Eutychus, Acts 20:7-11

Things that you'll see in your study and some things you see up here. He's ready to depart on the morrow. That's a good word for preachers.

You don't have to take off on Sunday. You go tomorrow. That's what it says.

And continued his speech until midnight and there were many lights in the upper chamber where they were gathered together. And there sat in the 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.

And Paul went down and fell on him and bracing him said, trouble not yourselves for his life is in him. When he therefore was come up again and had broken bread and eaten and talked a long while even till a break of day so he departed. They brought the young man alive and were not a little comforted.

Taken up and fell down from the third loft. This is one of the thirds that the Apostle speaks of in his ministry often the experiences in his life. I have to say that I am likely speaking on on the behalf of a good number of fellow servants and overseers and those obviously right here in stout that we are not only encouraged but very impressed.

Very impressed with a number of young people at this conference. Good to see you. It's good to have you.

Now I know a number of assemblies that are represented here with younger people today but I do not know every assembly to which some of these younger people I'm speaking to this afternoon to which you belong. Or to put it language of this chapter that we have read together including this young man where these saints were gathered together. Gathered together.

I would hardly think that young believers that young brethren and young sisters that appreciate a local gathering would be found in a larger gathering such as we have here at the conference in stout. But how delightful and how encouraging to see you and to have you with us. I appreciate the announcements that have been made relative to that.

The last thing that I think we should do and I'm afraid not to be too critical of the church here in Trinidad what was happening. They were taking a young man in their midst for granted until something happened. Can we do that brethren? Unfortunately it happens.

Sometimes there's a young brother you know he just may not be up to your status quo. It may not just be you. But he is a young brother.

A young sister that God has entrusted to your care. To your company. And the last thing that we ever want to do is take him or her for granted until something happens.

Now you know if you to talk to maybe some of them they say oh you're doing us yeah that's him in the window there. Oh did you ever tell him that was a dangerous place to sit? Oh no we don't tell him that. You know mom would be on her neck.

That happens. We're gonna wait till he breaks his? Taking him for granted. Since there are many lights in the it says there are many lights in the upper chamber.

Here was a church that didn't function in the dark. But if one of those lights were was the light that was coming into the window here was a man a young man he didn't realize what he was doing. He was obstructing the light.

He was affecting the brilliance of testimony. If you'll just allow me to apply it that way. You see brothers and sisters how delightful it is to have those in our testimonies young and old.

You understand? You're either contributing to the brightness of that testimony or you're affecting its light. You know I've been thinking of late if sometimes we spent as much time contributing contributing to the testimony as we can do criticizing it. We'd be in a lot better shape.

We would be moving forward by bounds and leaps. How about it today? When I speak to someone what was the last thing that you did for that local testimony of yours? Seriously, what was the last thing you did? Contributed to it or criticized it? Anybody can criticize it. And usually it's my experience and my observation that those that are contributing to it aren't criticizing it.

And those that are criticizing it are not contributing to it. Now how is a young man sitting in a window going to contribute to that assembly? It's interesting that when it comes to the fall, he did not fall inside. It's almost like taking a child, a kid with you.

I remember my dad, I don't know, we just grabbed what was our closest, but he risked taking us sometimes to London and we go to a super or a what's a cedar store then or whatever and he'd look down at him and I said, oh come on, you had your boots on the wrong feet. Well there is a chance you put them on the right one, but most kids get them on the wrong feet. Just happens.

He didn't like it and that wasn't bad till one day we showed up the same sheer store and I don't tell you which one it was because I might get back to him, but he had two left boots on. I'm gonna take my candles to do that, wouldn't it? My poor father, I'm gonna go to the store and kind of own us with two left rubber boots on. Now the point is this, there's only one of two directions in which he could fall and he falls out.

You know why that is? That was the direction to which he was leaning. Now dear young brother, dear Christian today, maybe older ones, what direction are you leaning? The wise man Solomon tells us that the direction to which the tree is leaning, it'll fall. Where are the tendencies of your Christian experience? Were they causing you to lean today? One or the other? I was thinking the Christian experience is a lot like riding a bicycle.

You're either going forward or you're falling off. This man was not making progress. He was falling off.

Remember, isn't the words of the Prophet, Zechariah says, run and speak to this young man. Speak to this young man. Just speak to him.

Dear young brother, and I'm sure you understand that, when the overseers come and speak to you, please, please, they're only trying to help you. Okay? They only want to see in you development and progress. They're not being hard on you.

If you come with a suspicious attitude when they're trying to help you, there's something wrong with you. You say, well that's my business, that's their business. It's sad that nobody here would speak to him.

I have nothing here in the passage that tells me there was ten other young brethren, nothing there. I sometimes have those come to me and they say, you know, well our boy just didn't make it. He just didn't make it.

There is nobody else in the assembly. He's the only young one there. Oh? Think nobody else survived that way? Brother McLeod knows him maybe not as well as I do.

We have a young man in our assembly in Sussex. He didn't start in Sussex. He started in an assembly with eight in fellowship.

Four of them would be his family. The only young man there there ever was. Had children's meetings.

I said to him, I said, so who went out and helped get the children in? He said, didn't have anybody else. I got my sister to go with me. Good for him.

Did he survive it? Sure did. Has he got gift? He sure has. Is he a help to the assembly? Yes.

Married a lovely wife, lovely couple. You just love to have them. No, not everybody.

Not everybody in our local assembly has the gift and the ability of a Joseph Potter. We have others that you might say are slightly challenged. So what? So what? That brother will rise to his feet on the Lord's day morning and worship God with what he's got.

While sometimes others that could stay in their seats. Where do you sit in the assembly? Where do you sit? You sit in the window or do you have a place? Remember, you could go through the Bible and find some very dangerous sitting scenes. One is with Eli.

An old man falls backward off the seat. You say, well, how could a man hurt himself sitting? Don't read your Bible. It becomes very obvious.

So here's this certain young man. Here's a man. Here's a young man.

And do you understand today that you're not one of many. You are certain young man. I agree.

There's too many that are copping out. They used to want the responsibility of it. Basically, they want some things out there in the world that they know they cannot do in the assembly.

So their choice, unfortunately, is to go to a place where they could do that. You are today, dear sister in the assembly, a certain young sister. You are, dear brother, a certain young man.

That's you. You go through the Bible and whatever that expression is used, it's not used just to fill the pages of your Bible or my Bible. It is used to distinguish them.

You know what I think really distinguished this man, Eutychus, was the potential that he had that wasn't being realized by himself, by the assembly. How about you? There's nobody here today that I'm sure say, hey, I'm up to my potential because I'm not. But I want to tell you, I admire, I admire a good number that I know that are giving a lot more percentage into it than maybe I am even as a servant in full-time work.

God bless them. Certain young man being fallen into a deep sleep. Now, wait a minute.

Wait a minute. I only can speak from experience. If I decided to sit in a window, I don't think I would fall asleep the first time I sat there.

You see, there would be kind of a danger element, wouldn't there be? And you'd say, I gotta be careful here. This isn't bad. You know, I'm not really down in there and I'm not really out there.

I'll just sit here. I don't think I'd fall asleep the first time. But maybe after a few months, you get used to it.

You get used to it. You'd almost forget you were there. Decided to say this church was going on without him.

Until. Until. And it says that Paul was long in preaching and he fell down from the third loft and he was taken up for dead.

I will not take time to go into the words that are given to us in verse number 10. It says that the apostle went down and fell on him, embracing him, said, trouble not yourselves, for his life is in him. That must have been wonderful news.

And we didn't lose him. And he's got life. Brethren, we cannot function in the testimony of those that don't have life.

Wonderful to see evidences of life. Must have been so comforting to that church where they come back. He says his life is in him.

And it took something like this to prove that the young man really had life. Don't allow that to happen in your experience. Let there be evidences of life.

And one of them is that you will be gathered together with the company. I'm sorry to say, not just because this is my line at this moment, but if this stout conference does not have an effect upon our love for the word of God that commands us to be gathered together as a local church, and if this doesn't make me or you a better attender of the assembly, that's really what I'm saying, okay? Anybody here that couldn't do it just a little better? Now I realize there's shift work. I realize there's seasonal work.

I spent some time farming, too. Spent some time in business, like no longer than I should have. There's likely more business in me now than there should be, too.

Let me ask you, you want to make a difference with you? Are you saying there are, you know, we just can't, hey, come on, wait a minute. Let me ask you, brother, you ever driven a better vehicle than you're driving now? Were the roads ever better than they are now? Minus spring potholes. Really? No.

Down our way the same way. There's never a time we can go point to point quicker, easier, and better than we can now. So we're better attenders at conferences? At assembly meetings? If we're not, you know where we're sitting? And you could be my age today and that's where you're sitting.

Remember, you will fall in the direction to which you are leaning. You know, listen, life has come on. Come on, let me speak to my generation today.

You and I could do nothing about the length of our lives, okay? We've already had too many birthdays. That's right, John. We're both on the same medicine for the knees.

We've had too many birthdays. I can do nothing about the length of it. But you know something? I can do something about the depth of my life and the breadth of it and making it count for God.

I would just like to have captured the faces of these believers as they brought them up. The words that are used for the Apostle, let me go back to that, that he embraced him. He stressed, it's similar to what you have with the prophet in the Old Testament as he spread himself upon the child.

He brought himself down to the size of the child. In other words, he brought himself to the circumstances of which that child was found. You see, that's what we fail to do sometimes.

We just look at him as a number, a young man sitting there in the window. We forget needs that he had. He says, trouble not yourselves for your life.

Why? They were troubled. And they would be troubled. It was the only young man.

In other words, the future of this testimony depended on him. The future of testimony, brothers and sisters, depends in measure on all of us. But to you, young brother, you are the future.

You are the future. May you leave this conference today, and may I leave it, asking myself the question, not only where do I stand relative to the assembly, but where am I sitting?