Text today is Acts 21 verses 27 through 40. It's on page 1115 of the Bible's in the seats. So last time we were in Acts a few weeks ago, Paul had arrived in Jerusalem. He had met with James and the rest of the elders of the Jerusalem church. And those leaders had asked him to calm the fears of the Jewish Christians that had been stoked by false accusations and rumors against him, against his teaching regarding Jewish practices. They asked him to calm their fears by asking him to participate in some rituals with some brothers that had a vow. This week, we will see what happened when he was in the temple, doing what they'd asked him to do, what these elders had asked him to do. So we're gonna reread just a little bit from last week. We'll start at verse 23, where we see the request made of Paul by the elders. I might skip a verse or two here. And then we'll read through the end of the chapter, starting at verse 27. So, looking at 23. Therefore, this is the elders of Jerusalem speaking, therefore do this that we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow. Take them and purify yourself along with them and pay their expenses so that they might shave their heads. And all will know that there is nothing to the things which have been told about you, but that you yourself also walk orderly, keeping the law. Then verse 26. Then Paul took the men, and the next day, purifying himself along with them, went into the temple giving notice of the completion of the days of purification, until the sacrifice was offered for each one of them. And now our text for today. When the seven days were almost over, the Jews from Asia, upon seeing him in the temple, began to stir up all the crowd and laid hands on him, crying out, men of Israel, come to our aid. This is the man who preaches to all men everywhere against our people, and the law, and this place. And besides, he has even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place. For they had previously seen Trophimus, the Ephesian, in the city with him, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple. Then all the city was provoked, and the people rushed together, and taking hold of Paul, they dragged him out of the temple, and immediately the doors were shut. While they were seeking to kill him, a report came up to the commander of the Roman cohort that all Jerusalem was in confusion. At once he took along some soldiers and centurions and ran down to them, and when they saw the commander and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. Then the commander came up and took hold of him. and ordered him to be bound with two chains. And he began asking who he was and what he had done. But among the crowd, some were shouting one thing and some another. And when he could not find out the facts because of the uproar, he ordered them to be brought into the barracks. When he got to the stairs, he was carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the mob. For the multitude of the people kept following them, shouting, away with him. As Paul was about to be brought into the barracks, he said to the commander, may I say something to you? And he said, do you know Greek? Then you are not the Egyptian who some time ago stirred up a revolt and led 4,000 men of the assassins out into the wilderness? But Paul said, I am a Jew of Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no insignificant city. And I beg you, allow me to speak to the people. When he had given him permission, Paul, standing on the stairs, motioned to the people with his hand, and when there was a great hush, he spoke to them in the Hebrew dialect, saying, and then we will pick up there next week, but let's pray over our text today. Lord God, please guard our minds from the distractions of this past week. Guard our minds from the distractions of this coming week. Guard us from the temptations and worldly concerns that weigh us down. Allow our minds to focus now on your holy scriptures, on our heavenly hope, on the gospel that you have proclaimed. Use this account of an historical event to encourage us to keep the faith and to walk uprightly before you. Glorify Christ in our hearts as we dwell on his life, death, and resurrection. Bless now your preached word. Make us receptive to the truth found in these scriptures. Bless our gathering with your presence, may it be glorifying to you, faithful to the text and helpful for your people. Please send your spirit to work in us now. We ask this all in Jesus' name, amen. I think we've mentioned this recently, Paul received from Jesus a ministry. And he speaks of it like, I'm going to complete this ministry that Jesus has given me. He was tasked with taking the gospel to the Gentiles. And for the past several months, we have read of the continual conflict that has caused with his fellow Jews, the way that he has taken the gospel to the Gentiles and interacted with the Gentiles. All that culminates here today as Paul experiences freedom for the last time. He is seized by yet another murderous Jewish mob. He's turned over to the Romans and the captivity that begins today turns into perpetual imprisonment throughout the rest of the Book of Acts. He proceeds through the Roman judicial system and is kept in prison at times simply to please these Jews that oppose him. When Paul tells the Ephesian Gentiles, the Ephesians that he's writing to, that he is a prisoner for their sake, I am a prisoner for the sake of the Gentiles, he's writing to the Gentiles telling them, this is what he means. He's going to prison because he preached the gospel to the Gentiles and the Jews didn't like it. In his teaching, he gave the insight into what he called the mystery of Gentile inclusion in the promises of God and membership in the covenant body. And the root of the mob violence we are covering today is because Paul obeyed Jesus in doing this ministry that he had given and treating Gentiles as fellow believers and co-heirs together with Christ. The Lord said in Acts 9.16, when he gave him his ministry, he said that Paul was his chosen instrument to bear his name before the Gentiles and kings and sons of Israel, and that he would show him how much he must suffer for his name's sake. Witnesses of Jesus, especially those that are captured and killed, share in Christ's suffering. They share in Christ's suffering. So, Paul does that. He's sharing in Christ's suffering. We've seen that throughout Acts. We're gonna review the historical details Luke gives us in his record of this event, and then we're gonna dive into the questions and the application that this same event gives to us. Now, this particular episode of persecution has several familiar themes, as you probably noticed. There's a murderous Jewish mob, and they have been stirred up by outside Jews. Other Jews, they stir up the mobs. This is often the case. There are false accusations. We've seen that as well. And there is Roman intervention. Sometimes we see intervention from just civil authorities of some kind. Sometimes it's Roman. It's Roman here. But it is on a somewhat larger scale because this is in Jerusalem. This is happening in Jerusalem. It's at the temple. It's on a grander stage. with a more zealous crowd, a bigger crowd and a more zealous crowd. I mean, even as the text talks about it, the whole city of Jerusalem is in an uproar. So they are converging on the temple in just chaos. And it's right in front of this Roman garrison of soldiers, not just the civil authorities of some random city in Asia, but the actual Roman authorities that are in charge of Israel. Paul was there at the temple because he was concluding those purification rites that he agreed to undertake at the request of the Jerusalem elders, trying to calm down the Jewish Christians that had heard all these rumors and false accusations about him. So he's at the temple doing that. And while he is there, some of the Jews from Asia, seemingly from Ephesus, they recognize him. Remember, he spent a long time in Ephesus. The Jews there, even the unbelieving Jews, were very familiar with him. And those Jews, these are non-believing Jews, were in town for the Feast of Weeks. It's the same as Pentecost. They're not celebrating Christian Pentecost. They're there for the Jewish festival of the Feast of Weeks. And that was one of the annual pilgrimages commanded in the Old Testament law. So Jews from the diaspora would come to Israel and do sacrifices and celebrate one of these festivals. And these Asian Jews immediately set out to stir up their fellow Jews against Paul. They had seen him with Trophimus, who they recognized also, since he was likewise from Ephesus, which is why they knew who he was, and presumably he was a Greek, and that's the accusation they're bringing, that Paul had brought Trophimus into the temple. And they automatically just assume that. Paul had broken the law by bringing Trophimus into the temple that's Greek, that's not allowed to be in there, and that would have been a serious violation. You might remember this. It was a while ago that we covered this, back in Ephesians 2. Paul spoke of Christ breaking down the dividing wall. If you remember that language, it's a very well-known language, especially in our tradition. There's that dividing wall, a reference to a literal wall in the temple courts that had been erected to keep the Gentiles in the outer courts and then out of the inner courts. They couldn't go past that wall, or they weren't supposed to. There's an outer court, there's a wall, and then there's an inner court. Gentiles have to stay in that outer court. And that wall had signs on it telling the Gentiles that they were responsible for their own death if they went beyond that wall, if they dared go into those inner courts of the temple complex. said, hey, this is on you. You're going to die. It's on you. And that wasn't some threat of divine intervention, like God's going to get you. He's going to strike you with lightning. It wasn't something like that. It was a threat that they, the Jews, were going to kill them if they did that, if they dared come in there. And this mob was indeed seeking to kill Paul. He's not a Jew or a Greek that's not allowed to be in there, but he dared defile the temple by bringing in a Jew. At least that's what they're claiming. And they're going to kill him for it. Luke says that explicitly in verse 31. They were seeking to kill him. In addition to the claim that he defiled the temple, which is one of the things they said, by bringing in a Gentile, they also made more false accusations against Paul, saying he preached against the Jewish people. Against the law, referring to the law of Moses, and against the temple. They say he's preaching against this place. Now they had no reason to believe Paul actually defiled the temple by bringing in Trophimus. But they assumed that he did. Because they want to believe that he did. They want Paul to have done this. They're looking for guilt. They're looking for offense. They want him to be guilty. This is how they operate. This just came up in Sunday school. Marilyn Mason, I could just take Marilyn's comments about how the scribes and the Pharisees want to find offense with Jesus and they look for it and they find it because they're looking to accuse. And this is just sort of how they operate. And the leaders, the teachers of Israel, they did it out of jealousy because Jesus got crowds. And then it happened again in the early church when they drew in a lot of crowds. They were very jealous of them. And the Jews here do it because they think it's an attack on their identity and their tradition. So they're looking for these offenses. And when they look for them, they're going to find them. It's exactly what Marilyn pointed out. They did the same thing to Stephen. If you remember this, back in chapter six, they made some of these same accusations against him. If you remember this, it says, they put forward false witnesses who said, this man incessantly speaks against this holy place and the law. Again, against the temple, against the law. They speak against it. It's kind of a subjective, well, what do you mean by that? And of course they did the same thing with Jesus. Jesus upset them, and they made false accusations against him as well. They are out looking for offense, looking for a reason to accuse. Remember, Satan is called an accuser of the brethren in Revelation 12. And it's really a satanic practice to accuse the apostles and Christ himself of these false accusations, just looking for a reason to condemn them. Paul and Stephen both very clearly shared in Christ's suffering. They face the same false accusations or at least that same method to condemn them. The Jews would not listen to the lessons that they were actually teaching. They wouldn't listen. And so these Jews from Asia are able to quickly incite a mob And the mob swarms Paul and they drag him out of the temple. The doors are slammed shut behind him. That's an interesting detail given there by Lou. He wants us to know that they shut those doors immediately as soon as they pull Paul out. They shut those doors so he couldn't get back in. Likely because then he can't run into the temple and seek refuge. You know, since the Jews aren't going to go into their own temple and kill somebody and defile the temple that way, killing someone inside of it. If you remember Old Testament examples, sometimes if somebody was being pursued and they wanted safety, they'd run into the tabernacle and grab onto the horns of the altar. It's like a place of refuge and they would be safe. Yeah, that's what they're trying to prevent Paul from doing. Don't you come back in here and get safety from us. We're here to kill you. So they drag him out and they start beating him. trying to kill him, as verse 31 said. Now the reason they're unable to kill him was that this commotion that they caused, as they stirred up the huge crowd, it gets noticed. Along the northwest corner of the temple complex, Herod had built a fortress to defend the temple if necessary. The tower of Antonia. rose high above the complex walls, looked down over the courtyard. So if you're standing on that tower on those walls, you can see everything going on in there. And this fortress housed a Roman cohort that was just under 500 soldiers. So the Romans were right there on top of all this. They're gonna see it happen, and they do. The commander of the cohort heard about what's happening. His soldiers on the tower or on the walls probably come with him with a report of what's going on. He immediately takes some of his men, goes down there, and he intervenes. The Romans come and take custody of Paul. They stop the beating, they prevent him from being killed, but they do still arrest him. They lock him up with two chains, either hands and feet or maybe one soldier on each side of him chained to him. They do still arrest him. Because remember, what do the Romans care about? We've said this over and over and over. Taxes and civil unrest. We're like insurrection, especially, because civil unrest leads to insurrection. And insurrection and civil unrest lead to not getting your taxes. It's follow the money, right? That's what the Romans care about. If there's any kind of social disturbance, they will step in and they will calm things down. They'll arrest whoever's causing a disturbance. Also remember, this is important, all of this is precisely what Agabus prophesied would happen in verse 11 of earlier in this chapter. The Jews restrained him and they handed him over to the Gentiles. That's what Agabus said would happen. We're not going to review all that. We covered it a couple of weeks ago. If you want to listen to the first sermon in Acts 21, we talked about Agabus and the accuracy of his prophecy. But we also don't want to pass by these details without at least mentioning it. This is fulfilled prophecy that was given just before this. So the Romans had him chained up, but when they ask who he is, they're like, what's going on? Who is this guy? What's going on? They get all kinds of different answers from people shouting things out. The commander realized, I'm not getting any answers here. And he just, he wants to get him out of there. The commander knows he's not going to figure it out. Commands them in to take Paul back to the barracks. Soldiers have to physically lift him up and carry him up the stairs. You can imagine they're on each side and they put their arms under and they just lift Paul up and they go up the stairs because this mob is still so violent and they're so agitated still. As the Romans do so, the Jews are crying out this familiar phrase. I wonder if you picked up on it. They say, away with him, away with him. That is no small request. That's exactly what they said of Jesus. Both Luke and John record how the Jewish crowds chanted this same phrase when they're trying to get the Romans to kill Jesus. They're not merely saying, like, oh, get him out of here, get him out of our sight. It's more than that. They're crying out for his execution. When they said it about Jesus, they were literally saying, away with Jesus. Don't release him. Give us Barabbas. Crucify Jesus. Away with Jesus. Give us this other thief. But get him out of here. Execute him. You're looking to execute somebody. Go execute him. This is a murderous cry. And they're saying it of Paul here, too. And it very well may have had its intended effect because the Romans, by the time they're back at the barracks, the Romans had assumed Paul was somebody else. This is, again, another interesting historical note that reinforces the accuracy of Luke's historical account here. Paul begins speaking to the commander in Greek. which seemed to somewhat take the commander off guard. In verse 38, he responds to Paul, he's like, you know Greek? Like, how are you speaking to me in my native language? And then he's like, all right, this guy knows Greek. And he says, so you're not the Egyptian who sometime ago stirred up a revolt and led the 4,000 men of the assassins out into the wilderness? You're not this Egyptian guy I thought you were? Of course, Paul says, no, I'm a Jew from Tarsus. I'm a citizen, referring to his Roman citizenship. And then he asked the commander to speak to the people, which is what we will cover next week. But the fact that he was a citizen and not this well-known insurrectionist that this Roman commander knew about, that bought him some leeway with the Roman commander, where he did let him speak. So this commander had assumed that Paul was the leader of a large group of assassins. That's the way it's translated in our Bibles, this group of assassins. Now, that's not a translation of the word. telling us what these people did. And this is all historically documented. The assassins he's speaking of are the Sakari, or the dagger men, most literally, the dagger men. They were Jewish rebels who were known for assassinating their political opponents, even fellow Jews, who they considered to be Roman sympathizers. I think Garrett spoke a little bit about the Jews who were Roman sympathizers in Sunday school. So the Sakari, the dagger men, would assassinate these people. And they got their name, S. Sicarius Daggerman, because they carried daggers. In Latin, it's sicca or sicarius in Greek. And that's where the name comes from. And they would easily conceal these under their clothes, under their cloak, these little daggers. And then they would stab people to death in large crowds. And then they'd slip away through all the people, especially if there's any chaos. They'd just slip away. And this was a revolutionary faction that was at some point led by an Egyptian false prophet who promised to drive out the Romans. I think he said they were going to attack Jerusalem, the walls would fall down in front of them. But Governor Felix, who we're going to meet later in Acts, was able to attack this group before they had an organized revolt. And while he was able to capture and kill a great many of these Saqqari, these assassins, their Egyptian leader was actually able to escape. So the Roman commander thought that he may have finally captured this Egyptian. He thought that's who Paul might be when he arrested him. And he's probably very excited about that. He's going to be somewhat of a hero. He's going to put this guy to death quickly. And if he were not remedied of that misconception, then Paul could have found himself being swiftly led away to his execution. So it's a good thing that he was able to speak Greek and clarify of who he actually was. So that's kind of the historical data. So as we think through this episode, there's two things worth considering. First, we're gonna think about these accusations and how they do or do not apply to the gospel proclaimed by Paul that Jesus Christ is Lord. That's what Paul proclaimed. If these accusations are true of him in any sense, they're true of us. We're proclaiming the same gospel. We talk about Paul and his writings and his teaching all the time. So we're gonna look at these accusations a little bit and think about like, how are they seeing this? Why do they think this? Are they literally just making it up? Or how is it true or not true? How do they apply or not apply? So that'll be the first thing. Paul proclaimed Jesus Christ as Lord, and we're gonna think about these accusations in light of that. And then second thing we'll think about is the willingness to face death, again, because Jesus Christ is Lord. A willingness because Christ is Lord. And both of these are really, they're just all gospel. They're somewhat, we're analyzing things, but it's all just gospel stuff. As we look at that first point, though, let's remember the accusations made against Paul. What did they actually say? We know the last accusation about bringing a Gentile into the temple, that was just made up. They wanted to accuse him. So they're just like, I saw him with a Greek. He probably brought him in here. Let's say that. We know that's false. But the other accusations are based on Paul's actual preaching, the things that he preached. They said, he preaches to all men everywhere against our people. That's the Jews. Preaches against the Jews. Preaches against the law and against this place, that's the temple. Now, we know Paul's preaching. We're not wondering, well, what did Paul say to stir him up? We know Paul's preaching. We've read it throughout Acts. We know from his epistles the basics of what he taught. It's just the straightforward Christian faith. So that's why I say, if they have accusations against Paul, they have accusations against us. If there is any sense that it is true that he or we preach against the law or Moses or the temple or against the Jews, is there any sense in which that is true? The answer is no. But there is some nuance that we're gonna look at of why they might think yes. The answer is that we do not preach against any of those things. The Christian faith glorifies Christ by preaching the fulfillment of those things, the fulfillment of the Jews, of the temple, of the law, all of it. We're not preaching against it. It preaches the fulfillment of those things, but it does not preach against those things. Christ's life, death, and resurrection are at the center of our preaching. It's the center, the core of our doctrine. When Paul gave the message to the Gentiles, he tells them, the first thing I delivered to you as a first importance was the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the work of Jesus as scripture said. So Christ provides the foundation for all our understanding. And that means our understanding of things like the law, and the temple, and the Jews. And if the Jews did not listen carefully enough to what Paul taught and how Christ fulfilled these things, or if they were wanting to be offended, if they're looking for offense, you can see how they might convince themselves of these accusations. Because what Christ did, the gospel, changes and fulfills our understanding of these things that they say that he's preaching against. The Christian faith certainly does not preach against the law or Moses. That's, I mean, it's pretty silly. No one could come to one of our services and justifiably say, these Christians here at Grace Chapel, they preach against the law of God given by Moses. And we would just be like, what? We recite the Ten Commandments every week in our liturgy. We have law and gospel built into our liturgy. We pray in repentance for disobeying those commandments because we believe it is an offense against God. And that law reminds us of that, which then points us to Christ. And it also guides and directs us as Christians on how we ought to live. We look to those commands as a guide on how to live in a manner that is pleasing to God. Likewise, we still believe Psalm 119, we confess all the good things it says about God's law. However, we see the law fulfilled in Christ. We're not under the law, we're under grace. That's not against the law, it's understanding the fulfillment of the law and its role. So we do not look to it to be saved because we are not under the law. We do not think, oh, we can obey this law enough to merit the reward of eternal life, because that's what the law offers. Keep it perfectly, you get eternal life. You will merit it by default by keeping it perfectly. We don't look to the law for that because we're not foolish enough to think that, yeah, we can do that. We can climb to the moon on a rope of sand, as one of, I don't know, Spurgeon probably said that. That's what it's like trying to keep the law. It's impossible for sinners to do. In fact, I would say we have such a high view of the law and the holiness that it demands of man that we confess that no one is able to keep all of it in thought, word, and deed as it truly asks of us. That is the whole point of relying on Christ's righteousness, not our own. The whole point of Christ's righteousness and not our own is because we can't keep the law. The way Paul put it in Philippians 3, which we read, when speaking of his faith was not having a right, and he already said, look, I'm a Hebrew of Hebrews, I was a Pharisee, I was found blameless according to the law, and he doesn't mean like literally he kept everything in the law, but like generally speaking, the same way that we speak of Noah when we covered that lesson recently. or Job, sorry, when Garrett was doing Job last week and talked about his blamelessness. So Paul is, he recognized like, look, I'm pretty good at the law as a Pharisee and I did it really well. But he says, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law. Right there, found blameless according to the law. I forsake that righteousness because it's not enough. But that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith. It is imputed righteousness from Christ through faith. Righteousness from God. That is not preaching against the law. That is preaching the law's fulfillment in Jesus. You see that distinction? The Jews didn't. We get it. It's proclaiming the gospel that Jesus grants us his own righteousness through faith. If someone does not have ears to hear this message. then you can see how they might hear the good news that a righteousness is provided to us through faith, and they think that it's an attack on the law, like, oh, you don't care about the law anymore. It's like, no, we need that law fulfilled, but Jesus did it for us. That law is so good, so holy, that we can't do it, and Jesus did, and so we rely on his righteousness. And we're not gonna forsake the law or ignore it, we just look to it as a guide, just not as our salvation. It's not gonna save us, because we're sinners. It takes grace to understand this and believe it. And that is why reprobate Jews hate it. All reprobates hate it. They take it as an attack on their tradition and on their identity. Christians still love and revere the law, just like Jews do. But we are not looking to the law to grant us eternal life. because it cannot save us. It does not offer grace or mercy to sinners. It only offers condemnation to sinners. So as sinners, as lawbreakers, we look to Jesus for grace and mercy. If anyone's gonna be saved, it's gonna be because of grace and because of God's mercy, which is not found in the law, but it is found in Christ. Likewise, the Christian faith understands that the law has different categories. And again, this is where it leads to confusion with the Jews. The law has different categories. The 10 commandments that we still hold to, that we read every week, that we strive to keep, they are not the same as the various positive laws in the old covenants, like circumcision or ceremonial worship and things like that. But yes, the 10 commandments are mosaic. And in that sense, we uphold the law of Moses, right? They were carried by Moses down from Sinai, written by God's own finger, and then Moses delivers them to Israel. But they're not exclusive to the Mosaic covenant. They are a moral law that never goes away or never changes. All people everywhere knew those laws by nature, though they suppressed it in unrighteousness. They knew those laws by nature from the beginning of creation, because it's natural law. We do not recognize, or we do recognize that there's different categories of law, even in the old law, like the ceremonial and the judicial laws. They do actually expire with the passing away of the Mosaic Covenant. And again, you can see how a Jew might hear this and they might overreact as if it were an attack on their traditions and on their identity. Because we're saying some of these laws expire, they no longer apply. And they're like, you hate the law. We're like, no, no, settle down. We have category of law and everybody realizes this. If they deny that Jesus is the Messiah, then of course they're gonna deny the existence of a new covenant because that's what he instituted, a new covenant. And if they deny the existence of a new covenant, that means that there's, still in the old covenant with the old laws. They're going to deny the expiration of those old laws because they don't think that covenant has passed away. So to them, any promotion of the new covenant will seem like an attack on the old covenant. That's not what we're doing, but that's what it's going to seem like. So when Paul preaches that Jesus is the fulfillment of the temple, and when he cites Christ's own words referring to himself as the true temple, the Jews think, hey, this Paul guy is preaching against the temple. He's not, but again, that's false. It's a false understanding of what Paul is saying. The temple is fulfilled in Christ. The priesthood that practiced within the temple is fulfilled in Christ. The sacrifices that were offered there is fulfilled in Christ. So think of it this way, and really this is the argument you could almost present to the Jews to help them understand this. When the Jews were wandering around in the wilderness for 40 years, they were given very specific instructions on how to build a mobile tabernacle. And they carried it around with them for decades, setting it up and tearing it down wherever they were at again and again. And they put the ark within there and they offered the sacrifices and they moved the basins and they had rods and poles to move everything. And it was all very detailed. They had a mobile tabernacle. for decades, and once they reached the promised land, they eventually set it up permanently at Gilgal, and then they moved it from Gilgal to Shiloh, and it remained there for almost 400 years throughout the period of the judges. The tabernacle was at Shiloh. The tabernacle's not the same thing as the temple. They had a tabernacle at Shiloh, but eventually, we all know this, after Solomon became king, that tabernacle that they built and carried with them and had for hundreds of years, that tabernacle became irrelevant because he built a literal permanent temple in Jerusalem. Now, does recognizing that fact mean that you are against the old tabernacle? If Solomon said, hey, we don't need that tabernacle anymore because look at this big, huge, amazing temple I just built for these sacrifices, does that mean like, oh, Solomon, how dare he impugn the Jewish identity in our traditions because he's preaching against the tabernacle? No, of course not. He's telling them that they don't need it because there's a new and better temple He's right. Would that mean that Solomon was reviling the tabernacle or preaching against it? No, certainly not. He's just recognizing the fulfillment of the tabernacle. That tabernacle is temporary until they get the temple. It's mobile, they're moving. And in the same way, when Christians including believing Jews like Paul. When we recognize the fulfillment of the temple in Christ, a new and better temple, he is a new and better priest who offers better and permanent sacrifices that take away sins once for all time. When we recognize that, we're not reviling the old temple, we're not preaching against the old temple, we're preaching its fulfillment. They should be accustomed to that. They should understand that analogically from the tabernacle to the temple. You can see how the Christian faith, how Paul's preaching, they're not guilty of these Jewish accusations. This is all just rooted in the fact that they hate Christ and they deny him as Messiah. If you get Christ wrong, You're going to get all the other things wrong about the Jews and the temple and the law and Moses and everything else. As always, it's all about Christ and his glory, his work as the foundation, how he fulfills everything from the old covenant and how he is the true Messiah. You've got to get there first and understand that and glory in Christ so that everything else makes sense. The law and the temple are fulfilled because Jesus Christ is Lord. So those accusations are false, as you suspected. And lastly, the other thing we wanna think about, and we've talked about this a little bit, but this willingness to face death because Jesus Christ is Lord. Now we see this willingness in Christ most clearly, his willingness to face death. Obviously, he came here to die for us, so of course he's, willing to do that. Garrett just mentioned in Sunday School, he was not reluctant to come and die for us. He did not consider his glory and what he had with the Father something to be held on to at the expense of our salvation. He emptied himself and he was not reluctant in coming to die for us. But then Because of him, because of that, because he is Lord, we see the same willingness to die for the gospel in places like Stephen back in Acts 7. And even though Paul had been warned by the prophet Agabus that this was gonna happen, the events that we read about were gonna happen, he too willingly went forward, even when people tried to talk him out of it, he went forward to face his persecution and eventual death, because this does eventually lead to his death. He had a good idea that this was coming. This is genuinely a Christian tradition, to share in the sufferings of Christ, even to the point of death. I know it always feels a little funny when we speak of this while we sit comfortably in one of the freest, safest countries in the world, and we're not, you know, We're not trying to be overly dramatic, like, oh, we could die any day. We know it's very likely we're never going to face this hardship. We won't. Christians will, but we probably won't. I was reminded just this last week how this reality is just a few degrees away from us. It really is. I was at our association's general assembly, the GA, last week, and I met a Nigerian brother named Elumide. His first and last name are actually the same, his name is Olumide Olumide, he's a really good guy. And he started a reformed organization called Lux in Tenebras, that's Light in Darkness, and they support churches and pastors in Nigeria through training and resources. They do what they can from here, and they go over there and they train them, and they give sources and support to churches and pastors and seminaries and those training for that. Nigeria is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a Christian. If you were here during prayer, you heard Steve pray about it. It is incredibly deadly to be a Christian in Nigeria, especially in the northern parts. If you haven't heard about what's going on there, I'll catch you up briefly. In the north and in the middle of the country, there have been over 50,000 Christians killed. They're murdered by Muslims. There's been over 20,000 churches destroyed. And you can go online, you can find them worshiping in the smoking rubble of their churches. But they're butchering these Christians. It's a legitimate genocide happening, and it's been happening, this has been going on for years, years. No one is stopping it. The government won't do anything. And it gets hardly any media attention outside of like Christian sources. Hardly gets any media attention because the world doesn't care when Christians are massacred. That's not a news story. You will not find that on the cover of the New York Times. You switch out the identity of that group and it's world news. The world doesn't care. It's literally not news. They don't care to make it news. When my new friend, Illumina, he told me, when they're doing this training, that he'll get asked by these men, he'll say things like, what do we do? Christian brothers and sisters, what do we do when they come to kill us? That's an actual pastoral issue for them. Just imagine that. It's not like a theoretical threat, some ancient story that they read about, and we're like, we know this happened somewhere. This happens there to them in their front yard. They study theology. and they learn to preach, and at the same time, they prepare to die. Practicing their faith and worshiping Jesus there in their land at this time is a direct and constant threat to their lives. Any single day, Could be the day that men show up with guns and machetes and just wipe them out, village after village. And I don't know the precise and the wisest answer to that question of, what do we do when they're there to kill us? I don't know. I don't suspect I could give a great response to someone in that kind of situation. You know, we're just trying to get fathers to do family worship, and we want to keep unity in our church, and we're trying not to be on our phones too much or use them improperly. Those are our pastoral issues. Which, yes, all of those are important. I'm not going to downplay it like it doesn't matter. Those all matter. But they're sharing in the sufferings of Christ, and they're trying to think through, what do we do when a man shows up at the door ready to murder me and my family and my church? Now, if these Nigerian brothers, if they just asked, how do we avoid persecution? That answer would actually be far easier, honestly. The late, great Vodie Bauckham said it best. He said, persecution can be avoided. All you have to do is compromise. That is not an option for the faithful. So we are to prepare for destruction, prepare for persecution. That's what these brothers are doing. 1 Timothy, sorry, 2 Timothy 3, Paul said, indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. He was persecuted. All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. So I don't suspect I could help much in preparing these men for possible martyrdom, sometimes even likely martyrdom. But I do think this passage today and other passages like it, especially in Acts, would be an encouragement to them to keep the faith, to share in this Christian tradition, sharing in the sufferings of Christ. Like Paul, they know what kind of persecution that they face ahead of them. Paul knew what was coming. These Nigerians know what they're facing if they keep practicing the faith. Yet, because Jesus is Lord, because Jesus willingly died for us, because he's not a reluctant savior, Paul and these Nigerian brothers proceed with boldness to the potential end of their life. This is the kind of behavior that comes from worshiping a resurrected Lord. If this life was the only one that we had to live, if there was no resurrection, then this would not make any sense for Christians to die for our faith. It doesn't make sense. It would be live your best life now, make the most of it while you're here because it's the only one you got. but since eternal life has been won for us by Christ, then our mortal life is at times nothing more than a mighty expense to be paid in order to remain faithful to Jesus Christ without compromise. And if our very life is worth giving up for Jesus, if we are indeed called to sacrifice it if necessary, then surely it is all the more reasonable for us to give up less valuable things that we have, if necessary. You can give up anything. If you're called to give up your life, you're called to give up anything lesser than your life. Nothing we can own, nothing that we can experience is worth being held onto over the riches of knowing Christ. And we've seen people do this. We've seen people turn back. We've seen people make shipwreck of their faith. I've seen it in my own family, begin the process, but then tempted and drawn away by these worldly pleasures. Nothing is worth it. The world has nothing to offer us. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet lose his own soul? It's been preached here 100 times, I know, we're gonna keep saying it. It's so true. Again, we return to Paul's word in Philippians 3, where he says, whatever things were gained to him, anything that's gained, anything he achieved, those things, he has counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Christ is better. He'll lose it all for the sake of Christ. I'd rather have Christ than anything else. More than that, he counts all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, his Lord. Any of the things he loses, he counts as rubbish, garbage, in comparison, so that he might gain Christ. This is the attitude of a Christian who recognizes the great gift that the work of Jesus truly is. His work of salvation, that imputed righteousness to you, righteousness not of our own through the law, but that comes from God on the basis of faith, the atonement of our sins. If you know the value of that, nothing else matters. Everything is rubbish. It is worth giving up all things, all vices, all temptations, all possessions, everything is rubbish in comparison. Nothing is more valuable than being known by our Lord. Every example of persecution is a reminder to keep our life in perspective, to think deeply and dwell on the work of Christ that makes such suffering endurable, and that we can even face it with boldness. And yeah, we're talking about persecution, but it applies to all suffering. And I know there's suffering out here in our congregation. I know there is. You can endure it. It is worth it. Crucify sin. Use your suffering to kill remaining sin. Because when you suffer, you cling to Christ. When you cling to Christ, you crucify sin. Use that suffering. Cling to the promises of our God. Tighten your grip on the promise that he will wipe away every tear from our eye. and there will no longer be any death. There will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain. Do you think the Nigerian brothers think, do you think they think about that verse? I would. I don't like tattoos, but I'd be tempted, I'd be tempted to put it right here and just read it off every day. Every tear wiped away from our eyes. No longer any death, no longer any mourning, or crying, or pain. The first things of this age will pass away. He will make all things new. Amen and amen. Let's pray. Lord God, we suffer in this world because we're sinners. We suffer in this world because everyone we know is a sinner. We suffer because sin has corrupted this world. It has corrupted our mind. It has corrupted everything that we build. Though we do have it much better than many Christians, we want to acknowledge that, Lord, you have blessed us tremendously. We have it much better than many Christians throughout the world. We do pray that our low-level persecution and any other suffering would not go to waste in our lives. Use it in our lives to keep proper perspective, keep our minds on heaven, on the hope that is coming, the resurrection. Use it to crucify the sin that remains within us. And we do think of our brothers and sisters in Nigeria who are being slaughtered by those that hate Christ and those that hate his people. When we would ask you to strengthen the church, to endure such horrendous attacks, Stir up the government to defend its people and to punish evildoers the way that they are supposed to. Stir up our own government to pressure their government to fulfill its duty as a deacon for the good of the people. Lord, we confess as always that your gift of redemption is our greatest treasure, and we thank you for the grace that you have granted to us. We pray all these things in Christ's name, our resurrected Lord. Amen.