This morning, we're returning to Acts, and we come to chapter 22. We'll be reading all of the chapter, verse 1 through 30. But let's first ask the Lord for his blessing on his word today. Father, as we come to hear your word, we know that it's a great privilege that we have to meet with you and have you speak to us. As Peter said, where else shall we go for you alone have words of eternal life. Lord, give us that portion of our daily bread, our weekly bread as it were today. And we pray that you would help us to understand, help us to receive what you would have for us to know and learn and do by faith. We pray that you would confirm those things that we know, help us to see more clearly what has become confused or obscure to us. Lord, lead us to be recommitted to the gospel of Jesus Christ, to see its value for us, and our place in being your disciples to bring it to a very needy world about us. We pray for not only understanding, but Lord, your spirit to work in us, to motivate us, to not only receive, but make known what we hear as well. And so bless your word to each one of us, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, Paul, of course, has been opposed by the Jews and he's been now bound by the Roman guards. And he's about ready to make his appearance before the Jews to give his defense. And so having obtained permission, he says in chapter 22, brethren and fathers, hear my defense which I now offer to you. And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew dialect, they became even more quiet and he said, I am a Jew born in Tarsus of Cilicia. but brought up in this city, educated under Gamaliel, strictly according to the law of our fathers, being zealous for God just as you all are today. I persecuted this way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons, as also the high priest and all the council of the elders can testify. From them I also received letters to the brethren, and started off for Damascus in order to bring even those who were there to Jerusalem as prisoners to be punished. But it happened that as I was on my way approaching Damascus about noontime, a very bright light suddenly flashed from heaven all around me and I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And I answered, who are you, Lord? And he said to me, I am Jesus the Nazarene, whom you are persecuting. And those who were with me saw the light to be sure, but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me. And I said, what shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said to me, get up and go on into Damascus and there you will be told of all that has been appointed for you to do. But since I could not see because of the brightness of that light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me and came into Damascus. A certain man, Ananias, a man who was devout by the standard of the law and well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there, came to me and standing near said to me, Brother Saul, receive your sight. And at that very time, I looked up at him and he said, the God of our fathers has appointed you to know his will and to see the righteous one and to hear an utterance from his mouth. For you will be a witness for him to all men of what you have seen and heard. Now, why do you delay? Get up and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name. It happened when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple that I fell into a trance and I saw him saying to me, make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly because they will not accept your testimony about me. And I said, Lord, they themselves understand that in one synagogue after another, I used to imprison and beat those who believed in you. And when the blood of your witness, Stephen, was being shed, I also was standing by approving and watching out for the coats of those who were slaying him. And he said to me, go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles. They listened to him up to the statement and then they raised their voices and said, away with such a fellow from the earth, for he should not be allowed to live. And as they were crying out and throwing off their cloaks and tossing dust into the air, the commander ordered him to be brought into the barracks, stating that he should be examined by scourging so that he might find out the reason why they were shouting against him that way. But when they stretched him out for the thongs, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman and uncondemned? When the centurion heard this, he went to the commander and told him saying, what are you about to do? For this man is a Roman. The commander came and said to him, tell me, are you a Roman? And he said, yes. The commander answered, I acquired the citizenship with a large sum of money. And Paul said, but I was actually born a citizen. Therefore, those who were about to examine him immediately let go of him. And the commander also was afraid when he found out that he was a Roman and because he had put him in chains. But on the next day, Wishing to know for certain why he had been accused by the Jews, he released him and ordered the chief priests and all the council to assemble and brought Paul down and set him before them. And thus far in our reading, I admit it's difficult to break up the reading because it just keeps going on and you want to learn what happens in the next segment, but we read this much today. Listening to Paul's accusers, you would think that the good news of Jesus Christ is anti-Jewish. That's what you would think if you were to listen to Paul's accusers. He preaches against Moses. He teaches contrary to the law. He wants our temple destroyed. He's trying to change customs that we've had as our customs for generations. And worse, he goes into synagogues to make converts, to build churches among the Gentiles, having formerly been a Jew. Those are the kinds of allegations that the Apostle Paul has been facing. And now having brought an offering from the Gentile Christians to the Jews in Jerusalem, and while presenting an additional offering in the temple according to the law, Paul is ironically accused of breaking the law. That's the climate that he's in. The Jews would kill him if they could. But the Roman authorities step in. They hated any degree of civil unrest throughout the empire. And so they take over and they bind Paul so that they can sort through the issues. Now we as the readers understand that all these accusations are completely false. They're misguided. They are not true at any level. They are unfortunate misunderstandings of both Paul and the gospel that he's preaching. No, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not anti-Jewish. Indeed, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the true, it is the proper fulfillment of the Old Testament. Old Testament Judaism, the gospel with its types, with its laws, with its feasts, with its sacrificial system, with its genealogies, with its prophecies, All of these are like streams that are going downhill and gradually empty into the very person and the work of Jesus Christ. That's how to read your Old Testament. They empty into the very person of Jesus the Nazarene, the Messiah. So the gospel, Christianity, Christ is not anti-Jewish. It is what God prepared first for the Jew and also for the Gentile. The gospel is altogether Jewish. It is from the Jews and it is for the Jews, even as it is the Gentile. So Paul is falsely accused and he's here beginning to stand for these trials. Which is why Luke, in these later chapters of the Book of Acts, has now moved from biographical to judicial. He's really not anymore explaining the gospel, but showing how the gospel is to be defended. Defended. He's concerned to show the integrity of Paul. the integrity even of the gospel itself. He's to vindicate Paul before the readers, just as God was actually doing with Paul before the Jews and before the Roman authorities. Once again, these later chapters of Acts about Paul before the Jews and the Romans is very similar to what we read in the gospel of Jesus before the Jews and the Roman authorities. And so for the next several chapters, we're going to look at Paul's defense. It's always in the singular. It's never defenses, though he gives that many times. It is one defense. It's the same defense over and over and over again. Paul's defense. But as we begin to look at Paul's defense, there are several features about it that we want to see. And they give us various truths about contending for the gospel, even in our own times. It's valuable for us to see Paul relay the gospel on trial. It teaches us how to defend the faith. Now, I know that there are some facets of this that applied to the first century. They don't apply to us. We have no reason to expect them to be cookie cutter applied to our own time, things that are unique, that don't carry over, like being blinded from a light from heaven, the personal appearance of the Lord Jesus Christ, a voice from heaven that speaks, a direct voice speaking either to Paul or in this case to Ananias. Ananias himself restoring sight to blind Paul. These are things that are miraculous for the time as Paul was being called as an apostle. They're not for all times being called as Christians. But even so we look at various truths that have to do for us contending for the faith. The first one of those is this, that we give a defense of the gospel as well. We give a defense for the gospel as well. You notice Paul here at chapter 22, verse 1. Brethren and fathers, hear my defense, which I now offer to you. This is the first use of that word, and Paul is going to use it again and again. Luke is going to write it for us again and again. If you go over to chapter 24 and verse 10. When the governor had nodded for Paul to speak, Paul responded, knowing that for many years you have been a judge to this nation, I cheerfully make my defense. Again in chapter 25. In verses 7 through 8, Paul arrived at another occasion. The Jews who had come down from Jerusalem stood around him bringing many serious charges against him, which they could not prove, while Paul said in his own defense, I have committed no crime. Again, in that same chapter, verse 16, as Festus, that governor, brings to a grip of Paul's case that's sort of been laid over for a long time. And in verse 16, I answered them that it is not the custom of the Romans to hand over any man before the accused meets his accuser face to face and has an opportunity to make his defense against the charges. Paul is making a defense for why he's put on trial. Again in chapter 26 verses 1 and 2, Paul stretched out his hand and proceeded to make his defense. And he says, King Agrippa, I am about to make my defense before you today. Again, Paul keeps going back to that one defense that he has given and that he keeps on making. Paul would say to the Corinthians, to those who examine me, my defense is this. In Philippians 1.7, he says he was appointed for the defense of the gospel. Again, in verse 16, the same thing. At 2 Timothy 4.16, to bring it all the way around full circle, he says at the end of his life, at my first defense, no one supported me. Paul is here making a defense. And so this defense is simply an argument. It's an explanation. This is a defense that's saying, here's what I believe and here's why I believe it. Here's my response to the allegation and the charges. This is why you should not make those and why you should accept what I say. That's his defense. Paul made a defense. It was public, it was before the religious, it was before the civil realm. But the point here is that you and I make a defense as well. You say, well, I'm not an apostle. I'm not called as a preacher. I grant that. But don't forget 1 Peter chapter 3. where Paul is writing to all of the people in Asia Minor who are believers, and he says to them in chapter three, verse 15, sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks of you, the reason for the hope that is in you. And so you and I, Peter is saying, ought to be ready to give a defense. We, like Paul, should be ready to say, here's what I believe, here's why I believe it, and why you too should accept the same. That's what a defense is. It's an explanation that not only ordained preachers give, but common believers, all believers, give for the sake of the gospel. This is the word apologia. Maybe you hear the word that we get from that in the English language, apology. That's where we get it from, an apologia. But this is quite different than the apology that you're used to hearing. We don't use apology the same way as is used here. When we apologize for something, what do we do? We backtrack, we say, oh no, no, no, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that, I meant something else than what you're understanding. And so it's an apology that is saying sorry for. It's not wanting to give a defense, it's just the opposite actually. And so the lesson here is that of course, we don't apologize for our faith in that sense of the word. We don't apologize. We're not ashamed of these things. We don't doubt these things. We don't not believe these things of the gospel. We do believe them. And because we believe them, we contend. We defend the faith. We advocate. We go forward with the claims that they are right. And we explain them to people as our apology or our defense. So we don't apologize for the gospel. We apologize for the gospel. You get the point? We don't go backward with it. We go forward with it. Apology in the right sense of the word, a defense for the faith. Now you think about it, and that is because your faith, when it's being opposed, or questioned, or mocked, or berated, or whatever the verb is. The gospel is there on trial. You are on trial. It's as though Paul there before the Jews and the Romans, and you and I give our defense, we're on trial. And Peter has said right here, sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you. for the reason of the hope that's within you. And that ask is not to the effect, could you please tell me about this? That ask carries the force of a demand. Tell us, how can this possibly be? These things are rubbish, they are foolishness. And so the question is not really a question at all, it's a statement. And even so, you and I must be ready to make a defense just like Paul was in his own way. But as you and I give our defense, we have to remember that we give our defense without being defensive. We give our defense, but we're in no way defensive. In other words, we're not conceited. We're not proud. We're not brash. We're not rude. We're not impatient. We're not condescending. We're not unloving, but we are truthful and wanting people to understand. If you look at the way Paul handled, the way the Roman leaders treated him there, you can see something of the non-defensiveness of our attitude and our way toward those who ask us for such a defense. If you go over back to Acts chapter 22, excuse me, chapter 21, And you notice here that as Paul is brought into the barracks, look at the respectfulness and the mannerliness of Paul. Chapter 21, verse 37, he said to the commander, may I say something to you? And obviously he said it in Greek because the Roman guy says, do you know Greek? Then you're not the Egyptian who some time ago stirred up a revolt. Paul said, I am a Jew of Tarshish in Cilicia, a citizen of no insignificant city, and I beg you, allow me to speak to the people." Well, is that something common to happen? I mean, does the guy that's just shackled there suddenly be given the floor to talk to people? Well, there was something in Paul's way and the truthfulness and the stuff of his comments and the way he said them that had a winsomeness about them, that even the Roman commander would be inclined toward him. And so Paul stands on the stairs and he starts to speak to the people. You notice Paul's manner there of being respectful and honoring authority and being peaceable. In chapter 22, You see the way Paul makes his defense in verse 22, where the Jews are saying, as many people do in the streets nowadays and on social media, away with such a fellow from the earth. He should not be allowed to live. So the commander comes down into the barracks, tries to take control of all these things. They even go to the length of stretching Paul out and getting the leather thongs and the whips ready to inquire of him and understand from him what is going on and why he's occasioning all this rioting. But when they had stretched him out, verse 25, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman and uncondemned? He doesn't say to the effect, what are you doing? You guys are crazy. No, he's being respectful. And he asks, is it a question? And I think that he says it at this point so that he can further have his rights legally recognized for his protection by the Roman government. He could have said this kind of thing earlier, mistreatment. And so then the centurion heard and he went to the commander and told him saying, what are you about to do? This man's a Roman. He inquires further, tell me, are you a Roman? Paul said, yes. And Claudius Lysias, the Roman leader here says, well, I acquired this with a large sum of money, read bribe. Paul just simply says, however, I acquired it by birth, I was born a citizen. Doesn't argue with him, just simply answers and discusses the truth of the matter. Paul is here giving us a way to defend our faith, not only in terms of the substance of the gospel as we'll see, but in the attitude that's Christ-like, that's wanting to win people to the faith. And so Paul here shows us that we are to make a defense for the gospel as well. And here's something of how it is to be done in terms of our mannerisms. Well, number two, as we go on to see these features that teach us about making a defense for the gospel, number two, we should set forth the gospel Much like Paul did in terms of the content, the stuff of the gospel, the very substance of the news itself and what God has done. We see this at verses three through 16 in Acts chapter 22. You look at the way Paul relayed his witness. He knew who he was. And he relayed who he was as a Jew before the time that he knew Christ. Listen to him at verse two. I am a Jew. And in all these comments, he is seeking to tell the Jewish people, I'm a lot like you. I'm very much like you. I am a Jew. I'm not a Gentile who's been favoring the Gentiles. I'm a Jew. I'm born in Tarsus of Cilicia. I was brought up in the city of Jerusalem, reared, raised, nurtured in Jerusalem. I was educated under Gamaliel, one of the brightest teachers of the law at that time from the Hillel school. Strictly so, according to the law of our fathers. In other words, not just Gamaliel, but all the teachers who had advocated the faith up until this time. Not only was I educated well, but internally I was zealous for God, just as you all are today. Well, what a diplomatic way of speaking to these hostile Jews. I'm a lot like you are. I have education, I have commitment to Jerusalem, all the ethnicity, the heritage of the faith, I own it, it's mine, and I'm a lot like you are. Paul would say that basically he was the model Jew, as he'd say to the Philippians, a Hebrew of Hebrews, Pharisee, as to the law, blameless. He was a lot like them. He knew his audience, however, better than his audience. Because he goes on to say that basically, even as he's a Jew, he's a lot better Jew than they are. Because his life as a Jew, as you look at what he thought of Christians in Christianity, verse four, I persecuted this way to the death. I was the ringleader against the way. I did more than you guys did. I persecuted. And I took all of my ancestry, all of the heritage, all of my training under Gamaliel, and I went persecuting the Christians. I locked them up. I even went and got permission by letter and writing to go even up to Damascus and bring them back to be imprisoned here. He was much more earnest than even the audience who was listening to him. He persecuted. He was belligerent. He was a violent aggressor. He was a blasphemer, though he thought he was doing what was the right. You see, there's something in the way we relay our testimony, and we give a defense for the gospel ourselves, that we come to people and we say, I'm a lot like you. I have a feeling contribution to what humanity is. I'm a real person. I'm marked by real things of the life that we have together, be it as humans, be it as citizens, be it as neighbors. I know what it is to be a sinner, is what Paul is saying. But as he goes on, he tells not only what his life was like before, knowing Christ. He then goes on to tell how he came to know Christ. Or is it how Christ came in bringing his knowledge of Saul to Saul of Tarsus. It happened as I was, verse six, on my way approaching Damascus. From noontime there a bright shining light suddenly flashed from heaven all around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? You see here, Paul says, my state was perilous. I was on a track to persecute Christians, but Christ was pursuing me. And I was under his judgment. He blinded me from my sin. Paul is saying here, I was hostile. I was a rebel against Jesus Christ. I hated people. I hated people. I hated Jews who had become Christians, who embraced the Messiah. I was a rebel against God. I walked disobediently. I walked with anger against other people. It's interesting the way Jesus brings this out. Saul, you're persecuting me. All those Christians, I've paid for them. They're being conformed to my image. They are my possession. You're persecuting me. Get your hands off my property, is the type. I take this personally, Saul. If you could get to me in heaven, that's what you're doing with persecuting all these Christians. You're persecuting me. And he identifies himself as Jesus the Nazarene. That's the word, the go-to word for the Jews to condemn the Messiah, Jesus Christ. He's of Nazareth. This poor wretch of a man born of fornication, the Nazarene. That's how they used it. And Jesus says to them, I am Jesus, that Nazarene that you're persecuting. Paul, did you want to reconsider what you're doing? Paul, I've graciously appeared to you. I've shown my light around you to expose your sin. You're a rebel. And as we relay our testimony, there must be something in that where we show that we are a lot like the people we're caring for to bring the gospel to. That this was us and God had mercy upon us. We were on a one-track journey toward God's judgment. and Jesus graciously stopped us. It's not only that we were rebels, but we were ignorant of Jesus Christ. I think of all the many years that as a Roman Catholic, going to Mass, hearing the same liturgy over and over, if you would ask me why did Jesus die on the cross, I'd have no answer for you. I didn't know. I could recite the creed, that's a good thing, but I didn't know Jesus. I was a hostile rebel, and I was ignorant. And so you look at Paul here at verse eight, his answer to that is, who are you, Lord? We can't escape the lordship of Jesus Christ, but who are you? You're only a voice. There's nothing real to my heart. Who are you? Of all of his religious learning, all of his pedigree, he didn't know the Messiah. Beware, lest in knowing much, you miss knowing the Messiah. That was Paul's place, and Jesus had great mercy upon him. In his ignorance, he did not understand the voice. Jesus was merciful and gave him salvation. You look at the wonderful way in which he does this, that there's a special privilege Paul has. He gets to understand now who it is who's speaking to him. As it says there, the other people, they didn't know the voice that was speaking. Ananias will say, you're privileged to know, to hear the utterance from heaven. The others were without that. Verse 14, God has appointed you to know his will. He has appointed you to see the righteous one. He saw Jesus Christ in all his glory. And that phrase, the righteous one, that's the word that Isaiah used of my righteous one who will justify the many. This is the one who would save sinners and impute to them his righteousness through faith alone. Paul got to know and receive of that. What a blessed privilege. He has appointed you to see the righteous one. And as Calvin says here in light of verse 10, where Paul says, what shall I do, Lord? Notice how it's changed. Paul says here, we see a tamed man. He's gone from who are you, Lord, to what shall I do? Lord, I met your service. I've been humbled. I see my wrongs. Your light has exposed my sin. And now, Lord, what shall I do? Sinner that I am, but righteous one that you are. It's interesting that here we have references to Stephen's martyrdom. That's how Stephen began his Message, you might remember. Fathers and brothers. It's the way Paul began it. Here, Stephen, at the end of chapter seven, referred to the Messiah as the righteous one. Saul is here reminded that he's seen the righteous one. And Ananias is going to say, why do you delay? Get up, be baptized, wash away your sins, and call on the Lord's name. That's exactly what Stephen did was call on the Lord's name as he was about ready to die. All of these things about Stephen now are brought back to Saul and he's humbled. Saul's bringing that forth as his defense. How he was a rebel and how Jesus had mercy upon him. Paul has a humble heart. He's baptized, he receives the sign of the new covenant. He indicates his repentance as they were doing from John the Baptizer on for the forgiveness of sins. What shall I do, Lord? And he's praying afterward in the Temple of Jerusalem. Not saying his prayers as he probably did many times as a good, faithful Jewish man, but he's praying. He's praying. You see how Paul, and again, this is years later, This is some 25 years later from the things he was telling about. He's ready for his testimony. He's ready to preach the gospel. He's ready to tell people what he was like and now what Christ has brought to him. As we make our defense, have we forgotten how Christ had mercy upon us? Have we forgotten some of who we were and what Jesus saved us from? Paul is ready. to recount the history all over again. I think that Christ was so gracious to him and gave him that sense of his mercy day by day that Paul enlivened it, fertilized it as it were in his life and was so deeply meaningful to Paul that he was just freely telling these things when having the opportunity. I wonder how it is for us. Is the gospel of grace something that just happened to us or was brought to us 25 years ago, 30 years ago, 40, 50 years ago? Or is it something that we're rethinking, recontemplating, rehearsing? How much does it mean to you that Jesus has saved you as he has? Are you free then to make that defense toward others that ask? Inquire about it? And being affected at a heart level and stirring that up in our devotions, in our worship time together, our studies together, we're made all the more ready. We have something to offer because we're reminded how valuable it is for us now and forever. Perhaps you're here today and you're Thinking about these things and you're in this kind of crisis situation where you're convicted of your sins and you know the thing that you ought to do, but there's a sort of paralysis, there's a shock, there's a confusion about life now that you don't know the way forward and you're sort of blinded still with scales on your eyes. Listen to Ananias response to Saul, because it's that response that we ought to give to other people. He says there in verse 16, now, why do you delay? Why do you delay? Get up and be baptized and wash away your sins and call on the Lord's name. Friend, how do you see yourself looking at Paul? Do you see yourself as a sinner against God, in need of being forgiveness, hostile in your ways leading away from God and toward hostility even to other people? Are you in need of Christ? Why do you delay? Call on Christ. Today could very well be the day of your salvation. Why do you delay? Why is it? Do you delay? Why do you delay? We ought to impress on people the need to be right with God today. You fool, Jesus said to the man who was gonna put additions onto his barns. Your very life is required of you tonight. Why do you delay? We have to call people to embrace Jesus Christ. to receive him while there is time to be receiving him. So we must make our defense as Paul did and as was done toward him in the gospel message. Thirdly, as we do this, we have to speak the language of the people that we seek to reach. I think there's something of a lesson about that in verse two. When they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew dialect, they became even more quiet. There's all these Jews. If he spoke to them in Greek, how do you think they'd take that? Yeah, there he goes, there's the Gentile speaking another language, this apostate Jew. But no, Paul comes to them, and to the Jew, he becomes a Jew. He speaks in the Hebrew dialect. Now, it may have been an Aramaic, modern equivalent of what was the Hebrew long ago. They had gone into captivity many years ago, and when they came back, they were influenced by the language of that culture. But at any rate, it's the Hebrew, the Aramaic dialect. And you notice the effect. These violent, riotous, prone people became more quiet. You see, what Paul did is he took a footstep into their world and he entered into their midst, as it were, and he came down to their level and he spoke their language. I think there's something for us that as we make our defense of the gospel, we have to No people. We have to speak their language as much as we have another language to speak as well. We're well-versed perhaps in these things of the gospel and Christianity, but the people we want to reach are not so necessarily. We have lots of things that we can discuss that they probably know, perhaps that the Bible is the word of God, or that God is a triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. There may be some who can, like me, long ago, recite the creed, but I don't have an understanding of what that's about. And we need to bring our vocabulary, our discussion, our illustrations, our ways of helping people to come down to the straightforward. We have to speak to them as it were in the Hebrew dialect. The very easy ways of relating the gospel. Here's God, here's you, and there's a huge chasm that you will never be able to cross. God sent his son and put down a bridge and walked over such as to lay hold of sinners and bring them to himself. To some that might be the difference between heaven and hell for them. And it's spoken in such a way that they can lay hold of Christ and walk as it were to the other side. all kinds of illustrations that we might use. Obviously, we don't speak in such language of infralapsarian decrees that are brought upon the sinner in God's foreordained counsel and his secret decree. That's for as we learn all of the wonderful things that God had planned in eternity for us to know and stand in awe of all the more. But for most of the people, they need to understand how the Old Testament and the New Testament relates to them. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes on him should not perish but have everlasting life. It's a trustworthy statement deserving of full acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Such things we have to get down to the level of the people, which means that you and I need to befriend people. We need to know how they think. What are they interested in? What are their hangups? Are they readers? Are they watchers? Do they listen well? Are they inclined to the mysterious or do they like the straightforward? What are they struggling with? What might we share about our own experiences or obstacles we had to believing the gospel? All sorts of things. The lesson is very simply to come to the people. as it were, in the Hebrew dialect, in the language that's familiar and beloved to them. God help us as we seek to apply that, but that's the direction that Paul takes with these that are his accusers, no less. We sum it up and say in our fourth one that God may connect our defense of the gospel to something other and different in the times to come. This might be a first of others to come. And we should be ready for those others as well. He may connect our giving a defense in one time to something else, another opportunity. Because as we'll see with the book of Acts, Paul doesn't just go before this Jewish audience and Roman official. We see in chapter 23 and 24 that he appears before Felix, the governor. And this man, Claudius Lysias, is gonna write a letter and say, here's what happened in Jerusalem one day, and the Jews did this, and I tried to rescue Paul, and we gave him opportunity to speak, but there were charges that we need to sift through, and so Felix, could you look into it? Well, Paul is gonna get another opportunity to make a defense for the faith and the gospel. Paul is then gonna be appealing and Festus will take over for Felix. And he'll say, well, we have this layover case that it's been many months now and we got to deal with this. And so Festus will get to hear Paul's defense. And then when the Jews accused Paul again, Paul's going to appeal to Caesar. And he's gonna be told, you know, we could have dealt with this pretty straightforwardly, but since you've appealed to Caesar, to Caesar, you will go. And as Paul back in chapter 19 said, I must see Rome also on his missionary trips. God used that desire and said, I have something else for you, Paul, in Rome. You'll get to Rome, but it's gonna be under different circumstances than you see. You'll be under house arrest, waiting appeal for Caesar, and you will make a defense. You see, Paul had no idea that this one defense was leading to other opportunities. You and I, as we give the gospel in one place, that may lead to someone else. That may lead to further discussion with the people that we initially make our defense. Is this how you see your various parts of your life? It may seem confused, fragmented, disjointed, trying to bring this one person to believe the gospel, and then you don't see the person for a while, but God leads you to something else, someone else. That's the way it was with Paul. God was in his giving a defense for the faith, opening up other opportunities from that. So we don't grow discouraged. We simply be ready to make our defense as God gives us opportunities. So what have we learned? We've learned that we must give a defense of the gospel like Paul. We've learned secondly, that we should set forth the gospel in terms of who we were as a sinner under God's judgment and how we were saved by Jesus Christ. We should do this speaking the language of the people, seeking to draw them with understanding to Jesus Christ and knowing that God will connect this somehow to other opportunities to bring the gospel to people even more. Once again, as Peter reminds us, sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to give a defense to those who ask you for the reason for the hope that is within you. We'll have more opportunities to prepare for this, but God, help us with these more simple points of giving a defense for the gospel. Let us pray. O Lord, as we consider Paul on trial, and we consider that we often are brought forth to people that would either ridicule us or oppose us for our Christian faith, Lord, help us to be ready to give an answer, to be winsome and respectful, concerned and caring in it as Paul was, and simply to set forth the truth as you've shown it in the Gospel and in our own history as people. We pray that, Lord, as we seek to win people to Christ, that you would draw them that by your Holy Spirit you would convict them, that they might see something of themselves, and even more, be given eyes to know Jesus Christ in truth. Lord, how grateful we are that you've had mercy upon us. Keep us studying the gospel, that we would never lose the wonderful joy of those early times when we came to know you. when we were excited, when we were sharing, when we were studying and ready to know more. Lord, continue and revive that in us, we pray, that we might be useful, that other people would see a living faith in Jesus Christ in us as we tell them of a living Savior. Lord, do this work in people for the building of your church and for the glory of your name, we pray, in Jesus, our Savior. Amen.