In recent weeks, we have been looking at the power of the gospel. That the gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to save from the penalty of sin, to deliver from the power of sin, is able to deliver from fear and anxiety, is able to overcome the wisdom and philosophies of man, and is able to defeat the schemes of the devil. And if you were not here for some of those messages, then I would encourage you to go on our website and read them when you get a chance. So I will not review all of

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There comes different seasons in the life of every Christian of which some are harder to bear than others. And one such season is a time of weariness, of fearfulness, or even depression. Sometimes they are all of the above. Most often they come after an extended time of spiritual battle. Sometimes that may be compounded by physical trials such as sickness, or marital problems, or difficulties with children, or financial problems. I have known them all at one time or another. And chances are that if you are willing to admit it, if you are human and not some

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Over the past few weeks we have been looking at the power of the gospel to save, even to the uttermost regions of the world. We saw in chapter 14 the miraculous power of God to heal the lame man as an illustration of the power of the gospel to give life to that which was not. And we saw the power of the gospel in chapters 15 and 16 as it confronted demonic possession and idolatry in pagan societies, resulting in transformed lives and churches being formed in formerly dark cultures. Today, we will see the power of the

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Many years ago I was at a church where they were preaching through Acts, and I just remember feeling like I was taking a geography lesson about some ancient civilization. Whatever truth there was to be gained for me was obscured by the confusing and often boring geographical details of Paul’s missionary journeys. So today I want to avoid focusing on all the stops of Paul’s journey and the various particulars of each city or culture, and instead I want to direct your attention to the point of Paul’s mission. The point of Paul and Barnabas’s missionary journey is the

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So far in the book of Acts, we have studied the record of a couple of notable sermons, particularly the first message of Peter as well last sermon of the martyr Steven. Today, we look at the first recorded message of the Apostle Paul. As I noted last time, in this chapter, Paul transitions from being called Saul to being called Paul, and he is no longer called Saul on any longer, which indicates to me that he began his apostolic ministry at this point. This apostolic commission was attested to with signs and wonders as an attestation of the

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Last week we looked at government’s attack upon the church as evidenced in chapter 12 when Herod imprisoned Peter. And through that study we understood that though governors and rulers of government are granted their authority from God, yet at the same time they are often used by the ruler of this world, Satan, to bring persecution upon the church of God. Now this week we are looking at another passage which illustrates the two pronged strategy of Satan’s attack on the church. He uses external means, such as governments, to attack the church, but he also uses internal means

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Recent decisions on the part of the government, not only in America, but also in various other countries, have amounted to nothing less than an attack on the church. And I believe that this is just the beginning of a wholesale attack on the church which will continue to get worse and worse as we go forward. The Bible makes it clear that in the last days, perilous times will come. Paul described such days as this in 2Tim. 3:1-5 “But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers

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Last week as we looked at the previous chapter, we studied the way in which God brought the gospel to the Gentiles. If you will remember, Peter had a vision in which he saw a great sheet lowered down out of heaven with all kinds of animals and creatures in it, which contained animals considered both clean and unclean. And I will not take the time this morning to review the details of that story. Peter himself reviews it once again in this chapter as we have just read. But I would ask you to consider the importance of such

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