I think before I went to Moscow, I
was in Acts, and we'll finish that chapter
Lord willing.
And so we're in Acts chapter 18 and
starting with verse 12.
Now you remember Greece or the world was
under the control of the Roman Empire.
And so Rome, when they would conquer the
world, as long as that nation would pay
the taxes and submit to the yoke of
Rome and its government, its ideology, they allowed
religious freedom.
And they allowed people to worship any way
they wanted to.
But they would establish a pro-council or
a governor in each area from Rome, a
Roman, to govern and to rule and then
to answer back to Caesar.
And in this particular area, Cai, where Paul
is, Corinth, is a man named Galio.
History tells us he was a very fair,
good ruler.
The great Stoic politician and Roman, who's very
well-known, Seneca was his brother.
And it's interesting that Seneca was the private
tutor of Nero, Nero Caesar.
And history tells us that it was either
Nero or Caligula, probably Nero, who eventually had
Galio, who Paul met, and Seneca both put
to death.
But it's interesting how God places his people,
or gets powerful people in contact with believers.
You can see by the Scriptures that when
someone stands before God at the white throne
judgment, and remember you will never, if you're
truly a born-again converted Christian, you will
never face that judgment.
You as a child of God will never
have to stand judgment at the white throne,
or that great judgment of mankind where there's
nothing but damnation facing the individuals.
Because you've gotten to that point, left this
life without a decision for Christ in a
positive way, and so you wait until that
resurrection at the end of the thousand years
and stand at the white throne judgment.
And then the whole life of that individual
is played back, and every account of their
life, every jot, every tittle of their life,
every idle word that has been spoken, every
action, God will play back before that individual
and show them every opportunity in the 60
or 70 or 80 years of their life
that they had a chance to make a
decision for Jesus Christ, or heard of Jesus
Christ, before they are damned eternally.
And it will be a righteous judgment.
God judges righteously.
During the age of grace and the Gospels
going out, you see, you and I have
the opportunity and responded hopefully to the opportunity
that God gives us now to have our
judgment taken care of, our sin taken care
of, by accepting what Jesus Christ has done
for us on Calvary.
Becoming the propitiation, becoming the scapegoat.
He is the sin offering.
He's the perfect one that meets the just
demands of God's righteous law, and He dies
in our place, and we have life.
God can impute righteousness to you and I
because He's punished our sin on His Son,
Jesus Christ.
So we never face that judgment.
We sit with the Lord as His bride
on the thrones judging.
But there'll be many, many, many individuals powerful
in this life.
But it's interesting, no matter how powerful you
are in this life, you end up a
pile of dust with worms eating you eventually.
You may be a Stalin, a Hitler, a
George Washington, a Truman, an Abraham Lincoln, whoever.
How powerful you may have been in this
life.
A Napoleon, a Pharaoh.
No matter how great, no matter what you
control, how many lives have been put to
death, an individual will always end up dust
with worms eating the body somewhere.
In fact, many of the poets and the
historians of the past say, when you handle
a cup, in fact there's a great Persian
historian and poet who said, when you drink
out of that cup that belongs to the
family, remember, be very careful, the dust of
your grandfather may be in the clay.
But one day, you see, they'll stand before
the Lord and they'll be very humbled.
There'll be awe and respect then.
Now, I really believe, as you look at
the book of Acts, that God often tried
to reach the most powerful people on earth
by the very trials that He allowed the
Christians to go to and stand to.
Just like Galileo experienced Paul, like Felix, like
Festus, all these Roman leaders.
Now stop and think how often people in
Caesar's court got saved because of the ministry
of Paul and they heard the gospel.
Where they are today, we don't know.
We will find out when we enter eternity
if they did get saved.
But more often you just hear how someone
was saved and is a relative of Herod
the Great or in Caesar's court.
Now stop and think, and we look historically
at Nero, how many individuals who knew Christ
were around his life politically while he was
alive and he had his opportunities.
He heard about Jesus Christ, the Galilean, the
Jew from Israel.
Interestingly enough, as I told you before, the
interpreter, the one who became me on countdown
to eternity in Russian, was in the diplomatic
corps and is Boris Yeltsin's personal interpreter.
And he did the video and did me
in the countdown to eternity, Boris Yeltsin's personal
interpreter.
And he's a born-again Christian.
Tell me God doesn't love Boris Yeltsin.
Oh the wonder of it all, the amazing
work of God.
But if Mr. Yeltsin never makes a decision
or responds, one day he'll have that all
played back, having personal contact with his own
interpreter, Al Gore.
He interprets for Al Gore when he goes
to Russia and who knows.
Now I met the man and I said,
oh so you're me.
What do I sound like?
Very intelligent, very educated, loves the Lord and
his wife also.
So here you have Galileo, very powerful politician,
the governor of this area of Greece.
And when Galileo was deputy of Chia, or
the area of Greece as it was called
then, Corinth, the Jews made insurrection with one
accord against Paul and brought him to the
judgment seat or the Bema's seat, the Bema,
where all the problems were taken care of,
like the city court, the local courthouse.
Now that as the gospel was spreading and
Paul was, you know, leading Jews or Greeks
who had become, you know, raised in the
Jewish religion to the Lord and are responding
to the gospel, not submitting to the Mosaic
law, being known, knowing they're free from the
baptismal rites of Judaism, the dietary laws, and
particularly the Gentile converts, they knew they weren't
needed to be, they didn't have to be
circumcised anymore.
The news began to spread and so again,
Paul is stirring things up.
People are leaving the old religion, listening to
this Paul.
He's upsetting things.
The gospel will always come in and upset
religion, will always stir things up.
If the gospel isn't preached properly, it'll never
stir anything up.
You water the gospel down and you won't
upset a family member.
You won't upset a friend and get a
reaction if you water it down enough not
to offend, so you won't upset them in
their religion.
And we should never intend to upset, but
when we are faithful to preach the gospel,
as we should, and remember, Jesus said the
truth makes you free, people begin to respond
to it, there's going to be a reaction
by many times the rest of the family,
or the community where the new movement has
started, the neighborhood.
And so they stirred things up and they
go to Galileo, they go to the courthouse
saying, this fellow persuadeth men to worship God
contrary to the law.
In other words, they're breaking the Mosaic law.
And again, Rome respected the Jewish religion because
they didn't want an uprising.
Some of the worst wars and the most
terrible insurrections are over religion.
All you have to do is look at
the tragedy in the news today of what
so-called Christians are doing to one another,
Catholics and Protestants in Ireland.
The horror of what some Protestants did to
a mother and her three children.
The shock of it, it's sickening.
Now you know those people aren't born again.
You know they can't be born again.
And what blessed me so is to find
the shock of it and the reaction against
it that true Protestants and Catholics would know
Jesus banded together to keep the peace, the
shock of it.
But in the name of religion, that doesn't
glorify God.
But the reaction and how ugly religious people,
how murderous and hateful and angry religious people
can get.
Now contrast that with the Beatitudes, that Jesus
teaches what his kingdom is like.
He teaches, blessed are the meek for they
shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, not the
proud in spirit, and the self-righteous and
the angry in spirit, and the resentful in
spirit, but the poor in spirit.
The meek, not the mighty and the strong
and the arrogant, but the meek.
It's so different.
And religion breeds a different animal.
Religion can breed a very dangerous, self-righteous,
angry, violent person.
But you see that's not the character of
Christ.
That's not the gospel.
The gospel brings peace.
In fact, Paul quotes Isaiah and talks about
how beautiful are the feet of those that
go in the mountains and preach peace, the
peace of God.
So when Paul was now about to open
his mouth, Galileo, and again history tells us,
he was a fair leader.
He wasn't going to be drawn in.
They're trying to manipulate him and bring him
in and do to Paul what they did
to Jesus, you remember, at the crucifixion.
To manipulate the Roman authorities that they manipulated
Pilate and then coerced the crowd and stirred
them up to get them all to crucify
him, crucify him, to get rid of the
Lord.
And so now they're trying to manipulate Galileo,
but he was wiser than that.
He said unto the Jews, if it were
a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, in
other words, if they were breaking civil law,
if this Paul, and never did the Apostles
or Jesus teach when you preach the gospel
or serve or work in his kingdom that
you break civil law.
The only time you broke man's law in
the scriptures is when it violated God's law.
There are many, many places in the Bible
Paul and Peter teach that we are to
obey those in authority over us, even when
they're unrighteous, to glorify God, to trust in
Him as difficult as it may be, to
be a witness.
And so they weren't breaking civil law, the
law of the land.
It was a trumped-up charge.
It was a religious thing that related to
the Jewish religion, not the Roman civil law
or the government.
So he said in wisdom, in fairness, if
it were a matter of wrong or wicked
lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would that I
should bear with you.
But he's wise to them.
They're trying to manipulate him and draw him
into something that's really none of his affair,
just to get rid of the Apostle and
stop the spreading of the gospel.
But if it be a question of words
and names and of your law, in other
words, the Jewish law, the Jewish religious law,
look you to it.
I will be no judge of such matters.
He's going to wipe his hands clean.
He's not going to be manipulated.
Don't allow someone to manipulate you and draw
you into some family squabble under the guise
of being spiritual or being a peacemaker.
Be very, very sensitive to that.
The Bible warns about meddling in other people's
affairs, thinking that you're spiritual.
They come and knock on your door and
say, well the scripture says here, and they're
using scripture and saying the Lord showed me
and I want you to go with me,
brother or sister, and they're manipulating you.
If the scripture's showing them, they should do
it.
Don't be manipulated by somebody to get involved
in something.
Just leave it in God's hands.
If the scripture's speaking to them, then you
go.
But don't try to manipulate me with what
God has shown you to get involved in
some personal matter or some affair of this
life.
Remember Paul told Timothy, be very careful if
you're a soldier for the Lord not to
get entangled in the affairs of this life,
because you can get out of control.
It can just start spreading.
It's like throwing a stone in a pond
and the ripples just start spreading and it
covers more and pretty soon it's just encompassing
more people and more people and getting out
of control.
So he says, you look to it.
And he draved them from the judgment seat.
In other words, he banished them.
Get out of here.
Don't waste my time.
Chased them out.
Now what had happened, you see, the Jews
had stirred up the Greek Jews.
I'm trying to think of the right word.
The Greeks that believed and the Jewish Jews,
which was a large contingent of the synagogue
and the local assembly, had stirred up the
crowd and come to Galileo, dragging Paul, trying
to force this situation.
And then when it didn't work, it's interesting
what happened to the leader of the synagogue.
Then all the Greeks took Sosones, the chief
ruler of the synagogue, the one who stirred
them all up, was the leader, going to
speak on their behalf.
And all this anger and frustration.
It's interesting how God turned the tables.
Now there are several Proverbs that says if
you roll a stone to try and destroy
somebody, it's going to roll back upon your
own head.
The individual that digs a pit to see
if he's trying to destroy somebody, they'll fall
in their own pit, their own ditch.
So here this Sosones was stirred up by
the crowd.
And he's going to be the leader and
the spokesman to destroy this Paul for getting
people to leave, you know, their religion.
And the crowd and their anger and their
frustration and their hostility, after Galileo ran them
out, they took it all on Sosones and
they beat the leader of the synagogue.
And it shows me too, again, you never
have to defend yourself.
When someone begins to slander you or attack
you, and you get wind of someone trying
to destroy your character, don't even respond to
it.
Leave it in God's hands.
He'll take care of it eventually.
You make sure you stay righteous.
Just make sure that the plots or what's
being said against you is false.
And you put your trust in the Lord.
Don't defend yourself.
Job says if I defend myself, I begin
to defend myself.
My own mouth will condemn me.
Leave it in God's hands.
I have learned from experience that God is
better able to take care of lies and
troublemakers than I am.
And he may not do it as quick
as I want it, but I've seen and
I've heard he's done it.
I don't rejoice in that, but I marvel
and I awe and I am so thankful
that God is my defense.
And so here's Sosthenes.
Now, here is the sovereignty and the power
of God in this situation.
Now, here he is the one who stirred
them up and is the so-called leader.
And so they turn around and they beat
him right before the judgment seat.
Here his plan was to beat Paul.
Paul's standing there.
He gets pushed out of the way.
They drag him, you know, they don't even
get out of the building yet, out of
the area, and Galileo's still there.
And they turn and beat Sosthenes before the
judgment seat.
There is the power of God to turn
the tables on the enemy.
Reminds me of Haman, you remember, seeking to
destroy the Jews.
This anti-Semite that hated Jews in Persia,
remember?
And he couldn't stand this Mordecai.
He was such a bigot.
And he plotted to kill Mordecai and all
the Jews.
And he had gallows built 75 feet high
on the edge of the city, right in
the center of the city, actually.
And he was going to plot to have
him hang there.
And God turned the whole thing around, let
Haman build his very own gallows, and God
in his sovereignty and providence began to work
and change things in one night.
And the next day they dragged Haman out
and hung him on his own gallows.
Mordecai and Esther didn't have to do a
thing.
But here's, this is amazing to me.
Now, who else was a great hater of
Christians and did all he could to destroy
Christians several years earlier?
A man named Saul.
And it's interesting how God turned the tables
on him, how he would beat Christians and
hail them and drag them to jail, put
them to death, consent in the stoning of
Stephen, thinking he's doing God a service in
his blindness, in his religious bigotry and zeal.
And God in his grace and mercy met
him on the way to get some more
Christians to beat, on the way to Damascus,
and it changed his life forever.
And he became the Apostle Paul.
Now, he sees that happen to someone else.
And it's interesting.
Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 1, five years
later.
This is a letter he's writing back to
this area five years later.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, look
at verse 1.
Paul, called to be an Apostle of Jesus
Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes,
our brother.
God has ways, doesn't he?
Here's a man that once was filled with
hatred like Paul, and God used this whole
event in Providence.
Here, Satan's stirring the whole thing up to
destroy Paul, and he has Sosthenes at his
agent, this powerful bigoted Jew that hates Christians
in Corinth.
And what does God do?
He turns the tables.
He gets beaten.
He gets beaten severely, and it drives him
right to Christ, because who's there to minister
to him in the love of God?
The great Apostle Paul, because he could identify
with it.
And five years later, he writes a letter
back, and who's his close friend?
Sosthenes.
You know, God is so great.
How he can take a negative situation that
we can't control.
And you know what?
Probably before Paul was dragged before the Bema
seat, he was probably at a time praying,
saying, Lord, use me.
And look how God did.
He uses us in ways that we could
never design.
Now, you see, in Isaiah 55, what's he
say?
My ways are not your ways.
My thoughts are not your thoughts.
I can work salvation, redemption, and work protection
from you, and protect you from Satan in
ways that you can't conceive of when the
situation seems most hopeless.
I've experienced it in my own life.
I remember many, many years ago, when I
was still a carpenter.
Worked all day long, was tired, couldn't wait
to get home.
We didn't have a house yet of our
own.
We had left California, gone out for about
six months, moved out of the area, came
back to California, and we hadn't found a
place to live yet, and we're living with
friends.
Didn't have the money.
I'd gotten a job working as a carpenter.
Had a vehicle, but didn't have a house,
and just waiting for Lord to open the
door for a house to have the money
to move in.
And it's very expensive, even 25 years ago
in Southern California, because you had to have
a deposit a month in advance, and then
a month to live there.
And Newport Beach is a very expensive place
to live.
And so we're praying.
Rosemary and I are living with some dear
friends, and I'm working, and I'm on my
way home after work, and for some reason,
the Lord just had me start praying in
tongues.
Man, for 45 minutes, I'm going down the
highway in Southern California, just praying in the
Spirit, just praising God, and just going off
in tongues.
People think I'm nuts.
You know, just grinning from ear to ear,
higher than you can believe, and all of
a sudden, I am so built up in
the Spirit, a girl pulls out of an
intersection without even stopping, and I hit her
over 50 miles an hour in a main
thoroughfare in Southern California.
The next thing I know, I'm flying through
the air.
The impact knocked the boots right off my
feet, my work boots, wrapped a four-foot
rule around my neck, like a U.
Fifty-pound kegs of nails hit me in
the back of the head.
I'm flying through the air in the California
thruway, rolling over, and it's in slow motion,
and I feel a hand get me, and
the voice of God recite the 91st Psalm,
and lay me right in the highway.
I stand up, and there isn't a thing
wrong with me, and I see my four
-wheel drive go off the edge, and hit
a concrete abutment, totally destroyed, and the girl
had hit me.
She's over in the curb.
I stand up.
Brakes are screeching.
People are screaming, running up.
Can't believe I'm even alive, not bleeding and
mangled.
I'm in my socks.
The impact knocked the boots off.
The steering column went through the seat.
If I'd have been in the seat belt,
I'd have been impaled by the steering column.
My skill saw flew into the front seat.
I'm looking around, feeling there's nothing wrong with
me, and the first thing I say is,
where's my Bible?
And the state placement thinks I'm crazy.
I always have my Bible on my dashboard.
I'm going, wow, Lord.
I don't know.
Thank you.
But the Lord actually recited the 91st Psalm,
and laid me in the throughway, that his
angels would bear me up.
So I immediately go over to the curb.
The policeman wants to get a, you know,
an account of everything, and here's this little
girl laying in the grass bleeding, and here
is the sovereignty of God.
Sassanese gets beat, gets saved.
Here's the way, and you see, I'm, without
realizing it, I, in the morning, Lord use
me today.
I wouldn't design it that way.
Absolutely not.
But to show you how the sovereignty of
God is.
So we get over there, and they're waiting
for ambulances and everything, but she's laid out
in the grass, bleeding, all beat up.
And so I kneel down, I pray over
her, pray for her, ask God to be
merciful.
Rosemary shows up, news gets back to the
house, and I go home, go to the
place we're living, and go to church that
night, and I shared at the church at
Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa.
Just, you know, I shared with Chuck what
happened.
So he has me share before everybody, and
we were in a tent in those days,
meeting in a big circus tent.
Get back to the house, and well, no
car, no house, but Lord, there is no
mark on me.
And next thing you know, we have to
call the parents of the girl.
It turns out she had no driver's license,
she was only 15 years old, she was
high on drugs, she was loaded to the
max, and she was practicing witchcraft.
Her parents had left on a vacation, left
her home alone.
Without their knowing it, she had secretly stolen
the car keys of the parents, and had
a duplicate made of the other car that
was home.
And so she was out smoking dope and
doing things with her friends, driving around in
the other car, with her parents not knowing
it, and that's what happened to her.
Well, right away, the lawsuit, they're no man,
they're getting sued to the max.
We don't know who this man is, but
we just know it.
It's our daughter's fault.
There's all kinds of charges against them.
There, you know, you're talking millions, man, emotional
stress, sore neck.
I can see it now, you know, a
home in, you know, the Riviera.
And so they're concerned, man, they know.
And it's interesting, the phone rings and it's
the husband or the father.
You can just feel the apprehension, and I
have the privilege to say, well, I'm not
going to sue you, God didn't harm me
at all.
Lord Jesus, and I just gave me a
chance to share Jesus Christ, and tell them
how wonderful the Lord Jesus is, He's your
daughter, okay.
And here's what it turns out.
It turns out that they were backslidden Christians,
and I didn't sue them.
I said, I don't want to sue you.
I don't want your money.
I wouldn't mind maybe being reimbursed, you know,
my car's been totaled, if you could, but
I don't want any money from you.
I just want you to know that Jesus
loves you, and I forgive your daughter, and
I pray that she knows the Lord.
It turns out they were backslidden Christians, and
it brought them back to the Lord, and
the car was totaled, and the insurance payoff
was enough money to pay and get us
in our own house.
And we got another car!
Old 278, we called it.
The license number was OLD278.
An old beat-up piece of iron with
four tires, and it ran.
Old 278.
We had a car, and we had a
place to live.
Through the whole thing, God worked everything to
the good.
Now, are you going to pray tomorrow morning,
God use me?
That's the way God is, though.
So wonderful.
You can't figure it out, and he works
so much glory out of it.
Well, here's this Sassanese.
He hates that Paul.
And man, the tables are turned, and the
very people beat him, and you see five
years later, he's a disciple.
Who ministers to him?
Paul, because Paul says, I was just like
that once.
And now notice what happens.
Notice the next verse.
And Paul, after this, tarried there.
Why?
Why do you think?
To minister to Sassanese.
He stayed there a good while.
Kind of like the love he showed in
the Philippian jail, to show the love.
You know, sometimes the greatest ministry is when
someone attacks you, and hates you, and does
something that hurts you, and is even successful,
and it gives you the opportunity to say,
I love you, I forgive you, I have
no hatred towards you.
See, there's Paul.
There's Jesus.
And so Paul stays a good while, just
as he did in the Philippian jail.
The jailer says, he has every right to
flee.
I'm a dead man.
I'm gonna run this 18-inch sword right
through my stomach, because I know what Rome
will do to me.
My prisoners have escaped.
And he hears out of the dark, don't
harm yourself.
All the love that Jesus Christ can give
us.
The love he has.
And the more hatred someone has, the more
love Jesus has for them.
Because, you see, that's the greatest power there
is, to change hatred and resentment and bitterness.
They don't know how to handle it.
It just overwhelms, it destroys Satan.
Love and forgiveness.
And so Paul tarried there a good while,
and then took his leave of the brethren,
and sailed fence into Syria with them Priscilla
and Aquila, having shorn his head in centuria,
for he had a vow.
Now, remember, this is five years before he's
written the great treatise on Galatians and Corinthians
about not being bound by the law, particularly
Galatians.
People say, well, was Paul under the law?
Was Paul free?
What did Paul do?
Why would he take a vow?
Now, there are many, many vows in the
Old Testament that a godly man would take.
Also, there was the Nazirite vow.
There was the vow that someone would take,
a Jew would take, if he had a
very close call with death, or a terrible
illness, or some crisis in their life, and
God was very good to them to deliver
them, they would make a vow to God
in thanks.
And this is how the vow operated.
And it could be a Nazirite vow.
A Nazirite vow was a man who would
say, I'm making a vow, I'm separating myself
unto God so totally that you can make
it last a week, a month, several months,
years, even lifetime.
Remember, Samson's Nazirite vow was to be a
lifetime, but he wasn't faithful to it.
And when you make the vow, you would
come to no alcoholic beverage or any fermented
fruit of the vine.
You wouldn't even eat raisins, anything that had
to do with pleasure or joy, artificially.
All during the vow, they would not touch
the fruit of the vine.
They would not attend a funeral or expose
themselves to death, which is the fruit of
sin, the death of mankind, or go near
or touch a dead body, all during their
vow.
They would not cut their hair.
When their time was up, they would shave
their heads.
And if they were in the land of
Palestine, they had to go at a feast
day with their shorn hair to the tabernacle
or the temple and offer their cut hair,
signifying their vow has been broken.
They're free now to go back in that
normal Jewish life under the Mosaic Law.
And they offer up their hair with three
different sacrifices to the priest unto God.
And they let their hair grow again.
If they were outside of the land and
their vow ended, and by chance hadn't gotten
into the Holy Land and could not get
to the temple in time for the feast,
they still could cut their hair, keep the
hair until they got to the land of
Israel or back to Palestine, and then maintain
the feast day, and then break their vow
and go to the priest with their hair.
They would save the hair when they're out
of the land.
God made allowance for it.
Now, it could either have been that or
it could be this.
Notice what Paul writes.
Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 9.
You see, he knew the freedom in Christ.
He knew, the great writer of Colossians knew
that he wasn't bound by those holy days.
They were all types and shadows.
But notice what he writes in 1 Corinthians
9.
Again, he's in the midst and everywhere he
went, the first thing he wanted to do
was preach the gospel to a Jew and
not to offend them because of their belief.
I think that was the wisdom and the
love, again, because they were apostles and knew
their freedom in Christ.
They didn't attack somebody who wasn't free yet.
They didn't belittle them.
They didn't make it difficult for them.
They were very sensitive to those who still
had not been set free in their spirit
from certain old traditions from their religion.
And so notice what Paul says in 1
Corinthians 9.
I think it's 1 Corinthians 9.
19, is it verse 19?
Notice what Paul tells us.
For though I be free from all men,
yet have I made myself slave unto all
that I might gain them more.
In other words, I would humble myself in
their presence, not to dominate them or manipulate
them, but to serve them.
And unto the Jews I became as a
Jew that I might gain the Jews.
I'd submit to the ritual or the custom
of their home if I was in their
home.
I wouldn't rail on them and try to
open their eyes because of my freedom until
the Holy Spirit did it, unless they asked
me.
So unto the Jews I became as a
Jew that I might gain the Jews.
Now remember, this is five years after the
account that we're reading now in Acts.
To them that are under the law is
under the law.
I would keep the Sabbath, Saturday.
He always went to the synagogue.
It gave him an opportunity to preach the
gospel and show them that the Messiah was
Jesus, indeed, in their Jewish scriptures.
And I would put myself under the laws,
under the law that I might gain them
that are under the law.
To them that are without the law is
without the law.
I knew I was free.
I could eat as a Gentile.
I could worship on a Sunday.
I could worship on a Monday.
I didn't have to keep the dietary laws
or the Sabbath laws or all the washings
of the pots and the pans, the kosher
laws.
And so to them without the law is
without the law.
Being not without law to God but under
the law to Christ, the law of liberty
and love.
Do nothing to stumble anybody.
Then I might gain them that are without
the law.
To the weak became I as weak.
If they're vegetarian, I wouldn't harp on them
that you can eat meat.
I'd eat, I'll eat vegetables with you.
You know, Paul said them that are weak,
eat only vegetables.
They don't have the faith.
Wrote a whole chapter in Romans 14, thinking
that by vegetables only they'll become more pure
and more spiritual.
But Paul said that's their liberty.
Don't with your meat choke them.
If they're going to be weak, let them
stay weak.
But don't stumble them.
So to the weak became I as weak
that I might gain the weak.
I made all things to all men that
I might by all means save some.
And this I do for the gospel's sake,
that I might be partaker thereof with you.
So it's possible that in his relationships in
Corinth where he left after the incident with
Sassanids, he had made a vow with some
Jews to try and convert them and win
them to Christ.
Or he had a personal vow, something between
him and God that he was doing, and
he wanted to make sure he got to
the temple to offer that.
Either way, five years later, he had more
light himself, as you see him write in
Corinthians and in the book of Galatians.
But you notice the sensitivity that they had
with others who were still not free yet.
I think sometimes we need to be very
sensitive to our brothers and sisters that are
new converts coming out of maybe a system
of works, particularly Roman Catholicism, or maybe some
strict, legal, rigid holiness movement where they think
that you have to dress a certain way
to be received by God.
And if you don't dress a certain way,
and you look at them and they're so
stiff, they can hardly move, but they sure
look nice.
That's the only way you can dress in
the presence of God.
Well, Jesus didn't even dress that way.
Man, he had it down.
You know, nothing but a nice, loose robe
man in sandals.
I can dig it.
Not after November.
But you see, God doesn't look at the
outward countenance, does he?
He looks at the heart.
But sometimes I think we've flawed our liberty.
We want people to have our understanding and
our level of, you know, freedom right now.
And we let an attitude build up inside
that doesn't glorify the Lord toward them because
they aren't changing as quick as we want
them to, or they haven't gotten light or
revelation as quick as I did.
They must not love the Lord like I
do.
What's taking them so long?
Be careful.
God says in Philippians that he will perform
that good work in each individual until the
day of Jesus Christ.
He doesn't need me or you.
He'll do it.
And he may work a little faster with
you, a little faster with someone else.
He may work slower with me or with
you.
Hey, don't let it be an issue.
So Paul, whatever that vow was, when he
came to Ephesus, he left them there.
He's really in a hurry to get back
to Jerusalem.
He himself entered into the synagogue and reasoned
with the Jews.
In he goes.
I'm sure he could have good entrance if
carrying a bag of hair and a bald
head.
They say, well, he's still keeping the law.
You know, he's got some kind of a
vow.
He's still one of us.
Then they noticed the response.
They desired him to tarry longer with them,
but he consented not.
Isn't it amazing?
That he must have sensed, and of course
the Spirit's driving him, he's being led by
the Spirit, that they have such an attitude
and a desire that God's going to take
care of them and he doesn't need me.
It's great to be at a point where
you realize that God doesn't need me, that
I'm not God's man of the hour.
You know, God will always have someone there.
If I fail or I have to move
on, God's going to have somebody.
And so he didn't stay.
They desired him to tarry longer, but he
consented not.
But bade them farewell saying, I must by
all means keep this feast that come within
Jerusalem, probably the Passover, but I will return
again unto you if God will.
Notice the wisdom there.
Boy, we put ourselves under such a burden
when we make a vow or promise.
That's why the Bible says you're not to
make oaths or vows or pledges or promises.
Remember, God's the one who makes promises to
us.
The Bible says you're not to make promises.
Because you see, he knows how weak we
are.
We may mean it, but then we fail
and then we come under our own self
-condemnation for failing, or we come under the
condemnation of Satan, then we feel guilty, and
then we get all flustered because I promised
to be there and I can't.
Something's come up and oh, what am I
going to do?
And then you begin to avoid somebody because
you didn't come through, you promised you'd be
there, you're afraid they're going to think of
you.
And so the Bible says, always in it,
if God wills.
If the transmission doesn't fall out, if I
don't sleep in.
God has sovereign ways of saying, you didn't
say, if the Lord will.
You didn't check with me.
I know you love that person.
I know you want to help them move
and you want to be there, and you're
afraid of what they'll think of you.
If you aren't there to help move the
furniture, but I may not will let you
be there.
Make sure always, you know, James reproved the
people by saying, hey, it's not good to
say we're going to go here today and
buy and sell and tomorrow make gain.
Play the stock market, so to speak, and
expect to have success.
You should say, if the Lord wills, we
will do this tomorrow.
Always.
Because you don't know what tomorrow will bring.
You may want to be there three days
from now, but God may not want you
there.
And so you don't have to feel guilty.
Lord willing, I will be there.
And that's what Paul said.
That's maturity and wisdom.
And then Satan can't condemn you.
We're not showing up.
That's why it says, let your yea be
yea and your nay nay.
If you don't feel like doing it, say
no.
And you shouldn't have to feel guilty.
The Spirit of God should stir our hearts
and make us willing.
Don't allow yourself to be manipulated by somebody.
If God isn't telling you to do it,
just say no.
If God's telling you to do it, say
yes.
Lord willing, I'll be there.
There's no condemnation.
That's freedom in Christ.
Just because a Christian asked you to do
something, doesn't mean that Jesus wants you to
do it.
These were believers responding.
He said, Paul, stay here.
Stay here.
You're not a local pastor.
You don't have to...
He consented not.
And he knew that they wanted him, but
he had somewhere else to go.
He said, I'll be back, Lord willing.
And he sailed from Memphis.
And when he had landed at Caesarea and
gone up and saluted the church, he went
down to Antioch.
Boy, he's really moving around.
It's like he's being driven.
Now, this is taking periods of weeks here.
It's not just a matter of hours from
one verse to the next.
You're talking hundreds and hundreds of miles by
ship, and then, you know, caravan from Caesarea
up to Jerusalem, whatever feast he was at,
and then by caravan back down or into
Syria by, you know, caravan, or else going
back down to Caesarea, getting on a ship,
and then going up to Antioch and going
into a port in Syria, entire Sidon.
He's covering a lot of time here as
he's moving around, and nothing significant that the
Holy Spirit's bringing out, not even telling us
clearly what the vow was.
And Luke chronicling this thing accurately, nothing really
specific that needs to be recorded for our
edification.
But Luke, as the doctor, as a medical
doctor, with his good analytical mind, one who
writes down facts, you know, recording this thing.
After he had spent some time there, he
departed, went over all the country of Galatia
and Phrygia in order, strengthening all the disciples.
He's back in Turkey all of a sudden,
from Greece back to the Holy Land, Syria,
and up into Turkey, traveling all over Turkey,
strengthening all the disciples.
Just his whole drive, his whole goal in
life was to strengthen, exhort, and encourage the
Church.
In our Bible class this morning, we were
looking at what the Bible says what prophecy
truly is, and the true spirit of prophecy.
Prophecy is a prophet is someone who comforts,
encourages, and builds up.
And that's all Paul wanted to do, to
encourage, to build up, to comfort, to encourage
you in the Lord, and remind you how
good he is, how faithful he is, the
power that he has to help you and
to come to your aid, the forgiveness he
has, the patience, the love, the resources that
you never have to worry.
If the government fails, God won't fail.
He's not bound by the flag or democracy.
He's far superior to it all.
And it doesn't matter what culture, what economic
system you're living under, no matter whether it's
in communism, whether it's in democracy, fascism, South
America, Africa, Islam, wherever you're a believer, God's
there for you and will take care of
you.
It doesn't matter what the government's doing or
how they're running things or what the laws
say, God will take care of his own.
It's not just in America where you have
certain laws to give certain types of freedom.
God's far above all that.
So no matter where you are, you see,
and that's what Paul loved to do, is
go everywhere in every political system and in
every culture, where every religion was, to find
true believers and say, God is with you.
God will take care of you.
You never have to worry where you live
or what government you're under, what laws are
formulated, what's happening in your system.
God will take care of you.
He's far superior to all the isms of
man.
He's not bound by the American government or
the European government or the New Age or
the New World Order.
That's what Paul loved to do.
Now, there's a transition from here to Acts
19.
As Luke begins to record it, they're beginning
to meet believers who need to go deeper
in the Spirit and understand the fullness of
the Spirit.
They've met Jesus, but they haven't experienced the
baptism of the Holy Spirit or learned about
the walk in the Spirit and a deeper
life and gone beyond water baptism, conversion, repentance,
and faith in Jesus Christ.
And so there's a transition starting here that
goes into chapter 19.
A certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria,
an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures,
came to Ephesus.
Now, there were at that time, in that
day, at least a million Jews in Alexandria,
Egypt.
Hellenistic Jews, the word I was looking for
earlier.
Greek Jews and the Greek culture.
The Greek culture ruled the Mediterranean, that area,
and reached down into Egypt.
The Ptolemies ruled.
The Egyptian Empire and the Greek culture influenced
it, yet there were millions of Jews.
That's where the Septuagint version of the Old
Testament came from.
And so here's a person who realized that
Jesus Christ is Messiah, either in Jerusalem at
one of the feast days, heard the preaching
of John, in some way was converted, was
water baptized, repentance, you know, leaving the old
religion, but he was limited.
Even though he was eloquent and he had
all this zeal, he was going around now
trying to prove to everybody that the Messiah
is Yeshua of Nazareth, mighty in the scriptures.
This man was instructed in the way of
the Lord.
Some of the older manuscripts, the Syrian manuscripts,
the older Jewish manuscripts actually say Jesus here,
because it's referring to Jesus, the Lord.
He was instructed in the way of the
Lord.
And being fervent in the Spirit, he spake
and taught diligently the things of the Lord,
knowing only the baptism of John.
Just repentance, turning from your old life and
sins, and submitting to water baptism, crossing over
into the new life.
And he began to speak boldly in the
synagogue, trying to do what Paul did, what
Jesus did on that great day.
We're going to learn about that Sunday morning,
what Jesus did in Nazareth, why he read
from Isaiah 61.
And he began to speak boldly in the
synagogue, whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard,
they took him unto them and expounded unto
him the way of God more perfectly.
Now, you look at the first few verses
of Hebrews chapter 6, and you see the
writer of Hebrews is telling the Jews to
go beyond, you know, those initial things of
Christ and grow.
Remember, Paul had to write to the Corinthian
Christians that they were carnal, and yet babes
that need to learn to eat meat.
They were still drinking milk, the initial, you
know, primary things of Christianity.
Repentance, the second coming, water baptism.
He said, it's time to grow and get
into the deeper things.
Find out about the baptism of the Holy
Spirit.
Don't go around claiming you have it when
you really don't.
Learn about the gifts of the Spirit and
know that they're operating in your life and
what gifts you have.
Don't claim to have them and believe in
them and know down deep inside you don't.
You're missing out in the fullness and the
blessings of all the land.
Go in and take all of the land,
God said, the spiritual land and the riches
of the walk in the Spirit.
And Aquila and Priscilla sensed it.
And we'll see that Paul sensed it with
some believers in the next chapter.
And so, notice how, you know, with such
wisdom and love, how they said, now, hey,
we're going to share some things with you.
You really have a love for God.
These are great things.
But if you, do you know about this
yet?
And they knew how to instruct him in
a beautiful way.
And when he was disposed to pass into
Achaia, in other words, from Ephesus go across
over to Greece, the brethren wrote, exhorting the
disciples to receive him, who when he was
come helped them much which is believed through
grace.
In other words, Apollos, there was something he
began to apprehend after Aquila and Priscilla ministered
and began to see the beauty of the
doctrine of grace, the power of it.
Remember, it says, by grace you stand.
The beauty of God's love, his tolerance with
our mistakes, his love for the sinner, hatred
for the sin, his understanding, his long-suffering.
And the way he speaks.
You remember in Luke chapter 4, one of
my favorite passages that had such an effect
on my own life.
Now remember, here you have Apollos, this powerful,
dynamic believer, but believing and only experiencing John's
ministry.
Well, what kind of a ministry did John
have?
You repent, you vipers!
Who told you to get baptized and escape
the wrath to come?
And, you know, call them whitewashed sepulchers and
vipers and sons of the serpent.
Naming them, you know, and all this stuff.
Well, that's the way John's Here's what, you
know, Apollos got saved under that ministry.
And it could be, you see, as he's
preaching Jesus, that's the way he's doing it.
And Priscilla goes, you know, he needs to
know grace.
I mean, he's speaking the truth, but he
needs to know grace in the baptism of
the Holy Spirit.
He's a little too tough.
And now, stop and think of how Jesus
affected the synagogue that day.
In Luke chapter 4, a real eye-opener,
at least for me.
He stands up and reads in the synagogue,
reads that certain portion of Isaiah chapter 61
that speak of the Messiah coming to set
the captives free, to bind up the brokenhearted,
and to preach that gospel, the good tidings
to the meek.
And then he stops.
He closes the text and says, people were
astounded.
They were stunned.
Now, remember, the Jews read in cycles through
the Bible every year, the Torah.
It's designed that they go through the Bible
every year, through the seasons and calendar dates,
certain portions of Scripture.
They heard their rabbi in Nazareth read that
text and teach them that year after year
after year.
If they grew up in that synagogue, they'd
heard it for years, the same text.
But when Jesus taught it, they said, we've
never heard such gracious things.
It's the way he said it.
It's the love, the love he had for
the people.
And it came through in his teaching.
He didn't talk down to them, or at
them, or condemn them, or belittle them, or
threaten them.
They said, we've never heard such gracious things,
such gracious words.
He did it the right way.
True prophecy.
It edifies, it exhorts, it comforts.
Now, Apollos has learned that.
He's giving the message in a different way.
And notice, when he was coming, he helped
them much which had believed through grace.
They're beginning to respond even more.
Now, he became so powerful.
People became so influenced.
You remember, Paul, when he's writing Corinthians, factions
started.
Now, Apollos didn't do this.
He had no intention to do this.
But remember, they said, we follow Apollos.
We're of Apollos.
We're of Peter.
We're of Paul.
And Paul had to, you know, rebuke them
for their childishness.
He said, that's childish.
Exalting and following the man that God is
using, rather than seeing that he's trying to
get you to follow Jesus Christ.
And you should be quoting Jesus Christ and
making reference to Jesus Christ, not the one
he's using, not Apollos.
And cause these factions.
And that's where your denominationalism was starting right
there.
And Paul said, aren't you all babes and
carnal?
You're like little children in the crib, afraid
to climb out and follow Jesus and Jesus
only.
And so you've got to keep looking at
this man and you're exalting this man.
And you say, that's who you're going to
follow.
And you should be following Jesus.
Who is Paul?
He says, I didn't come to baptize.
I'm glad I baptized hardly any of you.
One plants a seed, another waters, another has
the harvest.
We're all nothing compared to Jesus Christ.
We're just being used by him.
And it's wrong to exalt someone that God
is using.
It shows your immaturity, you see, Paul saying
to the Corinthians.
You're going to quote somebody and testify, try
to lead someone to Christ, share Christ.
That's someone that God is using.
And so see, Apollos became so powerful.
The thing that troubles me, I've been around
people and they talk more about Martin Luther
or maybe some television evangelist they do about
Jesus.
They get more excited about the books somebody
writes than the Bible.
And when you're around them, that's all they
talk about is somebody that's enamored with them
that has been used mightily of God.
And they make the same mistake as the
Corinthians.
They put some Apollos on a pedestal.
Now Apollos didn't want it.
No true servant should want it and should
see it coming and know how to deal
with it.
Because whether the person climbs up himself or
allows people to put him on the pedestal,
God can knock you off.
Only exalt Jesus.
Never exalt the ass he rides in on.
Why did somebody respond?
Well, he started to apprehend grace and he
mightily convinced the Jews and that publicly by
showing by the Scriptures.
He knew the Scriptures.
It wasn't his personality or his good looks
or his ability to sing or play the
guitar.
He knew the Scriptures.
He mightily convinced the Jews and that publicly
showing by the Scriptures that Jesus was the
Christ.
You see, he's someone just like you and
I.
God says, I can do it with you
if you're willing.
Shall we stand?
Gee, it's only 830.
What are we going to do?
Praise the Lord.
Father, what a delight to apprehend the message
of grace.
To know, Lord, that no matter what we
may be going through right now, if it's
like Sassonese or what Paul experienced, Lord, it's
your way to work something wonderful if we'll
just rest and trust you and not panic
and try to change the situation and run
from it.
Lord, you can work salvation out of any
seeming failure, an uncontrollable situation.
You can enlighten an Apollos if you have
an Aquila and a Priscilla to be sensitive
to their ignorance and their foolish zeal.
And Lord, we thank you that you can
use us just as you used Apollos when
we learned the Scriptures, how mighty the Scriptures
are.
And we thank you, Lord, that our faith
can increase by the hearing of the Word.
So, Lord, stimulate us by your Spirit.
Fascinate us, Lord.
Draw us to even desire to be closer
to you.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.