Author Archives: Pastor Ricky Kurth

How Aged Men Should Behave

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Recently I came across a web site called, “Lies That Moms Tell Their Kids To Get Them To Behave.”  One mom told her kids she had a new phone app that could tell her when they were misbehaving behind her back!

Well, while children should heed Paul’s advice to “obey your parents in the Lord” simply because, as Paul went on to say, “this is right” (Eph. 6:1), the apostle Paul says that “aged men” should behave themselves for a different reason.  He told Titus,

“…speak thou the things which become sound doctrine: That the aged men be… grave… sound in faith” (Titus 2:1,2).

Aged Christian men should behave themselves because it is becoming to the sound doctrine they profess to believe.  That word means to make something look good.  Officers in the military can be charged with “conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman” if they misbehave and make the military look bad, but aged Christian men should want to make the sound doctrine they believe and teach look good!

And that includes being “grave,” a word that means serious—deadly serious!  As men grow old, they tend to mellow, and not take things as seriously as they did when they were young.  While that might be okay in some areas of life, Paul is talking about being serious in spiritual matters, and the gravity of spiritual things doesn’t diminish with age.  So if you are an older Christian man, you might want to take stock of your life to determine if you are as serious about serving the Lord as you were when you wore a younger man’s clothes.

Paul says that aged men should also be “sound in faith.”  The word “sound” means healthy, wholesome and strong.  When Isaiah wanted to describe how sinful the people of Israel were in his day, he compared them to a diseased man’s body (Isaiah 1:5), saying of his nation, “there is no soundness in it” (v. 6).  So being “sound in faith” means having strong and healthy faith.

Maybe you noticed that Paul didn’t say that aged men should be sound in the faith.  That is, he didn’t say they should be sound in the body of truth given to Paul for the dispensation of grace.  That’s true, but that’s something Paul expressed earlier in this epistle (Tit. 1:13).  Here the word “faith” means faithfulness, as it does when Paul wrote of God’s faithfulness to the people of Israel despite their unbelief (Rom. 3:3).  So in saying that aged men should be “sound in faith,” Paul is saying they should be strong in their faithfulness to the Lord.

And now that I’m getting to be an aged man myself, I think I can understand why the apostle says this to aged men.  It is the same reason he tells us all, “be not weary in well doing” (Gal. 6:9).  That’s challenging for believers at any age, but it is a particular challenge when a man starts getting on in years.  I still love studying the Word and teaching it, but I have to tell you, I’m getting tired!  So I can see why Paul would tell aged men that they should be “sound in faith,” and not let weariness or anything else affect the soundness of their faithfulness to the Lord.

So if you’re a Christian man who is willing to admit that the word “aged” might describe you, I hope that the words “grave” and “sound in faith” can also be used to describe you.  If you’re as serious about serving the Lord as you were when you were young, it will surely show in your faithfulness to Him.  And Paul says that these are “things that become sound doctrine.”

Of course, one of the ways to help ensure that you’ll be sound in faith when you get old is to start while you are young!

“Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them” (Ecclesiastes 12:1).

You’ll be eternally glad you did!

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Uncommon Selfishness – Acts 5:1-11

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Summary: 

We know the disciples at Pentecost sold all they had and gave all the proceeds to the poor in order to be saved (Luke 18:18,22), for Peter had no money (Acts 3:6).  So when a married couple only brought part of their money (Acts 5:1,2), we know they couldn’t have been saved, and couldn’t be allowed to join the church.

They must have said they brought it all, however, for Peter said they “lied” (v. 3).  Peter was a prophet, and prophets just knew stuff like that (II Ki. 6:12; John 4:16-19, 28, 29).

When Peter says Satan filled his heart (Acts 5:3), he knew that Satan hadn’t snuck up on Ananias and filled his heart to lie against his will.  He knew this for he’d heard the Lord say that “deceit” like that comes from the heart of men (Mark 7:21-23).Men don’t need any help from Satan to sin, the fall-en nature we inherited from Adam makes us sin on our own

Now we know Satan was involved in Judas’ sin (John 13:2). But even then he couldn’t have been if Judas hadn’t let him.  He let Satan fill his heart because he was covetous and want-ed the 30 pieces of silver the priests promised him for selling the Lord out.  And Ananias let him because he wanted in on the blessing of living with all things common. He just didn’t want to sacrifice all his money.  That’s why Peter asked him “why” Satan filled his heart, i.e., why he let him do it.

Ananias had lied to Peter, but Peter told him he lied to the Holy Spirit (Acts 5:3) because he was filled with the Spirit (Acts 2:4).  Peter told him he “conceived” the lie and James must have had Pentecost in mind because he too wrote about conceiving sin (James 1:15).  He also warned about double minded men like Ananias (1:8).

When James also said that rich men would die (1:10,14), that too goes along with what was happening at Pentecost.  The only rich people at Pentecost were those who didn’t sell all their things and share the proceeds, the ones who weren’t even trying to join Peter’s church.  That means they couldn’t be saved (Mt. 19:23, 24; Lu. 18:23, 24).

Acts 5:3 says Ananias lied to the Spirit, but verse 4 says he lied to God because the Spirit is God.Of course, some deny that the Holy Spirit is even a person, saying He’s just some kind of force like in Star Wars.  But you can’t “lie” to a force!

Ananias’s sin brought forth death, just like James said it would (Acts 5:5).  People get uneasy when I say Peter struck him dead, but that wasn’t the only time God gave men the power to inflict death and physical punishment (II Ki. 1:9, 10; Acts 13:11), and it won’t be the last (Rev. 11:3, 5).

When Ananias’s wife was also stricken dead (Acts 5:6-9), that proved his death wasn’t a coincidence.  “Tempt” (v.7) can mean to provoke (Ps. 78:56).  Those Jews knew it was wrong to make a graven image, so when they did it they provoked God to anger and jealousy (v. 58).  “Tempt” also means to test (Rev. 3:10) or prove (Heb. 3:9).  When they made that image, they were testing God to see what He’d do, and Sapphira was testing God to see what He’d do too, when she and her husband tried to lie their way into the church.

All this was a “taste” of the “powers” that men of God will have in the kingdom (Heb. 6:4, 5).  They will need power like that, for there will be “leaven” or sin in the kingdom (Mt. 13:33).  Saved men won’t be able to sin (I Jo. 3:9; 5:18) but they’ll have kids who will have to grow up and get saved.  If they sin before they do, they’ll be executed like this, or by the flying roll (Zech. 5:1-4).

This roll will be a copy of the ten commandments.  Notice both are written on both sides (Ex. 32:15).  One side of both says don’t swear, the other side of both says don’t steal.  If men swear or steal in the kingdom, they will die.  If they go 100 years without sinning and then sin they’ll still have to die, and will be considered a “child” (Isa. 65:20) since they should have lived as long as men did in early Genesis.

Satan can’t be everywhere at once, but he dogged the Lord’s steps and then the disciples, and now he’s after believers—especially grace believers like you!  That’s why it is important to be here in church learning God’s Word, to learn how to defend yourself!

Video of this message is available on YouTube: Uncommon Selfishness – Acts 5:1-11

Act Your Age!

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

When someone is acting foolishly, have you ever heard anyone say, “Act your age, not your shoe size?”  Of course, this popular slogan would not be much of a rebuke for a nine-year-old!  That might be why I remember that when I was a boy, we used to say, “Act your age, not your IQ.”  Now that’s a pretty insulting thing to say to a nine-year-old!

While it is important to act your age at any age, it’s even more important for a Christian to act in such a way that is becoming to the truth of God’s Word, as Paul told Timothy to remind older men, saying,

“Speak thou the things which become sound doctrine: That the aged men be sober… temperate…” (Titus 2:1,2).

If aged Christian men want to live in such a way that is becoming to sound doctrine, they must be sober.  The only thing sadder than a drunk is an old drunk.  Many years ago I used to minister at the Chicago Gospel Mission.  I can remember putting my arm around old drunks while speaking to them about the Lord, and thinking how hard it must be to overcome an addiction that would have been more easily conquered earlier in life.  What a testimony to the wisdom of Solomon’s admonition, “Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth” (Eccl. 12:1).

But the word “sober” has another meaning in Scripture.  Paul wrote the Romans,

“I say… to every man… not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly” (Rom. 12:3).

Do you see how that verse defines the word “sober” as not thinking too highly of yourself?

If you’re wondering why Paul would have to say this to aged men, it is because some of them are like King Nebuchadnezzar, who got to the end of his life and said,

“Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power…?” (Daniel 4:30).

Similarly, some aged men look back at their lives and think, “Wasn’t I something?  Look at all that I accomplished in my life!”  But that’s not thinking soberly. It’s thinking more highly of yourself than you ought.  And that’s certainly not a fitting way for an aged Christian man to think.

Paul also says that aged men should be “temperate,” a word that means moderate.  It is related to the word temper, of course, a word that we always associate with anger.  But anger is what happens when you lose your temper.  Your temper is the calm, moderate way in which we are all supposed to look at things without losing our temper.

Why would aged men need to be told to be temperate?  Well, not all aged men can look back at their lives and think highly of themselves because of what they accomplished.  Some look back and get angry that they didn’t accomplish more in their lives.  If you know any angry old men, that might be why.  But Paul says that aged men should be temperate instead.

That’s because if you’re an aged Christian man, you’ve accomplished more in life than you think.  In speaking of the Judgment Seat of Christ where your Christian life will be judged, Paul wrote,

“…judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come… then shall every man have praise of God” (I Corinthians 4:5).

When the Lord comes, all believers will have praise of God when their lives are reviewed.  So in the meantime, don’t be looking back at your life and judging yourself to be a failure, and getting angry about what you think you didn’t accomplish in life.  According to that verse, you have accomplished a praiseworthy amount of things in the eyes of God, no matter what age you might be.  You have His Word on it!

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Communism or Common Denominator? – Acts 4:32-37

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Summary:

The way the disciples were living (4:32-35) wasn’t communism, for communists are not “of one heart and of one soul.”  They were able to live so unselfishly because they were filled with the Spirit (2:4) in a way that controlled them to where they couldn’t sin (I Jo. 3:9).  That’s the only way a “multitude” of 8,000 families could live this way for long. He was the common denominator that helped them live that way

This wasn’t supposed to happen till the kingdom (Jer. 32:37-40; Ezk. 11:1-20) but God was giving them a taste of kingdom powers (cf. Heb. 6:5).These verses confirm that the Spirit was the common denominator that enabled them to live that way.

The reason the Spirit was causing them to live this way was they were heading into the Tribulation that would have come if God hadn’t interrupted His prophetic program for Israel with the dispensation of the mystery.  In the Tribulation, believers won’t be able to buy food without the mark of the beast (Rev. 13:17), so the Lord told these men to pool their resources to get through that terrible time (Lu. 18:22).

Compare that to how men are preparing today, those who don’t know that we’ll be raptured before the Antichrist is revealed (II Thes. 2:1-8).  They’re not selling all and giving the proceeds to the church so others can survive the Tribulation.  They’re hoarding up supplies so they can survive

They had the “power” to work miracles of healing (4:33).  Their “great grace” was the grace of giving (cf. II Cor. 8:1-7).

We see this giving pictured when Ahimelech gave David food (I Sam. 21).  David said the Lord saved him through Ahimelech (Ps. 34).  Since David was on the run from Saul at the time, who was trying to kill him, that’s a type of how God will feed believers who will be on the run from Antichrist in the Tribulation, who will be trying to kill them.

God always provides so His children don’t “lack” for the basic necessities of life (Acts 4:34), but how He provides changes dispensationally.  For instance, men had no lack when God gave them manna (Ex. 16:18).  But today we have to go to work not to lack (I Thes. 4:11,12), like Adam did (Gen. 3:19).  But these men weren’t going to work, they were “daily” in the temple (Acts 2:46).

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t help other believers.  Acts 4:35 says “distribution” was made, and our apostle says we should be “distributing to the necessity of saints” (Rom. 12:13).  That doesn’t mean we should sell all we have to distribute to them, for that would be a burden, and Paul doesn’t want us burdened (II Cor. 8:13-15).  But the reason he quotes Ex.16:18 there (v. 15) is to say that if we help one another the way he suggests, God can meet the needs of others through us as effectively as He did through Moses and the manna.

Why’d Luke single out Barnabas (Acts 4:36,37) as an example of someone who did what he was talking about?  He was a “Levite” who depended on the tithes of the Jews, which were scarce when they weren’t walking with God.  And we know they weren’t walking with God here for they just killed His Son. And since they were paying taxes to Rome too, they had even less money to tithe.  So Luke’s point is: even poor Levites like Barnabas trusted God enough to sell all they had.

People won’t live like this in the kingdom, though.  They’ll have to plant and reap (Amos 9:13) and they’ll own things again (Micah 4:4 cf. Acts 4:32).  They’ll get back the lands they sold in the Tribulation, as we see typified when they got their lands back in the year of jubilee (Lev. 25:10).

But when God interrupted His prophetic program and the kingdom didn’t come, the ones who had no lack became “poor saints” (Rom. 15:26).  But God still made sure they didn’t lack by having Paul take up a collection among the Gentiles for them as they asked (Gal. 2:10).

The reason God described how they were living in Acts 2:42 -45 is that the context there was how to get saved (Acts 2:38) and selling all was part of how they got saved (Lu. 18:18, 22).  Here in Acts 4, the disciples have cited Psalm 2 (4:25, 26) to show they knew the Tribulation was near, so here the context is how to survive it, so he describes their lifestyle again.

Video of this message is available on YouTube: Communism or Common Denominator? – Acts 4:32-37

Defiled-Minded Professors

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

I’m sure you’ve heard of absent-minded professors, men who are so engrossed in their deep thoughts that they tend to lose track of the little things we must all keep in mind in order to get along in life.  Well, in Paul’s letter to Titus, the apostle warned the young man about some false teachers, saying,

“…even their mind… is defiled.  They profess that they know God; but in works they deny Him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate” (Titus 1:15,16).

From the context, we know that these defiled-minded professors were the “vain talkers… of the circumcision” (Tit. 1:10) who were “teaching things which they ought not” (v. 11).  I think Paul called them “defiled” because these unsaved Jews were trying to teach the grace believers in Crete’s churches that they would be defiled if they ate meats prohibited by the law of Moses, for that’s what the law said of such people (Lev. 11:43).

But it doesn’t say that about those of us who are not under the law, but under grace (Rom. 6:15 cf. I Tim. 4:1-5).  Paul just finished saying of us, “unto the pure all things are pure” (v. 15), speaking of the foods we eat (cf. Rom. 14:20).  So Paul turned the tables on those defiled-minded professors, and said that it was “their mind” that was actually “defiled” for thinking that way, not the people who ate those meats!

When Paul said that these defiled-minded professors were “abominable,” he is again turning the tables on those legalizers.  You see, “abominable” is another word the law used of those who ate unclean meats (Lev. 11:41-43).  So in calling the legalizers “abominable,” Paul is assuring the grace believers in Crete’s churches that they weren’t abominable, their accusers were. 

In calling these false teachers “disobedient,” I believe Paul was again responding to the charges that these defiled-minded professors were levying against the saints.  When the grace believers in Crete’s churches insisted that they could eat meats that were banned by the law, they were probably accused of having cast the law behind their backs, for that’s the very definition of the word “disobedient” under the law (cf. Neh. 9:26).  But in rushing to the defense of the Cretian believers, Paul points out that the Law teachers were the ones who were really “disobedient,” as were all unsaved Jews (Rom. 10:21) who had not “obeyed the gospel” (Rom. 10:16).

Finally, Paul calls these legalizers “reprobate” (Tit. 1:16).  That’s a word that the dictionary defines as abandoned, and that’s how the word is used in Scripture as well.  In speaking of the Gentiles who lived before Abraham, God said that He had to give them up and give them over to “a reprobate mind” (Rom. 1:24,26,28).  That’s pretty much the definition of abandonment, and that’s why Paul called those ancient Gentiles reprobate.

But the unsaved Jews in Paul’s day had become just as reprobate! When Paul says that they were reprobate “unto every good work,” that meant they were totally incapable of doing anything that pleased God.  No wonder the apostle Paul, in speaking of both Jews and Gentiles, wrote:

“God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all” (Romans 11:32).

Today, unsaved Jews are just as defiled-minded as unsaved Gentiles, but God is willing to have mercy on them all.  All He asks is that they believe the only reason they’re worthy of Heaven is that Christ paid for their sins on the cross of Calvary and rose again.  If you’re not saved, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved” (Acts 16:31).

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Life Begins at Forty! – Acts 4:22-31

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Summary:

Peter and John gave a lame man a new life when they healed him at age 40 (v. 22).  40 is the number of testing (Ex. 24:18; Num. 14:33,34).  So the healing of this 40-year-old means Israel was being tested to see if they’d accept the Spirit through the message of the Spirit-filled disciples (Acts 2:4).

The lame man lay each day outside the temple, but didn’t have the strength to enter (Acts 3:2), a type of the nation Israel, who was just outside the kingdom, but didn’t have the strength to enter it.  But the only reason the people of Israel were being tested is because they failed to receive the Lord’s offer to escort them into the kingdom, typified by the lame man that He healed (John 5:1-8).  He was lame 38 years; the apostles healed a man “above forty,” or 41.  That three-year difference symbolized the Lord’s 3-year ministry.  They could have been offered the kingdom 3 years earlier!

Peter told the Jews to save themselves from that generation (Acts 2:40) just like the Jews in Moses’ day had to be saved from the generation that died in the wilderness (Num. 32:13).

Most Christians today would pray, “Lord protect us from the rulers who are threatening us,” but the apostles didn’t.  They started their prayer by acknowledging God was creator of all things and could save them if He wanted (Acts 4:24), just like Hezekiah did when the King of Syria threatened him (II Ki. 19:15). But they didn’t ask for deliverance like he went on to do, for they knew where they stood in God’s program.

We know that because they quoted Psalm 2 (Acts 4:25,26). This shows they knew they were living in the time when the rulers of the Jews would get together with the kings of the Gentiles to kill the Lord.  They call Him God’s “child” (4:27) to emphasize the enormity of Israel’s crime.  Only a monster kills a child! They were telling God they understood why He was about to judge the world, as Psalm 2 went on to predict.

The Lord had to die one way or another, as they point out in Acts 4:28, but God wanted them to recognize their messiah and execute Him in faith, not crucify Him in unbelief.  That didn’t give the Jews or Gentiles any excuse for crucifying Him though, any more than it excused Judas (Luke 22:22).

The disciples asked God to notice the threatenings of the leaders for the same reason Hezekiah asked Him, to get Him to do something about it (Acts 4:29 cf. Isa. 37:17,20). So why didn’t they ask for deliverance like he did?  It was because, like him, they knew where they stood in God’s program.

Hezekiah lived under the law, which said that if Israel was good, God would save them from their enemies.  They’d been good, so he asked God to keep His promise, and He did (Isa. 37:26).  But the apostles knew the Lord had said it was time for them to be killed (Mt. 24:3), not delivered.

Of course, not all believers will die in the Tribulation.  So why didn’t they ask to be among those who will be delivered?  It was because they knew it was more important to ask for boldness (Acts 4:29).

God hasn’t promised to deliver you from anyone’s threatenings either.  In fact, the apostles were wrestling with their earthly rulers while we wrestle with the fallen rulers of Satan’s unseen kingdom (Eph. 6:12) who teach “doctrines of devils” through preachers (I Tim. 4:1).  So we should ask for the same boldness Paul did (Eph. 6:18,19).

As we read on, we see the disciples still called the Lord “child” (Acts 4:30) because they preached the resurrected Christ, and resurrection is a new birth (cf. Acts 13:33).  It was their way of saying they were thinking like God, that the slate had been wiped clean, and Israel was being given a fresh chance to receive the “child” mentioned in Isaiah 9:6.

The apostles prayed for miracles to help them be bold (Acts 4:30) because the Lord had promised to give them (Mark 16:17-20).  Do you see the importance of praying according to God’s will?  If not, notice that when the Lord was threatened He prayed, then chose the 12 (Lu. 6:11-13). That means He probably didn’t pray to be delivered from them. Since He knew He had to die, He likely prayed for help choosing the 12 as Isaiah 8:14-16 told Him to do after they rejected Him.

Video of this message is available on YouTube: Life Begins at Forty – Acts 4:22-31

The Cure For the Impure

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

“Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled” (Titus 1:15).

The “pure” here are people whom God has saved by His grace (Eph. 2:8,9), “purifying their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:9).  In Crete, where Titus was stationed (Tit. 1:5), some “vain talkers…of the circumcision” (1:10) were telling the purified believers in Crete’s churches that they would be “defiled” if they ate meats prohibited by the law of Moses (Lev. 11:43).  But “we are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom. 6:15), and under grace “the kingdom of God is not meat and drink” so “all things indeed are pure” for purified believers (Rom. 14:17,20)—just as Paul told Titus (Tit. 1:15).

But “unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure,” not even the meats that Moses approved under the law!  If you’re wondering why everything an unbeliever eats is impure, it is because everything he does is impure.  You see, everything an unbeliever does is sin.  When a believer plows his field, he is being obedient to God’s command to work for a living, but “the plowing of the wicked, is sin” (Pr. 21:4).  The “wonderful works” that unsaved men do are considered “iniquity” in God’s eyes (Mt. 7:22,23), for all of their righteousnesses “are as filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6).  “Even their mind and conscience is defiled” (Tit. 1:15), for “the thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the LORD” (Pr. 15:26), because “their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity” (Isa. 59:7).

The bad news is, if your mind is defiled, you’re not going to be able to trust your conscience, despite how unsaved people encourage one another to “let your conscience be your guide.”  Paul knew by experience that the conscience of unsaved men “is defiled” (Tit. 1:15), for before he was saved, he brutally executed God’s people “in all good conscience before God” (Acts 23:1).  His defiled mind was telling him that they were wrong and he was right, so his defiled conscience didn’t bother him a bit!

The good news is, there is a cure for the impure!  As impure as men are in the sight of God, “our Saviour Jesus Christ… gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people” (Titus 2:13,14).   “Jesus Christ…loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood” (Revelation 1:5).  The Corinthians were a very sinful group of people, but Paul could even write to them and say, “ye are washed…ye are sanctified…ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus” (I Cor. 6:11).

How does an impure sinner access this cleansing blood of Christ?  Well, it is certainly “not by works of righteousness which we have done” (Titus 3:5).  Every purified sinner knows that it was “according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration” (Titus 3:5).  The word “regeneration” means the giving of “newness of life” (Romans 6:4).

If you don’t care much for your present life, why not let God give you a new life?  One that will begin the moment you believe that “Christ died for our sins…and…rose again” (I Corinthians 15:3,4)—everlasting life that will never see an end.

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Apostolic Boldness – Acts 4:13-22

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Summary:

“Boldness” (4:13) means courage, the thing the apostles were showing when they went right back to preaching Christ after being jailed for preaching Christ.  Just 40 days earlier they weren’t so bold (Mt. 26:56).  But the Lord had told them that if He rose, they’d rise too (John 11:25), so they no longer feared death. We don’t have to fear death either (II Cor. 4:14).

Why did Israel’s religious leaders marvel that “unlearned and ignorant” apostles could be bold?  To answer that, we have to figure out what they meant by “unlearned.”  They called the Lord unlearned (John 7:14) because He hadn’t been to their schools.  But people said He was bold (Jo. 7:25,26) because He was able to use the Bible against leaders who claimed to be experts in the Bible (John 7:23).

And that’s what the apostles did too (Acts 4:10,11).  The Jews would know what the psalm they quoted meant.  They knew God promised to lay the foundation stone of Messiah in Israel (Isa. 28:16) for them to build the kingdom church on.  But they also knew from Psalm 118:22 that God predicted they wouldn’t build the church on Him, but that God would make Him the cornerstone of the church anyway.

And when the apostles quoted the same psalm the Lord did to answer the rulers (Mt. 21:23,42), the leaders knew they had “been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).  Nobody since Him had been able to tie them up in knots using their own Bible like the apostles were doing here!

Not even the Lord’s enemies could say anything against the healing of the lame man (Acts 4:14), for they knew it was a legitimate miracle.  Compare that to modern “healings” you see on TV, where you don’t know the person being healed, so you don’t know if he was really sick or injured.

Israel’s religious leaders decide to have a closed-door meeting (4:15), in which they confessed they didn’t know what to do with the apostles (4:16), for they had performed a “notable” miracle, and everyone in town knew it.  So they decide to tell them to stop preaching Christ (4:17).  Obviously, nothing had changed since the Lord’s day, when those same leaders refused to believe, and didn’t want anyone else to believe either (Mt. 23:13).

After the private meeting was done, Israel’s leaders called the apostles back in (v. 18).  But how did Luke (who wrote the Book of Acts) know what they said in that closed-door meeting?  The Spirit could have told him (cf. II Kings 6:12), but it is also possible that some of those leaders later got saved (Acts 6:7) and told Luke.

Now since Israel was a theocracy, those religious leaders were also their civil leaders, and God’s people are always supposed to obey our civil leaders.  But Peter and John refused to (Acts 4:19), for they knew that we have to draw the line and say no when our leaders tell us to disobey God (Ex. 1:15-17; Dan. 3:18; 6:10).

Notice that neither Daniel nor his three Hebrew friends need-ed to do what their leaders said to do.  They didn’t need to go behind closed doors to talk over whether or not they should obey the command to disobey God.  Obeying God had become like second nature to them.  How?  By learning God’s precepts (Ps. 119:104).  If you’ll learn God’s precepts, obeying God can become like second nature to you too!

Peter went on to tell the leaders that even if God hadn’t commanded him to preach Christ, he couldn’t help but speak about the lame men he’d seen the Lord heal, etc. (Acts 4:20).

Fear of the people saved the apostles from these leaders (v. 21), just as it had the Lord (Mt. 21:45,46).

The man they healed hadn’t walked in forty years (Acts 4:22).  We don’t have miracles like that in the dispensation of grace.  But what we do have is examples of men who haven’t walked with God for forty, fifty, sixty years or more—and then get saved and begin to walk with Him.

If you’ve been saved many years but haven’t been walking with God, why not start now?  You’ll be eternally glad you did.

Video of this message is available on YouTube: Apostolic Boldness – Acts 4:13-22

Be Sure of What’s Pure!

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

“Unto the pure all things are pure…” (Titus 1:15).

Boy, a verse like that sure begs the questions, “Who are these pure people, and why are all things pure for them?”

Well, the word “pure” just means “clean,” as we see when Solomon asked,

“Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?” (Pr. 20:9).

The answer to this rhetorical question is that none of us can make our heart clean!  That’s why we need God to save and purify us.  So when sinners believe the gospel, God saves them by His grace, “purifying their hearts by faith” (cf. Acts 15:9)—so much so that Paul could tell even the carnal Corinthians that they were “washed” clean because they were saved (I Cor. 6:11).

That means the “pure” people in our text are saved people.  But when Paul says that “all things are pure” unto the pure, it doesn’t take a Bible scholar to know that he can’t be saying that sinful things are pure for saved people.

No, in the context, Paul is telling Titus how to deal with “vain talkers…of the circumcision” (Tit. 1:10), unsaved Jews who were teaching the “vain jangling” of the Law (cf. I Tim. 1:6,7).  These teachers of the law were probably insisting that certain meats were “unclean” for the pure because the law said they were (Lev. 11:4,5,6,7,8 etc.).  For nearly 1500 years, Jews under the law would not eat impure foods.

Of course, Gentiles who were not under the law would eat anything.  That’s one of the reasons the Lord called the Gentiles “dogs” (Mt. 15:26), for a dog will eat anything!  Your dog might be a fussy eater, but even he will eat anything if he is hungry enough.

But today, in the dispensation of grace, we are all “baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles” (I Cor. 12:13).   That means when our apostle Paul says that “we are not under law, but under grace” (Rom. 6:15), even Jewish believers are free to eat meats that God once classified as unclean.

That’s why Paul wrote that “commanding to abstain from meats” (I Tim. 4:3) is one of the many “doctrines of devils” that we should avoid (v. 1).  If you take a doctrine that God gave specifically to people in one dispensation and impose it on people in another dispensation, it becomes a doctrine of devils.  When Paul added that “every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused” (v. 4), that’s just another way of saying, “unto the pure all things are pure.”

The apostle expressed this truth again when he wrote,

“…the kingdom of God is not meat and drink… all things indeed are pure” (Rom. 14:17,20).

Had Paul written those words during Old Testament times, someone would have steered him to Leviticus 11 and reminded him that the kingdom of God did involve meat and drink under the law.  Then they would have led him out to be stoned for saying otherwise!

I know there are many who insist that unclean meats are still impure for the pure, but the only reason God pronounced certain foods unclean was to teach the Jews that certain people were unclean—the unsaved Gentiles (Lev. 20:24,25).  We know that Peter understood this, for after the Lord told him he could eat unclean meats (Acts 10:9-16), he said about the Gentiles,

“God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean” (Acts 10:28).

So to say that certain meats are unclean today under grace is to say that the Gentiles are still unclean, and God says otherwise.  It’s better to agree with Him when He says, “unto the pure all things are pure.”

Now would somebody please pass the bacon!

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Enter the Big Shots – Acts 4:1-12

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Summary:

It was the job of the priests (4:1) to teach the people (Lev. 10:8-11), so they didn’t like it when the apostles taught them.  “The captain of the temple” (4:1) was supposed to keep everyone but priests out of the temple (II Chron. 23:1-9), but the leaders in Israel used them and their weapons as “muscle” to arrest the Lord (Lu. 22:52) and the apostles here (4:2).  So the captain didn’t like the apostles preaching Christ, for it made him look bad for arresting Him.  And “the Sadducees” didn’t like it when they preached “the resurrect-tion” (4:2) because they didn’t believe in the resurrection (Acts 23:8).

When the Lord was here on earth, most of His grief came from the Pharisees, because they sat in Moses’ seat (Mt. 23:2), and they preferred Moses to the Lord (Jo. 9:16,28).  So the Pharisees led the way in arresting the Lord (Jo. 18:3).  But when the apostles preached the resurrection of Christ, the Sadducees took over as God’s chief opponents.

Resurrection “from” the dead (4:1) is when one is raised from among the dead and the rest of the dead stayed dead (Jo. 12:1).  Resurrection “of” the dead comes when a whole group of people are raised (Jo. 5:29).  That shows how carefully and accurately the Bible is written.  By the way, men don’t like to believe in resurrection, for it means they’ll be judged (Acts 10:40-42; 17:30,31).

The arrest of the apostles was the response of Israel’s leaders to Peter’s offer of the kingdom (Acts 3:19-21).  But the apostles weren’t surprised, for the Lord had warned them this would happen (Jo. 15:20), unless they could figure out a way to preach the truth without making men mad.  But that would have made them greater than the Lord, for He couldn’t figure that out, for it can’t be done!  Men hate the truth!

But I’m sure the apostles didn’t care they were arrested after they heard 5,000 men alone believed (4:4).  That large group, plus the 3,000 that believed earlier (2:41), means they were getting way more results than the Lord got (1:15), something the Lord also predicted (Jo. 12:24).

This is just a sample of the awesome victory God will win over the devil because of what Christ did. He will “spoil” the devil (Isa. 53:11) of his captives (49:24,25 cf. Mt. 12:28,29).

Annas and Caiaphas (Acts 4:5,6) were both high priest at that time (Lu. 3:2), perhaps because they were related (Jo. 18:12) and the office was in transition.  When they asked the apostles by what “power” and “name” they healed the lame man, that shows the word power here means authority (cf. Ro. 13:1).  They were the authority in Israel, and they knew they hadn’t given the apostles authority to heal anyone.

You’ll notice they asked by what authority the apostles did “this” (4:7), afraid to charge them with healing a man!  But Peter called them on it (Acts 5:8,9)!  He was filled with the Spirit when he spoke (5:8) just as the Lord promised (Lu. 12:11,12).  We can’t speak with the Spirit inspiring our every word as he did, but we can speak graciously (Col. 4:6) which is just as important as speaking accurately. 

Peter knew they didn’t like hearing that their Messiah was from Nazareth (4:10 cf. Jo. 1:46), and that they had killed Him, and that God had raised Him, but he said all those things anyway (4:10) to bring them under conviction.  He then quoted Psalm 118 (4:11), the same verse the Lord quoted when they asked Him by what authority He did what He did (Mt. 21:23-42).  The Jews knew God promised to send a foundation stone that they were supposed to build the kingdom on (Isa. 28:16).  They refused Him, but God made Him the cornerstone of the kingdom church anyway.

Now when Peter concluded his message by saying that the name of Jesus was the only name by which men could be saved (4:12), we use that verse to say men can’t be saved by Buddha or Mohammed, etc.  But the Jews wouldn’t have thought salvation was in the name of Zeus or any of the other false gods of the day.  No, the leaders had asked the apostles by what “name” they’d healed the lame man, so they responded by saying the name of Jesus healed him and saved him.  The Lord did what they could see (heal his lameness) to prove He could do what they couldn’t see (save him) as He did in Matthew 9:5,6.

Video of this sermon is available on YouTube: Enter the Big Shots – Acts 4:1-12

Table the Fables!

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

“Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth” (Titus 1:13,14).

The “vain talkers…of the circumcision” in Crete (Tit. 1:10) were telling “Jewish fables” that were turning men from the truth, so Paul told Titus to tell people to put them on the pay-no-mind list.  But what were these fables about?

Whatever they were, they probably had to do with “the commandments of men” that Paul says they were also using to turn others from the truth.  And since these fables were being told by unsaved Jews of the circumcision, it seems reasonable to believe that they were about the commandments of men Paul mentions in Colossians 2:21,22:

“Touch not; taste not; handle not… the commandments… of men.”

The commandments of men here were the commandments of the law of Moses.  The law was filled with commands concerning things that couldn’t be touched, tasted or handled!

You say, “But the law contained the commandments of God, not the commandments of men!”  And you’d be right—if we were under the law.  But our apostle says “we are not under the law, but under grace” (Rom. 6:15).  And when you put men under commandments found in past dispensations, those commandments of God become the commandments of men.  What a testimony to the importance of “rightly dividing the word of truth” (II Tim. 2:15).

But now that we know which commandments of men Paul is warning Titus about, it helps us determine the nature of those fables.  He was telling him to beware of men who teach the law, and then tell stories about the law.  A fable is a story that is told to teach a lesson, and the fables these unsaved Jews were telling were designed to teach the lesson that we are still under the law.

What kind of stories?  The same kind men tell about the law today.  How many times have you heard this verse from the law quoted:

“…serve… God, and He shall… take sickness away from the midst of thee” (Ex. 23:25).

That’s a promise God made to the people of Israel under the law.  But when you tell people who quote that verse that we’re not under the law, and so we can’t expect God to honor that prom-ise, what do you hear?  Stories!  “But Brother Jim serves the Lord, and God took away his terminal cancer!”  That’s a fable, a story designed to teach the lesson that we are still under the law.

The law also said, “the LORD thy God… is He that giveth thee power to get wealth” (Deut. 8:18).  That’s another promise God gave the people of Israel under the law.  If they would “hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD” (Deut.28:1), God promised to multiply their crops and livestock (v. 4,11,12).  But when you remind people today that we’re not under the law where this promise is found, what do you hear?  More fables!  “But Brother Smith always hearkened to God, and now he’s so rich he can afford to pay Bill Gates to cut his grass!”  More stories designed to teach the lesson we are still under the law.  Paul says to pay no attention to fables like that!

But as I’m sure you know, most Christians put a lot of stock in those kinds of success stories.  But that shouldn’t surprise you, for the Apostle Paul predicted it, saying,

“…the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but… they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (II Timothy 4:3,4).

Sadly, this prophecy has come true.  Most Christians would rather believe a fable than the Word of God, rightly divided.

Don’t you be one of them!  Table the fables, turn back to the truth of grace taught by Paul, and never look back!

Two Minutes with the Bible lets you start your day with short but powerful Bible study articles from the Berean Bible Society. Sign up now to receive Two Minutes With the Bible every day in your email inbox. We will never share your personal information and you can unsubscribe at any time.


A Man Like Moses – Acts 3:22-26

Posted on by Pastor Ricky Kurth

Summary:

To convince the Jews that Jesus was their Christ, Peter calls Moses to the witness stand (3:22) because the Jews loved Moses (Jo. 9:28).  But in clinging to Moses and rejecting God’s new prophet, they were making a dispensational error.  You’d think they would have followed the Lord, since their favorite prophet Moses predicted His coming, as Peter says here, but they didn’t.

Of course, it was mostly Israel’s rulers who didn’t believe the Lord was a prophet.  Many of the people did(Mt. 21:11). And they knew he was a prophet like Moses for He too could heal leprosy (Ex. 4:5-7 cf. Mt. 11:5).

Moses was a type of Christ in many ways, ways that we’ll consider when Stephen talks about them in Acts 7, when we get there in our study.  But here, notice that Peter said that Moses predicted this prophet would arise from “your brethren,” speaking of the people of Israel.  This means He’d be Jewish, and everyone knew the Lord was a Jew!

But the Lord was also like the Prophet that Moses said would come in that Moses said of Him, “Him shall ye hear in all things.”  Now, we know he didn’t mean all the Jews would hear Him, for Moses also said what would happen to the Jews who didn’t hear Him (Acts 3:23).  Having your soul cut off from among the people meant physical death if you disobeyed Moses (Lev. 23:30 cf. Num. 15:32-36).  But it also meant spiritual death, for the Jews had to obey the law to be saved.  And not hearing the Prophet like Moses also meant spiritual death, of course.  But it also meant physical death.  Remember, had the dispensation of grace not interrupted prophecy, those who didn’t hear the Lord would have died at the Second Coming of Christ (II Thes. 1:7,8).

Peter didn’t quote the part where Moses explained that he made that promise “according” to the time when the Jews feared to hear God’s voice, so insisted Moses hear it for them and relay God’s Word in a less scary way (Deut. 18:15,16 cf. Deut. 5:17-28).  Moses did, but he did it again when he died and came back, so to speak, in the Lord, the Prophet like Moses.  The Lord was way less scary (Isa. 42:1-3).  The Jews were used to the idea one of their leaders could return (Mal. 4:4,5)

But did Elijah return personally?  The Lord said he returned in John the Baptist (Mt. 17:12,13).  The apostles asked about Elijah cuz they’d just seen a vision of Elijah (Mt. 17:1-5), and wanted to know why the Lord had come (the prophet like Moses) but Elijah hadn’t, if Elijah was to come “first.”  But Elijah had come, and so had Moses—in Christ!

On the mount of transfiguration, God was recreating the scene when the Jews feared to hear Him (Lu. 9:30).  He was saying, as it were, “Here’s the Moses you asked for, hear Him.  He’s the one I said you’d hear!”  Peter quoted Moses, knowing that the Jews he was speaking to would remember all that, and would know that God sent them Jesus in answer to their request.  Everyone knew that prophecy (Jo. 1:45)!

Moses was also a king (Deu. 33:4,5) and a priest (Ps. 99:5,6), making him a prophet, a priest and a king—like the Prophet God raised up like him!

The Jews at Pentecost weren’t the literal children of the prophets (Acts 3:25).  Ephesians 2:3 calls unbelievers “children of wrath” partly because they’ll be the recipients of God’s wrath, and the Jews at Pentecost were the recipients of the prophecy the prophets made of those days (Acts 3:24), the days when they’d be offered the kingdom (3:19-21).

They were also “the children of the covenant” God made with Moses (Gen. 12:1-3), the covenant where God promised to bless the world with salvation through Israel.  But Israel had to “first” be saved, and have their sins turned away (Acts 3:26), because God intended to use Israel to reach the world with salvation, and He insists that His representatives be saved!  That’s why the angel said that the Savior was born to Israel, but that was good news for all people (Lu. 2:10,11).

And someday, that’s how it will go down.  God will save Israel, and the nations will be blessed with salvation through the people of Israel (Zech. 8:13-23).

Video of this sermon is available on YouTube: A Man Like Moses – Acts 3:22-26