You're listening to the teaching ministry of Harvest Fellowship Church in Boyertown, Pennsylvania. You can find out more about us on the web at www.harvestfellowshipchurch.org. We pray that through our teaching, we may present everyone mature in Christ. Father in heaven, we bow before you tonight on this Wednesday night and we ask Lord for your strength, for your wisdom, Think, Lord, even tonight of those who are sick or have pressing commitments that prevent them from being here. And Lord, I pray that you would pour out your grace and mercy upon them. Lord, we thank you for even the warmth of the building. And we pray, Lord, that our hearts will be warmed by your word. Please, O Spirit of God, illumine your word for us tonight. We pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. All right. So now you're going to be quizzed. And Ronald is not allowed to answer. I was thinking about that earlier today. There's two reasons why he shouldn't have to. And two, in case he forgot what he taught, that would be really embarrassing. So I was thinking that of myself because I've done that before. All right. What oath did the 40 plus conspirators take? So we can do one of two things. You could raise your hand or, or if you're going to say it confidently out loud, not in between. Oh, kind of like, I think they did this. If you're going to break the rules, break them with gusto. But since you raised your hand, yes. They said that they wouldn't eat or drink. Yes, and that's in verse 12. And what did they ask the chief priests and the elders to do? You started to call it out there. Yes, so we call it a ruse. It was a ruse. Who notified Paul that these men planned to ambush him? Paul's nephew. And according to our esteemed teacher last week, what was the indication in the text that this young fellow was a rather young fellow? Took him by the hand, tenderly, compassionately. How many soldiers were mustered to transport Paul to Caesarea? Cumulatively. 500. We just round up. We're not concerned about the 30. What time did they leave that night? What time zone? We talked about this in Matthew. IST, Israeli Standard Time. Who was the focal point and star of the letter by the Tribune? Yeah, he was. Look what I have done. How far did the foot soldiers accompany the escort of Paul? Yeah, but I was looking for the city name. Antipatris. After reading Lysias' letter and hearing that Paul was from Cilicia, that's how it's actually pronounced, what did Felix say? As soon as your accusers show up, let the proceedings begin. All right, so let's pick up now in chapter 24, Acts chapter 24, verse 1. Hear now the word of the Lord. And after five days the high priest Ananias came down with some elders and a spokesman, one Tertullus. They laid before the governor their case against Paul. And when he had been summoned, Tertullus began to accuse him, saying, Since through you we enjoy much peace, and since by your foresight, most excellent Felix, reforms are being made for this nation, in every way and everywhere we accept this with all gratitude. But to detain you no further, I beg you in your kindness to hear us briefly, for we have found this man a plague, one who stirs up riots among all the Jews throughout the world, and is a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. He even tried to profane the temple, but we seized him. By examining him yourself, you will be able to find out from him about everything of which we accuse him." The Jews also joined in the charge, affirming that all these things were so. And when the governor had nodded to him to speak, Paul replied, "'Knowing that for many years you have been a judge over this nation, I cheerfully make my defense. You can verify that it is not more than twelve days since I went up to worship in Jerusalem. And they did not find me disputing with anyone or stirring up a crowd, either in the temple or in the synagogues or in the city. Neither can they prove to you what they now bring up against me. But this I confess to you, that according to the way, which they call a sect, I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the law and written in the prophets, having a hope in God, which these men themselves accept that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust. So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man. Now, after several years, I came to bring alms to my nation. and to present offerings. While I was doing this, they found me purified in the temple without any crowd or tumult. But some Jews from Asia They ought to be here before you and to make an accusation should they have anything against me, or else let these men themselves say what wrongdoing they found when I stood before the council, other than this one thing that I cried out while standing among them. It is with respect to the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial before you this day. But Felix, having a rather accurate knowledge of the way, put them off, saying, When Lysias the tribune comes down, I will decide your case. Then he gave orders to the centurion that he should be kept in custody, but have some liberty, and that none of his friends should be prevented from attending to his needs. And may the Lord write the truths of his word to our hearts on this Wednesday night. And so what questions are foremost in your mind from these 23 verses? Yes, Janet. Okay. What was Paul's house arrest like? Robert. OK, so what reforms and what nation? Egypt. No, I'm kidding. Ben. OK, so why is there this mention of the resurrection, but not specifically Jesus? Yes, Luke. Hey, that's my first question. Who is Tertullus? And if you search in an app or any way you can search, you'll find that this is the only place where Tertullus is mentioned. Two references. Why did Ananias show up? Not show down, show up. What is Tertullus trying to accomplish in his opening remarks? What are the main accusations that are levied against Paul? What is the substance of Paul's defense? And what does Paul actually confess to here? In what ways is Paul the same or different from the Jews in his beliefs of the law and the prophets? Which men there would have agreed with him about the hope of the resurrection? What are these alms that Paul brings to Jerusalem? What are the offerings that he presented? Who is noticeably absent from this hearing? What does Luke mean here when he says that Felix had a rather accurate knowledge of the way? And finally, why does Felix put off rendering a judgment here? Or as I like to also ask, what's the theme of the passage? Any other questions? You looked like you were close, Bob. So why is Lysias not there? He said, I'm there in spirit with my letter. He's the Tribune. Or is that your question? Who is Lysias? All right. So. Two weeks ago, sort of had like a interlude because we two weeks ago when I taught it was another hearing, that was when Paul stood before the Sanhedrin. And I made this statement. I was like, you know, I'm going to make the same statement tonight. It is Paul continues to stand in defense before various assemblies, people, and kings. It's not Paul who's on trial, that it's Christianity on trial. And I had called that teaching Christianity on trial. And then last week was all about the murder plot, the rescue plot. And now he's back on trial. So this is going to be Christianity on Trial, Part 2. I spent all day thinking that one up. This time Paul's back in a more familiar setting, that's the Roman judicial setting. He's got Jewish accusers, no surprise, and a pagan judge. How is Paul going to respond to another barrage of false allegations? So let's go to verse 1 again. After five days, the high priest Ananias came down with some elders and a spokesman, one Tertullus. They laid before the governor their case against Paul. So five days later, here comes the accusing party. We don't know how they traveled, but it certainly seems that there's some level of urgency here or importance to these men. especially for the high priest to leave Jerusalem to come to Caesarea, and so he's the leader. And that shows something. This is a pretty serious matter from their perspective, and they're going to throw everything, including the kitchen sink, at Paul here. And they bring with them, and I don't know that we see this anywhere else in Scripture, they have a hired gun. We're bringing our hired gun, the best of the best. We've got our special advocate, our attorney, our spokesman, Tertullus. So he is, in a sense, he's their prosecuting attorney. And whether he was Jewish or not, there's a lot of division over that, so we're not going to try to determine whether he was Jewish or whether he spoke in Latin or anything like that. We just know that he's the voice for the group, but he speaks for all of these men. And so collectively they present their evidence of their charges against Paul before Felix the governor. So it says, And when he had been summoned, Tertullus began to accuse him, saying, Since through you we enjoy much peace, and since by your foresight, most excellent Felix, reforms are being made for this nation in every way and everywhere, we accept this with all gratitude. Now let me ask you this, who's the he in phrase one? And when he had been summoned, I know you're all following along in your Bibles. Yeah, correct, it's Paul. When I first read it, I thought, Tertullus. But the more natural flow, and especially with the pronouns, the way that they're used there, Paul's being summoned. He's summoned before the court. And then Tertullus begins to just unload his gun, so to speak, his lawyer's gun here on Paul. But first, he's got a different matter to take care of. And so he says, Felix. We are in this wonderful state of Concord right now, and it's all because of you. Thank you so much, Felix, for this peace. And you know what's interesting about that statement is that Felix had done probably more than any other governor to disrupt the semblance of peace. This is the exact opposite. Felix, you could call him Felix the Unpeaceful. And then he goes on, and through your foresight or through your thoughtful planning, most excellent Felix, you've been making these continual improvements all throughout the Jewish nation. He hadn't made any improvements. Now, he did at times quell some of the riots, and he did have his men go and try to really deal. Remember we talked about those Saqqari? the the assassins. I mean that was a problem that he had to deal with. But he's he's praising him here and he says in every way and everywhere. So at all times there's never been a moment most noble Felix where we've been disappointed with you. Your approval rating 100 percent. We love you. Now this was in some sense this was a customary action here. It was customary to praise, to flatter a ruler at the beginning of a legal proceeding, but this was certainly insincere. Is this really how the Jewish leaders felt about Felix? Absolutely not. They had a negative view. And then, you know, just think about it. How could Jews who claim to worship Yahweh, the one true God, be completely good with every work that came from a pagan ruler like Felix? How could they? But I'd like to ask a question here to you, and this is not a yes or no question. This kind of fits into what we've been talking about in Sunday school as well. How should we evaluate the rule of those over us as civil authorities? Exactly. against the word of God. And so we have people in office above us and you'll notice that usually people either look at those people in office and think they can do no wrong or the opposite everything they do is wrong. And we should be able to look at it and say that's in accordance with the word of God. Good job. That behavior is ungodly. Bad job. We should be able to say both of those things and always from the word of God. They're not able to do that here. They've given their souls, in a sense, over to the system of Rome. They've capitulated. So everything that they say here as religious leaders is fraudulent. But here they're trying to get in the good graces of Felix. They want to praise him for keeping peace in the province. And why do they want to focus on peace here so much? Because they're going to accuse Paul of the opposite, the disruptor of peace. You're the peacemaker, Felix. There's a bit of irony here. Everything they're praising him here for can only be found in Jesus, not Paul and certainly not Felix. And I'll talk about that later, what happens to Felix. But they're going to try to win his favor before they even present the case here. Verse 4, but to detain you no further, I beg you in your kindness to hear us briefly, for we have found this man. There's a lot of demonstrative pronouns here, and I just have to think that hand gestures went with them, or finger pointing, or at least looks. this man a plague, one who stirs up riots among all the Jews throughout the world, and is a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. He even tried to profane the temple, but we seized him. By examining him yourself, you will be able to find out from him about everything of which we accuse him." So he says, but to detain you no further. Oh Felix, you're so busy doing good for the empire. We only want to take a few minutes of your time so you can get back to keeping the peace and doing these amazing improvements. So I'll just get right to the point here. Just please indulge us and also please rule in our favor. That's kind of what's implied in all the things that he's saying here. Now he gets to the accusations, for we have found this man, and this is a disdainful, emphatic, this man here, a plague. And when he says we found him, he's not saying like, oh, we discovered this. He's saying we investigated him, and this is what we concluded, that Paul is a public enemy. He's a menace. He's a pernicious person, and everything he touches is infected by him. Paul is a deadly pestilence to the world, a disease to Roman statism. It's interesting when you take this word plague here, and you go back and you look at how was this kind of used elsewhere, and in the Old Testament, Go back to 1 Samuel 2, where you see it says, the sons of Eli were worthless men. Same sense there. 1 Samuel 25, it says, this worthless fellow Nabal. Same sense as this word where he's describing Paul as a plague. Also, Psalm 1. Psalm 1.1, blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked. Same word there. And then that scoffer that's mentioned multiple times in Proverbs, same thing. Those are some pretty strong words that he's using here first to describe Paul. So first he calls him a pestilence, a plague. He's one, then, he says, who stirs up riots. So he's explaining, how is he a plague? He stirs up riots. He's inciting riots all throughout the known world, which is the Roman world. Now, what is this a charge of? Well, someone who stirs up riots would be accused of sedition. And again, remember we talked about that in Sunday school. It is the authority's job to use the sword to put down sedition. And Christians are not to participate in sedition. So this is a serious charge, and it is a capital offense if you're convicted of it. So in a sense, he's saying he's a disruptor of the peace, O Felix, that you have procured. Can you imagine that? And not only that, he says he's a ringleader of the sect, or you could replace that with the word faction, maybe, or party of the Nazarenes. We haven't seen that expression before. And that, of course, is also used a bit derogatorily here. But he says Paul is the ringleader. He's the chief agitator of these Nazarenes here. And so what he's really doing is he's presenting Christianity as an illegitimate or we could say deviant form of Judaism. The implication of his words here that this sect is dangerous, it's different than Judaism, it's not authorized by Rome, and again to participate in an unauthorized religion could be punishable by death by the Romans. But to the Jews, what he's saying here is the Nazarenes are a wayward group of heretics and they're following a false dead Messiah. There's a little bit of a, I don't know if irony is the right word here because Paul's not the leader of the Nazarenes. Who is? The Nazarene. Jesus is. Jesus is the leader. And so that should be in our minds, remember, as Jesus gives that commission to, and you will be a witness for me because I'm the leader, not Paul, not the other apostles. But here, Paul's accused of being the ringleader. And then he says, he even tried or attempted to profane the temple. And of course, that has to be a bit of a veiled reference to the Trofimus incident. Notice that there's not many details given here by this prosecuting attorney, but he says that he tried to desecrate the temple, but we, we did our duty. We arrested him. He makes it sound like it was a pretty peaceful process. Paul, put your hands behind your back. Is that what happened? Did they follow the right process for this? Is this even true? This is not true. The mob, who were led by the Asian Jews, were the ones who had caused the commotion. They caused the uprising. They seized Paul. And of course, when Lysias shows up, Paul's just about torn in half. Now, you may have noticed that there is, in our text here, no verse 7. And there certainly is a lot of debate you go back to the original manuscripts, and most of the original manuscripts don't contain this. And probably what's most likely is that someone came along like, hey, it's the story here by Luke feels a little disjointed. So I'm going to add in some information, but essentially what verse seven and some of the manuscripts that have it are essentially saying this, we did everything the right way. We peacefully arrested Paul and then Lysias came and just ripped him out of our hands. He should not have done that. We did everything by the book. And he says here then in verse 8, in his concluding statements, by examining himself, hey, if you ask him yourself, you will be able to find everything that we have accused him of is true. I'm really not sure why he said that, to be honest. But maybe he thought, you know, all the flattery, all the convincing words, and surely Tertullus, being a hired gun, was a very good orator, very good spokesman. But he says that, and then we see in verse 9 that the entourage is in wholehearted agreement. Maybe they were even amening him as he was speaking, like, amen, that's right. But it says, the Jews also joined in the charge, affirming that all these things were so. Now remember, Ananias is there, and it says he brought elders with him. Now, which of the two tribes, if we could use that word, was Ananias? Sorry, yes. That's why I said tribes, if we could use that word. I didn't mean like a literal 12 tribes. He was on the Sadducee side. So I just want you to keep that in mind, because probably most of the people that are there with him are probably also Sadducees. But I don't think all, as we'll see in a little bit. So they say, and we agree with everything he said. It's unanimous here. Please convict him now. But remember, and we should pause our minds here just for a second, it's not the size of the crowd, it's not the power of the crowd, it's not the words or the cleverness of the best lawyer on earth, but rather it is the plan of the Father, of God here that's going to determine the outcome of this trial. And so we move now to Paul's defense. Verse 10, and when the governor had nodded to him to speak, Paul replied, knowing that for many years you have been a judge over this nation, I cheerfully make my defense. You can verify. that it is not more than 12 days since I went up to worship in Jerusalem, and they did not find me disputing with anyone or stirring up a crowd either in the temple or in the synagogues or in the city, neither can they prove to you what they now bring up against me." So Paul's cue is just a little nod. He doesn't even have to say anything. That's how much power he has. He just nods at people and they start to speak. But now Paul begins his introduction and the first thing he talks about is the many years that Felix has been a governor over this province. And he probably had governed for somewhere between five to seven years at this point. I thought to myself as I was reading this, why does he mention this? Like why does he just acknowledge that he's the ruler? But why does he bring up this longevity as a ruler? It seems to be a little bit more than a polite greeting. Also notice that whatever he says here is truthful. He's not lying to his face to flatter him. But maybe he's appealing to Felix's knowledge and experience as a governor. He wasn't somebody who was just appointed and came in three months ago and just still kind of getting a lay of the land. But nevertheless, Paul says, I'm rather glad for this opportunity. I will now give you my apology. We've used that word before. And we should not forget how well-trained Paul was. Not only is Paul well-trained, but he's speaking through the power of the Holy Spirit. So however remarkable Tertullus was as an orator, we know just from our sense of what we're going over tonight that he doesn't stand a chance. So now we've got the remarkable orator, Paul, who's speaking, and he's going to refute the charges. He's going to basically say, I'm not a plague. I do not stir up riots. I'm not a ringleader of a new religion. And I have not profaned the temple. And he says, these are provable facts. You can verify it. He says, you can verify that I had been in Jerusalem for less than two weeks. Now we could spend a lot of time quibbling about the 12 days. I'm going to treat the 12 days as the 12 days before he was brought to Caesarea. And I'll just give you, I just want to work through just sort of a rough timeline if that's the case. It's not a hill to die on. So day one is when Paul arrives in Jerusalem back in chapter 21 verse 18. We'll just say day two then is when Paul meets with the leaders of the church. Remember that meeting and they tell him here's the plan we think you should take these four men and go through the purification process with them, sponsor their hair cutting. And so then if that were the case and he does that right away then on days three through nine if he makes it all the way through the seven day purification process that's when he's observing his seven days of ritual purification. And on that same ending day, day 9 then, is when he's arrested in chapter 21, verse 33. On day 10, the day after that, that's when he appears before the Sanhedrin, which we talked about two weeks ago. The day after that, day 11, is when the plot is uncovered against his life. On day 12, He's taken to Caesarea, and then for the next five days, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17, he waits for his accusers to show up. So that's the way that I'm looking at it, that he's now talking about 17 days. Either way, we're talking about a very short period of time, which works in his favor because they're accusing him of things that would require a lot of time to plan and execute. What does he point out here? He says, here's why I came to Jerusalem. Worship. I was here. And why had he specifically come? At least according to the text earlier in Acts? Or what was he hoping to be there for? Pentecost. That's why he wanted to come. So he was there, we could say, for veneration, not desecration. And essentially he's saying, you know, it was so short ago, Felix, that if you really want to find witnesses who were there, you can. Shouldn't be that hard. Feel free to investigate further. And he says, while I was there, at the end of this period of time in Jerusalem, he said, they didn't find me arguing with anybody. They can find me in a crowd rabble rousing. They didn't find me doing that in the temple. They didn't find me doing that in the synagogues. They didn't find me doing that anywhere in the city. So Paul is implicitly denying that he was an insurrectionist. And he said, and I've got the receipts to prove it. And he said, neither can they prove to you. They don't have the ability to prove any of their accusations because they don't have evidence for any of these charges that they've presented. No evidence. So initially we see denial, but now we're going to go from denial, not the river, denial to confession, a confession of the real reason that Ananias and the elders oppose Paul. So in verse 14 he says, but this, there's another demonstrative pronoun there, but this I confess to you that according to the way which they call a sect, I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the law and written in the prophets, having a hope in God, which these men themselves accept, that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust. So I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man. So up to this point, Paul's rejected everything, but he says, you know, if I'm going to admit anything to you, it's going to be this. It's my confession of faith. I'm going to confess to you, Felix, my fidelity to worship, true worship of the ancestral Jewish God, Yahweh. And he says, yes, I confess that I am a member of the Christian way. This is the way that he wants to describe it, the way He says, my accusers called a faction. I'm not really okay with that. I don't think it should be called a faction because he's referring to this way that he now worships God, and we had mentioned this before, as a true Jew. And the reality is, is the way that Paul is now on is the only way for all of Israel to worship God. So he doesn't accept their categorization of the way as a division of Judaism or a deviation from Judaism. But what he's really saying here is that Christianity is the actual and real fulfillment of it. So for Paul, for other followers of Jesus, then, worship of God is now fundamentally and irrevocably connected with somebody, and that's Jesus. It's connected to him. He is Israel's Messiah. He is the one whose life, death, resurrection, and exaltation constitute the only way to salvation. And to prove his theological orthodoxy here as a true Jew, he says, I worship or I serve the God of our fathers. He says, I am a faithful, observant, monotheistic Pharisee. Remember, he said that before, I'm a Pharisee of Pharisees. He didn't give up that moniker, but he did define what a true Pharisee was, and it wasn't what these other men who were in the Sanhedrin were. But he says, a true worshiper of God believes Everything laid down by the law and written in the prophets He said you take everything that the that's in the law and the prophets. I believe it all all of it every word of God's law all of the prophets writing Every part of that is God's Word And I think there's a a sense of what he's saying there is these men accusing me. They don't believe it all They have access to it all but they don't believe it all and And we'll see that, in a sense, in just a second on this part of the resurrection. So he says, I believe all that is in the law and the prophets having or possessing a hope in God. There's still that monotheistic slant. And he says, this hope that I have in God, he says, which these men themselves accept. He's probably gesturing over to them again. He says, this is the same expectant hope of my accusers. Now, I kind of imagined in my way, you have like a whole group of men there. And if there were a few Pharisees there, they were probably kind of like, yeah. So they're nodding their heads and then the Sadducees look at them like, what are you doing? You know, like, how dare you? And they're like, oh, sorry. But he says that these men here, and he could, if he wasn't referring to his accusers there specifically, then he may have just been referring to Israel as a whole. Israel as a whole believed in this and the Sadducees, even though they held a lot of power, had a very minority view in the way that scripture was approached. And he knows he can say this because this isn't the Sanhedrin now and they have to keep their mouths shut and maintain order. So he can say these things right in front of Felix and they can just grind and gnash their teeth. But he says that these men themselves accept, and I added the word in namely here, namely that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust, that a raising of all people from the dead, we could say the righteous and the unrighteous, is certainly going to take place. Now, what's our probably most clear passage from the Old Testament that talks about a raising of the righteous and the unrighteous? A passage that the Sadducees would have rejected. I kind of imagined in my mind that it probably was a cross-reference in your Bibles, but if not, Daniel 12.2, I remember the Sadducees only live their lives according to the Torah and nothing more. But Daniel 12, 2 says, many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt. So there's a clear distinguishing that there's people who are raised, but they're part of two different groups. John 5, 29 is another verse that gives an indication of that right from the words of Jesus. Revelation 20, 12. I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged by what was written in the books according to what they had done." Again, there's a sense of good judgment, bad judgment, depending on the people. But everybody was raised. Now, you might ask the question, How come Paul doesn't talk about this anywhere else? Anywhere else that Paul talks about the resurrection, he's only talking about resurrection of the believers. And we can't answer that definitively, but I think it's very reasonable to infer that in all of those cases, those are letters being written to Christians. And so it's more of a pastoral view. I'm encouraging you to take heart because you Christians, we will be raised. Here is much different sense. Not only is he presenting his case before an unbeliever, but all of these men accusing him are also unbelievers. And so it's important to talk about the difference that everyone will be raised, but there's unrighteous and righteous. So Paul's conclusion here to this part is he says, so, or, and in this I always take pains, or I do my best to have a clear conscience toward both God and man. It means in everything that Paul did, he tried or he strove, and there's the word that he uses there, is the sense of athletic or physical training. He strives to avoid intentionally giving any offense before God or man. The word conscience there refers to your inner thoughts. You can look up Ecclesiastes 10.20 as a sense of that, the inner thoughts that are within you. But Paul has this recognition of, very close to the end of Psalm 119, verse 168, which says, I keep your precepts and testimonies for, the psalmist says, all my ways are before you. It's a recognition, it's a remembrance. I mean, we all know that. But it's one thing to know, it's another thing to live your life as if you really realize God's watching everything that I do. And so Paul says, my conscience is clear before God and before men, because my position here, my belief, it's in agreement with the law and the prophets, and my worship, it has the same aim. It's to live before God in all good conscience. Did we hear him say that before? When was that? Yes, before the Sanhedrin, chapter 23, verse 1. That was before a riot broke out. But why is Paul's worship, why is his aim to live before God in all good conscience? It's in view of the resurrection and the judgment that comes. He wants to stand before God in that judgment and be able to say, in good conscience, I have done what you have required of me. In Romans 12, 1, we see, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your what? Spiritual worship. And we can become so focused on our audible worship on a Sunday morning, and we're worshipping or not worshipping God. throughout the hundred plus hours of a week. And so this is what Paul's appealing to the Christians. Your whole life, a living sacrifice. So if we just put the little pause button here in Paul's speech, I'd like to ask the question, are you living your life in that same recognition? The same recognition that all your ways are before the eyes of the Lord. All your ways. Are you striving to live in such a way that your conscience, you could say, my conscience is clear. This is not saying that you're sinless, that you don't sin, but that your conscience is clear. It's free of guilt, that you're unashamed and unburdened by sin before God or before a man. Or are you living in a way like, no, you know, I've got a lot to repent of. If people around us are going to stumble over anything, and this is what Paul's perspective was, if people around me are going to stumble over anything, let it only be the gospel itself that they stumble over, not over bad, reproachable conduct that causes them to trip and to fall before they even get to the words of the gospel. So now Paul's argument is going to shift. And essentially, he's going to answer the question, what really happened during my short time in Jerusalem? Verse 17, now, after several years, I came to bring alms to my nation and to present offerings. While I was doing this, they found me purified in the temple without any crowd or tumult. But some Jews from Asia, they ought to be here before you and to make an accusation, should they have anything against me. or else let these men themselves say what wrongdoing they found when I stood before the council. Other than this one thing that I cried out while standing among them, it is with respect to the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial before you this day." So Paul's starting to bring everything home here. But he says after several years, and we don't know if he's referring to his most recent visit or the most recent lengthy visit, but either way, it's probably at least five years since Paul has really spent any time in Jerusalem. Now, go back to what Paul said about Felix. He said, Felix, you've been in your spot for years. I haven't been here in years. If I was such a rabble rouser, who would know about it? Felix would. He'd have known. He'd be like, oh yeah, I've heard about you. You who trouble the nation, you know, like Felix would have known. But he said, I'd been away for a while and here when I came, I appeared. He said, I brought alms to my nation. What's he referring to here? Yeah, we finally get some insight. We've been wanting to know, so vaguely referred to by Luke, but now it's this financial gift that he brought to these poor Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. Now, I'm just going to speculate here because Ron has given me permission to speculate, but I just have to think here when he mentioned this, that Felix's ears perked up a little bit at the sound of money. Wait, say that again, Paul. What did you bring? A basket of money. Oh, OK. I'll just keep that in mind. Keep going. But he also came, he says, to present offerings, or you could use the word sacrifices there. Now, what do you think that refers to? And again, there's a... No, just not type, but more event. And again, this is slightly speculative, but I think this is referring to what he goes through with these Nazirite men. He helps with the payment for the sacrifices. I think that's what he's referring to here for those four men, because he says, while I was doing this, And these things, in some ways, especially the sacrifices, came about after he met with the Jerusalem elders. So while he's doing this public demonstration, remember what they wanted him to do? Prove that you still follow the law of God. So while he's doing that, and I'm in the process of being purified in the temple, that's where they find me. That's where I'm standing. There's not a crowd around me. There's not a riot. There's not anything going along. And he says, but these certain Jews from Asia, which we said are probably were from Ephesus. But notice all the things, just real quick, notice all the things Paul doesn't mention that he could have. He doesn't talk about being grabbed, beaten. He doesn't talk about being illegally, unlawfully imprisoned. He doesn't talk about the plot on his life. He doesn't mention any of those things, but when he gets to these These Asian Jews, they ought to be here before you. Now, I don't know how much gusto he put into this phrase. I feel like it was a lot. Because essentially, he's saying, where are they? They're not here. They're the ones who should be here standing before you making their formal accusation. Of course, that is, he says, if they can articulate a legitimate complaint. Of course, in Deuteronomy 1915, we see the standard that nobody could be convicted by a single witness that had to be on the evidence of two or three, essentially saying, where are the two or three Asian Jews? Where are they? And furthermore, and again, this would have certainly caught Felix's attention, Roman law by this point was very strong against this type of behavior. People who would do something and not show up to actually make the accusation. And Claudius was starting to, he had helped reform some of the laws around this. But essentially he says, they're not here. They should be, but they're not. And so he says, or else let these men, and I was referring back to the original party, Ananias and the other guys who are with him, let these men themselves say what wrongdoing, what evil they found in me when I stood before them in the Sanhedrin council. Maybe they can explain the evil that they uncovered. He said, the only thing that they could probably mention is just this one thing. And it's not really an evil thing, but it's just this statement that I publicly declared before them. It's with respect to the resurrection of the dead that I am on trial before you this day, which he said in chapter 23, verse 6. But essentially, though, Paul is admitting something here, and he's basically saying, I'm on trial here today. because I preach Jesus Christ crucified. I preach that he's risen from the dead. He's the true goal of the law and the prophets. It's in him that God's resurrection promise is fulfilled. And only those who believe in him are actually true Jews, faithful to God. True belief in the resurrection is true belief in Jesus. But when he makes this final statement here, you can almost imagine Paul, if he had a mic, just dropping it on the floor. This was the conclusion by the masterful orator here. They don't have the necessary evidence. The original accusers are not even here. And by their own admittance, if you press them here, Felix, they're only opposed to me because of a theological dispute. And so with that, Paul is done speaking. And so we come to these last two verses, which we could call political gamesmanship. But Felix, having a rather accurate knowledge of the way, put them off saying, when Lysias the tribune comes down, I will decide your case. Then he gave orders to the centurion that he should be kept in custody, but have some liberty, and that none of his friends should be prevented from attending to his needs. And so Luke shares with us here that Felix, he had a more accurate understanding of the theological beliefs inherent to the way. He doesn't really tell us the full scope of that. Was that more than the Sanhedrin realized? They showed up and they're like, oh, we didn't know he knew that much about Christianity. Was it better than what they knew? Or is Luke saying even here that he became more knowledgeable through everything that Paul just said? Now, of course, Luke may even talk about this next week, is that we'll see that his wife is a Jewish woman. So maybe that was a factor. There's all sorts of factors. And again, we're not gonna be able to conclusively present a definitive answer there. But this is with his knowledge now, and he has three options in front of him. What are the three options? One, he can judge the case and say, I find the evidence compelling. Paul, I convict you and you will die. So that's option one. Option two, he could just dismiss the case outright and say, this is preposterous. You guys have no evidence. Paul, I'm going to release you. There's no proof. There's no eyewitness testimony. Or option three, delay the case to gather more facts, or we could say perhaps for other reasons. And that's what he does. He says, I'm going to go with option three. I'm going to adjourn or postpone the trial. And he says, when Lysias the tribune comes down, that's when I'll decide your case. sort of a new revelation because he had just said at the end of the last chapter, when your accusers show up, then I'll decide the case. Why was Lysias' appearance necessary? I don't think it was. He has the letter. Lysias explained to him what happened. He knows even from some of the things that Lysias said that they don't line up with what these Jewish accusers have said. But it is interesting that he says, I will decide your case. That's a plural you. So he's not referring just to Paul here. I think he's referring more to the Jews case against Paul. But I think we should just see this for what it is. This is nothing more than a stalling tactic from a bad civil leader. He's a bad civil leader. And what's he doing here? He's going to work all the angles. One, I'm going to pacify these guys. If I dismiss this case outright, that's not going to work out well for peace. So he's going to pacify them and maybe, remember that perking up of the ears at money? Hey, maybe Paul can give me some money. I can do two great things. The Jews will be happy and I'll get some money. So he says, let's, you know, judges say this, we're going to take a recess. He says, let's take a brief recess of, I don't know, two years. How does that sound? So he tells the centurion, he arranges that Paul's going to be kept in custody. And I think the way that's worded there is that the centurion is specifically going to personally keep Paul in custody, which means that this is really important to him. But he does give Paul a measure of freedom. I don't want anybody blocked from access. And why is that important? Because When you're in prison they don't say, here's your food, here's your meal. You're like, oh, are you starving to death? That's too bad. So your friends need to show up and give you those things, food, clothing, etc. Now it seems though that he does defer a little bit to Paul. He says, I know you're a Roman citizen. He knows in his heart, he knows Paul's innocent of these charges and that's probably why. But he needs to appease the Jews so ultimately he is an unjust ruler. What's the irony of all this? Is that Felix's inability to keep peace between the Jews and the Gentiles is ultimately what leads him to being yanked out of his role. He's not killed but he's removed from his role as governor because he can't keep the peace which is just kind of funny to me. And we'll see that Felix is looking for a bribe, but instead of a bribe, he's going to get something else. He's going to get a sermon. He's going to get the gospel. Now let's close with this thought here. Paul's defense demonstrates something to us, and that is that we have a need, just as he demonstrated, to be competent and steadfast in our defense of Christianity from the attacks of the world. Can you think of any modern examples of courage against persecution of Christians that we've seen even in the last few years? And I'm talking about people who have faced the wrath of the beast, if we could say, the way we saw here. That's the whole legal system thrown against Paul here. But people who face the wrath of the beast, they defended themselves with integrity as faithful witnesses for Christ, believing that even if they were ruled against in the courts, that the ultimate verdict lies with God. A few usually means three. I'll give you five, I'll give you 10. I had in my mind the guy who tried to coerce into baking a cake. And he did not capitulate. He did not bow to the system of the beast. And you know, a lot of evangelical people, what did they say? I mean, of course the world said that, but there's a lot of Christians who said, just bake the cake. validate what God has called an abomination. But those types of things are going to come up, right? They're coming up. They're here. The world is challenging our beliefs on things like homosexuality, abortion on demand. How big was that in the election as a speaking point? What about growing things like euthanasia? What does the world say that is? The world says that's compassion. We're helping people die with dignity. Or what about something like the age of consent? You see people wearing shirts that say love is love and not really willing to take that to the full conclusion of what a phrase like that could mean? Pornography being called just an expression of art? That's all that it is. How dare you say that that's wrong? And you add in any other abomination, the question before us is, how will you respond? Are you just going to say, I don't talk about religion? I don't talk about politics. Is that going to be your default answer? Or what if you're oppressed? Hey, do you believe the Bible? Yes. Do you know that it is against these things? Yes. How could you? And what are you going to say? And Paul was ready here. And so when you are pressed to defend Christ, that's who you're defending, that's who you're witnessing of. You're witnessing of Christ. What scriptures will you use? Which ones will you be familiar with? And what kind of reasoning will you deploy? I think those are important things for us to think about. That's the form of apologetics and even early next year we're going to do some classes on evangelism. That comes up in evangelism all the time does it not Ron? And you're going to come across people who are brilliant people who know lots of things and we've got to be anchored in the truth the same way that Paul was here and studying the word of God and praying to God for wisdom is how we will do that. We commit this night to you, O Lord, and we do pray that you will give us gospel boldness, that you will strengthen our abilities to be apologists for Jesus Christ and all that we do in every situation. The gospel is the power of God under salvation. We are just the proclaimers. You are the heart changer. We entrust these hearts to you. And we pray these things tonight in the name of Jesus. Amen.