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Acts 14:19-20   PAUL STONED AT LYSTRA

Introduction:  
	
	In this text we see how quickly people can go from one extreme to another.  
We see how quickly the people of Lystra turned from great adoration of Paul to a 
hatred of him.  We see how quickly they turned from trying to worship him to 
trying to stone him to death.  

I.  A quick review of the effort of the people of Lystra to worship both Paul
     and Barnabas

	When Paul and Barnabas had first arrived at Lystra they had encountered a 
lame man begging at the gate of the city.  The man had been born lame and had 
been a cripple all of his life.  He was crippled in his feet.  The Apostle Paul 
told the man to stand to his feet and immediately the man leaped to his feet.  
The power of God through the Apostle Paul instantaneously healed the man.  
	The result was that the idol worshipping Gentile citizens of Lystra 
immediately assumed that Paul and Barnabas were gods who had come down to them 
in the form of men.  They thought that Barnabas was the god, Jupiter, and they 
thought that Paul was the god, Mercury.  
	A great crowd of worshippers quickly gathered at the gate of the city 
proclaiming them to be Jupiter and Mercury.  The priest of the temple of Jupiter 
which was nearby rushed over bringing oxen and wreaths of flowers to make animal 
sacrifices to them right there at the gate of the city.  
	It was only by a very great effort on the part of both Paul and Barnabas 
that they were able to restrain the priest and the people from making sacrifice 
to them.  It was only by their most fervent pleas that they persuaded the people 
to accept them as men rather than gods.  
	It is almost certain that even after the people were believed that they 
were men and not gods that Paul and Barnabas enjoyed a very warm welcome by the 
people of the city of Lystra.  Even though the people had finally come to accept 
them as men and not gods, the people must have still admired them greatly and 
treated them with special kindness because of the great miracle which had taken 
place at the word of the Apostle Paul.  

II.  A great change of attitude of the people  

	But it apparently did not take long for the news of the miracle which Paul 
had performed to get back to the cities of Antioch and Iconium and when it did 
Jewish leaders from those cities came to Lystra and made trouble for Paul.  They 
very quickly brought about a complete change of attitude of the people of Lystra 
toward Paul.  V. 19, “And there came thither [certain] Jews from Antioch and 
Iconium, who persuaded the people...”  That is, they persuaded the people 
against Paul and Barnabas.  In this verse we get some idea about how bitterly 
the Jews at Antioch and Iconium had come to hate Paul and Barnabas --- and 
especially Paul.  Back when Paul and Barnabas were in the city of Antioch the 
Jewish leaders of that city had stirred up the Gentile citizens of the city to 
run both Paul and Barnabas out of their city.  But at that time they made no 
effort to stone them.  At Iconium the Jewish leaders of that city did make plans 
to stone them, but the news of their plan leaked out and Paul and Barnabas made 
a hasty exit from the Iconium and moved on to Lystra.
	Apparently the Jewish leaders of Antioch were the first to take the 
initiative and try to stir up trouble for Paul and Barnabas at Lystra.  This 
means that the  Jewish leaders of Antioch of Pisidia walked about ninety miles 
from Antioch to Iconium where they met with the Jewish leaders of that city and 
persuaded them to come with them to Lystra.  Then they traveled another eighteen 
miles from Iconium to Lystra.  This means that the men from Antioch walked about 
118 miles in order to stir up trouble for the Apostle Paul.  This shows their 
extreme hatred of Paul.  This should really be no surprise to us.  It seems that 
the enemies of the Lord Jesus Christ will go to great lengths to hinder the 
Lord’s work..  
	What is so surprising is that the people of Lystra, who earlier had so 
eagerly proclaimed the Apostle Paul to be the god, Mercury, and had for a little 
while been so determined to make an animal sacrifice to him,  were now just as 
eager to stone him to death.  But the Gentile citizens were just putty in the 
hands of the Jewish leaders who manipulated them and caused them to stone Paul.  
Yet even this should not surprise us because the men at Jerusalem who wanted to 
crown Jesus as their king, were so quickly turned against Him and at His trial 
cried out, “Crucify Him!  Crucify Him!”    
	(V. 19), “...and, having stoned Paul, drew [him] out of the city, 
supposing he had been dead.”  The Jewish leaders from Antioch and Iconium were 
successful in persuading the Gentile citizens of Lystra to  stone the Apostle 
Paul.  They actually thought they had stoned him to death.  They stoned him 
right there within their city.  In a Jewish city the victim would have been 
carried outside the city to be stoned.  But the Gentiles stoned Paul within the 
city and then drug his body outside the city and left it thinking he was dead.  
	V. 20, “Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up, and 
came into the city...”  Now let me call your attention to one certain word in 
this verse.  Note the word, disciples.  Disciples?  Where did they come from?  
There were no disciples which came with Paul and Barnabas from Antioch or 
Iconium.  Who then are these disciples at Lystra?  The answer is so obvious.  
These were people of Lystra who had believed the message about Jesus which Paul 
and Barnabas obviously preached to all the people of Lystra.  Paul and Barnabas 
had finally persuaded the people of the city that they were not gods.  They had 
apparently then informed the people of Lystra about Jesus of Nazareth whom the 
Jewish leaders at Jerusalem had crucified.  They had told the people  about 
Jesus being raised form the dead.  They had told them that Jesus is the Savior 
that the God of Israel had promised to send to the world.  They had told the 
people of Lystra that if anyone would place his faith in Jesus for salvation 
that Jesus would cleanse him of all his sin and save his soul.  We can be sure 
that not all the people of Lystra believed the gospel message which Paul and 
Barnabas preached, because these people would not have stoned Paul if they had 
believed his message.  But there had been some of the people who did believe and 
who had gotten saved and who were now disciples of Jesus Christ.  
	It is not hard for us to see what had happened.  Those who were disciples 
followed as the crowd drug what appeared to be the dead body of Paul outside the 
city and left it for dead.  Then when  the crowd left the disciples went to 
Paul’s body thinking to give his body a decent burial.  But as they gathered 
around his body apparently mourning his death, Paul began to stir.  He stirred 
and then he stood up.  Luke does not say so, but I think the disciples could 
hardly believe their eyes.  Paul was not dead.  He was alive.  He must have been 
knocked unconscious by the stones, but he was not dead.  He was not only alive, 
but he was able to stand --- and walk.    He was able, perhaps with the 
assistance of the disciples, to walk into the city.  Then the next morning he 
was able to walk enough to get out of the city and leave before the people of 
the city discovered that he was still alive.  (V. 20),  “...and the next day he 
departed with Barnabas to Derbe.”  The next morning Paul and Barnabas left and 
went on to the next city, the city of Derbe.  I am not certain that they were 
able to make the trip all in one day.  Derbe was about sixteen miles from Lystra 
and Paul was in a weakened condition.  Perhaps they walked only part of the 
distance that first day.  

III.  A question and a lesson

	There is a question which comes to our minds --- at least it does mine.  
The question is:  Why was it that only Paul was stoned?  Everybody in this city 
knew that Paul and Barnabas were together.  They all knew that Barnabas believed 
the same things about Jesus that Paul believed.  Barnabas was not separated from 
Paul and gone off some other place  He was right there available to the people.  
If they had chosen to stone Barnabas they could have easily done so.  Why didn’t 
they?  
	The answer to that question centers around one thing.  Paul was the 
talkative one and Barnabas was the quiet one.  It was the Apostle Paul who had 
performed the miracle when the lame man was healed.  It was Paul who told the 
lame man to stand up.  It was the Apostle Paul who had done almost all of the 
talking about Jesus back at Antioch and at Iconium.  Paul must have been the one 
who told the people at Lydia that Jesus is the Christ, the Savior.  It must have 
been Paul who had told the people at Lystra that Jesus had risen from the grave.  
It must have been the Apostle Paul who had told the people at Lydia that if they 
would believe in Jesus that they would be forgiven all their sin.  It apparently 
was the Apostle Paul who had persuaded a goodly number of the people at Lydia to 
place their faith in Jesus and become disciples of Jesus.  Paul was the talker.  
He got all of the attention and he was the one who got stoned.  Barnabas was the 
quiet one.  Therefore, the crowd paid him little attention to Barnabas and they 
made no effort to stone him.  
	There is also a lesson in this passage for all of us.  The lesson is that 
we need to do a lot more talking about Jesus.  If we are going to be affective 
witnesses for Jesus we need to learn to talk a lot more about Jesus.  This is a 
lesson not only for you, but it is a lesson for me.  It is a lesson for almost 
all Christians.  We find it easy to talk about the weather.  We find it easy to 
talk about football or baseball.  Some even find it easy to talk about politics 
-- especially since our governor of Texas is in the presidential race.  Men 
especially find it easy to talk about their automobiles.  Ladies especially find 
it easy to talk about recipes for food or patterns for dresses.  But somehow we 
all find it difficult to talk to other people about Jesus.  
	But the Apostle Paul found it easy to talk about Jesus.  Those of you who 
remember Bro. G. D. Walters will remember that he found it easy to talk to 
anybody who would listen about Jesus.  In fact, it was almost impossible to talk 
to Bro. G. D. about anything without having him to preach you a sermon about 
Jesus.  
	This is something that all of us need more of.  We need to learn to talk 
more about Jesus.  We need to talk about Jesus being the fulfillment of Old 
Testament prophecies.  The prophets of old had promised that Jesus would  come 
to this world.  We need to talk about Jesus being crucified on the cross of 
Calvary.  It was there that He paid the redemption price for our souls.  It is 
by His shed blood that we can be cleansed of our sins.  We need to talk about 
Jesus being raised from the dead.  He was dead, but He is now alive and He will 
be alive forever more.  It is because He lives that we have assurance that we 
will live.  It is because He arose from the grave that we have the assurance 
that we will be raised from the grave to live with God in eternal glory.  We 
need to talk more about the second coming of Jesus and to point out to others 
that the return of Jesus is near at hand.  
	We need to talk about Jesus to those who are lost in sin.  We need to tell 
them how great it is to know that your soul is saved and that you have every 
assurance that you will go to heaven when you die.  We need to tell them that we 
could never make it to heaven by our own works of righteousness, but that when 
we called upon Jesus He saved our soul and He lifted a heavy burden from our 
hearts and minds.  We no longer have to worry about where we are going to spend 
eternity.  We need to talk about Jesus to as many people as we can.  
	Let me issue a challenge to each one of you.  I want to challenge you to 
make it a point to talk more about Jesus this week that is ahead than you did in 
the week that just passed.  .  Talk about Jesus in your family.  Talk about 
Jesus to your neighbor.  Talk about Jesus to the people that you work with.  
Talk about Jesus to the people that you go to school with.  Talk about Jesus to 
your customers.  Talk about Jesus to the business people that you trade with and 
buy groceries or other merchandise from.  Talk about Jesus in a way that would 
make someone want to place his own faith and trust in Jesus Christ.  I cannot 
help but wonder:  Could it be that the Apostle Paul won a lot more souls to 
Jesus than we do simply because he did a lot more talking about Jesus to the 
people around him than we do?  I want to challenge myself to do more talking 
about Jesus this week and every week.  I want to challenge you to make it a 
point this week to talk more about Jesus.  
	Let me also issue another challenge to you.  In addition to talking more 
about Jesus, would you also talk more about Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist 
Church.  And when you talk about this church to others, please make sure that 
you talk about it in a way that would not drive people away from this church.  
Please make sure that you talk about it in a way that would make people want to 
come to this church and be a part of this church.  	
	Start this afternoon.  Talk about Jesus and our church to whoever you come 
in contact this afternoon.  Talk about Jesus and the Pleasant Hill Missionary 
Baptist Church tomorrow.  Talk about Jesus and our church on Tuesday.  Then do 
it again on Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and Saturday.  Talk about Jesus 
and our church until it is habit to do so.  Talk about them until it is almost 
second nature with you.  It worked for Paul.  It worked for Bro. G. D. Walters.  
It will work for us.