Had Sergius Paulus lived today he might have said, after the manner of some, "Well, I see what you’re saying, Paul, but we’re comfortable here, Elymas and me. I’m happy with his teaching. We’ve got a good thing going. I don’t want to rock the boat with new teaching. I know what you say is true for you, but you’ve got to understand that what is true for you isn’t necessarily true for me and my advisor here, so let’s just agree to disagree, be happy, and go on our way."

Charles Stanley related the following story that I am going to use to bring up an important point to you:

"A woman in our church was married for only a short time when she found out her husband was a homosexual. Soon after, he left her. As I talked with her, she said something I shall never forget. ‘After I was divorced, several of my friends came to me and said they knew he was gay. When I asked them why they didn’t say anything to me, they said, ‘We didn’t think it was any of our business.’"

"Her friends were dead wrong." Stanley continues. "They violated a scriptural principle. After hearing her story, I made up my mind never to stand by quietly and watch a friend make what I was sure in my heart was a mistake. This resolution has made me very unpopular at times. People have left my church over things I have confronted them about. But when I start thinking that maybe I should keep my mouth shut, I always remember what Solomon said, "He who rebukes a man will afterward find more favor than he who flatters with the tongue." (Proverbs 28:23)

In a situation like that, what would you have done? Would you tell what you knew to be the truth, running the risk of being told to "mind your own business," or would you quietly ignore the situation, all the while knowing that your friend was making a big mistake and would surely be hurt by it?

There is a price to pay for telling the truth and opposing error. Sometimes it isn’t a pleasant one. A person who does it on a regular basis isn’t going to be everyone’s favorite personality.

Sometimes the reason for a reluctance to tell the truth is fear. We’re afraid we will offend someone, so we keep quiet. But there is another reason that is far more serious. Sometimes we don’t really believe what we profess.

In his book WHAT AMERICANS BELIEVE, George Barna cited a survey taken early in 1991 about absolute truth. The question was asked, "Do you agree strongly, agree somewhat, disagree somewhat, or disagree strongly with the following statement: ‘There is no such thing as absolute truth; different people can define truth in conflicting ways and still be correct.’" Only 23 percent of so called evangelical Christians expressed strong belief in absolute truth. The rest doubted to varying degrees that anything can be known for certain. In other words, they believe truth is relative. Whatever you choose to believe is truth for you – even if it differs markedly from other views.

I’ve heard that few years ago on the Dick Cavett Show, the Archbishop of Canterbury was speaking with actress Jane Fonda. The Archbishop said, "Jesus is the Son of God, you know." Fonda replied, "Maybe he is for you, but he’s not for me." To which the Archbishop profoundly answered, "Well either he is or he isn’t."

It isn’t hard to understand why someone who does not believe in God can espouse such relativism. But when, as George Barna said, only 23 percent of professing evangelical Christians strongly believe that truth is absolute, you begin to understand why we find it hard to penetrate modern culture.

Early Christianity was not this way. The Christians living in the first century believed they had the only message that could save men and women from ruin and destruction. They believed that every other way was false. As a result they were strongly compelled to share the gospel with anyone who would listen.

That commitment to absolute and exclusive truth and the compelling drive to share it permeates the story of the first thirty years of the church, roughly that period of time covered by the Bible writer, Luke, in the book of Acts. We’ve seen it before and we will see it again as we open our Bibles this morning to Acts chapter 13 in our ongoing Acts of the Apostles Series. My message title for today is, Standing Up for the Truth. We’ll consider Acts 13:1-12.

By the way, we’ve come to another major division in our study of Acts. When we began this series I gave you an outline based on Luke’s statement in Acts 1:8 where we read, "but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth."

From that verse we derived a three part outline for Acts:

We are now beginning part three. For the first ten or so years Christianity was a Jewish thing - confined to the land and people of the Jewish nation. The converts were Jewish. Though Jesus commissioned the church to "Go into all the world and preach the gospel," the barrier between Jew and Gentile wasn’t breached until Peter baptized the Gentile household of Cornelius as described in Acts 10. After that, a few brave, adventurous souls made there way to the third largest city in the Roman Empire, Antioch, and began preaching to the Greeks who lived there.

We saw in our last message how that Gentile church at Antioch was founded, how it grew, and how it became established. We saw how Barnabas and the former persecutor, Saul, worked among the people of Antioch for an entire year and taught considerable numbers. So firm was the establishment of the Antioch church that they were actually sending financial aid to Jewish Christians living in Judea. But that is only the beginning of their story. Antioch would become the first base of operations for world evangelism. They would launch the first ever missionary journey. As to how it happened, we see first:

It has always been a point of interest to me that this church was so new it didn’t even have elders yet (at least none are mentioned). It seems natural that such a church made up of Gentile converts and not Jews would have only prophets and teachers, since the ground-breaking role of such men was to help the church become established. Eventually, as men matured in Christ, some would attain the special qualifications and become elders and deacons.

While there probably is some significance to each of the names that Luke mentions here, and I find a special curiosity regarding "Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch" limited time permits me only to call your attention to two of them. We’ve seen them before: Barnabas (the "Son of Encouragement") and Saul (The former persecutor of the church).

You may remember the earlier calling of Saul described back in Acts 9 where Ananias, the one who taught him the gospel, was told by the Lord in Acts 9:15 to "Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel..." Saul’s calling mentioned prophetically at his conversion was about to be realized.

When the early church sent out evangelists or missionaries as we sometimes call them, they set them apart by fasting and praying and laying on hands. The laying on of hands mentioned here was not to impart special miraculous spiritual gifts. I say that for two reasons. First, none are mentioned, and second, those laying hands on them were not apostles. From what we have seen so far, the miraculous gifts of the Spirit were imparted through the laying on of apostles’ hands.

Those four little words "they sent them away" mark the beginning of foreign evangelism.

With Barnabas and Saul sent out, we come to the description of the first missionary journey and more specifically:

Seleucia was the Syrian seaport from which the two missionaries sailed. Cyprus was third largest island in the Mediterranean, located in the northeastern corner of that body of water. It was a natural place to start for the two missionaries because it was the birthplace of Barnabas. It was home to him. It was also the home of a large Jewish population who had moved there when Caesar Augustus farmed out the running of the island’s copper mines to Herod the Great. It was a beautiful place – a great place to work and earn a good living. The island was dotted with Jewish communities and their synagogues which would provide starting points for the preaching of Barnabas and Saul.

Salamis contained a good number of synagogues, so as would become their custom, they started there – both because it provided a logical starting point and also because the Jews might most quickly recognize Jesus as the Messiah.

Note those words, "and they also had John as their helper." That would be John Mark, Barnabas’ cousin and the writer of the second gospel (the book we call "Mark.") Luke mentioned him briefly back in chapter 12. We’ll hear more about him in chapter 15 where he became an issue between Barnabas and Saul.

Cypress was about 100 miles long and 60 miles wide. Paphos is on the extreme opposite side of the Island from where they landed. That would be the west side.

Two men to meet here: First, this "magician" named "Bar-Jesus." "Bar" means "son of" and Jesus or Joshua was a fairly common name in that day. It means "salvation." This man’s name probably has nothing to do with Jesus Christ. The word "magician" is a translation of the Greek word magos. It appears here and in Matthew where it refers to the "wise men" who visited the family of Jesus after His birth. The word does not in itself imply something evil. The context in which it is used determines the specific meaning. You might remember the "magi" at the time of Jesus’ birth were probably Chaldean astrologers. Here what we have is a sorcerer or wizard, someone tied to the occult. He was Jewish as well, which would give him some credibility as a "prophet," albeit a "false" one, Luke tells us. Apparently he claimed to be a man of God. He had established himself as an adviser to the second man mentioned here, this proconsul "Sergius Paulus." Since the text calls the proconsul "a man of intelligence," apparently Bar-Jesus had been pretty convincing with his magic arts. You might recall the sorcerer who attached himself to Philip in Acts 8 when he was preaching in Samaria. It was quite common in that day for statesmen to have advisors with occultic ties in their cabinets, since many of these claimed to be able to predict the future.

The proconsul’s tie-in with Barnabas and Saul probably came because Sergius Paulus considered the Jews to be something special since his advisor was a Jew and claimed to be a prophet of God. When word got to him that several new Jewish prophets had arrived in town and were preaching in the synagogues, he was immediately interested and summoned them to come speak to him. This they did.

What we’re about to see is what we were talking about at the beginning of this lesson – someone who loved the truth (Saul) who was not going to stand by and allow someone to be hurt by being diverted from it.

Why such rough treatment from Saul? Was it right to call this man a "son of the devil" and strike him blind?" Doesn’t that sound a bit "judgmental" as some would say today?

Apparently Saul’s dealing with him had the approval of God, for we see God’s power cooperating in striking him blind. And of course, Saul knew something about being blind, didn’t he? He himself was blind for three days after Jesus stopped him dead in his tracks on the road to Damascus. And his blindness turned him around, didn’t it? I wonder what will happen with Bar-Jesus when he has to cope with this sudden intervention of God.

I’m reminded of a few other times in Scripture when we see such a sudden outburst of righteous indignation and emotion upon false teachers. Jesus wasn’t very nice when he twice drove the money changers out of the temple with whips, was He? Neither was He very nice when He pronounced the seven "woes" upon the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23. There he called them a "brood of snakes!" John the Baptist called that same group of men the same name (brood of vipers) when he preached to them.

Keeping this seeming harshness in mind, there are other places in Scripture when such an approach wasn’t used. I’m thinking of the treatment Apollos received at the hands of Priscilla and Aquila in Acts 18. Apollos was clearly wrong in his preaching. He was still preaching the baptism of John which was no longer valid. Yet, Priscilla and Aquila "took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately." (Acts 18:26). They were gentle with him. In Second Timothy 2:24, a passage written by Paul himself, we read, "And the Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will."

So which is the right approach, patience or calling someone a son of the devil? Is it, as some suggest, that Saul was in error in this passage and later, by the time he instructed Timothy, he had grown older and wiser in his approach? I don’t think so, because if I concluded that I would also have to conclude that Jesus was too harsh in His dealings with the Scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 23 and that He never learned better because He was crucified shortly thereafter.

This issue is important. From it we can see how seriously the early church viewed truth. Bar-Jesus was a Jew. He should have known and probably did know that what he was teaching was false. The Law of Moses was clear on that point. Deuteronomy 18:10-12 says, "There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer... for whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord." Bar-Jesus was a sorcerer who knew, or should have known, that what he was doing was wrong. Thus he was willfully in error and willfully seeking to cause another to be in error. God’s strongest condemnations are reserved for those who knowingly and willingly pervert the truth and lead others astray.

Saul, knowing by the power of the Spirit that Bar-Jesus was "full of all deceit and fraud" as it says in verse 10, was confronting a truth perverter. The word "deceit" there in verse 10 had to do with the baiting of a trap. This man was using trickery to keep Sergius Paulus under the sway of his influence for his own selfish gain. That was also the case with the moneychangers and the scribes and Pharisees Jesus dealt with. This was willful deception.

On the other hand, there are often those who are in error because of ignorance. They just don’t understand, but when they learn, they change. With such people God is patient and we should be too. Indeed, Saul himself was the recipient of such patience. He told Timothy in First Timothy 1:13 that the reason he received mercy from God was because he "acted ignorantly in unbelief...."

What does all this have to do with you and me? It has to do with our view of truth. We must always be honest in our dealing with truth. There is patience for our misunderstanding or doubting as long as we are honestly trying to understand and do what is right. That does not mean that the more ignorant we are of truth the safer we are. Neither does it mean that if we are ignorant of God’s plan of salvation we will be saved. There is no encouragement in the Bible that says "as long as you’re sincere you’re OK." Jesus taught in Matthew 15:14 "...if a blind man guides a blind man, both will fall into a pit." What it does mean is that God will patiently allow an honest seeker of truth to continue his search to find Him. That was the case with Sergius Paulus here. But only, don’t forget, after Saul didn’t shrink from insisting on the truth to the point of strongly confronting Bar-Jesus.

Had Sergius Paulus lived today he might have said, after the manner of some, "Well, I see what you’re saying, Paul, but we’re comfortable here, Elymas and me. I’m happy with his teaching. We’ve got a good thing going. I don’t want to rock the boat with new teaching. I know what you say is true for you, but you’ve got to understand that what is true for you isn’t necessarily true for me and my advisor here, so let’s just agree to disagree, be happy, and go on our way."

Such relativism, though it is the politically acceptable thing to do today, perverts the truth. It leads to the "pluralism" and "multi-culturalism" that seem to have won the day today, which doesn’t just teach tolerance for cultures different from our own. It teaches that all cultures, even those with hideous practices, are right.

We can understand how those unacquainted with the God of the Bible can hold such views. According to the Bible, they’re stumbling around in the dark. But many who sit in churches have bought the idea that all roads lead to heaven – and if all roads lead to the same place, why should we insist on any one particular road?

A certain teacher opens each new believers class series he teaches challenging students on what they believe. On his desk he places a jar of beans. He asks the students to try to guess the number of beans in the jar. As they guess, he writes down their estimates on a list. Then he announces the actual number of beans in the jar, letting the students see who came closest to the correct number. Then he asks them to tell him their favorite songs. As each tells him his or her favorite he writes it down on a list beside the first one. When the list is complete he asks which song is the closest to being the best. Of course the students protest, telling him there is no right answer. A person’s favorite song is purely a matter of personal taste. Then the teacher asks his class this question: "When you decide what to believe, is it more like guessing the number of beans or choosing your favorite song?" Almost always, he says, he gets the same answer: Choosing what you believe is like choosing your favorite song. In other words, there is no absolute right and wrong. What you believe is totally a matter of personal preference. Is it any wonder that people are reluctant to stand up for the truth? They don’t believe that there is any truth worth standing up for!

According to the teaching of the New Testament, there is only one way to God. Every other way is false. Jesus Christ Himself said in John 10:1, "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber." Then six verses later He said, "I am the door of the sheep." You come to God through Jesus, honoring His will and His way or you do not come at all.

Many people today don’t like such exclusivism. They say it’s too "judgmental." Of course, that’s there prerogative while they are in this life. But let them not claim to be Christians, because they deny the word of the very One they claim to follow.

Paul wrote in Second Thessalonians 2:10 that those who perish do so because "they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved." These things are not optional, my friends.

A man went to visit his old friend, a music teacher. As the man came in, he said, "What’s the good news today?" The old teacher was silent as he stood up and walked across the room. He picked up a small hammer and struck a tuning fork. As the note sounded throughout the room, he said, "That is ‘A.’ It is ‘A’ today; it was ‘A’ 5,000 years ago, and it will be ‘A’ 10,000 years from now. The soprano upstairs sings off-key, the tenor across the hall flats on his high notes, and the piano downstairs is out of tune." He struck the note again and said, "That is ‘A,’ my friend, and that’s the good news for today!"

That is the nature of truth. It doesn’t change to fit our whims or convenience or the singing of some off-key soprano. It doesn’t change so we can be politically or socially "correct" or to accommodate error just because we don’t want to rock the boat. Truth is constant. "A" and only "A" is "A." Anything that vibrates at a different frequency is not "A," no matter how great we might think it sounds. Only those who honestly and diligently, without guile, seek truth and find it will populate heaven. The rest will go to hell. That is what his book teaches and that is the message that those early Christians carried into their world that made such a difference.

Romans 1:18 says, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness..."

I’ve heard that there is a church building in Treysa, Germany, that stands with a stately tower and lovely stained glass windows. It is over 400 years old, yet, since 1531 it has been used only for burial services. Not surprisingly, it is called "The Church of the Dead."

It doesn’t take funerals to kill a church. All it takes is an erosion of the desire for truth. I call upon you to recommit yourself to the Biblical view of truth. It is absolute. It is exclusive. A lot of people don’t like it. It will cost you something to hold it in a day like ours. You may lose your friends. They’ll tell you to mind our own business – or worse. But truth is our business. Jesus said it is the truth that makes us free. Truth is the only way to God. Hold onto it. Stand up for it. Advance it. Defend it. That is our call. That is our mission. We will not shrink from it.

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

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All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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