10/12 An Age for Prophets and Teachers

Acts Lecture 63 - Sermon 4 Date: 10/12/2025 Topic: An Age for Prophets and Teachers Scripture: Acts 13:1-12

Sermon Text

Barnabas, Saul, and Mark, who had joined them, have now returned to the church in Antioch. Barnabas was one of the leaders who had greatly helped the Jerusalem church by giving his own property when the first revival began there.

When the amazing news spread that Gentiles in Antioch were believing in Jesus and building a church together with Jews, it was Barnabas who was sent to help this new church.

However, this same Barnabas went to find Saul, who was living in seclusion in Tarsus at the time. Saul, who had been a zealous Pharisee among the orthodox, was brought to his knees by a powerful call from Jesus and, overnight, became a zealous disciple.

He had been a Bible teacher who had read the scriptures his whole life and preached well in the synagogues. But he felt the frustration of having lived like a blind man with the truth right before his eyes! Feeling compassion for his Jewish brothers still in that state, he immediately went to the synagogue in Damascus and proclaimed, "Jesus is the Christ!" This caused him to be branded a dangerous apostate by the Jews.

After fleeing, he arrived in Jerusalem, the headquarters of the believing church at that time. There, he faced the reality that even his Christian brothers could not immediately accept him.

And why would they? Wasn't he the one who, just a short time ago, had led the charge in arresting the disciples of Christ? Didn't he lead the brutal martyrdom of the beloved Stephen?

The very reason he went to Damascus was to capture Christians there. It was hard to believe that the Saul who returned, changed 180 degrees on that road, was sincere.

But at that moment, a man highly respected in the church stood up and defended him. Do you remember who it was?

His real name was Joseph, but everyone in the church knew him as Barnabas—a name meaning "Son of Encouragement."

As I have been studying and meditating on the book of Acts this time, I think I have fallen in love with the character of 'Barnabas.' How wonderful must a person be for 'a man of encouragement' to become their nickname, to the point where everyone who knows them thinks of it as their real name?

And something I've been thankful for recently is that our church members seem to be becoming like this Barnabas. Even at the pastor's ordination ceremony, so many of you went all the way to Flushing. And last week, the wedding song for our Sunny in South Dakota was so moving. The wedding gift money collected was also much more than I expected.

You are all wonderful Barnabases. You are people who give strength to the Lord.

I felt that our church is a community filled with people like Barnabas. And I am so thankful that this heart is maturing and growing more and more.

Prophets and Teachers

Looking at the names recorded as prophets and teachers alongside Barnabas in today's text, there is something surprising. Simeon was called Niger, which means black. Lucius of Cyrene was likely a Greek, as Cyrene was a North African city dominated by Greeks and his name is Greek.

In addition, Barnabas and Paul were Jews, and most surprisingly, the group included royalty, a man who was like a foster brother or cousin to Herod the tetrarch.

It is a truly moving picture that this first church established outside of Jerusalem had people from four different ethnic groups serving as prophets and teachers. The nations that God had to scatter from Babel by confusing their languages were once again forming a community of love through Jesus Christ.

And this church in a Gentile land, in turn, even helped the church in Jerusalem, which was like their parent church. Isn't that wonderful?

We instinctively seek out people of similar age and feel a sense of stability near those who are like us. This is especially strong among Koreans, who pride themselves on being a single-race nation, and Jews with their chosen-people mindset.

While having a sense of stability among similar people is necessary to some extent, what the church should pursue is for diverse people to form a community together, maturing through the discomforts that arise.

In Jesus Christ, those differences create spaces that can be filled only with grace. This summer, for the South Dakota mission, our team united with more people from the outside than our own team. Even though they were all Koreans... Pastor Chun, Pastor Park... and I are all very different characters, aren't we? The churches were all different too.

However, I witnessed and experienced the love of Jesus filling those gaps, making everything beautifully complete.

Today's passage calls the leaders of the Antioch church prophets and teachers. In the Bible, a prophet’s role was often to travel, simply declare God's will, and then leave; it wasn't to explain things or set an example for people.

On the other hand, teachers are exactly those kinds of people. In Ephesians, Paul describes pastors and teachers as doing the same work. A pastor’s role is to care, and a teacher’s role is to instruct, but in the church, these often happen together. Yet, in the Antioch church, these people fulfilled both the role of a prophet and a teacher.

The reason for this was that the Bible was not yet complete, so there was a need for roles where people could learn directly from the Holy Spirit and then teach.

Because it was such an era, false prophets were rampant in places where the word of God had not yet reached.

False Prophets

In today's text, a false prophet appears: a sorcerer named Bar-Jesus. He was a Jewish sorcerer who enjoyed power by attaching himself to the proconsul of the region of Cyprus.

There are many false prophets in the Bible, and they always use all sorts of schemes to keep us from meeting God.

And their approach is always similar. They win people over by telling them what they want to hear, not the truth.

Micah 3:5 (NIV): "This is what the Lord says concerning the prophets who lead my people astray: They cry ‘Peace’ if they have something to eat, but when one puts nothing into their mouths, they prepare to wage war against him."

False prophets see it only as a means of making money and have no interest in people.

In this age, too, there are so many fake Jesuses, cult leaders, and pseudo-religions. Their ultimate goal is to fulfill their own desires.

Even if a church appears orthodox, if its ultimate purpose is desire—for money, power, popularity—then its leaders are also false prophets.

Ultimately, they unknowingly prevent their followers from seeing God.

Matthew 23:13 (NIV): “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to.”

However, it's not just religious things. Cultural content like music, dramas, and social media can plant so many lies in us if we consume them without discernment. In fact, the false prophets who have the greatest influence on us today are probably in the media.

Countless advertisements make us feel we need things that we don't really need. Most popular songs excessively amplify only certain emotions.

Meticulously produced movies, dramas, and entertainment shows with dozens of cameras can provide a thrill while watching. But if you indulge too much, they can make a peaceful daily life feel boring and meaningless. It's like eating fruit after eating candy and not tasting anything. You lose the ability to feel genuine emotions.

When consumed in moderation with discernment, all these things can be a healthy way to train our emotions to empathize with our friends in the world. But in excess, they become false prophets to us.

Let's listen to the warnings of two individuals who raised a prophetic voice in the early 20th century, when music and culture rapidly developed through the mass media of broadcasting and began to enter the church.

First, Martyn Lloyd-Jones of England strongly expressed his concern about worship songs that appealed to emotion rather than truth. I quote:

"The most important thing in worship is to hear and understand the truth of God. Hymns and prayers should all be offered in response to this truth... Singing, especially emotional songs, is a kind of intoxication. It stimulates you and makes you feel good... but it only helps you avoid the problems you really need to face.

This is not the joy given by the Holy Spirit, but merely something 'soulish.' Many people try to comfort themselves by singing hymns instead of speaking the truth to their souls.

In a true spiritual experience, emotion always follows as a 'result' of understanding the truth. That is the order. We must grasp the truth first. We must think. And as we think and understand, our hearts are moved.

It is always wrong to directly pursue emotion for its own sake."

To us today, this might feel too conservative. But he was strongly warning us not to lose the essence of what praise is. Aren't worldly songs often better at just touching emotions and changing the mood?

Let's also listen to the cry of A.W. Tozer from America.

"In modern evangelicalism, there is a cursed ambition to entertain one another instead of worshipping God. Worship has now been divided into performers and spectators. This is a blasphemy against the body of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Because of this frantic desire to always please people, evangelicalism has produced a 'new cross.' It is as enjoyable as a social club and bears no resemblance to the old cross... The new cross does not put the sinner to death, but rather redirects him to continue as he is."

The fact that the church has become a place for people, not for God, is evident in many phenomena.

It has been reported, even in newspapers recently, that the most serious practical problem facing the American church today is not political bias or homosexuality... but the boom in the youth sports industry.

There are so many kids' sports games on Sundays that entire families are increasingly skipping church. And as household spending on youth sports becomes enormous, church offerings naturally decrease. These two phenomena are happening rapidly, becoming the most serious practical problem for the entire American church.

Looking at this trend, it seems the cries of these prophets from 70 years ago unfortunately did not change the larger current of the church becoming more and more for people.

What this means is that even with so many churches today... people are not living in the light of truth... and it is still an age where false prophets are rampant.

Discerning

Therefore, we must be able to discern them with the light of truth. We can understand the characteristics of false prophets through Paul's rebuke of Bar-Jesus, who was hindering the proconsul from coming to God.

"He said: 'You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord?'"

First, he is 'full of all kinds of deceit and trickery.' This means not just acts that are obviously evil, but things that are actually evil but are falsely packaged as good deeds.

Things that seem good in themselves but essentially lead us away from God belong here. There are things that look like good deeds to anyone, but they prevent people from seeking God. Those are false prophets.

Second, he is 'a child of the devil.' In biblical language, to be a child of someone means to be their heir and to be loyal to them. This means he has inherited all the characteristics of the devil and therefore naturally follows the devil's ways. A prime example is lying.

Where is the point that constantly makes you exaggerate and lie? That point becomes the entry gate for the influence of a false prophet.

Third, the phrase 'an enemy of everything that is right' refers to a heart that opposes and dislikes what is righteous.

It's the feeling of not wanting to do something that is right and proper for no reason. It's something that is actually good for you, but when you are offered something righteous, there's a strange force that prevents you from following it. This is mainly a spirit of rebellion or defiance. Catchphrases, popular songs, or ways of speaking that inject a nuance of wanting to say 'No!' and just rejecting things, when you could just respond with good-natured compliance, all fall into this category.

Fourth, 'he perverts the right ways.' In short, this means making one's perspective crooked. It involves highlighting the bad points of a perfectly good person, causing you to judge the church or people by surreal standards. That is perverting the right way.

A long time ago, as a seminary student, there was a time when a certain pastor's shortcomings seemed to grow larger and larger, and my complaints kept piling up. Then, while praying, I saw the truth... I was comparing that pastor to Jesus.

To be fair, I should have compared him to other typical pastors of his age. If I had done that, there were many things I could understand, and he had many strengths. But I judged him by the standard of Jesus... what do you think would happen?

For another example, we look at young people in their 20s and say, "Why do they lack responsibility... so lazy... can't wake up in the morning?" But if you think about it, how much better was I in my 20s? It's about seeing things through a distorted lens, not a straight ruler.

So, when you have complaints about others, you need to pray and ask, "Am I really judging by a fair standard?" Anything that makes you judge unfairly or see things with a crooked perspective is a favorite method used by false prophets to ruin important relationships in our lives.

If even one of these four things is happening to me... a false prophet is influencing my life.

How can we avoid being influenced by such false prophets and, like Paul, become someone who rescues friends who are caught in such traps?

Worship in Spirit and in Truth

In verse 2 of today's text, it says, "While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting..." The phrase 'serving the Lord' is translated in English Bibles as 'worshipping the Lord.' This means that the Antioch church, which had many Gentiles, even fasted to worship the Lord.

At that time, the Holy Spirit spoke to the church. "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul."

But what's even more amazing is verse 3, which says that after hearing this voice, they fasted and prayed again. They fasted to worship God and hear His voice, and after hearing it, they fasted again before carrying it out. This shows how earnest and serious they were.

They were in a Gentile land, a polytheistic society that culturally still worshipped countless idols. In such an environment, could they live in truth and light by worshipping half-heartedly? False prophets were looking for someone to devour whenever they had a chance.

Isn't it the same now as it was then? Are we not surrounded by more false prophets than ever before?

Are you preparing your heart and worshiping with focused sincerity?

Being moved by praise in worship, being comforted by the message, and experiencing love—all of this should not come from the praise itself or the comforting words themselves. If it comes from those things, it's nothing more than an anesthetic that temporarily numbs the pain.

Romans 12:1-2 (NIV): "Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will."

Only in true worship, where I offer myself completely to the Lord, offering myself as a living sacrifice, can I enjoy God more and more fully. This happens through the birth of new life and the continuous experience of resurrection, being reborn as a newer, freer me.

The most basic meaning of fasting is to express to God a seriousness and earnestness so great as to give up food and drink. Let's offer that kind of worship.

In 2024, the average daily screen time for American adults finally exceeded 7 hours. I feel convicted by this too; how much time and energy do we waste on worthless things?

As Martyn Lloyd-Jones said, most of these things are anesthetics. They immediately stop your worries and make you feel better for a moment. But because they are never a cure, the pain becomes harder to bear when the anesthetic wears off, and you start looking for a stronger one, and that's how you get addicted.

What's frightening about addiction is that you can reach a point of no return without even knowing you're getting addicted.

The Bible describes the proconsul Sergius Paulus in today's passage as "an intelligent man."

In the Bible, an intelligent person is someone who has a longing for God.

That is why he sent for Barnabas and Saul and asked them to tell him about God. Although there was tremendous interference from the sorcerer Bar-Jesus... God saw his longing.

So when Paul, who found him, was filled with the Holy Spirit and rebuked the false prophet, the proconsul was set free from Bar-Jesus, believed in Jesus, and became a Christian.

Let's try rebuking them too. Let's rebuke the false prophets in our lives in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, with His authority. The false prophets that have been influencing you so much will lose their power before the name of Jesus! Your interest and curiosity in them will fade away!

So that they can no longer deceive...

Acts 13:10 (NIV): "You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord?"

When temptation and attacks come, if you rebuke them in the name of Jesus... the true identity of those false prophets will be revealed in the light, and they will lose their power before the name of Jesus.

Even the proconsul Sergius, who did not yet know the real Jesus, was able to hear the truth despite the sorcerer's interference because he had a longing for God.

No one can interfere with a longing for God!

In this age, in an environment like ours filled with plausible false prophets and fake lights, it is not easy for even Christians to overcome without a longing to meet God. It is difficult to stay awake and see the truth.

This is an age where the Bible is translated into almost every language and can be downloaded for free online... but isn't it also an age where hundreds of millions of times more false prophets are constantly being created, capturing our attention and hearts?

That is why this age also needs true prophets and teachers! It is an age that needs, more than ever, teachers who are also prophets who know the heart of God, and at the same time can lovingly care for and teach people at their eye level.

We need true prophets who will show the path of true light in a place packed with fakes and quiet the many noises in our hearts. We need, more than ever, true Christians who will spend time and practice love for one lost soul.

Revelation 19:20 (NIV): "But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur."

Let us pray.