This morning's text for Pastor John's sermon is

11 verses 19 through 26. Please feel free to follow in your own

Bibles or in the pew Bible in front of you.

Acts 11 versus 19 through 26.

Now those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to none except Jews.

But there were some of them men of Cyprus and Cyrene who on coming to Antioch

spoke to the Greeks also preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number that believed turned to the Lord.

News of this came to the ears of the Church in Jerusalem and they sent Barnabas to Antioch.

When he came and saw the grace of God, he was glad and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose.

For he was a good man full of the Holy Spirit and of faith And a large company was added to the Lord. So Barnabas

went to Tarsas to look for Saul and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch.

For a whole year, they met with the church and taught a large company of people.

And in Antioch, the disciples were for the first time called Christians.

The vast majority of men and women who have lived and who have served God are utterly forgotten and can't be named upon this earth.

The poet Horace who died just about the time Jesus was born spoke about great warriors who had lived in his own time and before

like this. In endless night they sleep, unwept, unknown. No bard had they to make all time their own.

When I was over in Singapore a few weeks ago, there was a lot of talk about third world missions. That means missionaries going out from third world

countries rather than having missionaries sent to third world countries. And I sat one day at lunch with a representative of one of these

countries and he remarked and said you know this isn't totally new. The problem is there aren't any biographers for third world missionaries.

And so hundreds of God's great and faithful men and women who have served him from all the

nations of the world where the gospel has reached are gone as far as our memories concerned, totally forgotten, but not all. And there's a reason

why not all have been forgotten. And the reason is because God intends for memory to be a means of

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