Lost Day Worship Service, which is one of the most important: the preaching of God's word.
Look back to verse 17, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the tomorrow, and continued his speech until midnight. Paul was not only preaching, it was a very long message. Although he had to depart the next day, he continued to preach until midnight. Today, people cannot stand an hour, an hour of worship, or an hour's message. But in those days, the people listened for hours and hours, and then returned to church again and again, listened for hours and hours, because they loved the preaching of God's word.
The original word for preach is from where we get the English word for dialogue. So that means there was a discussion, there was a Q&A. Perhaps after the worship service had formally ended, Paul stayed behind to answer those questions that the people of Troas had. As much as possible, he did not want to leave them in doubts and confusion. So he tried to answer their questions as much as possible, even at the expense of his own rest. So he continued to preach and teach until midnight.
So as the message went on for hours, what happened? Look at verse 9, "And there sat in a window a certain young man named Eutychus, being fallen into a deep sleep: and as Paul was long preaching, he sunk down with sleep, and fell down from the third loft, and was taken up dead." The word for young man suggests that he might be between 7 to 15 years old. Most likely he sat on the window sill on the third floor because there he would have fresh air, or the air would be cooler. But being so young, he could not stay up late. It was already midnight. So he fell into a deep sleep and fell down from the third floor. As Luke was a medical doctor, he was present there. Obviously, he confirmed that this young man had died. So remember, Luke was a medical doctor, so when he said he died, truly this young man had died. Imagine such an event happening in the middle of preaching. Everyone would be shocked, right? As the preacher was preaching, someone fell from the third floor and died. How could the people not be shocked?
Many years ago, I remember one Sunday when Uncle Peter Kusto was worshiping together with us, all of a sudden he fainted during the preaching. I do not know how many of you still remember that incident. Later on, Uncle Peter explained to me that it was because he had to take half of the medication, and he always broke the medication into half by hand. So it was not accurate. So sometimes the portion may be bigger or smaller. On one side, he could have taken a bigger or smaller portion of the medication. That was why he fainted. But we were all shocked.
On another occasion, I was invited to preach in a church in Singapore. Halfway through the message, one young girl sitting in front of the church started screaming, and that scream was really frightening. The ushers and the deacons rushed in, carried the girl still sitting on the chair out of the church. You imagine, I was standing on the poit. Five, six strong men came in, carried this girl out still sitting on the chair, still screaming out of the church. I was shocked. I paused and asked the church to pray together with me. Later on, I was told that this girl actually had a spinal issue. So sometimes she would experience tremendous pain. That was why she was screaming. It was not the first time, but I did not know that. Actually, I thought she was demon-possessed. Thank God I prayed, "Lord, I do not know what is happening. You know everything, you are in control of everything, please help the situation."
Well, the point is that when there's an unforeseen event happening, everyone in the church would be shocked. How much more when someone suddenly dropped dead, in a literal sense, from the third floor and died? Surely, there would be screaming and crying, especially the parents and siblings. Look at verse 10, "And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, 'Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him.'" He did the same thing as Elijah and Elisha in the Old Testament. He embraced the young man and then said to the rest of the people, "Do not be troubled, for his life is in him." It does not mean that the young man did not die. He died. It simply meant he had been restored to life.
Verse 11, "When he therefore was come up again, and had broken bread, and eaten, and talked a long while, even till break of day, so he departed." Verse 12, "And they brought the young man alive, and were not a little comforted," which means they were greatly comforted. How can they not be? The young man was brought back to life.
My friends, notice the emphasis was not on the miracle, the emphasis was on the preaching. Paul simply returned upstairs. So the upper room must have been a large hall, or the upper chamber must have been a large hall, and Paul was speaking on the upper floor or on the podium. So he simply came down to attend to the young man, and when he was brought back to life, he returned back upstairs, and the people took a break for the fellowship meal followed by the administration of the Lord's Supper. And what did Paul do? He continued to preach until morning when the time had come for him to depart.
Can you imagine, the preaching went on beyond midnight, even until daybreak, the people were still listening. Why did God allow such an event to happen? Surely, it was for the preaching of the word. Can you imagine when Paul's apostolic authority was confirmed when he wrote the miracle so much so that the young man was brought to life? The people would have given him undivided attention, right? All of a sudden, such a thing happened, and they knew that this was a true apostle because only someone who is a true servant of God would wrought such a miracle. They all listened with 100% attention, and Paul took the opportunity to preach and preach until daybreak. The emphasis is not on the miracle. One of the purposes of the miracle was to authenticate the authority of the apostle.
It was for the purpose that the people would hear and believe in the message, so the preaching of God's word was so important. By the way, when I say this is the first record of a Christian worship service, it does not mean that this was the first time the early Believers met on Sunday, the Lord's day, to worship. They were already meeting on Sundays. What I meant was that it was the first recorded Christian worship service. So in this first recorded Christian worship service, we learn four things.
First, the Believers gathered together for worship not on the Sabbath (Saturday), but on the first day of the week (Sunday). Second thing we learned is that the Believers gather together for the Lord's Supper. And there was a location for the worship service, the upper chamber. And there was the preaching of God's word.
Today, we are doing the same thing, right? We Worship the Lord not on Saturday but on the first day of the week, the Lord's Day, the day our Lord was risen from the dead. We come together to obey the Lord's command to do this as often as we can, to observe the Lord's Supper. We meet at a place like this, 10 Downing Street is the location whereby we have our regular worship service. And the preaching of God's word is always the emphasis. We come together to worship God and then we all prepare our hearts to listen to God's word, just as the first record of this Christian worship service.
Maybe there's another thing we can learn from this passage, and that is Paul did not leave Tres until after the Lord's day service. My friends, let's say you need to travel overseas. You can either travel before the Lord's day service or after the Lord's day service, right? You can travel before the Lord's day service and then Worship in the Bible-believing Church overseas, or you can Worship the Lord first and then after that you travel. But please do not travel without worshiping the Lord on the Lord's Day. Believers must never do that; it is our Lord's day, we must worship him, his worship must always come first before all other things. So even in our plans we planned to travel before or after and then we can observe the Lord's day service.
From verse 13 to 16, it is about Paul's travel. Remember, he wanted to return to Jerusalem, he wanted to bring the gifts offered by the Gentile churches for the poor brethren in the Jerusalem Church. So look at verse 13, and we, referring to Luke and the others, when before to ship and sail onto Asos. There they intending to take in Paul on board the ship, for so had he appointed, which means he had pre-arranged that. But somehow he changed his mind, and he decided to walk all the way to Asos, which was about 20 miles from Tres. The Bible does not tell us the reason why Paul decided to walk all the way to Asos, but some theologians believe that this would allow the people at Tres to walk along with him, and this would enable him to continue to teach them as they walk the 20 miles. If that is true, once again you can see the heart of this servant of God; he just wants to teach and continue to teach the people of God.
Verse 14 tells us that after the long walk from Tres to Asos, Paul met up with the rest of the Brethren, and he boarded the ship and sailed to Mland. Look at verse 15 and 16, "And we sail tent and came the next day over against Kaos, and the next day we arrived at Samos, and carried at Trillum, and the next day we came to Militus." Verse 16, "For Paul had determined to sail by Ephesus because he would not spend the time in Asia, for he hasted, if it were possible for him, to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost."
Now we have learned that in our previous message Paul's mind was always with the poor Believers in the Jerusalem Church, he wanted to reach Jerusalem and celebrate the Passover with them, but there was a plot against his life, remember in verse three, so he had to change his plans. That detour, that delay, caused him to miss the Passover; he had to celebrate the Passover in Philippi. Now his only hope was to reach Jerusalem to celebrate the Pentecost, which was 50 days after the Passover. So that is what verse 16 tells us; he did not want to waste time, he wanted to rush and reach Jerusalem in order to celebrate the Pentecost. When Paul reached Militus, he would call for the Elders of Ephesus to meet him there, and then he would give them his emotional farewell speech. The Elders of Ephesus would have to travel almost 72 miles to meet him in Militus, that would take them a couple of days to reach, that will be the passage we want to consider next week.
So next week when we come together, we will learn how Paul will call the Elders of Ephesus, and he will give his farewell speech on the beach of Militus. So we will end here, and I hope if you cannot remember anything I've said, remember at least the four things we learn about the Lord's Day worship service.
We Worship the Lord on the first day of the week (Sunday), not on Saturday. And the Bible has given us many scriptural basis and principles of which this is one of the passages, the Believers gather together for the Lord's Supper, just as we gather as often as we can on the first week of the month to commemorate our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who died for us, who shed his Precious Blood to save us, and we look forward to his soon return. And also the early believers they met at a specific location, just as we meet every week in the same Century here. And finally, we also learned that the word of God is the primary emphasis in the Lord's Day worship service. In those days, the people would listen for hours and hours. Today, if we love the word of God, how can we not give our full utmost attention for the one hour of listening to God's word? I pray that all of us would take heed, it is the Lord's day, it is his day, so we must come before him and give him our utmost attention, worship Him in spirit and in truth. Let us pray.
Our Father in heaven, we thank thee for enabling us to consider this passage. Indeed, as we study through the book of Acts, we have come to Acts 20 verse 7 to 16. It is not by chance nor coincidence that thou has led us to consider this passage, and thou has given to us the first record of a Christian worship service. Indeed, there are so many valuable lessons we can draw from thy precious and infallible and inherent word. Help us not just to be hearers only, but to be doers of Thy word as well. And we pray that thou will grant us many such opportunities that we may come together to learn of thee through thy precious word. So we give thee thanks, and we pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen.