What is a Christian ?

Now, if you have your Bible with you, we invite you to turn with

us, please, to the book of the Acts of the Apostles, the very

familiar chapter, chapter 26. We're going to read from verse

19, that passage of Scripture where the apostle Paul was

brought before King Agrippa. And of course, as a man says

just at the drop of a hat, Paul was always willing to give a

word of testimony and to tell exactly what the Lord had done

for him and how God had worked in his life.

And we break into the story, as Paul has been rehearsing before

King Agrippa and those who were with him in that court that day,

how the Lord and mercy and in grace broke into Paul's life.

And we're reading there from verse 19.

And Paul says, Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient

unto the heavenly vision, but showed first unto them of

Damascus under Jerusalem, and throughout the course of Judea,

and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to

God, and do works meet for repentance.

For these causes the Jews caught me in the temple, and went about

to kill me. Having therefore obtained help

of God, I continue on to this day, witnessing both to small

and great, saying none other things than those which the

prophets and Moses did say should come, that Christ should

suffer, that He should be the first that should rise from the

dead, and should show light unto the people and to the Gentiles.

And as he thus speak for himself, Festus said with a loud

voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself.

Much learning does make thee mad.

But he said, I am not mad. Most noble Festus, but speak

forth the words of truth and soberness.

For the king knoweth of these things before whom also I speak

freely, where I am persuaded that none of these things are

hidden from him. For this thing was not done in a

corner. King Agrippa, believe us thy the

prophets. I know that thou believest.

Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thy persuadest me to be a

Christian. Paul said I would to God, that

not only thy, but also all that hear me this day.

We're both almost and all together such as I am, except

these bonds. Now when he had thus spoken, the

king rose up, and the governor and Bernice, and they that sat

with them, and when they were gone aside, they talked between

themselves, saying, This man doeth nothing worthy of death or

of bonds. Then said Agrippa onto Festus,

This man might have been set at liberty if he had not appealed

unto Caesar. Amen.

May God bless to us the public reading of His own inspired and

His infallible Word. Let's just bow once again we

word of prayer and ask the Lord's help upon the preaching

of His Word. Father in Heaven, we thank Thee

again for all Thy goodness to us.

We thank Thee again for the love of God in Christ.

We thank Thee for the Gospel of Christ that reaches down and

takes men and women from the depths of sin and cleanses them

in the precious blood of the Lamb and fits them out for

heaven and for home. Lord, we thank Thee tonight that

the Gospel is still the power of God unto salvation to everyone

that believeth. We pray just now Lord, that you

will shut us in with thyself. Come by thy spirits power and

granted thy word may go forth, and the power and demonstration

of God the Holy Ghost, and that someone within the hearing of

our voice and the House of God are on line, may come to know

Christ, whom to know his life eternal.

I take the promised Holy Ghost, the blessed power of Pentecost

to fill me to the uttermost. I take.

Thank God he undertakes for me. Amen.

Amen. As I said, the 26th chapter of

the book of the Acts of the Apostles, a very familiar one

where the great apostle Paul gave his testimony as he often

did before King Agrippa. You remember when Paul was saved

in Acts Chapter 9, and when Ananias made his way through the

Acts 9 · chapter mention

city and went and laid hands on on Saul of Tarsus, as he was

known then. And Saul received his sight and

began to rehearse the things that the Lord had told him.

He began to tell him that God had spoken to me, Ananias.

And God has told me that I will bear his name even before kings

and before rulers and before the Gentiles.

And I was thinking about these lovely words and this incident

and very familiar text of Scripture down there in verse

28, where Agrippa said to Paul, almost thy persuadest me to be a

Christian and I want to take for a theme or a title tonight.

What is a Christian? See, there are many, many

different philosophies and ideas and theories in this world.

And yet if I was to say about a communist or a Socialist or a

Conservative or Labour or some other title like that, people

would, generally speaking, know what we were speaking about.

And those systems of thought and ideas are well known.

I might speak about an evolutionist and we would know

what an evolutionist believes. It's no coincidence that when

God was sending a great revival across the nation, Darwin

published his book The Origin of Species, which was, in my

opinion, badly named. It should have been fairy tales

for adults. That would have been a better

name for it. But I remember a young fellow in

the town where I ministered and he'd be very, very well

educated, he'd become a doctor, He'd been in the Royal Navy, he

had went up the ranks but in a incident he was shell shocked

and so eventually he was retired out of the Navy.

But everybody knew him in the town.

He was a lovely young man, very well spoken and he walked all

the time. He, he walked in and out the

streets and up and down and everybody called him by his name

and called him the Walker. But everybody knew him and he

was friendly to everybody. When he met me in the street he

said hello vicar. He always called me vicar.

And then he, he used to say how are your parishers doing?

I think he meant parishioners. I hope they weren't perishing.

How are your perishers doing? But I remember one day I was in

a a men's shop, clothes shop. And he came into the shop and he

looked to the the owner of the shop and he said, what?

What kind of jackets have you have you anything, you know,

flamboyant? Have you anything Brighton and

gay? That word gay did not have the

connotation that it has in this day in which we are living,

shows how much the language that we use has changed.

He was talking about some. It was a nice colour, it was

bright, shiny, it was beautiful to look at.

And he was wanting to to get dressed up either on what

occasion he was looking for that, but that's the way things

are. But none, no word has been

bandied about and everybody claims it like the word

Christian. I remember we used to have a WE

group come to sing for us in Mount Marion Free Presbyterian

Church and one of the WE girls one night was giving a word of

testimony. I was just talking about people

being Christians and says, you know, some people say if you're

born in a Christian country, you're a Christian.

She says if you're born in the garage, it doesn't make you a

motor car. And you can be born in a

so-called Christian country, not be a Christian.

And some of the great big cults call themselves Christian, and

in reality, there is nothing Christian about them.

So I want to think with you for a moment or two as we read this

incident about Paul. What is a Christian?

And you'll notice that when we read Paul's testimony and he

tells King Agrippa Har that he saw this light brighter than the

noonday sun, and he heard a voice, and a voice spoke to him

from heaven. And he cried out, Who art thou,

Lord? And the one he blasphemed, and

the people of God whom he persecuted, Saul of Tarsus, fell

before the Lord Jesus Christ. As the Lord spoke to him, shone

the light round about him brighter than the noonday sun.

And he cried, Lord, who art thou?

Who art thou? Lord he?

On that day he exercised a choice, And the one who was so

religious and the one who was so antagonistic to the Christians

and to the people who were called people of that way who

followed Christ, he made a deliberate choice and he called

the Lord Jesus Christ Lord, and he made him his Lord and took

him as his Saviour. And he started out on that great

journey that would bring him home safe to heaven.

When he eventually was martyred for his faith, he could say, I

am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at

hand. I fought a good fight.

I finished the course. I have kept the faith.

Henceforth there has laid up for me a crown of righteousness,

which the Lord the righteous Judge will give to me, and not

to me only, but unto all of them also the love His appearing.

Saul of Tarsus exercised a choice, and every time the

gospel is preached, gospel preachers exhort men and women

to take Christ as their own and personal Saviour.

They exhort men and women to repent of their sin, to turn

away from their sin to receive the Lord Jesus Christ into their

life as a Roman personal Saviour and in the the Providence of God

and God in his grace and in his mercy and brings people to

meetings such as this. And they, they hear the word of

God. Maybe they've been born into a

Christian home and they know the way of salvation.

They've had a Bible, a copy of the Bible for themselves.

They can read the word of God in their own language.

They've heard the gospel at the street corner of the open air

preacher. They've read gospel tracts, but

maybe they've never made that choice and receive Christ as her

Saviour. Way back in the Old Testament

Scriptures, before Moses the man of God died, he preached a great

sermon to the people. And the way back there in the

book of Deuteronomy and Deuteronomy chapter 30 and in

Deuteronomy 30 · chapter mention

verse 15, Moses says these words, Deuteronomy chapter 30

Deuteronomy 30 · chapter mention

and verse 15. See, I have set before thee this

day life and good and death and evil, and that I command thee

this day to love the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways, to

keep his commandments and statutes and his judgments, that

thy mayest live and multiply. And the Lord thy God shall bless

thee in the land, whether thy go to possess it.

But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but

shall be drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, I

denounce unto you this day that ye shall perish.

Moses was calling them to choose.

Says I have set before your life and death.

Talks about blessing and cursing in every gospel meeting.

The way of life was presented for the Bible says the wages of

sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.

And when Moses died and God buried him and his successor,

Joshua came to the forefront and Joshua led the people.

You remember that Joshua also on that great occasion he he called

to the people the way back there in the book of Joshua and Joshua

Joshua 24 · chapter mention

chapter 24 and on verse 15. He says, if it seem evil unto

you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will

serve, whether the gods which your father served that were on

the other side of the flood or the gods of the Amorites, and

whose land ye dwell. But As for me in my house we

will serve the Lord Moses, Joshua, faithful preachers of

the word of God. Moses when he stood at the

burning Bush, he complained that he was slow of speech.

He complained that he could not go and speak to Pharaoh.

And God was gracious and God said, I send Aaron your brother

with you. But my when Moses came to the

end of the journey, and when he preached that great Sherman and

he called and he says, I said before your life and death and

blessing and cursing, therefore choose.

He says, my doctrine shall drop as Jew and drop as the real he

had been blessed. And Joshua says, choose you this

day whom he will serve. Remember old Elijah, the great

prophet of God. Elijah fought with the prophets

of Baal and there on Mount Carmel they had the contest and

the prophets of Beale jumped up and down and squealed and yelled

and cut themselves and cried for Beale to answer but of course

there was no answer. Elijah says let the God that

answers by fire serve him. Do you remember Elijah in First

Kings and in chapter 18 the Bible that says there if the

Lord be God, follow him. First Kings 18 and 21 her long

hauled ye between two opinions. If the Lord be God, follow him,

but if Beal, then follow him. And the people answered of never

a word and you remember her. But Elijah prayed, God sent the

fire, fire from heaven fell like that.

They slew the false prophets and the people said the Lord he is

God. I ask you the question tonight.

Choose you this day whom you will serve.

Choose life, choose blessing. But I ask you, how long?

How long halt ye between two opinions?

That means to stagger from one place to another.

How long are you staggering from doing what's right and holding

onto this world? Elijah says if Beale be God,

follow him. But if the Lord be God, follow

him. In this world today, Beale could

be represented by the pleasures and the power and the things

that this world has to offer and all the temptations and all the

the things that prestige and all that this world can give.

My men are looked upon as gods, whether they be pop stars or

sports stars or whatever they might be.

People say, I would love to be like that.

I would love to have what they have.

I would love to do what they do. But her long holiday between two

opinions. The spiel be God and I just says

follow him. If the Lord is God, then follow

him and I think about those words of the Lord Jesus Christ,

our Saviour, when he himself calling men and women to follow

him. He said strive to enter in at

the Strait gate for Strait as the gate and narrowest the way

that leadeth unto life. But why does the gate?

Why does the gate that leads to destruction when the Lord Jesus

said strive? It's the word in the original

agon also may I means to to agonise.

It's the word that's used when our Saviour knelt in the Garden

of Gethsemane in the midst of the olive trees and he agonised

until he sweat as it were great drops of blood.

But Jesus says strive to enter in and he says the Kingdom of

heaven is taken even by violence of men take a hold upon it and

and want to be saved for man's drowning in the sea and someone

throws him a lifeline. My He'll take every bit of his

energy and every bit of his strength and every bit of his

power and every bit of his ability to lay hold upon the

lifeline. The old Gospel him says

throughout the lifeline, across the dark wave, dear friend,

tonight Paul exercised his choice and he chose Christ.

Choose you this day whom you will, Sir.

Paul not only exercised his choice, he experienced the

change. He was a persecutor.

He was a blasphemer. He he rounded up the people of

God, He put them in fetters, he put them in prison, He gave his

voice against, he held the garments of the people who

stoned the godly Stephen. But he was changed because that

day he came face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ.

He could sing that hymn if it had been written in His day.

What a wonderful change in my life has been wrought since

Jesus committed my heart. Thank God for the testimonies I

have heard for years from I was saved even before I was saved.

Thank God for men and women, for young people, for boys and

girls. Some saved at their bedside,

some saved in their youth, some saved when they were children

and they came to know the Lord Jesus Christ.

And God has blessed them, God has kept them, and God will keep

them. Some men and women save from a a

prodigal lifestyle, save from the terrible sins that this

world has to offer. And I don't need to go into them

all, but they've been saved and there's a change.

There's a change some see, if they were steeped in religion

and they thought religion is the way and they thought ceremony is

the way and they thought all the ordinances, the church, that's

the only way I can get into heaven.

But then they, they, they, they came to know Christ made a

choice and they received him and they realised salvation is not

on the church, it's not on a creed, it's not on a preacher,

it's not on a cleric, it's in Christ and in Christ alone.

I sometimes think those lovely words in the prayer that the

Lord Jesus Christ taught his disciples.

Then he said, and at the end of the pressures for thine is the

Kingdom, the power and the glory.

And I was thinking about it just the other night there as I read

it again in the Scriptures, thine is the Kingdom.

Remember when Jesus talked to Nicodemus, he says Nicodemus,

except a man be born again, he cannot even see the Kingdom of

God, let alone enter it. Nicodemus, you need the new

birth. You need to be born of the

Spirit, with life from above into God's family, divine.

If you want to get to heaven, you must be born again.

God has a Kingdom. Tell me tonight for it.

Have you entered it? Are you part of God's Kingdom?

Thine is the king, the power. Have you experienced it?

Remember people and I worked on the factory and there are people

who said, oh, Christianity's all right.

For some of you young fellas, some of you young girls,

Christianity's all right. You don't you haven't tasted

some of the things of the world. I could never change.

I could never stop this. I could never stop that.

I could never stop the other. But when they came to Christ at

the moment, the power of sin was broken because thine is the

Kingdom. It's God's Kingdom and he has

the power and he has the glory. Are we, have we entered into

God's Kingdom? Are we saved?

Have we experienced the power of God in our lives?

Are we enthralled by by the glory of God?

There's a glory that awaits the people of God.

Are we enthralled behind? Can I just say because our time

is gone, Paul exercised the choice to Christ as a saviour.

He experienced a change. The Bible says 2nd Corinthians

517. If any man, it means any man,

any woman, any boy, any girl, any teenager, any old age

doesn't matter. Our age, our nationality, our

background, whether we're educated or illiterate doesn't

matter. If any man be in Christ, he is a

new creature and the old things, thank God they pass away and all

things become you. Paul made a choice and and he

experienced the change and you expected are coming.

The one he denied, the one whom he thought could not have risen

again from the dead. He realised he is alive, He's a

living Saviour. And just as the Angel said in

Acts 111, ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?

This Jesus, this same Jesus shall come again.

Unlike manner as ye have seen him go.

Paul was living for the Lord Jesus, and whether he would live

or die, he knew that one day he would see Christ face to face as

it happened. As a grippa said, he might have

been settled free had he not appealed unto Caesar.

But God told them, you're going to be a witness even in Rome

also. And then he was and prisoned,

brought out and martyred. But it was his crowning day, his

glory day, when he'll go from this scene of time to be with

the Saviour whom he loved, whom he served.

You know, we we're we're living in the old Nicholson used to

talk about it in his gospel campaigns used to say we're not

looking for the undertaker, We're looking for the upper

taker. We're looking for the Lord Jesus

Christ to come back again. We know not when they are may

come. We know when the day may come,

morning, night or noon, but thank God we know this.

The Lord Jesus Christ is coming back again, coming back again.

But whether he we are alive and remain in this world when He

comes or whether he calls us, takes us out to be with Himself,

The thing is, you must be ready. You must have made the choice.

He must have experienced the change.

Are you looking for him? Can you say, Fred, it's well of

my soul, the old Gospel hymn, it is well, it is well of my soul.

You say, Fred, I can put my head on the pillow tonight, knowing

of the truth and of a certain day.

If the Lord Jesus Christ were to come, or if he were to call me

out to meet him, I'm ready to go.

I used to sing a wee gospel hymn in the books of the Bible, these

words we are told, a man turned from God to silver and gold.

But you have to wear a headache. Don't turn away, turn to Christ.

Turn now, today if you hear his voice, harden not your heart,

but receive them. May the Lord bless these simple

thoughts tonight to our hearts. Let's bow together and be word

of prayer. Can I just say we're your

servant for Jesus sake? And if you have never taken that

step, the old gospel hymn says only a step to Jesus, then why

not take it now? Come and thy sin, confessing to

Christ the Saviour by only a step.

Only a step. Come, he waits for thee.

Thou shalt receive a blessing He freely offers thee.

Will you come tonight? It's only a step, Step from sin

to grace. Step tonight from death to life,

from the power of sin and Satan unto the glorious gospel of

Jesus Christ. Father in Heaven, we thank thee

again for the simplicity of the Word of God, for thy presence

with us. Bless your word.

We pray it should be 1 still outside of Christ.

Lord, give them grace even to tell us of their need.

Help us to show them the way, to point them to the Lamb of God

that taketh away the sin of the world.

Separate us now with Thy blessing.

Take us all to our homes in safety and abide with us.

For we ask all these things in Jesus name and for God's eternal

glory. Amen.