open your Bibles to Acts 26 starting at verse 12 I want to hit on a couple of key doctrinal points from what Paul says and I want to from there read through Acts 27 which is about the journey that Paul makes toward Rome and so we will see the doctrinal concern of Paul, and we'll see out of it also the courage that is gained from that. And so, I want to emphasize for you the wisdom that Paul has yields strength, right? It yields a strength of soul, it yields fortitude, and so he is able to be bold out of that. He also We've talked about the relationship of prudence or wisdom, how it yields strength of soul, it yields fortitude, and that yields a piety, an ability to be able to take your duties out to the edges of your responsibility. You can change that order up some and see the idea even that piety comes from wisdom, right? The chief virtue is wisdom. It yields all the other virtues. And a concern for your duties out to the edges would cause suffering in your soul that would lead you to have fortitude. If you are angry about not doing your duty, if you're upset about waste, it leads you into a condition of pain that will encourage fortitude. And a recognition that you have duties helps you to hold on to the things that you have with a sort of open-handedness, a liberality. We've talked about the relationships of these things before. So wisdom and fortitude and piety and liberality, the connectedness there. So Paul has just given this extraordinary speech in Acts 26 in which he has sought to bring Agrippa into the fold. And Agrippa's response, as you may recall, was, you've almost made me a Christian, the alternate reading Mr. and I brought up, for example, the ESV or there's also the NIV. They both have this kind of, you know, do you think you could make me a Christian so quickly? Or do you know this, this kind of questioning or or negative reaction version of it. But then it's ended with Agrippa, you know, saying, look, there's nothing here to charge this guy with, right? You're not doing anything worthy of death or chains. So this bold confrontation, attempting to convert his judge is followed by leaving, going to sea. And from there, we have this sort of dangerous situation in which more than 200 people are together in a dangerous situation. And Paul takes courage and is used of God in that. So his fortitude allows him to act with duty and have a sense of piety there. where he's able to sacrificially give of himself. And so, trusting in God's providence, having the doctrine clear in the mind, the wisdom, allows you to have strength to be concerned about your duties and to, from there, be able to hold the things that God has given you in a free way, an open-handed way, to have liberality. And so, Paul accomplishes much with that. So let's read from chapter 26 verse 12 and let's read through chapter 27. While thus occupied as I journeyed to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, at midday, O King, along the road I saw a light from heaven brighter than the sun shining around me and those who journeyed with me. When we all had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew language, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads. So I said, who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and stand on your feet. For I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you. I will deliver you from the Jewish people as well from the Gentiles, to whom I send you to open their eyes in order to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me." We'll pause there and read the next section and comment on it as well, and then we'll read the new section 27 all through. But so here, let me remind you this. We have the calling of Paul by the Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus is saying, you're persecuting me by persecuting my church. The church is my body. And he commands him to minister and to witness. He has appeared to him in order to be a minister, to be a servant, to be a deacon, to serve and to be a witness. And so this service, this he who desires a bishopric offer, desires a good work. He desires an office, desires a good work. So he's being given office to serve, and he's being called to be a witness. And this is the apostolic office being a witness to the resurrection. And also, not only what he's seen, Jesus being resurrected, but the things which will be revealed to him. And so, this is the whole mind of Christ. I will deliver you from the Jewish people as well as from the Gentiles. Right? So, there's going to be persecution from both. Okay? We're guaranteed that we're going to be persecuted if we do good works. All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, will suffer for doing good. And so that being the case, there's going to be difficulty and the people Paul is going to run into, he's going to run into the Jews and the Gentiles because he's sent out to the Gentiles, but he preaches to the Jews first and also to the Greek wherever he goes. So he's going to be delivered from them. He's going to be preserved from them. Not forever, but for a long enough time to do the work. Ultimately, he gets killed by a Gentile king named Nero. So, he's not delivered from the Gentiles forever. But he's sent out to do this, and he's delivered from them to open their eyes, to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God. This opening of their eyes, this is not by Paul's power. This is regeneration. This is irresistible grace. This is the power of God to resurrect from the dead. Now, earlier on, there's this discussion back in verses 6 and 7. Paul's talking about being a Pharisee. He talks about the idea of being raised from the dead. Verse 8 says, Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead? So there's the resurrection of Jesus, there's the physical resurrection of the dead, but now there's also this spiritual resurrection from the dead, the opening of the eyes, right? The spiritually blind, the spiritually deaf, the spiritually dead. God opens the eyes. This is a supernatural work. It's not a miracle because a miracle can be seen. It's a sign, a supernatural sign. But it's a supernatural work and it's not a miracle It's just a supernatural work. And it's a supernatural work that is by the power of God. Supernatural works are not by the power of God. that's witchcraft, right? So you want to claim this is supernatural and claim by it's the power of somebody other than God? Well, that's demonic. That's witchcraft. So we're going to stick with the idea that the opening of the spiritual eyes is not demonic and it's not witchcraft. Instead, it comes from God. It's the working of God. So that's called Calvinism, right? Irresistible grace, regeneration by the working of God, It's the opening of the eyes and turning them from darkness to light. Turning from darkness to light. The darkness is symbolic for believing falsehood. The light is symbolic for believing truth. Opening of the eyes is the turning from darkness to light. When your eyes are closed, close your eyes real quick, what do you see? Darkness. When you open your eyes, you see light, unless you're in a dark place. And so this idea, the opening of the eyes, is the turning from darkness to light. There's two ways of talking about the same thing. And there's a third way. And from the power of Satan to God. So the opening of the eyes, from closed to open, from dark to light, from Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me." Okay, so we have here the monergistic, mono is one, and ergos is working in Greek. Monergistic is the one working, the working alone of God. It's the monergistic regeneration. It's irresistible grace. This is God causing a person to see. This is God causing the person to turn from darkness to light, from unbelief to belief, from the power of Satan, being a slave to Satan, to a slave to God. And God is a better master, I guarantee it. But the idea that you're changing to go from unbelief to belief, that they may receive forgiveness of sins." So this is justification by faith alone. So Christ came and He died, right? And He paid for sins. He's resurrected to display that. And the Word goes out. And the Word goes out in order to open eyes. So that in the opening of the eyes, in the having of faith, there is the forgiveness of sins. The reception of the forgiveness of sins. And there's also the possession, the inheritance. The inheritance is first and foremost the possession of God as the good, which also occurs in faith. You believe the gospel and now you possess God. You possess God. You have the knowledge of God. John 17 3, this is eternal life to know the only true God and Jesus Christ to be sent. The knowledge of God is eternal life. That is the possession. God is the good. He is the highest value. He is the thing that is more valuable than anything else. He is the end in himself. Right? So we get God. We get the knowledge of God. And we have that inheritance. And we also... have dominion over the earth right and so we're called to fill the earth with the knowledge of God by having the objective display or to disciple others as well and that's what Paul is called to he's a he's to minister and to witness he's a minister and a witness and he is speaking the word so he's filling objectively with this spoken word and he's subjectively being used by God to cause people to know God And so they now have forgiveness of sins when they believe, and they have the inheritance. They possess that inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me. And so we have the doctrine of justification, and we have the doctrine of sanctification here. Okay? And those are the two things. These are the two things we need to focus on, and they are justification and sanctification. Justification, right, is about the forgiveness of sins. It's about being declared righteous before God. And so, the concern is to get people to understand the gospel, the doctrine. To ask that God would cause them to believe. And when they get that, they have forgiveness of sins and they have a possession. They possess the good and it can't be taken from them. And so that encourages sanctification because when you have forgiveness of sins, and when you have inheritance, and you then have hope, that he's already talked about the hope, the hope is the hope of the resurrection, the hope of the resurrection, which is that final hope, the resurrection of the righteous. But we have many hopes in between, the hope of continued sanctification, of being preserved, the hope of filling the earth with the knowledge of God, which Paul is a part of, And so you have all of these hopes out there. But the doctrine is the basis for it all. And you have gratitude in the forgiveness of sins and in the possession of what is good. And you share that among those who are sanctified by faith in Christ. That's the communion of the saints. We share together in that inheritance. and the sharing together of that inheritance. It's the knowledge of God. It's also the gifts of the Spirit. And we also are then to work together in the sharing of that. We work together with the common hope. And so all of that's laid out here. Jesus is letting him understand in very few words this idea that he is called to do great things for helping to establish the foundation of the church. Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone of the foundation of the church. The apostles and prophets are the foundation of the church. It's the revelation that's given, and so the doctrine is key. The prudence, the wisdom, the doctrine is the key thing, and it brings all of the other virtues, and it builds the church, and so doctrine is key. We have problems in our lives, and we're often inclined to think to ourselves, okay, I mean, great, if the doctrine is so good, why do I have any problems in my life? Why isn't it better? Well, first of all, things would be worse if you didn't have the doctrine. Secondly, the doctrine is the answer to the problems and helps you to overcome the problems. And so it gives you strength to carry on and to work through and to overcome. And you have that work shared with those who are sanctified by faith in me." The sanctified comes down to being holy. Being holy. Okay, so holiness, it's not the same thing as righteousness, right? The forgiveness of sins is not the same thing as holiness. The holiness is being set apart. Okay? Now, we have the forgiveness of sins, and that allows us, we're cleansed so that we can be put to good use. We're set apart to good use. And so, the idea here is we have this shared inheritance, we have the forgiveness of sins, we have the knowledge of God, we have the gifts, we have a common mission, and we're to use this knowledge to inform how we use our gifts, so we can use our gifts to do the common mission together. And to do it together, not with just anybody and everybody. Not a promiscuous union, but a holy union. A union that is specifically with those who are sanctified, those who are made holy by faith in Christ. Those who are made holy by faith in Christ. Those who are made holy by faith in Christ. That is who we are to unite with. Now, verse 19. Therefore, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but declared first to those in Damascus and in Jerusalem, and throughout all the region of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent, turn to God, and do works befitting repentance." Okay, the repentance, that turns, that's going back to, they need to go open their eyes, they need to go from darkness to light, they need to go from Satan to God. So then, He merges them, right? He says, they should repent, and they should turn to God. This is the positive doctrine to be believed. But this is repentance. It's the same thing. They should repent, and they should repent to God. Right? Not just repent to anything. Repent to God. And do works befitting repentance. Okay? That's what you do with the inheritance with others who are sanctified by faith in Christ. works befitting repentance. For these reasons the Jews seized me in the temple and tried to kill me." Here's the persecution for seeking to live godly in Christ Jesus. Therefore, having obtained help from God, to this day I stand witnessing both the small and great, saying no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said would come, that the Christ would suffer, that he would be the first to rise from the dead, and would proclaim light to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles." Paul is saying he has obtained help from God. He's received gifts. He's received the inheritance. He's received the the gifts are part of that. He's received knowledge, this strength, and he's been delivered repeatedly. That's why this day he stands and is able to witness. If he hadn't been delivered, he'd have been killed already. Right? Think about this. How was he delivered? Let's remember back. There was a mob that had him, dragging him out of the temple, and what happens? Lystis comes, commander of Roman soldiers, and he rescues Paul because Lystis is a good Christian man who wants to help the gospel? No, because Lystis thinks, I'm about to nab an Egyptian rebel who's leading Sicarii who are killing Romans out in the countryside, and I'm going to get some good reputation here for doing this thing. That turns out to not be the case. God uses his motives to rescue Paul. And then Felix, you know, I'm really concerned for justice. I'm going to preserve Paul because I'm concerned for justice. And then Festus, I'm concerned about justice. I'm going to make sure he gets an appeal to Caesar. I don't know what he's charged with. Can't really figure that thing out. So let's get a grip of here. And Agrippa is such a great man that when he starts to feel the pressure of the call to repent and believe the gospel and to become a Christian, he just says, trial over! He gets up and walks out. This is the speech. Paul is telling Agrippa that God helps him to keep getting through this so he can keep bearing witness. in the process of God using Agrippa to help Paul to keep bearing witness. And remember, this is a sitting where all the prominent people in the area are there. They've got Festus and Agrippa and all the prominent people around. This is Paul's opportunity to preach to the high. His opportunity to preach to the low, that occurred in Jerusalem and it caused a riot. So he is preaching to the high and to the low, to the small and to the great. Therefore, having obtained help from God, to this day I stand, witnessing both the small and great, saying no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said would come, that the Christ would suffer, that He would be the first to rise from the dead, and would proclaim light to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles." So he's saying, look, Jesus came to me, he came to me on the road to Damascus, and look, I'm preaching the things that he told me to preach, and I'm preaching the things that the prophets and Moses said. Christ would suffer, right? Isaiah 53, right? So abundantly clear. And again, Genesis 3, the crushing of the heel of the seat of the woman as he crushes the head of the serpent. These things are clear from the beginning and all the way through. The whole sacrificial system points to this. Last time I went through some other examples. You can go on for a while. There's lots of examples that point to this. It's very clear that Christ would come and suffer to make payment for sin. And then His resurrection from the dead. Very clear. Look at Psalm 22 about His death. Very clear. And then Christ fulfills that. Psalm 23, about Christ being anointed and having a feast, being preserved in the midst of his enemies, and this idea of resurrection. There's this all over the place. Psalm 110, and the ascension, right? We have all of this stuff, the not seeing corruption, the Psalms are chock full of Christ's suffering and resurrection. and would proclaim light to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles. You cannot read the prophets without seeing over and over again, and the Psalms without seeing over and over again, and the Torah without seeing over and over again, the idea that, yes, there's going to be this light brought to the Jews, but also to the Gentiles, to all the nations of the earth, to the Gentiles, by the Christ. These things are clear. Now notice this. We talked about that last time. We went through this, and my goal last time was to show you what's happening, what Paul is saying. But here's the new thing I want to draw out. Paul is arguing, even in this Roman court, he is arguing from the Scriptures and to the Scriptures. He's saying, look, the Scriptures say these things. And the fact that the scripture says these things, and these things have happened, it points to the scriptures being true. And the idea that, look, the way I am living, it shows that I believe these things, and there's an integrity check. And so there's this constant appeal back to the scriptures. It's about everything pointing to the scriptures. and the scriptures teaching clearly, and the scriptures making sense of these things. The scripture narrative. One of the reasons the propagandists for Darwinism so frequently just tell you and interpret things as evolution, macroevolution, Darwinism, abiogenesis, Big Bang, all of these things. They just tell you it because of the power of narrative that when you have a story, the story, when you just are familiar with the story, it kind of, it's just easy because you go, I know this story. And you just try to look for ways to fit things in. You have this, this confirmation bias where you, when you know a story, you just look for ways to plug things into that story. And so the ignorance of Christians about the Bible, the fact that people don't know the story of the Bible, right, is one of the reasons we do such a bad job of plugging in Now, we don't want to just have Christians with confirmation bias. We want systematic thinking, which is why we want to teach logic and critical analysis so that you're able to deconstruct false things and to avoid bad interpretations of the Bible. But the idea of laying out the story, when you have a clear view of the story, it helps to make it easier to understand and to fit things in. So there's so much of the Bible that is the story. And the story has doctrine interspersed. But when you understand the story, it makes it easier then to fit things together. And so being familiar with the narrative passages of the Bible and understanding how they fit together chronologically is very helpful for being able to understand the world and understand history. It gives you a lens and it gives you a way of understanding. So Paul is encouraging, he is repeatedly going back to asserting the Christian view because it helps to understand. And so when we go out, there's a temptation to just talk about science, talk about whatever, talk about, you know, basic little principles of the Bible. And we want to assert the story Because asserting the story gives people an understanding of the narrative, and it's memorable. Stories are easier to remember. So God has given us stories, he's given us history, and they're not false stories, they're not myth, it's history. And history is the story of what has really happened. And so we share the story of what has really happened. And as we share the story of what has really happened, we help to make it easier to see how reality is what we are claiming. And so the common narrative of our time is there was nothing, and that caused something, and that something grew really, really fast. And then for no apparent reason, it slowed down. And then through gravitational force, stars started to collect, galaxies started to collect. Those stars blew up repeatedly, allowed for heavy elements to exist through fusion and star explosion, allowed for planets to be formed that had heavy elements through multiple rounds of star explosion and fusion, resulted in the formation of various complex collections of molecules that were then able to turn into long protein strings that we're then able to self-replicate, and we're then able to gradually become more complex, and then we're able to form single-celled organisms, and then we're able to develop not just asexual reproduction, but then sexual reproduction, to have multi-cell sharing of this complexity, and then from there to develop new traits that were useful And then from there, we came from just these mechanical processes to thinking. And so thinking is the result of mechanical processes. And so truth is just the result of mechanical processes. And therefore, truth is younger than humanity, or equally aged. That's the big story. And that ultimately, humanity will end when humanity, you know, reprograms itself as the transformer effect of this material, complexes itself into something beyond man. That's the big story. The last part is not so popular right now, so we keep the whole story and cut off the last part, because we think this, like, Superman, beyond man element is dangerous, leads to Nazism or eugenics or something like that. But the rest of the story we're holding on to. And that process, that story, okay, when you lay it out really close together, and you have the problem of something from nothing, and the creation of life from non life, and thought from non thought, right, those jumps seem really absurd. And they should, It should seem really absurd. There's lots of other problems between those big jumps, but those are the most absurd. And that's the big story. And people have heard it so much that they don't just start laughing when they hear that. Okay, so when we tell the truth over and over again, and when the truth is dominant in a culture, It has transformative effects. Lies have transformative effects. The transformative effects of lies are terrible, awful, horrifying. The transformative effects of truth are beautiful. Terrifying in a different way. Terrifying in that it brings the terror of God. And so it makes it so that men begin to question the absurdity of things. Now, what happens is they'll laugh at you. They'll call you mad. Okay, but the reality is That this is what it is to build a Christian culture. It's to tell the story of Christianity over and over again, and to defend it, and argue for it, and to tear down the other things. To tear down the idols, the conceptual idols, by argumentation. And so, the telling of the story is essential. And so every time, over and over again, the news, the gospel, the history is shared. that the Christ would suffer, that he would be the first to rise from the dead, and would proclaim light to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles. This was prophesied, and then it happened. So this is a presuppositional approach. You go in and you assert Christianity. You don't go in and say, now I know I can't talk to you about Christianity until I prove it. You go in and you assert Christianity. And when they assert their view, you tear it down. When they attack your view, you defend it. You assert Christianity. You don't go in being apologetic. You go in being apologetic. You're not sorry for what you have to say, but you are ready to give a defense for what you have to say. Verse 24. Now, As he thus made his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, you are beside yourself. Much learning is driving you mad. The word there is the root for the word mania. Much learning is making you have a mania. But he said, I am not of a mania. I don't have a mania. I'm not mad, most noble Festus. But speak the words of truth and reason For the king, before whom I also speak freely, knows these things. For I am convinced that none of these things escapes his attention, since this thing was not done in a corner." King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you do believe. So Festus tries to do this rhetorical thing where he's trying to remove all of Paul's credibility. Paul has been building up credibility with an ethos argument. He's been saying, look, from my youth I was a Jew, then I was persecuting, and then I switched because Jesus came to me. So this is believable. Why would I have such a dramatic transformation? Why would I change what I'm doing? Why would I give up my station? Why would I take on this hard life? Why would I accept persecution for this? And so it all gives credibility. And then he starts to assert the doctrine and say, look, also this isn't new doctrine. This was preached by the prophets and by Moses. And so Festus comes in and says, Paul, all your reading, all your book learning is driving you crazy. You're the guy who has the conspiracy theory stuff on the wall. You've put all these news articles up and you've got string connecting them and you've circled different parts of it. You're the guy in every movie that looks crazy and then turns out to be right. or a serial killer. That response, saying he is a mania, that is meant to completely drive away credibility, right? It's supposed to kind of put an end here. Festus sees the pressure coming on, he sees what's happening with Agrippa, and so what does Paul do? Paul says, I don't have a mania, I'm not mad, bless noble Festus, but speak the words of truth and reason. Now, sometimes we kind of laugh at the idea of, you know, You're a stupid face. No, I'm not. I'm not a stupid face. I'm smart. You look at this childish assertions back and forth. Sometimes, at least quickly, it's important to just do that. Someone says, you're a blah. You're whatever. You say, no, I'm not that. I'm doing this. You just counter-assert. And that assertion. The counter-assertion is sometimes the fastest way to move on because the other person would have to be silly to kind of just go into the childish, yes you are. So you can get away with just kind of pushing stuff down to keep going. What happens so often when we are speaking publicly, when we are engaging with people, is we allow ourselves to be diverted by stupid arguments. Paul doesn't say, well, no, I let's address that Festus. I don't think I'm mad. And let's examine that. Let's talk about why I'm not mad. He just blows past it. So Most of the time people recognize stupid arguments for stupid if you just assert the alternative that is true. So you don't have to spend your time arguing through, trudging through everything all the time. A lot of times counter assertion is sufficient. The person starts brawling with you over your counter assertion. Okay, figure out whether you gotta figure out how to move past that person or whether you keep arguing. But with things that are just silly or unimportant or unhelpful, just blow past them by asserting the truth again. No, Festus, I'm not insane, I'm not mad, I don't have a mania. My much learning is not driving me mad. I assert the words of truth and reason. I'm speaking the words of truth and reason. That right there. Okay, that. I want you to grab hold of that phrase. The words of truth and reason. When we present the gospel to people, we are speaking the words of truth and reason. We are speaking the words of truth and reason. And that's why you should not be ashamed of them. That's why you should glory in them. That's what you possess. You hold a treasure that other people are desperately in need of. You have in your mind the words of truth and reason if you believe the gospel. And the rest of the world is believing words of falsehood and insanity. What is insanity? If sanity is being reasonable, Insanity is being unreasonable. Christianity is the only system that is rationally coherent. That communicates meaning. Every other system is incoherent. It's irrational. And to hold on to irrational things is an act of not sanity, but of insanity. In order to hold on to things that are irrational, When the irrationality becomes apparent to you, you have to forget. So here is the reality of what people are doing when they hold on to an incoherent system. They are frantically slapping down things that point out the incoherence of their system. There's a phobic response. They are logophobic. phobic of truth. They are phobic of it. They are fearful of it. They suppress it. They seek to escape it. They cut off the trial early. They end the call, end the conversation, find an excuse to move on. They have an irrational fear of figuring out what's true. We have the words of truth and reason. They have the words of lies. They have the words of madness. You don't believe the science. You don't believe in science. I just believe the science. You just follow the science. Don't wear masks, wear masks, wear two masks. The science, what is the science? If people just assert things and say the science proves it. They just assert things. How many times have you been in a conversation where somebody pulled out a study and talked to you about the methodology of it and pointed out how the study was used to determine the thing? And to actually get you a conclusion that was irrefutable. It doesn't happen. First of all, the studies are not perfect. When you study the methodology, you find the problems with empiricism. But when you look at the studies also, there's the issue of correlation versus causation. And nobody does it. People just blather on about their belief in science without referencing any actual experimentation or methodology. There's very little discussion about the generally accepted laws of science, the rules of how things work. There's just what the people in white coats say. And not even that, let's just be honest. Nobody even reads anything from scientists. They just read what second rate reproductions by people writing short articles and blog posts and blathering and podcasts say the scientists say. The mania of our time is to pretend that there is a strong, reasonable basis to believe things that are repeated over and over again in popular media, the public schools, and government. And the response is to look at Christianity and say that you're a fundie, you're an extremist, you believe a book written by people from the Stone Age, or the Bronze Age, or the Iron Age, And so that's it. And so there's an appeal to all sorts of biases and a modernistic fervor and arrogance to say that to believe the Bible is unreasonable without any sort of careful analysis of the philosophical underpinnings of naturalistic materialism. And so Paul here is asserting the Bible. And he's asserting, look, sanity requires you to believe these words. These are the words of truth and reason. Verse 26, For the king before whom I also speak freely knows these things, for I am convinced that none of these things escapes his attention, since this thing was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you do believe. Paul here is trying to eliminate the tension reducer that Festus is creating. Festus is trying to reduce the tension on Agrippa. Agrippa is sitting here, and he's hearing this argument. He's hearing the appeal to ethos, and he's hearing the appeal to logos, the appeal to the reason, right? The idea that Paul is credible, and he desires his hearer's goods. His hearer's good. Ethos. And then, the logical argumentation. This is presented in the Prophets. Here's the doctrine of the Prophets. The people that are arguing against me don't have a reasonable basis for arguing against me. And then Festus tries to get rid of the tension. He tries to eliminate the rhetorical effect. All you're learning is driving you mad. And Paul slams him back down by saying, I speak the words of truth and reason. For the king before whom I also speak freely knows these things. For I am convinced that none of these things escapes his attention, since this thing was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you do believe. grabbing hold of the salient point and attacking it. Every time there's an attack, any competent defender will try to figure out how to harass, slow down, stop the attacker when the attacker is attacking the salient point. The point that sticks out, the weak point. When you're attacking the weak point, Paul has assessed this crowd, he's looked around, and he says, Agrippa is prominent, and Agrippa claims to believe the prophets. So I'm going to go after him, and I'm going to grab hold of that to make a public victory here. And Festus is terrified that Paul is going to make Agrippa say something that supports Paul's position. And Agrippa's terrified of it. Because Agrippa doesn't want to make his subjects, his Jewish subjects, angry with him. And at the same time, unless a man is so hardened as to have no conscience, when good argumentation is put forward, it grabs hold of the conscience. And so Paul is grabbing hold. And so this appeal to integrity, the desire to not be unmasked is an obvious hypocrite. When someone shows that you're wearing a mask, do you claim to believe the prophets? Well, why do you reject then what the prophets say? This is what Paul is doing. He is going to grab the mask to make it so that either Agrippa has to say, you're right, or he has to deny the prophets. And in reaching for the mask, Festus is trying to slap away the hand, and Paul responds by jamming back the hand that tries to stop his hand, and he continues reaching. Look, these things were public things. Everybody knows this happened. Agrippa's not ignorant of what's going on here. Didn't happen in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do believe. Do you believe the prophets? You already said you do. Everybody here knows that you profess to believe the prophets. Then Agrippa said to Paul, you almost persuade me to become a Christian. This is a tension reducer. Got some good points there. I'm gonna have to consider that. The alternative, in such a short time, do you think I'll become a Christian? It's the idea of I need time to consider, right? Either way, they're tension reducers. Trying to back it off. Then Agrippa said to Paul, you almost persuade me to become a Christian. And Paul said, I would to God that not only you, but also all who hear me today might become both almost and altogether such as I am, except for these chains. When he had said these things, the king stood up as well as the governor and Bernice and those who sat with them. And when they had gone aside, they talked among themselves, saying, this man is doing nothing deserving of death or chains. Then Agrippa said to Festus, this man might have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar. So they get up, they end it. That's a way of avoiding the tension. And then they go and start talking about the case to make judgment on it. And that helps them to avoid thinking about what he has claimed while at the same time seeking to do something that seems like it's important, right? We fool ourselves into thinking things are important or that we should do something else in order to avoid considering our own beliefs. So instead of considering the truth or falsehood of what he has said, let's consider the practical, the pragmatic. of whether he should be let go or not. And then they go to the political and he's, well, he's appealed to Caesar, so we'll send him to Caesar. They don't even go to justice, right? The justice, they should say, you know what? He's not guilty of anything. We should let him go. Just acknowledge that we were wrong to hold him. But the reality is they don't want to just let him go because he's a problem for them. There's a lot of strife being caused. So sending him on to Caesar without any reasonable basis of saying he still has charges against him is easier. And so this is the effort to eliminate, to liquidate, to remove the problem. Now, this sort of effort to deal with a political rival, a political problem, a political tension, a public tension, by sending off, this slowing down, keeping in the system, moving along, political prisoner status, all that. This is a way of, without feeling as bad doing that, the regimes that are most effective at suppressing the truth, what would they do? They'd just kill That's what the Maoists did. They just killed Christians in mass. That's what the Stalinists did. They just killed professing Christians in mass. That's what the Nazis did. That's what you do. And that's what more and more efficient anti-Christian regimes do. If socialism comes to power in the United States, do you expect the screaming crowds supporting BLM in the streets to give you a better trial than Felix or Festus? Are they more reasonable than King Agrippa? Are the Trotskyite, Stalinist, Maoist, Marxist, Fabian Socialist nonsense that blurs together in our day, is not the kind that cares about due process? You look at the tyranny of Rome, and you look at the suppression of truth here, and you think that's a lot of tyranny. It is nothing. It is nothing in comparison to what more modern tyranny does. The liquidation, elimination in China now, the way they talk about this when they kill you, okay, to stop you from the political dissent, they call it you've been harmonized. This person's been harmonized. So this is a very inefficient political prisoner system. The gulags, the concentration camps, the cultural revolution, far more efficient. We have to have the boldness to speak the truth, because when the truth is not spoken in public, it soon becomes a crime to speak it in private. Paul's boldness is an example to us and his fortitude to do this and to press his judges. Many of the pragmatists of America are like the Romans. Okay, BLM and the socialists in the country. are like the BLM mobs, they're like the Trotskyites, they're like the Stalinists, they're like the cultural revolutionaries. And so the pragmatists are wicked, but they hold back the tide. And what the goal is, is to speak the truth, to use the time of peaceableness and quiet to speak the truth. The quiet is a gift from God to give us time to bring men to repentance. It's your job to learn well and to organize in your own mind and to commit to speak the words of truth and reason, to have them well organized in your mind so that you can give a defense, an apologia, when you have opportunity and to look for opportunity and to take times that don't look like opportunities, like when you're on trial, and to use them boldly. That is what is necessary in order to push back the darkness. It's the proclamation of light. And so, if we don't do it, who will? And that tendency is to go, well, is this hopeless? Is there no one? And so let me remind you of what was said to Esther. That if you don't, then God will use someone else. And at first that relieves the tension, until you realize that then you will have all of eternity to be grateful for the good work that someone else did, rather than enjoying the good fruit of the good work yourself. Christianity is the words of truth and reason, the propositions revealed from the divine mind. It is the very mind of Christ. You have to learn these words. You have to organize them in your mind and be ready to speak them and to argue them rigorously, to disciple and to speak against and to bring shame upon falsehood. Because even the pragmatists don't want to be shown to be hypocrites. And so they back off and they stop the suppression or they let you continue on with some degree of peace. That's why these are the weapons of our warfare. They're very powerful. They're very powerful when they're used. They're not very powerful when you're not used, like all weapons. And so we're called to pray. and praise and speak the words of truth and reason. Comments, questions, objections from the voting members? Mr. Nye? I wanted to ask if you could maybe unpack the claim that you said that no one reads scientific studies. I wanted to better understand what you meant by that. Yeah, so what was meant when I said nobody reads scientific studies. So obviously that's hyperbolic, right? There are people who read scientific studies. Some of them are the people who edit them. So typically the people who write them are reading them as well. And there are some other people who do that, who have interests, especially if they have some sort of profession associated with it. What I mean is the vast majority of the human population take things on authority claims from journalists and broader cultural icons. And they listen to the government. And they don't typically read scientific journals or the studies that are performed. And then the few people who do read those studies, when they analyze them, if they're being honest with themselves, are going to realize that no knowledge has been obtained. That all that has been obtained are reasonable bases for guesses. And so we take reasonable actions based upon the evidence, not proof, that we have for how to make things work. And that's what science is about. And so we try to figure out through experimentation the ideal amount of electricity to run through Freon in order to use it to cool. And we try to figure out the ideal way to construct things to be aerodynamic. But those are not ever quite obtained. use acceptable ranges of what seems to typically work. And, you know, normally we wear between one and two masks or none. Does that answer your question? Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Great. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the words of truth and reason. We thank you that scripture is your word written We thank you that we have a first principle upon which to rely, to avoid the infinite regress of proofs that human efforts to have truth that is proved by a prior truth would lead us to. We thank you that we have a first principle. We thank you that we have the set of words given to us as opposed to having to infinitely guess alternate first principles. Thank you that they have words, propositions that are true, that are reasonable, that are unchanging. and are for all of mankind, not just Jews, not just Gentiles, but for the Jew and for the Gentile. We thank you that you have not left us simply with logic, but have given us propositions to reason from. We thank you that you have not left us simply to judge by our own experience, but that you've given us a universal, infallible truth. We thank you that you have not left us to be slaves to the white coats or the bureaucrats. We thank you that you have left our consciences free from the doctrines and commandments of men. We thank you that you are the eternal God so that we are not stuck with the silliness of an eternal changeable universe or of something being caused by nothing. We thank you that you have revealed to us what is our good, what is our inheritance, that you are the good, that the knowledge of you is how we possess you, so that we are not left in meaninglessness without a way of making sense of what to choose. We thank you that you've given to us the words of truth and reason. We ask that you would protect us from the pragmatists and help us to speak the words of truth and reason. We ask that you would protect us from the mob, from the revolutionary socialists, and that you would help us to use the time of peace and quietude that we have to be bold to proclaim the truth. We ask, Father, that you would give us great boldness and courage and great wisdom by knowing the words of truth and reason so that we would have the courage to speak the words of truth and reason. We pray this in Christ's name, who is the truth and who is the Logos, the reason. Amen.