Thank you, Pastor. We are in the book of Acts this morning. We're gonna be in chapters 15 through, the end of 15 through 18, about halfway through 18, okay? Let's pray. Lord, thank you for this morning, and may you bless this time together. It's in your son's name, Jesus, we pray, amen. All right. So, today we're going to be talking about Paul's second missionary journey, and it starts in Acts 15, and I'll start reading in verse 36, and there's a small problem here. So, it says, then after some days, Paul said to Barnabas, let us now go back and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord and see how they are doing. Now Barnabas was determined to take with them John called Mark, but Paul insisted that they should not take with them the one who had departed from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. Then the contention became so sharp that they parted from one another. And so Barnabas took Mark and sailed to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and departed, being commended by the brethren to the grace of God. And he went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches." So what was the disagreement? What was the disagreement we just read there? Somebody started. Go ahead. Yeah, do we take this guy who jumped ship halfway through the first missionary journey, or do we not? Barnabas was insisting, let's take him. Paul said, not a chance. We're not going there, all right? Now, what was the solution? The solution was Barnabas took Mark and went to Cyprus. Now, that made perfect sense from just a strategic point of view because Mark was there all the way on the first missionary journey. when they were in Cyprus. He participated in that. People in Cyprus may not even have known that he left the first missionary journey. Don't know. In addition to that, do you remember where Barnabas was from? Barnabas happened to be from Cyprus. He's going home. It makes perfect sense for Barnabas and Mark to go to Cyprus. So Paul chose Silas, and Silas ends up being a very strategic selection as well, as one who was able to minister right alongside of Saul, and they went to Syria and Cilicia. So what application could this have to us? Well, just this morning in the prayer time, a discussion came up about premillennial, postmillennial, and amillennial. And I mentioned that I tend to be a panmillennial in the sense that I think God's gonna pan it all out how he sees fit. But that being said, that being said, If there's sharp disagreement on those things, it's very difficult to work together in a church, right? And so oftentimes, it's just better to agree to disagree rather than try and convince everyone of your own way. And this comes from a guy that when I was a kid and in high school and in college, I was told often that I could argue with a fence post and often did. Well, not really, but I mean, if you said the sky was blue, I would try and find a quibble with it. And my wife will probably tell you that that's still true. But anyway. All right, so they depart in verse 41, so Paul and Silas go through Syria and Cilicia. It says, in chapter 16, then he came to Derbe and Lystra, and behold, a certain disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a certain Jewish woman who believed, but his father was Greek. All right? Timothy joins Paul and Silas. So, I've got the next blank here, is Paul blanked Timothy, and why? Let's go ahead and read. He, that is, Timothy, was well spoken of by the brethren who were at Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted to have him go with him. And he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in that region, for they all knew that his father was Greek. And as they went through the cities, they delivered to them the decrees to keep which were determined by the apostles and elders at Jerusalem. So the churches were strengthened in the faith and increased in number daily." So what did Paul do to Timothy? He circumcised him, yeah. This past week in geometry class, we were talking about circumscribed circles around a triangle, and I just cautioned everyone to be careful how you say it because every year somebody missays it and then everybody laughs because they're teenagers. But anyway, Paul did in fact circumcise Timothy. Well, why did he do that? I mean, was that necessary for Timothy to be saved? No, definitely not. It has nothing to do with Timothy's salvation, all right? But where did Paul always go first whenever he went to a new city? To the synagogue, right? Would Timothy have been allowed in the synagogue if he weren't a circumcised Jew? No, no. Timothy, thanks for coming along. You just wait out here. Go have a good day on Saturday, and we're going to go into the synagogue and minister. You go find something to do. That's not a good ministry partner, right? So there were things necessary that had to happen for Timothy to be able to minister alongside of Paul and Silas, and that was Timothy's circumcision. So Paul's missionary strategy started by going to the Jews first. The Jews met in the synagogue. And without circumcision, Timothy could not enter the synagogue. Let me read to you, if you don't mind, 1 Corinthians 9, verse 22. To the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. I would present this situation with Timothy to you as a direct example of applying that truth of Scripture. What this verse has often meant for a lot of people is I just do whatever the world does and tell them about Jesus and kind of put like a little Jesus peanut butter spread over the top and we're all good. No, that's not what's happening here, all right? In no manner was Paul or Timothy entering into a sinful situation in order to minister to the Jews. And that's an important distinction, okay? And again, Timothy's circumcision had nothing to do with his salvation. It had to do with whether or not he was going to be able to become a minister to the Jews in the synagogue. That was it, okay? All right. Stage two of the missionary journey. And so that is starting in chapter 16, verse 6. So they've gone through all the churches that they had gone to on the first missionary journey, and they try to go some other places, and let me read what happens. Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. I've always wanted to know what that looked like or felt like, but it doesn't say. What does it mean to be forbidden by the Holy Spirit to go and preach the gospel in a new place? Was that circumstances? Was that the Lord's leading? It was the Lord's leading, obviously, as it says the Holy Spirit here, but how that gets worked out in your life or my life is, not like a crystal clear picture all the time. They tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them. So passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas, and a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us. Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them." So leading by stopping, let me give you an example here. This is with my uncle. My uncle, to my knowledge, was not a saved man. But he was a chemical engineer and had gotten a job with a company in the Buffalo area back in the late 40s, early 50s. Has anybody heard the name Love's Canal before? Do you remember what it's about? Love's Canal, for those of us that don't remember this, was featured on 60 Minutes. All kinds of people in Love's Canal, which happens to be a suburb of Buffalo, were dying from all kinds of strange illnesses. And it came to be found out that they built this subdivision of Love's Canal on a toxic chemical waste dump, okay? And I found out through my aunt that that's where they were planning on living when my uncle worked for this company in Buffalo, all right? And one day he came into work and he got fired. And he ended up moving to another part of the country. I have cousins I don't know very well because they're on the other side of the country, but I have cousins that likely would not be alive today if it weren't for the fact that he got fired from his job. Okay? So I say that, and this is a minor thing compared to the sharing of the gospel, but in the sense that God can close doors in your life that seem rather tragic at times, that when you look back on them, you go, the Lord and His handiwork are an amazing thing. They are an amazing thing. All right, the vision of the Macedonian in verses 9 and 10. I would suggest to you when it comes to God's leading, this is maybe for some of our younger people now to say, don't sit around waiting for God to show you a vision in the night of what He wants you to do, alright? That's not the way you should try to seek God's leading. I use this example from time to time when people say, well, in the book of Acts, God showed Paul a vision of what to do. He can do the same with me. It's not a wrong statement to say that. God could show you a vision. I have my suspicions. I have my doubts. If it's contrary to Scripture, it's not from God, okay? Keep those things in mind, all right? But God also spoke through a donkey. I wouldn't expect you to go buy a donkey and sit in front of it until it talked to you. You get what I'm saying? Just because God did something some way in the past doesn't mean that you should seek for God to work that specific way in the future, particularly when it comes to this sort of thing. Rather, what you should do is look for what has God impressed upon my heart, okay, in order to do. Let me read to you, this is 2 Corinthians 8 and verses 16 and 17. It says, but thanks be to God who puts the same earnest care for you into the heart of Titus, for he not only accepted the exhortation, but being more diligent, he went to you of his own accord. Do you get how God led Titus here? It was through impressing upon his heart the need and giving him the means to be able to do it. I'll give you an example. This summer, we will have most likely a vacation Bible school, and let's say that you really like teaching little children. and the opportunity has not provided itself, yet this summer you'll be free and the kids will need a teacher for Vacation Bible School. That would seem to match your availability, your desire Go ahead and ask to be a part of that. Does that make sense? Right? But if you don't have a desire to do those things, I think back to a...Jan has told me of a former pastor here who came back for a short time and was praying and praying for the Lord to give him a passion for sterling. And his passion was not for Sterling, it was for another place. And so he rightfully decided to go to that other place, right? God does not want you to necessarily minister in a situation, all right, that he has not given you the burden for, okay? All right. Let's go on to verse 11 of chapter 16. It says, therefore, sailing from Troas, we came straight course to Samothrace, and the next day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi. which is the form of... And I don't know about you, but everywhere Paul has gone, he's gone straight to the synagogue and ministered to the Jews first. What's he doing here? What's he doing? I'll let you think about that for a second. Let me continue reading. Now, a certain woman named Lydia... heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshipped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul." All right? And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay. So she persuaded us. Why were they meeting by the river? Any ideas? They left the city. Every place Paul went, all the way through the end of his second missionary journey, where was the first place he went to minister? To the Jews. Where did the Jews meet? Synagogue. So why didn't he do that in Philippi? because there was no synagogue. It's simple in a way. There was no synagogue in Philippi because there were not enough Jewish men to form a synagogue. I believe it takes 10. There weren't 10 Jewish men. And notice who he meets with, the women. There were women who were meeting to pray, likely praying for a synagogue, right? And there they met Lydia. So Paul was ministering the same way as was his pattern. He really wasn't doing anything different. There just was no synagogue for him to meet, all right? And so he always went to the Jews first, then to the Gentiles, all right? And many of them believed. So who was Lydia? Well, it says she was a seller of purple. And you and I might not think that that's a big deal, but that's a really, really big deal. Have you heard the expression, that man is worth his weight in gold? Well, I'd rather be worth my weight in purple in that day, in that day. There were two places in ancient times where purple was made and it was a very labor intensive process that we have lost. We don't know how that purple was made, but every once in a while when they're doing some archeology and they scrape the dust off the floor and it's like this, boom, this purple shows up and it's like, wow, it's still purple after 2000 years. All right, being covered in the dirt and the mud, and it's still purple. Okay? So there were three different snails, sea snails, that they would crush up, and either crush up or cut in a certain way to get some mucus out of that snail, and they would collect it, and that's about all we know for sure. They added some chemicals, put it in the sunlight, and it went through a transformation and became purple. So why would I wanna be, have my weight, like if I wanted wealth, I would want my weight in purple rather than gold, because at that time, purple was worth three times its weight in gold. Three times. Three times is expensive. So, who is this Lydia? A movie comes to mind of Star Wars for a second, and if you remember when Luke Skywalker's trying to convince Han Solo to rescue Princess Leia in Star Wars, he goes, she's rich. Lydia was rich, okay? She would be, As Luke Skywalker responded when Han Solo said, how rich? He says, well, more rich than you can imagine. And Han Solo says, of course, well, I can imagine quite a bit. All right, where was I? All right, so who did the work for Lydia to be saved? Okay, so Paul is preaching to them, but who's the one doing the action in the following sentence? The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. Who is the primary actor in that sentence? In other words, if you're an English teacher, who's the subject of that sentence? The Lord is. It's the Lord that opens the heart. I talked with my brother for a long time yesterday. I shared the gospel. There was no outward evidence of anything that changed for him, but it's not my job to change him. It's my job to share the gospel with him. It's my job to love him. It's my job to care for him. Right? It's our job to share the gospel. There is nothing else that you or I will ever do that has the power to change someone's life. Ultimately, we are all beholden to whether or not the Lord changes the heart. The Lord opens the heart. Okay? That is not us. All right, so what happened when Lydia got saved? Did she, was she like, same old person, I just got saved and went on with my life. Is that Lydia? No. She persuaded them to stay with them, and she gave out of her abundance, right? Very wealthy person. She likely had – this was likely not her first home. This is likely her second home. She was from Thyatira. She probably had a place to stay in Thyatira. She had a place to stay here in Philippi, right? And she shared, she immediately became hospitable to Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke. Application, no matter your station in life, God through the gospel will change your life, okay? This cuts in every direction socially, economically that you can imagine. There is no one so great that they are above the need for the gospel, and no one so, so low that they are beyond the reach of the gospel, and in every case, the gospel will change your life. It changes you. If the gospel is not changing you, it's likely a sign of a false conversion, okay? All right, moving on. Verses 16 through 18. We're still in Philippi, it says, now it happened as we went to prayer that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us who brought her masters much profit by fortune telling. This girl followed Paul and us and cried out saying, these men are the servants of the most high God who proclaim to us the way of salvation. And this she did for many days. All right, so the question is, what could be wrong with what the demon possessed girl said? What could be wrong? Because it says, but Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out that very hour. Could be how she said it, right? I forget where that's at in the Old Testament, where if you aren't looking at the context, there's no way you can tell that it was in a mocking tone. It just says something to the effect that God is king over everything, but it had to be in a mocking tone. It seems to me that that's quite quite probable, if at least likely, that the situation is that it was somewhat of a mocking tone. That is certainly a possibility, right? If they said, hey, these men are the servants of the Most High God, right? That would get really annoying if she's doing that day after day, right? Yes. Consider the source. Consider the source. Is this the person you want endorsing you? I'll give you an application from my line of work. I've often been asked the question, don't you want all of your students to like you? Well, yeah, in one sense, but, and no in another. Do I want someone who is the class clown, who picks on other students, who doesn't do his homework to enjoy the experience of being in my class in such a way that they keep doing all those things? I want them to enjoy my class in a way where they act appropriately and socially responsibly and do their work and learn and grow and all these things, but I certainly don't want them to be a menace to society while in my class. That's not someone I want the endorsement of, right? Okay, so those two things, consider the source and consider that she might just be mocking Paul and Silas and Timothy here, right? There's another possibility that she could just be, hey, listen to these guys, I'm the one that showed them to you, I'm the one that showed them to you, so I still got a position in all of this. And she has no position in this. She is a demon-possessed girl, okay? All right, so there was a consequence to this. There was a very major consequence to this after she was, it says, but when her masters saw, in verse 19, that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities. Verse 20, And they brought them to the magistrates and said, These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city. And they teach customs which are not lawful for us, being Romans, to receive or observe. Then the multitude rose up together against them. And the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in stocks." All right? So, what we're going to move on to is the salvation of the Philippian jailer, but as we do, what was the response of Paul and Silas in verse 25? Verse 25, what was the response of Paul and Silas? They prayed and sang. I haven't been put in stocks and thrown into the inner prison lately, but that doesn't seem like the thing that I would likely do. Maybe you got a different mindset on this and you'd be like, yeah, throw me in prison. I'm going to sing and praise all night long and pray and all that. Maybe you will. I hope that's true. The question is, how did they do this? And I'm going to suggest to you. that in any situation like this, and it can be for us a little thing, a big thing like getting thrown in jail, a loved one passing away unexpectedly. It could be you come home and the dinner's burnt. It could be anything for which you get yourself in a tizzy, you get worked up about. The key to responding in the way that Paul and Silas responded is a solid understanding of the sovereignty of God. It's absolutely critical. Burnt dinner, loved one passing away, whatever it is that upsets you, right? You need to view it in light of the sovereignty of God. Let me read to you Acts 5 and verse 41. As I read this to you, they've just been in front of the Sanhedrin and Gamaliel has given his advice saying, look, if this is from God, you guys are going to find yourself fighting with God. But if it's not from God, what these apostles are doing is going to come to nothing. Verse 40, it says, and they agreed with him, that's the Sanhedrin agreed with Gamaliel. And when they had called for the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. Verse 41, so they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. I would suggest to you that in this picture, the apostles here, the disciples here, are viewing God's sovereignty crystally clear, right? Because did they go out and not preach Jesus? No, they went out and preached Jesus anyway, and rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name. So back to Acts chapter 16. He says, suddenly, in verse 26, there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. And immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were loosed. And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself. But Paul called with a loud voice saying, do yourself no harm, for we are all All right, so question, why was the jailer about to kill himself? So some prisoners are going to get away. Why is that a problem for the jailer? Well, in Roman law, if the prisoner escaped, the jailer would be responsible to fulfill the sentence for all of the accused. So I don't know how many people are here. There's at least two. He's going to have to be in prison at least. There could be condemned men here. Life does not have a pretty rosy picture for the jailer's future if they, in fact, left. All right? That is, the prisoners left. But they did not. So the jailer was surprised by this, and the jailer says in verses 2 and 3, This is what he does in verse 29, he says, "'Then he called for a light, ran in, fell down trembling before Paul and Silas, and he brought them out and said, "'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' So they said, "'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.' Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him, and and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes, and immediately he and all his family were baptized. And when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them, and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household." So, was the jailer changed? Was the Philippian jailer changed? Was he the same person? He got saved and nothing's different in his life. What happened? Changed him, right? So what are some things he did? He blanked their stripes. What did he do with their stripes? He washed their stripes. Then he brought them into his house and fed them. Right? So the jailer rejoiced, having believed God from the word spoken to him, from verses 32 and 34. So then the word comes down, hey, let's let these guys go. Right? Let's let Paul and Silas go. No harm, no foul, guys. Just go ahead and go on your way. It says in verse 35, and when it was day, the magistrates sent the officers saying, let those men go. So the keeper of the prison reported these words to Paul saying, the magistrates have sent to let you go, now therefore depart and go in peace. But Paul said to them, they have beaten us openly, uncondemned Romans, and have thrown us into prison. And now do they put us out secretly? No, indeed, let them come themselves and get us out." All right? So the question is, why didn't Paul just say, all right, great, we got our freedom, let's go, let's continue preaching the gospel? So the magistrates acted tyrannically, like tyrants. And I need you to, if you're writing along here, I need you to cross out a word here and replace it with three words. Where I said hindered, it should be tried to hinder. Because if I'm going to talk about God's sovereignty, they can't actually hinder the going forth of the gospel. They can only try to hinder the going forth of the gospel. All right? And so, the preaching of the gospel. The magistrates acted unlawfully. They beat and imprisoned an uncondemned Roman. All right? So, that could mean as much as the Roman army comes into Philippi and replaces the magistrates, putting the magistrates in, how do you want to say it, six feet under? All right? That was a very serious thing that they did. All right? So you will notice it says, and the officers, in verse 38, told these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid. Well, there's good reason to be afraid. You just broke the law and the Romans might just come and wipe you out, okay? And so then they, it says, then they came and pleaded with them and brought them out and asked them to depart from the city. So they went out from the prison and entered the house of Lydia. And when they had seen the brethren, they encouraged them and departed. So we move on to Thessalonica. All right, in Thessalonica, unlike Philippi, Thessalonica had a synagogue. So in verse 2, it says, then Paul, as his custom was, went into them and for three Sabbaths reasoned with them from the scriptures. So what was Paul's custom? What did he do in every town that he went to, every city that he went to on the first missionary journey? And then what did he want to do at Philippi but couldn't, and what did he do here in Thessalonica? He went and preached to the Jews in the synagogue. For as long as they would listen, he would do that. And so the gospel goes to the Jews first. So this happens in Thessalonica. in Thessalonica, the many people believe, but then there are some unbelieving Jews. The unbelieving Jews, it says in verse 5, but the Jews who were not persuaded, becoming envious, took some of the evil men from the marketplace and gathering a mob, set all the city in an uproar and attacked the house of Jason and sought to bring them out to the people. But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, "'Those who have turned the world upside down have come here too.' Jason has harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying, "'There is another king, Jesus.' And they troubled the crowd and the rulers of the city when they heard these things. So when they had taken security from Jason and the rest, they let them go." So we have uproar here caused by the unbelieving Jews. So they basically just stirred up trouble. And so, starting in verse 10, Paul now goes on to Berea. And how were the Bereans different than those in Thessalonica? Starting in verse 10, it says, "'Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica in that they received the word with all readiness and searched the scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. All right, so how were the Bereans different? They were more, what does it say? It says, more fair-minded or more noble, if you have, I believe, King James maybe. It says they were more fair-minded. What was it about the way they behaved that was more fair-minded? Yeah, they said, and this can happen to us, right? If somebody says something that you don't think is right, You can just reject it out of hand and go with your life, go about your life, or you could say, what's the scripture you're giving to me? And read it in context and see if that is so, and search the scriptures yourself, all right? And so, here's the application of this. Every person has a responsibility to know the word. All right? It's not good enough to say, well, you know, my pastor doesn't agree with that. All right? That's not a real strong argument if a Jehovah's Witness is at your door. It's just not, well, my pastor doesn't agree with that, and they're trying to show you something from Scripture. Well, first of all, I'm not suggesting that a Jehovah's Witness is a good source to listen to. Don't misunderstand me. What I'm suggesting to you is that We each have a responsibility to know the word, all right? Okay, I need to move a little more quickly here. It says, again, what did the unbelieving Jews from Thessalonica do? They came down, and again, they stirred up trouble. And I wanna just point out that there's an illustration here. in each of these places, starting at Philippi and then at Thessalonica and then now at Berea, everywhere they've gone.