So how many of you have not sung that song before? I could tell. It's in the hymnal. It's number 28 in the hymnal. It's not like one we just pulled out of nowhere. And it's like 250 years old, so it's not a brand new hymn, but it's just not one of those that we've sung really commonly. Churches, you know, we tend to have culture in regard to music, and churches tend to, you know, there's so many songs that you sing, and so that's just not one we've sung much before. I don't know if you were able to, I think when you're trying to learn the tune, maybe you didn't get a chance to meditate on the words. But beautiful, beautiful words. Jesus takes the highest station. Crown of king of kings and lord of lords. I mean, just beautiful hymn, beautiful hymn text. Thomas Kelly, old English hymn writer, wrote that hymn many years ago. Like I said, 250 years ago or something. And so, you know, wonderful hymn. We'll probably have to try to learn that one a little better because I think it's a really good hymn. It's not really difficult music. I didn't think it was really difficult music, but I could just tell everybody was kind of like, I've never heard this one before. We're trying to sing this, and it's fine. All right, if you'd open your Bibles to Acts chapter 21. Acts chapter 21, verse 17. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I had a little frog in my throat, so. We'll try to make sure he's got taken care of. Acts 21, verse 17. You know, when people are enemies of the gospel, we have to remember that they're not enemies of the gospel merely because they find it objectionable. In other words, that they have logical objections to it. And so, therefore, we shouldn't expect, since, in other words, their objections are moral objections. And by that, I don't mean that they find the gospel immoral. It's that it morally offends them because they don't get to set the moral standards. See, by human beings, as human beings, we're all born with a make-your-own-God kit in our depravity. And what I mean by that is not that we can make our own God, but what we all do is what Romans 1 says is that when they knew God, They glorified Him not as God, but their foolish heart was darkened. And professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the image of the incorruptible God for the image of four-footed beasts and creeping things, etc. So what is the root of idolatry? The root of idolatry isn't that people don't know God and they're trying to find Him and they're making up things about God the best they can. The root of idolatry is when they hear that there's a God because the heavens declare the glory of God. And that when they encounter that truth, they don't like that truth because they know that that is the great God of the universe who created everything, to whom they must answer. And they don't want to answer to him, so you know what's easier? Let's make a God that's not, is hard to answer to. And so what people do then is they decide to come up with their own God, and that's what I mean by make your own God kit. You've probably talked to people like this who say, well, my God would never do that. Well, and then if the words that follow that are unbiblical, then they're God is an idol. Okay, because we don't each get to have our own God and get to define him however we want. And since the objection to Christianity is a moral objection, that is, I don't like the morality of God because he condemns me, therefore don't expect that every time that somebody is offended by Christianity or opposed or actively opposes Christianity, that it's going to make logical sense what they do and say. You follow this? It's not because of strict logic that they're gonna be, they may even contradict themselves. Maybe you had these kinds of conversations with people. I remember talking with someone one time, and I was talking to them, and we were talking about the gospel. It was a person who grew up in a church background. We were talking about the gospel and the truthfulness of the scriptures. And as we were discussing that, they said things like, well, you know, our modern scientific world knows better than this or that. and various issues that they had with the scriptures. Some of them were misunderstandings of the scriptures, honestly. And they made those conversations. And then I started to say to them, well, yeah, but what about the limits of human knowledge? I mean, there's things human beings don't know. We have to recognize that. There's plenty of things we don't know. As much as we know now, you know, there's going to be a day, I've often said this before, that we're going to look back at some of our treatments of some of our diseases And we're going to look back at them the same way we look back at people bleeding people in, you know, the 18th century. Oh, you're sick? Let's make you bleed, you know, to get the bad blood out of you. And we look back at that and go, you're making people bleed to try to make them healthy? That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. But because they had a misunderstanding of, you know, just biology of the human body. But we're gonna look back at some of our treatments, and we're gonna say, I'm not saying this is wrong, I'm just saying we look at it and go, this is the best we've got right now, but you did what to treat cancer? You thought that poison was a good idea? Putting chemicals in people's body? Now that might be the best choice we have right now, but I think if the Lord tarries 100 years from now, there'll probably be some treatment, and they'll look back and go, you know in the 21st century what they used to do? Because we still look back, right? I was watching a television show, it was a rerun of a television show from the 1970s. And one of the characters in the show said, come on man, it's the 70s. Like, get with it. We look back on that now and go, oh man, the 70s. You know, this is the 70s, we're up to date. And we look back at that now and that sounds funny, that sounds humorous because it's so dated. But what we forget is that what seems so cool and in and logical and makes so much sense to the world today, 10 years from now won't make sense to the world. They're gonna believe something different. So human beings, and in this conversation with this person, I said, what about the limits of human knowledge? And basically he said, well, we can't really know anything. And I said to him, well, wait a second, you were just objecting to Christianity on the basis of the fact that we know these things are true in science and the Bible doesn't agree with that in your mind. And so therefore the Bible's false, but now you say we can't know anything. Which is it? Do we have knowledge or not? In other words, when on the one hand you objected to Christianity, he did it on a logical, rational basis. But once you say, well, wait a second, maybe rationally it makes more sense than you think, then they go, well, everything's irrational anyway. So do you want it to be rational or irrational? Well, it depends. If it's rational, will God condemn me? Yes. Then I want it to be irrational. In other words, it's a moral objection, you see what I'm saying? In other words, they come up with these objections because they are offended by Christianity, not because there's some logical reason all the time. In other words, they're just enemies of the gospel. In other words, do all of the arguments, was Satan concerned in the garden when he was lying to Eve that all of his arguments would be logically consistent? No, he was just shooting darts and hoping one hit, right? And so as we look at this passage, we're going to see some persecution in the life of Paul. And what I want us to understand is some of the nature of persecution, and that is that if we expect those who persecute Christians to behave like they love God, we're going to be disappointed by that. Verse 17, and when we were come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us gladly. Remember, Paul had been on a ship, and then he got off the ship, and they were traveling to Jerusalem. And the day following, Paul went in with us unto James, and all the elders were present. Okay, this is James, the half-brother of Jesus, the son of Mary, okay, and Joseph, and he seems to be the pastor of the church in Jerusalem. He's the leader that everyone seems to talk to when they come to Jerusalem. And they come and they meet with James, the pastor of the Jerusalem church. And when he had saluted them, he declared particularly what things God had wrought among the Gentiles by his ministry. So he comes and he reports all the things the Lord had been doing in the Gentile world. To salute them has the idea of greet them, okay? It's a salutation. And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord and said unto him, thou seest, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe, and they are zealous of the law. He says, that's great, we're so thankful for what God has done, but we've got an issue here in Jerusalem. And what we need to understand is that churches have cultures within them, and that what might be an issue in one church is not an issue in another church. And by that I mean, I don't mean sin. Sin is sin is sin. So if a church doesn't have an issue with theft, then they have an issue with God. But one church might be particular about something when another church might not be particular about it because it's a cultural expression. And you can offend people with the wrong cultural expressions at times. Or because something has been a battle they've had at some point in their history, therefore it becomes something that is then from then on an issue for them, but maybe another church that hasn't had that struggle doesn't have that as an issue. So Paul's dealing with all these Gentile churches in Ephesus, and in Corinth, and in Colossae, and in all these places where he's preached, and we find these Gentile churches throughout the Roman world, and yet he comes back to Jerusalem, and now you have many, many, many Jewish believers. And you also have some Jewish people who are investigating Christianity, but they're offended by the idea that somebody might disregard Moses' law, the Old Testament. And so they say, listen, and they are informed of thee that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs. What is it therefore? The multitude must needs come together, for they will hear that thou art come. So in other words, they're hearing that you're telling other Jews around the world to disregard Moses' law. In other words, they're no longer, remember we'd settled, do Gentiles have to live as Jews? That's been settled already in the book of Acts, in chapter 15. What hasn't been settled yet is, and in some people's consciences, is what is our relationship to the, if we're Jews, should we keep the law? And he's being slandered here, because you don't find Paul telling people, disregard the law of Moses. He will say that we're no longer under the law, but he's never telling anybody, go out and disregard the law of Moses. Just go ahead and live however you want. He's not saying that. And so he's being slandered. In other words, think of almost every place that he gets persecuted, where did the persecution come from? From fellow Jews, right? It's the Jewish leaders in that town who are often persecuting him. Do therefore this, that we say to thee, we have four men which have a vow on them. There's been four men who've taken a vow according to the Old Testament law. Take them and purify thyself with them and be at charges with them, that they may shave their heads and all may know those things whereof they were informed concerning thee are nothing. but that thou might thyself also walkest orderly and keepest the law. So they say, here's what you need to do. There's four Jewish men with us who've taken a vow. It sounds like almost a Nazarite vow, because they're going to go cut their hair. It's something similar to that. And we want you to go to the temple. Since you've been out of the country, go to the temple. Go through the purification process to become clean and help these men observe their vows. And everybody will see that you're keeping the Mosaic law, and it'll dispel these criticisms of you. Verse 25, and it's touching the Gentiles which believe. We've written concluded that they observe no such thing save only that they keep themselves from things offered to idols. In other words, don't get involved in idolatry. And from blood, don't eat blood. It had to do with an Old Testament law, but it also has to do with some of the pagan practices. And from strangled, and from fornication. In other words, there's all these things that the Gentiles do that are against God's moral law. Fornication, idolatry, all these things. We're not telling them to keep Moses' law, but don't completely disregard God's moral laws, is what they're saying here. There are some Christians who take the idea that we're no longer under Moses' law to mean that we no longer have to obey God. That's not biblical. As if we have no commandments, as if there's nothing that we have. There's tons of commandments in the New Testament, and we understand that there are things, theft is still sinful, adultery is still sinful, fornication is still sinful, lying is still sinful, etc. That's not what we're talking about. In other words, they should still live godly lives, but they don't have to keep the Old Testament law. And so what does Paul do? Okay, let's go as far as we can. Now notice this, this is commendable. This is like what Paul does in other places where he says, I became all things to all men. If I'm with Jewish people, I'm careful to keep all the Jewish customs because there's no reason to offend someone needlessly when you're trying to give them the gospel. Or when you're trying to fellowship with them. Or if you're with Gentiles, then don't try to, you know, live in such a way that you would cause the Gentiles to take offense. And you know, we would do this culturally. Our missionaries do this. You go to a place, you learn that language, you learn that culture, you do these things so that you don't have an extra fence there. And we can, even though there may be loyalties. I remember talking to one of our missionaries and he said he was ministering in a foreign country and an American missionary came there and this American missionary instead of buying one of the local vehicles, had his Ford F-150 imported to that country, which is fine. But it's a country where they don't drive big vehicles. We're not talking about Africa, where you need an off-road vehicle. This was in Europe, where they have small cars. So he brings his F-150. Now, if you enjoy an F-150 here, great. They're great. Nice. Enjoy it. You know, we've got nice big roads and big trucks to drive. It's great. And then, he wore a cowboy hat and cowboy boots everywhere he went. And a big belt buckle. And he had a flag staff put in the back of his truck, and he flew an American flag everywhere he drove. Now, if you're in Europe and trying to minister to Europeans that way, all you're saying is, I'm a cowboy, obnoxious American who thinks you should all live like Americans. That's what they see when they see that. Now, if you want to be a proud American, I have no problem with that, but you're kind of going into somebody else's country and doing that. Imagine if somebody from France came here and started flying a French flag and, you know, dressing in a beret and telling Americans that you're stupid because you don't wear berets or whatever. You'd say, I'm being stereotypical, obviously. You'd be like, that's weird. You're in my country. Don't behave that way. So this guy goes there and talks about, you know, how he's standing up for the gospel and couldn't understand why nobody would come to his church. Well, why? Because he's being unnecessarily offensive. There's no reason to be unnecessarily offensive. Paul wasn't ever trying to be unnecessarily offensive. So therefore, in other words, let's get a hearing for the gospel. And so he took with, then Paul took them in, and the next day, purifying himself with them, entered into the temple. to signify the accomplishment of the days of purification until that an offering should be offered for every one of them. And when the seven days were almost ended, so this is that purification period, the Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people and laid hands on him. Now remember, this is a time That is a time when people are coming from all over the world to come and worship in the temple. Jews are coming from all over the world. So some of these people, some of these Jews in the temple have seen Paul preaching in synagogues and other places. And they see Paul now in the temple. Now, what is he doing? He's trying to go as far as he can to try to help these people and try to not give them a stumbling block. He's trying as much as he can to not be a problem for them. But when they see him there, They already don't like him. Keep this in mind. Many of these people already don't like him. They assume that he's trying to destroy Judaism and the Old Testament law. And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up the people and laid hands on him, crying out, Men of Israel, help! This is the man that teacheth all men everywhere against the people and the law in this place, and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place. He brought Gentiles into the temple and polluted it. Now, you have to understand, when we went through our Bible geography, for those of you who were there, we had some pictures of a model of the Old Testament temple. And there was a courtyard that was around it that was called the Court of the Gentiles, and Greek Gentiles were allowed in that area. But then there was a set of doors that you would enter in that was called the Court of the Women, and only Jews could pass through those doors. And then there was another set of doors that you passed through into the Court of the Men, and only Jewish men could pass through those doors. All right, and then you had the actual temple building, and only priests could enter inside of there. And inside that building, the final third of it was the holiest place, the Holy of Holies, and only the high priests could go in there once a year. So it got more and more selective the further you went into that temple area. So what they're accusing him of is taking Gentiles from the court of the Gentiles and bringing them into the holy place, not the holy place, but into the court of the Jews, the court of the women, or in further in where the sacrifices are being made, and therefore defiling the temple. Now this was something they took very seriously. There were very few things that the Romans allowed the Israelites to carry out capital punishment for. That is why when they wanted Jesus executed, they went to the Romans and asked that he be executed, because they didn't have the authority to do that. But there were signs in the temple precinct that if you written, okay, in multiple languages, saying that if you pass beyond this point, and you're a Gentile, it's the death penalty. and the Romans allowed that to be the death penalty because they allowed the Jews to take it that seriously. So there were posted signs, don't do this, you will die, the Romans will let you be executed for this. Even if you're a Roman citizen, which technically a Roman citizen could only be executed once he had a trial, but you could be executed without a trial for defiling the temple, if they caught you in those temple precincts and you're a Gentile. I mean, they were very serious about this. So this is not just a like, oh, he brought people in here who aren't supposed to be here. This is a death penalty kind of issue in their mind. They're really, really, really serious about this. And so what they're doing is they're accusing him of this. Now, do they have any proof? No. but what they had seen before him in the city with Trophimus, an Ephesian, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the temple. They saw him somewhere else in Jerusalem with this Gentile guy, and then when they see him in the temple, they're like, he brought that Gentile in here, didn't he? They didn't really see it. They just already are predisposed to not like Paul because they've already persecuted him. See, they're doing it without evidence. They don't care. They're opposed to Paul, and they're trying to stop him. And this informs us about the nature of persecution. that as Christians, there will be times that Satan will oppose us, and sometimes he will use human agents to do so. And by that, I don't mean these are Satan worshipers who know they're doing the will of Satan. I just mean they're also opposed to the gospel, and so therefore, in their opposition to the gospel, they will make up accusations against Christians that are unfounded. Okay? They will make things, you know, so for example, I remember hearing a person who was not a Christian talking about our church, they had visited our church, and this young woman said, you know, your church has been really nice to me, but if you think you're going to use that to trick me into becoming a Christian, that's not going to happen. Well, that's kind of like sinister. We weren't being nice to the person because we thought we could bribe them into becoming a Christian. If you become a Christian because I paid you $100, you didn't become a Christian. It doesn't work that way. It's a work of the Holy Spirit in your heart. So if you become a Christian to get stuff, then I question whether or not you're a Christian. So we weren't being kind because we were trying to buy this person's soul. We were being kind because God told us to be kind. And because we had a genuine concern for the person. But what did happen? What happens is your kindness gets accused of being sinister. And I don't, that don't, so what would be the wrong reaction here? We'll stop being kind to people. Okay. But our kindness gets accused of being sinister because, you know, why would anybody do this for somebody? People don't, people aren't nice to you just for no reason. They always want something from you. And so therefore Christians are only being nice because they're trying to trick you into becoming a Christian. So that's a slander. That's not true. And that kind of thing happens all the time. Think of all the kind of crazy ideas that people might have out there of how Christianity works, or what Christianity is, or who Christians are. There's all kinds of ideas out there. And they range from, I mean, to some people, the things that are going on in a church is almost scary. I remember hearing the testimony of a man who's got a fairly fruitful ministry in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was a drug addict who was living in what they call the schemes there, which is their word for the projects, basically. And he was living in the projects doing drugs and stuff. He said that they would, for whatever reason, they would never do drugs on like the steps of the church or things like that. Because they were afraid somehow God would notice that. But they would never go in the church because they were just kind of afraid of what went on inside the church. Eventually he got saved and he went back into those projects where he was where he was saved, where he grew up, and he started preaching to people and telling them, look, the Lord saved me and he was leading people to the Lord. Seeing all these people from, you know, drug addicts and all kinds of things, leading them to the Lord. But in his mind, before he came to Christ, the stuff that went on, I mean, we're probably wearing hoods, you know, and robes and chanting things and, you know, who knows what we're doing in here. I'm not saying this is obviously, I'm not saying everybody thinks that, but don't be surprised if people don't think there's some really weird things. Now, I do recognize that there's a church culture, that even if you grew up not singing the song we just sang, number 28, then you're kind of like, I've never heard this song before, and you didn't grow up with that as part of your church culture, it's new to you. But you gotta remember, when a visitor comes in, every song is new to them. You're not singing any songs they know. They're like, you know, I don't know any of these songs. None of these are on the radio. They're not on my iPod. iPod, I've really dated that. My phone. Sorry, I'm 10 years behind. And so people are gonna have, you know, there's average people out there who aren't looking to, I'm not saying the average person out there is looking to persecute Christians, but they just don't understand what goes on. But on the other hand, there are people who will take everything that a Christian does and try to color it in the worst possible way. just the worst, the most mileage they can get out of it, they will. And don't think that because we live in a free country that there aren't people who don't have those motives. I mean, there are. That they will try to make things as difficult for the gospel as they can. Okay? And they do it through various ways, through various means. You know, we don't really suffer significant persecution in America at all. We do have brothers and sisters around the world who do. China and India and North Korea and places like that in the Middle East. But notice here that these people are not being reasonable. They don't have real evidence. They're just mad at Paul because he's preaching the gospel and they're opposing him. And all the city was moved and the people ran together and they took Paul and drew him out of the temple forth and forth with the doors were shut. They closed the doors. We're gonna have to purify this place, make sure nobody else sneaks in here that's not supposed to be in here and they drag him out. I mean, this is not, excuse me, Paul, would you come with me? That's not what's going on here. This is a mob and they probably, I don't know if they grabbed him by the shirt collar, he didn't have a shirt probably, but the robe collar or whatever, by the arm, by the leg, they're dragging him. Okay, this is a mob of people who are angry and dragging you out to give you a beating. And as they went about to kill him, tidings came unto the chief captain of the band and all Jerusalem was in an uproar. Chief captain of the band has nothing to do with music, okay, this is the, soldiers, the Roman soldiers who were stationed right there on the Fortress Antonia right off the temple. And he hears that there's a riot going on. So he's afraid, you know, probably when he first hears the news, something's going on and I need to go break this up before it gets worse. We don't need a civil war here in Jerusalem. Who immediately took soldiers and centurions and ran down unto them. And when they saw the chief captain and the soldiers, they left beating of Paul. So what happens, they're giving him a beating. I mean, Paul's getting beat on. I don't think we often think about this. He probably was pretty bruised and beaten by the time they get there. Now, you know, when you got a mob like this and a bunch of men with spears and swords and armor show up, they tend to kind of clear out. Okay, this is the organized army has just showed up, so okay. And they come and they grab Paul. And then the chief captain came near and took him and commanded him to be bound with two chains and demanded who he was and what he had done. So he said, be sure you put those cuffs on tight is basically the two chains here. And some cried one thing and some another. He did this, he did that. There's all kinds of accusations against him among the multitude. And when he could not know the certainty for the tumult, he commanded him to be carried into the castle. Okay, castle's kind of a King James word. The idea is the fortress. There was a fortress there next to the temple that the Romans had built to keep secure the temple so that an uprising wouldn't take place. So he says, take him into the fortress. And when he had come upon the stairs, so they're climbing the stairs up into it, so it was that he was born of the soldiers for the violence of the people. The soldiers are carrying him now, for the multitude of the people followed after, crying, away with him. Now, that's not the first time we've heard a multitude cry that in the Bible, all right? Pontius Pilate comes out with Barabbas and with Jesus. He says, which one of these two? Thinking for sure they're gonna choose Jesus, not this criminal Barabbas. Do you want me to release unto you? And the high priest had got the multitude fired up to ask for Barabbas, and they do, and he says, what should I do for Jesus? What do they say? Away with him. They're calling for the same thing to happen to Paul that happened to Jesus. Execute him. Away with him. Get rid of this guy. Now, this is one of the things we have to understand. Thankfully, most of us haven't had to face this in our life, but if you're a Christian, if they persecuted Jesus, they will not be afraid to persecute you. I mean, he's the very son of God. If they're not afraid to persecute him, they will persecute his followers. Those who are enemies of the gospel will persecute us as well. We need to understand that there are some people, and this multitude represents part of that kind of thinking, that are so against the gospel that they will call for you to die. And as Paul was to be led into the castle, he said unto the chief captain, May I speak unto thee? Who said, Canst thou speak Greek? Oh, you speak Greek? In other words, you're part of the Roman Empire? Aren't they not that Egyptian, which before these days made us an uproar and lead us out into the wilderness, 4,000 men, that were murderers? So there had been this uprising led by a man of Egyptian descent, and Josephus records some of the details of this, a few details of this for us. And so he thinks this is this man, this insurrectionist. Paul said, I'm a man, which I'm a Jew of Tarsus. No, I'm a Jewish man, I'm from Tarsus, from a city in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city. And I beseech thee, suffer me to speak unto the people." Now, the man doesn't seem to make the connection yet, the captain, that citizens of Tarsus were also Roman citizens. But basically saying, I'm not Egyptian, I'm from Tarsus, which is, you know, that's a major city in the Roman Empire. It's an important city in the Roman Empire. It's a big deal to be a citizen of Tarsus. But being a citizen of Tarsus also meant you were a Roman citizen, which it doesn't seem like yet in the story that the This, you know, this commander of the Roman garrison knows that yet, because he wouldn't have arrested Paul and put him in chains if he knew that. And when he had given him license, Paul stood on the stairs and beckoning with the hand of the people. And when there was made a great silence, he speak unto them in the Hebrew tongue. And we won't get into his address yet, but what happens is Paul gets the opportunity then to speak to these people. And what happens is, They make a silence because they hear him speak. In the Hebrew tongue, there's some debate about what this is. We do know that the Jews in and around Jerusalem did still speak Hebrew at times, the old Hebrew from the Old Testament. But we also do know that most of, like in the Galilee and in much of Judea, people spoke Aramaic because that was the language they had picked up in the captivity, the Babylonian captivity. So whether he's Bayit, they mean the language of the Hebrews, which could be Hebrew, or could be the Aramaic language they speak. And they're similar languages, like Italian and Spanish would be similar, or like German and Dutch might be similar, or something like that. They're not identical, but there's enough overlap that you could get an idea that they're similar sister languages. So whichever one it is, he's going to address them. But when they hear that language, he's not speaking Latin, he's not speaking Greek, they hear that language, they're like, oh, wait. He knows our language, and they give a hearing. Now notice this, though, that many times, persecution ends up giving us an opportunity to spread the gospel. There's a famous Romanian pastor who was arrested, Richard Wernbrand, who was arrested during communism, and he was put in prison. And as a pastor, he started preaching to the other prisoners in the communist jail. And the communist told him, you may not preach to the prisoners or we'll give you a beating. And he and the other pastors had a conversation and they said, God told us to preach, I guess this is the price of preaching, getting a beating once in a while. So he got up and he preached the gospel in that prison. And the communist gave him a beating. And he said, I got up, I preached the gospel and I was happy to preach. Then the communist guards got up and they gave me a beating and they were happy to give me a beating. And he said, at the end of the day we were all happy. And he saw many people come to Christ through that preaching. So people who wouldn't have heard the gospel otherwise. So sometimes the Lord uses, he makes the wrath of man to praise him. That God can turn, as Joseph says to his brothers, you're selling me into slavery. You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good. That God can take even these evil acts of other human beings and use them for his glory and for his purposes. He can use the evil acts of a betrayal of Judas to send Jesus to the cross and work our atonement. He can use the evil hatred of these persecutors of Christians against Paul, and he can use it for Paul to have a hearing on the steps and address almost the whole multitude in the temple. This is an opportunity he might not have had any other way. So we have to understand that when it comes to persecution, that many times persecution gives opportunities that we never thought we would have. But we also have to understand that if they persecuted Christ, they will also persecute us. And we cannot expect reasonableness out of those who persecute us. You're not going to reason your way out of it. Okay, I don't know if we've ever thought about this. That there's not always going to be a legal way out. There's not always going to be a rational way out. That you might be able to score debate points against your accusers, but yet they will still persecute you. You understand this? In other words, rational arguments won't mean anything to them. Your life won't mean anything to them. They will look at it as if, so what, you might have done these good things, but you're still evil. So you can point to the things that, you know, when you think about some of the things around the world that are helpful things, you know, how many good things over the last hundred years has the Red Cross done? How many people have they rescued? How much food? How many blankets, etc., have they provided for people? What was the Red Cross? Why is it called the Red Cross? Because originally it was founded by Christians. basically a secular organization today, but originally it was founded as a Christian aid group. The Salvation Army is much the same way. Why is it called the Salvation Army? Because the idea was they were preaching the gospel and helping people, right? And there's many, many of those groups. How many places, even we prayed for one of our retired missionaries this morning and he volunteers as a chaplain at a Baptist hospital, and yet you can go to a lot of places and you can find a Catholic hospital or Baptist hospital or whatever, and in the larger setting of Christendom you can find a lot of things have been done in the name of Christ to do good for people, right? But yet there are people who oppose the gospel out there that would much rather have there be no hospital than have there be a Christian hospital. There are people who oppose the name of Christ who would much rather have people be hungry and cold than have the Red Cross give out anything because there's a cross on their symbol. And that's not rational or reasonable. It doesn't even make sense. They're going to hurt themselves in the process. But they would rather harm themselves in their own cause than allow Christianity to go forward. And we have to understand this because we will get very frustrated if we think that we can always reason with persecution. You can't. That doesn't mean that, you know, when we see Paul repeatedly, you know, he tells them what city he's a citizen of. Other times we find that he uses his Roman citizenship. So there's nothing wrong with using legal protections to be protected. That's not what we're talking about here. But there are some times that the legal protections are gone, or ignored, or whatever, and Christians face persecution in the midst of that, and there's really no out. We can't always escape persecution. Our brothers and sisters who are persecuted are not persecuted around the world, are not persecuted just because they're not quite as clever as us. They're persecuted because there is an enemy of the gospel who would like to undo the cause of Christ and doesn't want other people to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. And that's Satan. And that there are many people who have that same heart to oppose the gospel. So what does the Apostle Paul say as a response to this? Pray for all men everywhere that we might lead quiet and peaceable lives. So you know what? One of the best protections from persecution is pray, especially for our leaders, that we can continue to follow the Lord in peace. That we can continue to follow the Lord in peace and worship him. Persecution may come, the Lord may bring it, and he can use it in many ways, but the fact is that we still would prefer not to have it, and that the peace that comes after persecution often leads to great great spread of the gospel. You know, why is it that you know the name, probably many of you know the name Charles Spurgeon, who was a famous pastor in London, but the pastors who were before him, many of those names you might not know. You might not know, you know, the names of previous pastors of that church. And the reason you don't is that Shortly before Charles Spurgeon's time, the laws changed in England to allow churches that were non-conformist, that is, they didn't conform to the English Book of Common Prayer, to actually freely meet and not have consequences. But before Spurgeon's time, there was consequences for that, and it was much more costly to attend a church like what became the Metropolitan Tabernacle. Now, they grew, and they saw the gospel go forward in the midst of that persecution, but once that persecution was lifted, then all of a sudden, this is not a church of 200 in the case, of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, but it's a church of thousands. Okay, now, so what we have to understand is that peace can often lead, that persecution can lead to people hearing the gospel, but it's often the peaceful times when we're able to peacefully preach the gospel that we're able to really spread the seed. And so we're not really looking for persecution. This is not a biblical thing. I know in the early church, sometimes in the second and third century, there were people who would volunteer to be martyred. They'd say, you know, I want to die for Jesus, and they'd go to the Roman authorities. I'm a Christian. You haven't found me. Please kill me, basically. Now, it was noble that they died for Christ, but I just don't find that in the Bible, that you should go volunteer. If they catch you, they catch you, and then you die nobly for Christ, but you don't go, you know, I really think I should die today. No, we pray that we could lead quiet and peaceful lives before the Lord. And so prayer is one of those key things. I don't know, I mean, we do in our services, but how often do we pray that the Lord would help us, help our brothers and sisters who were persecuted, but also help us, that we would have wisdom and that we would be able to lead quiet and peaceful lives? That is a great blessing from God. Finally, I've been talking about all of these things about persecution and all of that, but you might wonder, what am I talking about? Maybe you're here visiting with us. I don't know anybody's heart in here. Maybe you've never come to saving faith in Jesus Christ. What are we talking about? What is it that's worth suffering for here? Why would the Apostle Paul be willing? He knows he went to Jerusalem with the idea he's going to be arrested. He's been arrested. Why would you do that? Why would you go volunteer to do that, to say, hey, I'll go there and risk this? because of the good news of the gospel, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. You see, the Bible tells us that every person in this room, every person in this world is a sinner. Every one of us has rebelled against God. We've gone our own way. We've done life our own way. We've not really liked God's commandments. We've really not liked God or what he intended for us. And so what we have then is we have a We have a situation in which we are condemned before God because God is a righteous judge. And that condemnation puts us in a place of danger before God. A place of danger that we couldn't remedy ourselves. We can't be good enough to commend ourselves before God. We can't be good enough to undo our sins. Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but by his mercy he saves us. And so God loved us so much that he provided a way of salvation through his son Jesus Christ. So that he sent the second person of the triune Godhead, the Son, took on our humanity, he lived a righteous life on this earth, he died on the cross to pay for our sins, and he rose again to give us eternal life. What did Jesus say? What will a man give in exchange for his soul? You see, the reason that Paul was willing to be persecuted for this and that for 2,000 years there have been Christians who've been willing to be persecuted for this is because we recognize that there's time and there's eternity and that eternity is much more valuable than time. As the famous missionary Jim Elliot said, he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. In other words, you can't keep this life, you can't lose eternal life. And he's not talking about gaining eternal life in the sense of earning it, but the sense is that if you have to choose between this life and eternal, you're a fool if you gain this life and give up eternal life. And so the good news of the gospel is that there is a hope of eternal life through Jesus Christ, that if we'll come in repentant faith to Jesus, by repentance I don't mean penance, I don't mean doing good things, I mean turning from my sin and turning in faith to Jesus. If I'll come in saving faith to Jesus, what I learn is that I have eternal life and that is worth whatever persecution comes around. That the glory of Jesus is worth this. Now, do we volunteer for it? Do we go looking for it? No. But if it comes and it's the will of God, then we say, I will joyfully follow the Lord. Maybe you're here with us today and you've never come to Saving Faith in Jesus Christ. I want to invite you to do so even today. After this service, you can find me, you can find Pastor Jed. We'd be glad to find somebody who can sit down with you, show you from the Bible how you can know for sure you have Christ.