Three Great Sermons in the Book of Acts

Over the course of the last 50 years, I have heard approximately 75 sermons per year. At least. I'm sure I've heard more. So, that would be for each year, about 150 hours of church services per year. Now, when I add that up for the 50 years, that's 7,500 or close to 8,000 hours of preaching or teaching or singing, being involved in church services and learning. And of course, 7,500 hours equals about a whole year, 300 over 300, 312 full 24-hour days of instruction.

Or, if I broke that out to just 8-hour days, which is kind of what we commonly do, either at work or somewhere else, over three years of 8-hour days of instruction. And of course, I guess I could say for me, much of that has not only been listening to sermons, but giving sermons. And I know that many of you have experienced that same amount of teaching from God's Word.

Some of us are newer than that, but many of us have been exposed to that amount of instruction. And so I want to ask what we think. What do you think constitutes a good sermon? Well, if it stops before it's supposed to, that's good. No. That's commonly an idea. And actually, if you're giving sermons, that's usually a good idea to stop before you get to the very end of the time. But what is it that makes a good sermon? One that's memorable, one that's instructive, one that's corrective, one that's motivating. You know, I have to say, I think back over sermons, and I don't always remember exactly what was covered or what was said.

And certainly, sometimes I have a hard time remembering what I gave last week or a month ago, as perhaps many of you do as well. But the Bible gives us some good examples. Good examples of great sermons. And I want to cover three great sermons today that are in the book of Acts. So three great sermons in the book of Acts, Mr. Jackson. I'm going to cover Acts 7 that was spoken by Stephen. I'm going to cover Acts 13 that was spoken by Paul. And I'm going to cover Acts 2, which was, of course, spoken by Peter. I think, as I know you are familiar with many things in the Bible, you know, these particular sermons, if you want to call them that, at least they're speaking, whether it was in a defense or whether it was in a consulting.

You know, this was information that was being shared with other people in somewhat of a sermon format. And I know that Acts has several other discourses or defenses by Paul, and you could go into several of those as well, because there were times when he was called upon to defend himself or he was called upon to explain. What is he doing? But I think when you look at these three sermons that you see some patterns. Some patterns about what might make up a great sermon. What might be the right thing to focus on when we are allowed to give something as a sermon or sermonette? I would ask that we think about these three different sermons I'm going to go through and consider what do they have in common.

What are the chief components of speaking the oracles of God? And how can these words of God be written on our heart? Because whether we are directly speaking or whether we are listening, we are all being instructed.

And I know I generally learn more trying to get ready for a sermon than I do just listening to one. And yet, I think it's important for us to consider that. So let's look at what it was that Stephen said in Acts 7.

Here, of course, is a, I guess at this point Stephen was a deacon. I think when you read in Acts 6, the appointment of deacons, Stephen is one of those who were listed. A man full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit. And then as he and others were preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, they were under attack. And Stephen was actually arrested here in chapter 7. It says, the high priest asked him, are these things so? And Stephen replied. And so here, you see the beginning in, I guess, verse 2.

And all the way down to about verse 53. So throughout the most of Acts 7, you see a sermon that Stephen gave. And again, I don't think it says that he was an apostle or a prophet or a teacher directly. It says he was a deacon. He was ordained a deacon. But what was it that he was focused on whenever he was told, well, defend yourself. Tell us what it is that you're doing. And of course, he says, rather, listen to me in verse 2, the God of glory. And so here he starts extolling and glorifying God. Here he starts praising God and thanking God for what he had done. But what is he going to talk about? He says, the God of glory appeared to our ancestor, Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia. And so here he starts into a description of a history lesson that all of us are familiar with when we read the book of Genesis. You can read about Abraham. You can read. It talks about how that Abraham was a resident alien in a country. Belonging to others, or verse 6, God spoke in these terms that his descendants, Abraham's descendants, would be resident aliens in a country belonging to others. Abraham would be given a covenant of circumcision. And in verse 8, he says, as the father of Isaac, he circumcised him. And Isaac became the father of Jacob. And Jacob, the father of the 12 patriarchs. And so what is he doing? Well, he's going through the history of the people of Abraham that you could easily read in the Old Testament.

He expresses the fact that these people, these descendants of Abraham, went into Egypt, as God predicted. And, of course, they were going to be rescued. And so he introduces in verse 20, at that time Moses was born. He was a beautiful child, or beautiful before God. And it discusses how it was that God trained him in Egypt, and then eventually sent him into Midian, where for 40 years he was a shepherd. He wasn't a ruler as he had been in Egypt. He had been trained in leadership and in rulership, but he then was trained as a shepherd. And, of course, God was then going to use him. And he talks in verse 31 about the burning bush that we read about in Exodus 3. He talks about how God told him, I'm going to draw you to go back to Egypt, and you are going to leave my people out of Egypt. He says, I'm going to, in verse 34, send you to Egypt, and you're going to leave the people out. In verse 36, he mentions having been in Egypt, having gone through the Red Sea, and the fact that God was, well, one doing that, God was with them in Egypt. He was with them as they went through of miraculous deliverance. He was even with them, as it says in verse 36, in the wilderness. Now, they were obviously not doing too well in the wilderness. You know, there was a lot of resistance, a lot of rebellion, certainly an incredible amount of disbelief or lack of faith. But clearly, God was with them. In verse 37, he says, this Moses said to the Israelites, God. And so he's focused on the history that the Jews that he was talking to, you know, they surely should have been aware of. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and being in Egypt and Moses being sent by God to bring them out.

But he says in verse 37, this is the Moses who said to the Israelites, God is going to raise up a prophet for you from your own people as he raised me up. They hear Moses made a very clear statement. I think you see this in Deuteronomy 18. It probably is other places, but that's at least one of the places where he points out to them, well, Moses said that another man would rise like I have in Israel.

And you need to pay attention to him.

Verse 38, or verse 38, he is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai and with their ancestors.

And he received living oracles to give to us.

They hear he's talking about the one that they needed to know.

They needed to know, they needed to listen to, they needed to be looking for that prophet.

And of course, that prophet was Jesus Christ.

Now a little later here in this sermon, Stephen says that Israel in Egypt, and here he's quoting again out of the Old Testament, he says Israel didn't obey God. They didn't turn to God. They weren't affected.

He then described in verse 44 the tent of meeting or tent of testimony in the wilderness.

And later, again following the history, he said Joshua was used by God to bring the Israelites into the Promised Land. And the tent of testimony, the tabernacle was there until the time of David.

And so then he talks about David a little, and he talks about Solomon.

And in verse 51, and he kind of concludes what he's saying. He's gone through a history lesson.

He's gone through information that I'm sure he realized these men were all aware of. But he said now in verse 51, You stiff-necked people and uncircumcised in heart and ears.

You are forever opposing the Holy Spirit just as your ancestors used to do.

Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the righteous one.

And now you have become his betrayer and his murderer.

You are the ones who received the laws ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it.

Of course, the conclusion to that sermon was somewhat grim.

And the conclusion of that sermon was, look, you need to repent.

Jesus Christ came to the earth. The righteous one was sent by God, and yet you didn't repent of your sins. You put to death the Son of God.

And of course, Stephen is, as we see here in the last few verses of Acts 7, he's going to be stoned to death. And of course, as we read in the first part of chapter 8, Saul, the one who would be the Apostle Paul thereafter, was standing there approving of all that had gone on.

Now, that's an interesting sermon whenever you analyze it, when you think about what was it that was covered in that sermon. What is it that we need to focus on ourselves? Let's turn over to Acts 13. Acts 13 is, in a sense, a sermon that Paul was giving. He was addressing an audience. He and Barnabas had come to Antioch in the city of...so this is not the Syrian Antioch, which was very familiar and somewhat older in the church. It was one where Paul was initially just north of Jerusalem. But this was in, you know, some of Paul's journey. And he had come to this city where he had even had or will have some more problems. And on the Sabbath day, it says in chapter 13-14, on the Sabbath day, they went into the synagogue. And after the reading of the law and the prophets, the officials of the synagogue sent them a message, rather than...if you let me, word of exhortation for the people, then give it. And so Paul stood up, and with a gesture, began to speak. So again, here, can't say this was directly a sermon to a church in Corinth or Athens or any place else, but you know, here he was addressing, in a sense, new people to the truth of God.

And he said, you Israelites and others who fear God, I want you to listen.

Listen. And so here again, you see an approach that Paul had. And he starts saying, the God of this people Israel chose our ancestors. See, now many of them were descendants of Israel, so they were familiar with that. But he says the God, the God of Israel, chose them and made the people great. During their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm led them out of there. And after 40 years, he put up with them in the wilderness. You know, that's pretty much what he had to do as disobedient as they were. After he had destroyed other nations in the land of Canaan, he gave them that land as an inheritance in verse 19. And so again, Paul goes through a history, a biblical history of the Old Testament. He goes through an awareness of how it was God had chosen the people of Abraham. He was working with them in some ways as an example or as a type. In other ways, he was going to do something through these people.

Here you see them coming into the land of inheritance. He talks about the judges.

He talks about Samuel in verse 20. In verse 21, they ask him for a king, and God gave them Saul.

So here he's going through again that same history. We read this in 1 Samuel, I believe, where they rejected the rule of God and the rule of Samuel at that point. And they said, we want a king. God said, I'll give you a king. It won't work either. But I'll give you a king. And so he did give them Saul. And in verse 22, when he had removed him, he made David their king.

On his testimony about him, he said, I found David, the son of Jesse, to be a man after my own heart who will carry out all of my wishes. See now, in a sense, Paul's kind of covered some of the same stuff that Stephen did. He reminded them that God is working through a people that he chooses. It is his choice. And he, of course, was the one who decided to work through Abraham.

He comes down to David and, of course, makes some positive comments about David. You don't read a lot about other problems here. You read about the fact that God looked at David's heart.

And in verse 23, of this man's posterity, God has brought to Israel a Savior, Jesus, as He promised. Before His coming, John had already proclaimed a baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel. And as John was finishing his work, he said, who do you think I am?

No, I'm not that prophet. I'm not the one that you are to look for.

But one is coming after me, and I'm not even worthy to untie the thong of his sandals on his feet.

What was he doing? Well, he was showing that, well, John the Baptist, as we would call him, reading the accounts that we have available to us, he says he was a forerunner. He was leading up into the time of the one that you really need to look at. And he says in verse 26, Brethren, you descendants of Abraham's family and others who fear God to us, the message of this salvation has been sent. We've been sent. Not just knowledge of Jesus Christ. We've been sent a message of salvation. That's something to be impressed with. A message of salvation. How salvation is going to come? Verse 27, Because the residents of Jerusalem and leaders did not recognize Jesus, did not recognize him or understand the words of the prophets that are read every Sabbath. They fulfilled these words by condemning Him. And said here, Jesus came to the earth. He was the perfect example in every way. He had been predicted to be coming. He, of course, had eternally existed as the Word, but that Word became flesh. And He dwelled among us. And yet, you killed Him. That's what Paul is saying. That's what happened.

And so, you see in verse 30, he also points out that even though Jesus was put to death and He was in the grave for three days and three nights, in verse 30, he said, but God raised Him from the dead. See, that's another aspect of what God wants us to be mindful of, that Jesus didn't die and then didn't exist. He was in the grave three days and three nights and then God raised Him from the dead.

And for many days in verse 31, He appeared to those who came up with Him from Galilee to Jerusalem and they are now His witnesses to the people. And we bring you this good news that what God promised to our ancestors, He has fulfilled for us as their children by raising Jesus as it is written in the second psalm, You are my Son. Today I have begotten you. Here, Paul is obviously very aware of the history of Israel. He's very aware of how it is that God dealt with a chosen people and He then points them to the only way to salvation and that is through Jesus Christ and through an understanding and belief in His resurrection from the dead. He talks in verse 34, again quoting, about the holy promises made to David. And in verse 36, for David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, he died and was laid beside his ancestors and experienced corruption, but he whom God raised up experienced no corruption. And so he's pointing out something about David in a sense those who were aware of who David had been, how prominent he had been, you know, they needed to realize that he's still dead and buried. And of course, he's going to say this in another place. He says, let it be known in verse 38, to you therefore brethren that through this man, forgiveness of sin is proclaimed.

And the only way we can have our sins forgiven is through Jesus Christ, through a belief in Him, through an understanding of His mercy and forgiveness. And then by this Jesus, everyone who believes is set free from all those sins from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.

He says you can't earn salvation. No matter how much you obey, he could tell them you might think you can. And of course, in other places we see that they thought they could somehow gain eternal life just through the Scripture. But he said, well, there's more to it than that. You've got to understand the Son of God.

Beware in verse 40 therefore that what the prophets said does not happen to you. Look, you scoffers, be amazed and perish, for in your days I'm going to do a work.

A work that you would never believe even if someone told you.

Now, obviously this is a little different instruction, but there are some similarities.

See, he starts out talking about a chosen people. He starts out rehearsing the history of Israel.

And then pointed them to the only one who was able to forgive their sins, and that would be Jesus Christ. And here in this case, he pointed out how that a work would be done by God. God would warn. He would warn people through a work of God at the end of the age as well as at that time. He was quoting the book of Habakkuk.

He was pointing out something out of the Old Testament that clearly needed to be understood in light of what Paul was doing and see what Paul realized he was doing and what Barnabas was doing and what Peter was doing and what John and James and others of the apostles were doing.

They were doing a work of proclaiming the kingdom of God.

Now, let's jump back to Acts 2. Again, this is a sermon that you're probably more familiar with because we usually cover it in one way or another toward the time of the day of Pentecost.

Because clearly, this was an inspired sermon that Peter gave about what's happening right now. Now, God, on the day of Pentecost, as you read in chapter 2, as the disciples were gathered together in one place, and suddenly there was a miracle from God. Suddenly, you know, there were flames of fire and there was incredible noise and there was a miracle in the speaking and in the hearing of the people because it says, you know, I'm not sure exactly what language they might be speaking, but I'm understanding it in English. I'm understanding it in French. I'm understanding it in Spanish or German. Whatever language they were speaking, those are probably not the ones represented here. But see, we heard something. And of course, what Peter was going to explain, and as we see chapter 2, verse 14, Peter standing with the others, 11, raised his voice and said, men of Judea and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and listen to what I have to say. These men aren't drunk. They were saying, well, they seem like they're just babbling.

They seem like they're intoxicated. He goes ahead to describe. And what does he do? Well, he quotes the Old Testament. He quotes the book of Joel here in verse 17, and the last days it will be God declares I will pour out my spirit. Upon all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy. Verse 18, even upon my servants, both men and women in those days I will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy. And so he explained to them, well, this is what God is doing. God is performing a miracle in providing a gift, a gift of the Holy Spirit. And in verse 22, he says, you that are Israelites, listen to what I have to say. Where does he go? Jesus of Nazareth. A man attested to you by God with deeds of power and with wonders and with signs that God did through Him among you as you yourselves know. And so these were people who were in and around Jerusalem at the time when Jesus had been crucified. And he said this man, verse 23, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. You crucified and you killed Him by the hands of those outside the law. You had the Romans put Him to death.

But of course, he follows that up again with a familiar, but God raised Him from the dead. Even though men rejected the Redeemer, even though men resist and reject the Savior and refuse to obey or believe, probably believe to begin with and then obey as they understand Him, but He says God raised Him from the dead, having freedom from death because it wasn't possible for Him to be held in His power. And then David says, and he quotes Psalm 16, verse 29, "...fellow Israelites, I say to you confidently of our ancestor David that he is dead and buried. His tomb is with us to this day." See, he made a contrast between David, who was a prominent Israelite and perhaps the most well-known king in Israel, but he said he's dead and buried.

He's not going to...he didn't go to heaven. Of course, Paul says that in other places, I believe. He didn't go to heaven, but Jesus was raised from the dead. He was raised from the dead.

Verse 30, since he was a prophet, talking about David, he knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that He would put one of His descendants on His throne for seeing this.

David spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah. So here he ties in with what David had written, because again, the inspiration of the Bible is clearly here to see if people have eyes to see and ears to hear. You know, the things that you read about whenever you go through these sermons, you see them quoting the book of Psalms many times. You see them quoting the book of Isaiah, the book of Joel, the book of Habakkuk, the book of Amos, here in different places, even from what we've read. And of course, there's many others. Verse 32, this Jesus, God raised up, and on that, all of us are witnesses. See, He could say He was. Others of the disciples with Him were. We're all witnesses of what God has done. Being exalted at the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this that you now see and hear. See, again, He was explaining how that the Holy Spirit had been extended and God was expanding. He was increasing in a sense. He was developing a spiritual Israel. He was going to develop a church through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

And He had poured out that Spirit initially here on the day of Pentecost.

He went ahead to add in verse 34, David didn't ascend into heaven. And see, again, if they had any misperception about that, that didn't happen. He's dead and buried. But He Himself says, the Lord's getting quotes Psalm 110, verse 36, Therefore, let the whole house of Israel know. Let them know with certainty that God has made Him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.

See, now He pointed out their sins. He pointed out their awareness or lack of awareness of what the Old Testament had been explaining about God working with a chosen people of Israel.

And He explained how it is that your sins, and whether they were directly involved, which some of them I guess probably could have been because they were still there in Jerusalem, or whether they were not directly involved, they clearly were indirectly involved with their sins because those sins of each man then necessitated the death of the Son of God. And of course, we know in a sense the conclusion to this, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart. They said to Peter in verse 37, What should we do? Many brethren, what should we do? And of course, Peter says, Repent and be baptized to every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven and you may receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

For this promise is to you and your children, and for all that are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God will call. And he testified with many other arguments and exhorted them, saying, Save yourself from this corrupt generation. See, now we find the response to that was thousands of people were baptized that day.

They were added by God to the church, which He calls the Israel of God, in other places here in the New Testament. But I think it's amazing to just look at those three, you could say, sermons or at least those three speaking opportunities that these servants of God, Stephen, Adeek, Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, and Peter, the apostle to the Israelites, you see that they all have some kind of common things there, and perhaps things that we all should be very, very versed in. As we continue our training program, week in and week out and adding to at least two hours every week, you know, we're in church. Come think of it, I've been in two services most all that time, so my calculations were a little low.

And I guess my boys would probably say, yeah, two or three or four every week it would appear.

So, I only go through these and ask us to think about what are the common aspects of these incredibly noted sermons recorded for us in the book of Acts. I'm going to enumerate some of these, and yet we've already kind of talked to them. You know, clearly these speakers, under the direction of God and with His Holy Spirit, they had a clear knowledge.

Of man's history that's recorded in the Old Testament. Now, we see in other places, if you read Hebrews 11, about Abel and Enoch and Noah, you know, he doesn't address that to these audiences. Those are actually earlier in the book of Genesis, as we know. But he started with Abraham. In each case here, he talks about Abraham leading to David and then leading to Jesus Christ.

And he said the only way you'll ever have salvation is through Jesus Christ.

And so, clearly, they had a knowledge of man's history that's recorded in the Old Testament.

And as I said, they used Old Testament scriptures to proclaim a New Testament message.

See, the New Testament is based on Jesus Christ, on Him, providing forgiveness on us, responding and obeying in service to God, to glorify God. And as I said, they quoted the book of Psalms and Isaiah, Joel, Habakkuk, and Amos, at least the ones that I could easily identify.

You could look all those up. Those are three chapters you could study if you wanted some time, because they all tie in the Old Testament. I think you could also say that they clearly had mastered the book of Genesis and Exodus. See, that's a part of the Bible that we want to clearly understand, because it gives us so many answers to things that have to be known in order to properly then respond. And perhaps you could say the whole law. And of course, I'm not saying anything against any other part of the Old Testament, but clearly they were familiar with the story of Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the patriarchs, and Moses, and Egypt, and the Red Sea, and the wilderness, and the Promised Land, and Joshua, and ultimately Samuel, and Saul, and David, and Solomon.

They were conversant with biblical example.

Of course, I mentioned that they spoke about God choosing the people of Israel.

Israel didn't pick themselves. Abraham didn't pick himself. It says he did respond to God. He did obey. He went through some very difficult things in order to do that.

But see, it's significant for us to realize that as God has chosen to deal with us today, He also dealt with a chosen people in the past, and that's clearly His prerogative. I think you also saw in each of these sermons that they pointed to God's prediction, and then later the fulfillment of a prophet to come, the righteous one.

And of course, He pointed out to the audiences, you condemned Him, but God raised Him from the dead, proclaiming, and we are proclaiming, the good news of what God promised.

And yet He was crucified by you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.

See, that had to occur. That was a part of why the Word was sent to this earth, why He was sent as a human being.

It's amazing to even think about, and I was thinking about this in connection. It's a kind of off point here. But in connection with John 2, you read what seems to be a little bit of an unusual interaction, which was the changing of huge, what they call them, you know, great big tanks of water to wine, good wine, better wine than what they had been serving. And again, you might wonder, well, I wonder why God put that in there. And of course, it's just mentioned that that was the first the first sign that Jesus showed. He even seemed almost reluctant to do so.

But see, all you see about that account is the wedding celebration was perhaps waning a little, and Mary was aware, and it appears Jesus was aware, well, they've run out of wine, you know.

And all Mary says is, do whatever He says. She knew who He was. She had to know who He was.

She had maybe more than Joseph or any of the others around Him. She had to know who He was.

And so, of course, He said, do whatever He says. And of course, He complied with that request. And yet, you know, each of these sermons pointed to God's prophet, to God's Son, to God's answer to the sins of mankind. We read how that He declared that God had sent the Holy Spirit. I think you see that referred to in each one of these. How valuable is it to be a recipient of the Holy Spirit? Is that just something to know about, or is that something that ought to thrive in us? In each of these, you see an appeal for them to repent and turn to God. Now, obviously, in Stephen's case, it brought about his death. In Peter's, it brought about 3,000 people turning to God that day and God adding them to the church by giving them the Holy Spirit. And in Paul's, you know, if you continued reading where we left off, they wanted Him back next week and wanted Him back next week. And several weeks later, they're all trying to get Him to come back.

Tell us more. You see all of them speaking from the heart and with a zeal and an enthusiasm, because they had a message of salvation. That's what they were doing. That's what, you know, we should do as we study the Bible each week, as we come together and as we are learning more about how it is. You saw how that more than once it was pointed out that David was dead and buried, yet Jesus had been raised from the dead. See, men are very temporary.

God is permanent. And so, those are things for us to consider to think about and continue to think about. And of course, we see it pointed out that it is only through Jesus that forgiveness of sin is possible. The law of Moses could not remove sin. And as I said, no one could earn their salvation.

But as we also read in the latter part of Paul's speaking, you know, God is doing a work.

He's doing a work in our time. Now, of course, he was saying that that a work was being done by him and others of the apostles at that time. And yes, that's true. But see, God is also doing a work today that he brings us into and makes us a part of the church in order to fulfill that mission of proclaiming the kingdom and giving a witness to the world. That's what we are, you know, trying to do. That's what we are making as much of an attempt as we can to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom of God to this world. So, I think whenever you analyze these sermons that you read here in the book of Acts, you could clearly see why Paul would tell Timothy here in 2 Timothy. And Paul was leading or teaching Timothy to be a better minister of God, to be a better servant of God. And it would appear that Stephen actually paid attention to what would have been instructed along that line because clearly, you know, he ultimately would lay down his life for a message of the gospel. But here in 2 Timothy, this is in the latter part of this in chapter 4, Paul says, "...in the presence of God and of Jesus Christ, who is to judge the living and the dead, and view of His appearing in His kingdom, I solemnly urge you to preach the Word. Proclaim the message. Be persistent, whether the time is favorable or unsavable, in season or out of season." That's what we're told to do. We talk about in season things dealing with the Holy Days and the things that they picture, and we learn from them. But here he's telling Timothy to proclaim the Word, preach the gospel, preach the Word of God.

You'll be in season and out of season, convinced, rebuked, encouraged.

"...with the utmost patience in teaching for the time is coming, when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths." See, Paul makes it pretty clear to Timothy, I don't want you to depart from what the Word of God is telling us, and that's what you were to proclaim. And I think you see a pattern in the sermons that we read through here in Acts. You see a pattern of him focusing on, you know, Jesus Christ and His work in our lives through the power of the Holy Spirit. We might back up as well into chapter 3, because here in 2 Timothy 3, it again tells us pretty much what it was that the speakers, the preachers that gave these messages that we read, it's what they had in mind. In verse 16, all Scripture is given. It's inspired by God. It's God breathed and is useful for teaching and reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness so that everyone who belongs to God, a man of God, may be proficient and equipped for every good work. So when you count up or think about the many hours going on to days, maybe years that you have been in a church service or listening to some kind of sermon, I hope that we can all benefit from what it says about, you know, being properly prepared, because that's what God is doing. He is preparing us for roles of service in the Kingdom of God, and He wants us to be very, very versed in His work.