In his sermon 'The Insufficiency of Evidence,' Peter Allison discusses Acts 14:8-18, where Paul and Barnabas encounter a man crippled from birth in Lystra and heal him through faith. Despite witnessing this miracle, the local people interpret it through their pagan beliefs, mistaking Paul and Barnabas as gods, Zeus and Hermes. Allison uses this story to illustrate the theme of 'the insufficiency of evidence,' emphasizing that evidence alone cannot change beliefs without faith. He draws parallels to modern cultural practices, such as the story of John Allen Chow, a missionary who attempted to bring the Gospel to a remote island and was killed. Allison argues that like Paul and Barnabas, Christians must actively engage with and challenge pagan and cultural practices, bringing the light of the Gospel to those in spiritual darkness. He stresses the importance of God's sovereignty and the transformative power of the Gospel, urging believers to boldly share their faith and address cultural sins with the truth of God's Word.

Please turn in your scriptures to Acts chapter 14, beginning at verse 8. Acts 14, 8, Paul and Barnabas and his team have fled iconium because they were seeking to abuse them, stone them, and they came to Lystra. Verse 8, And in Lystra a certain man without strength in his feet was sitting, a cripple from his mother's womb, who had never walked. This man heard Paul speaking. Paul observing him intently and seeing that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, Stand up straight on your feet.

And he leaped and walked. Now when the people saw what Paul had done, they raised their voices saying in the Lyconian language, The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men. In Barnabas they called Zeus and Paul Hermes, because he was the chief speaker. Then the priest of Zeus, whose temple was in front of their city, brought oxen and garlands to the gates, intending to sacrifice with the multitudes. But when the apostles Barnabas and Paul heard this, they tore their clothes and ran in among the multitude, crying out and saying, Men, why are you doing these things?

We also are men with the same nature as you and preach to you that you should turn from these useless things to the living God who made the heaven, the earth and the sea and all things that are in them, who in bygone generations allowed all nations to walk in their own ways. Nevertheless, He did not leave Himself without witness in that He did good, gave us rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness. And with these sayings, they could scarcely retain the multitudes from sacrificing to them." May we never forget these as precepts for by them He has given us life. Heavenly Father, please open our ears and hearts to receive Your Word with meekness, to be doers of Your Word by Your Word. And I ask that You would sanctify my sinful lips, that they might proclaim the riches of Your grace in Christ Jesus.

Amen. A few years ago in 2018, John Allen Chow, a 26 year old Christian man from the state of Washington, visited a very remote island in the Indian Ocean in order to bring the Gospel to them. This place he visited is one of the most remote places in the whole world. In fact, if you look at the antipode of Conroe, it goes into one of the most remote places in the world, in the center of the Indian Ocean. And that's where this area, where this island was.

It's about 700 miles east of India. And like Jim Elliott and his colleagues, this young man John Allen was killed. Very little is known about these people living on the North Sentinel Island, because they kill everyone who tries to enter their country. The closest anyone has ever come to visiting them was an anthropologist who stood in waist-deep water off the shores and managed to give them a few coconuts. And he made over about 24 years he made some visits to the country and then ceased over 30 years ago.

The last previous contact before John Allen visited them in 2018 was in 2006 when some fishermen accidentally landed on the shores of this island and were killed. Now, the reason I bring this up is that the Indian government had made this island off limits. It's illegal to visit this island, because they decided that any contact with these islanders, whose lifestyle has obviously changed little over the centuries, any outside contact with them could destroy their culture. The Indian Navy enforces a three mile buffer zone around North Sentinel with warship patrols. John Allen hired some local fishermen and went at night to avoid those patrols and get close to the land.

And they brought him to within about a half a mile of the shore, but they didn't want to go any closer than a half mile. After John Allen was killed, and he made several attempts to try and reach out to them, But after he was killed, the seven people who helped him reach the island were arrested and charged with culpable homicide and for violating rules protecting Aboriginal tribes. Nearby is another island, similar culture, not quite as remote, but a few years earlier, it's the Jarawa tribe. Another man from that tribe had killed a lighter skinned baby born to an unmarried Jarawa woman and some outsider. And the tribal leaders said that if the baby's body were handed over to the investigators, quote, the world will start shaking and we will die." And so the police did not arrest the Jarwal man for this murder.

In fact, this tribe is known for ritual killings of infants born to widows or fathered by outsiders. And one Dr. Rattan Chandrakar, is a government physician stationed on the island, wrote a memoir about his work with the Jarroys. He described a tradition, I would call it a satanic ritual, in which newborn babies were killed. But he said, while they were killed, were killed.

While they were killed, He said to preserve the so-called purity and sanctity of this society. And in his memoirs, his autobiography, he said he was aware of at least seven such cases in his twelve year time there. He said the faces of the children haunted him. But he added, quote, he was never ready to interfere in the customs and rituals of that tribe." Well, Paul and Barnabas did not take this view of pagan cultures. They sought to transform these pagan cultures by the preaching of the Gospel.

And as we will see in this text, they didn't hesitate to interrupt the evil rituals of these pagan cultures. Because they served the King above all other kings. They served the Lord of Lords, the One who determines what is right and what is wrong. And It is in accordance with the Word of God, the Law of God, that we can judge these pagan cultures as pagan cultures and seek to reach them. That they might be changed, that their thinking might be transformed by the renewing of their minds.

Christ came to bring light to Gentiles such as these. Isaiah proclaimed in Isaiah 9 that passage, that chapter on the Messiah, that speaks of His government a few verses later. He says, By way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, in the Galilee of the Gentiles, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death upon them, a light has shined." And Isaiah says later in Isaiah 42, I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house. See, our calling is to transform these dark cultures, not to leave them in their fallen and darkened and bound states.

As Zechariah's prophesied at his son's circumcision, John the Baptist in Luke 1. He said, the day spring from on high has visited us to give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the way of peace. These are cultures that are at war. They're not at peace. They kill anybody who comes near them.

They kill innocent babies because they were born to the wrong people. And Christ came to bring light to these people that sit in darkness. So let's look at this account of Paul and Barnabas essentially in a pagan culture, engaging the people with the Gospel, and not hesitating to interrupt their pagan ceremonies. This passage begins with in Lystra, a certain man, and it goes on to describe a cripple. There's a couple things we should note about this cripple.

The first is that he has no power or ability in his feet. His feet are without power to do what feet are supposed to do. Support the body. Transport the body. Move us.

Notice that this is a matter of ability. His feet, without strength, are incapable. They're not able. There's no power in them. The second thing we see about Him is that He is a cripple from birth.

This condition has existed from his mother's womb. He's never had power in his feet ever. He's never walked. He doesn't know what it's like to run, or to be able to freely take his body where he wants to go. He's not able to work like other men.

He lacks that ability. And he's lacked that ability from his mother's womb. He was conceived this way, with this deficiency, this problem with his feet, his limbs. The third thing we see that Luke tells us is that he's sitting. He's sitting.

He's not moving around. He can't go where Paul is speaking. He can't go to where Paul is speaking. This affliction of his feet is affecting his entire person. It's just his feet that don't have power, but It affects his whole body, his whole person.

He can't go hear someone as we say, or go see someone. He's completely dependent on others to carry him places, to bring him food, to provide for him. He can really only hear or see those who come to him. He can't exercise his will to go see somebody himself. But Paul has come to him and he's hearing, he's listening to Paul preaching, because Paul has been preaching the gospel in Lystra and Derbe and the cities of Lycaonia.

And So he's heard Paul, because Paul has come to him. And faith has come through his hearing, this Gospel message. Now the case that Luke presents to us of this man, the fact that he has without power in his feet, that he's been this way from his birth and so on, it makes it very clear that this is a hopeless case, humanly speaking. This isn't a case where there's a lot of fake healings where people are put in wheelchairs for the moment, but people have seen them walking around before that fine. There are all sorts of gimmicks and tricks.

Well, Luke makes it clear there's no gimmick here. This is a man who everybody acknowledges has never walked in his entire life. From the day he was born, He's never walked. But isn't this such a fitting picture of our spiritual condition? Unable.

We are Unable. That is, we are without the ability to save ourselves or even to come to Christ. We have no power in our feet to come to Christ. We are helpless. The Bible says that we are dead in our sins.

We're unable. The Bible also says that we are born this way, from birth. We are conceived in sin and go astray from the womb. And this fact is attested to. It's confirmed every time a baby dies.

God, remember, is perfectly just. And He would not impose the wages of sin on those who have not sinned or have no liability for such punishment. Because God is just. He would never impose an unjust sentence. Death is the wages of sin.

He would never impose the wages of sin on those who haven't sinned. So this is a very clear reminder that we are born in sin. We are conceived in sin. From birth this way. And thirdly, this condition affects all of our faculties.

We say that we are totally depraved. Every aspect of our being is fallen. Our thinking is corrupted. We don't think straight. Sin is irrational.

Our emotions are corrupted. They're fallen. They're not a reliable guide. You can't just follow your heart because our emotions are corrupted. Our will is fallen.

It's corrupted. Our physical bodies are corrupted. Our bodies have all kinds of problems. Our teeth fall out, our hair falls out, pains in various places of our body ravish us. It's all a consequence, all a reminder that we were born and conceived in sin.

Total depravity. This healing is very similar to a miracle that Peter and John performed in Acts 3. You remember there was a lame man sitting at the temple as they went up to pray. He'd been sitting there his whole life. He was also in a very similar situation.

Lame from birth. I think these are two pictures. The first one in Acts 3 was a picture of the salvation coming to the Jews. And this was one of the very first miracles that we read about after Christ's ascension, in terms of healing people. It's placed right there as they're going up to the temple to pray, He's healed.

And this is a very similar picture here. This is the first city that didn't have, apparently, a Jewish synagogue. You remember Paul started, Paul and Barnabas and John Mark started this missionary journey from Antioch, and they went to the island of Cyprus. In Cyprus they came to a synagogue and they preached in the synagogue. Then they went to Antioch.

And they went into the synagogue in Antioch. And then they came to Iconium. And Luke records that Paul went first to the synagogue. See, in every city that Paul has visited so far, he's always gone first to the synagogue, and only after they reject him does he go to the Gentiles or flee to the next city. But here at Lystra, no record is mentioned of going to a synagogue.

It would seem that there is no Jewish community here in Lystra. Because it is Jews from Antioch and Iconium, the cities that he previously visited, it's Jews that come from those cities that come to Lystra to stir up the people against Paul and Barnabas. You notice that in verse 19. The Jews from Antioch and Iconium come. So it seems that there weren't Jews there at Lystra that stirred up the crowds, but these Jews from other cities came and stirred up the crowds against Paul and Barnabas.

And so this, in a way, is probably the first city that Paul's visited that didn't have a church in it. So this is a completely pagan city. It's taken over by pagan idolatry. And it is here in this city that this very parallel account of Paul healing a man lame from birth happens. It's just thrust right in here, and I think this is a picture then of salvation coming to the Gentiles, just like the healing of the lame man at the temple was a picture of the Gospel coming to the Jews.

And so Paul heals this cripple. He looks intently at Him. Paul observing Him intently. He's focusing on Him. Paul wasn't looking at the rich and the wealthy.

He wasn't looking for those that could gain him influence in the community or have money to support his ministry. He was focusing on somebody who was helpless. He was paying attention to somebody who could do nothing for Him. He looks at this helpless man and he sees that he has faith to be healed. Now this is how our Father is, our Heavenly Father.

This is how God is. In Deuteronomy 18, it describes Him as, He administers justice for the fatherless and widow and loves the stranger giving him food and clothing. The fatherless and the widow are the people that are most helpless in a culture. They're most easily taken advantage of. Who do the scammers from India that have become famous on the internet?

Who do they go after? Who are their targets? Most often It is widows or fatherless. Psalm 10, the helpless commits himself to you. You are the helper of the fatherless.

Psalm 146, the Lord watches over strangers. He relieves the fatherless and the widow. Psalm 68, a father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in His holy habitation. God sets the solitary in families. He brings out those who are bound into prosperity.

Psalm 146 as well. Our God is a God who also looks at, who regards the helpless, the widow, the fatherless, the orphan. Secondly, Paul, after looking at this man intently and seeing that he has faith, I think that was probably a revelation of the Holy Spirit to him, that this man had faith to be saved. That's a difference with the man in Acts 3. There was no faith there.

Peter didn't heal him because he had faith. He was asking for money. And they said, we don't have money, but what we do have, we'll give you. So you see, our faith is not the ground of our healing. It's God.

He's the one that gives faith. To those who have it, He's the one that gives faith. But Paul sees that he has faith to believe, that he believes he can be healed. And so Paul speaks in a loud voice. He speaks in a loud voice.

Notice, it's a voice that's going to get everyone's attention. He's demonstrating complete confidence in the power of God to heal this man You know if you're not sure about something and you don't want to look like a fool in front of everybody You might do it be tempted to do it very quietly you say okay Why don't you get up and then if it doesn't work then nobody really notices, but that's not what Paul does He speaks with a loud voice If he's if this man can't do it. He's about to tell him to do, then Paul will look very foolish. Paul gives a command. He says, stand up straight on your feet.

He's giving a command that this man is unable to carry out. He has no power in his feet. So why would Paul command him to do something that Paul knows he can't do? See, isn't this also a picture of our salvation? God now commands all men everywhere to repent, Paul says.

But we don't have any ability in our flesh to repent. We have no desire to turn to God. We have no ability to do so. We're wholly unable. Dead people don't do anything.

And we are described as being dead, dead in our sins. And Paul says God commands all men everywhere to repent, even the dead people that can't respond to that command. We can't believe on Jesus Christ in our own strength. We can't muster up faith within ourselves any more than this crippled man can jump up and walk because he has no power, no ability in his feet to do it. But God calls us to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

And he takes vengeance on all those who do not obey the Gospel. But when God calls the dead, arise. And when God calls the lame, the unable to walk, walk. The people that are unable to jump, jump. Because God is powerful.

He's the one who gives us the ability to do all these things. And so this demonstrates that our salvation, our redemption is all the grace of God. It's favor that we do not deserve. It's God's work. Even the works that we do, right?

We are unable in our own strength to do works, but these are works that God does through us and in us. But the works that we do, the sanctification that we experience as we are enabled more and more to live under righteousness and die in sin, this is the Lord's work in us, enabling us to do these things. It's not our own power. Remember, because sanctification is also a grace of God. It's unmerited favor.

And so, God extends His grace. Jesus extends His grace to this cripple who is unable to jump up. And when Paul commands him to stand up, he leaps up and he walks. And we don't learn anything more about this man. Luke's attention now turns to the crowd.

And this is where the title of the message comes from, the insufficiency of evidence. I originally wanted to name it the more transformative ministry of evangelism, the culturally transformative ministry. But I think the message here in this passage is the insufficiency of evidence. The response of these people show the complete and total insufficiency of evidence alone to change anyone's opinion. Paul has been preaching the Gospel here.

The lame man is given faith and believes and he's healed. But these people have heard the same gospel being preached. They've watched the same thing. In fact, they've probably heard maybe more because they're able to walk around. And when they see this miracle, this man who is completely unable to walk, all of a sudden jumping up and leaping, not just walking timidly, but he's now leaping.

He leaped up and walked. They interpret that event that is unfolded in front of them consistent with their own pagan presuppositions. Instead of believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and His power to save as Paul has been preaching because that's the Gospel Paul was preaching, the people instead look at that exact same evidence instead of seeing it as evidence of the power of God, they interpret it according to their false way of thinking as that this must be the gods, Zeus and Hermes, that have come down to them. See, this miracle is completely lost on them because they interpret the evidence in front of them with their own presuppositions. Evidence apart from faith to believe the Word of God is completely insufficient.

This is not a matter of getting more evidence to the unbeliever. And this is something we have to remember in a lot of discussions and debates when you want to debate an evolutionist, it's not a matter of he needs a little more evidence to see that the worlds were created by God. It's by faith that we know that the world was created by the power of God and the word of His power. And this is true, this pervades so much of our thinking. And I think if we remember this, it will save us a lot of frustration.

If we remember that evidence alone will never persuade anyone of anything. We really have to look at what their presuppositions are. Because that's how they will interpret everything in front of them. And two people can look at the exact same evidence and reach exactly opposite conclusions based on their presuppositions. And that's what happens to these people here.

They see the evident power of God and they come to a totally wrong conclusion that Zeus and Hermes have now come down to them in human form. And they begin to prepare a sacrifice. They bring out not just oxen, but bulls and garlands. Bulls with garlands. And they are intending to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas with the multitudes.

Bulls. The word is bulls. So here is where the Apostles, Barnabas and Paul intervene. They don't stand back and say, well, this is their pagan culture and we need to respect this culture and allow them to go practice this thing because this is what they've been doing for centuries and centuries, and who are we to interfere with this cultural display? No, they take a very, very different view.

They realize that they have been called to be a light to the Gentiles, to deliver them from the darkness in which they sit. And so they run out into their crowd. They first tear their robes. That's a sign of blasphemy, of strong and vehement disagreement with what has just been said or done. Remember David would tear his robes when there was something grievous that was done.

When somebody killed the Lord's anointed and came to him thinking that they'd done him a great favor. He tore his clothes saying, No, no, this is terribly wrong. When the chief priests heard Jesus testify to Him being the Son of God and coming again in the clouds of heaven. What did they do? They grabbed their tunics and they tore them as a sign of their displeasure.

It was a sign that Jews did to disagree, to express their disagreement, their strong disagreement, with usually blasphemy or other heinous sin. And so Paul and Barnabas tear their clothes. They tore their clothes. They're among the Gentiles who may not understand the significance of that. Maybe they're used to seeing people tear their clothes and cut themselves like the prophets of Baal.

I don't know. But they did it anyways because it is a testimony. Just like they dust off their feet when they left Iconium as a testimony against those people. They tear their clothes. It's a testimony against them that they are not for this.

They have heard this. They've been there. But they are not participating in this idolatry. They are distancing themselves by that. They're saying, we don't agree with this.

We're not participating with you in it. In fact, they run out into the crowd to try and stop them. Because, you see, no one has authority to practice idolatry. We should respect the laws that even pagan rulers have authority to make. Laws respecting property boundaries and so on is their jurisdiction.

We should respect those laws. And so maybe this John Allen should have maybe prayed about going to this land. Jim Elliott, there was no law against going where they went. They went into a land that they were able to go to, free to go to. We do need to respect the laws that rulers have authority to make, but no ruler has authority to practice idolatry.

And so Paul and Barnabas rush into this crowd to stop this idolatrous and blasphemous practice. This is why Gideon could tear down the altar of Baal. It didn't belong to him. It wasn't his property. He could have been accused of destroying somebody else's property.

But see, nobody has authority to practice idolatry. And so Gideon is commanded to tear down, to destroy an altar of Baal, property that didn't belong to him. And Paul and Barnabas in a similar vein rush into this crowd to stop the practice of idolatry because it's wrong, it's a sin. And they're seeking to stop it. And they're not violating any lawful laws in doing this.

They may be violating some laws that forbid it, Like Nepal has a law forbidding proselytizing in their country. And foreigners that are convicted apparently can be jailed for five years and expelled. But that's not a law they have authority to make. Because God is sovereign and He's the ruler over all the kings of the earth and He's commanded us to be a light to the Gentiles. And so Paul and Barnabas preach this message.

And notice it's a very different message than what he would have brought to Jews in a similar situation. He begins not with Jesus Christ, because these people don't know anything about God. He begins back in Genesis 1. He begins at the beginning. That's why Genesis 1 is Genesis 1 at the beginning.

Because this is the foundation of who God is and what He's done. And so this is where Paul starts, just like he did in Acts 17, where we'll get to a little bit in his speech on Mars Hill. He said, we are men with the same nature as you. We have the same senses that you do. And you need to turn to the living God who made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them.

That's Genesis 1. He's preaching Genesis 1. God is the Creator. And why is that important? Because what does the modern man say?

Why should I have to obey your laws? Who made you Lord over me? This is the answer. God is our Creator. He's the Creator of all men.

So therefore, He has absolute authority over all men, including you. You don't acknowledge it, but He does because He's the Creator. He's made everything. This earth, Everything that's in it, He's made it. That means He owns it.

That means it's His property. And He has authority to tell us how we can use it and what we can do with it and what we can't do with it. That's why we obey. He made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them. In bygone generations, He allowed nations to walk in their own ways.

The Gospel, the Word of God, the Gospel only went to one nation, the Jews. And Moses would say, there is no other people on the earth that's blessed like you are to have the law of God. That's what Paul means by allowing the bygone generations, allowing the nations to walk in their own ways. But even there, He did send the Gospel like to Nineveh, where there was two generations of faith and belief. But God nevertheless did not leave Himself without witness in that He did good.

He gave us rain. He gave seasons. He filled our hearts with food and gladness. Paul's pointing to the evidences of God in their lives, even though they didn't have the Word of God. They had these evidences.

They could look around them and see the heavens. They could see the seasons. They could see that He gave them food and He gave them gladness in things. Paul is saying these are all things that God has given to you. And with these sayings, they could scarcely retain the multitudes from sacrificing to them.

But they did. They did. They did everything that they could possibly do to stop this pagan, idolatrous sacrifice. And it seems, in God's grace, they did. And they did good to these people.

They risked their lives to do this right they could they're trying to interfere with this pagan cultural practice and when you interfere with people's religion, they tend to get upset at you. But they risk that in order to be a light to them. It didn't stop the Jews though from coming from the other cities and stirring up the people, and ultimately getting them stoned and dragged out of the city. But may the Lord give to us this kind of zeal to be a light to those who are in darkness, to be willing to address the cultural sins of our day in the light of the Word of God to remember that it is we who have been given a great light. And the law of God, which we have been privileged, not by anything good in us, or not because we're smarter, but because God has been gracious to us.

He's given to us His law and His commandments. And if we recognize that Jesus Christ is sovereign, that He's made the heavens and the earth, and that He has authority, all authority, over all people, then we'll be willing to interrupt the cultural pagan practices of our day to bring the Word of God, to bring the light of the Gospel, so that these people can be delivered from darkness. Heavenly Father, we are challenged by how often we have capitulated to the pagan practices of our day and not spoken up, remembering that you are the sovereign, that your law and your law alone is the standard of justice, that your word and your word alone is truth, by which all other words are judged. Father, we ask for boldness. We might be, as this example here, willing to speak the truth to a people that are in great darkness, who resist the truth, who are blinded to it, and who want no part of it.

Lord, You have been gracious to us, and You have delivered us. You have richly blessed us. And we pray, Lord, for a compassion for those around us that are yet in their sins and blinded and bound in chains. We ask in Jesus name, Amen.