who art thou,
Lord? And the one he blasphemed, and
the people of God whom he persecuted, Saul of Tarsus, fell
before the Lord Jesus Christ. As the Lord spoke to him, shone
the light round about him brighter than the noonday sun.
And he cried, Lord, who art thou?
Who art thou? Lord he?
On that day he exercised a choice, And the one who was so
religious and the one who was so antagonistic to the Christians
and to the people who were called people of that way who
followed Christ, he made a deliberate choice and he called
the Lord Jesus Christ Lord, and he made him his Lord and took
him as his Saviour. And he started out on that great
journey that would bring him home safe to heaven.
When he eventually was martyred for his faith, he could say, I
am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at
hand. I fought a good fight.
I finished the course. I have kept the faith.
Henceforth there has laid up for me a crown of righteousness,
which the Lord the righteous Judge will give to me, and not
to me only, but unto all of them also the love His appearing.
Saul of Tarsus exercised a choice, and every time the
gospel is preached, gospel preachers exhort men and women
to take Christ as their own and personal Saviour.
They exhort men and women to repent of their sin, to turn
away from their sin to receive the Lord Jesus Christ into their
life as a Roman personal Saviour and in the the Providence of God
and God in his grace and in his mercy and brings people to
meetings such as this. And they, they hear the word of
God. Maybe they've been born into a
Christian home and they know the way of salvation.
They've had a Bible, a copy of the Bible for themselves.
They can read the word of God in their own language.
They've heard the gospel at the street corner of the open air
preacher. They've read gospel tracts, but
maybe they've never made that choice and receive Christ as her
Saviour. Way back in the Old Testament
Scriptures, before Moses the man of God died, he preached a great
sermon to the people. And the way back there in the
book of Deuteronomy and Deuteronomy chapter 30 and in
verse 15, Moses says these words, Deuteronomy chapter 30
and verse 15. See, I have set before thee this
day life and good and death and evil, and that I command thee
this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, to
keep his commandments and statutes and his judgments, that
thy mayest live and multiply. And the Lord thy God shall bless
thee in the land, whether thy go to possess it.
But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but
shall be drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, I
denounce unto you this day that ye shall perish.
Moses was calling them to choose.
Says I have set before your life and death.
Talks about blessing and cursing in every gospel meeting.
The way of life was presented for the Bible says the wages of
sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.
And when Moses died and God buried him and his successor,
Joshua came to the forefront and Joshua led the people.
You remember that Joshua also on that great occasion he he called
to the people the way back there in the book of Joshua and Joshua
chapter 24 and on verse 15. He says, if it seem evil unto
you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will
serve, whether the gods which your father served that were on
the other side of the flood or the gods of the Amorites, and
whose land ye dwell. But As for me in my house we
will serve the Lord Moses, Joshua, faithful preachers of
the word of God. Moses when he stood at the
burning Bush, he complained that he was slow of speech.
He complained that he could not go and speak to Pharaoh.
And God was gracious and God said, I send Aaron your brother
with you. But my when Moses came to the
end of the journey, and when he preached that great Sherman and
he called and he says, I said before your life and death and
blessing and cursing, therefore choose.
He says, my doctrine shall drop as Jew and drop as the real he
had been blessed. And Joshua says, choose you this
day whom he will serve. Remember old Elijah, the great
prophet of God. Elijah fought with the prophets
of Baal and there on Mount Carmel they had the contest and
the prophets of Beale jumped up and down and squealed and yelled
and cut themselves and cried for Beale to answer but of course
there was no answer. Elijah says let the God that
answers by fire serve him. Do you remember Elijah in First
Kings and in chapter 18 the Bible that says there if the
Lord be God, follow him. First Kings 18 and 21 her long
hauled ye between two opinions. If the Lord be God, follow him,
but if Beal, then follow him. And the people answered of never
a word and you remember her. But Elijah prayed, God sent the
fire, fire from heaven fell like that.
They slew the false prophets and the people said the Lord he is
God. I ask you the question tonight.
Choose you this day whom you will serve.
Choose life, choose blessing. But I ask you, how long?
How long halt ye between two opinions?
That means to stagger from one place to another.
How long are you staggering from doing what's right and holding
onto this world? Elijah says if Beale be God,
follow him. But if the Lord be God, follow
him. In this world today, Beale could
be represented by the pleasures and the power and the things
that this world has to offer and all the temptations and all the
the things that prestige and all that this world can give.
My men are looked upon as gods, whether they be pop stars or
sports stars or whatever they might be.
People say, I would love to be like that.
I would love to have what they have.
I would love to do what they do. But her long holiday between two
opinions. The spiel be God and I just says
follow him. If the Lord is God, then follow
him and I think about those words of the Lord Jesus Christ,
our Saviour, when he himself calling men and women to follow
him. He said strive to enter in at
the Strait gate for Strait as the gate and narrowest the way
that leadeth unto life. But why does the gate?
Why does the gate that leads to destruction when the Lord Jesus
said strive? It's the word in the original
agon also may I means to to agonise.
It's the word that's used when our Saviour knelt in the Garden
of Gethsemane in the midst of the olive trees and he agonised
until he sweat as it were great drops of blood.
But Jesus says strive to enter in and he says the Kingdom of
heaven is taken even by violence of men take a hold upon it and
and want to be saved for man's drowning in the sea and someone
throws him a lifeline. My He'll take every bit of his
energy and every bit of his strength and every bit of his
power and every bit of his ability to lay hold upon the
lifeline. The old Gospel him says
throughout the lifeline, across the dark wave, dear friend,
tonight Paul exercised his choice and he chose Christ.
Choose you this day whom you will, Sir.
Paul not only exercised his choice, he experienced the
change. He was a persecutor.
He was a blasphemer. He he rounded up the people of
God, He put them in fetters, he put them in prison, He gave his
voice against, he held the garments of the people who
stoned the godly Stephen. But he was changed because that
day he came face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ.
He could sing that hymn if it had been written in His day.
What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought since
Jesus committed my heart. Thank God for the testimonies I
have heard for years from I was saved even before I was saved.
Thank God for men and women, for young people, for boys and
girls. Some saved at their bedside,
some saved in their youth, some saved when they were children
and they came to know the Lord Jesus Christ.
And God has blessed them, God has kept them, and God will keep
them. Some men and women save from a a
prodigal lifestyle, save from the terrible sins that this
world has to offer. And I don't need to go into them
all, but they've been saved and there's a change.
There's a change some see, if they were steeped in religion
and they thought religion is the way and they thought ceremony is
the way and they thought all the ordinances, the church, that's
the only way I can get into heaven.
But then they, they, they, they came to know Christ made a
choice and they received him and they realised salvation is not
on the church, it's not on a creed, it's not on a preacher,
it's not on a cleric, it's in Christ and in Christ alone.
I sometimes think those lovely words in the prayer that the
Lord Jesus Christ taught his disciples.
Then he said, and at the end of the pressures for thine is the
Kingdom, the power and the glory.
And I was thinking about it just the other night there as I read
it again in the Scriptures, thine is the Kingdom.
Remember when Jesus talked to Nicodemus, he says Nicodemus,
except a man be born again, he cannot even see the Kingdom of
God, let alone enter it. Nicodemus, you need the new
birth. You need to be born of the
Spirit, with life from above into God's family, divine.
If you want to get to heaven, you must be born again.
God has a Kingdom. Tell me tonight for it.
Have you entered it? Are you part of God's Kingdom?
Thine is the king, the power. Have you experienced it?
Remember people and I worked on the factory and there are people
who said, oh, Christianity's all right.
For some of you young fellas, some of you young girls,
Christianity's all right. You don't you haven't tasted
some of the things of the world. I could never change.
I could never stop this. I could never stop that.
I could never stop the other. But when they came to Christ at
the moment, the power of sin was broken because thine is the
Kingdom. It's God's Kingdom and he has
the power and he has the glory. Are we, have we entered into
God's Kingdom? Are we saved?
Have we experienced the power of God in our lives?
Are we enthralled by by the glory of God?
There's a glory that awaits the people of God.
Are we enthralled behind? Can I just say because our time
is gone, Paul exercised the choice to Christ as a saviour.
He experienced a change. The Bible says 2nd Corinthians
517. If any man, it means any man,
any woman, any boy, any girl, any teenager, any old age
doesn't matter. Our age, our nationality, our
background, whether we're educated or illiterate doesn't
matter. If any man be in Christ, he is a
new creature and the old things, thank God they pass away and all
things become you. Paul made a choice and and he
experienced the change and you expected are coming.
The one he denied, the one whom he thought could not have risen
again from the dead. He realised he is alive, He's a
living Saviour. And just as the Angel said in
Acts 111, ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?
This Jesus, this same Jesus shall come again.
Unlike manner as ye have seen him go.
Paul was living for the Lord Jesus, and whether he would live
or die, he knew that one day he would see Christ face to face as
it happened. As a grippa said, he might have
been settled free had he not appealed unto Caesar.
But God told them, you're going to be a witness even in Rome
also. And then he was and prisoned,
brought out and martyred. But it was his crowning day, his
glory day, when he'll go from this scene of time to be with
the Saviour whom he loved, whom he served.
You know, we we're we're living in the old Nicholson used to
talk about it in his gospel campaigns used to say we're not
looking for the undertaker, We're looking for the upper
taker. We're looking for the Lord Jesus
Christ to come back again. We know not when they are may
come. We know when the day may come,
morning, night or noon, but thank God we know this.
The Lord Jesus Christ is coming back again, coming back again.
But whether he we are alive and remain in this world when He
comes or whether he calls us, takes us out to be with Himself,
The thing is, you must be ready. You must have made the choice.
He must have experienced the change.
Are you looking for him? Can you say, Fred, it's well of
my soul, the old Gospel hymn, it is well, it is well of my soul.
You say, Fred, I can put my head on the pillow tonight, knowing
of the truth and of a certain day.
If the Lord Jesus Christ were to come, or if he were to call me
out to meet him, I'm ready to go.
I used to sing a wee gospel hymn in the books of the Bible, these
words we are told, a man turned from God to silver and gold.
But you have to wear a headache. Don't turn away, turn to Christ.
Turn now, today if you hear his voice, harden not your heart,
but receive them. May the Lord bless these simple
thoughts tonight to our hearts. Let's bow together and be word
of prayer. Can I just say we're your
servant for Jesus sake? And if you have never taken that
step, the old gospel hymn says only a step to Jesus, then why
not take it now? Come and thy sin, confessing to
Christ the Saviour by only a step.
Only a step. Come, he waits for thee.
Thou shalt receive a blessing He freely offers thee.
Will you come tonight? It's only a step, Step from sin
to grace. Step tonight from death to life,
from the power of sin and Satan unto the glorious gospel of
Jesus Christ. Father in Heaven, we thank thee
again for the simplicity of the Word of God, for thy presence
with us. Bless your word.
We pray it should be 1 still outside of Christ.
Lord, give them grace even to tell us of their need.
Help us to show them the way, to point them to the Lamb of God
that taketh away the sin of the world.
Separate us now with Thy blessing.
Take us all to our homes in safety and abide with us.
For we ask all these things in Jesus name and for God's eternal
glory. Amen.