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Book: Acts
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Acts 26:18 The Power of the Gospel
Intro. Paul is sharing how that the Lord had met him on the road to
Damascus and commissioned him to take the gospel to the heathen.
He was commanded:
I. "To Open their eyes."
A. The correct assumption is that men's eyes are closed. The Bible
speaks of a spiritual blindness.
1. Paul spoke of those
2CO 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them
which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of
Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
EPH 4:18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life
of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the
blindness of their heart:
2. One of Satan's strategies is to blind a person to the
reality of their own condition.
a. Look how long it takes an alcoholic to admit
it, some never do.
1. To everyone else it is so obvious.
2. Their family and friends all know it.
3. They keep insisting that there is no
problem they can quit any time they
want to.
b. Rarely do you hear a person admitting to a drug
addiction.
1. You don't hear them say, "I am a dope
fiend"
2. Or "I am a drug addict."
3. They may admit to having a slight
problem with drugs, but they somehow
feel that they are still in control,
when the truth is they are hopelessly
addicted.
c. People are blind to the fact that one day they
will stand before God and have to give an
account for their sins.
1. They feel that death is the end of all
existence. The Bible says that it is
appointed unto man once to die, but
after that the judgment.
2. There are those who somehow feel that
their good works will placate the wrath
of God against their sin. The Bible
says that our good works or
righteousness is as filthy rags in the
sight of God.
3. Paul asked in his letter to the Romans,
"Do you think that you shall escape the
judgment of God?"
d. They are blind to the fact that unless a person
is born again they will not enter the kingdom
of heaven.
1. The gate is much narrower than man has
been led to believe. Jesus said,
"Straight is the way and narrow is the
gate that leads to everlasting life,
and few their be that find it.
2. It is true that all religions lead to
god, but not God the Father, the
creator of the Universe. Their is only
one way, and that is Jesus Christ who
said, "I am the way, the truth and the
life, and no man cometh to the Father
but by Me."
3. The way to heaven is not as easy as
they think or they try to make it.
1CO 6:9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of
God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor
adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with
mankind,
1CO 6:10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor
extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
GAL 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these];
Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
GAL 5:20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath,
strife, seditions, heresies,
GAL 5:21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the
which I tell you before, as I have also told [you] in time past,
that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of
God.
EPH 5:5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor
covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the
kingdom of Christ and of God.
3. A person living in sin is to be greatly pitied for he
is walking in darkness, and does not realize that he is
on the road to hell. John wrote
1JO 2:11 But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in
darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness
hath blinded his eyes.
B. If your eyes have been opened to the truth of God, then they
have been opened to the truth about yourself.
1. It is seeing myself in the light of God or His Son
Jesus Christ that is so important.
2. If we compare ourselves with others, we may not fare
too bad.
3. If you compare ourselves with Jesus then we must admit
that we are hopeless undone.
a. Isaiah, "In the year king Uzziah died, I saw
the Lord high and lifted up, and His glory
filled the temple. Then said I, "Woe is me, for
I am undone for I am a man of unclean lips, and
I dwell amongst a people of unclean lips."
b. When Peter realized who Jesus was he said,
"Depart from me for I am a sinful man."
c. Daniel describes the effect of his great vision
of the Lord, he said, "My beauty turned into
corruption."
4. Paul said that those who were measuring themselves with
themselves, or comparing themselves with
themselves were not wise.
C. The first work of the Spirit of God in our lives is to open our
eyes to the truth.
1. The truth about God.
2. The truth about ourselves.
II. To turn them from darkness to light.
A. The kingdom of God is a kingdom of light and life.
B. The world today is wrapped up in the kingdom of darkness.
1. When Paul was writing to the Colossians he thanked God
for making us fit to be partakers of the inheritance of
the saints in light delivering us from the power of
darkness, that He might translate us into the kingdom
of His Son.
2. I am appalled at the darkness in the world today.
a. I cannot conceive the things that are being
reported in the news media.
b. I cannot imagine a father sexually abusing his
own little daughter.
c. I cannot imagine the darkness of a man's mind
who would make love to another man.
d. I cannot conceive the millions of babies that
are being destroyed in our land today by
government consent, and many times government
subsidies.
e. That same government will fine you heavily and
possibly imprison you if you destroy an eagles
egg, or kill a kangaroo rat.
f. There is something radically wrong with a
government that will protect an unborn eagle,
but not a unborn child. That puts the life of a
rat above that of a child.
3. Surely the whole world is lost in the darkness of sin.
C. Paul was commanded by Jesus to bring men into the light.
1. Darkness is a symbol for evil.
2. Light is a symbol for purity.
3. To the Ephesians Paul said,
EPH 5:8 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now [are ye] light in the
Lord: walk as children of light:
4. Jesus said that men loved darkness rather than light
because their deeds were evil.
D. There is always that sharp contrast, and you are either walking
in darkness or in light.
III. The power of Satan unto God.
A. You were at one time held by the power of Satan. You were a
slave to sin.
B. Jesus died that He might redeem you from your slavery to sin.
Paul said in Romans 6 beginning with verse 16
Don't you realize that whoever you yield yourselves
servants to obey, you become their slave? Whether it is to
sin unto death, or obedience unto righteousness.
Thank God, that though you were the slaves of sin, now
because you have obeyed from the heart that doctrine which
was delivered you. You have been freed from sin and have
become the servants of righteousness. For even as you once
yielded your bodies as slaves of uncleanness, and
iniquity, even so now yield your bodies as servants of
righteousness unto holiness. For when you were the
servants of sin, you had no righteousness. You have
no fruit in those things of which you are now ashamed, for
the end of those things is death. Now that you have been
made free from your slavery to sin, you have become the
servants of God. The fruit of your new life is holiness
and the final result is everlasting life.
1. Jesus said, "Whoever sins, becomes a slave to sin."
2. Speaking of false teachers Peter said, "While they
promise you liberty, they themselves are slaves of
corruption, for by whatsoever a man is overcome, of the
same he is brought into slavery."
3. John is even stronger for he wrote, "He that practices
sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the
beginning. This is the reason God sent His Son into the
world, that He might destroy the works of the devil."
a. Jesus and only Jesus can free you from the hold
that sin has on your life.
b. The Bible says that if the Son sets you free,
you shall be free indeed.
c. Would you like to be free from those evil
desires that have brought you into ?
d. This is what the gospel is all about.
4. Opening a persons eyes to the truth, bringing them out
of darkness into the light, freeing them from the power
of the devil that they might become the servants of
God.
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