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Hunter Outreach Message 2 By David Cook

Let's join in prayer.
Lord, your word abides and our footsteps
guide who its truth believes light and joy receive.
How can a young man keep his way pure by listening to your word
and following its way?
Help us, our Heavenly Father, we pray,
not to merely listen to your word this afternoon,
but to really listen to it.
We pray that we would be slow to speak and quick to listen
and slow to become angry, but take the word deeply
into our lives, that it might work its way out
in transformation through our minds.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Life is full of learning experiences.
My wife and I have found that as you go on,
you get into different stages of life.
And we are now in the stage of being empty nesters.
We had five children, and they've all grown up
and left home.
And you find that when you come home now,
you come and sit at a big dining room table,
and you've got to actually make an effort
to think about what we'll talk about tonight
that we didn't talk about last night or the night before.
You've got to think about conversation.
And one of the things you can do,
let me warn you, as an empty nester
is that you can just sit in front of television
and watch television all night.
And it's no good.
So we decided we needed not to do that.
And we should limit ourselves to one night per week
and television.
Then we had to decide, well, which night would we
watch television and which sort of TV programs we liked?
And I said, OK, as long as cricket and rugby league
is exempt from this, that is, we can watch that at any time.
Let's talk about what we like and what we don't like.
Well, my wife likes better homes and gardens,
anything to do with the garden she likes.
And she also likes health shows.
But my preference after sport is for legal shows.
I enjoy the cut and thrust of the argument and the foreman
and the jury and the verdict and all that.
And I remember watching the trial of Bradley Murdoch, who
was accused of killing the British backpacker Peter
Falconio in the Northern Territory in Joanne Lees.
You remember that.
And you knew that Murdoch was going to be found guilty.
And you knew that he was going to be committed
for 28 years in prison.
Even so, when you watched it on television,
it's a very tense moment.
You wonder whether the jury really
will get it right on TV as they got it right in real life.
There's tension in legal shows.
Now, when we come in this section of the Book of Acts,
we are going with Paul from one jurisdiction, one court
to another court to another court.
And the Lord, if you look back, if you've got your Bibles
there, you'll see in chapter 23, verse 11,
so we're going to be moving around our Bible,
so it's best to use your Bible.
And God has told Paul in 23, verse 11,
take courage, as you have testified about me
in Jerusalem, so also you must testify in Rome.
So we know that Paul's going to come through the legal system,
and he's going to end up in Rome.
But on the way to Rome, he actually
has three court appearances.
And the first has been read to us from chapter 24.
It's before Felix in Caesarea.
So the Roman governor of Palestine
lived in Caesarea because it was sort of down by the beach,
and it was a good place to be, and it
was sort of a bit away from the Jews in Jerusalem.
But notice in verse 1 here in chapter 24
that the big guns are there.
They've come down, Ananias the high priest,
Teutulus the lawyer.
And as that was read out, you could feel the lawyer
buttering up the judge, trying to get on his right side.
But in verses 5 to 8, you see the charges
that are brought against Paul, stirring up
riots among the Jews all over the world,
a ringleader of the Nazarene sect,
and trying to desecrate the temple, so we seized him.
Now, they were upset when Paul spoke.
He certainly was a follower of Jesus the Nazarene,
and it may well be that he brought
Gentile friends into the temple area
where Gentiles weren't allowed to come.
However, Paul says these charges are just a front.
What's the real issue?
Verse 15 is the real issue.
I have the same hope in God as these men
that there will be a resurrection of both
the righteous and the wicked.
And that is repeated in verse 21.
He says, it is one thing I shouted
as I stood in their presence.
It is concerning the resurrection of the dead
that I am on trial before you today.
Now, it is interesting because Luke then
goes on to show us this little side issue that
certain of these leaders, and in this case,
certainly Felix and his wife, Drusilla,
there's something tantalising about Paul,
and they keep calling Paul back.
Now, who is Drusilla?
She is the daughter of King Herod,
who has been eaten by worms and died in chapter 12.
But her brother is King Agrippa,
and she is the third wife of Governor Felix.
Now, that is why, if you look in verse 25,
you may think, well, why would Paul
talk about righteousness, self-control,
and judgment to come?
Because he wants to know, he is a man with a third wife,
that if he does come to faith in Jesus,
it will not just be a meaningless appendage
on top of all his other religious convictions.
It will involve self-control and real moral change.
Now, in chapter 25, he comes to the second appearance
before this governor with the rather unfortunate name
of Festus, I can't name the name without thinking
of some sort of sore festering with pus.
But soon after his arrival in Caesarea,
Festus goes up to Jerusalem to get onside with the Jews.
And look at verse three, they urgently requested Festus
as a favour to them, to have Paul transferred to Jerusalem,
for they were preparing an ambush to kill him along the way.
So the Jews hadn't forgotten about Paul,
and the first opportunity they had to take the case
up again with a new governor, they take the case up.
And so in verse eight, they go to Caesarea,
then Paul makes his defence down in Caesarea.
I have done nothing wrong against the law of the Jews,
or against the temple, or against Caesar.
Now Paul, therefore, is saying clearly he's refuting
the charges that the Jews are putting against him,
but he has no great confidence in Festus,
not to transfer him back to Jerusalem.
And Paul knows that if he goes back to Jerusalem,
he won't get a fair trial, and they probably
will ambush him along the way.
So look at verse 10, I am now standing before
Caesar's court, where I ought to be tried.
I've not done anything wrong to the Jews,
as you yourself know very well.
If, however, I'm guilty of doing anything
deserving death, I do not refuse to die.
But if the charges brought against me by these Jews
are not true, no one has the right to hand me over to them.
I appeal to Caesar.
Now this was his right.
He was a Roman citizen, and as a Roman citizen,
he could appeal to the highest court in the land,
that was Julius Caesar, or Caesar's court in Rome.
And therefore, he could have his case go straight to Rome,
and that's what he appeals for.
Now the third appearance is that Festus
has immediately got a problem.
If Paul does go to Caesar, which is his right,
he needs a covering letter to go with Paul to Rome.
And that brings him in chapter 26 before Festus again,
and now the Herodian king, King Agrippa and Bernice, his wife.
And notice here that in this trial,
the apostle Paul is on the front foot.
Now have a look at verse 19, chapter 26, verse 19.
So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision
that he had on the Damascus road.
First to those in Damascus, then to those in Jerusalem,
and in all Judea, and to the Gentiles also,
I preached that they should repent and turn to God
and prove their repentance by their deeds.
That is why the Jews seized me in the temple courts
and tried to kill me.
But I have had God's help to this very day,
and so I stand here and testify to small and great alike,
I'm saying nothing beyond what the prophets and Moses said
would happen.
What did they say?
That the Christ would suffer, and as the first
to rise from the dead, would proclaim light
to his own people and to the Gentiles.
Now notice this.
It is at this point, verse 24, that Festus, the secular mind,
interrupts Paul's defense and says, rather rationally,
engaging him with argument, no way.
You're out of your mind, Paul, he shouted.
Your great learning is driving you insane.
At what point does the Roman governor, Festus, interrupt
Paul?
It is at the point where he talks
about the resurrection of the dead, the resurrection of Jesus.
Dead people do not rise.
Paul, you're mad.
You're out of your mind.
You're reading too many books.
Fascinating response, isn't it?
But a typical response.
When Frank Morrison, that young solicitor,
who had never lost a court case, he got full of himself
and believed that he was going to disprove Christianity
by disproving what was at the core of Christianity,
that is the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
He sits down as a lawyer, and he sifts
through all the evidence, and comes to the conclusion
that Jesus did rise from the dead,
and he himself becomes a Christian.
He wrote the book, Who Moved the Stone?
And the first chapter of that book
was entitled, The Book Which Refused
to be Written, because he was going to write a book refuting
Christianity, but he writes a book showing
the validity and the truth, the veracity
of the resurrection of Jesus.
See, be on the front foot.
I remember at university, as part of postgraduate studies,
I did a course in cosmology.
It's a very popular course.
There were four of us in the course.
So the lecturer each night turned up and said, look,
instead of sitting in this big lecture room,
why don't you come to my office, and we'll sit in there?
So he went and sat in his office.
It was a very nice time each Tuesday evening.
And one evening, we were doing the Pythagoreans,
the philosophers, the Greek philosophers.
And this bloke, who was never personal,
just said at one point, you know, if I weren't a Christian,
I'd be a Pythagorean.
I sat there thinking, why would anybody
want to be a Pythagorean?
The lady beside me said, why would you be a Christian?
So I'm thinking, why would you be a Pythagorean?
She's saying, why would you be a Christian?
And he just said this.
He said, oh, because of the resurrection
of Jesus from the dead.
As an historian, I've got no other way of explaining it,
but that it happened.
Now back to the Pythagoreans, and away we went.
It's fascinating.
You see, here is Festus.
He listens, listens, listens up to the resurrection
of the dead.
He attacks the irrationality of the resurrection of the dead.
How?
By attacking the messenger.
You're mad.
Your great learning is driving you insane.
Have you noticed that about the scientific secular brain?
I've got a friend who tells me that the Bible is rubbish.
He is a physicist.
He's used to the scientific method.
Oh, you've read it, have you?
No, I haven't read it.
Well, how do you know it's rubbish then?
Because it's rubbish, so I'm not going to read it.
Very scientific, isn't it?
It is madness.
Now notice his response.
It is a rational opposition.
And what does the Apostle Paul say?
Look at verse 26.
The king is familiar with these things.
I can speak freely to him.
I am convinced that none of us has escaped this notice.
King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets
who foretell the resurrection?
I know you do.
Then Agrippa said to Paul, do you
think that in such a short time you
can persuade me to be a Christian?
Look at the response, verse 29.
Short time or long, I pray, God, that not only you,
but all who are listening to me today may become what I am.
Oh, except, of course, for these chains.
I wouldn't wish them on anyone.
So notice Paul's persuasive appeal.
Here, Luke is showing us that Paul has three appearances, one
before Felix, one before Festus, and one
before Festus and Agrippa.
Luke is showing us that the Roman judicial system works.
Paul's case is heard three times so that when he comes to Caesar,
he has come through the system that works.
And the Apostle Paul, no matter which court he is in,
never let's lose the sight of the fact
that he is Christ's ambassador.
Now flip back in your Bibles to chapter 23, verse 29.
And here is the commander of the Jerusalem garrison.
Listen to what he says about Paul.
This is very significant.
Acts 23, 29.
I found that the accusation against Paul
had to do with questions about their law,
but there was no charge against him that
deserved death or imprisonment.
He didn't deserve guilt. Look at chapter 25, verse 25.
Flip with me, please.
I found, says Festus, I found that he had done nothing
deserving of death, but because he made his appeal
to the emperor, I decided to send him to Rome.
And then finally, look at chapter 26, verse 32.
Agrippa said to Festus, this man could
have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.
Now my friends, there's three court cases, three declarations
of innocence, and I've watched enough television legal shows
to know that a person cannot be tried twice for the same
crime.
I think it is called double jeopardy.
Here, it is triple jeopardy.
Paul has been declared innocent three times.
Some of you will know we've got a fellow in Sydney
called Alan Jones.
He's on the radio in the morning,
and 20% of the Sydney radio audience listen to him.
You can never meet anybody who admits to listening to him,
but 20% do.
And you'll know that recently, Alan Jones
found guilty of contempt of court
because he named the identity of a child involved in a trial.
And the magistrate found him guilty, fined him $1,000,
which doesn't mean a thing to Alan Jones,
but gave him a criminal record.
And that does mean something because that reflects on him.
It places a shadow over him.
It's a reflection on all his radio programme.
And he appealed against that, and he won the appeal.
Now, what Luke is saying to us here,
friends, is that there is no such shadow over the gospel.
There is no reflection here on the gospel
or on its messenger.
He has been heard three times, and on each occasion
by Lysias, by Festus, and then by Agrippa,
he has been declared innocent.
Now, keep your finger there, if you would,
and go back to Luke chapter 23.
Same author, volume one, flip back, Luke 23.
Have a look at this.
Here is our Lord Jesus, not the apostle Paul this time,
but he is now before Pontius Pilate.
Look at what Pilate says about Jesus in verse four.
So therefore, here is the Roman governor in Jesus' day.
Verse four, then Pilate announced
to the chief priests and the crowd,
I find no basis for a charge against this man.
Flip down, if you would, to verse 13.
Pilate called together the chief priests,
the rulers of the people, and said to them,
you brought me this man as one
who was inciting the people to rebellion.
I have examined him in your presence
and have found no basis for your charges against him.
Now go to verse 15.
Neither has Herod, for he sent him back to us.
As you can see, he has done nothing to deserve death.
Three statements of innocence.
Two by Pilate, one by Herod.
Three statements of innocence of our Lord Jesus
and three statements of innocence
of the apostolic messenger.
In other words, Luke is showing us
that everything is happening under God's oversight.
Everything that God had determined should happen beforehand
and there is no criminal charge nesting over our Lord Jesus
and there is no criminal charge nesting
over his gospel character.
Now I, as a man about Paul's age, look at these court cases
and I've only been to court once.
And I tell you, I was there as a witness
and I found it a harrowing experience.
But Paul is going from jurisdiction
to jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
And I ask myself, what takes a bloke in his 60s on
and when he goes to a new jurisdiction,
he's not on the back foot in defence,
he's on the front foot.
He's accusing his accusers almost.
And chapter 24 verse 15, I think sums it up for us.
I have the same hope in God as these men,
that there will be a resurrection
of both the righteous and the wicked.
That's what Paul's conviction is,
that there will be a resurrection.
Look at chapter 26 verse eight.
Why should any of you consider it incredible
that God raises the dead?
And chapter 26 verse 23, where he makes it quite clear
that the Christ would suffer and as the first
to rise from the dead, would proclaim light
to his own people and to the Gentiles.
In other words, Paul knew that there was going to be
a day of resurrection and he would rise
as part of that day and he would give an account
before almighty God.
Paul preached that persuasively.
Paul argued that in a court of law.
Paul believed it.
Do you believe it?
That's what I ask you today.
Do you believe it?
You might say, amen.
Do you?
I believe it and yet I don't believe it.
I believe it.
Help, Lord, mine unbelief.
I have faith but my faith is never perfect
because I'm human.
There is always a residue in my faith of unbelief.
To be human is to be unbelieving
and I need ongoing help to overcome unbelief.
I can remember one time I went to the doctor
and you know, hypochondriacs like me go to the doctor.
I had recurring symptoms and I sat down
and I'd read an article in the Women's Weekly,
always dangerous, in which this person said
the same symptoms that I had and I sat down with my GP.
This is many, many years ago
and I said, do I have so-and-so?
And he looked at me and I thought,
he said, oh, don't be stupid, Dave.
He said, there's a very real possibility
that you've got that.
Vung, what?
He said, but it's all right.
You could have up to 10 years of normal life.
What?
10 years of normal life.
So I went home and I got all depressed
and I started worrying about this
and it got around town that I'd had this terminal illness.
I went to church on Sunday.
I immediately started preaching on the Christian's hope
and all these other things and I thought, good grief.
And then one of the elders in the church
came up to me after the Sunday morning service.
I got that verdict or I got that indication on Friday.
I went to church Sunday and he came up and he said,
oh, I heard you had some news during the week.
I said, yeah.
He said, I thought you'd be interested in this
and he gave me a cassette tape to listen to.
It was entitled, The Christian's Hope.
Preacher, David Cook.
You preach it, son.
Do you believe it?
Do you believe it?
Isn't it fascinating of the seven letters
to the churches in Revelation,
five of them are corrective of sins
that directly flow from unbelief.
Losing your love, tolerating sin,
spiritual deadness, spiritual half-heartedness.
There will be a resurrection of the righteous
and the wicked.
Paul preached it.
Did he believe it?
He recited it, was it real?
He preached it, was it living?
Certainly it was.
The heart of the man had an undying conviction
and how did that show itself?
Go back just a few chapters in Acts to chapter 20, verse 24,
which I think is the outstanding verse
in the whole book of Acts.
Look at what he says here.
However, verse 24 of Acts chapter 20,
I consider my life worth nothing to me.
If only I may finish the race and complete the task
the Lord Jesus has given me,
the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.
That's it.
That's what he said.
There's a day coming and my life has no meaning
and value to me apart from the fact
that I live to fulfill the ministry God has given to me.
Why is that?
We'll look down at verse 28 of chapter 20.
He says, keep watch over yourselves
and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit
has made you overseers.
Be shepherds of the church of God
which he bought with his own blood.
That's it, isn't it?
That's why Paul could say,
I consider my life worth nothing to me
because it is worth nothing to me.
I have been bought with the blood of Jesus.
Do you remember when he speaks to the Corinthians
about sexual purity?
Just have a look, if you've got your Bible there,
just go over to 1 Corinthians 6, 19
because he is a vital spiritual principle.
I think it is the great spiritual principle
to carry us on in all our engagement.
What does Paul say?
Verse 18 of 1 Corinthians 6,
flee from sexual immorality, why?
Because look at verse 19,
you are not your own, you were bought at a price.
You were blood bought people.
You belong to God.
You do not belong to yourself.
Now you know this goes right back to Exodus chapter 13.
The parents of Israel wake up in the morning.
They could not help but notice
that the Egyptian mothers and fathers
were screaming and crying out
because they had gone to their first born son's bedrooms
and found the first born son's dead.
And they rushed to their own son's bedrooms
to see if they were dead, but they were alive.
They sit up in bed, mom, dad, what's the matter?
Why were their sons alive?
Because they had taken the blood of the Passover lamb
and put it over the doorpost of the house.
And their sons had been redeemed.
And what does God say to them?
He says, that's true.
But I want you to know that they are no longer your sons.
You've gone to their bedroom this morning,
but they're no longer your sons because I've bought them.
They're mine.
I've redeemed them.
Now this is what the apostle Paul says to the Corinthians.
You no longer belong to you.
You have been redeemed.
You have been bought with the precious blood of Christ.
You do not belong to you.
Now just flip over a few pages to 2 Corinthians chapter five.
See how he puts it here slightly different.
We need all these reminders.
We need to hear it again and again.
2 Corinthians five verse 14.
For Christ's love compels us because we are convinced
that one died for all and therefore all died
and he died for all that those who live
should live no longer for themselves
but for him who died for them and was raised again.
Christ gave his life for you,
therefore the life which you have to live,
you live for him.
That's vitally true, isn't it?
This is why Paul could say,
I count my life worth nothing to me.
Why?
Because I've been redeemed.
You cannot claim the benefits of redemption
without facing up to the implications of redemption.
The implication of redemption is
you don't belong to you anymore.
Always sit down with students.
What I'm seeking God's guidance for the future,
it's got nothing to do with you what your future holds.
Go and talk to the elders of the church.
Do what they tell you to do.
You say, what right do you have to say no?
It's one of the things I love about the Gideons.
If you join the Gideons, you lose the right to say no.
It's terrific, isn't it?
I don't have to ask you, would you stand for this position?
You can't say no.
This is true.
If you come as a student to our college,
you've got to sign this statement.
Never changed, it's a statement I signed back in 1968.
And it starts off by saying,
the full and final authority of the Bible
is a revealed word of God.
All that, it's very good, sign it.
If you go out with a mission society,
you'll have to sign a doctrinal statement.
What I'd like to say is, can you sign that?
However, I consider my life worth nothing to me,
if only I may finish the race
and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me.
Can you sign your life away?
Now that's what keeps Paul going.
Can you sign your life away?
Last year, I was overseas in Ecuador, visiting missionaries,
received a phone call from Australia
that my 92-year-old mother had died.
So we came back and I went back to the family home
where I had lived since I was four years of age.
And my parents owned that house
in the eastern suburbs of Sydney for 52 years.
And I went back and I thought,
I just don't know how I'm going to emotionally cope with this
and I went into the house with my wife and my sisters,
walked through the house
and I wasn't emotionally moved at all.
And then eventually we cleaned the house out
and we came to the point where it went to auction
and I thought, what's it going to be like
when it goes to auction?
And will I be emotionally moved?
I wasn't emotionally moved at all.
I went in six weeks later with my sisters
for our last cleanup of the house
to empty it of absolutely everything
and clean it up for the new owner.
And I gathered with my two sisters,
we put our arms around each other
and we stood in my parents' bedroom,
then in the dining room and said goodbye to the house
and I wasn't emotionally moved at all
and I'm a very emotional person.
And then about six or seven weeks later,
I was driving down the street with a friend of mine
and he said, come on,
let's go and look at your mum and dad's house.
Good, we will, Alan, let's go.
We got outside my mum and dad's house and Alan said,
right, we'll turn the car off, let's go in.
I said, we can't go in.
It's not mine anymore.
And all of a sudden it hit me.
I was overwhelmed and couldn't speak.
This is not mine anymore.
I just can't go up and open the back door
and go into my old bedroom and go into my parents' bedroom,
go into the lounge room and the dining room.
It's not mine anymore.
Now friends, that is the way it is.
Paul says, I count my life worth nothing to me
because it's not mine anymore.
Because I have been bought
with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Here is the clear spiritual principle.
Karl Marx said, a communist is a dead man on reprieve.
James Calvert went out as a pioneer missionary to Fiji.
They said, you'll die out there.
He said, I'm dead already.
And isn't that what Paul says,
see yourself as a living sacrifice.
That's what gave Paul his persistence,
his view of himself as redeemed,
and his certain future of giving an account
at the resurrection before God in judgment.
And for Paul, that meant preaching and teaching
and court cases and going to Jerusalem,
being beaten, shipwrecked, snakebite, bearing testimony.
What will it mean for you?
What will it mean for me?
We're surrounded by people who live for ease and security.
It won't mean that.
We're surrounded by people who live for extension.
As long as we can stay here, it won't mean that.
We are to be people who live for exchange.
His life for mine, my life for his.
In July 2009, I was invited to go to a literary lunch.
As some of you said before,
you'd read the book, The Unheeded Christ.
And I was to go to a literary lunch in London
to talk about this book.
On the platform, there was a lady called Suzanne Geske,
and she had just written a book,
and she was going to promote her book.
Suzanne Geske's husband was called Tillman Geske.
He was 46 years of age,
and they were German missionaries in Turkey.
And in April 2007, Tillman, her husband Tillman Geske,
and two other missionaries had 10 young men
come early morning for breakfast
to read and study the Bible together.
As they sat down with those three young men
who were inquirers and their seven friends
that they had brought with them,
these 10 young men took out guns,
bread knives, ropes, and towels,
and killed the three missionaries,
virtually decapitated them, a father of three.
And here, Suzanne Geske said,
in a country where blood revenge is all important,
I said on national television,
I forgive every one of those men
who did this to my husband.
My friends, we must not come away
from these chapters in Acts and say Paul was a superman.
No, he was not a superman.
He was a weak and a frail man like you and me.
He was a man who believed his belief.
It wasn't just preaching, it was living.
It wasn't just reciting.
It was real.
And this is what he says,
I consider my life worth nothing to me.
Can you say that?
If you claim redemption, you must say that.
If only I may finish the race
and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me,
the task of testifying to the gospel of God's grace.
Our heavenly Father, we pray that you would help us
in the power of your Holy Spirit to face up
to the wonderful benefits of redemption
and the wide-ranging implications of being bought
with the blood of your Son, the Passover Lamb.
In his name we pray.
Amen.