This is the problem with the church today. If the message isn't being preached exactly, and I'm not saying that every single week you're going to hear a Resurrection message, but if it's only preached on one Sunday out of the year and mildly put and watered down at that, how can any individual come to the knowledge and the saving power of Jesus Christ if this message is not preached? If it is not replayed it the ears of people to where suddenly the idea is, it is not about what Christ is going to do for you, it's what He's done for you. That God raised Him up from the dead and that same power shall dwell in you. Starting in the book of Acts and going through the rest of the New Testament you cannot escape a principle that is pointed to, even spoken about by our Lord to His disciples, and in the book of Acts before Christ ascends, He says the following to His disciples. That would be in the 1st chapter after they ask if He's going to restore the kingdom to Israel. And He says to them in verse 7, "It is not for you to know the time or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you," and here's the important thing, "ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto uttermost part of the earth." And of course while they're listening to this He's taken up and "poof" He's gone. What's important here is the key word, "ye shall be<i> witnesses</i> ." Now I have said this for years, so I don't want you to think that there's any change in what I've said. We get our English word for "martyr" from the Greek word that is being translated in our King James as "witness." But if you follow the etymology of the word witness; see, a lot of the time's the problems with reading straight English is we're so familiar with terminology that it no longer has the impact, that if you think about it when they, when the translators, not even, I'm not even referring to the King James, but let's just say the King James when deciding to use a word had already been familiarized and known in a certain way. So the word "witness," the etymology of it, Old English "attestation of a fact, event, from personal knowledge; one who testifies," originally "knowledge," that is "to wit." Witness is two words put together, "wit," from knowledge, and "ness," the suffix "ness." And of course, as a verb: "to affix one's signature to a document to establish its identity," and so forth. That's from the 14th century. That's a little late. But in this case I have to stress the word because it becomes pivotal not only in understanding the bulk of the preaching through the New Testament, but it becomes pivotal for us as Christians living today to get a concept down and get it right. How many have been around in the church for years and you've heard people say, "You've got to go witness to people"? Show me your hands, okay. You know what they mean by that? What they mean is you find some poor soul out there who you think is unsaved, which by the way is a pretty; if you think about it, it's pretty insulting to think that that you start with the premise that any individual you see is unsaved, that's actually insulting. I'm just saying, because I've had it, I've had it done to me. But then their version of "witnessing" is asking you if you know the Lord Jesus Christ, and if you'll "accept" Him. But when Jesus said, "Ye shall be witnesses of me," He meant exactly the way it sounds: "You will be as eyewitnesses testifying to the multitudes that I actually rose up, I lived, I died, I was buried, I was raised up, I am alive. You'll be witnesses of me, of that fact." Nowhere here, nowhere in this book have I ever encountered somebody, anyone of these writers asking if someone is going to accept, "Now that you've said the sinners' prayer, will you accept Jesus?" That is what today's standard of "witnessing" means, but what it meant for these people as Christ gave them the commission was apart from the promise that's about to happen in the book of Acts, which was spoken of in the Gospel of John, when Jesus said, "And it's expedient for me to go away, otherwise the Comforter will not come." And He was speaking of the Holy Spirit being poured out, which is an event that's just about to happen, which we get in the 2nd chapter, which is the day of Pentecost. The pouring out of God's Spirit, which is the fulfillment of what Christ had spoken of, which was the fulfillment of prophecy as well. And I've said many times, that Spirit being poured out was equipment for service, not a light switch to prove whether or not you're saved by the ability to speak in tongues. Again, and I'm sure I've got a lot of people from other denominations that listen who will be just be downright offended, mad, "I disagree!" And you can pound your fist all you want, but the only place where tongues became an item to be misused was by the Corinthians, who misused just about every single thing that they had. Hence the pejorative name to be called a Corinthian was not, "Oh wow, that's an honor," because of what they were renowned for; abusing spiritual gifts, amongst other things. So what's imperative here is that in this context and importantly the book of Acts, let's kind of split the book of Acts in two for a minute. The first part of the book of Acts, essentially (I'm generalizing), is chronicling. Remember the title of the book of Acts, "The Acts of the Apostles," I'd like to say the first half of this is really the acts of Peter, and the second half the acts of Paul. And in reality these acts that are being recorded, these events have no reason to be recorded apart from the fact that these are witnesses to the risen Christ. There would be no other reason to write this book. So when people say, "Well, how do I know about the Gospels?" And I've talked about this, whether or not they're reliable or valid, or authentic. Now you get into the book of Acts and you realize that the whole book of Acts split into two pertains to the preaching by two eyewitnesses regarding the risen Christ. Even more important, I mentioned to you, what would really be ridiculous of us to read what a lot of times we tend, all of us, I include myself, to do, which is a sloppy reading of something, and assume because we know all of the players that were, and I say players, all of the characters that were with Jesus, including the one Judas Iscariot who is now in the book of Acts no more, then we say, "Well of course." Now we've got a chronicle of all the ones that were eyewitnesses that we know of because they are chronicled for us by name in the Gospel account, but there are others that were eyewitnesses. And although we don't have writing from these others, we have something equally important, a piece of internal information in the book of Acts as in the 1st chapter the disciples are going to replace Judas to bring back the number to twelve. And if; I'm reading right now, I'm just going to jump right in it says in verse 21, "Wherefore of these men which have companied us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us," 1:21, "beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection." Now this is, these are key verses because what it's saying is "We're going to choose from among a pool of men that were with us and beheld," from the baptism of John, from that time, from the time that Jesus was coming and going to the time, now it says "to be a witness with us of his resurrection. And they appointed two, Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. And they prayed and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen, that he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place. And they gave forth their lots; and that lot fell on Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles." Now this is important, because it tells you that even though Matthias, and I'm sure if we, if we check there will be some literature somewhere that is attested to his name, but probably a third or fourth century document. But what difference does it make? The bulk of the information that needed to be chronicled about the life of Christ had been done by those who did what they did, which is what we have in front of us today. But it tells you that there were at least two other men, two others apart from, if you keep, if you go back a little bit and read about those who were in the upper room, and it talks about all, there were other people. It says when Peter stands up to talk to the number of people there were about 120 there in the upper room. Now the day of Pentecost had not yet occurred. What I'm trying to tell it's ridiculous for us to think that the spread of Christianity came to its apex with, well, let's just call it the twelve now, these twelve that are going to go out and preach, who were eyewitnesses, when there remained a host of others. This book tells you if there were 120 in that room and they chose lots to replace Judas and they were only speaking of two and the lot fell on Matthias, that means there were other eyewitnesses. When we talk about the spread of Christianity it's super-important to realize that the record we have, what we call our New Testament, is not the exhaustive record. John even says in his, in his book he says it would be impossible to write all the things that the Lord said and did. I think it would be impossible to write down the myriad number that went out after this day of Pentecost and began to preach, who were indeed eyewitnesses to the risen Christ. Now you can, this is something, you know, because we're so familiar with the book we can almost take it for granted. But when you consider after the martyrdom and death; I put John as the last one of what we call the original, less Matthias, the original eyewitnesses that are chronicled, a big mistake is being made in not including the fact that there are at least a hundred and what would you say, eight more or something like that. I don't know if you want to include the fellow who's not named, Justus, or I'm sorry, Barsabas, who would eventually go out and be eyewitnesses. The commission from Christ is to be "witnesses of Me, first in" Judea, "Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth." So the question when we begin to, I mean, you think about it. Let me take Thomas, for example, because we, we have this wonderful piece of information regarding Thomas, who we know that's where the Christians, when we talk about the Thomas Christians of India; but Thomas was martyred there, and in spreading the gospel. If it was just that it all ended with the death of these, the ones we know of, I'm sure that the gospel would have still spread, but it would not have spread as vastly. And when you also consider the other mystery, which I think is not a mystery at all, if you are a history person and you want to trace the origins of Christianity in Britain, it is a no-brainer for those people who know their history to know that at some point what we call the United Kingdom or at least Britain was under Roman control. And when we talk about the Roman Empire, we, and we speak biblically, we tend to think of this little area as the Roman Empire, whereas the Roman Empire far extended great reaches of the then known world. So it is absolutely clear to me that I think there's an element that's always missing when people talk about the spread of Christianity, just reducing it down to these that we know and not including, as I said, at least 108 other individuals who were in the upper room, let alone those who will after the day of Pentecost, Peter's sermon being preached, come into the church because of the power of God and when I say the testimony, the witness of Peter. So that's where I want to start. This is; these are the important parts. Now I've spent the last, as I said, few weeks building on the empty tomb over here, and we're talking about those who saw and those who did, but now the rest of the book is about the preaching. And this is awfully ridiculous if you want to go back to those points that we've covered over the years of they were all making it up and it's a lie; it's absolutely ridiculous to even try and lend to the fact that any of this is a lie, when in fact, if it is a lie, it's pretty hard for us to make sense of this day of Pentecost event. What exactly happened if it wasn't the fulfillment of what Christ was talking about to His disciples, it makes it almost something like, well, how do you explain this? How do you explain this event? Furthermore, how do you explain, and this is the beginning of a point that I made, I believe, in my last message; how do you explain the change of an individual from the loud-mouth, impetuous Peter, who's got his mouth going to after the Spirit is poured out, Peter stands up and begins his sermon as people were standing around and at the event of the pouring out of the Spirit they were saying, "These men are drunk." And he says, "These men," he stands up and he says, "These men are not drunk, as you suppose, but this is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel," and it begins to tell them of the prophecy. Remember, there is no New Testament at this point, so he's telling the people, "This is that which was the Old part of the book," right? Because there's only one book. There's no Old and New, there's only the Old, which was the only book back then, right? He's saying, "This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel back there regarding your sons and daughters seeing visions, dreaming dreams," and so forth. He explains it to them. And then he says, "Ye men of Israel," verse 22, "hear these words," here comes the preaching, "Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonder and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves know." This was all done-you've got to follow slowly with me, because as I said, even I'm guilty of sloppy reading. You think that the people he's talking to may not have known about Jesus; that is an error. And quite frankly, if you lived in the day of Christ, I highly doubt that there'd be anybody that wouldn't have heard about this Jesus healing people, giving them sight, feeding vast multitudes. I highly doubt that there could be in that particular area a vast majority of people, considering His three-and-a-half-year public ministry, who would not have known about Jesus of Nazareth. No internet, no newspapers, but believe me, lots of mouths, saying, "How, ya, huh, muh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh," right? So it's really important in this verse 22, when he says, "A man approved of God among<i> you</i> ," emphasis, "among<i> you</i> by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of<i> you</i> ." He doesn't say that we're going to tell you about the miracles now. He says, "He did it in the midst of you, as ye yourselves know: Him, being delivered by determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God ye have taken, by wicked hands and crucifyed and slain." Here comes the preaching: "Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death," and I don't know if, if Peter is using these terms, "loosed the pains of death" like the pains of giving birth, something that cannot, it cannot be hindered; it must come to pass: "Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it." And he begins to speak about David, and then basically says, "And David is both dead, buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day." But then he goes back and he begins to speak of Christ, because in between, and I'm leaping because I don't want to run out of time here, he's referencing different Scriptures, specifically the psalms that those in the sound of his voice would be familiar with. "He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ," he's referring to Psalm 16, I believe, "that his soul was no left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus," one more time, "hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses." Now imagine this. Imagine that he's now saying, "You saw the miracles, you saw him perform. This Jesus whom God raised up, whom we are witnesses. We're telling you we saw Him raised up, alive; not dead. We're witnesses to this. This is the exact thing that Christ said, "You will be witnesses of me." And although this is something that for the bulk of my listening audience, you'll say, "Of course," but this, these messages have not been for the bulk of my listening audience. These messages are designed for people who have a, either a starting point in error, or have no starting point at all. "We, we saw Him." "Liar." Now any one of these people could have called him out and said, "Liar," but just remember what has just happened. The day of Pentecost was fully come, and this great event that happens, which is described as the pouring out of the Spirit; try and make sense of all this. No one says, at least it's not recorded here, "Liar!" Now there were people who didn't believe, of course, but he says, "This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of" the Holy Spirit, "the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear." So this is another fulfillment, "which ye now see and hear," this is a fulfillment. Keep going, because he says, "That same Jesus," verse 36, "whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. When they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?" And Peter says unto them, "Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Now you've got, that is the first preaching and it says from that first preaching, there were added "about three thousand souls." Now that, you know, we're, again we're reading something that was recorded and then again translated into our language, English. What we cannot get on paper and will never be able to get on paper is when Peter stood up, there had to be at least on the part of those who knew him, some moment of saying, like, "What? What?" because we have a record of how Peter spoke in times past before this event. The clarity in which he spoke, the precision of the things he said, with the emphasis on "this Jesus whom God hath raised up, of whom we are witnesses; we saw. You may be aware of all the things that He did among you, around you. We are witnesses of Him being raised up." Now I don't know about you. You can say, "Well, that's, you know, 'there's a sucker born every minute,' and in that day there were 3,000 of them," or you can say something must have really stirred inside the heart of some of these very devout people who were not devout to the faith of Christ, a diversity of people gathered there, most of those probably Jews. And then another preaching that occurs that is in the 3rd chapter. We have the record of the healing of the lame man before the gate of the temple. And I'm trying to point something out because I think this becomes very important. If you're going to make a case for something, keep stressing the things that are the reoccurring themes. Let something speak for itself. Nowhere here do you read of any credit on the part of the disciples, but this man, as they pass by and he was begging, and Peter says, "Silver and gold have I none; but such as I give thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. He took him by the right hand, lifted him up: immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. And he leaping up stood, walked, entered with them into the temple, walking, leaping, and praising God." So this man who's been laying there begging is now healed. And it is in front of, we'll call them the religious folk, because remember, they went into the temple. It's in front of the religious folk that you get a real good glimpse and again a repetition of what's going to be said. Read down in verse 15, or verse 14, let's start there: "But ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead; whereof we are witnesses," the same preaching, right, the same message. And then after this event they are brought before the Jewish leaders. Remember, they're going to be told to not preach this message. They're going to be told, because of the healing of the man and the preaching of Christ, they need to stop all of this. But the healing of the man was undeniable. Believe me, those, those people that went in and out of the temple, they saw that guy, they were probably sick of seeing that guy every day! Believe me, they saw him, so when they saw him healed, standing up on his feet, that would be an undeniable miracle. Before the Jewish leaders, here is the elders and scribes: "It came to pass on the morrow," the 4th chapter, 5th verse, "that their rulers, and elders, and scribes, Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, and John, Alexander, and as many as were the kindred of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem. And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, By what power, or by what name, have ye done this? Then Peter, filed with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel, if we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means is he made whole"-how did this happen? "Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even him doth this man stand here before you whole." Again, the preaching wasn't about anything except Jesus crucified, "You crucified Him, God raised Him up." And the rest of the book, it's kind of interesting, the rest of the; I'm sorry; the rest of the chapter is kind of interesting. Let me keep reading, because there's, in the next few verses, it says there's something quite profound. "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John," this is; I highlighted this in my Bible: "when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men," not a compliment, "they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus." This is no small deal here. They are standing in front of the very group that instigated; that whole band of religious leaders that instigated the crucifixion of Christ. They're standing before these very same individuals, when it says, "They took note that they had been with Jesus." Now, I just want to stand here and kind of appreciate this for a minute, because it says, "Beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it." There's only one way to silence the mouth of these people: what are you going to say about this? You're either going to say they're magicians, or they have a devil; what are you going to say? But what are you going when it says they realized they were "ignorant, unlearned," and that they had "took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus"? Now "when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, and they conferred among themselves, saying, What shall we do to these men? for that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them and is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem; we cannot deny it." We can't let it spread. And of course, you know they commanded them to not preach anymore in the name of Jesus. And it's remarkable. You read the rest of the chapter for yourself. The boldness in which these individuals, you know, think about it. The night the Lord was crucified, they all scattered. They didn't have any courage, they didn't have any boldness, they didn't have any backbone, let alone any eloquence. The only eloquent thing Peter ever said is, "Thou art the Christ." And Jesus said, "Flesh and blood hath not revealed this thing to you." That's about the best thing that came out of Peter's mouth while Jesus was alive during His public ministry. And I've said this before in my last message, which is when people have a genuine experience; I'm not your judge, I'm not your fruit inspector; change is going to occur. Change is going to happen. I don't think Peter said after the death and Resurrection of Christ, "I want to be a better man now. I'm really going to try hard to; you know, help my brethren and do good for people who are sick. You know when I see this guy laying here, I'm going to pray for him because, you know, that's what, that's what we're supposed to do." He was changed. Now I'm going to say this, so forgive me, he was much closer to the Source and the event, and I'm talking about tangibly, than we are today in the respect of how it's being told to us. But the same God is still changing people in the same way and the same manner from the inside. And I, it's just something to think about and ponder when people talk about the "mark of salvation." It's not, it is not possible to describe it in a bulk fashion, because for each person it will be different. You cannot wholesale this and say, "Well, this is going to happen to you, and you'll be able to tell a Christian woman or a Christian man." But change is going to happen, and it will probably happen over the course of your lifetime, unlike these that had an event happen; it will happen over the course of your lifetime. And over the course of your lifetime, there will be one common denominator in this change. The rest of it will be as unique for the individual's issues as, as I said, Peter was one way and we know John perhaps was another, but there will be a common thread and that is not being afraid or ashamed to say, "We are witnesses in a different way." When we say, "We are witnesses," we are no longer eyewitnesses as these were, but witnesses attesting to something that we have come to know, not like it's in my heart, but come to know from a study to realize the reality of the risen Christ. I stand here every week as that type of a witness. And when I say, I said I would explain this in my message and I don't want to run out of time, but I'll just touch on this briefly. How many times because we have been poorly conditioned, we've been contaminated by the church's interpretation of what this witness means in their lingo, in their Christianese, that because we've been conditioned to that definition of what "witness" is, at least for me, I recoil from it. I want no part of it; but a witness as I understand it from this book. Now after the eyewitnesses have died, let's just say all 120, maybe all of the 5,000 that Paul; Paul mentions 500 brethren, but let's just say the bulk of the people who were eyewitnesses, they're all dead now. Now you've got a next generation, which is eyewitnesses to eyewitnesses, "I sat around and I listened to; I listened to Uncle John tell me the story of how Jesus did this wonderful thing at the marriage at Cana," and now oral tradition, before there becomes a circulation of text, oral tradition kicks and in and I've got eyewitness to eyewitness, although not much time passes before a document is circulating chronicling these things. And I end up somehow, and you'll forgive me if the words I use are going to fall short, I still end up being an eyewitness. I'm not the original eyewitness, but what I have received here is the testimony of an eyewitness, if that makes any sense to you. Now I'm reading this for myself, recognizing the preaching that begins, starting with Peter as an eyewitness to Christ and the events that are chronicled regarding him the Gospels that are now, now we're seeing him changed and transformed in the book of Acts, and it continues. It's not just a one event. We have, if you keep turning, you have here in the 10th chapter to Cornelius, the conversion of Cornelius, and what's so fascinating about what Peter will say here: "A certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band, a devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, gave much alms to the people, prayed to God alway. He saw in a vision evidently the ninth hour," this, in this vision, "an angel of God coming to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius. And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms have come up for a memorial before God. Now send men to Joppa, and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter," and basically Peter eventually is fetched and brought to the house of Cornelius. What's, what's staggering about this, as again I'm sure you're, most of you are familiar, but if you haven't, please read this. It's so apart from anything else that this man sends for the healing of his servant. And he's calling for Peter to come and essentially pray for him, heal him. And what Peter says to Cornelius; and forgive me for the shortcutting, but I have much more to say and I'm running out of time. But it says here, again regarding the witness, he says, "And we are," verse 39, "we are witnesses of all the things which he did both," he's speaking of Jesus, "in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree," and here we go, "Him God raised up the third day, and shewed him openly; not to all the people, but unto the witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead." Again, here is the preaching. And this is where, this where I'm asking specifically for those people who still sit on the fence about this, to ask yourself the question. The crucifixion event is long over, the Resurrection story has been circulated, the ascension has happened; why preach this stuff? Why bother? Why even keep perpetuating it? But he keeps saying the same thing. Now we know the books of Acts was, at least the vast majority of it; I'm, I happen to believe that the vast majority of it was written by Luke, who he says he set out to put all things in order. And Luke is essentially chronicling these events. And he keeps referring to Peter saying the same thing: "whom they slew and hanged on a tree: God raised Him up the third day, showed Him openly." And this is the preaching that essentially keeps going. There isn't any preaching about how you will be rich on this earth and how God is going to meet every single whim and whimper of yours. There isn't any blessing pacts here. It's all about the preaching of Christ, who died, and specifically didn't just die a random death, but He died for the sins of many, and an event that essentially is the reversing of the death that all men die in Adam. And this is the preaching. Now if it's not enough to talk about this preaching, let's talk about the preaching of the apostle Paul, whom I mentioned in last week's message as Christ appeared to him, in the book of Acts, appearing to him as an enemy of the church, as an enemy of Christ. And he is converted on the Damascus Road, and then shortly after, he regains his sight, because he was blinded there on the road. Shortly after he regains his sight, he goes out and he starts preaching Christ. Again, this is the nuttiest thing if somebody's going to say, "I don't understand this," that anyone would chronicle the life of Paul and his conversion and his preaching, but here we go, because hey, if you can't just put one down, let's just keep adding them up. In the 13th chapter; it seems kind of nutty, you know, I'm going kind of line-by-line here. But in the 13th chapter we have "Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia: and john departing from them returned to Jerusalem." Here's a whole moment where Paul stands up, in verse 16, "beckoning with his hands, Men of Israel, ye that fear God, give audience." And he begins to preach. And guess what he preaches? You'll read the sermon on your own. I'm only pointing out a fact. Verse 30 of that same chapter: "But God raised him from the dead: and he was seen many days of them which came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are his witnesses unto the people." And I'm going to just keep repeating this. Let me do one more of these, because the preaching doesn't change. This is, it's important to understand the concept of "witness" as it is meant here, and what, how we should understand that in our own lives. And it is not, as I said, how the church has vastly caricatured. You've got Paul then preaching in Athens, in the 17th chapter. Here is a whole brand new audience. We're not talking about "hear ye men of Israel." Now he's got here, it says, "Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, he saw the city wholly given to idolatry. Wherefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him. Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoics, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection." Now this is, friends, if you're out there listening to me, this is the problem with the church today. If the message isn't being preached exactly, and I'm not saying that every single week you're going to hear a Resurrection message, but if it's only preached on one Sunday out of the year and mildly put and watered down at that, how can any individual come to the knowledge and the saving power of Jesus Christ if this message is not preached? If it is not replayed it the ears of people to where suddenly the idea is, it is not about what Christ is going to do for you, it's what He's done for you. That God raised Him up from the dead and that same power shall dwell in you. It, it baffles the mind! "Well, you know, you have to be current." Well, take a look at how current Paul was, pretty smart. When he realized the people around him might have been into some type of the mysteries of whatever, he, he saw an unmarked or a grave that was "TO THE UNKNOWN GOD" and proceeded to tell them who this unknown God was in the form of Jesus. He didn't start talking about how "A spaceship came down and landed and this will appeal to you, because you like mysteries out there." No. He talked about the Resurrection and explained Christ to them in terms which they could understand. Some believed immediately, some went away and said, "We need to hear more." Keep going, because I'm looking at the clock and I'm very sad right now; keep going, keep turning; turn to the 26th chapter. Here we have Paul, who is standing in front of Agrippa, and what you have here is Paul before Agrippa giving a little background of himself. And as he gives the background he then tells Agrippa what happened to him on the Damascus Road, when he says that he saw Jesus. And Jesus, "he said, Who art thou?" The 26th chapter, 15th verse, "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest." He's telling King Agrippa this. "But rise, stand upon thy feet: for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a<i> witness</i> ," there is that word again, "witness both of these things which thou hast seen, and of those things in which I will appear unto thee; delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of the Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me." No other message being preached here, except that Christ appeared, the resurrected Christ appeared to him. Now, here's what's interesting. And forgive me, because this is about the most basic thing I can do, but it's, it is about the simplest. We know that Paul goes out on all of these different journeys, and he founds churches and preaches in a diversity of places, and then letters begin to be penned. And as I've said, more than two-thirds of the New Testament is penned by the apostle Paul. A quick reading of Paul's writing, we looked at 1 Corinthians last week; 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul says, "If Christ is not risen, our faith is vain." And you begin combing through the writing of Paul and you realize that unless we can make sense of this, "declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead," speaking of Christ, and again, I'm just flipping through Romans to make the point, which is so obvious. In chapter 4, 24th verse, "But also for us, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our offences, and we raised again for our justification," and again. You keep combing through the writings of Paul, he will keep repeating the same thing: He was crucified, you crucified, you've slain. Read Galatians, you can read through the whole, the rest of the New Testament and you will find the message is there through and through. It's not as though, this is why I made the commentary about James, it's not as though James talks to us and tells us about the importance of Christ dying and being resurrected for the forgiveness of sins and to reconnect and reconcile us back to God. But you'll read about this from the man who was a Jew of Jews, trained under the feet of Gamaliel, steeped in Judaism, who now is writing to us. We read the letter of Romans, and if you keep reading, in specifically in the 6th chapter, in the 7th chapter, in the 8th chapter, in the 10th chapter, where he will keep repeating the same thing about Christ being raised up from the dead. This, "this Jesus, whom ye crucified," not specifically in this way, but raised from the dead, the resurrected life, the power of the Resurrection, that I may know the power of the Resurrection; Philippians. These are all letters attributed to Paul, Galatians, Ephesians; they all will reference the same thing. And lest you think I'm only now going to be selective, if you read what Peter writes, and we studied that 1 Peter, in the 1st chapter, he equally goes in to the same thing: Jesus raised up from the dead, a living stone, lively, living stones. So why am I doing all this? Because I said I wanted to bring this all to a close. You can analyze the Gospels, you can look at all the prophecy fulfilled, then you begin to look at the preaching that comprises the bulk of the New Testament. I'm not speaking of the Gospels themselves, I'm speaking; we just looked at Acts, which is the bridge between the Gospels and the Epistles, but rather right there in the testimony of Paul, in each and every line, in each and every book we have a record of him stressing the importance. And as I said there may be possibly with James and maybe 2 or 3 John perhaps that don't have a mention of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. But even the book of Revelation, John towards the end of his life when he says he was sitting there on the Isle of Patmos, exiled, what does he see? He sees and begins to describe the splendor of Christ appearing to him. He sees this in a vision. And I again, he says he fell as someone who was dead at the feet of the One that appeared to him, and it's given to him to see visions in heaven regarding the Lamb slain and, but he sees the living Christ. Now I'm asking for those people who still say, "Well, you know, there just"-I think what ultimately happens is you start reading this and you recognize that how could, at least from Peter and from Paul writing the bulk of what I've just quoted to you, these are either two lunatic people, delusional, who have taken up a lot of space in our brain and a lot of space in a book, or these are two witnesses, eyewitnesses in fact, to seeing Christ. This Christ who lived, who was crucified, who was buried, who was raised up on the third day; and these two men are given the boldness to preach this message in the face of persecution. Remember, Christianity would have essentially remained pretty much a splinter of Judaism had the apostle Paul not come along, who was a Jew, but it was clear to him what was the distinguishing factors of what we'll call the way that became Christianity. And this heralder brings out for us in each and every of his books this subject, which I'm asking the people out there who will listen, how much time have you spent investigating just the preaching of these people? How much time have you spent? Now let's talk about the close of this book, and I'm speaking now of the New Testament and it's done. The latest writing we have, as I said, would be from John writing the book of Revelation on the Isle of Patmos as an exile. Some put the book at 96 or 98, somewhere around there, A.D., and you mean to tell me that there were not other eyewitnesses that we, we do not know of now (we will know them later, trust me), that didn't go out and keep being eyewitnesses and then witnesses, and the witnesses that became eyewitnesses to eyewitnesses. And as time has gone by, you may say, "Well, we're so far removed from the event there are no eyewitnesses," and I know that would be, that would be the argument in a court of law; except, we're not in a court of law. The argument today is, as I said many times over; consider the evidence and the nonsensical part of this. Peter I can chock up to somebody who was still going to keep drumming, beating the drum and keep going at it and telling people about this. It can't explain, by the way, how this man, this lame man was raised up or the healing of Cornelius's, the one that was healed in his house. You can't explain those. Was it magic? How did that happen? But you can take a look at the apostle Paul and the consistency of the preaching and each one of these messages that is delivered from him, which tells you how churches were founded and how people came to the faith. And they didn't come to the faith because they had great music. They didn't come to the faith because the apostle Paul was some good-looking dude, because from his description he is kind of scrawny and pathetic-looking and they ridiculed him for his appearance and his health. And today we have the audacity to come into a house of God and say, "Well, if they don't have these criteria&" And this is why Christendom has become this impotent vessel that people don't even want to, they don't want to know, because they say, "If that's what Christianity is, no thank you." Well, that's not what Christianity is. Christianity is coming to the faith of the One who God raised up. And He raised Him up from the dead. His death paid for your sins and for mine to bring back a world that has been breached by Adam's sin in the garden and to reconnect us with the one who gave us life and breath that we might spend all eternity with Him. That resurrected One is still making eyewitnesses, if you will, today. I speak for myself and I don't like testimonies, but I speak for myself, and I've told you already and I will close the message with this. When I was in my teens, at least I would say, "I believe in God," because I did believe that there was a God, but I didn't know who God was, what He looked like, His anything about Him except He's God. And you can toss that phrase around and say, "Well, I'm a child of God," or "God is good," or "God is great." That's all wonderful, until you actually spend the time to get to know who God is. And then suddenly you realize that the things you tossed around so glibly, are not so. Saying, "I'm a good person," or "I do good things," or "I do good deeds" won't cut it with God. God's not interested in the work that you can do for Him. He's interested in seeing a heart turned towards Him to trust His and take Him at His word. Don't take my word for it. I've told you every single preacher says, "Just trust me." Run the other way. There's only one person to trust, and that is the Lord Jesus Himself, revealed to us in this book and given as a testimony. My testimony for me, when I say I am a witness, my witness is when I look back at my life and I see who I thought was God, who I did not know really as God, because I did not know God, to getting to know God and seeing now that I look back. My understanding of who it is that I'm calling God, the One whom I worship and love, He has saved me, delivered me, but more than that. When I look back at my life and I see the singular purpose for my life, this is when I say the word "witness," the singular purpose. You can live your life and be who you are, but there will be a singular thing in your life. You could lose everything else, but that one thing; you could be distracted by a thousand, but that one thing, which is not a thing but a person, Jesus in my life and in yours. So when I talk about the church, it's important when I say I am a witness. No, I'm not an eyewitness, but in fact, if I study this long enough I do indeed become an eyewitness. You know why? When God places His Spirit in you, you bear witness to the fact, the verity. Not, "I think because I feel," but I've looked, I've examined. Not because I'm analytical, but because God opened up my eyes to see the reality: without Him, as He said, I can do nothing, and with Him all things are possible, even coming to a great faith in Him that says, "Lord, whatever Your will be, let it be done." I hope somewhere you've found some handles for friends and family or even for yourself that your faith may increase in Jesus Christ. That's my message. You have been watching me, Pastor Melissa Scott, live from Glendale, California at Faith Center. If you would like to attend the service with us, Sunday morning at 11am, simply call 1-800-338-3030 to receive your pass. If you would like more teaching and you would like to go straight to our website, the address is www.PastorMelissaScott.com
