Open your Bibles to Acts 21. Remember last time we talked about Paul going to the temple. There he's beaten and arrested. Now the Romans have him. And we have a commander who is there with centurions and with soldiers. And he's been taken to the barracks place for the troops rest. Here we are in Acts 21 verse 37 in Jerusalem. Then as Paul was about to be led into the barracks, he said to the commander, May I speak to you? He replied, Can you speak Greek? Are you not the Egyptian who some time ago stirred up a rebellion and led the 4,000 assassins out into the wilderness. But Paul said, I am a Jew from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no mean city. And I implore, and I implore you, permit me to speak to the people. So when he had given him permission, Paul stood on the stairs and motioned with his hand to the people. And when there was a great silence, he spoke to them in the Hebrew language, saying, Brethren and fathers, hear my defense before you now. And when they heard that he spoke to them in the Hebrew language, they kept all the more silent. Then he said, I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our father's law, and was zealous toward God, as you all are today. I have persecuted this way to the death, binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, As also the high priest bears me witness and all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren and went to Damascus to bring in chains, even those who were there to Jerusalem to be punished. Now it happened as I journeyed and came near Damascus at about noon, suddenly a great light from heaven shone around me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? So I answered, who are you, Lord? And he said to me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting. And those who were with me indeed saw the light and were afraid, but they did not hear the voice of him who spoke to me. So I said, what shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said to me, arise and go into Damascus. And there you will be told all things which are appointed for you to do. And since I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of those who were with me, I came into Damascus. Then a certain Ananias, a devout man, according to the law, having a good testimony with all the Jews who dwelt there, came to me. And he stood and said to me, Brother Saul, receive your sight. And at that same hour, I looked up at him. Then he said, the God of our fathers has chosen you, that you should know his will and see the just one and hear the voice of his mouth. For you will be his witness to all men, of what you have seen and heard. And now, why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord. Now it happened, when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, that I was in a trance, and saw him saying to me, Make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly, for they will not receive your testimony concerning me. So I said, They know that in every synagogue I imprisoned and beat those who believe on you. And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by, consenting to his death and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him. Then he said to me, depart, for I will send you far from here to the Gentiles. And they listened to him until this word Then they raised their voices and said, away with such a fellow from the earth, for he is not fit to live. Then as they cried out and tore off their clothes and threw dust into the air, the commander ordered him to be brought into the barracks and said that he should be examined under scourging so that he might know why they shouted so against him. And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman and uncondemned? When the centurion heard that, he went and told the commander, saying, Take care what you do, for this man is a Roman. Then the commander came and said to him, Tell me, are you a Roman? He said, Yes. The commander answered, With a large sum, I obtained the citizenship. And Paul said, but I was born a citizen. Then immediately those who were about to examine him withdrew from him. And the commander was also afraid after he found out that he was a Roman and because he had bound him. The next day, because he wanted to know for certain why he was accused by the Jews, He released him from his bonds and commanded the chief priests and all their council to appear and brought Paul down and set him before them. Then Paul, looking earnestly at the council, said, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day. And the high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth Then Paul said to him, God will strike you, you whitewashed wall. For you sit to judge me according to the law. And do you command me to be struck contrary to the law? And those who stood by said, do you revile God's high priest? Then Paul said, I did not know, brethren, that he was the high priest. For it's written, you shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people. But when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee, concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead, I am being judged. And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. For Sadducees say that there is no resurrection and no angel or spirit, but the Pharisees confess both. Then there arose a loud outcry, and the scribes of the Pharisees' party arose and protested, saying, We find no evil in this man, but if a spirit or angel is spoken to him, let us not fight against God. Now when there arose a great dissension, the commander, fearing lest Paul might be pulled to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him by force from among them and bring him into the barracks. We start this section with Paul being about to be taken into the barracks, and we end it with Paul about to be taken into the barracks. It doesn't seem like a lot of progress in the journey, but it's an important phase. Now, what we have is a mob that's trying to kill Paul. Roman soldiers, this is a Jewish mob, trying to kill Paul without due process. Roman soldiers coming in and taking him out to not be killed by that mob for orderly dealings. They try to treat him according to law, which has different standards for Romans and non-Romans. When he points out that he's a Roman, his civil liberties, his civil rights, due process are upheld, which should be shameful to the Jews, seeing Gentiles be more concerned for the operation of law and due process than the Jews. And there's a fearfulness about breaking their own law. Then we have Jews who, against the law don't give due process when they know who Paul is because the guys who are judging him are the ones who gave him the letter to go persecute the Christians. They are very familiar with Paul. Then Paul causes a division, causing them to squabble amongst themselves because of the foolishness of Sadducees and Pharisees sitting together on the same court. And then from there, the Romans again take them out. And so the Jews look like a bunch of yokels in this compared to the Romans who are concerned for order. And it is an embarrassment to them. And so Paul's discipline and ability to use these systems, and at the same time, God's providential care using these competing systems, there is a division in the household of Satan We can take advantage of that. We can cause them to squabble against each other and be like Jonathan entering the camp of the Philistines with our shield bearer. And then with a little fighting, cause them to start striking each other and cause a great retreat. God is our shield. He is our fortress. He is our high tower. He is our deliverer. I had the great honor this week of going with Bill and Logan and Ethan to a murder mill and to see some arguing there. It was good to see, it was encouraging to see them. Each of them showed courage and argued on the street with people who were trying to be mockers and scoffers and scorners. We were there in support of some other people who were doing good work and others who were less effective. But it was an encouraging thing to see brethren there and to acting with courage. And so I am reminded and I am focused in my thoughts right now on the spiritual warfare that we are in and this text is right there. So we see these physical soldiers We see these physical soldiers. They are taking Paul into the barracks, right? We're back at chapter 21, verse 37. And so we see them taking Paul in, taking him away from the chaos of the mob. Paul asks for the opportunity to speak. And when he speaks, there's this motioning to silence in verse 40. And then he begins to speak in Hebrew. And in speaking Hebrew, there's an even greater silence because these people go, oh, OK, wait, this guy's a Hebrew. And so they want to hear what's going to be said. And so we have his speech, chapter 22. Brethren and fathers, hear my defense before you. brethren, he's saying that they're a part of the same nation, but he's also recognizing the reality that the synagogues, that the Jews are still in the process of being shaken off. So there are perhaps synagogues there and people that are part of the visible church in this way that there is this finalizing of the public apostasy. And then fathers, some of them being perhaps lawful officers, So brethren and fathers, hear my defense before you now. And so he's calling on them, they have a duty to hear, a duty to listen. You've been trying to punish me, you have a duty to listen. This is the idea that it is unlawful in the law of God, it is unlawful in the law of God to punish, discipline a person before hearing their defense against charges. And so he is appealing to that. So they keep silent all the more when they hear he's speaking in Hebrew. Then he said, I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. I'm a Jew, I'm not from here, but I was raised here. I was born here, raised here. At the feet of Gamaliel, at the time Gamaliel would have been the most famous teacher. Even now, he is the or one of the most famous rabbis in history. Brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our father's law. So he was given a strict teaching of the law and was zealous toward God as you all are today. zeal, discipline, doctrine. He had this concern for the doctrine, a holiness, a zeal for what is good, and the practice, the righteousness, the application. To show this zeal and this practice, he says in verse 4, I persecuted this way, the way, the Christians, I persecuted this way to the death. Binding and delivering into prisons both men and women as also the high priests bear me witness Right to the death. So this is the most extreme and He persecuted men and women So he was not weak. He didn't show mercy to that weaker Verse five as also the high priest bears me witness. That's a pretty well-known witness and if they accept him as high priest then they have to think that he's a reliable witness because you don't let men stay in office who hate the truth and High Priest, the High Priest bears me witness. And all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren. Those letters would be a commission. Paul is being sent to do this persecuting work. He is sent as a prosecutor to go after these people and to find them, to bring charges against them, to have them punished. So he's been commissioned by the highest court I received letters to the brethren. So they're supposed to receive him on this mission. And went to Damascus to bring in chains, even those who were there, to Jerusalem to be punished. And so this is all here, what we call ethos, right? In the rhetoric, this is an appeal to the reality that I am a witness who is credible. Here's my background. My switching over is a big deal. If I switched over, then you should stop and think. If I was able to be persuaded, that should make you wonder, is there something here? That's what personal testimony is about. When you talk about your own life, the purpose of talking about your own life is to give ethos, credibility. And so it is not the thing that saves, but it's a thing that gives credibility and makes people stop a little bit if they have points of similarity, or if they find your story to be something that says, hmm, it's interesting that you would change. It's also possible to bear testimony to the goodness that you have received. And so if you're raised in the faith, Paul is making claim to be raised, in the faith. And you also have this idea of, look, I have received instruction. I've tested it all my life. This is not a new thing for me. I can show you that this is worth holding on to. This is the thing tested by time. And that is not appreciated in our age. I think increasingly will be as people grow tired of novelty. because the hedonist excess of our culture will grow old because it leads into a nihilist decay of culture. Verse 6, Now it happened as I journeyed and came near Damascus at about noon, suddenly a great light from heaven shone around me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? So I answered, who are you, Lord? And he said to me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting. So this is the moment where Paul is confronted. He's explaining there's an appearance of power, how it caused him to interact with this power. And at the same time that he is accused of persecuting Jesus of Nazareth, whom Paul immediately acknowledges as Lord, when speaking to him. Verse 9, And those who were with me indeed saw the light and were afraid, but they did not hear the voice of him who spoke to me. So I said, What shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said to me, Arise and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all things which are appointed for you to do. So here's a prophecy of prediction. Verse 11, And since I could not see for the glory of that light, being led by the hand of those who were with me, I came into Damascus. Then a certain Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having a good testimony with all the Jews who dwelt there, here is more ethos for this witness, came to me and he stood and said to me, Brother Saul, receive your sight. And at the same hour I looked up at him, Now, this miracle, this sign of wonder, there's the vision, there's the healing, and these are both signs that draw attention. They are, again, ethos, credibility drawers, as they make you give attention. At the same hour, I looked up at him. Then he said, the God of our fathers has chosen you that you should know his will and see the just one and hear the voice of his mouth." Now, this is the fulfillment of the predictive prophecy that Jesus gave, right, in the surrounding of light. Verse 15, "...for you will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard." Now, that all men is something that probably caused the Jews to become concerned there that all men would mean all the nations not just not just Jews but also Gentiles but it includes Jews now 16 and now why are you waiting arise and be baptized and wash away your sins calling on the name of the Lord now This is showing that this baptism, which would remind these Jews in Jerusalem of the baptism that John required, that there's this continuing association of Christianity with the baptism, with John, and so with Jesus. So he's drawing these things together, and so they either are forced to reject Jesus, to reject this baptism, to reject Ananias, to reject Paul's testimony, and now pointing to the idea of rejecting John, or they accept those things. Now, it happened when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple that I was in a trance and saw him saying to me, make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly. but they will not receive your testimony concerning me. So I said, Lord, they know that in every synagogue I imprisoned and beat those who believe on you. And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing by consenting to his death and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him. They said to me depart. For I will send you far from here to the Gentiles. Now his speech stops there. I don't think that was the planned end of Paul's speech. Verse 22 says, And they listened to him and tell this word. And then they raised their voices and said, Away with such a fellow from the earth, for he is not fit to live. Now initially it sounds like they're just banishing him from earth, but apparently they didn't have an interplanetary shuttle yet. So the only way to get him off the planet was to kill him. He's not fit to live. This is in response to the idea that he's sent to the Gentiles. Now, think about the prophet Jonah. The prophet Jonah was sent to Gentiles in Nineveh. Their response, they're so hateful of the idea that he's sent to preach to the Gentiles that they want to kill him. They should have known that this is not just cause to reject a prophet. Jonah was sent to preach to the Gentiles. And Jonah's hesitance to do it should also have been a testimony against them, to make them stop and think. But they don't. Now, this speech is very targeted at this audience. Hey guys, remember me? I'm the guy that I was commissioned to do this. Hey guys, you remember me? I was the guy who stood by over the clothes of the people who were killing Stephen. I'd get sent to the death of Stephen. You all knew this. I didn't stick around after this, after I was sent to Damascus, because I was sent away by the one who called me, and then sent away to go to the Gentiles, to preach to the Gentiles. This is implicit in the all men that we read earlier, but when it's made explicit and he sent it to the Gentiles and not to the Jews, that's it. You can't stick around to talk to us. You go to the Gentiles. This is too much. That is rooted in self-righteousness. It's rooted in the rejection of the rebuke of not listening to the Word of God. Now, verse 16. I skipped over this, but this is important. Ananias tells Paul, Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord. So baptism does not by itself wash away sins. This is sacramental language. Sacramental language takes the sign, the things that it represents, applies the effect or power or reality of the things it represents to the sign. Okay? That's what's happening here. So, baptism, it represents the covenant of grace. It represents the redemption accomplished by Christ. It represents all the benefits derived therefrom. So, be baptized, which represents the gospel, and Christ's work. And Christ's work washes away your sins. And it's applied to you by the Holy Spirit. by the gift of faith, which makes it so that you have legal union with Christ, so that you're counted as innocent and counted as righteous. Baptism does not wash away your sins, but it represents the washing away of sins. And so this idea of sacramental language has been used with baptism throughout the Bible, but it's also used with circumcision. I want to show you a chain of a couple of verses here. We're going to look at two verses in Deuteronomy and one in Ezekiel. The first one in Deuteronomy is Deuteronomy chapter 10 verse 16. It says, Therefore circumcise the foreskin of your heart and be stiff-necked no longer. OK, so the foreskin of the male genitals is what you actually circumcise, which actually cut off in circumcision. So what is circumcision of the foreskin of your heart? This is like, you know, open heart surgery here. What's the deal? We're talking about the work of the spirit to change the heart, to remove deadness of the flesh. In other words, the deadness of human nature that's fallen and to replace it with enlivened or spiritual hearts, to have faith. So, the giving of belief. Circumcise the foreskin of your heart and be stiff-necked no longer. So, in other words, remove the unbelief, don't refuse to repent. Instead, believe. That's what the idea is there. Now, in Deuteronomy 30, verse 6, it says and the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live." That probably sounds a lot like the New Covenant to you. That's because it's the same covenant. You read in Jeremiah about the law of God being written on the heart and about neighbor or fellow citizen not having to tell his fellow citizen, know the Lord, because there won't be need for teachers, because the teacher is God will teach them. And there's this idea of the forgiveness of sins. Those are in both. The difference in the New Covenant is the change from the old Levitical priesthood to the priesthood of Melchizedek, Jesus Christ. The change is in the outward ceremonies from circumcision and sacrifices to baptism and the Lord's Supper. And the change is from its ineffectual to spread the knowledge of God throughout the world to its effectual. That's the change. That's the difference between those two covenants. It's the change of the outward and of the effect to cause the knowledge of God to fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. But for the elect, it always involved regeneration, transformation of the inward man. It always involved the external forgiveness, the external removal of guilt, the external putting on of the righteousness of another. So we see this language about circumcision being connected to the heart. Go to Ezekiel chapter 44. Ezekiel 44 verse 7. When you brought in foreigners uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh to be in my sanctuary to defile it, my house. And when you offered my food, the fat and blood, then they broke my covenant because of all your abominations." Now the temple was supposed to be guarded by Levites. So there's this time probably the bringing in of foreigners to be the guards. But the The complaint against them is that they're uncircumcised in heart and they're also uncircumcised in flesh. They're not part of the visible covenant with the external signs, seals, and they're also not believers internally. So there's not any sort of like, well, you know, this is a believer, but they haven't taken on this stuff. They're God-fearers, you know. Nope. They're not in the visible church. They're not in the invisible church. These are unbelieving, not professing, not having externally covenanted. It's both. But notice that this verse helps to very clearly show there's the heart and there's the flesh. The flesh here is referring to the actual body. And so there's the uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised in flesh. Those are two things. There's the external sign and there's the internal reality. So this helps us to realize that, like Peter explains, There is the washing away of dirt from the skin with water. But there's also the cleansing of the inward man that occurs with spiritual baptism. And there's also the work of Christ so that his death is a sort of baptism by his blood. And so we need to realize those different elements of what baptism deals with. But when we're talking about the idea of baptism washing away sins, we need to think about this as sacramental language. So let's run back to Acts now. Okay. Acts 22. Sorry. Yeah, Acts 22, verse 22. And they listen to him and tell this word. So he says, I was sent to talk to the Gentiles and not to stay in Jerusalem. And that's it. Had it. Not going to listen to this anymore. A bunch of nonsense. So listen to him and tell this word. And they raised their voices and said, away with such a fellow from the earth, for he is not fit to live. Then as they cried, they tore off their clothes. The word for tore is literally they threw off. So it's just like real quick pulling the thing off. It doesn't really make as much sense as the tearing. And so the idea of throwing off the clothes, however, could have to do with the idea of being prepared to go kill him. I'm not going to mess up my nice overgarment. And that's why people killed Stephen. They put their jackets down. Paul watched that stuff, the outer clothing. He watched it. So this could be a preparing to kill him. They throw dust in the air. It's like a part of their anger. It's this lamenting. Verse 24, the commander ordered him to be brought into the barracks. He goes, all right, that's it. We're done here. Get him inside. Close the door. They said that he should be examined under scourging. So they're saying, look, under Roman law at the time, if you were a slave or a non-citizen, there was, in order to accept testimony, often it was required to torture a person in order to put it on. He said, look, these people are just going to lie unless we are torturing them. Then we have good sense that, you know, they're going to tell us the truth because we're just kind of torturing them until we've got everything out of them and we can make sense of it. That was the idea. It seems contrary to American law. It seems contrary to the Bible, because it is. That was Roman law. So they're going to examine him in a torture so that they would know why the Jews had shouted against him so. They're not understanding what he's saying in Hebrew. And what is the deal here? Or if they do understand, they don't understand what is the deal. Here are the words, and I don't understand the degree of concern. One or the other. Verse 25, And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said to the centurion who stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman and uncondemned? So the binding the thongs, there's two ways this is possible. When you're about to scourge somebody, you need access to their back, you need them to not move, you need them to not resist. So you either bind them around something, like maybe a chain to a wall, but they can move then. So what you do is you bind their hands around a pole, possibly shackle their feet so they can't move. The other is you hang them up by binding their hands together above and get them stuck in that way. The idea is they feel they are incapable of defending their back or their body with their arms. And so that's the binding of the hands to be in front or to be above. And so that the back there is access. And typically, a person is not going to move around to protect their back by moving the front of their body, because that would be even worse, right? So they feel defenseless, they can't do anything in their back as a target. Paul sends out a question that is a threat. Is it lawful? And he knows the answer. This is a rhetorical question. Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman and uncondemned? And so Romans had a threat. They had a threat. a right to a trial, to give a defense. That's a point at which Roman law happens to overlap with biblical law. And Paul demands this right. When the centurion heard that, he went and told the commander, saying, take care what you do, for this man is a Roman. And the commander came and said to him, tell me, are you a Roman? He said, yes. The commander answered, with a large sum I obtained this citizenship, it cost me a lot of money. How did you get it? And Paul said, but I was born, right? And so this is the, it's interesting language, right? It doesn't say I was born a citizen in the Greek, it says I was born, right? I was born a citizen is the implication, right? And so, and so he's saying, this is my birthright. You purchased this, this was my birthright. Now, We have a similar situation as Americans having a constitution that protects some of these same rights. And so it is lawful, good, just to manfully use our own law code to preserve our liberties. You have somebody, whether they're a lesser magistrate, a local police officer, whatever, or somebody higher up on the food chain, a mayor, a governor, president and you say I have rights under the Constitution you are violating those things is this lawful for you it's legitimate to do your right to appeal to these things now sometimes other people try to argue that there's this illegitimacy to un-Christian governments, the inability to appeal to their own rules. Look, this was not a Christian government. Paul has a right to appeal to these rules and to use them against the people that are persecuting him. We can do the same thing. Our own Constitution acknowledges the Lord Jesus Christ when talking about the year of our Lord. Okay? He's acknowledged as the Lord. Common law, which acknowledges the Lord, is acknowledged in the Constitution. The Sabbath is acknowledged in the Constitution by making it so that vetoes have a certain amount of time for the president to exercise them or signing of laws. Sunday's accepted. Public business not being on there. These are the things that makes our law code is more Christian than Roman law. We can certainly appeal like the Apostle Paul did to our own law code to defend our rights. Now Paul is saying, I was born a Roman. Verse 29, then immediately those who were about to examine him withdrew from him. All right, let's stop this. This is an illegal torture examination. We need to stop. And the commander was also afraid after he found out that he was Roman and because he had bound him. So now he has bound him in chains. He has imprisoned him without following the due process of law owed to a Roman citizen. So he's afraid of this. and the potential consequences. Now there are penalties that were in law at this time, but if you beat a Roman citizen and scourge them unjustly, it could result in even death. Sort of kidnapping, right? And so this is the fear that officials have. In our own day, we want officials to have that sort of a response if they violate our rights. to be fearful. They will not be fearful of you if you are a mouse. They will be fearful of you if you challenge them and you appeal to that law code. If somebody tries to oppress you, the Christian response is not to be a mouse. The Christian response is to say, is it lawful for you to tell me to not speak freely when the First Amendment gives me that right? Is it lawful for you to arrest me without having committed a crime or without giving me the charge that you're arresting me for? Is it lawful for you to make me leave public property? Verse 30. The next day, because he wanted to know for certain why he was accused by the Jews, he released him from his bonds and commanded the chief priests and all their council to appear and brought Paul down and set him before them. He waits a day, he should have released him immediately from his bonds, but then he waits and he does it. And then he's hearing the charges and he calls in the other parties. So this, here is the, basically what we would now call habeas corpus, the idea of you have a right to know your charges within a certain amount of time. Chapter 23, then Paul, looking earnestly at the council said, men and brethren, Now notice here, men and brethren, this could be, these are men and they're brethren in the faith, or it could be some of them are men and some of them are brethren. But the idea, men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day. And the high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth. Right, so what's your plea? I'm innocent. Smack! That's the response. Now this isn't even their court. This is a Roman court. They're being called to a symbol by the Roman. They're hearing a summons from the commander and then in the midst of their appearing with this summons they presume to judge Paul. So the high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike Paul on the mouth. And Paul said to him, God will strike you, you whitewashed wall, for you sit to judge me according to the law. And do you command me to be struck contrary to the law? And those who stood by said, do you revile God's high priest? Then Paul said, I did not know, brethren, that he was the high priest, for it is written, you shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people. Now, a common evangelical reading of this is to read this like Paul is an idiot. Where Paul is standing there, he doesn't know who he's seeing, he's not aware of this Sanhedrin, he doesn't know what's going on. Somebody says, strike this guy, he gets struck, and Paul's like, what's the deal? You're a whitewashed tomb or wall or something. You're whitewashed something. You're bad. You presume to judge me. What's the deal? They're like, hey, this guy's the high priest. I hadn't even thought about the possibility that this guy was a ruler of the people. That was really bad call, guys. My bad. Sorry about that. Forgot about that. Didn't know that. Or I maybe forgot about Exodus. Well, really, I didn't forget about Exodus. I just didn't think about it. That is how most interpreters would have you read this. You know, if you have that, and you go, what's the difference between this and what he did to the centurion above? You read it, and you go, well, in both cases, he questions the lawfulness of the action. So is it that? No. OK. He labels these people a whitewashed wall. But you know, Jesus talks about the same people as being whitewashed tombs. So that can't be sin. Okay, so maybe it's the God will strike you. So that's a curse, right? So we've got here's cursing, labeling and questioning. So it's not the questioning. It's not the labeling. It's the cursing. It's the calling of curse that God strike them. And so you go, Exodus 22, verse 28, says not to revile God and not to curse a ruler of your people. So to revile is to hatefully sort of denounce, to have contempt against, to view it as shameful, as opposed to honoring authority, as being shameful toward it. I want to suggest to you that this is the same Paul who wrote Romans 13. In Romans 13 he tells us the difference between lawful authority and not lawful authority. And not lawful authority is authority that doesn't use power given by God, but instead uses false authority. And his point is this. Let me read this for you the way I understand this to be. So Ananias commands that Paul be struck on the mouth. And Paul said to him, God will strike you, you whitewashed wall. Curse, label, for you sit to judge me according to the law, and do you command me to be struck contrary to the law? Challenging question. It's a rhetorical question, because the answer's obvious. You claim to judge me by the law, and you break the law in that process of judgment. You are not lawful in your authority. That's the idea. And those who stood by said, do you revile God's high priest? And Paul said, I didn't know, brethren, that he was the high priest. Now the idea there, and the reason he's not lying, is because he's saying, I didn't know that, because he can't possibly be. Because he's disqualifying himself in the way that he's acting. I didn't know he was the high priest, because you can't be the high priest if you're doing this. For it is written, you shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people. His point is, this guy's not a ruler of our people. You're not obligated to obey him. He is not a lawful authority. But when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, men and brethren, I'm a Republican, the son of a Republican concerning lower taxes. And then the distinction arose between the Republicans and the Democrats. Okay, that's how you can use this. Look, the Republican Party has abandoned biblical values. The Democrats have obviously abandoned biblical values. Just like we have more in common with the Pharisees than the Sadducees, we have more in common with the Republicans than the Democrats. And you can use those divisions in modern time to effectively get people to have division and avoid our persecution. But the Pharisees were not an ally of the church. In a certain sense, you could say Jesus was a Pharisee and Paul was a Pharisee. Paul called himself a Pharisee. And so what you have is Paul uses their internal divisions and he says something that's true, but it doesn't communicate all of the truth in order to cause division. He says, When Paul perceived that one part of them were Sadducees and the other part Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee, concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead, I am being judged. That's right, he's being persecuted concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead. Is it specifically that he's being charged because of the fact that he's advocating for the resurrection in a general sense? No. It's because he's saying that Jesus Christ was resurrected. And this provides a basis for the hope and resurrection of the dead. And so that's like saying, I'm being persecuted because I'm concerned for our liberties, Republicans. And you get the Republicans on your side. You say, yeah, my liberties, my Christian liberties, as defined by the Westminster Confession, my duty to do what's right. I have the freedom to do what is right. Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. Concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead, I am being judged. And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. For Sadducees say that there is no resurrection and no angel or spirit, but the Pharisees confess both. And so the Pharisees, rather than having to take a side about what he said publicly, about what the voice said to him, he's now saying, hey, look, if you deny my position, you're going to be siding with these Sadducees, saying that there's no angels or spirits and there's no resurrection of the dead. That's why the Sadducees are going after me. So these Pharisees, their response is, well, wait a second. I'm not a Sadducee. I'm not going to vote against the resurrection or against angels and spirits. And so they pull out, again, the presumption of innocence, which is also in that Roman law about citizens. You can't punish them until they're shown to be guilty in the process of law. And so in this division, verse 9, then there arose a loud outcry, and the scribes of the Pharisees' party arose and protested, saying, we find no evil in this man. There's no proof that he's guilty of anything. But if a spirit or angel has spoken to him, let us not fight against God. They don't come down saying that one did. They don't endorse what he said. But they go into the rage that Paul thought they would. Paul can predict their reactions. When you can predict what your enemies do, it's a lot easier to defeat them, right? Verse 10. Now, when there arose a great dissension, the commander, fearing lest Paul might be pulled to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him by force from among them and bring him to the barracks. So, Paul is seen a Jewish crowd go crazy trying to kill him. He speaks, gets them to want to kill him again, gets pulled into the barracks, put back out, able to talk to the leaders of the Jews. They're fighting each other. The Romans are looking down. They think the violence they're kind of pulling on him is such that they might kill him. They pull him out again. Do you think this might be a little bit comedic to Paul? In the midst of all of this, he is able to speak the truth. There's this great tumult, and the enemies of God are being used over and over to kind of protect him. He's just being pulled around like a rag doll, preaching the gospel from place to place. So, I want to commend to you the reality that you look around at the forces around you, and It's tempting to not be courageous because you go, oh, what can I do? What can one man do? How can you stand against the flood of iniquity? But I want to commend you that the Lord can use little lever of points to do dramatic things. But small numbers of courage are mightily used by God to make the tumult of society into our tool. God subdues our enemies under our feet. through the foolishness of preaching. Comments, questions, or objections from the voting members? Father, we thank you for the power of your word. We ask that you would teach us to be effective and to resist evil and to take the word and wisely, shrewdly be able to wage war as the righteous, that you would subdue evil under our foot, under our feet. We pray this in Christ's name, amen.