I got one of my store-bought haircuts here a while back, and he was a pretty good barber. He had cut my hair before, and I could comb it, and it would look all right. But I had to go back to Old River and then to Bakersfield for medical procedures the last time I went down, and my hair was getting a little bit long in the back especially, and I had another barber cut my hair because my barber was busy, which was a real mistake. I had to cut my hair when I got down there, and then Marilyn had to re-cut my hair when we got here, but the top was such a mess that it's not going to be combable for another two weeks or more, three weeks or four. So that's why I look like I got skinned head just about. Let's get back to Paul now. We're on page 324 in Schaff's History of the Christian Church. Number three, from 51 to 54 AD, Paul's second missionary tour after the Council of Jerusalem and the temporary adjustment of difference between the Jewish Gentile branches of the church and the Paul undertook in the year 51, a great second journey, which decided the Christianization of Greece. Christianizing Greece. Now the Greeks, Greek people, were a, actually, Alexander the Great conquered pretty much the whole world at that time, within 14 years. And he not only conquered them, but he conquered their actual identities. He brought them all into a ekklesia. Each one of them was an ekklesia, which Jesus used that term for the church, ekklesia in Spanish, kirke in German. It is a democratic body of believers called out to carry out the work of the kingdom. That's what ekklesia means in Greek. Well, each city-state had an ecclesia to make, to manage the work of the kingdom there. And Paul, Peter used that term, not Peter, but Jesus used that term when he called out his ecclesia in his ministry there at the seashores of Galilee. And it's a democratic body. We have to go right back to that, and the early churches were democracies. And every one of them was independent of all other churches, except they cooperated. He decided to Christianize Greece. He didn't do it by the sword either, as Catholicism later did, and as Muslim Islam did with Muhammad and his followers, his imams. He took Silas for his companion, Silas. Now, by the way, he took Silas because him and Barnabas were mad at each other because John Mark was Barnabas' nephew. and he was protecting him, and Paul was very upset because he walked off and left them in the missionary tour that he was on because he couldn't stand to be around Gentiles. Gentiles and Christians, Jews, should be the same. They looked at each other the same. Like I said here earlier, that the women didn't have any rights at all, and Paul put them on equal grounds with the men in churches as far as church members go. Having first visited his old churches, he proceeded with the help of Silas and the young convert Timotheus to establish new ones through the province of Phrygia in Galatia, where notwithstanding his bodily infirmity, he was received with open arms like an angel of God. You know what? When somebody leads you to the Lord, that person to you Stands out for the rest of your life in all reality Stands out whether it was your mother your father your pastor a deacon or whoever it was It really affects you for the rest of your life and you look at them as if a messenger from God From Troas a few miles south of the hemorrhoid Troy The entrance to the helisport he crossed over in degrees to answer the Macedonian call come over and help us He preached the gospel with great success first in Philippi, where he converted a purple dyer, Lydia, the seller of purple, and the jailer. And some people even say that Paul married Lydia, and she was his wife. We don't have any account of that in the Bible at all. And the Philippian jailer, and was imprisoned with Silas, but miraculously delivered an honorable release. Then in Thessalonica, where he was persecuted by the Jews, but left a flourishing church there, a Thessalonian church. In Berea, where the converts showed extreme exemplary zeal in searching the scriptures, searching the Old Testament scriptures. They didn't have a New Testament yet. In Athens, the metropolis, in classical literature, he reasoned with the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers and unveiled to them on Mars Hill Areopagus, that right there, a class I taught at Valley Baptist Church for 20 years, Areopagus, I didn't name it that, it just was that. But when I quit teaching that church there, when I resigned and went away, they just dissolved the class, they said nobody else could teach it. It was not possible. Nobody else with my caliber, they said, could ever carry on that class. And A. Park is doing it today, but under a different name. On Areopagus Hill, it means Areopagus Hill, Areopagus, Mars Hill, basically. And consummate fact and wisdom, though without much immediate success, to the unknown God, He said, I'm going to tell you about the unknown God. You've got a monument to the unknown God, to whom the Athenians, in their superstitions and anxiety to do justice to all possible divinities, had unconsciously erected an altar in Jesus Christ, through whom God will judge the world in righteousness, in Corinth, the commercial bridge between the East and the West. Now, that was a very important city, Corinth. A flourishing center of wealth and culture, but also a sink of bias and corruption. The apostle spent 18 months there under almost insurmountable difficulties. He built up a church which exhibited all the virtues and the faults of the Grecians, the character under the influence of the gospel, which he honored with two of his most important epistles because they had a lot of doctrinal problems. Any church that says they don't preach doctrine is a liar. Any church that says they're non-denominational is a liar. You lean toward one thing or the other. Now, I am a Baptist by conversion and conviction. I was raised as a Pentecostal. Marilyn was raised as a Methodist. But history and the Bible made us both Baptists. In the spring of 54, he returned by the way of Ephesus and Caesarea and Jerusalem to Antioch. During this period of time, he composed the two epistles to the Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians. They were talking about the second coming of the Lord, the end times that we're also talking about. When we get through with this about Paul, we're going to go back to the end times, which was the earliest of his literary remains excepting his missionary addresses preserved in the Book of Acts. In AD 54 through 58, the third missionary tour towards the close of the year 54, Paul went to Ephesus. Now this is extremely, I've read Ephesus to you earlier this day from the Greek and how beautiful it was, a very doctrinal, deep, mystical, secret, mysterion, the secrets of God. In Ephesus, And this renowned capital of pro-council of Asia and the worship of Diana, he fixed for three years the center of his missionary work. Three years he spent there. Boy, you can tell it in that letter. He then revisited the churches in Macedonia and Achaia and remained three months more at Corinth and the vicinity of Corinth. This was like a New York City or Los Angeles or San Francisco. of the time. During this period he wrote the great doctrinal epistles to the Galatians, Corinthians, and Romans. Romans is another fantastic book of the Bible, which marked the height of his activity and usefulness. In AD 58 through 63 now, the period of his two imprisonments with the intervening winter voids from Caesarea to Rome, in the spring of 58 he journeyed for the fifth and last time to Jerusalem by way of Philippi, Troas, and Miletus, where he delivered his effective valedictoria to the Ephesian presbyter bishops. Entire ancestria to carry again to the poor brethren in Judea contributions from the Christians in Greece. They were more prominent and more wealthy. They were pouring the coal to them in heavy persecution by the Jews. And by the token of gratitude and love to cement the two branches of the apostolic church more firmly together. But there were some fanatical Jews. Fanatical Jews. That's what Paul fought most with the Jewish people. They got him in more trouble than anybody. Who bitterly hated him as an apostle, and as apostate and a seducer of the people, raised an uproar against him on the day of Pentecost, charged him with profaning the temple because he had taken in an uncircumcised Greek, Trophimus, and dragged him out of the sanctuary, lest they should defile it with blood, and would undoubtedly have killed him had not Claudius Lysias, the Roman tribune, who lived nearby promptly with his soldiers on the spot. And boy, I mean, he had a great military protection. The officers rescued Paul out of the respect of his Roman citizenship. Citizenship meant something. Citizenship ought to mean something in America today, too, shouldn't it? It should mean something in America. Today, if you're a citizen, you're less than an illegal alien. From the fury of the mob sent him the next day before Sanhedrin, after a tumultuous and fruitless session with the council, and the discovery of a plot against his life. People had taken a vow not to eat or drink anything until they killed Paul. They sent him with a strong military guard and certificate of innocence to the procouncil of Felix in Caesarea. Here the apostle was confined for two whole years from 58 to 60, awaiting his trial before the Sanhedrin, uncondemned, occasionally speaking before Felix, apparently treated with comparatively mildness, and visited by the Christians in some way not known to us promoting the kingdom of God. The book of Acts doesn't tell us that, but history does. After the ascension of the new and better procouncil Festus, who is also known to have succeeded Felix in the year 60. Paul, as a Roman citizen, appealed to the tribunal of Caesar. Now, he wanted to go to Rome to preach the gospel. But boy, in the end, it will cost him his life. By the way, when Paul went to Jerusalem this last time, many of the prophets and churches stood up and said, don't go, Paul. Don't go, Paul. Don't go, Paul. And he said, God is calling me there. You will be arrested. And thus he opened up the way of fulfillment of his long, cherished desire to preach the Savior of the world in the metropolis of the world. The crossroads of the world, all roads came and went to Rome. Every road led to Rome, and every road in every direction went from Rome. Having once more testified his innocence and spoken for Christ in a masterly defense before Felix, King Herod, Agrippa II, the last of the Herods, his sister Bernice, I want you to pay attention to this, his sister Bernice, and the most distinguished man of Caesarea, he was sent on autumn of AD 60 to the emperor. He had a stormy voyage. suffered shipwreck and determined or detained him over the winter at Malta. The voyage is described with a singular minuteness and nautical actuary by Luke as an eyewitness. Autopsy comes from that word, autopsy, that means eyewitness. In the Month of March, in the year 86 to one, the apostle with a few faithful companions reached Rome, a prisoner of Christ, and yet freer and mightier than the emperor of the throne. It was in the seventh year of Nero's reign. Now, Nero was a bad boy. Remember Nero? Nero was bad. These are some very important things here in history that we don't know of from the Bible. When he had already shown his infamous character by the murder of Agrippina, his mother, in the previous year and other acts of cruelty, he had his mother killed. He murdered her. In Rome, Paul spent at least two years till the spring of 63 in his easy confinement, awaiting the decision of his case, surrounded by his friends and fellow laborers. His ministry in Rome, he built a church. That's what it is. I had one of my teachers, Dr. Hoyt Chastain, used to tell me, you preach the gospel. You preach, you preach, you preach, you preach, and you build churches. How you build churches, you preach the gospel, and that's exactly what Paul did. He preached the gospel and built churches. By fellows and fellow laborers in his own higher dwelling, he preached the gospel to the soldiers of the Imperial Guard. who attended him, and sent letters and messages to his distant churches in Asia Minor and Greece, and watched over all their spiritual affairs, and completely in bonds his apostolic fidelity to the Lord and his churches. In a Roman prison, he wrote epistles to Colossians, Ephesians, and Philippians, and Philemon. That's what we call the prison epistles. In AD 63 and 64, with the second year of Paul's imprisonment, in Rome, the account of Luke breaks off rather abruptly and yet appropriately and grandly. Paul's arrival in Rome secured the triumphs of Christianity. In this sense, it was true that Roma, Lucata, Causetta, Venete Este, all roads lead to Rome. He went and spoke to Rome is not dead, he is still preaching elsewhere in the kingdom of God, teaching these things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and none forbidding him. But what became of him after the termination of those two years in AD 63? What was the result of the trial so long delayed? Was he condemned to death? Or was he released by Nero's tribunal and thus permitted to labor for another season? This question is still unsettled among scholars. A vague tradition says that Paul was acquitted of the charge of the Sanhedrin and after traveling again to the east, perhaps also into Spain. This was his Spanish tour, which is not in the Bible. Was the second time in prison in Rome and condemned to death. The assumption of the second Roman capture relieves a certain difficulty in the pastoral apparels, for they seem to require a short period of freedom between the first and second Roman captivity and visit to the east, which is not recorded in the Acts, but which the apostle contemplated in the case of his release. A visit to Spain which he intended is possible, though less probable, if he was set at liberty, it must have been before the terrible persecution of July 64, which would not have been spared the great leader of the Christian sect. It is remarkable and coincident that just above the close of the year of Paul's confinement, the celebrated Jewish historian Josephus, then in his 27th year, came to Rome after a tempter's voyage and shipwreck, and affected through the influence of Pompeia, the wife of Nero. Pompeia, the wife of Nero. This is very important. A half-proselyte sent to Rome by Felix as a prisoner. A half-proselyte. She was what she called not a proselyte, but a half-proselyte, a fearer of God. Now this is the wife of Nero. And by the way, he killed his wives. One of the wives that he loved so much, she was pregnant, and he kicked her in the stomach in a fit of rage, and she died. and he loved her a whole lot, and there was a guy there that looked like her, had facial figures. He had him castrated, and he made him his wife. Nero was a real funny character. It is not impossible that Paul may have reaped the benefit of the general release of the Jewish prisoners because of the wife. And the martyrdom of Paul under Nero is established by the unanimous testimony of antiquity. As a Roman citizen, he was not crucified like Peter, but put to death by the sword. The sense of martyrdom is laid by tradition about three miles from Rome, near the Ostian Way, on a green spot formerly called Ague Sade, afterwards Tre Fonte, the three fountains. from the three fountains, which are said to have miraculously gushed forth from the blood of the apostle apostolic martyr. When his blood hit the ground, the fountains came up of water. His relics, or his body, was ultimately removed in the Basilica of San Pablo, Fiore Le Mura, and built by Theodosian and Valencia in 388, and recently reconstructed. He lies outside of Rome and Peter inside of Rome. His memory is celebrated together with that of Peter on the 29th and 30th of June. As to the year of his death, the views vary from A.D. 64 to A.D. 69. The difference of the place and manner of his martyrdom suggests that he was condemned by regular judicial trial either shortly before or more probably a year or two after the horrible wholesale massacre of Christians on the Vatican Hill, in which the Roman citizenship would not have been regarded. If he was released in the spring of 63 and had a year and a half for another visit to the East or to Spain before the outbreak of the Neronian persecution after July 64, but tradition favors a later day. Prudentius separates the martyrdom of Peter from that of Paul by a whole year. After the persecution of the Christians, we're elsewhere exposed to danger. Assuming the release of Paul and another visit to the east, we must locate the first epistle to Timothy and the epistle to Titus between the first and second Roman captivity. These books were written there, to Titus and to Timothy. The last was evidently written in the certain view approaching martyrdom. It is an affectionate farewell of the aged apostle to his beloved Timothy, Timotheus. By the way, the word Timothy means honorable to God. And his last will and testament to the militant church below in the bright and prospective unfading crown of church triumphant above. Thus ended the earthly course of this great teacher of nations, the apostle of victorious faith, the evangelical freedom of Christian progress. He was a heroic character of a spiritual conqueror and immoral souls for Christ, converting them from the service of sin and Satan to the service of the living God, from the bondage of the law to the freedom of the gospel, And leading down to the fountain of life eternal, he labored among abundantly, more abundantly than all the other apostles. And yet, sincerely, in humility, he considered himself the least of all apostles and not worthy to be called an apostle. Because he persecuted the Church of God, a few years later, he confessed, I am less than the least of all saints. and shortly before his death, I am the chief of sinners. His humility grew as he experienced God's mercy and ripened him for heaven. Paul passed a stranger and pilgrim through the world. He passed as a stranger and pilgrim through this world, hardly observing the mighty and the wise of his age, and yet how infinitely more noble, beneficial, and enduring was his life and work than the dazzling march of military conquerors, who promptly, by ambition, absorbed millions of treasure and myriads of lives, only to die at last in a drunken fit in Babylon." He's talking about the emperors. "...are of a broken heart on the rocks of Sancta Helena. Their empires have long since crumbled into dust, but Paul still remains one of the foremost benefactors of the human race. And the pulses of his mighty heart are beating stronger today than ever before in the Christian world. Paul. The hero of God. Paul, who we might try to pattern our lives after. But to do that, you've got to lay it all down. Paul did. There, at the bottom of this page, there's a note on the second Roman captivity of Paul. It's purely historical and critical problem. Has no doctrinal, ethical bearing except the facilities of defense and genuineness of pastoral epistles. That's what some man said. The second captivity and the prolonged labors of Paul for a few years, on the other hand, not only radical skeptical critics of Bayard, Zeller, and Zankel, and Reines, and Holtzman, and all who reject the pastoral epistles except for Renan, they reject these pastoral epistles because Paul couldn't have written them unless he had a ministry for a time in Spain, which he probably did. That's for your digesting on these sayings and the history of Paul's life. I hope I've helped you in understanding a little bit. I hope it encouraged you, one to salvation and one to service. May God help you whatever you do in your lives. May He protect you. May His face shine upon you, as they say. Father, please use this message for your honor and glory. Please convict us and please encourage us to walk and follow you that we might honor and glorify you with our lives. Please use this message wherever it goes in the world for your honor and glory to bring people closer to you and to work for you in this world as if they are your slaves and you own them because you do. Please forgive me where I fail you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.