The First Christians

[00:00:01] Jude, verse three, a fairly familiar scripture. [00:00:09] He wrote, beloved. So he's speaking to the saints, to the church. [00:00:13] When I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation. [00:00:22] That's a key word there, that common salvation. [00:00:27] It was needful for me to write unto you and exhorted that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. [00:00:42] Need to know what you stand for is what he's telling you. He said, you need to earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. That's why you don't just go into serving God blindly and say, I'll do whatever. He said there was something given, something delivered, something presented to the church, and it was this common sacrifice. It was something that they had that would save them, save others, save the world. And so we need to be mindful of the scriptures and not take lightly the words in this book, because it does tell us about salvation. [00:01:25] And it's not just any salvation. It's this common salvation. It was what they were given at the beginning. It was once delivered unto the saints. [00:01:36] If you'll look in acts chapter two and verse 44, you'll see on the day of Pentecost, we know acts chapter two is the day of Pentecost. Peter has been preaching, people have been obeying, people are being added to the church. Look what it says. [00:01:51] Everyone there. At the beginning, at the birth of the church, all that believed were together and had all things common. [00:02:02] That's where the handoff was like, almost like the relay race. This was prophets and people and faithful witnesses and saints had been running this race, and the baton was passed. [00:02:23] All that believed, everyone that believed they had all things common. [00:02:27] Hard to say that about today, isn't it? [00:02:31] There may be some common factors, but he said they had all things common. Today we're going to talk on this subject. The first Christians. [00:02:43] First Christians, let's pray for the lesson and just pray for our minds to be open to the word of God today. Lord, we love you. Thank you. Oh, thank you, Lord, for calling us out of darkness into your marvelous light. Thank you for the truth of your word. Thank you, Father Lord, for the light that it brings. [00:03:02] Lord, today I pray that we'll hear what the spirit is saying. We'll see, Lord, what you're speaking to us. God, we're going to praise you for all these things. Help me for just a little while, Lord, to teach our people and to bless us all with your word in Jesus name. Everyone said, amen. Give the Lord a hand clap of praise and a shout before you're seated. Hallelujah, the first christians. Praise the Lord. [00:03:32] Thank you, Jesus. This. A few weeks ago, I started with the subject of how it was from the beginning. [00:03:42] We talked about how Jesus would go to prove a point to the Jews and the Pharisees at that time. He would not stop with Moses, but he would go all the way back to the beginning, how God intended things to be. And I told you then that would be kind of like the forward of a book. It would give you insight into what these next few lessons we talk about things that the church had and held from the beginning. Last week we talked about for the perfecting of the saints, how God had given apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints. And he said also that it would bring them into the unity or the commonality of the faith, that they would have things in common. And that's why the people that believed what Peter and the rest of those disciples were saying that day, on the day of Pentecost, it was recorded that they had all things common. They believed the doctrine that was being preached today. [00:04:48] People want to know, where do I come from? [00:04:52] You ever thought beyond just where your hometown is? But where do we come from? [00:05:00] Not just where you were born. [00:05:06] I was born in Covington, Georgia. Raised a good part of my life in Covington, Georgia. But that's nothing where my people come from, that's not where just poof and Waldens existed in Coveton, Georgia. They came from other places, far away. [00:05:28] Who are my people? What's my origin? Who are my ancestors? And people want to know these kind of things. It's interesting to them. They want to find out, was there anything else? Why are we the way we are? [00:05:43] When people had older bibles or a family bible in the front of it, you would often see the family tree and the husband and wife would put their names, and it would extend out to their parents, their grandparents, great grandparents maybe, and just let everybody know, these are who got us here. But even farther than that, you could fill the book with the genealogy. If you've read any of the Bible, you know that genealogies go way, way, way back. We get bored with them reading them in scripture. [00:06:19] But it's these types of questions, where do I come from? And these desires, wanting to know who my ancestors are that have led to more than just family trees or strolling through a cemetery, looking at headstones, trying to find somebody with your same name. [00:06:35] If you were to go on the Internet now, you could search DNA testing. [00:06:41] You could go to myheritage DNA. [00:06:44] That's where you can find out your ancestral migration patterns. [00:06:51] You could go to living DNA. That's where you can do more research on who your ancestors were. Ancestry DNA. You find your genetic relatives. [00:07:03] If you concerned with your wellness, you can look up vitagene and that'll help you with things. Maybe you need to make yourself well. GPS origins again, ancestral migration patterns. Let's get checked. That's for your health. [00:07:22] 23 andme. I know y'all heard of that. [00:07:25] And that's where you can find what ethnicities you have in your background. [00:07:31] And then there is toolbox genomics or futura genetics. All those deal with your health and carrier genes so you can find out where your ancestors come from. [00:07:46] What ethnicity is in my background. [00:07:50] My aunt, one of my aunts that she passed away now, but she did research on Waldens and found out that even though most people think we all came from Porterdale, actually our ancestors were from Italy. [00:08:08] They said there were these italian monks that came over. I guess they didn't stay monks because we're here. But that's where these things started at. That's why I have maybe some slight italian characteristics. [00:08:30] I don't really like a lot of italian food. I like spaghetti, but anyway. But this is what people want to know. Where did that come from? And this is why it answers questions about your hair. Why is my hair so thin or fine? Or why is it so thick and bushy? Or why are my eyebrows like this? Why does my second toe look like a finger? [00:08:55] It has to do with where you, who your ancestors are. There's something inside of you that after you're born, you may be born of these two parents that you see, but someone who's been long gone passed down things into you that you don't even realize. And it makes up your skin tone. [00:09:16] Why am I so light skinned? Why do I burn as soon as I walk out into the sun? It's all these kind of things that you end up. [00:09:23] You find out when you realize this is where we came from. This is why we are fair skinned. And most people say, well, no, I'm american. [00:09:39] Your ancestors could be scandinavian, they could be german, italian. They could be. I can tell you this, that before your mom and dad brought you into this world, your ancestors were somewhere on the other side of the pond. [00:09:55] They was on some other side of water. [00:09:59] That's just a fact. Unless you are native American. [00:10:03] Then your people came across through a ship somehow and began to have families. And as the lineage moved and moved and moved, eventually, boom, here you are. That's how you got here. [00:10:18] So it's a pretty neat thing to do, to look and see where your ancestors came from. It's just interesting to know those things and it can explain some of your characteristics, why you are the way that you are. [00:10:39] But there's another identifier for most Americans, a lot of Americans, maybe not as many as there used to be, there's an identifier that you would find Americans apply to themselves. And that's, I'm a Christian. [00:10:54] Okay. [00:10:56] This nation, you know, we, most people say, well, this is a christian nation. It was founded on christian principles. Many of the founding fathers would quote scripture, they were praying men. There's historical documentation of the prayers they prayed. [00:11:13] You hear about the prayers of George Washington or how Abraham Lincoln would pray as he was elected president, as Solomon did. Lord, just show me how to lead these people. And so they did believe in God, professed faith and belief in God. Most of them came here for religious freedom because of persecution where they were. But there were some of our founding fathers. William Penn is a great example. He was actually a oneness believer. [00:11:43] The reason he was sent to America is because he would not stop fighting the trinitarian churches, Europe. And they said, look, we'll let you out of jail. They locked him up for it, said, if you'll just go. [00:11:58] And so they put him on a ship and sent him to the colonies. And I believe that it is Philadelphia that he is credited with that town of developing. But you can actually read some of his writings. I actually ordered this book. It's called the Sandy foundation shaken. And it is his letters disputing and his arguments against the trinitarian doctrine that he was fighting against. He was oneness and he was in our founding fathers. [00:12:32] So what does it mean now today? What does it mean to be called a Christian? [00:12:39] We could ask in here. We probably get a lot of similar answers, probably get some different answers. If you look on the Internet, you'll find it says a Christian is a believer. A person who has received christian baptism, a born again believer. Merriam Webster says anyone who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ would be considered Christian. [00:13:03] Wikipedia, actually, to me I thought had one of the better definitions, said a person who adheres to Christianity, which is a monotheistic abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Even Wikipedia knows that there's only one, it's monotheistic. Abraham believed in one God, hero Israel. Lord our God is one Lord. Abraham, the father of faith, the scripture says, is the father of us all. So the truth is, if you look, you will find any definition on the web that fits your idea of a Christian. [00:13:46] But where did we come from? [00:13:50] Who were our christian ancestors? [00:13:55] What makes up our spiritual DNA that influences the way we act, the way we talk, the way we look, the way we worship, the way that we believe? [00:14:09] If you were to ask most people, where did you come from today? They would say, well, I'm Catholic and I came from the Catholics. Well, you go back as far as 325 ad. The council of Nicaea, some. There's other dates that some. [00:14:29] The Catholic Church has kind of made up a lot of things about their origin and they actually claim that they've been around since the time of Jesus because they believe in him and that Peter was their first pope. But we know that to be false doctrine. [00:14:48] If you're Baptist, guess what? You didn't start in Georgia, but in Holland. [00:14:58] 16 oh, 916. Twelve. That's where you would trace your baptist roots back to. United Methodists as early as 1730. But in the United States not until 1968. [00:15:11] They're only as old as I am. [00:15:14] Presbyterian Church, 16th century, 1560 and 1640. Their greatest dates noted for their formation, Episcopalians, 1789. United States of America, seven day Adventist, May 21, 1863. The Mormon Church, April 6, 1830. Jehovah Witness, 1870. [00:15:38] Non denominational started. In the 18th century, people decided, I don't want to be called anything, I just want to be called Christianity. That starts around 18th century. The Pentecostals in the United States of America, 1906 to 1915 at the Azusa street revival. And if anybody wanted just to know, the UPCI where I hold license with was formed in 1945. [00:16:04] But Christianity goes farther back than any of these. [00:16:12] The United States of America. [00:16:15] Anglo Saxon Americans were not the first Christians. [00:16:22] And if we don't lose that westernized view of Christianity, we never see fully what Christianity is supposed to be. [00:16:32] The United States does not have a monopoly on Christianity. [00:16:39] The farther one gets away from their origin, the less likely they are. [00:16:45] Let's say you had a beautiful asian couple raised in Hong Kong, fall in love and get married. They moved to the United States. While they're here, they have a son. [00:17:03] He is completely asian. His mama is asian, his dad is asian, but now he is in America and he is going to be. Of course they are going to teach him things about their culture, sure, but he is going to be influenced by who he hangs around with, who he goes to school with, what he learns in school, what he watches on tv what he listens to, all the different things, the foods he is going to be consuming while he is here is going to begin to shape who he is. Now when he gets married, he finds, you know, a complete american girl. Marries her, they have a son. He's going to be even less like his grandparents because it's moving farther away. And then when he has kids, there'll be some traits. [00:17:55] Hair, eye color, skin color, things that nature. But the further and further it goes, the less like he will be or resemble his grandparents who came from that mainland, who came here from another country. [00:18:12] And the same thing has happened to Christianity is that it has been carried around the world. And that's fine as long as it stays faithful to scripture. But once it got into the hands of men, it began to look less and less like what it did in the scripture. [00:18:38] That's a fact. [00:18:40] The main, central theme of Christianity is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul said this about the gospel, romans one and 16. [00:18:51] For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. This is Paul, a jew. [00:18:57] He's not ashamed of this gospel of Jesus Christ to be called by it, to be preaching it, to be changed by it. He says it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believes. But it was to the jew first and also to the Greek. [00:19:16] Nothing about american. [00:19:21] We fit into that, to all that believe category. [00:19:27] The first disciple. And, you know, we could go back and say, really? The first disciples, the twelve that Jesus called, they were christian because they followed the teachings of Christianity. They were monotheistic. They believed in hear, o Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. And they believed that he had been manifested in the man Jesus Christ. And they followed him. [00:19:53] It started with twelve disciples, not 13 colonies. [00:20:01] That's a fact. [00:20:04] But since we know we live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, we know that we're born again by the word of God. Let's check the scripture and see what it says about being a Christian. [00:20:22] It's mentioned only three times in the book. In acts eleven, acts 26 and one Peter four. [00:20:30] But in acts eleven. I want to start here and read a portion of scripture. Acts eleven, starting with verse 19. [00:20:38] It says, now they which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen, they traveled as far as Phoenas and Cyprus and Antioch preaching the word to none but unto the Jews only. [00:20:55] And some of them were men of Cyprus and Cyrene, which when they were come to Antioch, they spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus. So they're preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. The hand of the Lord was with them and a great number believed and turned unto the Lord. [00:21:17] Then tidings of these things came unto the ears of the church, which was in Jerusalem. And they sent forth Barnabas that he should go as far to Antioch who when he came, he had seen the grace of God. He was glad, exhorted them all that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. For he was a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith. Much people was added unto the Lord. Then departed Barnabas to Tarsus to seek Saul, which is Paul. And he said when he had found him, he brings him back to Antioch. And it came to pass that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church and taught much people. [00:22:00] And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch, the first place that you'll ever find anybody called Christian was in Antioch. Antioch is 300 miles north of Jerusalem. It's in Syria. [00:22:19] They were not the Jews from Galilee like they were in the gospels. Not the Pharisees. These were Grecians. They worshiped idols. They worshiped other gods. [00:22:33] They had all kind of idolatry in their life. But Paul and Barnabas were there for a year. And the transformation was so extreme that a new title is attached to them. The church beforehand had been referred to as disciples, saints, believers, followers of the way sect of the Nazarenes, things like that. But now that people, especially in Antioch here, now that they fully identified with Christ, they are called Christianity. So farther back than any denominal church that we can name, farther back than any church that was on that list that we talked about that had dates specifically that you could trace them back to. [00:23:26] We go to the book of acts to find where christians came from. [00:23:31] And it's amazing to me today that most christian churches so very lightly regard the book of acts, some discount it altogether. There's nothing in it that has any means of salvation because it's only a historical book. And yet it is in the book of acts that all these other denominations and non denominations that they discount and just throw away so lightly skip over when they're reading, don't preach out of it. It's in this very book, in the book of acts, where the people were first called Christians. [00:24:08] And now when you look at the world and through, you look at the nominal faith today through the lens of the Book of Acts, you see just how far Christianity has been removed from what it started out to be. [00:24:25] I can tell you what was happening in Antioch. [00:24:28] They were repenting of their sins. [00:24:31] They were being baptized in Jesus name, and they were being filled with the Holy Ghost, because that's the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that's the gospel that they were teaching. And so these Grecians, these Greeks, to the jew first, remember he said first they were preaching to the Jews, and now these Greeks, these Grecians, these gentiles, now we find that even they are believing, and they were the first ones to be called Christians. [00:25:02] This is where we find our ancestral christian DNA. If anybody wants to know why we worship the way we worship, look at the book of acts. If anybody wants to know why we baptize the way we baptize, look at the book of acts. Why we believe people being filled with the Holy Ghost, speaking in other tongues, just look at the book of acts. Why do we conduct ourselves in the way we do? Just look at the Book of Acts. [00:25:32] You can't jump to the letters. [00:25:35] They skip the book of Acts and go right to the letters. [00:25:39] But when you try to take somebody who knows nothing about Jesus and save them through the letters that Paul and Peter and Tim, all these letters that they wrote to the church, there's a good episode on Byblos about this, and I've preached some of it sometimes before, but about reading other people's mail. [00:26:00] Whenever you try to take someone who knows nothing about Jesus and then give him the promises of the Book of Romans, you're trying to take the benefits of somebody else's mail. [00:26:14] You can't just say, when Paul wrote the things he wrote in Romans about calling on the name of the Lord and confessing and things like that, he was writing that to people who were already born again believers. [00:26:29] He was already talking to people who had experienced new birth and salvation. He was writing to them. You can't take someone off the street and just say, hey, look, go to Romans, chapter ten and you'll be saved. Get on this romans road to salvation. There's no such thing. [00:26:45] If we're going to be Christian, if we're going to really, I don't want to be, you know, I don't want to be hyphenated if I'm going to be Christian. Let me look back, because that's where you're going to find it. You've got to look back to see how to go forward. You've got to look back to see. This is where our makeup comes from. This is where our DNA comes from, our spiritual DNA. This is why we're baptized into one body by one spirit, the Holy Ghost. That's our spiritual DNA. Where were they receiving the Holy Ghost? Book of acts. You don't read about anybody receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost speaking in other tongues until the Book of Acts in the Old Testament, when it talks about Samson and the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of God coming upon him, or Saul being filled with the spirit prophesying, that's not the same as the infilling of the Holy Ghost. [00:27:40] We know because the Holy Ghost was not yet given. [00:27:43] Jesus talked about that and John recorded it. They said they didn't understand what he was talking about because the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because he wasn't glorified yet. So to be a Christian, to be like the first christians to earnestly contend for the faith that was once delivered unto the saints, you're going to have to tell them about the book of acts. [00:28:09] You've got to tell them about biblical salvation. [00:28:13] That's what the first christians believed in. That's what the first christians grabbed hold of. They were preaching Jesus to the people. [00:28:22] Things were happening. Ephesians two and 20, these are the apostles now that were doing it. But ephesians two and 20 says, and we are built, the church, the saints, we are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. The foundation, that's the first layer. [00:28:40] So we got to go all the way back to the foundation to find what we're built on. [00:28:46] Foundation of. Apostles, prophets, Jesus Christ. They didn't get away from Jesus, but he is the chief cornerstone. [00:28:55] You have to build on him, for there's no other foundation laid that can be laid. Jesus Christ, we know that, but it then warns us, beware how you build on that. [00:29:07] Acts 242 again, after they had been, they had repented of their sins, been baptized and filled with the Holy Ghost, it says. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread, and in prayers. They stayed with, with it. [00:29:29] They didn't get away from it. You know, there are people, and, man, they may move here from another country and they still hold on to their cultural traditions, and there ain't a thing in the world wrong with that, man, that's fine. [00:29:50] It doesn't matter where you go, it's okay for people to know who you are and where you came from. [00:29:59] I think it's fine. Don't bother me a bit. [00:30:03] And I think as christians, it don't matter where we go. We should be. Now we call ourselves apostolic, and that's simply because we're built on the foundation of the apostles. We continue steadfastly in the apostles doctrine, what these people taught in the book of acts of to help identify us, we say we're apostolic. I don't think there's anything wrong with letting people know. I like to act and I like to believe, and I like to preach what the first christians preached. [00:30:36] When did anybody ever get a license to change what the first christians were? [00:30:44] But as the church began to birth children farther and farther away from Antioch, from Jerusalem, from these places where it started, they started with men's doctrines, traditions. Get rid of this, add this, change that, and that's given us the Christianity that we have today. [00:31:07] And on that list that I read today, everyone except, well, the pentecostal church believes in the doctrine of the Trinity, does not believe biblical salvation according to acts 238. [00:31:26] So which church on that list lines up most closely to the church in Antioch? The pentecostal church. It doesn't mean that we don't have work to do. [00:31:42] I'm not even saying. I know that in every one of those denominations there are people who are devoted and faithful and dearly love the Lord and want to be closer to God. And I believe just like if the church will be the church that, just like Paul and Barnabas were sent to Antioch to help people with their faith, that the church, the apostles of fivefold ministry was giving for that perfecting of saints to preach the gospel as it was to them so that there can be christians again that are like the first christians who believed what the apostles were teaching. They didn't make it up. They got their instructions from Jesus. [00:32:27] I'm going to reference a few things right here just to show you what these apostles, since we are following in their doctrine. The apostle Peter, in acts chapter two, when you read his message, he is preaching about Jesus Christ. He tells, he is winding up his message. And he says, and this same Jesus that you have crucified is both Lord and Christ. [00:32:50] And they said, when they heard this, they said, men and brethren, what shall we do? And Peter said, 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 for the promises unto you and to your children and all that are far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. [00:33:09] Peter preached Jesus the chief cornerstone, but he did not preach it without water being born of the water and being born of the spirit. [00:33:19] In acts chapter eight, you will find that Philip is in Samaria. In Philip, in Samaria preaching. And people are believing and they are being baptized in the name of the Lord. And he sends for other apostles to come down. And when they laid their hands on them, they received the Holy Ghost. He preached Jesus in Samaria, and he preached being born of water and being born of the spirit. When he catches the eunuch on this chariot going across the desert, he takes the scroll of Isaiah and he preaches Jesus. And in the preaching of Jesus, the eunuch finds the need for baptism, because as soon as they see water, he says, here's water. What does hinder me from being baptized? And Philip said, nothing if you believe. And he said, I do believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God. And he says, he takes him in the water and he baptizes him. And he says, and he goes on his way, rejoicing, which is a physical, an outward sign of being filled with the spirit of God, the Holy Ghost. [00:34:20] I have no doubts. I fully believe that as he rode away, he was speaking in another language. [00:34:25] Rejoicing. [00:34:27] In acts, chapter ten, Peter finds himself in a place he never thought he would be. In the house of the Gentiles. He was at Cornelius House. And he begins to preach Jesus. And it says, while he is preaching Jesus, the Holy Ghost falls upon them. [00:34:43] They begin to speak with other tongues, just like they did at the beginning. [00:34:48] He says, well, who can forbid water, that these should not be baptized also? And he commands them to be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. He preaches Jesus, but he does not preach it without being born of water and being born of the spirit. In acts, chapter 19, Paul in his travels, he comes to Ephesus, and he finds John, some disciples of John the Baptist. And he says, have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed? Well, we haven't heard. If there be a holy ghost, well, then, how were you baptized? [00:35:20] He doesn't even start the conversation of salvation without wanting to know, have you been filled with the spirit? And how were you baptized? Well, we were baptized under John's baptism. And he said, well, John barely baptized under repentance, but he said, you need to believe on the one coming after. And he began to preach Jesus unto them. And when they heard these things, he baptized them in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when he laid his hands on them, they were filled. The Holy Ghost began to speak with tongues. He preached Jesus, but he did not preach it without being born of water and being born of the spirit. This is the apostles doctrine. This is what they believed. This is what they preached. Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone. This was it. And if we are christians, we will do what the first christians did. [00:36:09] If we are christian, we will not only say I believe, but we will obey the gospel of Jesus Christ. [00:36:19] You can say this mental assertion of belief has infected Christianity. [00:36:26] It's just like it's as lightly as saying, I believe the sky's blue. [00:36:32] Well, I believe in Jesus and that's all I got to do. I believe the sky's blue. All I got to do is walk up there and look at it. So what? That's how lightly they take this. But it's got to be more than just a mental assertion that Jesus lived and that he died. You've got to believe and obey the gospel because you never see anybody in here that says, well, we believed and that was enough. [00:36:56] Hey, if believing was enough, then why stop the chariot and baptize the eunuch? [00:37:03] Why did he stop the chariot? [00:37:06] Why did he just say, bro, it's hot out here in the desert. Get on your way. [00:37:10] Why send. If it wasn't important to be filled with the Holy Ghost, why send for the apostles to come down to Samaria so they could lay their hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost. If being born of the water in the name of Jesus Christ and me filled the Holy Ghost was not important, why did Paul even bother to ask the disciples at Ephesus, how were you baptized? [00:37:35] It's because they were the first christians. [00:37:39] And that's our spiritual makeup. That's our spiritual DNA. That's why we preach what we preach, because that's the way it was preached. When they began, that's what they preached. [00:37:53] The apostolic Church did not begin with Catholicism. [00:37:57] It did not begin at the council of Nicaea. It did not begin then. It began in Antioch. [00:38:05] That's where you trace our roots back to and what they were preaching to the people in Antioch. What they were believing, what made them believe and receive what caused them to be called Christian was repentance, baptism in Jesus name, being filled with the Holy Ghost and continuing steadfastly in the apostles doctrine. You don't stop once you get it. You take it and you run with it. You continue steadfastly. That means if you're steadfast in something, the Bible, one place it talks about, be steadfast, unmovable. When you're steadfast in this doctrine, you don't move off of it. [00:38:50] Hey, I know it can be tough when your friends don't believe like this. [00:38:57] I know it can be tough when you've got family that don't believe like this. It can be tough when you have a spouse that doesn't believe like this, but that doesn't change the truth of it. [00:39:09] And the thing is, is that you don't have to try to create a plan or make something up. Simply point them to the scripture, because you can't argue with this book. Well, I take that back. People can argue with it. I know people that can argue with a wall. [00:39:28] But it's a fruitless argument. It'll never come to anything, because the scripture says what it says and means what it means. And there is only one gospel. [00:39:39] Paul said it like this. [00:39:41] In one corinthians 15, he said, moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also you received it. I preached it. You received it. And now you stand, or you're continuing to be in it, and you're also saved by it. If you keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless you have believed in vain, if you walk away from it after you've believed it, that's belief in vain. You just believed it in vain because you didn't stay with it. [00:40:17] For I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received. This is what Paul got at the beginning, how that Christ died for our sins. According to the scripture, he died that he was buried, burial. And that he rose again the third day. According to the scripture, resurrection. That is the gospel of Jesus Christ. We obey that through repentance, which is death, baptism, which is burial being filled. The Holy Ghost. Resurrection. [00:40:46] Death. Burial. Resurrection. Gospel of Jesus Christ. And Paul said this. You know what's so wonderful about this is that Paul said, when I first, when God got hold of me, filled me with the Holy Ghost, I was baptized. He said, I didn't go seeking out the disciples. [00:41:02] I didn't go find Peter and say, hey, what do I do now? [00:41:05] It was years later before he came in contact with Peter, and he said, the gospel that I got, I got from the Lord. [00:41:16] Isn't it amazing that he got it from the Lord? And he preaches the same thing that Peter preaches, because Peter got it from the Lord. [00:41:28] I'll show you how he got it from the Lord. [00:41:32] Jesus said in John three, we must be born again. We must be born of water and of the spirit. [00:41:38] In Mark 16, Jesus said, go and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believes and baptized shall be saved in my names. He'll speak with other tongues. [00:41:48] In Luke, chapter 24, he said, go and preach repentance and remission of sins in my name, beginning at Jerusalem. [00:42:00] But what did he do on the day of Pentecost. He preached repentance and remission of sins in his name through baptism. In his name? [00:42:08] Whereat? In Jerusalem. [00:42:11] So see, this is where Peter got his. [00:42:14] And even in Matthew 20 819 he said, look, go make disciples. Teach them to observe everything I've commanded, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son. The Holy Ghost, which we know is Jesus Christ. He is the visible image. He was the visible image God manifest in the flesh, the word made flesh, dwelling among us. If you've seen me, you've seen the father. I and my father are one. The Holy Ghost be sent in my name. I won't leave you comfortless. I will come to you. When Matthew wrote that, you have to look. He was writing it to the Jews. [00:42:51] Matthew was writing his gospel to address the jewish nation. [00:42:56] And he knew what they believed, that there wasn't but one. He said, so I want you to be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. [00:43:06] This one name, which is Jesus in colossians two and eight. [00:43:13] Just leave this up for me for a while. It says, beware. Paul wrote this, beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world and not after Christ. [00:43:25] If they start trying to get you off of that, they're trying to get you away from the apostles doctrine. They're trying to get you away from what the first church believed. So on this list of churches, again, just look at the list which one adheres most closely to. The first Christian, the pentecostal church. Again, that doesn't mean that we're flawless, that we don't have, still have strides to make. But I do believe that we are right on this doctrine of salvation. [00:43:59] You will never convince me otherwise, that there is any other way to be saved or that there is any other name given among men whereby we must be saved in the name of Jesus Christ. The gospel is still the power of God unto salvation and it is obeyed through repentance, baptism in Jesus name and being filled with the Holy Ghost. [00:44:18] So over our next, you can stand with me. Over our next few lessons, we're going to start examining a little more closely the things that make up our spiritual DNA. We're going to look at the oneness of God, which they believed that there was only one God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was manifest in the flesh. We're going to look more closely at why acts 238 is the plan of salvation, because these are the teachings that were received and obeyed by the ones who were first called christians. It said Paul and Barnabas were there teaching many people, and this is what they were teaching. [00:45:02] So this is the faith that we must earnestly contend for, the faith that was once delivered unto the saints. If it was something that was once delivered, it was something behind us, something in our past. We've got to look back so that we can effectively move forward. We've got to find what makes us who we are. Then we can more closely resemble what God desired. The church today, let's pray together. Lord, thank you today for your word, for the instruction that he gives. And I pray today, God, that, Lord, we'll just begin to read these words, read these scriptures, study these things. And, Lord, find out how to be like the first christians. How can we more closely adhere to the teachings and the doctrines of the apostles and prophets? Lord, help us to hear what the spirit says unto the church. Help us to receive it and obey it. God, we ask these things in Jesus name. Everybody said, amen. Give the Lord a hand. Clap of praise for his word. Hallelujah.