You can open your Bibles tonight again to the Galatians chapter, or Acts chapter 13. Galatians, Acts, where Paul will be in Galatia, southern Galatia, but will be in the book of Acts. Tonight, the last couple Wednesday nights, we were getting Paul to Galatia. We talked about John Mark and his turning back. And Paul, pressing on despite some kind of physical difficulty, as well as the challenge of the road that he had to travel, Paul didn't quit, he kept going. And so he does come then to Antioch in Pisidia, verse 14 tells us, and on the Sabbath day goes into the synagogue with Barnabas and sits down. And after the reading of the Law and the Prophets, the ruler of the synagogue sent unto them, saying, Ye men and brethren, if ye have any word of exhortation for the people, say on. And then Paul stood up, and beckoning with his hand, said, Men of Israel and ye that fear God, give audience. Let me just stop our reading there for the moment. And by the way, I was just thinking, The Holy Spirit seems to go to some lengths just to emphasize the fact that when this journey started, it was Barnabas and Paul, but very quickly it becomes Paul and Barnabas. As a matter of fact, Barnabas is not even mentioned. When they come to Lystra, they are worshipped as gods, or they try to worship them as gods, but Paul clearly takes the lead. Here at Antioch, Paul is the one when they said to Paul and Barnabas, you guys have anything to say to us? Paul is the one who spoke. So clearly, Paul is the leader in this missionary endeavor. The Bible says in Romans 116 that the gospel is to the Jew first and also to the Gentile, but it's to the Jew first. In John 1 and verse 11, we read that Christ came unto his own and his own received him not. And so what we see in the Bible is the gospel is presented, first of all, to the Judean Jews, the Jews in Jerusalem and Judea and Galilee. Those Jews in the homeland are confronted by Christ, that he is indeed the Son of God, the Messiah that was prophesied in the Old Testament, that he came to give his life as a sacrifice for their sins. that he died and was buried and rose from the dead. And so the gospel is offered to those Jews, and they largely rejected it, both in the time of Christ and after Christ, in the early chapters of the book of Acts, the gospel is presented again, the resurrected Christ is presented to them, and though there are, we read about a lot, many that believe, but the large number, the vast majority of them did not believe. But they had their opportunity. And then the focus shifts. And so in the latter chapters of the Book of Acts, the gospel is again presented to the Jew first. But these are the Jews of the dispersion, the Jews that were not in the homeland. And they also have an opportunity to to know of Christ, to know of the salvation that is provided by Christ, and what we find is that they, too, largely reject the gospel, and it's primarily Gentiles that believe. But that really is the second half of the Book of Acts. As a matter of fact, the Book of Acts closes, if you want to go back, keep your finger there, we'll come back to Chapter 13, but go to Chapter 28, and no doubt you're familiar with this, but let me just point it out to you that as Paul is in Rome, He is a prisoner there in his own hired house. Paul calls the Jews to come to him, and he explains to them why he is there, though he has done no wrong, that he simply preached Christ. And they wanted to hear about what Paul had been preaching, and so they appointed a day, verse 23, And they came to his lodging. The Jews came. He expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses and out of the prophets from morning till evening. And some believe the things which are spoken and some believe not. And when they agreed not among themselves, they departed after Paul had spoken one word. Well spake the Holy Ghost by Isaiah the prophet unto our father, saying, Go unto this people and say, Hearing ye shall hear and shall not understand, and seeing ye shall see and not perceive. For the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed, lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. Be it known therefore unto you that the salvation of God is sent unto the Gentiles, and they will hear it. So the book of Acts closes with the rejection of the gospel largely by the Jews and Paul saying, now we're going to the Gentiles. So it's to the Jew first. And then to the Gentile, the Jews rejected Christ. They came to his own, they received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. And so as Paul is carrying out his missionary journeys, he's going into new territory, he's a pioneer missionary. He wants to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest he should build upon another man's foundation. But he's gonna go where Christ has not been named, but wherever he goes, whenever it's possible, he goes to the Jew first. And so we find him going into the synagogue. The first place he usually goes is to the synagogue because, number one, there's gonna be a large Jewish audience there, and there also were Gentiles that were worshiping God under the law of Moses. And so Paul goes into the synagogues. He goes to the Jew first. And so as he comes from Cyprus into Asia Minor and comes to Antioch and Pisidia, he proclaims the gospel. And the Holy Spirit gives us a lengthy, detailed account of Paul's message in the synagogue in Antioch in Pisidia. And it is the fullest account of Paul's preaching that we have. I would submit to you that just as we talked about when we first talked about Paul in Cyprus, that there's kind of a pattern there, that the Holy Spirit gives us kind of the pattern. There's the open door of opportunity, but there's also the opposition, and some believed and some don't, and we kind of see that in ministry even today. And this message that Paul preaches, the Holy Spirit in this first missionary journey gives us a sample of the message that Paul preached throughout his missionary journeys, though we don't have that much detail in any of the other accounts of Paul's preaching. So we get an example here of Paul's preaching the gospel, particularly to the Jews, but not exclusively. And so as we look at this tonight, I want to look at three things. First of all, there's the request for the gospel message, and then the recounting of the gospel message, and then finally the response to the gospel message. Because it's interesting that after, again, after the law and the prophets were read, the rulers of the synagogue said to Paul and Barnabas, do you have any word of exhortation to us? Say on. They gave him an opportunity. There was a request that they preach the gospel. The synagogue provided them with that open door. for the gospel. One of the reasons that no doubt that Paul went there is because there was this opportunity. A synagogue service consisted of reciting the Shema. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul, mind and strength, and so forth. Deuteronomy chapter 6. But there was the reciting of that, and then there were prayers that were offered, and then they would have these readings from the Old Testament from the Law and the Prophets. And after that, someone would give a message. There wasn't just one person that was designated to preach the message. It was open to anybody. The ruler of the synagogue, the president, the one who presided over the synagogue services, he would have picked someone to deliver the message. And it could be anybody that was there, somebody that they knew, but it was often, the opportunity was often given to a visitor. Matter of fact, we see that in the life of Christ when he went to Nazareth. In Luke chapter four, it's recorded that he's there in the synagogue and he's offered the opportunity to read the scriptures and give the message. He did both, but that would have been something that would have been normal. them to do. And so especially, you know, when you think about the Apostle Paul, and we don't know what they knew about him, maybe he talked to some of them beforehand, maybe they knew a little bit about him, but, you know, if they knew, number one, he is a rabbi, he was a Pharisee, He's a graduate of the School of Gamaliel, which was the leading Jewish school of that day. So, I mean, you know, if there was anybody that you'd want to have speak at the synagogue, as far as from a Jewish perspective, you got this eminent rabbi in your midst, you would want to give an opportunity. Now, whether that's what it was or not, certainly the Holy Spirit was directing. But they invited Paul to speak. So there's this opportunity the Holy Spirit gives to preach the gospel. You know, it's not very often that somebody just asks us, hey, can you tell me how to get to heaven? But it does happen sometimes. And you might be able to testify of that, but the Lord does sometimes open doors like that where somebody just asks, hey, can you tell me how to get to heaven? And certainly when the Holy Spirit opens those doors, we need to walk through them, and Paul did. And so he begins to preach. And so he stands up, verse 16, beckoning with his hand and said, men of Israel, in you that fear God, give audience. And then he begins, first of all, a history lesson. He talks about how that, God of this people of Israel chose our fathers. He exalted the people when they dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt. With an high arm, he brought them out of it. God chose Israel to be his people. He delivered them from Egypt. About the time of 40 years, he suffered their manners in the wilderness, so he shepherded them through the wilderness. He destroyed seven nations in the land of Canaan and divided their land to them by lot. So he brought them into the land of Canaan, gave them the promised land. After that, he gave them judges for about the space of 450 years until Samuel the prophet. Afterward, they desired a king, and God gave unto them Saul, the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, by the space of 40 years. And when he removed him, he raised up unto them David to be their king, to whom also he gave testimony and said, I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart, which shall fulfill all my will. Why in the world is Paul giving a history lesson? And you know, when you go back and read, Stephen did the same thing when he spoke and he was martyred, he was stoned to death. But why this history lesson? And Paul is summarizing the history of Israel from God's calling of Abraham all the way up to the time of David. And one of the things that it reminds us is that all of history, as we sometimes like to say, is his story, God's story. And history has a plan and a purpose. All of history has a plan and a purpose, God's plan, God's purpose. And as I was thinking about that, let me ask this question, and you can respond if you want. Maybe it's a trick question, I don't know, but what's wrong with this statement? Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. What's wrong with that statement? It's a humanistic statement that says that we are responsible for history. We are responsible for what happens. Now, It is true to some degree. We can see it in our experience, in our study of history, that many times the same mistakes were repeated. But the thing that we have to understand is despite that, God is in control. And history is not just a vicious cycle of men making mistakes and repeating the same mistakes over and over and over again. History is always moving forward in the plan of God. And even though we can't always see it, it is always moving forward. And that's why Paul goes through this history lesson. What he's showing them is all of Jewish history is bringing us to Jesus. that it is all working to that, and he stops with David because he reminds them then in verse 23 of this man's seed, of David's offspring, of David's seed, hath God according to his promise raised unto Israel a Savior, and now he names that Savior, that Savior is Jesus. See, what he's saying is all of history, we're Jews and we love our history. We are committed to the fact we are God's chosen people. We have this illustrious heritage and these wonderful fathers and God has done so much and blessed us and brought us this far and gave us David, this wonderful king. And Paul says, yes, he did, but there's a reason. Because it was of David's descendants that the Messiah would come and the Messiah has come. He is Jesus. And that's the point of history. That's all of Israel's history was moving to that time of the coming of Christ. All of history now since that time is moving to the return of Christ. And everything that is happening since the time of Christ until Jesus returns, even though at times it may seem like a vicious cycle of men just repeating the same mistakes over and over again. No, it all has purpose in preparing the world for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so Paul is giving them this history lesson to present Jesus as the promised Messiah, the seed of David. And so he presents Jesus as savior. Jesus is the promised Messiah, the one who received the promises that God made to David. Drop down to, Drop down to verse 32. I'll come back and pick up what Paul says between verse 23 and 32 in just a moment. But he says, we declare unto you the glad tidings, the good news, the gospel, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us, their children, in that he raised up Jesus again. As it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I'll give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore he saith also in another psalm, Thou shalt not suffer, thine holy one to see corruption. David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep and was laid into his father's and saw corruption, but he whom God raised again saw no corruption. So be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man, through Jesus, is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins, and by him all that believe are justified from all things which from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. Jesus is the promised Messiah. Jesus is the one who received the promises that were made to David. And you notice in verse 24, then he mentions John the Baptist. Why is that? Why does he mention John the Baptist? Now he's preaching predominantly a Jewish audience. They've been looking for the coming Messiah. Prior to this, the Jews that Paul has preached to by and large have rejected Jesus as Messiah. So Paul's going to bring some witnesses in. He's going to say, all right, I'm proclaiming to you that the one who fulfilled the promises to David is Jesus. Now, lest you question that, let me remind you that when John the Baptist first preached before his coming, before the coming of Jesus, the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel, John fulfilled his course and he said, whom think ye that I am? They thought he was the Messiah. He said, I'm not he. But behold, there cometh one after me whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to loose. What was John's ministry to point to the one who is coming? Now, let me ask you a question tonight. Think with me through this. Was John the Baptist, was he largely accepted or rejected by the nation of Israel? accepted. They accepted him as a prophet. No. And they came to him to be baptized of repentance. They rejected Jesus, but they had a high regard for John the Baptist. You remember when the Jewish leaders came to Jesus and they're asking him about his ministry and he asked them a question. He said, I'll tell you if you tell me this, John's ministry, was it of God or was it of man? And they wouldn't answer. because the people accepted John as a prophet of God. So the people had a respect for John the Baptist. Well, John the Baptist said, Jesus is the Messiah. So if you're going to accept John, then you've got to accept either John is a man of God or he's a liar, but he said Jesus was the Messiah. So in bringing in John the Baptist, Paul is using him. Here's a credible witness to the fact that Jesus is the Messiah because John, that's what John said. And John was certainly of God. And that was his testimony. And so, men and brethren, verse 26, of the children of the stock of Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth God, both Jews and those who feared God would have been not Jews, but those who were there Gentiles that were worshiping God, to you is this word of salvation sent. For they that dwell at Jerusalem and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him. And though they found no cause of death in him, yet desired they Pilate that he should be slain. And when they had fulfilled all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a sepulcher. But God raised him from the dead." Now, there's a second testimony to the fact that Jesus is Messiah. What is that? The prophets. Paul says, you know what, they didn't know the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day and so they fulfilled the messages of the prophets in condemning Christ and asking, desiring that Pilate would crucify him and they did fulfill all that was written of him in the prophets. So now we got two witnesses. that Jesus is the Messiah. We got John the Baptist, and we got the prophets. Everything they said about him, it was fulfilled. This is Paul's message. He's arguing that Jesus is indeed the Messiah, the Son of God. And then there's a third testimony. He was raised from the dead, and he was seen many days, verse 31, of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are witnesses unto the people. So we got three testimonies to the fact that Jesus is indeed the Messiah. John the Baptist, the Old Testament prophets, and those eyewitnesses who saw him after he was raised from the dead. So if you reject Jesus, you're rejecting him in the face of overwhelming evidence that he is indeed who he said he was and who Paul says he is, the promised seed of David, the Messiah, the Savior. So Paul's making a pretty strong argument here that they need to accept, embrace Jesus. And so then he goes on. And by the way, in testifying of the fact that he was raised from the dead, Paul again appeals to the prophets. We declare unto you, verse 32, the tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God fulfilled, and that he raised up Jesus again, as written in the second psalm. Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. By the way, Paul ties that to the resurrection of Jesus. When it says in the second Psalm, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee, Paul's saying that is a prophecy of the resurrection. How is that a prophecy of the resurrection? Well, the word begotten, as it's used in the Bible, when we read that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, and some people want to then twist that to say, ah, Jesus was not God, he wasn't eternal, that he was created at some point, begotten at some point, came into existence at some point. Now the word begotten means unique. He's the begotten son of God, the unique son of God, because if we are, all of us who are saved are sons of God, but we are not a son of God like Jesus is. Jesus is uniquely the son of God. He is God the son. So even in the fact that where he says, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee, as a reference to the resurrection, Jesus was the first person to be raised from the dead, never to die again. Everybody that was raised from the dead in the Old Testament, everybody that Jesus raised from the dead in the New Testament, including Lazarus, they all died again at some point. Jesus did not. He is the first to be raised from the dead, never to die again. He is, in that sense, he is uniquely raised from the dead. And so Paul quotes the second Psalm. And then he also, um, in verse 34, and as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption. Again, raised him from the dead not to die again. He said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Now he's quoting from Isaiah 55 in verse three. It says, incline your ear and come unto me here and your soul shall live and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David. the mercies that God had promised David. God had promised David that he would restore Israel to the land, that though there would come a time when Israel would be chastened of God and removed from the land, God was gonna restore them to the land, God was gonna make them an everlasting nation, and David would have an everlasting throne. And all of that was gonna be fulfilled in the person of the Messiah. David died, Jesus lives. And the promises that were made to David, again, are fulfilled in the Messiah. And then he quotes one other psalm, the 16th psalm, wherefore he said in another psalm, verse 35, thou shalt not suffer thy unholy one to see corruption. David saw corruption. So obviously it wasn't talking about him. Who is it talking about? It was talking about Jesus. Because Jesus didn't seek corruption. He was raised from the dead. David's tomb is there today. But there is no tomb of Jesus because he was raised from the dead. And so, then, there is the message. Now, be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, verse 38, through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. So now he is the Savior. There's a call to embrace the gospel. Salvation is offered to them. They are told that the forgiveness of sin come by Jesus Christ. And Paul doesn't stop there. He goes on and adds this, for by him, all that believe are justified from all things, which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. You've been keeping the law and hoping that, you know, you can get to heaven by keeping the law. Well, I want to tell you, there's a, God's message is believe on Jesus. That's the way to heaven. And he did for you what you could not do. He kept the law perfectly, lived a sinless life, and then died in your place. And God will justify you. God will declare you righteous, justify you from all your sins, all the things that the law could never provide forgiveness for, that you could never be justified by the keeping of the law. And so his message is justification is by faith alone in Jesus Christ apart from works. And he had to defend that message when he wrote the Galatian letter because after Paul left, some Judaizers came along and said, no, actually Paul was wrong. Paul was preaching a wrong gospel because actually you have to believe on Jesus and keep the law. And Paul said, no, it's not Christ and works, it is Christ apart from works. And that's the only way to be saved. Justification is by faith alone in Jesus Christ. Paul would write to the church at Rome in chapter 10 of Romans, brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved for I bear them record that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge, for they being ignorant of God's righteousness, the righteousness that God provides through Christ, through faith in Christ, they go about to establish their own righteousness by keeping the law, and they have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. They will not believe on Jesus. For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, that the man which doeth those things shall live by them. Righteousness that comes by the law comes to those who keep on doing what the law says. The problem is nobody has ever done that. Nobody has ever kept the law perfectly except Jesus. But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, and let me just jump ahead, to the conclusion that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For the heart man believeth in righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Salvation is not by works. It is by faith in Christ. That was Paul's message in this Jewish synagogue. It's the same message he preached throughout his ministry. It's the same message we preach today. Salvation is by the grace of God is a gift that God gives to those who believe on Jesus Christ. God justifies us when we believe on Christ and him alone, not trusting anything that we have done or anything that we will do. Sometimes you hear people say, well, you know, I know, and I don't need to believe on Jesus, but then you got to live it. You got to live a good life. If you want to go to heaven, you believe on Jesus and you got to live a good life. No, that's faith and works. Now, if you believe on Jesus, you believed on Jesus as your Savior, should you live a good life? Yes, you should live in obedience to Christ. But that has no bearing on whether you get saved or not, whether you go to heaven or not. That is because I am on my way to heaven. Now, I do have a new nature that wants to please God, and there is a part of me that wants to be obedient to God, and I'm to yield to that part, that new nature that God has put within me, and the Holy Spirit who works with that nature to lead me in the paths of righteousness, I am to yield to that. My salvation is not dependent upon that. And if I'm trusting in what I do even after I've believed on Christ or profess faith in Christ, if I'm trusting in something that I have done after that, then I am embracing a false gospel. It is Christ and Him alone. My only hope is Jesus died for me. And so that's the message that Paul purchased. They don't like that message any more than people like it today, because we want to have some part in saving ourselves. The old nature. I'm saying we, most of us here, I hope all of us here have actually embraced Christ and Him alone as Savior. But the human nature wants to have a part in it. It can't be possible that God would just give me salvation just by believing on Christ. Or surely there's something I've got to do. No, there's not. You have to believe that God has done it all. And so that's Paul's message. And then he warns them. Beware, verse 40 and 41. Beware, therefore, lest that come upon you which is spoken of in the prophets. Behold, ye despisers and wander and perish. For I work a work in your days, a work which you shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you. He's quoting from Habakkuk. Habakkuk one and verse five. And the message of Habakkuk is the Lord told Habakkuk, you know, I'm gonna raise up the Babylonian army, the Babylonian nation, and they are going to come in and judge my people. And there's going to be things that happen that people won't believe it, even though they hear it. It'll be so terrible because the nation of Israel rejected God. And what Paul is saying is, let me remind you of what God said to Israel of old through Habakkuk. The same message is coming to you today. Beware, if you reject God's message of salvation, if you reject God's provision of a Savior, Jesus, then you will suffer just like your forefathers did who rejected God in Habakkuk's day. And it happened. They can look back. They know their history. that what the Babylonians did. And Paul's saying, if you reject God's message of salvation today, that same thing, that same kind of thing is what awaits you if you reject it. By the way, the Jews in the homeland did actually suffer. The Roman armies came in about 25 years after Paul preached this message. The Roman armies came in and slaughtered the Jewish people in the homeland, destroyed their cities, destroyed the city of Jerusalem, destroyed the temple of God. It happened because they rejected Jesus, God's savior, their Messiah. And so it's not an idle threat. Paul is just warning them that you reject this message I'm preaching to you at your peril. And so what happened? How did they respond? Well, when the meeting ended and the people left, and it says, when the Jews, verse 42, were gone out of the synagogue, the Gentiles besought that these words might be preached to them the next Sabbath. And when the congregation was broken up, many of the Jews and religious proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, persuaded them to continue in the grace of God. If you're really saved, live out the life of grace. But the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city together to hear the word of God. And when the Jews saw the multitude, they were filled with envy. and spake against those things which are spoken by Paul, contradicting. They began to say, you know what, that message that Paul's preaching is not right. And they blasphemed, they blasphemed the name of Christ. And Paul and Barnabas then waxed bold and said it was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you, to the Jew first, but seeing you put it from you and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord commanded us, saying, I have set thee to be a light unto the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth. And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and glorified the word of the Lord. And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed. And the word of the Lord was published throughout all that region. But the Jews stirred up the devout and honorable women and the chief men of the city and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas and expelled them out of their coasts. But they shook off the dust of their feet against them and came unto Iconium, and the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost. Let me just, for time's sake, let me just make two observations here. Some believed and some did not. Recently I was reading a chapter in a book entitled Press On by an evangelist by the name of Dave Barba. You may know him, you may not. I think he may have even spoken here in years past. But he said he worked one summer for the Southwestern Company selling educational books door to door. And his job began with a week of training. And they taught him that successful selling involves many more negatives than positives. That most people would say no when asked to buy the books, but a few would say yes. And so if he could survive the no's, you would eventually find someone who would say yes. Well, he applied that to witnessing. He said, Christ taught us that salvation is offered to many, but only a few will be saved. So every no gets you closer to the one that will say yes. So in other words, don't be discouraged when you're sharing the gospel and people say no, because every time somebody tells you no, that just puts you one person closer to the one that is actually going to say yes to the gospel. But we often get discouraged when people say no. And we throw up our hands and say, well, God must not be saving people anymore because nobody wants to hear the message. Well, it's never been the case that most people embrace the gospel. Even when there's been salvation in, you know, a lot of people getting saved at one time, still on the whole, most people reject the gospel. It's just the way it is. So don't be discouraged. When people don't want to hear or they hear and they're just kind of seem indifferent or they don't get saved or don't want to get saved, just keep spreading the gospel because eventually God will lead you to that one that's going to say yes. And you'll have the opportunity of leading them to Christ. But the second thing is, you know, those that reject, do so with their own peril. When they left town, they shook the dust of the town off their feet. That's what Jesus had said in Matthew chapter 10, whosoever shall not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet. Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city. God pronounced a curse, if you will, certainly a strong denunciation of those who willfully reject the gospel. And there's an interesting story, and I'll close with this, but in what would now be referred to as Sylvania, Georgia, there's a house, an old house called the Del Goodall House. The area where it stands was once called Jacksonboro, and it was the county seat in its day, back in the 1800s, I think it was. But let me just read, this actually comes from an article in the Statesboro newspaper, which was a nearby town, and I'm not sure when this article was printed, but it tells the story of the Del Goodall House. It says, in its prime, Jacksonboro attracted adventurers and fugitives alike, becoming one of the wildest frontier towns of American history. And this is, again, just down in southeast Georgia. Not as far southeast as you guys are. I used to tell people, I pastor in southeast Georgia, and somebody said, you're not in south Georgia. So, but anyway, they understand. But first, just to make it simple, it's southeast Georgia. So, but it became one of the wildest frontier towns of American history. Some historians say there were as many saloons as there were all other businesses combined, and little to no civil authority in place. So traveling mostly on foot, Connecticut-born Lorenzo Dow spent 40 years answering a God-ordained call to spread the gospel of Christ throughout the country and other countries, including England and Ireland. He spent most of his time along the Atlantic seaboard and made at least four tours of Georgia, one of which included a short but historical visit to Jacksonboro. As was his custom, the itinerant Methodist preacher passed out handbills when he arrived, announcing his call for a church meeting that night. In the hands of the town rowdies, the announcement was the beginning of a plot to break up Dow's meeting. At the ringing of the church bells, citizens gathered to hear his message, not more than a few hundred yards from the saloons where the town rebels also heeded the call. Before the close of the song service, the crowd that had gathered outside began throwing pieces of brick and stone into the open windows of the church, shooting off pistols in the air and exciting a ruckus until Dow was forced to close the meeting. After his congregation returned safely to their homes, Dow confronted his foes. Charging into the saloon, he used an iron tool to overturn a barrel of whiskey, allowing its contents to spill onto the floor before anyone could stop him. But he was soon pinned to the floor, and he may have received a vicious beating if Seaborne Goodall hadn't stepped in. Goodall was one of the few men who stood for law and order in Jacksonboro, and Dow was staying at Goodall's home. Goodall took him back to his home where he nursed his bruises and showed him the only Christian love Dow saw during his visit. Goodall advised Dow not to try preaching in Jacksonboro again, but on his way out of town the next day, Dow was seized again as he passed a saloon, and this time he was placed between two wide boards with men sitting on the top board as Dow was sandwiched between them. When they let him go, Dow retreated to the bridge over the Beaver Dam Creek. And there it is said that he looked back and dramatically dusted his feet of the town and pronounced a curse, asking God to destroy the town as he did Salome Gamora, sparing only the home of Seaborne Goodall. Within a few years, floods, windstorms, and other natural disasters, including fire, destroyed every building except one, the Delgado House. The Delgado House still stands today in Jacksonboro as a testimony to the fact that you cannot reject God's message with impunity. My understanding is they tried to rebuild Jacksonboro several times, and every time disaster hit and destroyed everything that they had tried to do. They rejected the gospel and persecuted his preacher to their peril. So don't be discouraged. We press on with the gospel message because we are called to do so. And we do it despite our struggles, despite the obstacles that we face, and despite the response. Even when people don't receive our message, we keep going because some will believe. And so keep on preaching the gospel. Let's stand together for prayer. Our Father, we thank you for this testament concerning Paul's message, the gospel message that he preached in Antioch. Lord, we thank you that today we proclaim that same message of salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone, that all who believe on Christ are justified from all things that they could not be justified by the law. Thank you, Father, for that day we heard the message and believed on Christ as our Savior. Lord, if there's anyone, whether here tonight or that will maybe listen to this message later on, and they're trusting something other than Christ alone, may they understand that they have embraced not the true gospel, And may they turn from anything else that they're trusting in. May they believe on Christ and Him alone. Help us, Father, not to be discouraged even at what we see going on in our nation. We know that you're in control of history and it's all moving according to your plan and purpose. Lord, help us to be your faithful witnesses even here in our nation, in our community. Not discouraged when people say no. Lord, lead us to those who would say yes, those who are under your conviction of their sin and their need of Christ. And give us, Father, the privilege of leading them to salvation. We ask in his name. Amen.