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Living Waters of Grace 10.07.25 · Living Waters of Grace / Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland Sunday Services

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  This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
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  Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,
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  County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
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  continues teaching through God's Word.
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  They weren't trained preachers or anything, but the word
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  preaching in the translation in the Greek means they were just
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  sharing what Jesus did for them. So if we could be more focused
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  on talking with people without an agenda, but just telling them
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  about what Jesus means to us and what He's done for us, it has
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  impact on people. They might not respond, but
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  they're thinking right. They're questioning in their
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  mind and it plants a seed for later on, possibly wanting to
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  know more and eventually opening their heart to receive Jesus as
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  the Lord and Savior. The early church in the book of
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  Acts is a great example of what a church should look like today.
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  The focus was on spreading the good news of Jesus's burial and
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  resurrection to everyone that was willing to hear it.
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  As Pastor Clark will teach you in today's message, that's how
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  lives are changed. That's how you can give someone
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  the hope of salvation and eternal life.
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  It starts with you having the courage to speak to others about
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  the faith you have. It's news that's meant to be
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  shared with everyone you can. Now here's Pastor Clark in the
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  book of Acts Chapter 8 with today's edition of Living Waters
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  of Grace. We're in the book of the Acts,
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  chapter 8, and it's the transition of the church from a
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  time of unity and peace to a time of persecution and
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  separation in a sense of being sent out into the rest of the
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  region. At the time when we study the
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  Bible, we're studying history, historical fact and details.
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  And how do we make this real to us today as we study these
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  things that were written thousands of years ago?
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  Each person mentioned in the Scriptures is a real person that
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  one day for us as believers, we'll meet these people in
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  heaven. We'll have a chance to talk with
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  them and to to hear their stories.
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  But in the meantime, we find out how they were wired, how they
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  lived in difficult times and much more difficult than the
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  times that we live in today. Whenever you study the Bible,
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  the Bible is written by God, by the Holy Spirit to normal
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  people. At that time.
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  They were given the ability to write these things down.
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  So it's the only book given to the human race that was actually
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  given to us by the one who created us, God.
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  So whenever you open your Bibles, you can be assured that
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  you're hearing God's heartbeat, you're learning his ways, you're
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  learning how to live for him and how to follow him and how to
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  obey him. And, and you also learn what it
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  means to be saved from the power of sin and how to overcome
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  temptation and how to be set free from so many things that
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  are destroying people's lives on a daily basis.
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  And so the Christians in the early church, when they first
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  became believers, the thing they wanted to do the most was to
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  tell other people about what Jesus had done for them.
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  It wasn't looking down on people or acting like they're better
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  than anybody else. It was people that had their
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  lives transformed and a very powerful way where their guilt
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  was taken away, the impulse to commit sin was diminished.
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  Their love for people, even enemies, was strong and
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  powerful, and they just were a whole different kind of breed of
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  people on the planet. And the more people that come to
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  know Jesus on this planet, the better this world can and will
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  become. The least amount of people that
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  know the truth of the Lord, the worse things become, the
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  tragedy, the trauma, the heartache, and it's all over the
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  earth. And when things like this happen
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  and we read about it and maybe we're not personally involved,
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  it affects us. We worry about our children, we
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  worry about our grandchildren, we worry about what happens in
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  the schools. It depresses us Friday just
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  thinking about like where are we as a society?
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  Where, where are we as families? Where are we as a world?
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  It appears that the things of God are meaningless to most of
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  the human race or people segment their lives and they say, well,
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  this is the time I serve God, but this is the time I serve
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  myself. And there's so much emphasis on
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  self and self focus and self-interest and self opinion.
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  And, and it completely goes contrary to the gospel of Jesus
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  Christ, where the gospel causes us to be less self-centered and
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  more selfless so that we might care about others who are in
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  tragedy and going through difficult times and struggles.
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  And when you look around in life, I don't know about you,
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  but I run into people every day that need Jesus.
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  And I got to figure out a way that I can be, maybe be able to
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  tell them about him without being pushy or without being,
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  you know, in a situation where I'm, I'm making them feel
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  uncomfortable or something. I want it to be natural and I
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  want it to be real. And, and one of the big things
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  we learned at the conference there was how do we, how do we
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  reach people in our everyday life?
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  And the guy that spoke was not even a pastor.
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  He was one of the guest speakers.
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  And he's a U PS: driver. He drives the big rigs.
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  And the Lord put it on his heart years ago to get in a ministry
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  to give Bibles out to people with a track called a comfort
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  track. And a comfort track has a list
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  of issues that people would want to be finding answers for,
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  whether it's lust or anger or hatred or unforgiveness or
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  bitterness or, you know, temptation or heartache or
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  tragedy or whatever. And you, you, you look at the
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  the title and then you can look up the verse in the Bible,
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  right. So this man has spent his whole
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  life basically figuring out how we can get Bibles into the hands
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  of people. He works, he has a backpack.
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  When he delivers his shipments to wherever he's going, he gives
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  the people a Bible as a gift. And most people when they're
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  given a gift, they take it right.
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  Usually you don't say, well, I don't want that.
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  I don't need it. These are really nice Bibles and
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  very attractive. And so he prays and asks the
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  Holy Spirit to fill him, to give him the ability to share the
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  good news and the faith. And so that impacted me
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  personally there as a pastor, because I'm trying to figure out
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  ways that we can get the word of God out of the building into the
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  streets, into the city, into the community, into the schools, the
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  colleges, wherever. And I thought, man, you know, we
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  got several 100 people here when everybody shows up, that we have
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  the ability to go out into places that people maybe aren't
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  going to come in here initially. And so how can we do that?
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  So we got 100 Bibles on order. When they come, they'll be
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  stacked on the altar here. So at the end of the church
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  service, when Gina gives you opportunity to pray, if you want
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  to pray, you can just walk up and grab a Bible with a comfort
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  track and pray who you might want to give that Bible away to.
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  You know, don't feel under pressure to say, Lord, put some
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  into my life this week that I can give this gift of this Bible
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  to. And this is how people come to
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  know the Lord. I don't know about how you came
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  to faith in Christ, but I came to faith in Christ by someone
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  giving me a Bible and saying, Hey, I'm getting some answers
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  from this. Maybe you will too.
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  And so as I began in the Gospel, in the New Testament, Matthew,
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  and worked my way through John, by the time I got through John,
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  I was a believer in Jesus Christ through the reading of
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  Scriptures. The Bible says faith comes by
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  hearing and hearing by the word of God.
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  So I text this guy that spoke and he called me.
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  I think it was Thursday morning and we talked about, you know,
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  what he does and how he does it. And this guy, man like the Lord
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  bless his ministry. I mean they showed pictures of,
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  of skids with Bibles on. He's gone through I think
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  170,000 Bibles last year. He never asked anybody for any
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  support for the Bibles. The Lord provided over $200,000
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  for the ministry. And when they were doing the
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  financials at the end of the year, they found that to the
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  penny. Whatever came in went out for
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  the outreach of the ministry of the Bibles.
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  Only God can do stuff like that, right?
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  So he encouraged me and and told me, you know, what was up and
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  how to do it. And so be praying about the
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  Bible outreach ministry and how each of us can be involved in
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  that one. One story I want to tell before
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  we get into the scriptures. He was at a rest stop.
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  He went into the bathroom and he came out.
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  There was a young girl that came out of the restroom and you
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  could tell she was parting. She was, you know, out of it
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  basically and dressed, you know, inappropriately pretty wild.
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  And and he just, the Lord gave him a word and the Holy Spirit
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  does this sometime and he put it on this guy's heart that this is
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  that girl's birthday. So he said, happy birthday to
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  you. And she goes, I don't know who
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  you are. How did you know it's my
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  birthday? So the Lord told me.
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  And then she's like, you know, OK, what's up here?
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  And then he said, well, I want to give you a gift for your
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  birthday. And so he gave her a Bible.
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  And when she got the Bible, she started breaking down and crying
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  uncontrollably. She said, my dad's a pastor,
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  he's been praying for me that I would get my life right with
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  God. And she just wept.
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  Her mascara, he said was all over his shirt.
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  You know, it's just a real emotional thing there.
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  But so cool what the Lord can do, right?
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  So please be praying for our church and for our lives as
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  Christians and how we might be more effective in reaching
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  people with the gospel. You don't have to get into a
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  long conversation. All the answers are in the
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  Bible. You just say, hey, I got a lot
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  of answers in life about this and and you pray that the Lord
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  will use it and we'll give them a way of connecting with us if
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  they have questions or they want to know more about the Lord.
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  But that was one of the big takeaways at the conference
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  there. And so pray for all the pastors
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  who are exposed to those kind of things at conferences like that,
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  that we just don't come home and do nothing but that we listen to
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  what it is that the Lord wants us to do and and move ahead,
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  right, move forward and getting the gospel out.
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  That's the purpose of the church.
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  When we read in Acts here today, we we begin to see the
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  challenges of of being Christians and in environments
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  and cultures that are unchristian.
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  There's movements in our country to eliminate the gospel and to
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  prevent us from freely preaching the good news.
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  The world needs good news. I for the life of me, I have no
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  idea why people are against good news right, But that's the work
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  of the devil. So we we begin in chapter 8 with
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  verse one. It says now Saul was consenting
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  to his death. We just read last week about
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  Stephen, the first martyr in the New Testament church.
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  You can read Chapter 7 to get caught up if you've never heard
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  of that or don't know anything about it.
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  But Saul, who eventually became Paul the apostle, was a very,
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  very strong, powerful force against the church.
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  In the beginning. He was a Jewish person.
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  He looked at Christianity as a cult.
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  He didn't like Christians. He didn't want them to be
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  spreading the gospel in the communities.
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  And so he's focused on bringing persecution and says at that
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  time a great persecution arose against the church, which was at
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  Jerusalem. So the church started in
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  Jerusalem. Pressure comes down.
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  Now initially when the gospel happened, several 1000 people
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  get saved. A lot of people in Jerusalem
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  still not saved. So it really didn't mess up the
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  culture too much at the time from the unbelievers point of
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  view. But then more and more people
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  are being attracted to Christ, More and more and more people
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  are being invited to hear about Jesus.
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  And when they hear about him, they begin to believe in him and
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  their lives begin to change and they begin to tell other people.
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  And so this gospel is spreading in Jerusalem.
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  So Saul sees this happening. He wants to shut it down, just
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  like in China. They don't want anybody
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  spreading the gospel. And if you get caught spreading
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  the gospel, you get thrown in jail, arrested, and many times
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  you're in there for the rest of your life if you're not martyred
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  or killed for spreading the gospel.
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  So it says this great persecution came and, and, and
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  it started in Jerusalem. They were all scattered
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  throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles.
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  See, the apostles are still in camp in the center of influence
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  at the beginning of the church age in Jerusalem.
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  But what's happening is the believers are being pushed out
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  into other areas surrounding Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria.
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  And Jesus said at in Acts 18, whenever the Holy Spirit was
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  poured out upon the earth after his, as he's after his
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  ascension, he said, you shall receive power when the Holy
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  Spirit comes upon you and you shall be witnesses of me in
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  Jerusalem, which is where they're at now, Then Judea, then
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  Samaria and then the other most parts of the earth.
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  So the whole focus of God isn't like the gospel is just like
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  right now here in Greensburg. I mean, we, we support
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  missionaries to take the gospel and other parts of the world,
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  which is the Great Commission to go into all the world, preach
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  the gospel to every living creature, right.
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  And then when they believe, baptizing them in the name of
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  the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all
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  things whatsoever I've commanded you and lo, I'm with you always,
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  even to the end of the age. We're going to have a baptism at
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  our house. We have a swimming pool.
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  So no one, if you haven't been baptized yet, after you become a
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  believer, please let us know. Let Pastor Lewis know the other
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  guys and we will get you baptized in 85° weather, OK, 85°
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  temperature, water. It's not tough to take.
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  But anyway, that's the focus of the gospel.
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  So Paul wants to shut this down and he he was interested in
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  seeing people taken out by their preaching of the gospel.
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  It says devout men carried Stephen to his burial.
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  So Stephen was stoned for preaching the gospel.
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  Jewish people who are believers or had respect for Stephen came
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  and got his body and says they made great lamentation over him.
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  In other words, lamentation was they were crying, they were
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  upset, they were burdened because of the horrible thing
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  that they had witnessed. To see this man bloodied just
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  because he was sharing a message of love, just sharing a message
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  of love, the good news of of Jesus and dying on the cross for
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  our sins. As for Saul, this is before he
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  became a believer. He made havoc of the church,
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  entering every house and dragging off men and women,
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  committing them to prison. So you can visualize this.
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  Say we're here today and it's Jerusalem and we're meeting and
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  I'm just up here sharing the Word, sharing the gospel.
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  Next thing you know, people are coming in, grabbing me, taking
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  me out, beating me, scaring you. Everybody's fleeing, worried,
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  running. And this is what this guy did.
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  He made havoc. He was a real problem at this
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  time and he put the people into prison and we'll read about him
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  later on as we get through Acts and how God miraculously saved
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  him. You might know someone who's
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  really wicked, someone who is evil, someone who is demonic,
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  someone who is this really a terrible person.
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  And you might think in your mind, there's no way the Gospels
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  for them, there's no way they'll ever believe.
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  Don't ever think that if God can save Paul, he can save anybody.
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  If God can save you and me, he can save anybody, right?
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  So that's the power of the Holy Spirit.
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  So anyway, we continue. It says in verse 4, therefore
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  those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the Word.
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  So these people were just normal people like us.
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  They weren't trained preachers or anything, but the word
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  preaching in the translation in the Greek means they were just
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  sharing what Jesus did for them. So if we could be more focused
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  on talking with people without an agenda, but just telling them
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  about what Jesus means to us and what He's done for us, it has
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  impact on people. They might not respond, but
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  they're thinking right. They're questioning in their
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  mind, and it plants a seed for later on, possibly wanting to
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  know more and eventually opening their heart to receive Jesus as
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  their Lord and Savior. So they're spreading around.
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  Then this guy, Phillip, he's another one of the men who were
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  chosen to take care of the widows and the orphans we
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  studied earlier. Stephen was one of those guys.
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  And Phillip, he's going down to the city of Samaria and
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  preaching Christ to them. Now Samaria was a place of half
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  breeds. If you understand, 1/2 breed
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  someone maybe who has this ethnic background.
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  They marry someone of another ethnic background.
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  They're not pure bred Jewish people, right?
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  But it doesn't matter because God came for the whole world.
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  He's not looking at these things the way we do as people.
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  But they were disrespected by the Hebrew Jews and they were
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  intermarrying during the Assyrian captivity.
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  When they were taken up into the north, they met Pagan Gentiles
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  and and some of these people got married.
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  And so they had these families that were mixed in the sense of
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  religious background. So he goes into Samaria and he
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  preaches Christ to them and the multitudes with 1 accord.
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  He did the things spoken by Philip.
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  So in other words, there's a lot of people.
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  He's not in a building like this.
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  He's on the streets. There's a big crowd collecting
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  every time these guys would go around and preach the word and
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  all these people are listening to what he's saying and they're
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  believing what it is he's saying.
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  And they hear and they see miracles, which he did for
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  unclean spirits. Crying with a loud voice came
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  out of many who were possessed, and many who were paralyzed and
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  lame were healed. And there was great joy in the
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  city. So whenever God does miracles
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  and whenever he changes a life or he, he takes someone out of
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  the burden of sin and gives them a brand new start, a brand new
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  heart. I mean, that's a joyous
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  experience. And this is what was happening
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  as a result of the word being preached that there would be joy
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  in the hearts of the people and there was great joy in that
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  city. And then in verse 9, it says
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  that there was a certain man called Simon who previously
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  practiced sorcery. In other words, he was in the
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  occult, witchcraft, all kind of weird New Age kind of stuff even
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  before we even knew what New Age stuff was.
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  It existed way back then and astonished the people of
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  Samaria. In other words, he he did
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  counterfeit miracles, claiming that he was summoned great, to
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  whom they all gave heed. In other words, all these people
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  at the time thought this guy was a man of God from the least to
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  the greatest saying This man is the great is the great power of
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  God. So when they looked at Simon the
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  sorcerer, because of his magic incantations, they sensed that
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  he had some kind of power, but it wasn't of God, it was really
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  of the devil. And so they heeded him because
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  he had astonished them with his sorceries for a long time.
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  So these magic arts that this guy did, he had had a big
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  business and people followed him around because of his ability to
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  do really amazing things. But when they believed Philip as
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  he preached the things concerning the Kingdom of God in
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  the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized.
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  So in other words, there's this revival going on, Philip's
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  preaching, people are believing, and they're.
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  Are getting baptized pretty much immediately after their
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  profession of faith in Jesus Christ.
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  He's preaching to them concerning the Kingdom of God
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  and the name of Jesus Christ. Both men and women were
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  baptized. So there's a difference between
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  bringing a message with Christ and without Christ.
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  The sorcerer brought incantations and magic arts
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  without any emphasis on Jesus Christ as people do today.
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  It's false teaching and false doctrine, and people can't get
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  saved by following magic arts or occult or witchcraft or casting
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  spells, all this stuff. It's a big deal out there in the
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  culture now. People get demonically oppressed
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  and possessed by messing around with this kind of stuff that's
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  out there. If you are involved in any of
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  these kind of things, New Age stuff, trying to have seances
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  through Ouija boards to talk to the dead, or you're trying to
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  get involved in all this dark side of what they call
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  mysticism, you're opening yourself up to demonic activity
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  and you're not even aware of it. And so these people are going to
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  get set free now because they're no longer going to follow Simon
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  the sorcerer. They're going to follow Jesus
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  Christ the Savior. And there's a big difference in
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  truth, right? There's only one truth, one way,
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  one life, and that's in Jesus Christ, not in this other kind
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  of crazy stuff that's out there. So Simon himself also believes
• 21:33
  that this guy was convicted, obviously, and he appears to
• 21:38
  have put his faith in Christ and he was baptized.
• 21:41
  He continued with Philip. He he kept going around with
• 21:44
  Philip and was amazed seeing the miracles and signs which were
• 21:47
  done. He just blown away.
• 21:49
  He had miracle power in himself, but nothing like what he was
• 21:53
  seeing happening through Philip's life.
• 21:55
  Because what was happening in Philip's life is being done by
• 21:58
  Christ, by the Holy Spirit through this man's life.
• 22:02
  Now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria
• 22:05
  had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to
• 22:09
  them. So the apostles go down to meet
• 22:12
  these new believers who when they came down, prayed for them
• 22:15
  that they might receive the Holy Spirit.
• 22:18
  For as yet he had fallen upon none of them.
• 22:21
  They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
• 22:24
  Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy
• 22:27
  Spirit. So when you look at Acts chapter
• 22:29
  1 to Acts chapter 10, it's a transitionary period.
• 22:33
  You can't pull a doctrine out of something you read in Acts.
• 22:36
  It's mentioned one time and say that's how the church performs
• 22:40
  the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
• 22:42
  In other words, you need a special person to lay hands on
• 22:45
  you to pray for you to receive the Holy Spirit.
• 22:47
  That's not taught in the rest of the Bible.
• 22:49
  But in the beginning stages, because everything was new in
• 22:52
  different people groups, you had the Jews that were baptized by
• 22:55
  the Spirit at Pentecost. No one really had to lay hands
• 22:59
  on them. The power of the Spirit came out
• 23:01
  at Pentecost and filled the people in the upper room, 120
• 23:06
  people at that time. And then when people believed,
• 23:10
  they they were baptized by the Holy Spirit, by God the Holy
• 23:13
  Spirit supernaturally and placed in the body of Christ in the
• 23:17
  church as Christians. But as time moved on in the
• 23:20
  initial stages, these different people groups were beginning to
• 23:24
  hear the gospel. And so God chose to use this
• 23:27
  method initially to bring the power of the Holy Spirit through
• 23:31
  the hands of the apostles on top of the heads of the people who
• 23:35
  had thus become believers. And so this is what happened.
• 23:38
  And they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.
• 23:42
  Now in the New Testament, though, we see that the Holy
• 23:45
  Spirit, this idea of being filled with the Spirit of God,
• 23:49
  happens all the time. We need to be constantly asking
• 23:52
  God to fill us with the Spirit because we get empty.
• 23:57
  Thank you for listening to this edition of Living Waters of
• 24:00
  Grace. Pastor Clark is teaching us
• 24:02
  about the book of Acts in this series.
• 24:05
  Acts is a powerful and unique part of Scripture, not just
• 24:08
  because it records the spread of the gospel geographically from
• 24:12
  Jerusalem to the ends of the earth, but also culturally.
• 24:15
  Acts shows us how the message of Jesus moved beyond its Jewish
• 24:20
  roots and began to reach the Gentile world.
• 24:23
  What started with Peter leading a small group in the Upper Room
• 24:26
  became a global movement with Paul taking the gospel to
• 24:30
  cities, synagogues and marketplaces across the Roman
• 24:34
  Empire. Acts captures this vital
• 24:37
  transition and reminds us that the good news of Jesus is for
• 24:41
  all people in every place. May we be inspired to carry that
• 24:46
  same gospel boldly into our world today.
• 24:50
  Living Waters of Grace comes to you from Calvary Chapel,
• 24:53
  Westmoreland. If you're in the Greensburg, PA
• 24:56
  area, you can listen to Grace FM on the new 91.7 frequency.
• 25:01
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  thousands more listeners. Send gifts to Grace FMPO, Box
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  716, Greensburg, PA 15601 also invite you to join us in person
• 25:18
  this Sunday at 10:30 AM at 400 E Pittsburgh St.
• 25:23
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• 25:26
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• 25:30
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• 25:49
  Be sure to tune into the next edition of Living Waters of
• 25:52
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