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[0:00] If you will take the little sheet that you have, we are in the middle of looking at our transition period, and I think it is safe to say, in fact I know it is safe to say, that there is no portion of Scripture that so greatly divides Christendom as the book of Acts.

[0:20] And that is because of the varied and sundry interpretations of the text that have surfaced over the last couple of hundred years that has resulted in all kinds of differences among believers.

[0:39] And the differences are each held in good faith. The different doctrinal opinions and positions that are taken that constitute different denominations and different churches, statements of faith, every item on that statement of faith is taken in good faith and is sincerely believed by those who drew it up.

[1:04] But we look at them and we say, how is it and why is it that these groups are so different? And the answer is simply in the manner in which they interpret the same Scriptures and the conclusions that they arrive at in connection with that.

[1:23] They are all held, as I mentioned, nobody's integrity is being called in question, and they are all held in good faith. They are sincerely held differences.

[1:36] But as we've tried to point out from time to time, that believing something sincerely, fully, taking it into your life and your heart, maybe even being willing to stake your life upon the truth of it, does not guarantee the truthfulness or the validity of that position.

[1:58] Believing something doesn't make it so. If a thing is true, it is true because it corresponds to reality.

[2:09] It has an inherent truthfulness to it and is verifiable. If you engage in looking at passages of Scripture and you draw a conclusion, and what I've often labeled because I don't know what else to call it other than this, I call them faulty assumptions.

[2:32] They are assumptions that people make in good faith, really believe it. But it isn't based on reality or truth. And as a result, in arriving at a faulty assumption and believing it, people tend to act upon it in good faith.

[2:53] And you get all kinds of different actions and opinions and all kinds of things that have sorely divided Christendom for a couple of hundred years.

[3:05] And one of the most prevalent examples of this has to do with the transition period that is involved with the book of Acts.

[3:16] And if you do not consider what is taking place in Acts, you will make faulty assumptions. And what we are trying to point out that is so critical is because the book of Acts occupies such a critical time in Christianity, it is the first century, it is that which immediately follows the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, and it transpires over a period of 30 to 35 years from Acts chapter 1 to Acts chapter 28.

[3:56] Now you can read the whole thing in less than 20 minutes, half an hour, if you read it quickly. But you've got to remember that in the book of Acts, we have got doctrine developing, doctrine on the move.

[4:12] It doesn't stay put. Things are transpiring, and that's why we call it a transitional book. It is transitioning from one thing to another thing.

[4:25] And the difficulty involving the transition is you're moving from one element to another element, but there is a time period when both elements are in place side by side.

[4:44] Which one do you go with? That's the problem. As you open the book of Acts, virtually everything is still predicated upon, based upon, what we call the Old Testament.

[4:57] It's the law of Moses. And everything is going on as per usual, with the exception, of course, of the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

[5:08] But the law of Moses is still in place. The Jews are still celebrating Passover and everything else. The Jews are still going to the synagogue.

[5:19] The Jews still consider the law of Moses the valid thing of the day, and they are operating on that basis. But something has happened that's changing everything.

[5:31] And what was that? Death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. The cross changes everything. The cross is a whole new ballgame. But do you think these people are quick and eager to pick up on the change and go with it?

[5:45] No. They are hanging on to the old. And as you look at this brief diagram that we've provided for you, it is a period of transitioning, and the movement is, from the preaching and the proclamation of the kingdom of heaven is at hand, repent and be baptized.

[6:06] This is John's message. This is the message that Jesus gave. It is the message that the Twelve preached. It is a holy Jewish message. And I say holy, I mean W-H-O-L-L-Y.

[6:19] Completely Jewish. Gentiles have nothing to do with this. This is a strictly Jewish thing. But then when the cross of Christ occurred, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, that opened the avenue, not only for Jews, but for everybody.

[6:37] For the unheard of, uncircumcised Gentiles. Well, what interest does God have in Gentiles? None whatsoever.

[6:48] At least, that's what many of the Jews thought, and they couldn't quite get into it. When Peter went to the house of Cornelius and gave him the message, and they called Peter on the carpet for that.

[7:00] We heard that you went into Gentiles and that you ate with them. Tell us it isn't so, Peter. He told them about this sheep let down from heaven, and the men that came, and when he gave them the truth that Christ died on that cross and that he was the Messiah, Peter says, the Spirit of God descended on those Gentiles there in the house of Cornelius, this Roman army officer, and they spoke in languages they had not learned and were able to communicate one with another, although they were from different places, just like it was with us at Pentecost.

[7:36] And these Jews looked at each other and said, well, then has God also granted repentance to the Gentiles?

[7:49] No. How can that be? We know that they're the uncircumcised. They're the dogs. God doesn't want anything to do with the Gentiles, but he did, because Jesus came to his own, that was the Jew, but he came to his own for the world, for everybody.

[8:08] Jesus died and paid the penalty for everyone. And this transition, this brief diagram that you've got here, and the way it is angled off, I want you to look at the top part, the top part of the triangle, the gospel of the kingdom.

[8:23] You see it starts out with the large part. You see the large part on the end, clear on the left end. It is the message. And it was the only message at the time.

[8:37] It's the same message that John the Baptist preached. It's the same message that Jesus preached. It's the same message that the 12 apostles preached. It is the gospel of the kingdom to the Jews only, Matthew chapter 10.

[8:51] And the idea was, the plan was, for Israel to get on board with the plan and program of God, and then Israel would become a nation of priests.

[9:08] The whole nation, all 12 tribes, not just Levi, would become a nation of priests. To whom? to all the rest of the world, to the Gentiles.

[9:20] But the program got short-circuited because Israel said, no thanks. And it was just a small number of Jews that accepted Jesus as their Messiah, and the nation as a whole did not.

[9:41] So the whole program of the kingdom of heaven being offered and heaven coming to earth is put on hold. Where is the program now?

[9:52] This is not it. We are not in the kingdom of heaven. We are in something that was never prophesied, never predicted, never expected, came like a bolt out of the blue, just dropped out from nothing, and it's called the gospel of the grace of God.

[10:10] So that there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free, male nor female, you are all children of God by faith in Jesus Christ.

[10:21] And the whole kingdom program is set aside. It will be reactivated once the church, which is the body of Christ, made up of believing Jews and Gentiles, is removed, taken from the scene.

[10:38] When that happens, guess what comes back? The kingdom program. And it will resume right where it was left off.

[10:49] And what happened when Peter preached and the 3,000 were saved on the day of Pentecost, and we read that that number increased in chapter 4, and they ended up with 5,000, and the numbers are growing more and more, and as a result, eventually Gentiles are going to come into the picture, and there are going to be more and more non-Jews believing, and fewer and fewer Jews believing, and the Jews, for the most part, are going to continue in their Judaism, and going to the synagogue, and worshiping.

[11:25] And by the way, where do you think all of these believing Jews, what do you think they were doing about the synagogue? Well, they were going to the synagogue, just like they always did.

[11:37] They weren't going to First Baptist Church on the corner of Elm and Main. Didn't exist. There were no Protestants. There were no Baptists. There were no Methodists. There were no Presbyterians.

[11:48] Didn't exist. And these Jews, who believed, continued right in with the synagogue, just as they always had been. But now, they have got a personal faith in Jesus as the Messiah.

[12:01] And how do you think that is playing out with the Jews in the synagogue who don't share that conviction? It's going to create difficulty.

[12:14] Eventually, these people, who have come, Jews who have come to faith in Jesus as the Messiah, are desperately concerned about their fellow Jews, loved ones, family members, aunts and uncles, and cousins, who haven't come to faith in Jesus.

[12:33] They don't see him as the Messiah. They continue to reject him. They bought the party line set up by the chief priests and elders that Jesus was not the Messiah. You people have it all wrong.

[12:44] What did that do? It created division. It created difficulty. Families are split over. People are talking about it. This is just, it's almost like the North and the South, and how we were divided.

[12:59] And sometimes that involved family members because people have strong convictions both ways. So eventually, these Jews became unwelcome in the synagogue.

[13:10] You people are always talking about Jesus of the Messiah. Get off of it, will you? But they saw the necessity for believing in him because that's where your salvation is.

[13:22] They desperately cared about these people. And yet, these people were tired of putting up with him. And eventually, they just got squeezed out of the synagogue and they started what Paul refers to as he writes to the Romans.

[13:35] He says, greet so and so and greet so and so and the church that is in her house. Being unwelcome eventually in the synagogues, they started house churches.

[13:49] They didn't build separate churches. They started meeting in homes. And those who had the larger homes would open them up. There'd be 12, 15, 20 people come in. Neighborhoods all over.

[14:00] And they were believers who were growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. And that's what's taking place in this first century. It is a time of tremendous confusion, chaos, upheaval.

[14:16] And I want to give you an example here. Well, let's just go back to the diagram here. You can see the gospel of the kingdom at the beginning and we're talking about clear on the left hand side.

[14:27] We'll call this 30 AD. This is the time of John the Baptist. It's the time of the crucifixion. And the gospel of the kingdom is the big message.

[14:37] In fact, at the beginning, it's the only message. But as time goes on, as the diagram shows you, the gospel of the kingdom is going to have a competitive message.

[14:51] change. And what will that be? It is going to be a very low, slow starting beginning and it is actually, it's begun with the earliest believers who came to faith in Christ and there are very few of them.

[15:09] When Pentecost, that changed in the sense that there were 3,000 and another 1,000 added. So this period of transition and in the bottom part, it is the gospel of the grace of God to Jews and Gentiles.

[15:21] Now I want you to turn, if you would please, to Acts chapter 19 and we'll see if we can put this together in another form that perhaps will be even more beneficial for grasping.

[15:38] Acts chapter 19, I want to remind you that in this portion of the book of Acts, the Apostle Paul is on his third missionary journey.

[15:50] This is his last one. Also, keep this in mind guys because these dates are really very, very important. When, when Paul came to faith in Christ, we don't know exactly how long it was after the resurrection that the Damascus road experience took place, but our best guess is probably somewhere between two and four years.

[16:20] And then, the conversion of Saul of Tarsus is recorded in Acts chapter 9. And immediately after his conversion, we are told, in Acts 9, while he is still there in Damascus, right after he comes to faith because Ananias has gone, laid hands on Paul and he received his sight and so on.

[16:48] And we read that immediately, after spending three days and three nights blind, trying to figure out what happened to him on the road to Damascus, whether that was real and true or not.

[17:02] And he became convinced that it was and it really was Jesus and he really has called him. and we read right there in that particular chapter that immediately Saul went to the synagogue there in Damascus to which he had come for the express purpose of arresting those believers who were there and take them back to Jerusalem.

[17:32] Instead, he went into the synagogue and he began preaching Jesus was the Messiah and Israel crucified him.

[17:46] Wow. You talk about turmoil. These Jews, these Jews there in that synagogue at Damascus were looking at each other and saying, is this guy for real?

[17:57] And those Jews who had been in Jerusalem, who fled Jerusalem to get away from Saul of Tarsus, they're all crouched back there in the corner and they're hearing this guy and this is Saul of Tarsus, this is the one we were told to look out for and now he's preaching the same thing that we are?

[18:17] What is this? Is this a trick or what? You know, some thought that it was a trick. Matter of fact, we read, we read earlier there in the book of Acts that there were several people who did not believe that Saul of Tarsus conversion was genuine, that it was a trick and there was just one guy who believed him and his name was Barnabas.

[18:49] He's called the son of consolation, son of comfort, the name. And Barnabas went up to Saul of Tarsus and put his arm around him and said, welcome to the family of God, brother.

[19:01] I believe you. And they cemented a relationship and those two were going to constitute the first missionary journey that Paul would take.

[19:12] But, but, but, it wouldn't be for 15 years after his conversion that he takes that journey.

[19:24] 15 years had passed. In fact, when he was preaching there in Jerusalem and in Damascus, he set off a firestorm and the unbelieving Jews saw Saul of Tarsus who previously had been their chief persecutor as a turncoat.

[19:47] This guy's turned on us. He's a traitor. And the Jews put out a contract on him and they were going to kill him and the believing Jews got together and said, we've got to get Saul of Tarsus.

[20:01] We've got to get him out of town. He is a hot item. They're coming after him. And they took him, they took him and put him on a boat and sent him home. Sent him home, back to Tarsus.

[20:14] And while he is there in Tarsus, we aren't told what he's doing, but we can only guess what he's doing. He's preaching that gospel. And meanwhile, Barnabas goes to Antioch and there at Antioch there are numbers of Gentiles who are coming to faith in Jesus as the Messiah.

[20:35] And Barnabas says, man, I remember Paul, I remember Saul of Tarsus telling us that God had raised him up to be the apostle to the Gentiles.

[20:46] I've got to go find him and let him in on this. I've got to find him. And Barnabas left Israel, went to Tarsus, found Saul, brought him back to Antioch, and there they had tremendously fruitful ministry, and then we read in Acts that as they were gathered together, the Holy Spirit said, separate unto me Barnabas and Saul for the ministry whereunto I've called them.

[21:18] And that was the birthing of their first missionary journey, and it was 15 years from the time Saul had been converted that he takes his first missionary journey, and if you will look at Acts chapter 19, he is completing that journey, and he is in Ephesus, and we read that, well, it's quite a scene that's going to take place there in Ephesus, and he's going to have a parting farewell, let's skip that because I won't have time, and come over to chapter 20, this is his farewell to Ephesus, and in Acts chapter 20, he calls them together, in verse 17, it says, from Miletus he sent to Ephesus, called to him the elders of the church, and when they came to him, he said, you yourselves know from the first day I set foot in Asia, how I was with you the whole time, serving the

[22:19] Lord, and so on, and so on, and then he's testifying, verse 21, testifying to both Jews and Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and now, behold, bound in spirit, I'm on my way to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me, and so on, and so on, and then if you come to the end of the chapter, they're gathered together, and verse 36 says that when he said these words, Paul knelt down and prayed with them all, and they began to weep aloud, and embraced Paul, and repeatedly kissed him, grieving especially over the word which he had spoken, that they should see his face no more, and they were accompanying him to the ship, this is a tearful farewell that

[23:20] Paul is having, all of these people know they're never going to see each other again, and they escort him down to the ship, he gets on the ship, and he sails from Meletus, and where is he going?

[23:32] He's going to Israel, he's going to Jerusalem, and when he gets there, eventually he's going to be arrested, turned over to the Romans for safekeeping because he's a Roman citizen, and eventually he will be making his way to Caesarea, where he will be in jail there in Caesarea for a couple of years before he even gets on the room, so now we've got to look at Acts chapter 21, and what happens when he gets to Jerusalem, this is right before his arrest, verse 15, Acts 21, after these days, Dr. Luke who is writing this account says, we got ready and started on our way up to Jerusalem, and some of the disciples from Caesarea also came with us, taking unto us the nation of Cyprus, a disciple of long standing, with whom we were to lodge, and when we had come to

[24:35] Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly, and now the following day, Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present, what James is this, this is James the brother of our Lord, who presided over the council at Jerusalem back in Acts chapter 15, this James, he's not James the brother of John, he's already been executed, Herod put him to death, this is James, the half brother of our Lord, who was not a believer in Jesus until after his resurrection, now he is not only on board, but he is the leader of the assembly of believing Jews there in Jerusalem, and he will be the one who chairs the meeting in Acts chapter 15, when they have this big discussion about whether

[25:38] Gentiles, who had come to faith in Jesus as Messiah and Savior, whether they had to be circumcised also, because doesn't, doesn't that mean that they're supposed to become Jews like we are, and in order to become a Jew, you've got to be circumcised according to the law of Moses, and so on, that was the hot item, and the upshot of the verdict in Acts 15, was that it was not necessary for Gentiles who came to faith, it was not necessary for them to be circumcised, and you can imagine a lot of the Gentile believers were going, they weren't looking forward to that, not at all, so look in verse 19, of Acts 21, and after he had greeted them, he began to relate one by one the things which

[26:39] God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry, what ministry was that? Three trips, three trips, three missionary trips, he's already taken his last one, and he didn't take the first one until 15 years after his conversion.

[27:03] Now, if we're adding this up, 15 years plus another three or four years for these three journeys to have been accomplished, we're talking about 18 or 19 years after the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.

[27:24] So, let me say, almost 20 years. Now, you would have thought, would you not, that Jews who had received Jesus as their Messiah, and as their Savior, had a different kind relationship now with Moses, and the law of Moses, because remember, remember the curtain between the holy place and the most holy place, torn in two, what did that signify?

[28:02] God is through with that. That was the demise of Judaism. That was the end of Judaism. Now, fellas, understand the distinction.

[28:13] It wasn't the end of the Jews. It was the end of the religion, Judaism, the law of Moses, the sacrifices, the feast days, all the rest of it.

[28:24] That's all kaput. But have the Jews picked up on that? Let's read on. Verse 20. And when they heard it, they began glorifying God, and they said to him, you see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed.

[28:49] What's he talking about? He's talking about Jews who have become believers in Jesus as their Messiah. They have placed their faith in him, they've accepted him as their Messiah, they've accepted him as their Savior, but read on what he says, and they are all zealous for the law.

[29:12] What? But isn't that passé? Yes, it is. Have they picked up on that? No, they haven't.

[29:23] So what are they preaching? What are they continuing to preach? They are continuing to preach the same thing they were preaching, that John was preaching, they are preaching the kingdom message.

[29:37] Well, now wait a minute. What's going on here? All right, let's come over to Galatians chapter 2. Very, very significant passage.

[29:49] Galatians chapter 2. And we've just got to jump in here in a few verses, but Paul says, well, let's start with verse 1.

[30:12] Then after an interval of 14 years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along also, and it was because of a revelation that I went up.

[30:26] In other words, what he's saying is, it wasn't exactly my idea to go up, but God revealed to me that this is what I was supposed to do. It was by revelation that I went up, and he says, and I submitted to them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles.

[30:47] Now, that's very significant, guys. Why was it necessary for Paul to tell these Jewish elders the gospel that he was preaching among the Gentiles?

[31:03] Think about that. Wasn't he preaching the same thing they were? No. That's the whole point. That's the whole point.

[31:16] He wanted to get them to sign off on what he was preaching. He wanted them to agree that what he was preaching to the Gentiles is exactly what he was supposed to be preaching, but it wasn't what they were preaching to the Jews.

[31:33] We've got two different gospel messages. The common denominator is Jesus is at the center of both messages.

[31:45] He's the focus of both messages, but one message is the gospel or the good news of the kingdom. the other is the gospel of the grace of God.

[31:58] Both are legitimate. Both are going on at the same time, one for the Jews, one for the Gentiles. Now, people say today, well, there's just one gospel.

[32:12] Well, that's true. There is just one gospel, good news, for today. And it isn't, it isn't repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

[32:22] That's a message that was passé. The message today is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. It's got nothing to do with the kingdom. It's got everything to do with the king.

[32:34] It's got nothing to do with the kingdom. If you do not make a distinction between these two, you will do what a lot of churches are doing today.

[32:47] They're preaching, repent, and be baptized for the remission of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. That's kingdom stuff.

[32:58] That was John's message. That was the message of the twelve. That was the message that Jesus, that, everything changed with the cross. Get with the program. That's what we're saying.

[33:10] Get with the program. And people are latching on to the back, and bless their heart, I don't know that you will find a more fervent, zealously committed people to the gospel than Pentecostals.

[33:29] They have an emotion about them, an energy about them, and they believe with all their heart that the Pentecostal experience.

[33:44] Acts 2 is supposed to be the norm for Christianity. And at the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles in 1907, 1908, something like that, Pentecostal church actually was, for all practical purposes, was born, and there was an emotional outbreak there, and people started speaking, what they thought was speaking in tongues and other messages, and they were saying, that's the way it's supposed to be.

[34:19] That's what is there in the book of Acts. And, along with that, a lot of the healing ministries arose, and you see them proliferating today, particularly on television, with the healing preachers and the miracles supposedly accomplished, and it's all predicated upon this, and they look at that and they say, that's the way it is in the book of Acts.

[34:44] That's what we're supposed to be doing today. Well, why aren't we? Well, it's only because you don't have enough faith. If you had the faith that these early believers had, you too would be raising the dead, healing the sick, speaking in tongues, and all the rest of it, and that really, honestly, in good faith, believe that.

[35:08] But that doesn't make it true. And it saddens me that these dear brethren, and they are brethren, they are believers in Jesus Christ, and they're going to be in heaven just like we are, and you've heard me say many times that all of us have wrinkles in our theology.

[35:25] Nobody's got it all together. And when we get to heaven, we'll all get it ironed out. Some of us have more ironing than others. But this was the birth, like 1907, 1908, something like this was the birth of the modern Pentecostal church, and today it's the Assemblies of God, Pentecostals, and there are several offshoots and branches of that, because Pentecostals, the Baptist, well they're not as bad as the Baptists.

[35:55] The Baptists have, I know because that's my background, the Baptists must have 30 different brands of Baptists, and each one claims that theirs is the right one and the other guys are wrong.

[36:08] And that's the way it is with the Presbyterians and with the Methodists and all, and within their denominations they all have their splits and splinters, and it's all on the basis of how you interpret Scripture.

[36:21] And when you do not take into consideration the doctrine developing and unfolding in the book of Acts, and you don't go with the latest thing, then you're doomed to, and their objection to us, they would call us the dispensationalist thing, and say well, you dispensationalists, you just take part of the Bible, but we take the whole thing.

[36:49] We believe in all of the Bible. And I say, well, then you sacrifice animals too. Oh, well, no, we don't do that, but you see, it's a matter of where you draw the lines.

[37:03] And if you look here at Galatians chapter 2, where we're at, the verse 8, Galatians 2, 8, we read, for he, well, verse 7, verse 7, on the contrary, seeing that I, Paul is speaking, seeing that I had been entrusted with the gospel, the good news, to the uncircumcised, and who are they?

[37:35] Gentiles, yes. just as Peter, with the gospel to the circumcised. Who are they? The Jews.

[37:47] For how long? For the past 20 years. Wow. For he, meaning God, who effectually worked in Peter, in his apostleship to the circumcised, effectually worked for me also to the Gentiles.

[38:13] But with two different messages. Do you think for one moment that when Paul preached to the Gentiles, that he was telling them, you need to be circumcised, you need to keep the law of Moses, you need to keep the Sabbath day, you need to have a kosher diet?

[38:33] Well, of course not. He wasn't teaching that. What was he teaching? He was teaching Jesus Christ, God's Son, Israel's Messiah, died on the cross for your sin.

[38:45] Put your faith and your trust and your confidence in Jesus Christ, and you will receive the remission of sins, and you will be baptized by the Holy Spirit, dry cleaned, into the spiritual body of Christ, and you will become one with him.

[39:08] Do you see two different messages here? Absolutely. If you don't make the transition, you are hopelessly confused.

[39:22] Which one are you going to go with? And when our Pentecostal friends insist on, they say, Acts 2, right here it is, they believe and were baptized and they spoke in tongues, there it is in black and white, what are you going to do about that?

[39:37] And we believe it, and we put it into practice. And God bless them, I can't, I don't fault their good faith, I'm sure that they're very sincere about it, but they're in desperate need of an updated message.

[39:54] You cannot take just anything in the book of Acts because it is doctrine on the move. And if you take doctrine in the early part and it's moved on to something else, you're going to be hopelessly out of the day.

[40:08] It's kind of like, it's kind of like our military trying to fight World War II with World War I weapons.

[40:20] And you are hopelessly outgunned, outmaneuvered, and out everything. But when you get with the program and see the doctrine developing and unfolding and go with the latest thing, and the latest thing is, Christ died for your sins, believe on him and you will be saved.

[40:40] And he says, recognizing the grace that had been given to me, that means that they legitimized Paul's message. They didn't tell Paul that he was preaching the wrong stuff to the Gentiles.

[40:55] They didn't tell Paul, you need to get those Gentiles circumcised and get them into the synagogue. He didn't tell them anything like that. The text says that seeing that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter with the gospel to the circumcised, he who affectionately worked for Peter and his apostleship to the circumcised, affectionately worked for me also to the Gentiles, 20 years later with a different message, and recognizing, acknowledging, legitimizing the grace that had been given to me, Paul, James, and Cephas, that's Peter, and John, that's the apostle John, who were reputed to be pillars.

[41:37] These were the main guys in the church there. They gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship. That's accepting.

[41:48] That's blessing. That's encouraging. They're saying, great job, guys. Go get them. The right hand of fellowship so that we might go to the Gentiles with our message and they to the Jew or the circumcised with their message and they only ask us to do this one thing.

[42:11] Remember the poor, the very thing I also was eager to do. Wow. What I've just given you is very basic and very simple and it is very, very much overlooked or ignored by most of the churches today.

[42:32] And I'm not proud in telling you that for the first 15 years of my Christian life that began in 1956, I overlooked it too.

[42:45] I didn't see it either. I just went with the party line, the church that I happened to be in at the time, for which I had an emotional involvement because it was a Baptist pastor in a Baptist church that led me to faith in Jesus Christ on my wedding day.

[43:05] And I just automatically embraced his teaching and his belief and his positions and the denomination that he supported and was a part of, which was the Baptist.

[43:16] And I went to a Baptist school, but it's, well, let me put it this way. I was invited to Cedarville, it was Cedarville College at the time, to speak in chapel and had a great time, well received and everything.

[43:40] And they often had in preachers from the area and speak to the students in chapel because they had chapel five days a week. But after I came to the realization of what I've just given you and Grace Bible Church was founded in 1971 and when the powers that be discovered that it was not going to be a Baptist church but a Bible church, the invitations to speak in chapel ceased.

[44:14] That was the end of that. Because Wiseman is no longer a Baptist and he's no longer welcome in this pulpit. So, that's the price you pay.

[44:27] And I still have, you know, I have a quasi kind of relationship with him. I go down there for certain events and things like that. And I still heartily recommend Cedarville University.

[44:41] Because I think you get more bang for your buck. You've got a better atmosphere. You've got better education. You've got better faculty. And I support the school and recommend it heartily.

[44:51]  But we still have this difference that exists.