Acts 8:4

“Therefore indeed being dispersed abroad, they went everywhere preaching the word.” Oh, how the devil overshot himself in the Sauline persecutions. It was high time that Jerusalem nest was broken up and the saints dispersed to the ends of the earth to preach the gospel. Nothing could so effectually bring to pass this indispensable desideratum as a bloody persecution. Hence the devil set a trap, lost all of his bait and got caught in it himself. This awful Sauline persecution was worth more than a wagon full of gold to send the gospel to the destitute, and thus establish the church in all the earth. Meanwhile Satan's persecution dispatched hundreds and thousands of blood-washed and fire-baptized evangelists to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth; he even lost the greatest and most successful leader of hell's army he ever had on the earth, i. e., Saul of Tarsus, whose attitude at the very front of the popular church qualified him, invested in the livery of heaven, to serve the devil and promote the damnation of souls infinitely beyond the possibilities of the blackest incarnate reprobate, fighting overtly and devouredly under the motley banner of the bottomless pit. Therefore in the work of Saul the persecutor hell suffered signal bankruptcy.

ALL SAINTS ARE PREACHERS

4. “Therefore indeed being dispersed abroad, they went everywhere preaching the word.” The martyrdom of Stephen lifted the flood-gate of a general and sweeping persecution against the Nazarenes, the Roman power acquiescent in the diabolical malignity, thus purchasing Jewish favor with the blood of the saints. Consequently they fled in all directions, like Samson's foxes, scattering the fire throughout all Palestine and everywhere rolling out the revival wave into the Gentile world. Thus the devil overshot himself; thinking to exterminate Christianity from the globe, he sent out fiery platoons of missionaries to the ends of the earth. The Holy Ghost certifies that they all preached the gospel, here using that identical word, evangelidzoo, which means “preach the gospel,” and not simply to proclaim as an herald; thus evolving the fact that all the saints in the Apostolic age were divinely authorized preachers of the gospel, Satan having waited to a later date to invent license, thus obstructing the free and universal evangelization of earth's dying millions under the leadership of the Holy Ghost. Unobstructed by ecclesiastical tyranny, neither the apostles nor their saintly contemporaries ever received any license to preach. If the church wants to give you license, accept it with gratitude; if not, go ahead and preach in the regular Apostolical succession.