Through the Bible

Well, in chapter 15 we see that Paul and Barnabas had come now down through bringing the Word and some, well they didn't bring the sustenance, they just were bringing, they brought the Word back down to Antioch and then they came to Jerusalem and some men came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren, well they haven't come to Jerusalem yet, they've come to Antioch. Some men came down from Judea, where they were at Antioch, and began teaching the brethren, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. And when Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles

and elders concerning this issue, and therefore being sent on their way to the church, they were passing through both Phoenicia and Samaria, describing in detail the conversion of the Gentiles and were bringing great joy to all the brethren. So they've gotten back to Antioch, and the church in Antioch was rejoicing because of all the things that Paul and Barnabas shared about their missionary journey, and then these guys came up from Judea and began to cause division, they're what we label the Judaizers, because they come from Judea, and they emphasize the law of Moses, and we'll see when they get to Jerusalem they're hit by this sect again. And it caused great debate between Paul and Barnabas, because there were Jews that were

believers now in Antioch, and they were kind of agreeing with the Judaizers because they had gone through circumcision, they'd been keeping the laws of Moses, and why should we abandon all of that to, you know, follow Jesus, or why should the Gentiles skate? Why shouldn't they have to be circumcised as we had, and have to keep the law of Moses as we've had to do? And that contention really has gone down through the ages, I mean, even with the Council of Jerusalem. Chapter 15, as your study Bibles may have at the Council of Jerusalem, or something along those lines, chapter 15 settles a lot of issues.

Why shouldn't Christians worship, keep the Sabbath as Saturday, which the Seventh-day Adventists charge? The Seventh-day Adventists believe that the rest of the church, the rest of Protestantism has abandoned what God established in the Sabbath day, and we have actually accepted the mark of the beast, worshiping God on Sunday, and they condemn us for that. The Seventh-day Adventists condemns the rest of Protestantism because of that, and the Jerusalem Council settles all of that. As we get through chapter 15, those issues should be put to rest because of the decisions that were determined here at the Jerusalem Council, and we'll talk about that.

So anyhow, this dispute arose over whether or not everybody should keep the laws of Moses and be circumcised, or whether or not they didn't have to, and so they sent Paul and Barnabas to Jerusalem and some of the others to go up to the apostles and the elders and find out what they said concerning this. Now as they went, they came down from Antioch and came through the areas of Phoenicia, which is on the seaward side. The Phoenicians would have been up along the areas of Tyre and Sidon and all of that, and then down through Samaria, which is on the side of the Jordan River, inside, inland, and they were telling the church there, sharing about the conversion of the Gentiles and bringing

great joy to all the brethren, because most of those areas were Gentile. Most of those were either Gentile or Samaritans, which the Samaritans were considered half-breed anyhow. So they were rejoicing that God was bringing in other Gentiles. Verse 4, And when they arrived at Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them.

But some of the sect of the Pharisees who had believed stood up, saying, It is necessary to circumcise them and to direct them to observe the law of Moses. The sect of the Pharisees is primarily where the Judaizers came out of. Now remember, the Pharisees were the ones who were the strict keepers of the law. The Sadducees were the liberals. The Pharisees were the conservatives.

The Pharisees believed in the supernatural. The Sadducees did not. But the Pharisees were very much in the keeping of the law and prided themselves on the keeping of the law. Every article of the law, their dress declared their keeping of the law and their holiness, their prayerfulness. You could see in their dress, not their countenance, that they were the keepers of the law.

And they prided themselves on that, and it reflected in their attitude. And so they felt that everybody should do what they do. Actually not only be circumcised and keep the laws of Moses, but do it their way. That was their emphasis. They should look like us. Now that has come down through Christianity from generation to generation, that a true Christian has to look like us, has to do it our way.

Whether it's through the Baptists or the Presbyterians or the Methodists or whatever, there's the tendency to, we have the right way, we've found this way, at the exclusion of everybody else. And you either do it our way or you're wrong. And somehow, you know, associated with this, it can be dress, it can be the style, whether or not you have instruments at all in your service, or whether or not you just have, you know, a piano or an organ, some, a lot of denominations, well I won't say a lot, several denominations today, the Reformed side especially, sees contemporary style worship as very heathenistic, very much of the devil. Of course, the Church of Christ, no instruments at all in the service, everything's to be

a cappella because no instruments are seen in the New Testament supposedly. So all of this, you have to look like us, and it's pounded into, it can be pounded into people. I know when I got saved, the guy that led me to the Lord went to a church much like Calvary Chapel. Calvary Chapel wasn't, it was going on the West Coast when I got saved. I got saved in March of 1970, and, but it hadn't, it hadn't come to Colorado yet, and

Tom Stipe hadn't come out there to start Calvary Chapel in Denver. But this church was, they had, it was like Calvary Chapel, as a matter of fact it was called Calvary, but it wasn't a Calvary Chapel, but it was a combination, there were people that were in coats and ties and people in casual, in jeans and all, much like Calvary Chapel. And when Ron invited me to come to church, and I'd been raised in the Methodist church, and in our, going to church every Sunday, you had to wear a coat and tie, you had to wear a coat and tie, you had to wear a coat and tie, you had to, I mean you just had to. It just, it was more of a high formal worship.

There are churches that have high formal worship, and that means they're more, very much into pomp and dress, and the pastors wear, or the ministers wear robes. It's just a very high formal liturgical way of doing things. This is the way, and we don't vary from that at all. And then there's the lower worship, which we fit into, which is very casual, very much, we can do it this way, but if something changes it, that's fine, and that's part of what's on our bulletin, is we believe in the Holy Spirit, that our services are directed by the Holy Spirit, and if he wants to change things up, that's fine.

But when I first started going with Ron to this church, I had to wear a coat and tie, and Ron said, you don't have to do that, you know, just kick back and wear jeans, you can wear jeans and a shirt, that's fine. And I'm going, Ron, I can't, I wanted to, God, I envied his liberty, his ability to do that, but I felt like I couldn't, I felt somehow like God wouldn't like me, you know, if I didn't do that. And so it took several weeks of going with him, and then finally I went without a tie. I had my coat and my slacks on, but I didn't have a tie, and then I finally went without my coat, and I had my, you know, slacks, still had my slacks and my dress shirt, and then finally I got to the point where I was getting more, I was growing in the Lord, and

the understanding and knowledge of his word, and my relationship with the Lord was emphasizing the fact that it wasn't what was outward, but matters of the heart. But these guys are still in the outward appearance, and they haven't grown into that area yet of the matters of the heart, and so they were emphasizing, you need to do this, they need to be circumcised, verse 5, and direct them to observe the law of Moses. And the apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter, and after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you. Now in the early days doesn't mean the Old Testament, he's talking about the early days

of the church, right after Pentecost, right after the church was born, in the early days of the church, God made a choice, and he emphasizes that this is all God's doing. Watch the way he does this. God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe. And he's referencing there back to Cornelius, his going to the house of Cornelius, and Cornelius's household getting saved.

And God, who knows the heart, New American Standard says testified to them, some of the other translations says, confirmed that by giving them the Holy Spirit just as He also did to us. So Peter's saying, God's the one that sent me, God's the one that through my speaking, we evidenced the Gentiles believing, and we evidenced His giving of the Holy Spirit to them just as He gave it to us. Verse 9, and He, God, made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. God's already done all of this.

Now therefore, verse 10, why do you put God to the test by placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? That's a pretty strong statement, especially when the Pharisees had just said, the Pharisaical believers. These were believers from the sect of the Pharisees. They'd come to Christ, but they still had their Phariseeism, much like I still had my coat and tie.

And for him to say, though, that, you know, this is a yoke that none of us could bear, it made them come face to face with the fact that no matter how much they tied their mint and cumin, and how much they wore their garments and their prayer tassels and all that stuff, they were still violators of the law. They violated the law in some area. There is a spiritual arrogance attached to that. And I don't want to say that everybody that's, you know, that, let me put it with Phariseeism, with the legality, with legalism, there's a spiritual arrogance.

We keep this. We do it right. They emphasize the things that they do right, but they know they do things wrong. They know there's sin in their own lives, but they don't want to emphasize that. So we'll stand and pound on the things that we know we do right, but as far as anything that we might do wrong, well, we'll skip over that. We won't hit on that. And that's something that Peter just nails them with.

None of us have been able to do it. Neither we nor our forefathers, our ancestors hadn't been able to do that. We cannot keep the law, and it's evident. That's why we have the sacrifices. That's why the sacrifices were necessary. So why do you want to put on them something that not even we could do? Verse 11, But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way as

they also are. And all the people kept silent, and they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. And after Paul and Barnabas had stopped speaking, James, now this is James the brother of Jesus, this is James, John's brother had already been executed. He was the first disciple to be executed by Herod.

So this is James, the half-brother of Jesus. He's kind of seen here as the leader of the Jerusalem council now. He answers saying, brethren, listen to me, Simeon, now Simeon is just the Hebrew derivation of Simon, it's the same as Simon, but it's the Hebrew of Simon, has related how God first concerned Himself about taking from among the Gentiles a people for His name. Now some of your translations will have that Simeon related how God first concerned Him, called out from among the Gentiles a people for His own name.

The phrase that taking out from is a combination of two words. It's the Greek word ek, which means out of, and then kaleo, or a form of kaleo, which means to call. So ek, and actually it's ekaleo, but ekklesia, ekklesia, out of, He has called out these ones unto Himself. Ekklesia is the Greek word for the church. We are the ekklesia, we are the called out ones.

We have been called out from among the world, among the Gentiles, to the Lord. That's the first listing here of that idea, that phrase of being the ekklesia, the called out ones from among the Gentiles, a people for His own name. And with this, the words of the prophets agree just as it is written. Now he quotes a neat set of scripture here from Amos chapter 9.

Amos in chapter 9, verses 11 and 12 says, After these things, God says, I, and notice all the times God says this, what He's going to do, I will return, says the Lord, and I will rebuild the tabernacle of David which is fallen, and I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord. And all the Gentiles who are called by My name, says the Lord, who makes these things known from long ago. Interesting set of scriptures that James quotes from Amos. And he attributes it to what Jesus has done.

After these things, metatauta in the Greek, it's the same phrase that John uses in Revelation chapter 4, when John says after he's gone through the first three chapters in Revelation dealing with the church and the church age. He says in chapter 4, After these things I looked, and behold, a door was opened in heaven, metatauta. It means exactly after these things. As it is written, after these things, I will return, says the Lord, and I will rebuild the tabernacle of David, the house of David which is fallen.

If you remember your Old Testament, you remember that God put a curse on the lineage of David because of Jeconiah, because of the disobedience of the house of David, the southern kingdom, the southern kings. It was cursed. But God has redeemed the house of David, the fallen tabernacle, the fallen house of David because Jesus came from that lineage, was from that line, from the line of David. And so God has rebuilt the tabernacle, the house of David, which is fallen.

He will fulfill the promises to David, the Davidic covenant, that upon the throne of David will his descendant rule and reign forever. Jesus is going to fulfill that. That's one of the things that Amos is referring to here. I will rebuild its ruins. I will restore it so that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord and all the Gentiles who are called by my name.

Through Christ, that's happened. The prophecy that Amos gives that James quotes here has been established through Christ. All mankind, the rest of mankind other than the Jews and all of the Gentiles. He uses a double emphasis there to emphasize someone other than the Jews. All the rest of mankind and all the Gentiles who are called by my name. So James quotes that and then he says in verse 19,

Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles. In other words, we don't lay anything on them, just as Peter said, that we couldn't do. He shows from Amos that God is already establishing and fulfilling what he promised concerning bringing these people in that Amos had talked about. He's establishing that through Christ.

We're seeing the events of that, the effects of that right now, he's saying. Therefore let's not put any more on these guys, on the Gentiles. But that we write to them, verse 20, that they should do three things. They should, number one, abstain from things contaminated by idols. Stay away from any form of idolatry, anything contaminated by an idol. Stay away from idolatry.

Don't worship anything other than the Lord. And number two, abstain from fornication, sexual immorality. The emphasis is you belong to the Lord, your body is the Lord's and Paul will go into great detail in that in several of his epistles. He tells the Corinthians that, he tells the Thessalonians that. Talks about it some in Ephesians. Just abstain from fornication.

And then thirdly, and abstain from what is strangled and from blood. Now anything strangled, the blood stays in it. So don't eat anything somehow that's strangled and I don't know how you'd, you know, unless it's strangled by birth, an animal being born by birth or, I don't know, personally I don't know how they're strangled. I know, I know like with deer, if deer are hit and you don't get to them right away and bleed them, the blood stays in the meat and it taints the meat.

The meat's no good. You can't get the meat from the deer. And that's basically what that's referring to in the double emphasis and from blood. Don't eat blood. There's a great emphasis, Moses revealed in Leviticus that the life is in the blood. The life that flows through us is found in the blood. God forbid Israel, the Jews, from eating blood, consuming blood.

The blood had to be poured out either on the altar or around the altar as part of the offerings to God. They couldn't eat the blood. That was one of the things they were not to do. And so, that's handed to us. We're not to eat blood. We're not to eat things strangled, because the blood stays in the meat, so make sure it's drained, the blood's drained out. And it's just, it's honoring God in that, plus it's healthier.

Those three things. Stay away from idolatry, from sexual immorality, and stay away from blood. Don't eat the blood. Verse 21. For Moses, from ancient generations, has in every city those who preach him, since he is read in the synagogues every Sabbath. So, the law is going to still be heard around the Gentiles at that particular time. The law is still there. Moses is still being preached.

And basically, I think, from what I understand, that's referring to the history of how we got to here. When we study, we have the Old Testament with our New Testament. Our Bibles have what we call the Old Testament. These guys didn't. What we have here is basically the Torah, the law, the prophets, and the poetry, and the history that the Jews had. But the Gentiles didn't have that readily, initially.

But the idea was they could hear it. And it would be good for them to hear it, because that's their heritage. That's the foundation of how they got where they are now. Of where the Messiah came from. It was good to know your heritage. So, I believe this is an emphasis on knowing the foundations of our faith. Knowing the historical Old Testament, as we call it,

Old Testament foundations of our faith. There are churches today, that although they have Bibles in their pews, the Old Testament is dead and gone. They don't emphasize there's no teaching from the Old Testament. We would have readings in the Methodist church from the Old Testament. That was it. They would read a passage from the Old Testament, a passage from the New Testament,

and sometimes a psalm as well. And then the pastor would preach. And sometimes he would use a scriptural text, and sometimes he wouldn't. But I was naive enough, and so were most of the people then, to think that because we're high church, we got all the stuff. We're in church. This must be church. This must be the way it's supposed to go. And we never once thought about actually studying this on our own.

We never read it. Nobody brought a Bible to church, because they were all in the pews. And then they were all part of the responsive readings that were part of the hymnals. And so there were no more Bibles in the pews. It was just all part of the hymnal. And you turned to reading number 587 or whatever, and it said minister and congregation. That's it. And so, we were biblically illiterate.

We had no idea of the foundation. I mean, we knew the stories. You heard the stories in Sunday school about David and Goliath, about Samson and Delilah, about Jonah and the whale, and all that stuff. But as far as knowing the biblical foundation, we didn't. And most of the Gentiles didn't then either. So that's the emphasis there. They're going to pick it up.

And it's a good thing for them to pick it up. And that's it.

If you keep yourselves free from such things, you will do well. Farewell. That was it. There is no, keep the Sabbath day. Worship on the Sabbath day and keep it holy. There's no emphasis. If there was going to be an emphasis, if God so wanted the Gentiles, so wanted us today to keep Saturday as the Sabbath, it would have been in there. I mean, this is important.

This is the Jerusalem Council. These are all Jews in this Jerusalem Council. And they were all in agreement. But there's no keeping the Sabbath. There's no emphasis on circumcision. There's no emphasis on keeping the feast days of the Jews. And Paul hits all of those later in his epistles. One man esteems one day as under the Lord, and another man esteems all these other days as under the Lord.

Let each man esteem under the Lord that which he has in his heart. Whatever he does, he does it to the Lord. One man these days, one man this, this one day. So some people will keep the Sabbath. And that's fine. But don't push it on them that they have to keep the Sabbath this Saturday. Some worship on Sunday. We happen to come and worship on Wednesday and Thursday.

And my goodness, we might worship every day of the week. Well, that's fine. Every day we esteem it as under the Lord. There's not one mark over another. There's not one specific way to do it over another. Verse 30. So when they were sent away, they went down to Antioch, and having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter. And when they'd read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement.

So they were encouraged, Judas and Silas. Judas called Barsibus and Silas were encouraged, as were Paul and Barnabas. They were encouraged because the Gentile Christians at Antioch were encouraged. So they read it, and they rejoiced because it was an encouraging letter. And Judas and Silas, also being prophets themselves, encouraged and strengthened the brethren with a lengthy message.

So they were preachers. Prophecy. Gift of prophecy was the gift of presenting a word about the Lord, a word about Jesus Christ. And so they were prophets. They could speak forth the word of God. And after they had spent time there, they were sent away from the brethren in peace to those who had sent them out. So they were sent back to Jerusalem with the blessings of the church there in Antioch.

But it seemed good to Silas to remain there. He stayed there. Now, the workings of God, how God works. Silas really liked it. I mean, he was sent up there from Jerusalem by the council to bear witness, to identify and say, yes, this is indeed what we decided. But he liked it there. And the Holy Spirit is having him stay there. But Paul and Barnabas stayed in Antioch also,

teaching and preaching with many others also the word of the Lord. And after some days, verse 36, Paul said to Barnabas, let's return and visit the brethren in every city in which we proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are. Let's check up on them. And Barnabas said, cool, let's take John Mark along with us. But Paul kept insisting that they should not take him along

because he deserted them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. And there occurred such a sharp disagreement that they separated from one another. And Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas, the guy from Jerusalem who'd stayed. He felt like he should stay behind. He took Silas with him and left, being committed by the brethren to the grace of the Lord.

And he was traveling through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches. Now I want you to notice this, and I know you've heard it before, about the split and how God used the split. And that's absolutely correct. But I want you to notice what the split was over. Verse 39, there occurred such a sharp disagreement. Why? Because Paul didn't want to take John Mark.

Why? Because, well, John Mark had abandoned them when they were on their first missionary journey in Pamphylia. They'd gone through some difficulties that aren't specifically listed here. But he'd abandoned them. He'd run off. He's too young. In Paul's mind, he's too immature still to take with us. And so there arose, it says, there occurred such a sharp disagreement.

Some of your translations will say contention. They were at odds with one another. Now think with me a minute about this, if you would. They were at odds with one another over what? Doctrine? Was there some doctrinal issue that they had? No! They had contention over procedure. How things were done. Do you know that's still true today? When people get upset and leave, just about any church.

I sit down and fellowship with a couple of pastors on a regular basis from other churches. And we have that tendency to talk about, you know, I asked so-and-so got upset and left or whatever. What did they get upset over? You know, did you teach some heresy? No, it's the way we did this or it's the way we did that. They didn't like the way we did this. I had somebody leave decades ago

because I didn't make it up to the hospital in Wichita fast enough with what they were going through. No joke. They got upset and they left the fellowship. And I'm gone. Procedure, it's procedure. It's not that I taught some doctrine that they disagreed with. It's procedure. We had somebody else leave the fellowship once because in the sanctuary when we had pews and it was in this facility,

they had their kids and their kids were playing with toys, little cars on the wooden pews back there. Vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom during a study. And one of the ushers came and said, could we have you just move your kids back here to the viewing room, you know, back in the outside because they're causing a distraction. They got up and left.

They've come back over the years. But they were upset and left because of procedure, not doctrine but procedure. It happens all the time. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't take care. There's a lot of churches that won't do anything different. There are a lot of churches that are scared to death to change up the service because of that because somebody will get upset and leave.

We've changed things around on a Sunday morning before, and I've had people say it. It was unnerving because a lot of people want to have all their ducks in a row. You throw a goose in there, it messes up the ducks, and people can get really upset. But we want to keep it fresh, and sometimes we have to do things that stir things up. And sometimes for the sake of the many, a few are offended.

Like with the cars in the sanctuary. But you just have to do those things. And the reason I say that and I'm belaboring it is because I'm really blessed that this happened because it's just an encouragement as a pastor that it's not just me. It happened with the best, you know. But in the midst, God took something that was a difficulty and a contention and made a blessing out of it.

There were two separate ministries that happened. Barnabas went ahead and took John Mark and sailed away to Cyprus back out to the island where he and Paul had started. And Paul took Silas and they were traveling through Syria and Cilicia. They went on north, stayed inland, didn't get out and go to Cyprus. They let Barnabas and John Mark take care of Cyprus and the island.

They went on around this way. Now initially to avoid one another, but God had a double work going. He was able to take that contention and turn it into a blessing. And later on, we'll read it later in Acts, that their fellowship was restored. And Paul actually calls for John Mark to come to him while he's in prison because he's an encouragement to him and he wants to see him again before he dies.

I love this. I just love this section because of that. Chapter 16, Paul came also to Derbe and to Lystra. And a disciple was there named Timothy. Now if you remember a few chapters back, we talked about when Paul went to Lystra and was dragged out of the city and stoned and left for dead and all, that Timothy was there and probably saw all of that and heard the initial messages that Paul had given,

had seen Paul stoned and left for dead and then resurrected, raised from the dead virtually and coming back into the city and evidently moved his life so much that he came to Christ. He was also the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. So a mixed marriage there between a Gentile and a Jew. But his mother was very devout. When Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3,

Paul affirms Timothy's heritage, his upbringing with his mother and his grandmother and how strong a believer they were and how great of an influence they were in his life. So Timothy was... Paul knew Timothy, I think, on his first journey. And this is now some time later and Timothy's a little bit older. And so he was well spoken of, verse 2, by the brethren who were there in Lystra and Iconium.

And Paul wanted this man to go with him. And he took him and he circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those parts, for they all knew that his father was a Greek, which is a strike against him because he's like a Samaritan. He's a half-breed. He's the son of a Jewish woman, but his dad's a Greek. So he'd have had that strike against him. Even though he was raised, his mother and grandmother,

which were his mother's mother and, you know, grandmother, would have, well, which was his mother and his grandmother, but she was Jewish. He would have been raised in Judaism. He would have understood and been raised as a Jew. So he would understand that, although he wasn't circumcised. Okay, let's go to our Sunday study theme. You know, do we really want to grow?

Do we really want to grow? Do we really want to serve the Lord? Yes, Lord, I will follow you anywhere, okay? I need to have you circumcised. Timothy's probably 17, I imagine. He's a teenager. Not high on the list of a 17-year-old is to get circumcised. But he willingly yields himself to that. I mean, it's just a little blurb in verse 3. He took him and circumcised him because of the Jews.

Paul would have said, okay, now, for your testimony to really be valid, you're going to have to be circumcised. And that was no small matter for Timothy. So commend the guy for that, man. He yielded to the Lord. He followed the Lord for the sake of the gospel going to those around. He gave up his liberty. He didn't have to be. It wasn't something that was necessary.

But in order to get the gospel out, he was willing to subject himself to that. I commend him highly for that. And God, I don't want to have to go through something like that. Make my life painless, Lord. Now, while they were passing through the cities, they were delivering the decrees which had been decided upon by the apostles and the elders who were in Jerusalem for them to observe.

So they were taking the letter and reading it to all the different churches around that they had brought with them from the Jerusalem council. And so the churches were being strengthened in the faith and were increasing in number daily. Verse 6. Then they passed through the Phrygian and Galatian region, having been forbidden by the Spirit to speak the word in Asia.

And after they came to Mysia, they were trying to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them. Now, just two things right there, verses 6 and 7. They attributed to the Holy Spirit the fact that they weren't able to go into Asia. They went into Asia Minor, the areas of Galatia and all, and Phrygia, but they could not go on in east anymore, into Asia.

And they tried to go down into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them. So it's still the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Jesus. It's kind of interesting that the two-fold emphasis there, the same Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus. You'd have a real contention there with the Jehovah's Witnesses as to which spirit it is. Are they two different spirits?

Well, it's the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Jesus. How does the Spirit of Jesus do that when it's the same emphasis as the Holy Spirit of verse 6? It's the Holy Spirit. Now, how did the Holy Spirit forbid them? Was there a, you know, they couldn't get their passport, they couldn't get the visa to go into Bithynia? Was there a billboard? You know, they came to the crossroads there down into Bithynia

or up into Asia, and it said, you know, sorry, road closed, you know, you can't go there. How did the Holy Spirit do it? Well, we have an idea from the book of Galatians in chapter 4 that Paul says the Galatians, while he was in Galatia, coming through Galatia here in the Galatian region in verse 6, they took care of him because he was sick. He had this illness, and he says, you would have given, you know, he commended them because he said, you would have even given me your own eyes.

He evidently had some kind of an eye problem. And in 2 Corinthians chapter 12 where he talks about, Paul talks about being caught up in the third heaven and seeing things that were awesome and not lawful for him to repeat because he couldn't come up with the words that would adequately describe him. He says, to keep me from being puffed up beyond measure, a messenger of Satan was given to me to buffet me, a thorn in the flesh. And I prayed for God to remove it three times, and God said, no, my grace is sufficient for you.

A lot of the scholars believe that that happened as a result of his being stoned in Lystra. It's when he was caught up in the third heaven and saw all of this. And as a result of the stoning, very possibly, he had injuries to his eyes and his eyes were running. And maybe even one of them damaged. And when he was in Galatia, he was having a relapse of that. And it just kept him in his sickness.

And so though they wanted to go, they couldn't because of an illness. Now if that's the case, it's kind of interesting to me that the Holy Spirit would have allowed something like that when sickness is from the devil, isn't it? Illness is from the devil, isn't it? No. God allows it. God uses it. God forbids and directs and moves through illness, through weather,

through different stages of things. God is in absolute control. We don't know for sure, but just like from reading Galatians, it's kind of interesting that it would correlate to this particular text here referring to Paul's eye disease or his disease probably with his eyes. Anyhow, so they didn't go into those places. Verse 8, they passed by Mysia and they came to Troas.

And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia was standing and appealing to him and saying, come over to Macedonia and help us. So God's directing. I don't want you to go into Asia. I don't want you to go into Bithynia. I want you to go to Troas and I'm going to speak to you. And he speaks to him in a vision, in a dream. And he sees this man in Macedonia

saying come over here. And when he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia. Now if you notice back in verse 6, they passed through the Phrygian region and all that stuff. And verse 7, and after they came to Mysia, they were trying to get into Bithynia and all. As the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them in passing Mysia, they came down to Troas.

But then after verse 9 and verse 10, when he had seen the vision immediately, we sought to go to Macedonia. Now who's writing the book of Acts? Luke. Remember? He wrote Luke and he wrote the book of Acts. The Acts of the Apostles. The Acts of the Impossibles. The Acts of the Impossibles. The Acts of the Apostles for Theophilus and very possibly it's for an attorney

who's defending Paul before Nero. And so when you see, and we sought to go to Macedonia, this is where Luke joins them. So he evidently was in Troas and picks up with them as they go to Macedonia. Luke's a part of them and we'll see him stay in another area and the tenses will change again. The pronouns will change as we see Luke leave them. But right now he's with them.

That God had called us to preach the gospel to them. So putting out to sea from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samanthrace, which is a series of islands. It's a little group of islands between Troas and Neapolis. And on the day following to Neapolis. Neapolis is probably 150 miles according to the map from Troas. So they moved across this region to Neapolis

and from there to Philippi, which is about 10 miles. Philippi is about 10 miles from Neapolis according to the maps. Which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia. A Roman colony. So it's full of Gentiles. A major Roman colony. It would have had major highways that pass through it. It would have been a trade city. A lot of activity, a lot of people. And we were staying in this city for some days.

And on the Sabbath day, as was their habit, we went outside the gate to a riverside where we were supposing that there would be a place for prayer. Now that indicates there wasn't a synagogue. So as much as a thriving city as this was, there weren't at least 10 male Jews. Because in order to have a synagogue, you had to have at least 10 male Jews in an area for a synagogue to be built.

So this is primarily Gentile. Predominantly Gentile region. And so they go to the river. Supposing, I don't know why they suppose that. It would be a place of prayer. Probably it was a quiet area. And they probably went there early in the morning. They were going to go there and pray like they would go to synagogue on the Sabbath. And we sat down and began speaking

to the women who had assembled. And a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple fabrics, a worshiper of God, was listening. And the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. Now here's the beginning of the church at Philippi with a woman named Lydia. Now flip back or look up wherever you are on your page and look back to verse 9.

A vision appeared to Paul that night. A man of Macedonia was standing and appealing to him saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us. Why wasn't it a woman? And if the woman's going to be the first one there, why wouldn't God let him have a vision of a woman? Because Paul's still dealing with cultural stuff as well. As much as he is the disciple to the Gentiles,

he's still Jewish to the bone, I believe. And I believe if God would have shown him a woman saying, Come over here, he might have thought, Well, I don't know. There should be other things more important to do. But he sees a man in his vision. Come over here. And he responds to that. And God leads him to a woman. A very strong, a very influential woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira.

Now what's interesting about that is Thyatira is in Asia. Paul couldn't go to Asia. The Spirit forbid him to go to Asia. But he's brought him to Philippi as a result of a vision to save a very influential woman from Asia, from Thyatira. And he's going to send her there. And a church in Thyatira is going to be born and actually several churches. As a matter of fact,

the seven churches in the book of Revelation are churches in Asia. And they represent the church age down through history from the time of Pentecost until the time that Jesus called us out at the rapture. And God's doing it God's way, not Paul's. Not our way. He has a very specific reason for doing what he does the way that he does it. And he's going to use a woman.

And he uses this woman named Lydia who is a seller of purple fabrics. So she has her own business. She's a woman of means. The purple fabrics were very rich. Of course, purple the royal colors and all. She had probably very strong sales there in Philippi since it was a Roman colony. So that's where she had the primary area of business. But she was a worshiper of God.

Probably a proselyte. And she was listening and the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household had been baptized, she urged us saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay. And she prevailed upon us. So again, evidence is the fact that she is a woman of means. She has a house in Thyatira.

She has a house here which she can bring people into. It's large enough to do that. And so Paul and Silas come in and stay with her. And it happened then as we were going to the place of prayer, a slave girl having a spirit of divination met us who was bringing her masters much profit by fortune telling. And following after Paul and us, she kept crying out saying,

these men are bondservants of the Most High God who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation. Now, I wrote down in my margin here because I thought it was funny. Something that I always say. You never just do anything. Remember? That's my motto. You never just do anything. I just thought it was funny that verse 16, it happened that as we were going to the place of prayer,

they were just going to the place of prayer. They'd been there already. That's where Lydia was. How cool. Let's go to the place of prayer. So they're going with Lydia now again to the place of prayer. Let's just go pray. Well, you can't just. You never just do anything. Here's this slave girl who has a spirit of divination. Literally in the Greek, it's a python spirit.

And it refers back to Greek mythology to Python who was a snake guardian that guarded the temple at Delphi. And it just indicates that she's a medium. She channels spirits. And so she's channeling the python. She's channeling the spirit of the enemy, Satan. And she keeps crying out, these men are bondservants of the Most High God who are proclaiming to you the way of salvation.

Now that's true what she was saying. But it was the way that she was saying it and the fact that she kept on saying it. And it became derogatory. And she continued doing this for many days. But Paul was greatly annoyed and turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus to come out of her. And it came out at that very moment. Another question.

If it had bugged him all those days, how come he didn't do it on day one? Or day two? Or day three? Well, because I think just as Peter and John were going to the temple to pray that day and they saw that man who they'd seen for years as they'd gone to pray. And then as believers they'd seen him sitting there as they were on their way to pray. And at that particular time,

Peter knew it was time for him to be healed. And said, silver and gold have I not, but such as I have, give I thee. It's not that he could just turn his healing gun or they could just, whatever they wanted. It was that the prompting of the spirit, the spirit of God prompted Paul at this particular time. And he said, that's enough. You're taking away from the opportunity

for people to hear the gospel. So I command the spirit in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out at that very moment. But when her masters saw that their hope of prophet was gone, they didn't care about the girl. They cared about the money, bottom line. They seized Paul and Silas and they dragged them into the marketplace before the authorities.

When they brought them to the chief magistrates, they said, these men are throwing our city into confusion being Jews and are proclaiming customs which it is not lawful for us to accept or to observe being Romans. So they're using the religious ethnicity. These people are Jews. Now Timothy though was a Greek. And Paul and Silas were both Roman citizens which they didn't know yet.

But they just are emphasizing the fact that they are Jews and they're teaching stuff. And the people didn't wait to find out what stuff they were teaching. The crowd rose up together, verse 22, against them. And the chief magistrates tore their robes off of them and proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods. Now it's kind of like caning. They would have had between three

and five rods, long, narrow, slender rods, poles that would have been together that you could, when you do this, they whip in the air. And they would have had them tied out and then they would have whacked them with those rods. That's what beating with rods is all about. And as they would, if you've seen the pictures of Indonesia where they cane them, they kind of do that sometimes in Indonesia.

As you start to bring like a baseball bat coming in like that, the rods fan. They'll fan out in the air as they're coming through the air. So they'll hit you and they'll just back, back, back, back, you know, just make those marks across your back. So they beat them with rods. And when they'd struck them with many blows, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely.

And he, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prisons, into the area of solitary, into the deeper part, locked up strong and fastened their feet in stocks. Now we've seen pictures of stocks. Seen the stocks where the, like the pilgrims and all the Puritans and all would put people in and their heads through and the arms through here. Well, these would have been stocks for their feet.

They put their, it says they put their inner prison and put their feet in the stocks. And the stocks would have been up off the ground a little bit and they would spread their legs out and they would kind of turn them to put them in and then put the boards down and lock them, lock them in there like that. Okay, well, if you want to sit with your feet, you sit on the ground with your bottom on the ground and your feet elevated a little bit and turned a little bit in the stocks, you know what's going to happen. You're going to cramp and you're going to cramp and you can't do anything about it because you can't move to get out of the cramp.

You get those charley horses as you're, you know, crawling, you roll over in bed at night or something, you start to get that charley horse, man, you jump out of bed and you stand on it, you bend forward or whatever to stretch out to get that charley horse out. They couldn't do that. They just have, and they would cramp up and they'd keep drawing you up in there. Plus your back's ripped open from the rods and the beaten with rods.

So they were hurting. I mean, it's not a comfortable thing that they did. But about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God. Back up. They'd been in there all these hours, cramping and bleeding and praising God.

Praying. Singing hymns of praise to God. And suddenly there came a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were unfastened. And when the jailer awoke from the earthquake and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself. And you know now from going through the Word with us enough

that whoever was responsible, remember the guards when Peter was let out by the angel? They were all killed. Well, that's what would happen to the jailer because he saw the doors open. He figured everybody's gone. They're going to kill him. So he was going to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried out with a loud voice, verse 28, saying,

do not harm yourself for we are all here. And he called for lights and he rushed in and trembling with fear fell down before Paul and Silas. And after he brought them out, he said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? Now, the exciting thing to notice about that is not simply that Paul and Silas were still there, but all the rest of them were too. All the rest of the prisoners were still there.

I mean, the doors were open to all of the cells and all of the chains had dropped and all the prisoners stayed there. Why? Why didn't they try to get out? Well, when you got these two guys that have been brought in and they are the center of attention, obviously, because they're in the stocks in the center part of the prison there. And everybody's watching them and they've been caned.

They realize they've been beaten with canes and they're bleeding and their legs are cramping. And what are they doing? They're praying and they're praising God. And as they're praying and praising God, that's something that would have been drawing. You know how that is. When you're in a difficult situation and somebody really starts seeking the Lord, there's something about it that draws you to that.

Okay, well, while they're doing that, all of a sudden, earthquake, doors fly open, chains drop off. I ain't going anywhere without these guys. Whatever they're doing, God's responding to or whoever's responding to, I'm staying with them. So everybody stayed. Nobody left. And the jailer, when he got a light and took a round and looked and saw that everybody was there,

he couldn't believe it. He brings them out, Paul and Silas, and says, he fell down trembling and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. The word means to believe who He is and believe what He has done for you. Believe who He is and what He has done. Now, they don't have to say any more because what they've been praying and singing about

has obviously testified the gospel. They've been singing the gospel, praising God for the gospel, thanking Him for Jesus and for what all is done and their opportunity to suffer for Christ's sake. He's heard. All He has to do is believe it for Himself and you'll be saved, you and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to Him, but they didn't speak to Him more,

together with all who were in His house. So they preached to all of them. And He took them that very hour of the night, washed their wounds, and immediately He was baptized, He and all His household. In King James, I think it's written, believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your whole household. And it's like, all you got to do is believe

and your entire household is saved. That's not what it means, but that's what it sounds like. And a lot of people believe that. They think that's what it's saying. Well, if I get saved, then my whole household is saved. And I've had people tell me, well, I know my wife or my husband or whatever isn't really living the faith, but because of this verse, I know He's saved.

Because I'm saved and my whole household is saved. They're all covered. And no, that's not what it says. If you read it in other translations, you realize that everybody had to hear the message that He preached to all of them and all the household, verse 32. They all heard the word and they all had to respond individually. And they all evidently did because they were all baptized

in their own response to the word of God. Verse 34, and He brought them into His house and He set food before them. And He rejoiced greatly, having believed in God with His whole household. His whole household believed. Now, when day came, the chief magistrates sent their policemen, their representatives saying, release those men. And the jailer reported these words to Paul saying,

the chief magistrates have sent to release you. So come on out, let's go in peace. And Paul said to them, they have beaten us in public without trial. Men who are Romans, that's a capital offense. To treat a Roman citizen that way is a capital offense. That's why Paul... when he was in Jerusalem and the Jews were thrown a fit and they wanted to kill him and he talked he told the centurion that he was a Roman citizen he

and the centurion talked about you know the centurion said well I paid a lot of money for my citizenship and Paul said yeah I was born a Roman citizen mine's by birth which is deeper and greater than paying for your citizenship a Roman citizen and have thrown us into prison that I could all I have to do is squeal to Rome and you're all dead the magistrates are all dead it's a capital offense without question and now they're sending us away secretly not at all no indeed let them come themselves and bring us out and so the policemen reported these words to the chief magistrates and they were scared to death when they heard that they were Romans and they came and appealed to Paul and Silas and when they brought them out they kept begging for

them please leave the city you're out now please go and they went out of the prison and entered the house of Lydia and when they saw the brethren they encouraged them and departed so notice they departed Luke is evidently going to stay now here in Philippi Paul's going to leave Luke there and Timothy he and he and Silas and Timothy are going to go on to Thessalonica well father help us just to see the wonderful working of your spirit how you directed you directed through possibly illness kept them from going one way but then brought them somewhere else where you're going to cause someone to get saved that was going to have a greater effect on the region they wanted to go into had

they been able to go in on their own and God may we just be so surrendered to your move that nothing disturbs us that nothing will give us cause for fear or concern you have it totally in control and we get to participate and watch how you do these wonderful works and it's just thrilling God it's it's exciting as we come into this new year father may this be just a catalyst for us we want to to walk in your ways so strongly so close to you that when people see us and watch things happen around us they want to hear just like the prisoners want to hear Paul and Silas they didn't want to leave them they want to stay close to them because they knew they knew the Lord may that be true of us use us

mightily in the days ahead we pray for your glory in Jesus name amen