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Video Transcript: The Book of Acts - Embracing All Nations (Dr. Feddes)

Hi, I'm David Feddes, and this talk is about the book of Acts and how in that book, we see God's grace embracing all nations in Jesus Christ. That didn't happen in just one moment. It was a process. It involves a lot of different crucial actions by the Holy Spirit and by the church. And it brought with it a number of challenges. It's not always easy for very different nations and very different cultures, to want to reach out to each other. And it's also sometimes very hard for people with such cultural differences to get along in the same church. The Book of Acts shows us some of those things. And it shows how God's Holy Spirit kept pressing his people to reach out farther, and at the same time, to be more closely united with people of various nations. Jesus gave his marching orders in Acts one, verse eight, he said, You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. He told his apostles, that they would have a message that would be going far away beyond just their own nation. And on Pentecost, he gave the first taste of that with a tremendous outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And as the apostles began to speak, people heard them in various languages, we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues. God is speaking to people from all sorts of different languages. And then, when Peter preaches on that day, and explains what's happening, he quotes from the prophet Joel, who had said, God's message, I will pour out my Spirit on all people, your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. And then Peter went on to explain that this promise of the Holy Spirit for all kinds of peoples, this promises for you and your children, and for all who are far off for all whom the Lord our God will call. So it's very clear from Jesus marching orders, and from what happened on Pentecost, that this gospel is going to go to the ends of the earth and the Holy Spirit is going to be given to people from every nation. Now, this didn't always lead to an easy path. 

Even before the church had many non Jews in it, it faced some challenges over cultural differences Acts, chapter six, says, the Grecian Jews among them Jews who were more influenced by Greek background and spoke the Greek language, the Grecian Jews, among the believers there in Jerusalem, complained against the Hebraic Jews, the ones who were more native and accustomed to Israel, and to speaking more in Aramaic, or Hebrew. And these were different shades of culture. And the Grecian ones complained, because their widows they thought, were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. Now, it's interesting how the church responded, seven spirit filled men, all of them with Greek names, were chosen as leaders to handle this problem. And one of those was Philip the evangelist. So it's no accident. I think that seven people with Greek names were chosen as participatory leaders to make sure that the Greek speaking people among them got a fair shake. Now today, still, different cultures can experience practical problems in the church and not just people from entirely different nationalities. Sometimes there are generational differences of culture, sometimes a church, which has some first generation immigrants, and then a later generation that grew up in the country to which they emigrated, can be quite different in their culture and in their tastes. And it can be a real challenge. I know in the United States, it was a big challenge for German speaking immigrants to deal with what happened when their English speaking children grew up and we're filling the church or among Dutch speaking immigrants, the same issues have arisen among Chinese immigrants or Korean immigrants where you have what you might call the immigrant and native speakers, and then the people who are more accustomed to the new land that they're in so you can get culture clash in the church and we need to realize and face the fact that this can happen and and seek the Spirit's wisdom, and one thing that's necessary is to make sure that the leadership is not just of the one background. 

Here they chose people with Greek names to help participate in leadership. Well, Jesus had said you'll be my witnesses to the ends of the earth, but they didn't exactly leave town and head for the ends of the earth. At least not until they were driven out of town after Stephen was murdered by a mob. We read that on that day a great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem. And all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Remember, Jesus said, you're going to be by witnesses in all Judea and Samaria, but they didn't exactly voluntarily go there. They were scattered there and those who had been scattered, preached the word wherever they went, Philip went down to a town or a city in Samaria, and proclaimed the Christ there. Now, this is a major moment. For centuries, Jews and Samaritans despised each other. The Samaritans traced their descent to some of the 10 scattered tribes of Israel, but that intermingled with other nationalities and their religion, too, had gotten kind of jumbled up. And they thought they were being faithful, and they couldn't stand those Jews who looked down their noses at them, and the Jews didn't like the Samaritans. So among the Jerusalem church, you'll notice nobody exactly volunteered to go to Samaria, but in the persecution, they had to flee in various directions. And so the spirit drove Philip there. And the gospel was spread in Samaria and they embraced it. God also had Africa, targeted. Now an angel of the Lord, this is Acts chapter eight. Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, go south to the road, the desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. Notice how Philip is important here. He's God's ambassador to Samaria. And then later on Peter and John, follow up and the Holy Spirit comes on the Samaritans. And now the Lord calls Philip to carry the gospel to an African person. 

You remember, Philip is one of those with a Greek sounding name, who was there to help settle some of the cultural clash that was going on in the Jerusalem church, then he's one God chooses to reach people of a rather different culture among the Samaritans. And now God has Philip meet up with an African so he started out and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, and important official in charge of all the treasury of Canvas, Queen of the Ethiopians, this man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home, was sitting in his chariot, reading the book of Isaiah, the prophet, the spirit told Philip, go to that chariot, and stay near it. So you notice, the spirit is the one leading the gospel, to go to this African person. He's a eunuch, which means he's been neutered from being a male, and he works for a queen. So he's a very powerful man, who has somehow come to know about the God who is worshiped in Jerusalem. But at the Jerusalem temple, the foreigners aren't really allowed into the inner court. And so he goes there seeking this God, and even has a scroll of its scriptures, but he's really hasn't found what he's looking for. Philip ran up to the chariot, and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. Now, I can't help but wondering if Isaiah the prophet was especially attractive, and that this man had read the scroll more than once trying to understand it. Here are a few excerpts from Isaiah, Isaiah chapter 56. The Lord says, Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the Lord say the Lord will surely exclude me from his people. And let not any eunuch complain, I'm only a dry tree. For this is what the Lord says, I will give within my temple and its walls, a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters, I will give them an everlasting name that will not be cut off. It sad for a eunuch never to be able to have children. And yet God says, I'm going to give him an eternal name. And if he's a foreigner, well, he's going to be welcomed by me. And the foreigners who bind themselves to the Lord, to serve him to love the name of the Lord and to worship Him. These I will bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer for my house when we call a house of prayer for all nations. Now you can see why the scroll of Isaiah would appeal to a foreign eunuch who is seeking the one true God. But he's actually when Philip comes upon I'm not reading that part. Although that may have been attractive to him. He's reading another part, the understand what you're reading Philip asked, How can I he said unless someone explains it to me. So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture from Isaiah. 

"He was led like a lamb like a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before the Shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation, he was deprived of justice, who can speak of his descendants, for his life was taken from the earth." That's part of what we today call chapter 53 of Isaiah. The Eunuch asked Philip, Tell me, please, who is the Prophet talking about himself or someone else? Then Philip began with that very passage of scripture and told him the good news about Jesus, that Jesus was the one who was led to the slaughter, that he was wounded for our transgressions and died for our iniquities, as Isaiah put it, so he told him the good news about Jesus and told him this good news of salvation through the blood and resurrection of Jesus could come to all people, including foreigners, as they travel along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, look, here's water, why shouldn't I be baptized, and he gave orders to stop the chariot, then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. And Scripture tells us and the last thing we see of this eunuch he went on his way, rejoicing. And then the Lord led Philip somewhere else to continue his testimony. So Philip helps resolve a difficulty in the church in Jerusalem. He carries the gospel to Samaria. He connects with an African who then heads home rejoicing over the gospel, and undoubtedly tells more people about Jesus there in Ethiopia, where he has an important government official. Peter, meanwhile, has come to know that the gospel is for all nations. But he needs a little clearer, convincing. And he has been used by the Lord to lay his hands on people in Samaria and bring the Holy Spirit and his ministry there. So Peter knows what Jesus wants. And yet, the Lord wants to make it even clearer. 

So one day as Peter is taking a noontime nap, he falls into a trance, and he has a vision. And it's a vision of a sheet being let down from heaven. And in this sheet are various animals, that under the Old Testament Jewish law, no Jew is permitted to eat and in the vision. Peter is told well take them and eat. And Peter says, No, no, no, I've never eaten anything that's unclean. And the voice from heaven says, do not call anything impure, that God has made clean. And God's message there is twofold. One is the old dietary laws and the special laws for the Jews as a separate people are no longer required or binding. And even more important, the thing that these laws symbolized, a separation from other nations, has also been dropped, and other nations are to be included. And Jewish people previously would not eat or share a meal with non Jewish people. And Peter is about to have a major change in his life, because he's about to receive an invitation to go into the household of a Gentile and share a meal and time with him. And on the other end of the equation, a man named Cornelius who is a Roman soldier, this is a major move because the Roman soldiers had been occupying Jerusalem, they were agents of a foreign power. And so you can see why Jewish Christians would not be really eager to be buddies with Roman soldiers. And yet, the Lord has prepared Peter through a vision and now the Lord communicates with this Roman soldier called Cornelius who was another man, though he was non Jewish, who was seeking to know the one true God and he knew that one true God had worked, especially among the Israelites. Cornelius saw an angel appear in his house and say, send to Joppa for Simon, who is called Peter, he will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved. God is setting up this meeting to spread the gospel from a Jew, to a Roman, of just a little aside here about the work of angels in missions. 

This is something we might overlook. But the fact is that God uses his angels to expand missions. He's using people these days from every tribe and language, who know the gospel to spread it widely. But he also uses nonhumans, to spread his gospel. Of course, it's all the mighty work of God's Holy Spirit. But the angels are a part of this. Remember, it's an angel of the Lord who told Philip to go meet to the place where the Ethiopian was, and now it's an angel who tells Cornelius send to Joppa for Simon who is called Peter, and the book of Revelation, chapter 14, verse six, it says, Then I saw another angel flying in midair. And he had the eternal gospel, to proclaim to those who live on the earth, to every nation, tribe, language and people. The angels are involved in spreading this gospel to all nations. And as Hebrews one verse 14 puts it, are not all angels ministering servants sent to serve those who will inherit salvation. Now, not all of us have a vision of an angel telling us to go meet with someone else. But it is a tremendous encouragement, isn't it? To know that God's angels are always at work that while we're doing our events realism and outreach on the ground, the angels are at work in the air. And the angels are doing their work mostly behind the scenes, assisting us in the international spread of the gospel, what a blessing. At any rate, after Cornelius has the vision from the angel to call for Simon, and Simon Peter has had this vision, then Peter comes to that house, and he begins to speak. And he says, I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism, but accepts men from every nation who fear Him, and do what is right. And while Peter is still speaking these words and telling them the gospel of Jesus, the Holy Spirit came upon all who heard the message. The Holy Spirit shows no favoritism, he brings the gospel to this Roman soldier who would naturally have been an enemy of Peter, and brings them together in one spirit with one Savior, as part of one body, the church. 

Now, we read earlier that the gospel spread out because of persecution, they had been sitting in Jerusalem, but the persecution drove some to Samaria. And now we read about another effect of that same persecution. Now those who had been scattered by the persecution in connection with Stephen, traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, telling the message only to Jews, but some of them however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. So they've been scattered by this persecution. And at first where they're scattered, they just find their fellow Jews and tell them good news about Jesus. And that's certainly worth doing. But then some others say, well, you know what, we shouldn't be telling more than just our non Jews. And maybe this spirit scattered us for this very purpose. Notice here in the book of Acts, the spirit used that persecution in Jerusalem to scatter Christian Jews not only among half breed, Samaritans, but also among the Greeks. You read about that tragic, at least what seems to us tragic story of Stephen, and you realize it's not so tragic. After all, Stephen saw heaven open, and Jesus at the right hand of God, and His face is like the face of an angel and he was full of joy. The man who was overseeing Stephen execution, Saul became a Christian and the mightiest missionary and the persecution that Saul instituted and that was carried on after the execution of Stephen scattered Christians to spread the gospel into Samaria and into Greek speaking parts of the world and various Roman colonies. So don't think that God is defeated when one of his great spokesman is murdered. God is always in charge and accomplishing great things. One of the challenges as Samaritans came to know Jesus as Greeks came to know Jesus as some Romans and people of other nationalities came to know Jesus was what do we do with cultural variety in the church? And in particular, what do we do with this question of God having chosen the Jews and given them a special law to govern their lives prior to the coming of Jesus? Well, there were some Jewish people who thought that Gentile converts needed to become identical to Jews and live by the Old Testament Jewish law. 

So men came down from Judea to Antioch, and we're teaching the brothers unless you are circumcised according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved. Acts 15 verse one, and the rest of Acts 15 tells us about a leadership meeting that occurred in Jerusalem. And there the Holy Spirit guided the people present at the meeting to accept Gentile Christians without requiring them to become like Jews, the men and boys did not have to be circumcised, they did not have to follow a special diet as Gentile believers, or follow the other regulations that God had given for the life of the Jewish nation prior to the coming of Jesus, with the coming of Jesus, all of those signs and symbols had been fulfilled. And with the coming of Jesus, the barrier between Jews and other nations had been broken down. And so God guided that Council of Acts 15, to welcome people of all nations without forcing them to all become of the same exact cultural practice. And still today, the spirit guides us to accept others without forcing our culture upon them. This has often been a hard thing for missionaries to understand, and for people of the receiving cultures of the gospel to understand at first, that you don't always have to dress exactly like the people who brought you the gospel. You don't always have to eat exactly like the people who brought you the gospel. You don't have to have all the same cultural patterns as those who first brought you the Gospel. The Gospel comes into your own culture and transforms it from the inside out. And God lets his good news and his way of life take shape in a variety of cultural forms. And the Holy Spirit guides us to accept other cultures and cultural expressions without forcing our culture on them. And Acts 15 is one of the great declarations of that led by the Holy Spirit. Well as the book of Acts continues, that doesn't mean all prejudice has dropped away. Certainly those to whom the gospel is being brought in the various areas still have their racial prejudices. 

That's one of the sad things about human sin. We don't like strangers, we can't stand people who are different than we are. And we tend to despise people who aren't of our cultural group. So for example, in the city of Philippi, which is a Roman colony with a lot of Greek speaking people, of course, because it's in Greece, the apostles Paul and Silas are accused. The real motive behind it often is because money was drying up, because they driven a spirit out of a girl who told fortunes, but the accusation against them is used to fire up racial prejudice. These men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice. So they're accused of being way too Jewish. And we know that Jewish people are a culture that we don't like. Well, if Gentiles people who were non Jews were prejudiced against those who were Jewish, it also there was prejudice in the other direction. The apostle Paul, who was hated for being Jewish by some non Jews, was also hated by Jews for being too friendly with non Jews, a Jewish mob in Jerusalem. According to Acts 22. This Jewish mob in Jerusalem wanted to kill Paul when they thought he had brought a non Jew into the temple. Well, when some Roman soldiers came along, order was restored somewhat in the crowd settled down for a bit. And then Paul was given a chance to speak to the crowd. They listened to Paul speak for a while about Jesus, and even about the resurrection. Until Paul said that Jesus had told him go, I will send you far away to the Gentiles. Whoa, that was too much for those Jewish listeners. The crowd listened to Paul until he said this, then they raised their voices and shouted, rid the earth of him, he's not fit to live, and they were tearing their clothes and throwing dirt in the air and yelling at the top of their lungs, all because this Jewish person said God wanted good news to go to Gentile, non Jewish people. So this wickedness of prejudice is something that exists among many, who are not born of the Spirit of God. And even among those who are born of the Spirit, it's often a lingering sin that needs to be overcome. The apostle Paul, of all the apostles thought most deeply about this because he was in a special way, the apostle to the Gentiles, called directly by God, to bring this about. 

When Paul preached in the city of Athens, he made it clear that there is one race, not a whole bunch of different races, one race, the human race, we all come from Adam, one man, and we are all at the end of time going to stand before another man, who's also the Son of God, the second Adam, Jesus Christ. So Paul proclaims from one man God made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth. And he determined the times set for them the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for him and find him. Now God commands all people everywhere to repent, for he has set a day when He will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead. So it doesn't matter what culture you're from, you originally came from Adam. It doesn't matter what culture you're from, what nationality you're from, where you live on the earth. all peoples everywhere are called to repent, because all peoples everywhere are going to stand before the throne of Jesus. And God has proved that by raising Jesus from the dead. I'm not from a Jewish culture, but Jesus is for me. There are many others who are not from Jewish culture, but Jesus is for them because Jesus is the one. He was Jewish. But he came for all people to die on the cross to rise again, to transform life. We come from Adam, we're headed toward a meeting with Jesus. And this is for all peoples in we're all one race, the human race. The apostle Paul made that very clear. I wrote At first he kind of had to make it clear that the gospel was not just for Jews, but also for Gentiles. Unfortunately, over time, sometimes Gentiles became too anti Jewish, and other circumstances developed, where it became that Christianity was perceived by some Jewish people as really not being for Jews. And so today we have a situation where some Jewish people think that Christianity might be okay for Gentiles, but it's impossible to accept Jesus as Messiah, and still remain a good Jew. Here's the reality, Jesus and his whole family were Jewish. All of Jesus apostles were Jewish, all the New Testament writers were Jewish. And God still has this remnant of people who follow Jesus and are Jewish. I spent some time in Israel with a group called Jews for Jesus. And God uses some Jewish people in mighty ways, as testimony for him. 

The Gospel of Jesus is for all, the Holy Spirit given by Jesus is for all and this includes Jewish people, not just non Jews. There are some in India who will say, oh, Hinduism is really the proper religion for people from India and Christianity. It's new to India, it doesn't really belong there. It's opposed to our culture. Let other people be Christians if they want, but not it's really not for us in India. And sometimes there can be some pretty ferocious persecution of people who follow Jesus. Well, here's the reality. The Apostle Thomas went to India, for almost 2000 years, there have been Christian people in India. Now that's not part of the story of the book of Acts, the book of Acts mainly follows the expansion of the gospel westward, although on that day of Pentecost, there are people there from various eastward regions as well, the the Bible doesn't follow the trail on all of those. But we know from church history, that Thomas went to India, and there are monuments in India and various markers indicating the presence of Christianity in India for a very long time. The great Bishop Pantaenus of Alexandria in Egypt, moved from Africa to India, and that was about 1800 years ago, a bishop from India was at the Council of Nicea in the year 325. So Christianity is not some brand new thing in India that was brought by recent missionaries. It's been there a very, very long time. The same could be said for China, we know and have strong evidence that in early centuries already, there were people in China who had become Christians, and the message of Jesus had spread at East spread eastward, into China, about Africa. Well, sometimes there's a perception amongst some African Americans, at least, that Islam was the original religion of Africans, that Christianity was the religion of those European and American slave owners and segregationists. And so to be really true to your African roots, you ought to be come a Muslim and get rid of that slave owner, white man religion of Christianity. Well, here's the reality. Christians were in Africa 600 years before Muslims invaded Africa. And besides Muslims were profiting from the slave trade, as well. 

I'm not excusing what some calling themselves Christians maybe some even were real Christians did in the slave trade. I'm just saying that many peoples of the world favorite slavery and the greatest opponents of slavery were raised up from among the Christian church. And so to think that Christianity is not for Africa, we've we've read in the book of Acts, how that African went on his way, rejoicing shortly after the resurrection of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And the churches of Africa. Some of the mightiest thinkers, were living in North Africa, the great Augustan, the great Pantaenus the whole school at Alexandria, these were some of the mightiest thinkers and greatest Christians in the history of the Christian church. Let's not say Christianity is not for Africa. And certainly today again, it's not just ancient history that Christianity was powerful in Africa. But again, today, Christianity has swept in power and the might of the Holy Spirit throughout Africa. And it's a wonderful thing that many, many Africans from all sorts of tribes and nationalities have come to Christ. And it's important for Africans to realize that racism is not just white versus black and Africans realize that sometimes one tribe or ethnic group will hate another. Both are black, but they have their ethnic differences and they hate each other. And we need to heed the gospel of Christ telling us to embrace and to love one another. There's been a problem throughout the centuries, sometimes of resistance to missionaries based on racism. And sometimes there have been people in supposedly Christian churches, even major leaders who are so racist. They didn't even think the gospel should go to certain peoples. Charles Kingsley was a great intellectual and highly educated. He was chaplain to the queen in the late 1800s. He was canon of Westminster he was a Cambridge professor. He also happened by the way to be in love with the theory of evolution. And his the his notion of evolution meant that black people didn't evolve as far as white people and didn't have the divine spark in them, and therefore, they weren't worth spreading the gospel to because they couldn't be spiritual. Here's what he wrote, The Black people of Australia exactly the same race as the African Negro cannot take in the Gospel. All attempts to bring them to a knowledge of the true God have as yet failed utterly, poor brutes in human shape, they must perish off the face of the earth like brute beasts. 

What a sickening and horrible thing to say, sadly, even some who were godly missionaries had a trace of superiority and racism. But here, let's listen to a missionary who had it right. John Paton said, what I have seen here in my missionary work, which shattered a piece is everything that the famous preacher had proclaimed, had Christ's been brought in the same way in other places, equally blessing results would surely have followed, for Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. He knew that Christ was meant for all nations, he carried the gospel to one group of people with black skin and into that black skin is not a sign that you can't have the Holy Spirit, or that you're somehow subhuman. But I laugh, but these were not laughing matters, and they're not laughing matter. Still, today, we're racism. And a sense of superiority exists, we should laugh with scorn at the folly of racism, but not take it lightly. Professor Tite Tienou is mission professor and Dean at Trinity International University. He's one of the professors that I earned my PhD with. Professor Tienou says, the 21st century is the century of global Christianity. Since God expects all Christians to be about advancing his rule in the world. mission today must become the responsibility of the global church. He says people of color now represent the majority of Christians in the world, making the case for Christianity on the basis that it's a worldwide global religion, can especially in Africa erase the stigma of Christianity as a white man's religion. Professor Tienou himself, originates from Africa, and yet is teaching at one of the most important evangelical universities in the world. And so there is a great exchange of people from various nations teaching one another, the ways of the Lord.

Some will Escobar says that there's a new global mission. In fact, he's written a book about him, the subtitle of the book is the gospel from everywhere, to everyone. No longer is it just a case of missions being a few nations sending out Christians to lots of other nations. But instead, those who once received missionaries are now sending missionaries, and sometimes sending missionaries right back to the nations from which those countries once received missionaries. There may be missionaries from Nigeria, in the Ukraine, there may be missionaries from Portugal, going out to other countries or from Brazil, going out to other countries. And so you have missionaries from Korea, a nation that once had almost no Christians, and now sending missionaries to many nations of the world, the gospel from everywhere to everyone. This is what the Holy Spirit who we see at work in Acts has continued to do and brought about in our own day, Embassy of God, the largest church in the Ukraine, which is largely Slavic, white skinned peoples is led by a Nigerian pastor, the world's largest churches, Yoido Full Gospel Church led by Pastor David Yonggi Cho, it's so we realize, again, that the Holy Spirit is one who doesn't hop show favoritism. He's got his work going to the ends of the earth, all around the world. Now, sometimes this means that nations who have had Christianity for a while and think they know better, have got to pay attention and listen to people from other nations in the United States and in Europe. Sometimes, church leaders began to fall away from the Bible. Leaders such as John Shelby Spong, doesn't believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus and yet remained a church leader throughout his life and an important bishop. 

This is is terrible. And he also taught not only things false about what Jesus did or didn't do, but also about what's acceptable moral behavior, marriage is no longer the only place where sexuality is to be expressed. Instead, he teaches that there are a variety of ways that we can be involved sexually with others. Spong has taught that bishops from Africa and Asia are just one step up from witchcraft because these people are saying, Hey, we were taught that homosexuality is wrong. And so we teach against it. But he says all scientific advances have given us a new way of understanding homosexual people. In dealing with the third world this knowledge hasn't percolated down, if they have they feel patronized, that's too bad. So he knows better than those Africans who are telling him that he's a heretic, and a liar and a false teacher, and that his teaching is not of the Lord. He won't listen to that he won't he global Christian correction, but others have. And sometimes the Anglican and Episcopalian Church has its strongest witness coming now from Africa back towards the United States and towards England. Archbishop Henry Luke Orombi wrote It's a human failure to understand God's primary design and is calling on us. We tell him that his sin, we don't want to call it anything else. The problem in America and the Western world is they don't want to call it sin. They want to give it another name. We don't want this another African leader, Dr. David Githii, a moderator of the Presbyterian Church in East Africa. He says how can they bless what God has called sin? This Bible does not allow this, my people will not accept it. When your missionaries came to our land, they brought us God's word, and told us it is true. Have you forgotten God's Word? Do you no longer believe it? That's the testimony of godly people in Africa back towards the Europeans and Americans who have forgotten God's word, and so the Holy Spirit who led in Acts and sent the gospel first Africa is now sometimes sending the gospel and true biblical teaching back from Africa, to those who need to hear it.

This is all the work of the one Spirit who calls us to be one great international global fellowship, who learns from one another receives the gospel from one another and is spreading the gospel to the ends of the earth. And it's all symbolized and sealed in baptism. The Ethiopians great question was, Why shouldn't I be baptized? He had heard the good news of Jesus, he believed that he was filled with joy, why Shouldn't he be baptized? Well, he was baptized. And then when Peter was witnessing to that Roman Cornelius and his household, he said, Can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water? They've received the Holy Spirit just as we have. If people have been baptized by God's own Holy Spirit, who would we as leaders be to withhold water baptism from them? And so the churches, church has learned to practice baptism without barriers. The apostle Paul spoke of this most clearly in his letters, he said, You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ of closing yourselves with Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female, for your all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to promise. You might not have come from Abraham in a bodily manner, you might not be part of the Jewish people, but you're Abraham's seed because of faith in God's promise, and because of what Jesus Christ has done, and you're baptized into one body. First Corinthians 12, verse 13, for we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks slave or free, and we were all given the one spirit to drink. Colossians three verses nine through 11 says, You've taken off your old self, and put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and is it all that's the message of the book of Acts, Christ is all and he's in all kinds of people. 

Ephesians chapter two, is perhaps the clearest in the whole Bible in dealing with this idea of the whole wall of separation being broken down. The Apostle writes, guided by the Holy Spirit, Jesus has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility through the cross, for through Him, we both have access Jew and non Jew to the Father by one Spirit. Consequently, you have other nations you're no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household. He goes on in chapter four, there's one body, and one spirit, just as you were called the one hope when you were called, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is overall and through all and in all, and it is that great reality that we see traced out in the book of Acts as God includes one nation, then another, then another, then another, and he gets them to learn, to live together to work together to spread the gospel together, and it's still happening today, Praise God.

Video Transcript: The Book of Acts - Turning the World Upside Down (Dr. Feddes)

Hi, I'm David Feddes. And this talk is about the book of Acts and turning the world upside down. If I had to summarize what the book of Acts is all about, there are two basic statements that I would choose. One is a statement from Jesus Himself, which does give the overview of the book of Acts. And another is a statement of those who didn't like what was happening, as the Christians spread the gospel, the statement of Jesus is this, you will receive power, when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. Acts one, verse eight, and the book of Acts follows that kind of outline what the witnesses of Jesus do in Jerusalem after they've been empowered by the Holy Spirit and then spreading outward to Judea and Samaria, and then much further out into other parts of the world. Power from the Holy Spirit to be Jesus witnesses. And then the other statement I would use to summarize Acts is Acts 17 verse six, were some people complain of the apostles, these men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, they're griping that everywhere these men go, there is a great upheaval. Now, of course, from the Christian point of view, they were turning the world right side up. But nonetheless, that's what the book of Acts is about power from the Holy Spirit to witness to Jesus, and to make a huge impact wherever they went. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came with the sound of a rushing wind, and with tons of fire, and it astonished the city of Jerusalem, that this sound of the multitude came together. And they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language, and they were amazed and astonished. And 3000 people came to the Lord that one day, and it says that all came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And the Lord added to their number day by day, those who were being saved. Jerusalem was really being affected by the Spirit empowered witness of the apostles. And when they performed the healing right in the temple of a man who had been lame for many years, it drew a crowd and the apostles preached to the crowd. And it drew the attention and opposition of the leaders, and they called Peter and John before them, and investigated them and interrogated them. And gripe that these men were preaching about the risen Jesus Christ.

The thing that impressed them was the boldness of Peter and John, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished and they recognized that they had been with Jesus. And then they say, we've strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you are filled Jerusalem with your teaching. And there are rows on that day, a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. So in those first chapters of Acts, we read about the apostles boldness about Stephens boldness when he's anointed by the Holy Spirit. And after his death, a great persecution arising Jerusalem is turned upside down by the Holy Spirit's work. Then, some agents of the gospel go to Samaria. Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and proclaim to them the Christ. And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was said by Philip, when they heard him and saw the signs that he did for unclean spirits crying out with a loud voice came out of many who had them and many who were paralyzed or laying were healed. So there was much joy in that city. You notice the city wide impact, and they're paying attention and things are happening, and Samaria is turned upside down. 

Then Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey headed toward the island of Cyprus, which was the home of Barnabas and Barnabas, as you know, was a man full of faith of the Holy Spirit. His name meant the sound of encouragement. He was a mighty man of God, and so of course was Saul later to be called Paul. They went across the island and eventually they came to the leader of the whole island, the proconsul Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence and he summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the Word of God. But he had a guy with him Elymas the magician for that as the meaning of his name and out as opposed Paul and Barnabas seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith, well, Paul turns to him and says, you son of the devil, you're going to be struck blind and all of a sudden he was blind and he needed somebody to lead him around by the hand at that point, it says, The pro council believed when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord. It's a very high impact spirit empowered visit to Cyprus. Then the apostles after dealing with that, after witnessing and leading the this Roman proconsul to faith in Christ on Cypress and striking this opponent of the gospel blind, move on and they go to a city named Antioch in Pisidia. Now many Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, and the next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region. But the Jews incited the devout women of high standing and the leading men of the city stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district. And the disciples were filled with joy. And with the Holy Spirit, you see it again, it's spreading like wildfire throughout the whole city, and the whole region. And then some people get really hot and bothered and angry, and the apostles are driven out. But there are other disciples who remain behind in that city, and their impact continues in their field of joy.

Then they go to the town of Iconiun, a great number of both Jews and Greeks believed an attempt was made by both Gentiles and Jews with their rulers to mistreat them and stone them. So a great number of both Jews and Greeks are coming to the Lord, but others who are leaders among them are really ferociously opposed. The apostles didn't directly attack or say harsh things against the leaders, but the leaders knew that there was a power and a ruler that had come into their town the disciples kept proclaiming that Jesus is Lord and this really caused a stir, then they went to Lystra. And when they were preaching, and and they healed somebody who had been crippled for a long time, the people of Lystra were just amazed by this, they lifted up their voices saying in like Camion, the gods have come down to us, in the likeness of man. They thought that Barnabas was Zeus, the chief God, and Paul was Hermes, the Messenger of God. And they brought out the priests of the city for these gods to worship Paul and Barnabas, Paul and Barnabas cried out, turn from these vain things to the living God. And they said, we're not gods, we're just men like you. Well, not long after that some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium. And having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul, and dragged him out of the city, suppose that he was dead. So one moment they're being worshiped. The next moment they're being pelted with rocks and, and intended to be killed. But either way, they're causing quite a stir. There was something quite remarkable about the Lord's presence in Paul and Barnabas, and wherever they went, it amazed people. So those are just some events from Paul and Barnabas his first missionary journey, they went to Cyprus, then throughout that particular region of what today is called Turkey, and then returned again on after that, Barnabas went back to Cyprus with his cousin, John Mark, to do more mission there. And Paul set out on another mission journey with Silas as his companion. And they went back to some of the churches they had planted. And then the Lord led them into Europe, through the call of a dream, come to Macedonia and help us so they went to Macedonia to its cities, and into cities of Greece, and then returned again from that second journey. 

So let's look at some of the places they went on that second journey, and how those two were turned upside down. They went to the town of Philippi. And this was a part of Greece. And Paul said to the spirit, an evil spirit that had given a girl the power to be a fortune teller. He said to this spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her, and it came out at that very hour. But her owners had been making a ton of money off of this girl, the slave girl who could have some insight into the future. And when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seize Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers they said, These men are Jews, and they're disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice. Notice what's really going on here. They've lost some money, and so they resort to the old charge that people will often use Well, they're not like us, they use racism and they appeal to other people's racism, to say, Oh, these guys are Jews, and we don't like Jews. And they're really causing trouble here, when of course, they themselves are the ones who are really causing the trouble. So Paul and Silas are whipped publicly without any trial. And then they are thrown into a jail and the jailer locks them in stocks, clamps their feet in these miserable stocks. Paul and Silas are singing hymns to God and praising him there at midnight, and then comes an earthquake. And in this earthquake, all their chains fall off the the prison doors fly open. The jailer is about to kill himself because he thinks all the prisoners have escaped. Paul says, No, no, no, don't do that. We're still here. And the jailer falls before him and says, What must I do to be saved? Paul comes back with this great answer, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved you and your household and he is saved. 

He is filled with joy because he's come to believe in God, along with his whole family. But there again, you see in Philippi, there's an earthquake, there's a city and uproar the the city's being turned upside down. Then they move on to the Thessalonica. And Paul, later, in his letter to the Thessalonians recalls what it was like when they came there. He says, our gospel came to you not only in Word, but also in power, and then the Holy Spirit, and with full conviction. And of course, this made an impact. And some of the people who were welcoming Paul and Silas and letting them stay at their home got into trouble for this. And some of the people in the city of Thessalonica issued that famous complaint, these men who have turned the world upside down, have come here also. And they're all acting against the decrees of Caesar saying there's another king, Jesus, and the people and the city authorities were disturbed. Yes, they were. Because everywhere you go, and you say government is not God. Jesus is Lord. Every time you declare the supremacy of Jesus, you turn somebody's world upside down, and people get disturbed. Then they go to Corinth. And there they receive a good reception from the ruler of the synagogue, Crispus believed in the Lord, together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized, and they ran it opposition. But the Lord spoke to Paul and he said, Don't go anywhere. I have many people in this city, so stay here and keep working. And he stayed a year and six months, teaching the Word of God among them. But when Gallio was proconsul of Achaia, the Jews made a united attack on Paul and brought him before the tribunal saying, this man is persuading people to worship God contrary to the law, same pattern over and over a tremendous impact, and then ferocious opposition and charges of upsetting the established order. 

Then Paul goes on his third missionary journey, visiting again, the places he's been before encouraging the saints there and spending some special time and emphasis in some other places where again, the Holy Spirit does some amazing things. They turned Ephesus upside down. We read all the residents of Asia, that's the province of Asia, heard the word of the Lord, both Jews and Greeks, fear fell upon them all. In the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. Also many of those who are now believers came confessing and divulging their practices. So this Holy Spirit falls upon them, and they're amazed at Jesus and then they are disgusted with their sin and their evil practices. And a number of those who have practice magic arts, brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all and they counted the value of them and found that it came to 50,000 pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord continue to increase and prevail mightily. Paul is spending extra time and Ephesus now. And these are really revival conditions, the mighty anointing of the Holy Spirit and people turning away from their old ways. A lot of us may need to ask, Lord, what would you like us to make a bonfire of what is it in our life that needs to go up in smoke, and even if it costs a lot, even if it costs 50,000 pieces of silver? It's got to go because we're the word of the Lord comes, there comes that conviction and that transformation and that separation from the things that formerly gripped our hearts and the sins that held us down. Well, Ephesus obviously is going to be affected by that. It dries up the market for Magic books went a lot of the chief practitioners have become Christians and are burning their scrolls publicly and telling everybody else, hey, get away from this stuff, don't follow it anymore. It affected them and it affected some others as well. 

The Bible says in Acts 19, about that time there arose a great disturbance concerning the way that is the Christian way. For a man named Demetrius, the silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis brought no little business to the craftsman. These he gathered together with the workmen in similar trades and said, Man, you know that from this business, we have our wealth. And you see and hear that not only an Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia. This Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people saying that God's made with hands are not gods. Well, this message turns out this is upside down if God made with hands are not gods. Where does this leave the guys who's living is made by manufacturing Gods with hands and selling these silver statues to the people of the city and to many pilgrims and people visiting the city. Demetrius and his fellow silversmiths are furious, and they start causing a riot. And after a while the whole city is in a big uproar in the whole amphitheatre holding 1000s of people are yelling, and yelling, and Luke, the writer of act ads with kind of a smile, most of them did not even know why would they were there that's kind of how mobs are isn't it? There's a big hubbub they really don't know what's going on. They just know that something's bad. And the people behind it, of course, are the ones who have some money to be made and are upset that they're not making that money anymore. Some time ago, I wrote a little poem about this incident, I always found it very challenging as well as somewhat humorous incident. With a moan and groan and a scowl and a growl. Demetrius snarled, shall we throw in the towel? We can't seem to sell all these idols we've made the people won't buy them. We're not getting paid. Our idols were selling for oodles of money, but now we can't sell them that isn't funny. 

Shall we throw in the towel? No, I say we shall not. As he spoke his friends tempers began to grow hot. Then on went Demetrius madder than ever. You know who's been wrecking our business endeavor. This fellow named Paul, all agreed with a nod, this fellow keep saying there's only one God. He says Jesus Christ is the one all should trust. When folks believe that they stopped buying from us. It's time to do something, it can't hurt to try it. Let's praise our great goddess and start a great riot. So that's what they did. And they did it quite well, those furious men with a goddess to sell. They were stumping and shouting and screaming so loud that soon they attracted an oversized crowd, who thought yelling, and rage seemed the in thing to do. That's why they were there. Most of them hadn't a clue. Before long, the whole town had become one huge mob, how to calm it back down. an impossible job. For two hours, they screamed till they barely could croak. Then the clerk of the city stood up and he spoke. What's all the commotion? We've got a great idol. We give her devotion we honor her title. But why attack people who've done nothing wrong? Why stand around squawking so loud and so long, this hubbub could get our fine city in trouble. So shut your loud mouths and go home on the double. Now when idle makers blow their stack and try to start a fight, it means God's people are on track. They're doing something right. But when we worship money, sex, TV and sports and song, Demetrius gets filthy rich, we're doing something wrong. You notice when the apostles went places, the merchants of various sinful and worldly endeavors were getting who had been getting rich suddenly got very upset. If we're serving the Lord, well, there are going to be people upset with us too. And then when they return from their journey, Paul ends up in Jerusalem and Jerusalem is turned upside down. Once again. The Apostle goes to the temple, and some people see him there and they get furious men of Israel help. This is the man who's teaching everyone everywhere against the people and the law against this place. Then all of a city was stirred up and the people ran together they seized Paul and dragged him out of the temple. And at once the gates were shot, and as they were seeking to kill him, word came to the tribune of the cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion. So, there's this big upset of the city. And then the commander asked Paul, aren't you that guy who led 4000 terrorists in the desert? And Paul says, No, no, no, that's, that's not me. But you see, again, just the tremendous upsetting impact that the gospel is having, as it's spreading the tremendous power of God for salvation, and the Ferocious opposition from the kingdoms of this world, and from the agents of the evil one. 

These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also saying that there is another king, Jesus, you see why that's such a great summary of what happens in the book of Acts, Jesus endows them with power. And then they announced him as King Jesus, and it upsets things. And that's true in the book of Acts. And as we read the book of Acts, let's keep in mind that the Holy Spirit who did all of that in the book of Acts is alive and well and powerful, and his arm is still mighty to save. In a spirit, empowered movement or revival, Christians are so different, so energized, so bold, so committed to King Jesus, that they cause a stir, and they can't be ignored by the world around them. revival first empowers believers and really transforms the church and energizes, it makes it only, and then converts are many changes are amazing. And as we've seen in opposition, is often fierce, we see that again and again, in the book of Acts. And if you study carefully the history of the revivals, and the movements of God and the mighty works of the Holy Spirit since then, that's still how it happens. Believers are empowered and purified, then the Lord brings many more people into the church, and it makes amazing changes in society. And that in turn, stirs things up and people start moaning about the world being turned upside down. In America, one of the great events that really changed the history of America and made it much more Christian than it otherwise would have been, and brought salvation in many ways, the great awakening and then other later revivals as well. Jonathan Edwards is one of the people God used in that awakening, wrote this work of God soon made a glorious alteration in the town, see that people don't just believe it just changes the town, so that in the spring and summer following the year 1735, the town seemed to be for the presence of God. 

It was never so full of love, nor so full of joy, and yet so full of distress as it was then, there were remarkable tokens of God's presence in almost every house. It was the time of joy and families on the account of salvation being brought unto them, parents rejoicing over their children, as newborn, and husbands over their wives and wives over their husbands. God's day was a delight. The Sundays were wonderful, the congregation was alive in God's service, everyone earnestly intent on the public worship, every hearer eager to drink in the words of the minister, as they came from his mouth. The assembly in general were from time to time in tears while the word was preached some weeping with sorrow and distress others with joy and love others with pity and concern for the souls of their neighbors, this great awakening had a tremendous impact not just on that town or on those people, but it spread throughout America, it spread throughout much of England and parts of Europe. And it made an impact on society, as Christians sought to change some of the structures of society. And one of the structures they sought to change was the institution of slavery, the buying and selling and owning of other human beings. And an important British official Lord Melbourne, great things have come to a pretty pass, when religion is allowed to invade the sphere of private life. He did not want religion, to change the way people relate it to other people, or the way slave owners have related to their property, their slaves, and he did not want Christianity or religion to be personal in that respect. He didn't want it to be public in the sense that it changed public structures. He wanted it to just to be kind of formal and dead, a place where you show up once in a while in your nice clothes, and a place that, that kings can be ordained and prime ministers can have dignified funerals and the like, that's what religions for but it's not supposed to actually change your life. A slave owner at the time said humanity is a private feeling, you know, your concern about other people. But it's not a public principle to act upon. Perish the thought that we'd get rid of the slave trade because that's just keep it private. I've ever heard that. I know in my country, people say oh, you should not allow Religion to interfere with things such as abortion, because that's not a political matter. That's just a religious and a private feeling and not a public principle. What about the 50 million babies who are killed in this country and millions upon millions, hundreds of millions more around the world? 

And how does it justified, oh, we can't have religion invade private life. And you Christians who say that it's wrong, we can't listen to you? Well, back in those days, William Wilberforce was a Christian who have been very much affected by the work of revival in the work of the Holy Spirit and by the truth of the Scriptures, and he wasn't the preacher. But he had a sense of God's calling upon him. And he said, God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners, he wanted to stop the slave trade throughout the British Empire. And when he said reformation of manners, he did not mean how daintily to put your napkin on the corner of your mouth or which fork to eat with at a fancy dinner by manners, he meant moral conduct. And he wanted people's sexual behavior and their treatment of others slave labor not only but also child labor, and other such things, for people to start treating each other as Christians. And so he wanted Christianity to have an impact on society. And that was taking on a huge challenge, when such powerful people did not want Christianity to impact people's private life and behavior, nor to impact the way public structures were arranged. But one of the great leaders of the first great awakening was still living then. And he still had a witness for William Wilberforce, in the late 1700s. John Wesley, in a letter wrote to Wilberforce and said, unless the divine power has raised you up, I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise, in opposing that execrable villainy, that is slavery, which is the scandal of religion of England and of human nature. unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of man and devils. But if God is with you, who can be against you, are all of them stronger than God? Oh, be not weary of well doing go on, in the name of God in the power of his might, till even American slavery, the violence that ever saw the sun shall vanish away before it. And Wilberforce eventually did prevail. It took decades. But finally, through his efforts, slavery, and the slave trade was abolished throughout the British Empire. You see, this tremendous force of the Holy Spirit and revival grabbed his heart and made him a follower of Jesus and one who found salvation in Jesus. 

But it also made him somebody who turned the world upside down, and who made an impact on society. Another example, the Welsh Revival of 1904 and 1905, had a tremendous impact and in saving people, they were singing, they were praying, and many, many people who were in the churches were revived and made strong in their faith and many other were drawn into the churches and saved for the first time. And it made an impact wherever these people went. G. Campbell Morgan wrote, The fire zone is where the meetings are actually held, and where you feel the flame that burns. But even when you come out of it, when you come out of those meetings, where the revival is so powerful, and go into railway trains, or into a shop, a bank, anywhere, men everywhere are talking of God. It has such an impact in the whole area. Coal miners mules didn't know what to do anymore, because their owners weren't swearing at them. And they were so used to following commands with a bunch of swear words, that the mules and horses that worked in the coal mines didn't know what to do. More than 20,000 people were added to the churches in a very short time. There were a number of bankruptcies, mostly bars, a lot of bars and taverns went out of business as that great revival swept across Wales. So that's what happens in the book of Acts. And that's what happens wherever the Holy Spirit, who was active in the book of Acts continues his work now you receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you are God's witnesses. You are witnesses of the risen and powerful Lord Jesus Christ. And when you are, you become one of those men are one of those women who turn the world upside down. Wherever you go, oh, friend, read that book of Acts, take heart from it, be encouraged by it and realize that the very God who is told about in those stories, the same mighty father, the same risen Jesus, that same Holy Spirit who came in such power, that God is still mighty today. And his power is still at work in his world. Let us pray for more and more of that power, that the things he did in the book of Acts may again happen in our time and in our place.

Video Transcript: Reproducing Christianity (Dr. Feddes)

We're going to think today about reproducing Christianity. And as we do that, I want to look at three basic aspects of Christianity and the three production, as well as kind of three pictures or portraits of those three things in action. And the first of the three basics is simply reproducing converts, bringing the Gospel to others and persuading them of the truth and leading them to become Christians. A second is reproducing children. Christianity throughout history has grown by people who are Christian, having children and bringing them up in the faith and having sizable families and from generation to generation, the church grows in that way. And then third, in dealing with both converts and children, you need to be reproducing content, teaching carefully, discipling, thoroughly, and zealously. Those are the three basics we're going to be looking at. And I want to look at three different portraits. First of all, simply New Testament church growth and growth in the church immediately following the time of the New Testament, then we're going to take kind of a negative portrait and see how not to do it, how not to reproduce. And we're going to see Europe's cultural suicide, and how Europeans have largely given up on Christianity and their culture itself is moving towards extinction unless something changes. And then the third portrait is going to be seeing how Christianity is reproduced still today, by making converts by having children, and by discipling, converts and children in the content of the faith. Let's begin then, by looking at New Testament church growth. New Testament church growth had a number of different aspects to it. The one that we're most familiar with in reading the New Testament, and that we notice, and that we find maybe most exciting is the missionary vision, to go to new places and new people and go to new cities, and help get the gospel started there. And that surely is a vital aspect of church growth always. And it certainly was in the New Testament. And aspect we might overlook a little more. 

But there's clear evidence of it in the New Testament is how the gospel multiplied in households, and how it spread through social networks. And we also have early histories of the church and analysis of those histories, which show the importance of household and family and just spreading the gospel to people that you knew and had close associations with. And then the third aspect is the teaching of these new converts, and the teaching of children and bringing them up in the faith. This missionary vision of the New Testament is clearly evident. I don't need to say too much about it, because it's everywhere. In the New Testament, Jesus called people to spread the gospel. And he did that through His Holy Spirit. The endeavor too much of the world was launched in Acts 13, when the mission to the Gentiles was really set in full motion, when the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. And the Spirit gave them that vision to carry the gospel farther and further. The church at Antioch of course already had Gentiles at the time that Barnabas and Saul received this calling while they were ministering in Antioch. And then Antioch became this launching pad of vision and vitality to spread the gospel throughout the Gentile world. Paul had a vision, come over to Macedonia and help us he'd been busy in the province of Asia Minor what today is turkey of spreading the gospel around there. And then he had this vision to bring the gospel into Europe, and to come to Macedonia, the first place in Europe where Paul went on his missionary journeys. And Paul received continuing missionary vision and encouragements during a tough time. He was told in the night, do not be afraid, keep on speaking, do not be silent, for I am with you said Jesus and no one is going to attack and harm you because I have many people in this city. What a beautiful statement. I have many people in this city, they may not know it yet, they may not be converted yet, but I've got them here. And I've got you here to lead them to Me. This missionary vision is exciting and vital in the New Testament Church. But it's not the only aspect. It also is true. The New Testament shows how again and again, the gospel took root in the households and multiplied in households in Caesarea, and angel told Cornelius, Peter will bring you a message through which you and all your household will be saved. 

And as we look at various aspects of gospel spread in the New Testament, we find that in city after city after city, it was in the household and through the households that this gospel spread. It happened in Caesarea and not only but also In the city of Philippi, Lydia was meeting with others beside a river near that town and she heard the gospel. The Bible says God opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. And Lydia was baptized along with the members of her household. And there's another household story that's pretty exciting. In Philippi, a jailer said, What must I do to be saved? And Paul told him, Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved you and your household. Then they spoke the word of God to him, and to all the others in his house, he and all his family were baptized, and he had come to believe in God, he and his whole family. Now, if we look at other cities, we also find spreading through households in Thessalonica. What do we read, some people were objecting Christianity, and they said, these man who have caused trouble all over the world, these men have turned the world upside down, have now come here, and Jason has welcomed them into his house. It was always coming out of a house that this Christianity was spreading. in Corinth, Luke writes Crispus, the synagogue ruler, and his entire household believed in the Lord. 

Then Paul himself writes, I also baptize the household of Stephanus. And he's writing that to the Corinthians. So the household of Crispus, the household of Stephanus. And Paul says, you know that the household of Stephanus were the first converts into care, and they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints. So not only was this household of Stephanus baptize, but then they became a launching pad, to keep spreading the gospel and peek serving the saints and to keep helping, the missionaries also do their work. Other cities too, were influenced by the gospel in households and emphasis, Paul told the elders, you know that I have not hesitated to preach to you anything that would be helpful to you, but have taught you publicly and from house to house. In writing the Colossae, he greets people. He's writing the Philemon in this case, and in verse two, he says he's greeting the church that meets in your home, which was located in the city of Colossae or take the great city of Rome, Paul, in writing to the Romans has great Priscilla and Aquila. My fellow workers in Christ Jesus greet also the church that meets at their house. Now earlier, this couple had to leave Rome, and they moved to Corinth, and there they met Paul, and they were followers of Jesus. And then after moving back to Rome, evidently a church met at their house. And this is the story again and again and again, the church was meeting and houses multiplying through households, missionaries were working in houses and being launched from there. And the family unit played a vital part in the spread of Christianity, and then the very identity of the church again, and again, we find the church being described as God's household. 

God's household, which is the church of the living God, were members of the household of faith were members of God's household, God's family, in heaven and on earth, were the household of God, that language again and again and again and again, shows just how important the household was in the spread of early Christianity, and in even the very picture a conception of the church itself as the household of God. Now, when we think of the increase of Christianity during those New Testament times, it helps to know a little bit of historical background about the decrease of the population of the Roman Empire. While Christian households were increasing and accepting the gospel and having more children, many of the households in the Empire were aborting babies. And when they aborted babies, the moms would often die as well, because there weren't very safe abortion procedures. And so both baby and mom in some cases would be lost. And that cut the reproduction rate in the Empire, where abortion wasn't resorted to it was very common still to leave babies, and especially baby girls to die. And that meant, of course, less future mothers to have future pagans. homosexuality was idealized by some of the key leading thinkers in the Empire, and homosexuality doesn't have a very good record of reproducing children. Now what happened? They had birth rates, at least of live births and babies surviving, that were below the replacement level that are needed to keep the population at its level. And so there were centuries of decrease in the native born population of the Roman Empire and the Emperor's they tried through tax policies and bonuses and other things to try to subsidize larger families. But it just didn't work. And the Empire continued to decrease. And so what did they do? They had to import barbarians from beyond the Empire's borders to just keep the population of the Empire going. So that's quite a contrast to what was happening among the Christians at the time. Christians had higher birth rates. Have they read in early Genesis that God blessed people and said Be fruitful and multiply. And they took children as a blessing. And so the Christians, and the Bible believers had higher birth rates, and more Christian women and girls survived because they weren't aborted. And they also weren't thrown away when a girl baby was born. And so they had families. 

The Christians also, by the way, rescued and adopted babies that were abandoned by others, have they cared for their own sick and for the sick of the pagans during the plagues, and this resulted in higher survival rates. And also, of course, because the Christian showed this kind of compassion, it often lead to conversions as well. But my point here is that it's not just the great preaching, and evangelism and missionary activity of the apostles and of the other great evangelists to hold on that was huge, but also just the way ordinary Christians had babies and spread the gospel through households, and the importance of family and household in this whole reproduction of Christianity in New Testament times, and the times immediately following the New Testament, and of course, it was always vital, then that people be taught that a new convert be taught the basics of the faith, both the content of the faith as well as the content of living out the faith, not just the thinking, but the conduct of believers. The Bible says, even if Barnabas and Saul, who were missionaries, and church, planters extraordinaire, and who were constantly moving on, but even they would pause long enough to make sure that people were well taught for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church in Antioch, and taught great numbers of people. And Paul stayed in Corinth for a year and a half, teaching them the Word of God, he'd lay a good foundation, he'd have some new leaders develop that were well taught before he would move on. And of course, the importance of teaching once children is mentioned in Ephesians six, verse four, the apostle says, fathers do not exasperate your children instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. 

And this picks up on the Old Testament emphasis to of bringing up your children and your families and teaching them God's ways when you lie down. And when you get up. And the Christians just right continued right on that revelation of God's Old Testament people that you were to teach your children the ways of the Lord. And so that was early church growth, that missionary vision, that household and social network way of spreading the gospel, and then the careful teaching of both the children and the converts. Now, modern Europe gives us a case study in how not to grow Christianity. There's a question being asked more and more frequently, whether Europe is going Muslim is France on the way to becoming an Islamic State? That's a question that one journalist asks another person and this is a Muslim himself a more moderate Muslim living in Europe. He says the problem or the question is not whether the majority of Europeans is Islamic, but rather which Islam Sharia or Euro Islam is to dominate in Europe? So he says, it's just kind of a done deal. It's almost certain that Islam will eventually dominate Europe. The only question is whether it's going to be the milder Euro Islam which adopts in western values. That's what he would favor Bassam Tibi at who is a notable scholar living in Germany or the more strict Sharia law, but he takes it for granted that Christianity is a spent force in Europe and that the future lies with Islam. Now that's sometimes called by bought your Jewish scholar Eurabia the Islamization of Europe. Bernard Lewis, the foremost scholar of Islam in the United States, as Europe will be part of the Arabic West. Migration, and demography indicate this. Europeans marry late and have few or no children, but their strong immigration. At the latest, he says following current trends, Europe will have Muslim majorities in the population at the end of the 21st century. 

Now, no matter how smart or authoritative these scholars might be, that's not a done deal. It's very possible that Christianity in Europe will be reinvigorated, that Europeans may yet start having babies again, or that Islam itself will fall prey to many of its own weaknesses. But my point is, many people based on current trends in Europe say that it's going Islamic, even though it's largely secular now and certainly not very Christian. Now, what happened in Europe, that would make it so weak in its Christianity, and so  vulnerable to takeover by other powers. The danger to Europe is not Islamic invasion, by armies and by military takeover. The danger is Europe's cultural suicide and just somebody else moving into the void. How does Europe spiritual suicide take place? Well, one is they aren't reproducing converts in very large numbers at all, and they don't really believe in reproducing converts. Another problem is the Europeans are having very few children not even enough to replace themselves. And so there's going to be a shrinking population. And then thirdly, the Europeans are not reproducing the content and teaching Christian teaching and biblical facts to their children or to any convert. So they're the very mirror image or the opposite of what it takes to reproduce. I'll just show you in a little more detail how that works. Europeans aren't reproducing converts in very large numbers. And a big part of the reason is they don't believe in reproducing converts. Now, Leslie Newbigin, somebody who might have studied very thoroughly who has for 40 years, a missionary in India, before moving back to Europe, in his retirement, Newbigin said, missions are the test of our faith. The test of our real belief, is our readiness to share it with all peoples. But in Europe, many people have thought that whatever you believe is true for you, and whatever I believe is true for me, and we're not going to try to persuade anybody else, that Jesus is the WAY and the TRUTH and the LIFE. religious pluralism negates missions, as Newbigin puts it in a supermarket society, a rich variety of religions was a welcome addition to the shelves. You know, religion is just something you go shopping for, but you shouldn't be some gung ho person trying to persuade people to trust Jesus or to follow him. 

Newbigin says what I have been so horrified by is a kind of timidity, cowardice by Christian preachers and ministers, the kind of attitude that says, well, I happen to be a Christian. But of course, I wouldn't expect you to think that. And that just cuts off the desire to reach others into reproduce, converts. Newbigin describes a meeting that he went to various church leaders, and he said that at this meeting, a clergyman among them described missions as theological racism, theological racism, to say that Christianity is better than other religions, and therefore to try to persuade people to become Christians. And so pastors are calling it theological racism, to try to evangelize. Newbigin says, I was provoked into advising him to beware of theological fornication. Well, I'm with Newbigin. But a lot of Europeans aren't including European religion scholars and European pastors, and where there's no belief in missions and evangelists, it's no wonder that not many people are being led to the Lord. Now, that's not Europe's only difficulty. They're also not reproducing children, you need to have under today's conditions, with good medical care, and so on, you still need about 2.1 children per woman to just keep the population at the same level in the next generation. 

In Germany, the level is not 2.1, it's 1.3. In Italy, it's 1.2. In Spain, it's 1.2. In Russia, it's only 1.1, Britain, 1.6. So you can see in Russia, it's only half the level it needs to be to maintain the current population level. And in Britain, it's only about three fourths of the level it needs to be. And that means that Europe in all of its nations is headed for major population decline. Now, the decline hasn't happened yet in most of those countries, because people are living longer than they used to. But when that older generation starts dying out, the population in Europe is going to be plummeting. Here's what's going to happen in Russia. It's projected there will be a drop from 150 million to 100 million by 2050. Russia's low birth rates partly due to two abortions for every live birth in Russia. Vladimir Putin, the primary leader of Russia, says this is a crisis threatening Russia's future. Well, I guess it is when you're going to lose 33% of your population within the next 40 years. That is a crisis. Germany is projected to lose the equivalent of East Germany's population by 2050. In Europe, there are going to be 75 retirees collecting government pension for every 100 workers, you want to talk budget problems. That is a budget problem. And we haven't even begun to see the worst of it yet in Europe as well as in North America. The solution in Europe has been more immigrants and thus the predictions that Europe could eventually go Islamic because the Islamic immigrants are a large number of those who are Coming into Europe. And because they have more children than the Europeans do, they don't have gigantic families, on average, they may have three or four, but four is three times as much as 1.3. Okay? When the average in Europe is 1.3, and the Muslims are having four, that's triple the rate in the next generation, you do that for one more generation, and you have nine times as many, the next generation is 27 times as many. So you could go from 1% of the population to 27% of it in just a few generations of having four kids when the others are only having 1.3. That's that's the math of why people are predicting and Islamic Europe, unless trends change. Of course, that's a major unless now, this matter of not reproducing also affects Canada and the United States. The Canadian birth rate currently is 1.6, which is only about three fourths of the necessary replacement rate in the United States, the birth rate is exactly the replacement rate 2.1. 

But 1971 was the last year white Americans had enough children to replace themselves. And black birth rates are even lower than white Americans. And so it's largely immigrants, a lot of them Latino, that are maintaining the population in the United States, and are the growing edge of the population. In a sense, those who are concerned about American identity can be grateful for some of those immigrants who are still having babies, because many of them come from more Christian backgrounds, and not from the backgrounds of anti christian religions. Now, if we have Muslims and other people immigrating to our country, of course, we shouldn't be anti immigrant. It's a tremendous opportunity from the Lord, to reach more people from the Lord for the Lord. My only point here is that the United States is many of its aspects of its population are simply not having very many children, and in that were a lot like Europe. Now in the US, there are two exceptions, the immigrants, many of whom are Christian, praise God, have higher birth rates. And also there are some conservative Christians who tend to have more children, they read in the Bible, that children are a blessing from the Lord. And they take that to heart and instead of going along with the flow of the world around them, they don't treat children as a nuisance, or as a luxury to have one or two of, but as something that God gives us a great blessing, and they just as soon have a few more. Now, the third problem that's happened in Europe is that it's not reproducing the content of the faith after about 1900 sociologists of religion have found that most British homes ceased having family devotions. And my PhD, by the way, involves a great deal of study of sociology of religion, particularly as it applies to Britain. So I'll just mention a few things about that, after 1900 family devotions largely shrivelled away, except in in a small portion of the population. Now, what was the result? Well, today, 18% of Europeans consider it important that their children share their faith. So 82% don't and by the way, that 18% includes those of the Europeans who are Muslim, or of other religions, the percentage of people who would label themselves Christians who care whether their children share their faith is even lower. 

British church attendance dropped from 60% in 1850, to eight 8%. In 2000. Really Sunday, school attendance dropped from 55% of kids in 1900, to 4%, in 2000. So they stopped teaching the faith in the home, they stopped going to church to learn more about the faith and to have their kids taught the faith at church, they stopped bringing their children to Sunday school, and the content of the faith simply is not being taught to your children, even though some Europeans will still vaguely call themselves Christian because they believe in some sort of higher power, and that Jesus was probably a pretty good guy. That's the situation in Europe's cultural suicide. They no longer believe in converting people to Christ, they no longer believe in having babies in any significant number, and they no longer teach their children, the faith. So having seen how New Testament Christianity spread rapidly, and how having seen how in recent decades not to do it. In Europe, let's take a look just at the basics of reproducing Christianity. And the first as we've already seen, is reproducing converts, then reproducing children and reproducing the content of the faith. In reproducing converts. Jesus says, Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit. This is not theological racism. It is obedience to God. And it is the very opposite of racism. It's recognizing that God has people from everybody. Try the language and people an agent whom he wants to gather into fellowship with himself. And Jesus came to die for people from every nation, and he wants them brought in. Jesus said to his followers, you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth, we have his marching orders. And, again, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this. It is so clear and so strong in the Bible that only by direct unbelief and rebellion against God, can you deny the need to evangelize and bring the gospel to others and seek to reproduce the faith by making converts, people around you and people of all nations. Reproducing children is the second thing that is vital for reproducing Christianity today. 

Now Philip Longman has written a book about birth trends titled The empty cradle. And he says conservative religiously minded Americans are putting far more of their genes into the future than their liberal secular counterparts. In the United States, fully 47% of people who attend church weekly say that their ideal family size is three of our children. By contrast, only 27% of those who seldom attend church want that many kids now filled long one's not too excited about that. He's that he's actually secular himself. But he's a very shrewd observer. And He notes that most secular people just don't seem to want to have very many kids. He says, Does this mean that the future belongs to those who believe that they are or are in fact commanded by a higher power to procreate? He knows Genesis, based on current trends, the answer appears to be yes. When secular minded Americans decided to have few, if any children, they are unwittingly given a strong evolutionary advantage to the other side of the cultural divide. Now, of course, he's speaking like a secularist. He speaks in terms of evolutionary advantage. He's saying that belief in having children and in God as the giver of children gives you an evolutionary advantage of that. That's kind of an irony, but it is the fact of the case that even if you believe in evolution you have yet that is not evolutionary, it's not very advantageous evolutionary to believe in evolution, you're better off believing in Christianity and in God's blessing of children. Well, here's a little story, a new neighbor struck up a conversation with a seven year old boy next door, how many kids in your family? He asked? Eight said the child, my that many children must cost a lot of money. So the neighbor? Oh, no, sir, replied the boy, we don't buy them, we raise them? Well, the Christians don't need to buy children. We raised them, and we received them as blessings from the Lord. What does the Bible say on these matters of God said from the beginning, when he blessed Adam and Eve, Be fruitful, multiply. 

But then he said to Abraham, I will bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. And as the sand on the seashore. It was not a curse, but a blessing for your offspring to be numerous. Psalm 112 says, blessed is the man who fears the Lord who finds great delight in his commands, his children will be mighty in the land, the generation of the upright will be blessed part of reproducing Christianity, and the end of the faith is for your children to be mighty in the land. Now, King Solomon knew a little bit about being mighty in the land. And he wrote Psalm 127. And he said, sons are a heritage from the Lord, children a reward from him, like arrows in the hands of a warrior are sons born in one's youth, Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. And he said, when they have to contend with their enemies, they won't be put to shame or they won't be losing. And that's true in the Christian realm as well. When Christians are having children and are reproducing, they become much stronger in some of these nations. Unfortunately, there have been missionaries who went out with a Bible in one hand, and birth control devices in the other. And so the very people they made converts, they persuaded to have fewer and fewer children. That weakened the very churches that they were planting. If you started out as a small group, but the converts had had a sizable number of children and brought them up in the faith. And they in turn, had a sizable number of children brought them up in the faith, you would have seen Christians growing to a much larger proportion of the population than if Western missionaries had said, now follow Jesus, and don't have so many babies. That was mistake by some missionaries. I read some books by missionary scholars, and one of them call overpopulation one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Well, we've seen that if there ever was a concern about overpopulation, it's not a very major one anymore. The major the major trend now is towards depopulation, and there has never been a major worry that there would be too many vital Bible believing well taught Christians being brought up in the faith. When the Bible speaks of the Prophet Heman and his many children, it says they were given to him through the promises of God, to exalt Him. 

They weren't a punishment. They were an exaltation. And so there is this attitude in the Bible that children are tremendous gift and blessing from the Lord. And once you have these blessings, once you've made the converts, and once you have been given children by God, you need to teach them. teach them everything I have commanded you in that very same passage where Jesus says, go and make disciples of all nations. He also says, teach them, teach them thoroughly everything I've commanded you. And there is no shortcut. Sometimes people think that if you just hurry up and spread the gospel rapidly that's going to make Christianity reproduce. Well, yeah, we should be spreading things as rapidly as we can. But if we don't teach well, it will blow away, and there will be nothing left to show for it. Converts need to be well taught. And so two children, one generation will commend your works to another, they will speak of your mighty acts, or as Paul said, at once again, fathers bring up your children in the training and instruction of the Lord, to reproduce the content of the faith, to keep on teaching it, the vital thing that led to the collapse of religion in Europe and in Britain in particular, has been largely attributed to not spending time together as families around the Word of God and not going to church. As families, you need to keep reproducing the content of the faith and have a walk with God a living, vital walk with God. So reproduce in Christianity. It's not all that complicated, but it can be hard. It takes hard work and dedication, devotion, and to be hearing God's call to be reproducing converts to be having children not in tiny, itty bitty numbers, but larger family sizes as the Lord blesses and then reproducing the content of the faith teaching those new converts to the faith teaching the children you love the ways of the Lord. And as we do that, we don't need to be experts on everything. If we follow this simple pattern for reproducing Christianity. We will see God's blessing and we will see by the power of the Holy Spirit and the blessing of God, His churches grow.