Automated Transcript
Oram reactions to the preaching of Jesus’s resurrection, the book of acts. And as we’ve announced earlier in the week, Jody can not be with us this, this week. And so we have people filling in. And so I will go ahead and do the lesson here on this, this area, and I’m going to rely well, what I did is I just took Dwayne’s speeches and his chapters,
and I just looked at the reaction to them all, but I think we’re going to get some good, good stuff out of this as we go through this. And just remember that these will be followed by a break after at three o’clock, we’ll take a break approximately three o’clock. And if you have questions on the subjects, please write them down and give them to me.
Or we can put them in the, the question box right over here, and we will deal with those. As the ladies are having the ladies class, we will deal with the questions in here. And so, but when you think about the preaching of the gospel, as we know from other places, but especially through the book of acts, that a it’s always enlightening to me anyway,
to look at their reactions, to the preaching of the gospel and all of us who preach. We know that we can go into a place and we can preach before of an assembly. And even among our home congregation, some people will think differently than what we thought about that sermon, or even what we intended about that sermon. And I remember Jackie steers when he used to say that every time he preaches,
he, he preaches three sermons. Well, maybe he doesn’t preach three sermons, but he thinks that three sermons, the one I intended to preach, the one I preached and the one I wish I would have preached all around the same thing. And, but yet in the book of acts, we see precisely because these men were inspired. What they said was God breathed that their sermons were exactly as God intended,
God knew the outcome of those sermons. He knew what their reactions would be even before the preacher did, but they were precise. They were exact for the, for the occasion. And they produced the results that God intended that God knew would, and that we can learn from them. Even these many years later, we can learn from those things. And so we will learn a lot today as we look at the,
the preaching. Now, of course there are other sermons besides Peter’s and Paul’s in the book of acts. I know Philip and some others, Stephen has a great sermon there in the book of acts. And so there are others as well that preach and all those sermons would be, be good for us preachers to look at, to examine and even preach those in the congregations where we are.
But when we look at the two major sections and speakers have already mentioned this today or in this lectureship anyway, that you can outline the book of acts, according to Peter chapters, one through 12, and then according to Paul 13 through 28, and as was mentioned, Peter seems to have maybe more organized sermons starting out with acts chapter two. Whereas Paul will have,
he’ll have a lot of, we might call impromptu sermons, which I guess we could say in Peter’s case, some of those were, we could also put in that category, but they do between the two of them. They do make the bulk of the sermons or speeches, and even one-on-ones with Felix and Agrippa that we have throughout the book of acts.
And so we’re going to focus mainly on the reaction to those sermons. And of course the most familiar one to all of us probably is acts chapter two, where Peter again, and this is another great thing about brother Bryant’s manuscripts, especially as he started out that first lesson that Peter sermons have this pattern to them. And you can see that throughout the book of acts.
We see that here he starts with the, you know, at least in here, these men are not drunken as you suppose seeing it is, but the third hour of the day, but this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel. So he goes back and pulls that old Testament background, that old Testament history that’s been there. And I really liked that word in scripture rated or in scripture eyes,
something like that. That was pretty cool. Were there, all right, but that had been there for centuries for them to know he wasn’t just making this up. This wasn’t just some story that was created just for that sermon, but that has been there for all those centuries, but we know they, that gladly received his word in verse 41 were baptized.
And the same day there were added into them about 3000 souls. And so we see an attitude right there and we’re going to come back to that attitude as we go through the book of acts and that attitude is the same today. Then if we have that attitude, they, that gladly received his word were baptized. That’s very reminiscent of acts 10 33, when Cornelia said,
for this reason we have called you here to come. So that to hear we’re all gathered to hear what the Lord says. And when we have that kind of an attitude, when people have that kind of attitude, the response is very predictable. They’re going to obey the gospel. And so they did here in acts chapter two, verse 41. And then of course in verse 47,
and a lot of stuff happened between 42 and 46. Great things that, that resulted in verse 47, praising God and having favor with all the people, the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved now in acts chapter two, the only negative response, we even have a hint of explicitly. Now, you know, three about 3000 souls amongst all the people who heard that message.
It’s a really small minority percentage wise, if you look at it, but we do have just a little negative there in verse 14, you know? Well, when they, when they’re speaking in tongues, you know, some mocks saying these are full of new wine. Okay. And so that that’s a close closest there that we have to a negative reaction in acts chapter two on that day of Pentecost.
But there, the reaction was overwhelmingly, at least as it says again, you know, it doesn’t say anything about it, but obviously there were some people that rejected the message because only about 3000 souls were safe. All right. And this is Peter. And the next one we get to and Solomon’s ports or Portico, and of course acts chapter three.
Now, interesting thing about this as an acts chapter three, of course, in 5, 5 12, it connects us back to Solomon’s porch, but acts chapter three, the miracle and the sermon directly following that miracle and acts chapter three. And that’s the one, you know, silver and gold have I none, but what I have I give to you and the heal the man,
and from that they preached, or at least Peter preached on Solomon’s porch or from Solomon’s porch or Portico. And really that the reaction to that sermon, which was accompany with that miracle takes us all the way into chapter six. I mean, there are references from acts chapter three, all the way through full, full of acts, chapter five, a well not full of acts chapter five,
we had an ice and such, but it’s touched upon an X five till we get to acts chapter six. Now, remember in, in the book of acts the Jerusalem church from chapter two, with the establishment of the church, all the way to the first few verses in chapter eight, all of that is dealing with the church in Jerusalem at the persecution of Stephen.
Then they went everywhere, preaching the word. And so the movement from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria started in acts chapter eight. So all of that though, before that is in the Jerusalem church. And so that miracle, and again, as we stated in, in Dwayne’s first lesson, these things were accompanied by miraculous signs, even on the day of Pentecost,
you know, there was a sound of a rushing mighty wind cloven tongues sat upon each of the, as a fire of all the people there of all the preachers there, or maybe even some claimed messiahs in the crowd of all the people there. These, these 12 were chosen. And there was no doubt about it that these were the spokesman of God.
First of all, the noise, as of a rushing mighty wind. And I don’t, I have no idea I’ve seen as you probably have various artists renditions of what these cloven tongues like as a fire little flame on their head, or I don’t, I have no idea what that was, but whatever it was, it distinguished these man from anybody else they’re gathered together.
And so their message even before they started speaking, their message is the one you need to hear. And then you add to that, they spoke in tongues as the holy spirit gave them utterance. And so versus, you know, four or five, six all the way down through verse, several times in there, how do we hear every man in his own tongue are not all these which speak Galileans,
but yet we hear them in the very, the very dialect in which we were born that is as a miracle. And that, that has not been repeated since inspiration closed. And the end of the first century, there are people today that claim to do that, but that is not what w you know, that that was not some holy spirit jibberish that nobody understood that was real live language.
And that is impossible without the power of God, without the supernatural power of God I might add. And so there was no doubt, but in acts chapter three, accompanied by that miracle and that sermon, and of course, many of us preachers have preached on that and particularly verse 19 and verses right around there. But, but that event really, I,
I don’t think we could say maybe more than acts chapter two, but as much as acts chapter two, that set the tone for that Jerusalem church and for the church to go to Judea Sumeria and the uttermost arts of the earth. Well, when we look at this and I tried to code a code that, and I hope I remember my own color Cody,
but the, the regular color there, which is kind of a yellow, that those are going to be the, what I’m going to consider the positive results in the sense of people believing, being converted. Now, of course, it’s all positive for our learning, even those who rejected it, and we can still learn something from them and teach other people.
So really the whole thing is positive, but here’s where people responded favorably to the gospel, the pink or red kind of looks, I don’t know what it looks like there, but anyway, maybe light purple, but that is people who, who responded in a bad way, did not obey the gospel. And then I’ll have one up there, blue,
where you have a mixed response all in one verse, so to speak. All right. So in chapter four, now, of course, I don’t think I’m going to mention, yeah, I won’t mention, you know, all the various, you know, Peter and John being brought before the council told not to preach, they go out and preach again.
They’re brought back again. Second time. They’re there. They they’re told not to preach, but, you know, we ought to obey God rather than man. Cause all of that is from the same incident, the same incident that began with that sermon with a miracle in acts chapter three and then the sermon that followed and then they’re preaching about the resurrection and all of that.
But it’s really just, even though it’s separate incidents, but it’s all the same, I guess we could say immediately remote contexts or remotely immediate context, something like that. But it’s all that same, same context all from that, that miracle and that sermon. All right. But in chapter four we have the reaction in verses one through three, as I spoke to the people,
the priests, the captain of the temple and to the Sadducees and the Sadducees came upon them being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus, the resurrection from the dead. Now, if you’re a member of the Sadducees did not believe in a resurrection. They did not believe in the afterlife. They’re the same ones who back in Matthew 12,
you know, they, they, they were the ones. And this incident was alluded to earlier in the lectureship who didn’t believe in the resurrection, but they thought they had stumped Jesus by asking him them about a man who, whose wife died. And he had all these brothers, they all had her and they thought they had Jesus. When they said,
you know, in the resurrection whose wife shall she be. And they didn’t even believe in the resurrection, but yet Jesus says you do earn not knowing the path, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God. Then he goes on to explain, there’s going to be no marriage in the resurrection anyway, but the Sadducees didn’t believe that yet they’re upset because he is preaching about the resurrection from the dead and they laid their hands on them.
Now, I actually noticed the preaching of the resurrection of the dead, you know, not necessarily of Christ, but of the dead, which involves Christ and no doubt about it. And really, as was mentioned, first Corinthians 15, that’s what that’s all about. If you deny the resurrection of the dead at the end of the time, you deny the resurrection of Jesus.
And if you deny the resurrection of the Christ, you deny the very gospel. And that’s why that chapter starts out by the gospel, the resurrection of Christ, and then the resurrection of the dead. But the resurrection of the dead would include the resurrection of Christ. And so this is kind of a summary statement that we, that we find in acts chapter three of the more detailed part of that sermon,
but verse three of chapter four, and they laid their hands on them and put them in custody until the next day for it was already evening. And so they are put in custody and this is where they’re eventually told not to preach. However, if you notice in verse four, whoever many of these who heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to be about 5,000.
And just as an incidental note, as I filled in on Monday for a lesson, notice the about many times first century Greco, Roman world, they were not concerned about as precise numbers as we often are in our culture today. And so you’ll see that about quite a bit right there. All right. But notice the same time that they are being detained.
Eventually you’re going to be told not to preach at the same time. There are those that did believe, and the number of men came to be about 5,000. And so the same sermon, the same, same situation on the resurrection. But again, there’s different attitudes people have as they go that. And so some believed, and as the word believes is used here and throughout the book of acts,
they became Christians. And so we had about 3000 souls and chapter two now about 3000 or about five, 5,000 here, obeyed the gospel. And so you see the churches growing quite steadily there in that, in, in the early days in Jerusalem. All right. And of course more can be said again. In fact, we’ll just kind of scan through that as they were told,
not to preach in chapter four 19, but Peter and John answered and said to them, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God you judge for, we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. And the lessons before me alluded to that as well. And then also in chapter five. So they go out preaching again,
they’re called back again and brought back in and said, you know, beaten that time. And then if you go to acts chapter five, verse 28, did we not secretly commit or strictly command you not to teach in this name? Now this name, you can follow that all the way through chapter three as well, chapter three, all the way through chapter five,
and you’ll find references to this name, and that is the power by which they heal that man. And of course in chapter four, verse 12, and that’s the name under which no other can salvation be found. And so that whole miracle, that whole sermon is just totally influencing the church up through chapter six. All right. But then in verse 29,
actually verse 28, and look, you have fields Jerusalem with your doctrine into tend to bring this man’s blood on us. But Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men. And then he goes on to talk more about the resurrection and at least partly about that resurrection. And so they were not going to cease preaching Jesus.
And if they had guns back in those days, I know a fellow I talked to sometimes and he says, if they were to tell me, I’m going to shoot you a few. If, unless you deny the Lord, he said, go get that gun. But we ought to obey God rather than man, no matter what. And so that’s the principle going through there now when we go to acts and of course in acts chapter six,
we have more stuff, you know, good stuff. Of course there’s has to deal with the church and the grease and widows and all that acts chapter seven, great sermon by Stephen. And yeah, in fact, if you want to know a condensed history of Israel, right there, it is actually chapter seven, condensed history of Israel. He lost his life because of that.
And then in acts eight, reintroduced to Saul of Tarsus, acts nine, acts eight actually were introduced to Saul of Tarsus. And then you have Philip going into some area and we see the progression of the gospel there. Actually after nine, we had the conversion of Saul and acts chapter 10, we have more on Peter. And of course, Peter was told to go to the house of Cornelius.
Now Cornelius would be, you know, of course we have the Ethiopian UNIC. Obviously it was a process of light in Jerusalem, worshiping and heading back as he is converted, Cornelius is a full fledge. We might see Gentile. And he is, of course Peter’s told to go preach to him. And he does, of course, Peter being a faithful Jewish person had to be convinced other,
you know, in addition to God just saying go there. But he had to be convinced otherwise that it was okay to go to Peter or excuse me, to go to Cornelius, to Gentile. And of course you remember, God showed him that vision of the sheet with all the animals. In fact, one brother used to say on a mission trip before his dinner time,
he’d say, I’ll get it. If it’s after the prayer, he would say, rise, Peter, kill and eat. And we go eat. But all that comes from this right here. And so God showed him as we know that, you know what God has called clean, don’t call that common or, or profane. And so there, there are no dietary regulations,
Jew and Gentile brought together by the gospel, which by the way, most of the time when Paul uses that word misery, what he has revealed it’s Jew and Gentile coming together through the blood of Christ. But in acts chapter 10, as I mentioned, that attitude that Cornelius had in verse 33. So I sent to you immediately and you have done well to come now,
therefore we are all present before God to hear all things commanded you by God. And again, with that attitude, we can see what the outcome would be. And even a couple of chapters before that, with the Ethiopian unit though, Phillip is the preacher involved with that. He wanted Phillip to join him to, you know, I want to understand what I read,
what I read, you know, Philip asked him, do you understand what you read? How can I accept some man should guide me? And he invited him to come up into the chariot to explain to him the word of God, does the prophet speak of himself or some other. And that’s the same attitude when we really want to learn the word of God and we do we’ll little it.
And so in acts chapter 10, verse 48, and there’s just a really just one verse kinda kinda summarizes it. And we’ll, we’ll go over to verse 44 while Peter was still speaking. These words, the holy spirit fell upon those who had heard the word. And those are the circumcision who believed were astonished as many as came with Peter because the gift of the holy spirit been poured out on the Gentiles also for,
they had heard them speak with tongues and magnify God, then Peter answered. Can anyone forbid water that these should not be baptized? Whoever received the holy spirit just as we have. And he commanded them to be baptized in the SA in the name of the Lord. And they asked him to stay a few days. And so he commanded them to be baptized.
They were baptized when Peter got back to Jerusalem, the Jews called his hand at that. And chapter 11, he explained it to them again and just great lessons right there. But we see the immediate reaction Cornelius and his house were baptized into Christ. Now let’s quickly take quickly, take a look at Paul’s teaching with Barnabas and Antioch. We’ll first take a look at that,
the whole sermon. And I would, I would refer you to the material that Dwayne wrote in his second manuscript and the book. And he’ll give a little bit more detail, but even with, with the, the little detail that Dwayne gives us, just simply to the nature of the depth of the book of God, that would be a good place to start.
But you know, the scriptures are just really, really, really deep. And there’s no way, well, he could write a book that would do some stuff and maybe he will one day, but there’s a lot more than we can include in the chapters of our book here. But anyway, great stuff that’s spoken of in that sermon. He also referred to this on Monday in those verses,
he also refers back to Psalm 16, eight through 11, as Peter did and acts chapter two, referring to what David said. You will not leave my soul in shield or Haiti’s or suffer your holy one to see corruption, but in acts chapter 13, great sermon. But if you notice the reaction to that, and I have up there verse 45,
but if you go back up to verse 42 of acts chapter 13. So when the Jews went out of the synagogues, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them. The next Sabbath. Now you have Gentiles who are listening to the gospel and they wanted the words to be preached to them on the next Sabbath. And so these Gentiles would often hang around the synagogue,
they’d hang around the, the, the temple areas. And they were interested in hearing about the Jewish religion and throughout the book of acts. We won’t take the time here. In fact, I didn’t know if I know them off the top of my head, but there’s, there’s a, the Greek word in there just often translated noble or Pietist women,
religious people. There, there seems to be a group of Gentiles. All the synagogues were Paul would go and preach that they were interested in the monotheism. They were interested in the morality of the Jews and they would hang around to listen to the messages there, but never fully proselyted to Judaism. And I think at least for the men, and one main reason was that circumcision thing know,
but anyway, be that as it may, this seems to be referring to those type of Gentiles there. They love the true so much. They want to hear it. They begged them to come back the next Sabbath day to preach that. Now when the congregation verse 43 had broken up many of the Jews and devout proselytes, there’s that word? Devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas,
who speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God on the next Sabbath. Almost a whole city came together to hear the word of God, see word got out. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy and contradiction and blaspheming. They opposed the things spoken by Paul. So now here are some opposition here,
some pushback to what they continued from the previous Sabbath day. And when you look at that, that’s that speech in acts chapter 13, it definitely included the resurrection of Jesus. And then Paul and Barnabas grew a bold and said it is not necessary, or it was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first. But since you reject it and judge yourselves,
unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. Now notice that phrase, you judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life. Yes, there’s a sense in which God will judge us. At the end of time. We know John 1248, that the words that Jesus spoke will judge us. But there’s a real sense in which we judge ourselves by rejecting the word.
The only thing that can save us, Paul would say, if you want to go back to circumcision and basically what he’s meaning by that is the system of the law of Moses for your salvation, Galatians five, four, you have fallen from grace. And so we cannot reject the only, the only way of salvation, but then notice in verse 48.
Now, when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorify the word of the Lord. And as many as it had been appointed to eternal life believed. And so you had a reaction of those that believed. And again, the way it’s used in the book of acts, and as here, that is a reference to the obedience of the gospel and then verse 49,
the word of the Lord was being spread throughout all the region. And so it kept being spread. And then in verse 50, we have a not so good or they didn’t know bay. And the Jews started up the devout and prominent women. And the achievement of the city raised up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from the region. But as I say,
as they shook off the dust from their feet and they continued to preach, the gospel went to I conium and continued on preaching the gospel. But there you have mixed reaction to that, as it explicitly says some rejected, but yet some obeyed and believed. And then the apostles were cast out. Then an Athens acts 17, man, that thing we could do a whole lectureship on that sermon as well.
We won’t have the time, but just point out a few things here in verse 32. And I just got up and sat over there. So I’m going to hurry up here and finish up. But in acts chapter 17, this is really great here. And when Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him. When he saw that the city was given over to idols,
therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers and in the marketplace daily, with those who happened to be there and a certain Epicurean and stoic philosophers encountered him. And since some said, what does this babbler want to say? Others said, he seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods. Why? Because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.
They never heard that before. And again, that goes back to this Messiah is different. Yes, he was put to death, but he was raised from the dead. And I would add not just any old person who claims to be a Messiah, but any religious leader, there’s only one whose tomb is empty and that’s Jesus. Right? And that’s a pretty awesome thought.
And they took him and brought him to the Europe. Aeropagus saying, may we know all that? Here’s some new doctrine and to make a long story short in the synagogues and in the marketplace, he taught the resurrection to the Jews and religious Gentiles, devout Gentiles. They learned something to those philosophers. They learned something and have the resurrection. Now in verse 32,
he says right there. And when they heard the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, we will hear you again on this matter. And this matter is the resurrection. So Paul departure from among them, however, some men joined him and believed among them Dionysius the era GABA guy, right. A woman named Demetrius and others with them.
I was always a tongue twister, me, but the Arab guy. Right. But the IRAP Magus, Ooh, Arabic. Whew. Anyway, you know what I’m talking about right there. Okay. It was both a, a kind of a place, but a body of people. Also, my understanding was kind of like when we say the Senate,
well, sometimes the Senate means that building, where they meet and they’re meeting, or sometimes it just means those people. And that’s kind of like this, this right here. And some of you may have been to this area, but I’ve seen pictures of it. And you have the Aragon Pagus Mars hill right up here, kind of like a natural amphitheater type.
And you can, there’s a field or hill going down and you can see the ruins of the marketplace and just a tremendous setting for the preaching of the gospel. But then in verse 34, however, some men joined him and believed, well, yeah, we already read that. So there were some, those of those who obeyed from that sermon and then the other two just real quickly,
he was before Felix, and then before a grip up. And of course a grip, of course, even with Felix and both of those, he does mention the resurrection and with the grip, do you believe the prophets? I know you believe the profits and what did the prophet say? Well, he tells you up there in the verses, talks about the death and the resurrection of Jesus and all of that.
And so it was all there. Now, finally, we’ll wrap it up right here with applications. And of course in all of this preaching, the resurrection proves that Jesus is the son of God. He is the Messiah. And this lectureship has really pumped me up even here in this skies and not just read the book over a bunch of times and editing the book.
But, you know, sometimes we can just, you know, nonchalantly, death, burial, resurrection, Christ, death, burial, resurrection of Christ. And, but yet understand the significance of that. Well, what we do, but sometimes we lose sight of that. Maybe we’re desensitized to that, but he rose from the grave and he walked for 40 days. by many infallible proofs showing that he had risen from the dead.
And so the resurrection proved Jesus is real. Secondly, the resurrection, for lack of better word amazes, all types of people, poor people, rich people, academia, philosophers, serious students of the Bible, not so serious students of the Bible, but the resurrection amazes all types of people, but it also infuriates some people. And one reason why is because it is on get overhaul to get to,
to, to, to falsify, to attempt to false father resurrection, you got to bribe people, you got to threaten people. You got to try to cover it up. And this is another one of those subjects. If you try to explain away the resurrection, you don’t, you’re not just faced with explaining way one or two verses. Man, you got to explain the way a whole bunch of verses old and new Testament,
but it doesn’t fury. Some people then finally the resurrection motivates further study. As we see in the book of acts, we want to hear more about this and because it amazes all types of people, we need to seize that opportunity and evangelism to, to, you know, motivate further study. And as was said earlier, several times, probably during this lectureship,
but you know, these people that claim to do miracles today, why don’t they raise the dead? I’ll do one better. We don’t have to go to the cemetery. Let’s go to the funeral home. And they’re still at least, I mean, you know, before they’re even embalmed, there you go. How about that? But there’s not a single person alive that can do that today and never has been since the close of the first century,
but Jesus has a power. God, the father, God, the holy spirit, the God head will raise us from the dead at the end of time because Jesus rose from the dead and he is the first fruits of our resurrection. And so we appreciate your attention. Appreciate your being here. This session again, as a point out is that we will have a break now for about,
for about 30 minutes. Well, by the time I get done about 25, but anyway, we’ll, we’ll come back at three 30. That will be a ladies class, Laurie board we’ll be teaching in the ladies class. There isn’t Lord’s words with the women at the empty tomb with the women at the empty tomb. Jimmy mentioned that in passing and some of his material this morning,
and Lori did a great job with the main script. And so she’ll, she’ll go into some more detail on that. So that’s for the ladies, but the men can benefit also from that through the, through the material she has written. And she’s definitely qualified as a writer and as a good teacher. And so we look forward to that. If you’re a,
a lady, other than that, we will have the question and answer period in here. So if you have any questions about these three lessons or about the two lessons this morning or related matters, please write them down and give them to me or put them in the box. And we will see that those are answered. Also, if you can help us defray the cost of the lectureship.
Of course, what I said this morning that we were behind on Ashton has actually increased. So I should have waited until now, before I said it, but I’ll wait a little while, but we are several thousand dollars in the red so far, but again, as I mentioned, brethren have always come through in the past and we expect no different this lectureship.
So if you can help us with the lectureship costs and again, you know, our costs or maintenance, the bulk of our costs are the speakers, you know, transportation, bringing them in. And we do like to give them a little something for their efforts. They don’t get much a hundred dollars for each time they speak. And of course they get a book,
we give them a book and we pay their travel expenses and their lodging where that’s needed. So we could, we would definitely appreciate your help. Okay, we’re going to break and come back here at three 30, let’s have a brief word of prayer. And remember those questions, loving God and gracious father. We are so thankful for today. So thankful for the blessings you have given us through the preaching of the word.
We thank you, father for the resurrection of your dear Son, continued to be with those whom we have been praying for, continue to help us to enjoy the fellowship. And we pray father that each day will be more like Jesus and forgive us when we fall short of that, it’s in his name. We pray. Amen. Great. Yes. Appreciate it.
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Oram reactions to the preaching of Jesus’s resurrection, the book of acts. And as we’ve announced earlier in the week, Jody can not be with us this, this week. And so we have people filling in. And so I will go ahead and do the lesson here on this, this area, and I’m going to rely well, what I did is I just took Dwayne’s speeches and his chapters,
and I just looked at the reaction to them all, but I think we’re going to get some good, good stuff out of this as we go through this. And just remember that these will be followed by a break after at three o’clock, we’ll take a break approximately three o’clock. And if you have questions on the subjects, please write them down and give them to me.
Or we can put them in the, the question box right over here, and we will deal with those. As the ladies are having the ladies class, we will deal with the questions in here. And so, but when you think about the preaching of the gospel, as we know from other places, but especially through the book of acts, that a it’s always enlightening to me anyway,
to look at their reactions, to the preaching of the gospel and all of us who preach. We know that we can go into a place and we can preach before of an assembly. And even among our home congregation, some people will think differently than what we thought about that sermon, or even what we intended about that sermon. And I remember Jackie steers when he used to say that every time he preaches,
he, he preaches three sermons. Well, maybe he doesn’t preach three sermons, but he thinks that three sermons, the one I intended to preach, the one I preached and the one I wish I would have preached all around the same thing. And, but yet in the book of acts, we see precisely because these men were inspired. What they said was God breathed that their sermons were exactly as God intended,
God knew the outcome of those sermons. He knew what their reactions would be even before the preacher did, but they were precise. They were exact for the, for the occasion. And they produced the results that God intended that God knew would, and that we can learn from them. Even these many years later, we can learn from those things. And so we will learn a lot today as we look at the,
the preaching. Now, of course there are other sermons besides Peter’s and Paul’s in the book of acts. I know Philip and some others, Stephen has a great sermon there in the book of acts. And so there are others as well that preach and all those sermons would be, be good for us preachers to look at, to examine and even preach those in the congregations where we are.
But when we look at the two major sections and speakers have already mentioned this today or in this lectureship anyway, that you can outline the book of acts, according to Peter chapters, one through 12, and then according to Paul 13 through 28, and as was mentioned, Peter seems to have maybe more organized sermons starting out with acts chapter two. Whereas Paul will have,
he’ll have a lot of, we might call impromptu sermons, which I guess we could say in Peter’s case, some of those were, we could also put in that category, but they do between the two of them. They do make the bulk of the sermons or speeches, and even one-on-ones with Felix and Agrippa that we have throughout the book of acts.
And so we’re going to focus mainly on the reaction to those sermons. And of course the most familiar one to all of us probably is acts chapter two, where Peter again, and this is another great thing about brother Bryant’s manuscripts, especially as he started out that first lesson that Peter sermons have this pattern to them. And you can see that throughout the book of acts.
We see that here he starts with the, you know, at least in here, these men are not drunken as you suppose seeing it is, but the third hour of the day, but this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel. So he goes back and pulls that old Testament background, that old Testament history that’s been there. And I really liked that word in scripture rated or in scripture eyes,
something like that. That was pretty cool. Were there, all right, but that had been there for centuries for them to know he wasn’t just making this up. This wasn’t just some story that was created just for that sermon, but that has been there for all those centuries, but we know they, that gladly received his word in verse 41 were baptized.
And the same day there were added into them about 3000 souls. And so we see an attitude right there and we’re going to come back to that attitude as we go through the book of acts and that attitude is the same today. Then if we have that attitude, they, that gladly received his word were baptized. That’s very reminiscent of acts 10 33, when Cornelia said,
for this reason we have called you here to come. So that to hear we’re all gathered to hear what the Lord says. And when we have that kind of an attitude, when people have that kind of attitude, the response is very predictable. They’re going to obey the gospel. And so they did here in acts chapter two, verse 41. And then of course in verse 47,
and a lot of stuff happened between 42 and 46. Great things that, that resulted in verse 47, praising God and having favor with all the people, the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved now in acts chapter two, the only negative response, we even have a hint of explicitly. Now, you know, three about 3000 souls amongst all the people who heard that message.
It’s a really small minority percentage wise, if you look at it, but we do have just a little negative there in verse 14, you know? Well, when they, when they’re speaking in tongues, you know, some mocks saying these are full of new wine. Okay. And so that that’s a close closest there that we have to a negative reaction in acts chapter two on that day of Pentecost.
But there, the reaction was overwhelmingly, at least as it says again, you know, it doesn’t say anything about it, but obviously there were some people that rejected the message because only about 3000 souls were safe. All right. And this is Peter. And the next one we get to and Solomon’s ports or Portico, and of course acts chapter three.
Now, interesting thing about this as an acts chapter three, of course, in 5, 5 12, it connects us back to Solomon’s porch, but acts chapter three, the miracle and the sermon directly following that miracle and acts chapter three. And that’s the one, you know, silver and gold have I none, but what I have I give to you and the heal the man,
and from that they preached, or at least Peter preached on Solomon’s porch or from Solomon’s porch or Portico. And really that the reaction to that sermon, which was accompany with that miracle takes us all the way into chapter six. I mean, there are references from acts chapter three, all the way through full, full of acts, chapter five, a well not full of acts chapter five,
we had an ice and such, but it’s touched upon an X five till we get to acts chapter six. Now, remember in, in the book of acts the Jerusalem church from chapter two, with the establishment of the church, all the way to the first few verses in chapter eight, all of that is dealing with the church in Jerusalem at the persecution of Stephen.
Then they went everywhere, preaching the word. And so the movement from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria started in acts chapter eight. So all of that though, before that is in the Jerusalem church. And so that miracle, and again, as we stated in, in Dwayne’s first lesson, these things were accompanied by miraculous signs, even on the day of Pentecost,
you know, there was a sound of a rushing mighty wind cloven tongues sat upon each of the, as a fire of all the people there of all the preachers there, or maybe even some claimed messiahs in the crowd of all the people there. These, these 12 were chosen. And there was no doubt about it that these were the spokesman of God.
First of all, the noise, as of a rushing mighty wind. And I don’t, I have no idea I’ve seen as you probably have various artists renditions of what these cloven tongues like as a fire little flame on their head, or I don’t, I have no idea what that was, but whatever it was, it distinguished these man from anybody else they’re gathered together.
And so their message even before they started speaking, their message is the one you need to hear. And then you add to that, they spoke in tongues as the holy spirit gave them utterance. And so versus, you know, four or five, six all the way down through verse, several times in there, how do we hear every man in his own tongue are not all these which speak Galileans,
but yet we hear them in the very, the very dialect in which we were born that is as a miracle. And that, that has not been repeated since inspiration closed. And the end of the first century, there are people today that claim to do that, but that is not what w you know, that that was not some holy spirit jibberish that nobody understood that was real live language.
And that is impossible without the power of God, without the supernatural power of God I might add. And so there was no doubt, but in acts chapter three, accompanied by that miracle and that sermon, and of course, many of us preachers have preached on that and particularly verse 19 and verses right around there. But, but that event really, I,
I don’t think we could say maybe more than acts chapter two, but as much as acts chapter two, that set the tone for that Jerusalem church and for the church to go to Judea Sumeria and the uttermost arts of the earth. Well, when we look at this and I tried to code a code that, and I hope I remember my own color Cody,
but the, the regular color there, which is kind of a yellow, that those are going to be the, what I’m going to consider the positive results in the sense of people believing, being converted. Now, of course, it’s all positive for our learning, even those who rejected it, and we can still learn something from them and teach other people.
So really the whole thing is positive, but here’s where people responded favorably to the gospel, the pink or red kind of looks, I don’t know what it looks like there, but anyway, maybe light purple, but that is people who, who responded in a bad way, did not obey the gospel. And then I’ll have one up there, blue,
where you have a mixed response all in one verse, so to speak. All right. So in chapter four, now, of course, I don’t think I’m going to mention, yeah, I won’t mention, you know, all the various, you know, Peter and John being brought before the council told not to preach, they go out and preach again.
They’re brought back again. Second time. They’re there. They they’re told not to preach, but, you know, we ought to obey God rather than man. Cause all of that is from the same incident, the same incident that began with that sermon with a miracle in acts chapter three and then the sermon that followed and then they’re preaching about the resurrection and all of that.
But it’s really just, even though it’s separate incidents, but it’s all the same, I guess we could say immediately remote contexts or remotely immediate context, something like that. But it’s all that same, same context all from that, that miracle and that sermon. All right. But in chapter four we have the reaction in verses one through three, as I spoke to the people,
the priests, the captain of the temple and to the Sadducees and the Sadducees came upon them being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus, the resurrection from the dead. Now, if you’re a member of the Sadducees did not believe in a resurrection. They did not believe in the afterlife. They’re the same ones who back in Matthew 12,
you know, they, they, they were the ones. And this incident was alluded to earlier in the lectureship who didn’t believe in the resurrection, but they thought they had stumped Jesus by asking him them about a man who, whose wife died. And he had all these brothers, they all had her and they thought they had Jesus. When they said,
you know, in the resurrection whose wife shall she be. And they didn’t even believe in the resurrection, but yet Jesus says you do earn not knowing the path, not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God. Then he goes on to explain, there’s going to be no marriage in the resurrection anyway, but the Sadducees didn’t believe that yet they’re upset because he is preaching about the resurrection from the dead and they laid their hands on them.
Now, I actually noticed the preaching of the resurrection of the dead, you know, not necessarily of Christ, but of the dead, which involves Christ and no doubt about it. And really, as was mentioned, first Corinthians 15, that’s what that’s all about. If you deny the resurrection of the dead at the end of the time, you deny the resurrection of Jesus.
And if you deny the resurrection of the Christ, you deny the very gospel. And that’s why that chapter starts out by the gospel, the resurrection of Christ, and then the resurrection of the dead. But the resurrection of the dead would include the resurrection of Christ. And so this is kind of a summary statement that we, that we find in acts chapter three of the more detailed part of that sermon,
but verse three of chapter four, and they laid their hands on them and put them in custody until the next day for it was already evening. And so they are put in custody and this is where they’re eventually told not to preach. However, if you notice in verse four, whoever many of these who heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to be about 5,000.
And just as an incidental note, as I filled in on Monday for a lesson, notice the about many times first century Greco, Roman world, they were not concerned about as precise numbers as we often are in our culture today. And so you’ll see that about quite a bit right there. All right. But notice the same time that they are being detained.
Eventually you’re going to be told not to preach at the same time. There are those that did believe, and the number of men came to be about 5,000. And so the same sermon, the same, same situation on the resurrection. But again, there’s different attitudes people have as they go that. And so some believed, and as the word believes is used here and throughout the book of acts,
they became Christians. And so we had about 3000 souls and chapter two now about 3000 or about five, 5,000 here, obeyed the gospel. And so you see the churches growing quite steadily there in that, in, in the early days in Jerusalem. All right. And of course more can be said again. In fact, we’ll just kind of scan through that as they were told,
not to preach in chapter four 19, but Peter and John answered and said to them, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God you judge for, we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. And the lessons before me alluded to that as well. And then also in chapter five. So they go out preaching again,
they’re called back again and brought back in and said, you know, beaten that time. And then if you go to acts chapter five, verse 28, did we not secretly commit or strictly command you not to teach in this name? Now this name, you can follow that all the way through chapter three as well, chapter three, all the way through chapter five,
and you’ll find references to this name, and that is the power by which they heal that man. And of course in chapter four, verse 12, and that’s the name under which no other can salvation be found. And so that whole miracle, that whole sermon is just totally influencing the church up through chapter six. All right. But then in verse 29,
actually verse 28, and look, you have fields Jerusalem with your doctrine into tend to bring this man’s blood on us. But Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men. And then he goes on to talk more about the resurrection and at least partly about that resurrection. And so they were not going to cease preaching Jesus.
And if they had guns back in those days, I know a fellow I talked to sometimes and he says, if they were to tell me, I’m going to shoot you a few. If, unless you deny the Lord, he said, go get that gun. But we ought to obey God rather than man, no matter what. And so that’s the principle going through there now when we go to acts and of course in acts chapter six,
we have more stuff, you know, good stuff. Of course there’s has to deal with the church and the grease and widows and all that acts chapter seven, great sermon by Stephen. And yeah, in fact, if you want to know a condensed history of Israel, right there, it is actually chapter seven, condensed history of Israel. He lost his life because of that.
And then in acts eight, reintroduced to Saul of Tarsus, acts nine, acts eight actually were introduced to Saul of Tarsus. And then you have Philip going into some area and we see the progression of the gospel there. Actually after nine, we had the conversion of Saul and acts chapter 10, we have more on Peter. And of course, Peter was told to go to the house of Cornelius.
Now Cornelius would be, you know, of course we have the Ethiopian UNIC. Obviously it was a process of light in Jerusalem, worshiping and heading back as he is converted, Cornelius is a full fledge. We might see Gentile. And he is, of course Peter’s told to go preach to him. And he does, of course, Peter being a faithful Jewish person had to be convinced other,
you know, in addition to God just saying go there. But he had to be convinced otherwise that it was okay to go to Peter or excuse me, to go to Cornelius, to Gentile. And of course you remember, God showed him that vision of the sheet with all the animals. In fact, one brother used to say on a mission trip before his dinner time,
he’d say, I’ll get it. If it’s after the prayer, he would say, rise, Peter, kill and eat. And we go eat. But all that comes from this right here. And so God showed him as we know that, you know what God has called clean, don’t call that common or, or profane. And so there, there are no dietary regulations,
Jew and Gentile brought together by the gospel, which by the way, most of the time when Paul uses that word misery, what he has revealed it’s Jew and Gentile coming together through the blood of Christ. But in acts chapter 10, as I mentioned, that attitude that Cornelius had in verse 33. So I sent to you immediately and you have done well to come now,
therefore we are all present before God to hear all things commanded you by God. And again, with that attitude, we can see what the outcome would be. And even a couple of chapters before that, with the Ethiopian unit though, Phillip is the preacher involved with that. He wanted Phillip to join him to, you know, I want to understand what I read,
what I read, you know, Philip asked him, do you understand what you read? How can I accept some man should guide me? And he invited him to come up into the chariot to explain to him the word of God, does the prophet speak of himself or some other. And that’s the same attitude when we really want to learn the word of God and we do we’ll little it.
And so in acts chapter 10, verse 48, and there’s just a really just one verse kinda kinda summarizes it. And we’ll, we’ll go over to verse 44 while Peter was still speaking. These words, the holy spirit fell upon those who had heard the word. And those are the circumcision who believed were astonished as many as came with Peter because the gift of the holy spirit been poured out on the Gentiles also for,
they had heard them speak with tongues and magnify God, then Peter answered. Can anyone forbid water that these should not be baptized? Whoever received the holy spirit just as we have. And he commanded them to be baptized in the SA in the name of the Lord. And they asked him to stay a few days. And so he commanded them to be baptized.
They were baptized when Peter got back to Jerusalem, the Jews called his hand at that. And chapter 11, he explained it to them again and just great lessons right there. But we see the immediate reaction Cornelius and his house were baptized into Christ. Now let’s quickly take quickly, take a look at Paul’s teaching with Barnabas and Antioch. We’ll first take a look at that,
the whole sermon. And I would, I would refer you to the material that Dwayne wrote in his second manuscript and the book. And he’ll give a little bit more detail, but even with, with the, the little detail that Dwayne gives us, just simply to the nature of the depth of the book of God, that would be a good place to start.
But you know, the scriptures are just really, really, really deep. And there’s no way, well, he could write a book that would do some stuff and maybe he will one day, but there’s a lot more than we can include in the chapters of our book here. But anyway, great stuff that’s spoken of in that sermon. He also referred to this on Monday in those verses,
he also refers back to Psalm 16, eight through 11, as Peter did and acts chapter two, referring to what David said. You will not leave my soul in shield or Haiti’s or suffer your holy one to see corruption, but in acts chapter 13, great sermon. But if you notice the reaction to that, and I have up there verse 45,
but if you go back up to verse 42 of acts chapter 13. So when the Jews went out of the synagogues, the Gentiles begged that these words might be preached to them. The next Sabbath. Now you have Gentiles who are listening to the gospel and they wanted the words to be preached to them on the next Sabbath. And so these Gentiles would often hang around the synagogue,
they’d hang around the, the, the temple areas. And they were interested in hearing about the Jewish religion and throughout the book of acts. We won’t take the time here. In fact, I didn’t know if I know them off the top of my head, but there’s, there’s a, the Greek word in there just often translated noble or Pietist women,
religious people. There, there seems to be a group of Gentiles. All the synagogues were Paul would go and preach that they were interested in the monotheism. They were interested in the morality of the Jews and they would hang around to listen to the messages there, but never fully proselyted to Judaism. And I think at least for the men, and one main reason was that circumcision thing know,
but anyway, be that as it may, this seems to be referring to those type of Gentiles there. They love the true so much. They want to hear it. They begged them to come back the next Sabbath day to preach that. Now when the congregation verse 43 had broken up many of the Jews and devout proselytes, there’s that word? Devout proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas,
who speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God on the next Sabbath. Almost a whole city came together to hear the word of God, see word got out. But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy and contradiction and blaspheming. They opposed the things spoken by Paul. So now here are some opposition here,
some pushback to what they continued from the previous Sabbath day. And when you look at that, that’s that speech in acts chapter 13, it definitely included the resurrection of Jesus. And then Paul and Barnabas grew a bold and said it is not necessary, or it was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first. But since you reject it and judge yourselves,
unworthy of everlasting life, behold, we turn to the Gentiles. Now notice that phrase, you judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life. Yes, there’s a sense in which God will judge us. At the end of time. We know John 1248, that the words that Jesus spoke will judge us. But there’s a real sense in which we judge ourselves by rejecting the word.
The only thing that can save us, Paul would say, if you want to go back to circumcision and basically what he’s meaning by that is the system of the law of Moses for your salvation, Galatians five, four, you have fallen from grace. And so we cannot reject the only, the only way of salvation, but then notice in verse 48.
Now, when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorify the word of the Lord. And as many as it had been appointed to eternal life believed. And so you had a reaction of those that believed. And again, the way it’s used in the book of acts, and as here, that is a reference to the obedience of the gospel and then verse 49,
the word of the Lord was being spread throughout all the region. And so it kept being spread. And then in verse 50, we have a not so good or they didn’t know bay. And the Jews started up the devout and prominent women. And the achievement of the city raised up persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them from the region. But as I say,
as they shook off the dust from their feet and they continued to preach, the gospel went to I conium and continued on preaching the gospel. But there you have mixed reaction to that, as it explicitly says some rejected, but yet some obeyed and believed. And then the apostles were cast out. Then an Athens acts 17, man, that thing we could do a whole lectureship on that sermon as well.
We won’t have the time, but just point out a few things here in verse 32. And I just got up and sat over there. So I’m going to hurry up here and finish up. But in acts chapter 17, this is really great here. And when Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was provoked within him. When he saw that the city was given over to idols,
therefore he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and with the Gentile worshipers and in the marketplace daily, with those who happened to be there and a certain Epicurean and stoic philosophers encountered him. And since some said, what does this babbler want to say? Others said, he seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods. Why? Because he preached to them Jesus and the resurrection.
They never heard that before. And again, that goes back to this Messiah is different. Yes, he was put to death, but he was raised from the dead. And I would add not just any old person who claims to be a Messiah, but any religious leader, there’s only one whose tomb is empty and that’s Jesus. Right? And that’s a pretty awesome thought.
And they took him and brought him to the Europe. Aeropagus saying, may we know all that? Here’s some new doctrine and to make a long story short in the synagogues and in the marketplace, he taught the resurrection to the Jews and religious Gentiles, devout Gentiles. They learned something to those philosophers. They learned something and have the resurrection. Now in verse 32,
he says right there. And when they heard the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, we will hear you again on this matter. And this matter is the resurrection. So Paul departure from among them, however, some men joined him and believed among them Dionysius the era GABA guy, right. A woman named Demetrius and others with them.
I was always a tongue twister, me, but the Arab guy. Right. But the IRAP Magus, Ooh, Arabic. Whew. Anyway, you know what I’m talking about right there. Okay. It was both a, a kind of a place, but a body of people. Also, my understanding was kind of like when we say the Senate,
well, sometimes the Senate means that building, where they meet and they’re meeting, or sometimes it just means those people. And that’s kind of like this, this right here. And some of you may have been to this area, but I’ve seen pictures of it. And you have the Aragon Pagus Mars hill right up here, kind of like a natural amphitheater type.
And you can, there’s a field or hill going down and you can see the ruins of the marketplace and just a tremendous setting for the preaching of the gospel. But then in verse 34, however, some men joined him and believed, well, yeah, we already read that. So there were some, those of those who obeyed from that sermon and then the other two just real quickly,
he was before Felix, and then before a grip up. And of course a grip, of course, even with Felix and both of those, he does mention the resurrection and with the grip, do you believe the prophets? I know you believe the profits and what did the prophet say? Well, he tells you up there in the verses, talks about the death and the resurrection of Jesus and all of that.
And so it was all there. Now, finally, we’ll wrap it up right here with applications. And of course in all of this preaching, the resurrection proves that Jesus is the son of God. He is the Messiah. And this lectureship has really pumped me up even here in this skies and not just read the book over a bunch of times and editing the book.
But, you know, sometimes we can just, you know, nonchalantly, death, burial, resurrection, Christ, death, burial, resurrection of Christ. And, but yet understand the significance of that. Well, what we do, but sometimes we lose sight of that. Maybe we’re desensitized to that, but he rose from the grave and he walked for 40 days. by many infallible proofs showing that he had risen from the dead.
And so the resurrection proved Jesus is real. Secondly, the resurrection, for lack of better word amazes, all types of people, poor people, rich people, academia, philosophers, serious students of the Bible, not so serious students of the Bible, but the resurrection amazes all types of people, but it also infuriates some people. And one reason why is because it is on get overhaul to get to,
to, to, to falsify, to attempt to false father resurrection, you got to bribe people, you got to threaten people. You got to try to cover it up. And this is another one of those subjects. If you try to explain away the resurrection, you don’t, you’re not just faced with explaining way one or two verses. Man, you got to explain the way a whole bunch of verses old and new Testament,
but it doesn’t fury. Some people then finally the resurrection motivates further study. As we see in the book of acts, we want to hear more about this and because it amazes all types of people, we need to seize that opportunity and evangelism to, to, you know, motivate further study. And as was said earlier, several times, probably during this lectureship,
but you know, these people that claim to do miracles today, why don’t they raise the dead? I’ll do one better. We don’t have to go to the cemetery. Let’s go to the funeral home. And they’re still at least, I mean, you know, before they’re even embalmed, there you go. How about that? But there’s not a single person alive that can do that today and never has been since the close of the first century,
but Jesus has a power. God, the father, God, the holy spirit, the God head will raise us from the dead at the end of time because Jesus rose from the dead and he is the first fruits of our resurrection. And so we appreciate your attention. Appreciate your being here. This session again, as a point out is that we will have a break now for about,
for about 30 minutes. Well, by the time I get done about 25, but anyway, we’ll, we’ll come back at three 30. That will be a ladies class, Laurie board we’ll be teaching in the ladies class. There isn’t Lord’s words with the women at the empty tomb with the women at the empty tomb. Jimmy mentioned that in passing and some of his material this morning,
and Lori did a great job with the main script. And so she’ll, she’ll go into some more detail on that. So that’s for the ladies, but the men can benefit also from that through the, through the material she has written. And she’s definitely qualified as a writer and as a good teacher. And so we look forward to that. If you’re a,
a lady, other than that, we will have the question and answer period in here. So if you have any questions about these three lessons or about the two lessons this morning or related matters, please write them down and give them to me or put them in the box. And we will see that those are answered. Also, if you can help us defray the cost of the lectureship.
Of course, what I said this morning that we were behind on Ashton has actually increased. So I should have waited until now, before I said it, but I’ll wait a little while, but we are several thousand dollars in the red so far, but again, as I mentioned, brethren have always come through in the past and we expect no different this lectureship.
So if you can help us with the lectureship costs and again, you know, our costs or maintenance, the bulk of our costs are the speakers, you know, transportation, bringing them in. And we do like to give them a little something for their efforts. They don’t get much a hundred dollars for each time they speak. And of course they get a book,
we give them a book and we pay their travel expenses and their lodging where that’s needed. So we could, we would definitely appreciate your help. Okay, we’re going to break and come back here at three 30, let’s have a brief word of prayer. And remember those questions, loving God and gracious father. We are so thankful for today. So thankful for the blessings you have given us through the preaching of the word.
We thank you, father for the resurrection of your dear Son, continued to be with those whom we have been praying for, continue to help us to enjoy the fellowship. And we pray father that each day will be more like Jesus and forgive us when we fall short of that, it’s in his name. We pray. Amen. Great. Yes. Appreciate it.