Steve Webb: It was all a part of his plan.
If you're looking for the Lifespring!, One Year Bible, you
have come to the right place podcasting since 2004. I am your
OG Godcaster. Steve Webb. It's gospel Saturday, and we'll
continue the book of Acts with the reading of chapters 21 and
22. The website is Lifespringmedia.com. and I'll
have contact information at the end of the show. Before we read,
let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for our time
together around your word. I pray God that as we read you
would bless us teach us today we pray in Jesus name, amen. Okay,
are you ready, beloved, let's begin.
Acts chapter 21. We said goodbye to them and left. After sailing
straight across we came to cos the next day we reached Rhodes
and from there we went to Patra. There we found a ship that was
going to Phoenicia. So we went aboard and sailed away. We came
to where we can see Cyprus and then sailed south of it onto
Syria. We went ashore it tyre where the ship was going to
unload its cargo. There we found some believers and stayed with
them a week. By the power of the Spirit. They told Paul not to go
to Jerusalem. But when our time with them was over, we left and
went on our way. All of them together with their wives and
children went with us out of the city to the beach, where we all
knelt and prayed. Then we said goodbye to one another and went
on board the ship while they went back home. We continued our
voyage sailing from Tyre to Ptolemais, where we greeted the
believers and stayed with them for a day. On the following day,
we left and arrived in Surya there we stayed at the house of
Philip the evangelist, one of the seven men who had been
chosen as helpers in Jerusalem. He had four unmarried daughters
who proclaimed God's message. We had been there for several days
when a prophet named Agabus arrived from Judea. He came out
to us took Paul's belt, tied up his own feet and hands with it
and said, This is what the Holy Spirit says, the owner of this
belt will be tied up in this way by the Jews in Jerusalem, and
they will hand them over to the Gentiles. When we heard this, we
in the others there begged Paul not to go to Jerusalem. But he
answered, what are you doing crying like this and breaking my
heart. I am ready not only to be tied up in Jerusalem, but even
to die there for the sake of the Lord Jesus. We could not
convince him so we gave up and said May the Lord's will be
done. After spending some time there we got our things ready in
left for Jerusalem. Some of the disciples from Surya also went
with us and took us to the house of the man we were going to stay
with Mason from Cyrus who had been a believer since the early
days. When we arrived in Jerusalem, the believers
welcomed us warmly. The next day Paul went with us to see James
and all the church elders were present. Paul greeted them and
gave a complete report of everything that God had done
among the Gentiles through his work. After hearing him they all
praised God. Then they said, Brother Paul, you can see how
many 1000s of Jews have become believers, and how devoted they
all are to the law. They have been told that you've been
teaching all the Jews who live in Gentile countries to abandon
the law of Moses telling them not to circumcise their
children, or follow the Jewish customs, they are sure to hear
that you have arrived, what should be done, then, this is
what we want you to do. There are four men here who have taken
a vow, go along with them and join them in the ceremony of
purification and pay their expenses, then they'll be able
to shave their heads. In this way, every one will know that
there is no truth in any of the things that they have been told
about you but that you yourself live in accordance with the Law
of Moses. But as for the Gentiles who have become
believers, we have sent them a letter telling them we decided
that they must not eat any food that has been offered to idols,
or any blood or any animal that has been strangled, and that
they must keep themselves from sexual immorality. So Paul took
them in and the next day performed the ceremony of
purification with them. Then he went into the temple and gave
notice of how many days it would be until the end of the period
of purification, when a sacrifice would be offered for
each one of them. But just when the seven days were about to
come to an end, some Jews from the province of Asia saw Paul in
the temple. They stood up the whole crowd and grabbed Paul,
people of Israel, they shouted help. This is the man who goes
everywhere teaching everyone against the people of Israel,
the law of Moses in this temple. and now he has even brought some
Gentiles into the temple and defiled this holy place. They
said this because they had seen Trophimus from Ephesus, with
Paul in the city, and they thought that Paul had taken him
into the temple. Confusion spread through the whole city
and the people all ran together, grabbed Paul and dragged him out
of the temple. At once the temple doors were closed. The
mob was trying to kill Paul when the report was sent up to the
commander of the Roman troops that all Jerusalem was rioting
at once the commander took some officers and soldiers and rushed
down to the crowd. When the people saw him with the
soldiers, they stopped beating Paul, the commander went over to
Paul arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains.
Then he asked, Who is this man? and what has he done? Some in
the crowd shattered one thing, others something else. There was
such confusion, the commander could not find out exactly what
had happened. So he ordered his men to take Paul up into the
fort. They got as far as the steps with him, and then the
soldiers had to carry him because the mob was so wild.
They were all coming after him and screaming kill him. As the
soldiers were about to take Paul into the fort, he spoke to the
Commander, may I say something to you? You speak Greek to you,
the commander asked, then you are not that Egyptian fellow who
some time ago started a revolution and led 4000 armed
terrorists out into the desert. Paul answered, I am a Jew, born
in Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of an important city, please let
me speak to the people. The commander gave him permission.
So Paul stood on the steps and motion with his hand for the
people to be silent. When they were quiet. Paul spoke to them
in Hebrew,
Acts chapter 22. My fellow Jews listened to me as I make my
defense before you know, when they heard him speaking to them
in Hebrew, they became even quieter, and Paul went on. I am
a Jew, born in Tarsus in silicea, but brought up here in
Jerusalem as a student of Gamaliel. I received strict
instruction in the law of our ancestors, and was just as
dedicated to God as all of you are, who are here today. I
persecuted to the death, the people who followed this way, I
arrested men and women and threw them into prison, the high
priest in the whole council can prove that I am telling the
truth. I received from them letters written to fellow Jews
in Damascus. So I went there to arrest these people and bring
them back in chains to Jerusalem to be punished. As I was
traveling and coming near Damascus, about midday, a bright
light from the sky flash suddenly around me, I fell to
the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why do
you persecute me? Who are you, Lord, I asked. I am Jesus of
Nazareth whom you persecute. He said to me, the men with me saw
the light, but did not hear the voice of the one who was
speaking to me. I asked, What shall I do, Lord, and the Lord
said to me, get up and go into Damascus. and there you will be
told everything that God is determined for you to do. I was
blind because of the bright light. and so my companions took
me by the hand and led me into Damascus. In that city was a man
named and and is a religious man who obeyed our law and was
highly respected by all the Jews living there, he came to me
stood by me and said, Brother saw, see again, at that very
moment I saw again and looked at him. He said, The God of our
ancestors has chosen you to know His will, to see his righteous
servant, and to hear Him speaking with his own voice, for
you will be a witness for Him to tell everyone what you have seen
and heard. and now why wait any longer, get up and be baptized,
and have your sins washed away by praying to Him. I went back
to Jerusalem. and while I was praying in the temple, I had a
vision in which I saw the Lord and he said to me, hurry and
leave Jerusalem quickly, because the people here will not accept
your witness about me. Lord, I answered, they know very well
that I went to the synagogues and arrested and beat those who
believe in you. and when your witness Stephen was put to
death, I myself was there approving of his murder and
taking care of the cloaks of his murderers. Go, the Lord said to
me, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles. The people
listen to Paul until he said this, but then they started
shouting at the top of their voices away with him, kill him,
he's not fit to live. They were screaming, waving their clothes
and throwing dust up in the air. The Roman commander ordered his
men to take Paul into the fort, and he told him to whip him in
order to find out why the Jews were screaming like this against
him. But when they had tied him up to be whipped, Paul said to
the officer standing there, Is it lawful for you to whip a
Roman citizen who hasn't even been tried for any crime? When
the officer heard this, he went to the commander and asked him,
What are you doing? That man is a Roman citizen. So the
commander went to Paul and asked him, tell me, are you a Roman
citizen? Yes, answered Paul. The commander said, I became one by
paying a large sum of money. But I am one by birth, Paul said
that once the men who were going to question Paul drew back from
him, and the commander was frightened when he realized that
Paul was a Roman citizen, and that he had put in and chains
the commander wanted to find out for sure what the Jews were
accusing Paul of. So that Next day he had Paul's chains taken
off and ordered the chief priests and the whole council to
meet. Then they took Paul and made him stand before them.
In Acts 21 today, we got a bit of a travelogue of part of
Paul's journey, didn't we? and the part that I'd like to bring
to your attention is when they arrived at Surya they stayed at
the home of Philip the evangelist. and he, by the way,
is the same guy who baptized the unit in Chapter Eight of x.
We're told that Philip had four unmarried daughters who were
what we might call today, P K's or preachers, kids, and they
also proclaimed God's message. That's pretty awesome that his
kids love the Lord as much as he did. and in addition to raising
his kids to know and serve the Lord, he was evidently an
effective messenger of the gospel because there was a
thriving community of believers their ancestor, Rhea, we know
this because when Agabus prophesied and delivered the
message from the Holy Spirit that Paul would be bound hand
and foot in Jerusalem, a group of those people begged Paul not
to go in this is what I think we should consider today. These
good and loving people who cared so much for Paul that they
begged him not to go where he'd be harmed. We're asking him to
turn away from what God had called him to do. Did you notice
that their motives were good, and that they didn't want to see
their friend and in some ways their pastor come to harm, and
their pleadings were effective enough that they pro Paul's
heart, he agonized with him, and maybe was even a bit tempted to
heed their cries. But his reply to them revealed an even higher
and better motive, he said, I am ready not only to be tied up in
Jerusalem, but even to die there for the sake of the Lord Jesus.
Wow. His aim was truly to follow God's leading the Holy Spirit's
message to Paul through Agabus was not to dissuade Paul from
continuing on, but to prepare him for what lay ahead. God
wanted Paul and the other believers to know that when he
was bound and delivered to the Gentiles, it was all a part of
his plan. and the response was what I hope ours is when we face
difficult times, maybe the Lord's will be done. There
really is no better way to live than that. and then in Acts 22,
one of the aspects of God in Christianity that some non
believers have a really hard time reconciling is forgiveness,
especially forgiveness of a particularly heinous crime. and
on one level, I understand that difficulty. But today, we read
of Paul's confession to the Lord that he had been responsible for
the rest of believers. and he even held the cloaks of those
who stoned Steven to death. But in spite of those terrible
crimes, Jesus forgave Paul, and even made him one of the
linchpins of the church. There's no way we can explain the depth
of God's love for us or his enormous capacity for
forgiveness. But we do have plenty of evidence for the
reality of that forgiveness. If not in Paul, then in each one of
us, none of us deserves the gift of grace that God offers, but he
offers it anyway. If we will only accept it, he takes the
pieces of our broken lives and create something so much more
than we could have you ever thought possible? I'm sure it
never entered Paul's mind that he would play the role that he
has in human in church history. What will God do with your life?
Like the song says, I can only imagine Are you willing to
unconditionally say to the Lord, may Your will be done in my
life? What do you think? Let me hear from you send a Boostagram
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things at the end of the show. Tomorrow will be epistle Sunday
will read the book of Second John.
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Steve Webb: I'll thank you and I believe that God will bless you.
Our next time of prayer together will be Sunday. So if you have a
praise report or a prayer request, please send it to me.
I'll pray for you in my quiet time and I'll share it on the
show
Thanks to the team: Sister Denise Michael Haner Scott
Snider, Jason Paschall and sister Brittaney. Jason
Paschall. Did today's show our beloved thank you for spending
time with me today. I'm thankful for the time you give me until
tomorrow. May God bless you richly. My name is Steve Webb
bye
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