The Acts of the Apostles 89

Subtitle:  The Things We Think We Need to Do

Acts 26:1-18.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on January 26, 2025.

We are returning to our series in the book of The Acts of the Apostles.

Paul has been held at Caesarea, the Roman headquarters for Judea, for two years without any movement on his case.  Governor Felix had hoped to be bribed, but that did not happen.  Our story picks up at a point where Caesar has recalled Felix to Rome and appointed a new governor, Porcius Festus.  Gov. Festus was asked by the religious leaders of Jerusalem to bring Paul to Jerusalem for a trial.  Understanding that they intended to assassinate him, Paul appeals his case to Caesar.

This leads to our hearing today.  This is not a trial.  However, King Herod Agrippa II and his sister Bernice are visiting Gov. Felix to welcome him and try to create a good working relationship between their two areas of authority.  Note:  Herod Agrippa II is in charge of the Galilee and areas north of it at this time.  Though he has the title of king at this point, he is not the king of all Israel like his great-grandfather Herod the Great was.

There are at least two purposes to this hearing.  Herod Agrippa II is interested in this curious case of Paul, so Felix favors him with a hearing.  However, Felix is not sure what to put in his letter to Caesar when he sends Paul to Rome.  Felix is hoping that Agrippa will help him to write something that will not make him look incompetent.

At the same time, this event turned into quite the spectacle.  Not only are Gov. Felix, King Agrippa and his sister Bernice there, but the Roman commanders and prominent men of the city have also been invited into this auditorium to observe the questioning led by Agrippa.

Paul makes his case for innocence and for his faith

Throughout the last two years, Paul has always demonstrated and argued that he is innocent of the charges laid against him.  They are baseless.  However, it is clear that this is not Paul’s main focus.  He is also making the case for why he believes in Jesus of Nazareth.  He really is presenting the Gospel of just who Jesus is and what he has done.

Of course, a Roman governor, who is not a Jew, would be unlikely to care about such matters (although not impossible).  However, Agrippa is different.  He is from the Herodian family.  Though they may not be considered exclusively Jewish, they have been in Jewish leadership in one way or another for the last 80 years, and their family converted to the Jewish faith during the Hasmonean rule another 100 years before that.  Agrippa knows the Scriptures and understands Jewish thought regarding the Messiah.  He may not be a strong observant Jew, but he is not a pagan or atheist either.  It will be much easier to make the case without being stuck on foundational issues such as: there is one God, the God of Israel, etc.

Regardless of this dynamic, Paul always defends his faith with the goal that all people everywhere deserve a hearing of the Gospel.  You can never know how God can touch the heart of people.  Thus, the best you can do is faithfully share the Gospel and leave the rest up to Him.

In verse three, Paul recognizes that Agrippa is “an expert in all customs and questions” regarding Jewish things.  He would not see this as “those Jews are fighting again over nonsense.”

Paul also describes himself as “fortunate” to be able to make a defense to Agrippa.  This is the same word that Jesus used in the beatitudes of Matthew 5 (“Blessed are those…).  How many of us would call ourselves “blessed” after we had been: held in prison for two years, trotted out often for questioning in the hopes of a bribe, and brought out again by the new governor for much the same?  Regardless, this hearing won’t change his situation.  It is one authority doing a favor for another authority for personal gain.  Yet, Paul considers himself blessed to have this opportunity.

Now, Paul is just like us.  In his flesh, he could easily be discouraged by these things and give up his faith in God’s loving purpose.  But, he learned to trust God when his life was powerfully changed by Jesus.  Jesus intersected his life, and now, Jesus is intersecting the lives of these men through Paul.  He is the grace of God to this king who is the third generation from the wicked Herod the Great.  If Paul was only following his flesh, he would not have done what he does here.    Yet, he chooses to speak by faith in work and purpose of Jesus.

Paul tells Agrippa (vs. 4-5) that he had come to Jerusalem as a young boy to study Torah under the Pharisees (Rabbi Gamaliel).  He had become an adult there and was quickly rising through the ranks of that group, distinguishing himself as a good Pharisee.  He was, therefore, no ignorant common man who had fallen under the teaching of Jesus of Nazareth.  Everyone in Jerusalem was a witness that he was the quintessential Pharisee and not a follower of Jesus.

Yet, in verse 6, he emphasizes that he is on trial for his faith in God’s promise.  He believes that God has kept the promise to Israel that all Jews say they are waiting for.  What is this promise and the hope put in it?  It is the promise that God would send an Anointed man to fix Israel and send the truth of God to the ends of the earth, a man who would bring all the dispersed of Israel back to the land.  He would also be the one to crush the serpent’s (devil’s) head, giving humanity victory over our ancient enemy.  Paul says in verse 7 that this is why they “serve” God night and day.  This word for serving here is often used of the temple sacrifices and duties of the priests.  It refers to the duties and prescriptions laid out in the Law of Moses.

It was common in those days for some people of Israel to give up on the temple service because they had lost hope in the things promised by God through the prophets.  How many Christians are giving up on serving Jesus because they have lost hope in the things promised by him?  When we assemble ourselves in groups, when we water baptize those who believe and teach them the teachings of Jesus, we are serving the purposes and commands of Jesus in the hope of the things promised by him.

Paul boils it down in verse 8 with the a question.  If God can raise the dead, then why do you think the message of Jesus is incredible?  Why don’t you want to believe that God has done what He said in His Word that He would do?  This is the same question the prophet Isaiah asked over 700 years before in Isaiah 53:1.  “Who has believed our report (i.e., our good news, our gospel)?”

It is interesting to note that the Old Testament records at least three instances where someone was brought back from death.  In 1 Kings 17, Elijah brings back to life the son of the widow of Zarephath that had been helping him.  We are told that “his sickness was so severe that there was no breath left in him.” (1 Kings 17:17),  In 2 Kings 4, Elisha brings back to life the son of the woman of Shunem who had help him whenever he was in the area.  Later, in 2 Kings 13, we have a story of a band of Moabites invading Israel while a man is being buried.  Out of haste, they toss the man’s body into the tomb of Elisha.  The man’s body came back to life once it touched the bones of Elisha.

However, we also have prophecies that speak of the dead coming back to life throughout the prophets.  A case in point would be Daniel 12:2.  “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt.”  This was not something made up by Jesus or his disciples.

Paul hadn’t been a follower of Jesus.  In verse 9, he emphasizes that he thought he had to do many things “hostile to the name of Jesus,” following the claims of resurrection by the disciples.  There is an interesting tension here between Paul’s life of doing what he thought he needed to do, and his later response to the heavenly vision he received on the road to Damascus.  We may not have such a powerful vision ourselves, but salvation at its root is a spiritual encounter with God.  We must never forget that it is the Holy Spirit that convicts people and brings them to a place where they can choose to believe in Christ or not.

He describes all of these hostile things he thought he needed to do: locking the saints in prison, voting for their deaths, trying to force them to blaspheme Jesus, and pursuing them to foreign cities.  We should notice the descriptors that Paul uses of himself: “punished them,” “tried to force them,” “furiously enraged at them,” and “pursuing them.”  This is a man trying to do religion according to the desires of his flesh instead of following the Spirit of God.  There are people today who do the same thing, whether as “Christians” or any other religion and ideology.  They think they need to dismantle what Christ taught and the remnants of that truth throughout our society.  It is easy to treat them as the enemy, but the real enemy is our own heart’s desire to please the flesh and a spiritual enemy who works overtime to draw us away from Jesus, who is the Truth.

At verse 12, Paul turns to the event that changed him.  As he approached Damascus in order to arrest Christians there, he was struck by a light “brighter than the sun” (verse 13).  His whole group was knocked to the ground, and a voice spoke to him in Hebrew.  “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?  It is hard for you to kick against the goads.”

This double address is typically a way of getting someone’s attention, but it is also used to draw emphasis to what is next.  This is similar to the way Jesus says, “truly, truly, I say to you.”  Of course, a person is not being addressed here, but it is clearly underlining the fact that he is giving them absolute truth.  Saul needed to understand (we need to understand) that God had been trying to get his attention along the way, but Saul had been ignoring it.  In fact, it is quite possible that the extremity of his hostile acts has been driven by a fear that he is not sure that these Christians are all that bad.  He has been so used to being seen as the quintessential Pharisee that the idea of waffling on these Christians scares him.  Perhaps, the death of Stephen rattled his faith in the execution of Jesus?  We don’t know the answers to those speculations, but one thing is not speculation.  God had been trying to goad Saul towards faith in Jesus, and Saul had been kicking against it, resisting it.  A goad is a pointed object that sticks out in such a way that an animal pulling a cart or carriage is encouraged to stay in the right position.  If it tries to wrest free of the leather straps it will be poked.  If it kicks against those goads, it will only serve to bring more pain to itself.  This is the picture that Jesus gives to Saul.  He had been spiritually injuring himself due to the ways in which he was kicking against God’s conviction.

When Saul asks the voice, “Who are you, Lord?”  The answer is, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.”  Notice that God, Jesus, takes personal affront to the things that are done against His people.  To persecute the saints is to persecute the Lord Jesus.  Yet, Jesus does not want Saul to die and go into eternity lost.  He has been working to get Saul’s attention so that he would repent and believe.

Saul did not only receive grace on that day and in that blinding moment.  No, God had been giving Saul grace all along the way, but Saul had been kicking against it.  Saul became a believer that day.

Yet, Jesus had a job for Saul to do.  Jesus tells Saul to get up and prepare to do this job.  In verses 16-18 18, Jesus tells Saul that he is sending him to be a minister to Jews and Gentiles.  He will witness to them of things past (the life, death and resurrection of Jesus), but also things present. God would deliver him from the persecution of other Jews like himself and from the Gentiles.  Why?  Paul tells of the reasons in verse 18.

Paul’s job would be to open their eyes to the truth.  Another way of saying this is shared next, to “turn [them] from darkness to light.”  He would help them to get out from under the “dominion of Satan” and “to God.”  They would receive “forgiveness of sins” and an “inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.”  This is the grace of Jesus to Saul, but also the grace of Jesus through him to all those who would cross his path, like Agrippa.

Do you see that God wants to set you free from the dominion of Satan?  Do you see that you have an inheritance among the people of God that is both in this life and in the life of eternity to come?  In fact, Jesus wants to use you as a channel of His grace to others.  You may not go on to do all the same things that Saul of Tarsus, i.e., Paul, went on to do.  However, God will help you and use you as you put your faith in Him, say what he gives you to say and do what he give you to do.  May God help us to stop doing what we think we need to do, and start listening to Jesus about what we need to do.  This will make all the difference in your life!

Need to Do audio

The Character of God- Part 7

Subtitle:  God is Faithful Truth

Exodus 34:6-7.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on January 19, 2025.

Today, we will look at the fifth description of God’s character.  God is faithful truth!

With this sermon, we will bring this series that looks at the character of God to a close.

God is faithful truth in the Old Testament

The Hebrew word used here is emeth (em’ eth).  Modern Hebrew says emet.  It means truth, but by extension, it means the dependability and trustworthy nature of that which is truth.  Thus, it is sometimes translated as faithfulness.  At its root, the concept is one of stability or firmness.  You might picture the old hymn, My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less.  It speaks of Christ as the “Solid Rock” and states that all other ground is “sinking sand.”  That is a very biblical picture and is at the heart of this word today.  Are you building your life on Christ the solid rock, or are you building on anything else, which is sinking sand?

Truth is a foundational concept.  To believe that something is true when it isn’t true is to discover many unexpected ways in which your underlying beliefs do not uphold your actions and steps.  I might believe that I am a 7 foot 2 inch all-star basketball player.  However, that will not change the reality of what would happen if I tried to play against NBA players.  The reality of what I actually am will be crushed by the reality of what those NBA players can do.

Our thinking is powerful, but it doesn’t change the truth; it doesn’t change reality.  It can, however, change how I respond to reality.  My thinking can powerfully change me, if I properly respond to truth.

On the other hand, to believe that something is false when it is actually true isn’t much better.  I pretty much doom myself to trying a bunch of ways that don’t work.  Of course, many a scientific discovery happened because someone tested false assumptions about what is the truth.

Foundational truths do not conform to our desires.  It is what it is, and a wise human will quickly see through the lies that they are basing their life upon.

Of course, we are not always able to properly discern truth through a scientific discovery, whether in science or God’s work in our life.  We can praise God that He hasn’t left us alone to only discover truth by our senses.  God has revealed many truths to humanity through the years, things that we would have never discovered without His revelation.

The word Amen also comes from this same root and essentially means, “that is true” or “that is trustworthy; you can stand on it.”  A double amen intensifies the meaning.  The Gospel of John has 25 occurrences of the double amen.  The King James Version translated this as “verily, verily.”  For a Hebrew person to use this double Amen, a perfectly trustworthy thing will follow.

In the Bible, people who have emeth have stable character and can be trusted by others.  They keep their word.  This doesn’t mean they are never late for an appointment.  It is not a statement about perfect performance of what they say, i.e., they are never stuck in traffic.  Rather, it is a statement about their character.  They mean what they say and do everything they can to back it up.  If you have ever crossed a creek by stepping from rock to rock, you have probably found that some rocks look stable, but they are not.  You can confidently step on them and then they wobble, often sending you into the water.  A person of emeth doesn’t wobble when you trust them or lean on them. 

This brings us to some of the occurrences of this word in the Old Testament.

Moses would sit and judge the disputes of the people when they were in the wilderness.  In Exodus 18:21-22, Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, recognizes that it is too much for him.  The multitude of problems will where him out.  He then counsels Moses to select “men of emeth (truth/faithfulness)” who will be able to decide the smaller problems and only send the hard issues to Moses.

A man of emeth is not just someone who tells the truth.  Rather, they are men who live life by truth.  It is part of their character.  They do not see their position of authority as a way for gain.  Instead, they know the truth that lies behind their position.  The position is not for enriching them, but for the help of the people.  God talks a lot about authority, but notice this one thing throughout Scriptures.  Leaders are always supposed to be for the purpose of serving the people, not serving themselves.  Positions of authority do not exist because some people are just better than other and deserve to rule over the people.  They don’t deserve a better life with the people buying off their favor.  God cares about the people.  He only cares about those in authority in as much as they help or hurt the people.

The truth is that two people committed to honoring God may not always agree, but they should be able to come to an agreement without someone else judging their case.  The problem isn’t about wisdom, but about our sinful unwillingness to honor God in our disputes.

Abram demonstrated the verb form of this word in Genesis 15.  When emeth is in a verb form it takes on the idea of believing or putting your trust in something or someone.  This is what lies behind the famous verse in Genesis 15:6.  “[Abram] believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.” (NASB).  This believing is not talking about a mere intellectual belief in God’s existence.  It is talking about all the actions that Abram did because he believed that God was trustworthy.  Thus, Abram left Ur of the Chaldeans and traveled to Canaan.  There, he lived in tents, awaiting God’s promise. He was more than a trustworthy man, but also a man who saw God as trustworthy.  In the Bible, God is the greatest One at being faithful truth, trustworthy.

Believe it or not, we even have a verse in which it says that Israel believed God.  In Exodus 14:31, Pharaoh’s army had just been drowned in the Red Sea.  This caused Israel to believe in God.  Yet, as they travelled with God through the wilderness and to the Promise Land, their faith in God was tested.  Each test begs the question, “Do you trust God now?”  It is not that God is purposefully causing all of these things, though He can surely test how trusting we are.  But, as things happen in life, He is watching to see what we will do.  Will we believe in Him, or put our trust in something else?

We know that Israel failed very often.  Yet, God helped them (even helps us) because He is faithful truth.  It is His character.  This means that God is not simply a truth-teller, or One who wants truth from others.  He is the foundation of all truth itself.  He is the only being in the universe that is absolutely dependable.

Jacob coming back to Canaan, with his 2 wives, 12 kids and many herds of animals, stopped at the border and confessed to God that he was unworthy of all the faithful truth that God had shown to him (Genesis 32:10).  When Jacob had left for northeastern Syria, God had spoken promises to him.  Over the last 20 years, God had proven to be trustworthy and had shown Jacob faithful truth, not because Jacob deserved it, but because God keeps His word.

This brings us to Moses and his rock metaphor for God.  Deuteronomy 32:31-32 points out that the fallen spiritual beings that the nations worshiped as gods were not trustworthy.  Their rock is not like the Rock of Israel.  Their gods wobbled whenever they put their trust in them, but Yahweh was an absolute stable rock.  This is another way of speaking about God’s emeth, faithful truth.

We should recognize that there is a parallel between Israel running from the giants and David fighting Goliath.  In Numbers 14, Israel balked at fighting the giants.  They decided to kill Moses, pick a new leader and go back to Egypt.  However, God steps in and that doesn’t happen.  Still, they are told that they will stay in the wilderness for 40 years as a punishment for their unbelief towards God. 

Thus, later when David comes to check on the battle his brothers and Israel were fighting against the Philistines, he finds a giant challenging Israel and everyone trembling in their tents.  They were not believing God again.  They were essentially on a spiritual trajectory back to Egypt, back to the wilderness.  Yet, God steps in.  This time He raises up a “man of emeth” who will face the giant and give Israel victory over the Philistines.  Solomon recognizes this in 1 Kings 3:6.  “You have shown great lovingkindness to Your servant David my father, according as he walked before You in truth and righteousness and uprightness of heart toward You…”

You may see the pattern now that a trustworthy person is someone who is trusting the truth of God in their life, their decisions and actions.  David lived out the truth of God even when it looked like it could get him killed.  Of course, David would later fall woefully short of this during the event in which he commits adultery with Uriah’s wife and then has him killed in an attempt to cover it up.  David fell short, but the pattern of salvation coming through a man of perfect emeth is made clear in the Old Testament.

People are not born with trustworthy genes.  Trustworthiness comes from a life of putting your trust in God.  It comes from the experience of life in which we discover that God is the only One who can uphold our trust perfectly.

Thus, God promised David that one from his offspring would be that perfect Psalm 1 picture of a man who fully trusts God and thus becomes a tree of life to all who will eat of his fruit.  This offspring would be the Anointed One of Psalm 2 who would inherit dominion over all of the earth, bringing salvation to those who bow to him in allegiance.  This Messiah would not fall short.  This was revealed to David and he spoke of it (sang of it) in his psalms.  This would be a forever kingdom because the king is a man of perfect emeth.  He is stable, unfailing and trustworthy, and so, his kingdom is a kingdom of emeth.  He would stand up to the giant, spiritual forces that were dominating humanity and fully trust God.

This is why the Bible speaks of the kingdoms of this world falling before the Messiah.  They definitely will not be able to stand against his return as Revelation 19 declares.  However, over the last 2,000 years, nations have risen and fallen at his command.  The united States of America is falling apart even now before Jesus has come back.  We could even cease to exist as we currently do, whether split apart or taken over by a foreign power.  Regardless, the problem is always our lack of trusting God.  America is not trusting God, and it is destroying our country.  Yet, He gives times of opportunity for repentance.  Perhaps, the US still has time to repent and be restored before Him.

In 2 Samuel 7:16, we are told of a prophecy from God through the prophet Nathan to David.  David’s throne would be “established” forever.  This is the verb form of emeth, but it is in a passive form.  It is the idea that something will be made trustworthy, faithful truth.  His kingdom will be like a rock because The Rock of Israel, the Stone of Israel (Genesis 49:24), will arise.  A kingdom can be no stronger than the one upon whom it is built.  The Messianic Kingdom will last forever because it is built upon The Rock.  All other kingdoms are built on sinking sand.  Only Messiah’s kingdom can go through the fire of God’s wrath (a day when He judges all the nations on earth) and survive.  All other kingdoms will not survive.  At least, not in their current forms.

This brings us to the catastrophe of the exile.  There was a civil war in Israel in the days of Solomon’s son.  The nation was divided into ten tribes in the north called Israel and 2 tribes around Jerusalem called Judah, or Judea later.  The northern tribes were wicked and eventually God used the Assyrians to conquer them and cast them out of the land.  This happened circa 722 BC.  This left Judah feeling vindicated, but they were not any more righteous.  They were exiled by the Babylonians around 136 years later (586 BC).  The northern tribes never really returned from exile.  Whereas, as many as desired of Judah, came back from Babylon 70 years later.  In this environment, there was a question on the minds of Israel.  Is it over?  Is it possible that God will not keep His word because we have failed so badly?  Did we misunderstand the promises and they were always conditional on our obedience?

Psalm 89 is a treatise of this crisis.  It starts out praising the promises of God to David.  Verse one sings of God’s emeth (faithful truth) and praises Him.  Yet, at verse 38, we have this.  “But You have cast off and rejected, You have been full of wrath against Your anointed.” Seven more verses detail the reality of being cast off by God. 

Verse 46 begins a series of questions.  “How long, O LORD? Will You hide Yourself forever? Will Your wrath burn like fire?”  Verse 49, “Where are Your former lovingkindnesses, O Lord, which You swore to David in Your faithfulness?  God had sworn an oath to David in His emeth, faithful truth.  Yes, Israel has sinned greatly, and the house of David has sinned just as greatly.  Yet, God is faithful even when we are faithless.

Jesus is the faithful truth of God

The questions above were answered throughout the Old Testament prophetic books.  God would cast Israel out of the land, but He would still be faithful to send the Messiah and save humanity.  Still, from 400 BC to the time of Jesus, there were 400 years of silence from God.  They had heard enough.  They had enough truth to weather the years and wait for Messiah, if they could but trust God.

This is why Matthew 1:1 is so powerful.  Whenever we find the Gospels together in antiquity, it is always Matthew first.  Matthew opens his Gospel, and the New Testament, with a bold declaration that Messiah had come in the person of Jesus.  God had finally kept His promise and sent the One who would save Israel and the nations.  The name Jesus in Hebrew basically means “Yahweh is salvation” or “the salvation of Yahweh.”  Notice that Matthew emphasizes that he is from the line of David and Abraham.  The names of the fathers in between are important and Matthew goes on to give the full genealogy.  However, don’t miss the main point.  In Jesus, God was fulfilling His promises to David, and His promises to Abraham.  He could have even added Adam.  Messiah had come and God’s faithful truth, His emeth, was on full display in the face of the failures of Israel and the failures of the Gentile world.

The presence and work of Jesus was a confirmation of the promises and faithfulness of God.  We see this in Romans 15:8-9.  “For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision on behalf of the truth of God to confirm the promises given to the fathers, 9 and for the Gentiles to glorify God for His mercy; as it is written, ‘Therefore I will give praise to You among the Gentiles, and I will sing to Your name.’”

The Incarnation of The Word of God into the man Jesus is God keeping His word, but Jesus is also the very truth of God itself.  Nothing that has been made was made without him.  He is the effective cause of creation.  He is the absolute bedrock truth of all reality.  In Jesus, the Truth of the world stepped down into it, but men loved darkness rather than the light.  To put your faith in Jesus is of a greater nature than putting your faith in man’s scientific understanding.  Yes, you can follow the science (our current understanding), or you can follow the One who is the mind behind how all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose.  Science rightly understood can only point back to its Creator.

A believer in Jesus doesn’t just become more trustworthy.  They even become like the Rock that they are building upon.  They are more stable, enduring, than all the “wise” people of this world who refuse to stand upon Jesus, who refuse to believe and trust God.  They are both on quicksand themselves and a quicksand to those who trust in them.

We are not Israel going against giants in the Promised Land literally.  However, we metaphorically face the same thing.  The big obstacles in front of us challenge us and are akin to the giants of old.  Will we trust Jesus and take hold of our personal inheritance and the inheritance of our people?  Or, will we tremble at the powers flexing in front of us?  Will we shrink back from trusting God’s word, standing with Jesus and his ways?

Jesus went through death and then God raised him up.  He is forever a testimony to those who would dare to follow him that God will uphold them as well.  He is also a testimony to those who shrink back that there is no other way to salvation.  As a Christian, if I really believe God, then I have no excuse to quit in the face of scary, big people, fallen spirits, or circumstances.  Most of us will not face the threat of death like Jesus and his apostles.  But, we can face even that with complete trust in God.  We can choose to honor Jesus by walking into it.  We can look into the face of tormentors and tell them to go ahead and do what they want, but I am going to stand with Jesus because that is your only hope of salvation.

Those who think they are so powerful, who are pounding on those nails or wielding those weapons of annihilation, who are so following the science of their own wisdom, they are going to be flat on their face before Jesus in the future.

It doesn’t matter if I live long enough to see that or not.  That is not my hope.  My hope is Jesus!

The giant ideologies and giant people, of fame, power and fortune that we face, try to intimidate us.  “How dare you stand against the great and powerful Oz!”  But, I’d rather stand with Jesus, the slain lamb, than with all the smoke and mirrors of this world.  I’d rather stand with Jesus than any empire that this world tries to establish without Jesus!

Faithful Truth audio

The Lies We Come To Believe II

Exodus 2:11-15; 3:10-12; 4:1,10,13-14; Judges 6:11-13; 1 Kings 19:1-4, 11-14.

This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Father’s Day, June 16, 2024.

I preached a sermon on Mother’s Day with this same title.  There we looked at Eve, Sarah, and Naomi.  Each of them had spiritual hurts and emotional wounds that made it difficult to believe God.  When a person is wounded in life, it always has a lie or half-truth that surfaces in our heart, perhaps more than one.  We can be tempted then to live our life believing those lies to be true.

Today we are going to do the same thing, but with three men: Moses, Gideon, and Elijah.  I want to make it clear that the lies we believe are not generally specific to whether we are female or male.

In fact, there are many different hurts that can lead us to believe the same lie, similar to how a geographical destination can have many different roads that lead to it.  Women can learn from the stories of men and men can learn from the stories of women because the specific details of our experiences are not the most important thing to them.  Rather, what is most important is to see the mistakes that we make and how the Lord gives grace for us to overcome them.

The flip-side of this title, “The Lies We Come To Believe,” is this: “And The God Who Saves Us From Them!”  Amen?

May we see a little bit of ourselves in these three men, and may we be encouraged to have faith in God for the week ahead of us.

Let’s look at our first passage.

Moses (Exodus 2, 3, 4)

We have skipped the story about the birth of Moses.  Pharaoh was afraid that his Israelite slaves were growing too numerous.  He decreed that all infant males born to the Hebrews would be put to death.  Thus, Moses is born under the threat of death.  I wonder if his mother had been reading or thinking about the account of Noah when she had the idea of making a little “ark” out of bullrushes and casting her little boy upon the waters of the Nile, hoping for God to protect him from the dangers of the world.  The Egyptian princess “just happens” to find the boy in the make-shift ark and raises him as her own.  The event of chapter 2 doesn’t happen until Moses is 40 years old, according to Stephen in Acts 7:23.  It “just happens to come to him” to check on the condition of his fellow Hebrews, and he finds that it isn’t good.  Moses kills an Egyptian task-master, has an exchange with a bitter Hebrew slave, and has to run for his life because Pharaoh found out what he had done.

Moses then goes into the land of Midian, which interestingly enough means “strife.”  He will spend the next 40 years living in this rustic place raising a family and being a shepherd.  When we come to Exodus 3 and the story of the burning bush, Moses is now 80 years old.  The Angel of the Lord appears to him within a bush that is on fire but not being consumed.  The exchange continues into chapter 4.  If you pay attention to this exchange, you will see that God is calling Moses to go to Egypt and help deliver his people out of slavery.  Yet, Moses is not interested.  He offers up several protests, or excuses, as to why it shouldn’t be him.  We will look at those in a second, but first notice Exodus 4:14.

The continual protests of Moses stirs up the anger of the Lord against him.  This is called trying the patience of God.  It is one thing to try the patience of people, but quite another to test God’s patience.  Yet, we see here that God’s mercy is still extended to Moses. 

Let’s talk first about the wounds that Moses received.  His life is divided into three very distinct periods of 40 years each.  He is a prince in Egypt, lacking nothing, from birth to 40.  He is a shepherd in the wilderness of Midian from 40 to 80.  Lastly, he is a leader of Israel in the deserts south and south east of Canaan from 80 to 120.  It is the event at 40 years of age in Exodus 2 that helps us to see his wound, which begins with the killing of the Egyptian.  Clearly Moses feels like he needs to do something, but in a moment of passion, he kills an Egyptian.  He believes that no one has seen him do this.  However, the next day he finds two Hebrews fighting.  He challenges the one who had struck his brother, but receives a bitter reply.  “Who made you a prince and a judge over us?  Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”  Are  you a murderer going to lecture me about striking my brother?  Are you who have lived a princely life wanting to play the prince of slaves?

We need to understand that bitter people who have endured bitter lives have a knack for wounding others.  They have so many emotional wounds that they cease to care about how they impact others.  The devil wants us acting out of the pain of our wounds because we will then hurt others instead of finding the healing of God, even being a channel of the healing of God.  Please read this paragraph over again because many Christians still live their lives rooted in legitimate wounds they received in the past.

The wound that Moses receives is one of rejection.  Pharaoh wants to kill him for daring to kill an Egyptian.  His own people aren’t interested in what little help he wants to offer.  The fact that Moses had never made a single brick in his life probably added to their distaste for him. 

You might object that this was only one man.  That is precisely the point.  Our emotional wounds are not always rational.  Moses had to run because Pharaoh had the power to find him and kill him in Egypt.  Yet, that bitter reply of another Hebrew went deep into the heart of Moses.  You have nothing to offer these people.  They don’t want you.  Rejection is a bitter pill and it really messes people up..

Here is the thing to ponder.  All wounds tempt us to believe things that are either blatant lies or are half-truths.  The wounds and the feelings about them are real.  We shouldn’t discount them.  However, our wounded feelings are extremely bad at discovering truth.  The gravity of our injured self is always towards a self-deception.  It takes a miracle of God to pull a person out of that trap.

Think about anger.  We are told in the Bible that “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20).  However, it does not say along with that, “Don’t be angry.”  Rather, we are told “’Be angry, and do not sin’: do not let the sun go down on your wrath…” (Ephesians 4:26; Psalm 4:4).  Anger is a powerful emotion that can result from unjust situations as well as out of our own sin.  When we allow anger to drive the responses we make (even when that anger is justified), we will find ourselves falling into sin.

Anger is not the only emotion that can take control of us because of wounds in our past.  No feeling should be used to justify sinful actions.  Rather, we must submit ourselves to the commands of Christ and his Apostles.

I do want to be careful pretending to be in the head of Moses.  This is not an attempt to psychoanalyze Moses.  Instead, this is about how we all respond to hurt and seeing the similar dynamic in him.  I want us to see ourselves in what he is going through.  We need to recognize how we have been wounded, and then, how God wants to heal that wound.

So let’s get into the five protests that Moses gives to God.  We will see that there is a lie or half-truth that is beneath these protests.

1.  Exodus 3:11.  Moses questions who he is to do what God is saying.  The lie beneath this is:  I am nobody.  Rejection always affects self-worth.  A person can’t help the emotional response that says, “What is wrong with me that you would reject me?”  Kids do this when their parents fight and divorce.  Generally, this has nothing to do with the kids, but they feel that way anyway.  In fact, it is quite common that people who hurt you aren’t even thinking about you.  They are thinking about themselves and not caring about what you think or feel.

The world’s answer to all of this is to boost up your self-esteem and kick the negative people out of your life.  If Jesus had done that, then none of us could be saved.  Jesus didn’t kick the negative people out of his life.  He loved them to the bitter end, entrusting His life to God.

For the believer, our self worth needs to be anchored in Jesus and his love for us (as well as for the people who hurt us).  You may be nobody in the eyes of the world, but this doesn’t make you a nobody.  You are somebody that is loved by God.  He  has a purpose for you, and no matter what it is, He will help you to do it!

2.  Exodus 4:1.  The next lie is this.  They will not listen, believe, or follow me.  Out of that injured self-image flows the doubting of what God can do through us when He calls us to something.  In fact, parents can do this with their kids.  You can be offended that your kids are responding to your wisdom, instruction, and correction.  This doesn’t give you the right to write your kids off.  God’s calling remains on you regardless of how your kids respond. 

In this case, Moses is somewhat right.  The story of Israel coming out of Egypt is full of the murmuring and protests of the Israelites against God and Moses.  They may have physically followed Moses into the wilderness, but most of them perished there because they didn’t trust God.  Their lack of faith often caused them to take out their frustrations on Moses.  However, this isn’t the problem of Moses.  It is God’s problem, and He is quite capable of taking care of His problems (and ours).

3.  Exodus 4:10.  Here is another lie.  I am not eloquent (skilled) enough to do it.  This is the same argument as before.  Doing something for God is never dependent upon your level of talent.  It is dependent upon the blessing of God.

The Bible tells us to ask for wisdom if we lack it.  I suppose we could also ask for talent if we lack it.  However, let me talk about wisdom for a moment.  When God does supply wisdom, what does that look like?  Do you instantly sound amazingly like Solomon?  Does everyone around start remarking about how wise you are?  Of course not.  Yet, God gives you wisdom, here a little and there a little.  It builds up.  You don’t have to “sound wise” to the world in order to be wise.  Perhaps, it is best if you don’t.

4.  Exodus 4:13.  The lie here is this.  Someone else would be better than me.  This is a cop-out.  Why would God be asking you?  Why would the Holy Spirit be stirring it up in you, if this was true?  Maybe it is better for you that you do it?  God doesn’t just “use” people to help others.  He is simultaneously helping the person who chooses to obey him and help others.  It is good for us to be both receivers and givers.  Receiving teaches us humility, and giving teaches us compassion and mercy.

Of course, the attitude that says for God to find somebody else can also be sheer laziness, but I don’t get that vibe in this passage.  Moses has tried that and has the proverbial T-shirt to prove it.

5.  Underlying this whole account is a final lie.  I can’t go back there.  This was Egypt for Moses, but what is it for you?  We can go anywhere if God is with us.  Whether out of fear or out of pragmatism, Moses is not interested in going back to Egypt.  Going back will only make things worse: a Pharaoh who wants him dead, and a people who despise this non-slave Hebrew.

Moses would have stayed in Midian another 40 years, if God had let him.  However, God had different plans.

In moments where God is calling us to go back and face painful situations, it can feel like it is impossible.  However, this is precisely why we need Jesus.  He will go with us and lead us forth in victory, not against people, but against the lies, half-truths, and spiritual enemies that you have.  You may feel like you can’t face it, but you can with Jesus.  God has a good thing in the task that He is asking of you, and you can trust Him.

Gideon (Judges 6:11-15)

We won’t spend as much time on these last two.  Gideon lives about 200 years following Joshua.  There has been at least three periods of subjugation over Israel with several stories of judges or people who accomplished vindication for Israel.

Gideon’s wound is found in that he is a no-status person within a subjugated people.  As Americans, we do not know what that feels like.  We have no clue.  So, when the Angel of the LORD shows up to explain to Gideon that God plans to deliver Israel through him, Gideon responds out of this mentality.

Gideon’s first response bristles at the idea that God is with them and for them.  If God was really with us, then things would be better than this.  This is a very common lie that we tell ourselves.  We will even see every bad thing in our life as proof that God is against us (or worse, we think of it in terms of karma).  “God, what am I doing wrong?  If I was doing it right, surely it would be better than this!”

We need to be very careful with such ideas and questions.  God’s calling on Israel had not changed.  He had not rescinded it.  When we are in times of discipline because of sin, or even when we are in a time of discipline to make us stronger (i.e., not because of sin), God  is still with us and being faithful to us.  It is foolish to interpret the Fatherly discipline of God as a rejection from Him.  This is a lie.  The reason we entertain it is because of our past hurts, wounds, and even our sin, which always harms us and others.

We see a better response in Ezekiel and Daniel.  They were prophets during the period when God’s discipline cause Israel to be taken captive to Babylon.   Yes, Israel was in trouble with God.  However, after 70 years, they knew that God would bring Israel back.  Daniel knew that God would bring them back, and he put his faith in God’s ability to accomplish this.

It is very common for Christians to misinterpret the discipline of God.  We think of it as bad, and pray for God to return His goodness to us.  We tell ourselves that we have to trudge through the “badness of God” in order to get the “goodness of God” some day.

This is a lie.  The time in the wilderness was a special time of intimacy with God for Israel.  Many other generations looked back to the miracles that happened in those days asking where God was in there day.  We even see Gideon making this point in verse 13.  He is wishing that God would do for him in his day what God did for Israel back when they came out of Egypt (yes, during the times of discipline).

There were no gardens, no grain fields, and no fruit trees in the wilderness, but God supernaturally fed them day after day and provided water in a place where there was none.  Later, when they made it into the promised land (where they had all those “good things”), they tended to walk away from intimacy with God.  A man like David stuck out like an odd duck because he came to intimately know God and acted out of that relationship.  We spend entirely too much time accusing God of cursing us (letting bad things happen) when He is actually trying to bless us.

Gideon expresses the idea that he and Israel are forsaken by God.  However, this is a lie.  Jesus says this on the cross.  I believe he says this (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”) for two reasons.  First, he is letting us know that he feels exactly what we feel when we have such a moment in our life.  You know, the kind of experience where you are asking God to deliver you and not let the bad thing happen, but then you are crucified anyway.  Jesus gets it.  God understands how we feel.  He has felt it Himself! 

However, there is a second reason Jesus says this.  This was a Hebrew way of telling people to pay attention to a particular passage in the Bible.  In English, we would say, “Turn in your Bibles to Psalm 22 and pay attention to what it says.”  The Hebrews generally used the opening word or line of a passage to refer to it.  “Turn in your Bibles to My God, My God why have You Forsaken Me, and pay attention to what it says.  That Psalm has a clear turning point: “He has heard me.”  The lament of a man dying on a cross suddenly turns into a rejoicing in the God who has heard him.  Try reading Psalm 22 as if it is Jesus speaking about his time on the cross.

When these kind of lies surface in your mind, you need to ask yourself these questions.  Who told me that?  How did I come to believe this?  Is this what God’s Word says?  The tough things you experience in life are not proof that God has or hasn’t forsaken you.  The Word of God tells you that He will never leave you nor forsake you, not even to the end of this Age!  See Matthew 28:20 and Hebrews 13:5.

I don’t have time to point out more, but we can look to Gideon’s response about his status in verse 15.  I can’t do it because I am a low-status person in a subjugated people!  This doesn’t matter when God is calling you to do something.

Elijah (vs. 1-4; 11-14)

On the heels of a great victory, in which fire comes down from heaven and burns up the sacrifice to Yahweh, Jezebel sends word to Elijah that she is going to have him hunted down and killed.  This causes Elijah to go on the run to the southern part of the Judean Kingdom.  From there, an angel tells him to go further south to Mt. Sinai.

Elijah’s wound has parts of it that are from rejection.  His life is being hunted by a king and queen who cannot restrain themselves from evil.  He was simply being a faithful prophet to Yahweh, and yet they hunt him down as if he were the one worshiping false gods.

There is one scene where Elijah shows up to confront King Ahab of his wickedness.  Ahab calls Elijah, the troubler of Israel.  Of course, it was Ahab and Jezebel that were bringing trouble upon Israel.  Of course, governments that reject God love to point to those who do love God as the problem

Elijah simply feels defeated.  He even begs God to kill him.  Life isn’t worth it.

I will point out three lies that have taken root in Elijah’s heart.  The first is this.  Nothing I do makes a difference.  There are a lot of young people today who are looking at the Church saying that it is not working or making a difference.  However, this assumes that we know what making a difference looks like.  It assumes we know what should be happening.  Of course, everyone should be repenting and believing in God.  This Republic shouldn’t be plundered by our spiritual enemy and fighting against one another, but we are.  What is the difference that God has us here to affect?  Be very careful in pretending that you know exactly what God is trying to accomplish through you, much more His Church.  Yes, He wants to save people, but sometimes we have to go through some tough things in order to get back to a place of true repentance.

In some ways, Jesus did not send the Church to make the world into a governmental paradise.  It could if we would all follow Christ and turn from sin.  In fact, there have been times throughout history in which particular families and particular nations saw some powerful things happen to turn the whole towards the things of God.  However, these often pass until we find a family full of people who don’t serve Jesus like their grandparents did, or a nation that no longer believes what their founding generation believed about God.

We are told that this varied experience will continue until the end of this Age of Grace.  There will be a wholesale apostasy against the truth of Jesus in these last days.  I am not saying that no one will be saved.  We are in a time similar to the days of Elijah.  Was he making a difference?  It didn’t look like it, but God was using him to encourage the remnant of 7,000 people who hadn’t bowed the knee to Ahab and Jezebel’s false god, Baal.  Yes, it is a discouraging time to work for the LORD, and our flesh doesn’t like laboring in that place, but it is where we are.  God sometimes needs us to be in that place.

On one hand, He is ensuring that the baton of faith makes it to the next generation.  But another reason can be this.  Elijah was one of the “power prophets.”  God did powerful miracles through Elijah. This is in contrast to a prophet like Jeremiah.  We have no miracles of Jeremiah, except for his ability to tell people what was going to happen in the future, and be 100% correct.  However, the power that was expressed in Elijah’s life was not about him.  It was always about what God was doing in that period of Israel.  Jeremiah’s generation were only given a sign of truth being spoken to them.  They received no fire from heaven and no Red Sea’s being parted.

So, if you find yourself in a wilderness eating bread delivered by a raven, and you feel that normal feeling, “This isn’t getting me anywhere…This isn’t working,” then stop looking at your situation with the world’s eye, the eye of your flesh.  Look with the eyes of faith in God.  He has a purpose in it, especially when we don’t understand what it is.

Elijah could be killed at any time, but his life is in God’s hand.  We should never presume God’s protection, but neither do we fear when we end up in the hand of the powers of the land.  When Pilate challenged Jesus to speak to him, he emphasized that he had power to put Jesus to death.  Do you know what Jesus said?  Turn to John 19:11 and find out.  Jesus knew that God had a purpose for His life and if Pilate was part of that purpose, then who was Jesus to fight against it?  This is not an argument against his place in the Godhead.  It is an argument for the function and role he performs within the Trinity.

We should also notice the words of Elijah, “I am no better than my fathers.”  He had started out with so much hope, but now sees that he has failed just like those before him.  In some ways, this is the same message that Isaiah presents in his book.  He is faced with the absolute failure of Israel to bring forth any salvation in the earth, and yet he is also faced with the power of God to produce salvation by His own Right Hand, Jesus!

May God help us to surrender in those times that are hard on our flesh.  May we recognize that He is making our inner man stronger, and He is giving us a spiritual gift that we can share with others so that they may be free.

The righteous will walk by faith.  They will breathe, get up in the morning, and go to work by faith too.

Elijah was ready to quit.  There is not a one of us who can’t relate to him in that moment.  However, you need to trust that God knows how you feel.  Jesus knows the feeling better than even you or I do.

Many a parent has given up on their marriage and their kids.  Sometimes they are even still in the home, present, but really absent.  When we operate out of the woundedness of our past, we simply continue the pain, continue wounding others and ourselves.  Jesus wants to heal our wounds and neutralize the lies that we have come to believe so that we can be the devil’s worst nightmare when we run into others who are like we used to be.

I pray that God will help fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, to turn away from the lies of this world and turn to the truth of God in Jesus!

Lies II

The Acts of the Apostles 66

Subtitle: Those Who Turn The World Upside Down

Acts 17:1-15.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on May 26, 2024.

We have made it back to the book of Acts.  We are in the middle of Paul’s 2^nd Missionary Journey.  It began at the end of chapter 15 following the Jerusalem Council.  This was a gathering of the apostles and elders of the early Church to make sure they were all on the same page regarding what Gentiles needed to do in order to be saved.  Thus, Paul’s 2^nd missionary trip serves to visit churches that he had started on the first missionary trip and share the findings of the Jerusalem Council.

This would be important because, up to that point, there were individuals that were telling the Gentiles that they needed to follow the Old Testament, i.e., become Jews through circumcision, and obedience to the stipulations of the Law of Moses.  Essentially, they were teaching Gentiles to first become Jews, and then, they could become a follower of Jesus.

After Paul had worked through these towns in central Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey, or Türkiye), the Holy Spirit leads him and his company to travel westward until they ended up in Greece.  In Chapter 16, Paul and company minister in Philippi where they are whipped and put in the jail.  However, an earthquake leads to them being freed and the Philippian jailor and household becoming Christians.  Paul then reveals that they have beaten him against the law of Rome because he has Roman citizenship.  This causes the magistrates to apologize and beg Paul to leave the city.  They then met with the believers, encouraged them and then, headed westward towards Thessalonica, which is where we join them in Acts 17:1.

The Gospel comes to Thessalonica (v. 1-9)

They travel west through two cities, Amphipolis and Apollonia, which roughly divide the 100 miles to Thessalonica into thirds (around 33 miles between).  Paul may or may not have preached in these cities.  It is not mentioned.  However, Luke focuses on what happened at Thessalonica next.

We have two letters (epistles) written by Paul to the Thessalonians in the New Testament.  Here is something that Paul later said of the church that would be started there.  1 Thessalonians 1:8, “For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place the news of your faith toward God has gone out.”

From this, we can see that Paul doesn’t have to preach in every city (whether he did or didn’t).  The churches that he started would become hubs of shining the Gospel into the region.  May our church be a church with such a strong faith that the area knows it, and they will have hear the “Word of the Lord.”

Now, Thessalonica was the main city of that region.  It had a synagogue and that is where Paul began.  We are told that he preached for three Sabbaths (weeks), reasoning with them from the Scriptures.

There are two verbs that are used to describe this.  In the NKJV, they are interpreted as “explaining” and “demonstrating.”  The first one has the sense of opening the Scriptures up for them, but also opening their understanding of the Scriptures that they no doubt knew.  The second word has the sense of setting something before the people.  In food contexts, it is used of a hostess placing food before guests.  In this setting, we are talking about teachings regarding Christ that are set before them, i.e., demonstrated to them from Scripture.

The two main teaching mentioned here are that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise again from the dead.  We are not told the Scriptures that Paul used, but Isaiah 53 could easily have been one, also Psalm 16:10-11.  The second teaching is that Jesus of Nazareth is that Messiah and fulfilled these things.  Notice the logic of this.  If you don’t recognize or accept the first teaching, then you will not be able to see Jesus as the Messiah because he did suffer, die, and yet, rose again from the dead.

The response is good, but it is split up into three parts:  “some of them were persuaded,” “a great multitude of devout Greeks,” and “not a few of the leading women.”  In light of the mention of Gentiles in the second part, we can safely assume that the first part is speaking about the Jews who attended the synagogue.  So, it appears that there was a better reception among the Gentiles than among the Jews.  We are told that those who believed “joined” Paul and Silas.  It is most likely that they were connecting with them throughout the week in order to learn more, and unknowingly laying the foundation for the first church of Thessalonica.

We are told in verse 5 that those who were not persuaded by the Gospel preaching became “envious.”  This envy leads to them stirring up a crowd, a mob, from the marketplace in order to apprehend Paul, Silas, and Timothy. 

The source of the trouble is envy, and would, no doubt, be led by the religious leaders of the synagogue.  The problem was not Jews.  Paul is a Jew as well as Silas.  Some Jews were persuaded by Paul.  The problem is envy, and envy plagues every ethnic group under the sun.

You can imagine that they had worked hard to share the Law of Moses in Thessalonica and had even drawn many devout Greeks to attach themselves to the teaching of the synagogue as God-fearers.  When someone else comes into town and begins to persuade people in a new teaching, it would be natural to be defensive.  This is the same dynamic that led to Jesus being rejected by the leaders of Jerusalem.  Yet, the problem is not that their lack of being persuaded.  It could have stayed at the level of arguing your case from Scripture and rejecting Paul’s teaching.  They might even stipulate continued synagogue attendance on the rejection of this new teaching.  However, something darker comes forth because envy is a dark vice.  You may not even know you are being envious as it happens.  Envy is never good, and only leads to overt sin and pain.

A mob is stirred up, and we should take a moment to remind ourselves about the spirit that affects a crowd.  A crowd takes on a nature that is larger than any one person within the group, even those who started it.  For example, when you push against a large rock that is on a hillside, you will notice that there is much resistance at first.  You are choosing to keep pushing, or get help from more people, etc.  In a way, you are still in control.  However, there is that moment in time in which gravity takes over, and you are no one is in control.  Dangerous things can happen, especially if there are unwitting people down the hill.  The same is true spiritually, for good or for bad.  People within crowds will often do things that they would never do on their own.  In fact, contrary to the analogy, there are often spiritual dynamics at work even in “pushing the rock” in the first place. 

There is a theme in Scripture: don’t focus only on what you can see because you will miss the spiritual things that are happening.  This can be the good work of God, the evil work of the devil and his angels, or the spiritual condition of a person we are dealing with.

We do not want to be a people who are easily motivated to riot and attack others (even metaphorically).  We must understand what spirit is motivating us in our decisions and actions.  Is it the Holy Spirit, or the spirit of this world?  Believers in God, in Jesus, are those who are led by the Holy Spirit, rather than the ill-winds of this world.

We cannot fault the Jews of Thessalonica for not having a relationship with Jesus, but we can see that they had not been tuned to the Spirit of God.  Otherwise, they would have responded with joy.  Yet, they respond with envy and seeking to banish or jail Paul and company.

This is the battle between a desire for truth and the envy of our ego.  We all have ego that gets hurt from time to time, but believers are called to purify their hearts through repentance and works that are worthy of such.

The group ends up at the house of a man named Jason.  He most likely had been persuaded and was housing them.  However, when they arrive, Paul is not there.  Then, they drag Jason and the “brothers” (i.e., believers in Jesus) before the city rulers to make accusation against them.

The accusation is that they are breaking the decrees of Caesar by saying Jesus is “another king.”  In some ways, Jesus is not a threat to Caesar.  He did not instruct his followers to defeat the Roman empire.  Instead, he told them to love their enemies and preach the Gospel to them.  Yet, Jesus is a threat to Caesars in general.  The kingdoms of this world are destined to belong to him.  The kings of the earth are warned to “Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little.  Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him.” Psalm 2:12.  Still, Jesus is not a threat in the way that they are presenting. 

They stir the pot through this aspersion, “these who have turned the world upside down have come here too!”  This is intended to be a negative, but it shows the powerful effectiveness of the early Church.  Actually, they were not turning the world upside down.  The world was already upside down from the way that God had created it due to human sin and spiritual interference.  Jesus Messiah was sent to begin righting the ship.  That righting of things begins in the heart of the individual.  He has come to set our hearts right side up before God. 

Yet, this creates a polarization in families, towns, nations, even the world.  Jesus said in Matthew 10:34, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth.  I did not come to bring peace but a sword.  For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’” He is quoting Micah 7:6.  This is the polarization that we see happening in this synagogue and the city as a whole.  Some are embracing Christ, but others who were their friends were not.  This situation has continued throughout the earth to this day.

The rulers of the city take security (money) from Jason and send them away.  This security is probably not a bond for showing up to court.  Rather, it is most likely so that they won’t cause another riot.

The Gospel comes to Berea (v. 10-15)

“The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea.”  The label of “brethren” means that these are people who believe that Jesus is the Messiah.  A good group of believers has been started, and the hot tempers among the town calls for Paul to move on.  However, the Gospel has not left the town.  It has been sown and taken root in many hearts.  Berea is a town that is about 45 miles west of Thessalonica.

Luke notes that there was a very different mind-set, or attitude, within the Berean synagogue.  Different versions describe them as “more noble,” “more fair-minded,” and “of more noble character.” The word literally means “well born.”  It pictures a person who has been born into a good family, has been taught good morals, and lives these out in society (aka Not the kind of people who riot).

What won them this descriptor? First, they were ready to hear what Paul had to say.  Yet second, they searched the Scriptures to check the veracity of his claims.  They were not ego-driven, but instead, desired to know the truth.  We can be a slave to passions that drive us.  In such cases, we can be blind to the truth.  However, what makes a person reject the Gospel one day, but accept it later?  There is a mystery to the way that the Gospel impacts people. 

We are told that many of them believed.  There is no distinction between Jew and Gentile this time.  Of course, Jesus and his apostles were not creating another religion by twisting Judaism.  The teaching and the work of Jesus flowed directly from the Law and the Prophets.  He is the fulfillment of all it points toward, which was there for anyone who would honestly seek out the truth.

Without any meddlers, there would not have been any problems in Berea.  However, the Jewish leaders from Thessalonica showed up and caused trouble for Paul and Silas in Berea.  No doubt, word had traveled back to them that Paul was in Berea and that many people were listening to him.  Again, the men from Thessalonica stirred up a crowd from the marketplace.

Note to self: don’t be the kind of person who is sitting around looking for a cause and a crowd to join.  Fleshly people, who are only focused on the lusts of their flesh, are easily stirred up.  If you are busy doing the work of the God, the Lord Jesus, then you will not be easily stirred up by others.

Again, the “brethren” send Paul away.  However, this time Paul goes by himself and leaves Silas and Timothy behind.  The heat seems to focus on Paul.  Silas and Timothy could stay under the radar and help the believing community of Berea grow in their understanding of the Scriptures and the work of Jesus.

Thus, Paul ends up on a ship to Athens, which is 300 miles away.  Most likely, they believe this will settle down the crowds rioting against Paul.

In some ways, we should recognize that, in order to turn your life right-side up before the LORD, it is going to feel like you are turning it upside down.  At salvation, a person senses the Holy Spirit calling them to put their faith in Jesus, but the flesh is generally scared at the thought of this.  Yet, for those who follow the Spirit, they enter into a life-transforming relationship with Jesus, the Spirit, and the Word.

When you feel that emotion of fear, or apprehension, towards something that the Holy Spirit is leading you to do or stop doing, take time to pray for clarity about the direction and courage to obey.

Paul could have focused on the negative.  Everywhere he went, people were causing trouble and mistreating him.  In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul lists all of the things he has endured in taking the Gospel to the nations.  Yet, these things were not enough to persuade him to quit.  He saw himself as a slave of Christ, even wishing that he could be cursed so that his countrymen could be saved.  The Holy Spirit had led Paul to these places to preach the Gospel.  Many wonderful people were saved through his ministry.

May God help us to see the need of a lost world and God’s love for them.  Yes, we will run into resistance and difficult things, but we will also see wonderful things.  Some will believe, and we will have fellowship with them.

How does a person turn the world upside down?  They do it by not focusing on trying to turn the world upside down.  Instead, they listen to the Holy Spirit and give themselves to the work that He gives them, no matter what the scope.  The Apostle Paul started by turning his own little world upside down on the road to Damascus when he believed in Jesus.  That became the foundation for what came later.  You can trust the Holy Spirit in you.  Just remain faithful to Jesus in your work.

Upside Down audio