Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast,
where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to
this podcast.
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen
you in the word of God.
Now, come along.
Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.
We're going to get into the scriptures here this evening.
If you have your Bibles, turn there with me to Acts 26.
And it's been a couple weeks since we've been here because last
week was Father's Day and we didn't have an evening service.
But if you can remember, let's.
Let me.
Let me quiz you guys on this.
Okay?
Where we left Paul off, was he in what we would call a circumstantial
good place or a bad place?
Bad place.
Okay, He's.
He's in prison.
He's been held for over now two years for essentially doing nothing
wrong.
And he was promised a fair trial.
They didn't give him one.
And so basically, there was this guy that basically said this.
He said, you know what?
I.
I can't make a decision, so I'm just going to leave you there
in jail.
That was Felix.
And we saw a guy named Festus.
Festus is like, I don't know what to do with this guy named Paul.
I've tried to deal with his own people, and he's not really.
They're not really cooperating with me.
And so he gives it over to a guy named Agrippa.
Now, in the meantime, Paul has appealed to talk to Caesar.
Now, why is that important?
Because Paul is a Roman citizen, and he had the opportunity
to appeal his case to the highest court in the land, and that
would be Caesar.
And so Paul in this process says, I want to talk to Caesar.
And so they said, if that's what you want, that's what you'll
get.
But here in chapter 26, we see Agrippa come before Paul.
And Paul is going to, essentially.
Well, Agrippa's plan is for Paul to tell him why he's innocent.
But Paul takes this as an opportunity to give the gospel.
But I want to go back a little bit here, because if we were to be
watching this as a movie, we would say, while Paul has made a
lot of bad decisions to get to where he is, he should have been
smarter.
He should have avoided this.
Well, believe it or not, back In Acts chapter 21, Paul had an opportunity
to avoid this whole situation.
And if you Go back.
If you remember what happens is that Paul believes that God is
calling him to go back to Jerusalem, if you remember the phrase
that he used.
He says, I am bound by the Spirit to go to Jerusalem.
Didn't have to go to Jerusalem, but he believed that God
was leading him there.
And then he had all these people on the path to get back to
Jerusalem, telling him, God has told us that you're going to
face persecution there, Paul, so don't go.
And Paul says, well, I'm going to go.
And a lot of commentators will say that he was disobeying God.
I don't believe that he was actually.
I believe that God did reveal to these people that he would face
persecution.
But I believe that these people took it further and said,
hey, there's going to be persecution, so you should avoid
it.
But what we're learning here in this passage is that even though
there was persecution in the path of Paul, it was God's plan for
him to go through this.
And if you go back to Acts chapter 21 and you go to verse 13,
you're going to see where Paul's heart was through all of this.
Now, it doesn't mean that Paul doubted God.
It doesn't mean that he didn't doubt God.
It just means that when Paul went to this trial, right before
this trial, he had a decision that he had to make.
Was he going to be committed to what God had called him to do,
or would he be kind of what we would call lukewarm in his decision?
But we see in verse number 13 in Acts chapter 21.
Then Paul answered, what mean ye to weep and to break mine heart?
For I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem
for the name of the Lord Jesus.
And so Paul says, two years ago, over two years ago, I gotta
go to Jerusalem.
I'm willing to be thrown in prison.
I'm willing to die for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And so Paul here is demonstrating full commitment.
He's demonstrating being sold out for what God has called him to
do, no matter what people are doing around him, no matter how difficult
the path might be.
And I think this is an awesome example of patience and faithfulness
in the face of difficulty.
Because God has given Paul a call.
And we know that call came all the way back in Acts chapter 9.
Paul's goal was to not only preach to the Jews, to the Gentiles,
but to kings and leaders.
And that was God's plan for Paul at the very beginning.
And so here in this case, we know that Paul is just fulfilling
God's plan in his life.
And so let's go to chapter 26, and we're going to look at Paul and
Agrippa's conversation here, and it's a very interesting one.
It's a very popular one when it comes to the idea of presenting
the gospel to difficult people.
By the way, Agrippa is.
Is Herod, basically, he's one of the lines of.
Of the people that, you know, named Herod.
So he's a descendant of the Herod that tried to kill baby Jesus.
He's a descendant of Herod that saw Jesus before Jesus went
to the cross.
And so Herod Agrippa is his name, is living here with his wife,
and they're living a life of sin.
And we're going to talk a little bit more about that in a little
bit, but that's the setting that we have here.
Verse 1.
Then Agrippa said unto Paul, thou art permitted to speak for thyself.
So essentially, what Agrippa says is, a lot of people have been
speaking for you.
A lot of people have been telling me what you're all about.
But it's your chance now to tell me anything.
You have an open floor.
You, you can tell me whatever you want.
Appeal to me for your innocence.
He says, you're permitted to speak for yourself.
So Paul could have said a lot of things.
Paul could have decided to basically wiggle his way out of the
situation that he's in.
But Paul takes this opportunity not only to prove that
he's innocent, but also to preach the gospel.
And that's his number one decision here.
And so it says, then Paul stretched forth the hand and answered
for Himself.
Verse 2.
I think myself happy, King Agrippa.
Now, how many of us could say that we were happy to do what he's
doing right now?
I don't think that I could say that I was happy, but he says, I
think myself happy, King Agrippa, because I shall answer for
myself this day before thee, touching all the things whereof I
am accused of the Jews.
And so though Paul was a prisoner, he was pleased, he was
blessed to speak before Agrippa one because he was giving
evidence to prove that he was innocent, but also he's pleased to
preach the gospel to kings and rulers like God had called him to
do.
And sometimes it's difficult for us to have any joy and happiness
in the midst of a difficulty, but it's seeing the gospel purpose
in what God has for us.
And so we know that no Doubt.
Paul saw the Gospel purpose in this opportunity to speak to Agrippa.
Verse 3.
Especially because I know thee to be expert in all customs and questions
which are among the Jews.
So Paul says, I'm glad to talk to you because you know a lot about
the Jewish customs, you know a lot about the Jewish beliefs.
And so you're going to understand me when I tell you what
I'm about to tell you.
He says, wherefore I beseech thee to hear me patiently.
So he basically says, I know you know a lot about Jewish customs,
so please be patient because I'm going to build a case.
I'm going to point you to the truth.
Verse 4.
My manner of life from my youth, which was at the first among
my own nation at Jerusalem, know all the Jews which knew me from
the beginning, if they would testify that after the most straightest
sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee.
So, so what is he doing here?
Basically, Paul is giving his biography and he says, I I.
Even though we know he was born in Tarsus, very shortly after
he was born, the Bible clearly teaches that he did move to Jerusalem.
And probably at a young age he was living in Jerusalem.
And we know that he took that next step of being in the strictest
sect of the Pharisees.
And so Paul was a faithful Jew, but he was known to be a faithful
Jew above all other Jews.
And so he comes there and he is well known in that way.
And so all the people in Jerusalem would have known Paul for
his religion, for his.
For his beliefs, for his traditional actions in the Jewish
customs.
Verse 5, which knew me from the beginning, if they would testify
that after the most straightest sect of our religion,
I lived a Pharisee.
And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made
of God unto our fathers.
So he says, the reason why they're judging me is because what
I preached unto which promise are 12 tribes instantly serving God,
day and night, hope to come, meaning remember what he was thrown
in jail for?
Preaching the resurrection, preaching the truth of Jesus resurrecting
from the dead.
Because they were okay with Paul teaching religion and teaching
morality and teaching the law.
What they're upset about is Paul teaching that there's the resurrection
of the dead in Jesus Christ and in those that believe in him.
So he says, why is everyone upset with me?
Because they believe that there is going to be a resurrection
of the dead.
He says they're hoping for that.
So why are they upset?
He says, for which hope's sake, King Agrippa, I am accused
of the Jews.
He says, I'm being accused of preaching about the resurrection.
And so Paul is trying to explain his case to Agrippa here.
And so that's really what his initial door opening conversation
is.
Verse 8.
Why should it be, though a thing incredible with you that God
should raise the dead?
He says, why do you think that it's weird or strange that God would
raise the dead?
Because that's obviously something that they would have believed.
That is obviously something that they were totally comfortable
with talking about, that God would raise people from the dead
one day.
They had a problem with Jesus doing that.
But he says he's trying to build a case for, for the truth of
Jesus.
Verse 9.
I barely thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary
to the name of Jesus of Nazareth, which thing I also did
in Jerusalem.
He says, there's a lot of people that were against Jesus.
I understand that because I was against Jesus.
At one point he says, I did that in Jerusalem.
And many of the saints did.
I shut up in prison.
So now he's given his testimony of his sinful past.
He says, I threw people in prison for worshiping Jesus, having
received authority from the chief priests.
And when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them.
And so we even see that he was part of putting people to death for
believing in Jesus.
And I punished them oft in every synagogue and compelled them
to blaspheme.
Think about that.
Think about what Paul's goal was before he became a believer.
It was his goal not only just to kill Christians, but you see here,
he says he compelled them to blaspheme, to become heretics.
Think about the opposite of Paul's calling now.
At one point in Paul's life, he was trying to get people not to
believe in Jesus, to.
To recant their faith.
And now it's the complete opposite.
He's trying to get people to believe.
And so he's showing this change that's happened in his life.
And so he says, I compelled them to blaspheme.
And being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even
unto strange cities.
And so at the end of the day, what we can see here is that Paul
is describing really his heart.
Before he came to the place of, of salvation.
He said he compelled them to blaspheme.
He was upset against them, he persecuted them.
And so ultimately we see that Paul's heart was a heart of anger.
And really that's what we see with persecution anyway when, when
people are persecuting it doesn't come necessarily out of a
heart of joy and love.
It's coming out of a heart of evil.
It's coming out of a heart of anger and rage.
And so we see that Paul, before he was saved, was characterized
by anger and bitterness and persecution.
And so ultimately we know that Paul's heart was in the wrong place
before he came to Christ.
And so he's explaining this transformation.
So now in verse 12, Paul is going to start talking about what
changed him.
And this is really what we have to do when we're giving the
gospel to people, even people like Agrippa, who knew the Jewish
customs, who in some ways was religious or at least understood
religion, and probably held some power in the land and had some
sway and some influence with people.
We could say a lot of different things.
We.
We could appeal to a lot of different aspects.
But what does Paul do?
Paul appeals to his own personal testimony.
He says, this is who I was.
I was a religious person.
I was a person filled with anger.
I was a person that persecuted people, that worshiped Jesus.
But then he's going to talk about his conversion, his change.
And when we share our.
Our faith with people, I think it's important for us to share our
testimony, to share what Jesus Christ did for us, what he changed
in our life.
Verse 12.
Whereupon, as I went to Damascus, with authority and commission
from the chief priest, he says, so I was leaving to persecute
people there In Damascus at midday, O King, I saw in the way
a light from heaven above, the brightness of the sun shining round
about me and them which journeyed with me.
And when we were fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking to
me and saying in the Hebrew tongue, saul, Saul, why persecutest
thou me?
It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
Now you guys know the story.
Paul has probably told the story three or four times already
in giving the testimony of his salvation.
Verse 15.
And I said, who art thou, Lord?
And he said, I am Jesus whom thou persecuted.
But rise and stand upon thy feet, for I have appeared unto thee
for this purpose.
And so right here we're going to see what God told Paul as his
purpose.
And.
And Paul takes this purpose seriously.
It says, to make the a minister or a servant and a witness
both of these things which thou has seen and of those things
in which I will appear unto thee.
And so Paul's purpose from the very beginning was to proclaim the
message of God, to be a servant and a witness of the things
that God has done.
What he continues to do and what he will do.
And that's really ultimately who we are when we're presenting
the gospel to people is we're presenting the truth of what Jesus
has done for us, what he continues to do for us, and what
he will continue to do for other people that believe in him.
And so Paul understood his purpose.
He says, I was changed.
I went from trying to get Christians to blaspheme Christ to
now bring people to become believers in Jesus Christ.
From blasphemy to belief, from persecution to preaching.
That's an amazing thing to think about in the transformation
of the life of Paul.
And so he's appealing to Agrippa.
This is what changed me.
And folks, I know that probably most of us in this room
weren't where Paul was.
Hopefully none of you were persecuting people and getting people
to blaspheme Christ.
But at the end of the day, God has changed us.
He has changed our heart.
He has changed our desires.
And that's how we present the gospel to people.
Verse 17.
Delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles, unto
whom now I send thee to open their eyes and to turn them from
darkness to light.
That's one of my favorite analogies when it comes to the aspect
of salvation.
From taking ourselves to a place of light and the Lord brings
us from darkness to light.
That's the picture of the Gospel.
And from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness
of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith
that is in me, man.
Verse number 18 is a really great summary of what happens in
the gospel.
And folks, I think that so many times we cloud up the gospel
with things that we've been told or things that make sense to
us.
It's very, very important for us to stay in the word of God and
define the gospel and salvation by what the word of God
says in the verse 18.
What happens in salvation?
Our eyes are open.
We turn from darkness to light.
We turn from the power of Satan into the power of God.
We receive forgiveness of sins.
We have an inheritance or a blessing among us as.
As we are sanctified by faith that is in me.
Verse 19.
Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly
vision.
He says, no, I wasn't going to disobey what God called me to do.
I'm going to do it.
I'm obedient.
Verse 20.
But show first unto them of Damascus and at Jerusalem and throughout
all the coast of Judea and then to the Gentiles that they should
repent and turn to God and do works meet for repentance.
So Paul's heart here is to get people to turn away from their wicked
lives, to repent and turn to God and to work for him.
Verse 21.
For these causes, the Jews caught me in the temple and went
about to kill me.
So he says, you really want to know why they threw me in jail?
It's not because I was persecuting them.
It's not because I was telling them that they can't believe what
they're believing.
It's because I preached the gospel.
Paul holds nothing back here.
He says, I'm preaching the truth.
Verse 22.
Having therefore obtained help of God, I continued unto this day,
witnessing both to great, to small, and to great, saying none
other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should
come.
So he says, all I'm doing is preaching the fulfillment of the
Old Testament, that Christ should suffer and that he should
be the first that should rise from the dead and should show light
unto the people and to the Gentiles.
What we're seeing here is what we would call a master class in appealing
to the Gospel, to people, no matter who they are.
And all Paul is doing is pointing to the truth.
He knows that Agrippa understands what has been taught
in the Old Testament.
He understands that Agrippa knows the prophets and believes the
prophets and says, well, if you believe the prophets and if you
believe the Old Testament, you're going to see that Jesus is
the fulfillment of all of that.
And he's just the first one that's going to rise from the dead.
But everyone's going to rise from the dead that believe in Jesus
Christ.
And so he.
He paints this beautiful picture.
He preaches this strong gospel message, and we're going to see the
outcome of this.
Verse 24.
And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud
voice, paul, thou art beside thyself.
Much learning doth make thee mad.
You don't know what Festus is saying in.
In the.
The language of their day.
He's basically saying, you have become so smart, you've become
foolish.
You're crazy.
You're crazy for preaching this message.
You're crazy for living this life.
You're crazy for going to jail and being willing to be persecuted
and die for this faith.
Festus did not understand.
It was silly to him.
But we do know that the Bible says that preaching the cross to
those that are perishing is going to be foolishness.
Folks, what, what we do on Sunday mornings, what we do in our
Christian life, how we raise our children, what we do in giving
to God through our talents and through our treasures.
What we do in commitment to him makes no sense to people who
don't understand the truth of Jesus Christ, who don't understand
the Gospel.
There's a lot of things that we could be doing in our lives that
are going to be what we would call more beneficial to our good.
But at the end of the day, what we have to do is we have to
understand that the Bible says very clearly that there is no other
way.
There is a narrow way.
There is one path.
And so what we see here is that Festus is looking at Paul and
says, paul, you preaching this message is silliness.
It's foolishness.
It doesn't make any sense.
Obviously Paul was, was very educated.
We know that through what he says here.
He says, much learning doth make thee mad.
And so Festus does not understand.
Festus is just stiff arming the Gospel.
He says, this doesn't make any sense.
Verse 25.
But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus.
So Paul turns around, he says, I'm not mad, but speak forth the
words of truth and soberness.
I think that one of the statements I heard not too long ago
was this.
When we live in a world of lies, the truth seems crazy, right?
Because we're around so much deception, right?
And the deception starts from the enemy.
We know that Satan is the father of lies.
But when, when Satan gives those lies to the world.
The world.
Now we know the Bible.
When we say the world, we're not talking about like the physical
dirt.
We're talking about the world system.
The world system is full of lies, right?
And that's really evident today.
We don't know what to believe.
Like you turn on the Internet, turn on the tv.
It's hard for us to know what is truth, right?
And so if we start appealing to what is more compelling, we might
be pulled over to a compelling lie.
I don't know if any of you have, probably most of you have a
better understanding of artificial intelligence than I do.
But the truth is, is that you can turn on and watch a video that's
not really happening, but it can look really convincing.
And today if you turn on your phone, you can pull up a video, you
can see a video pretty much playing and doing anything.
And what's happening today is that many people are being deceived
and saying, well, that looks compelling, that looks real.
So I'VE got to believe that.
But that's been happening from the very beginning.
Satan is going to package his lies in a very compelling, very attractive
way.
And so what Paul says is this.
No, I'm not mad.
You're the one that's mad.
That's what he's essentially saying.
He says, I'm preaching the words of truth and soberness and
the word of God will always bring us to that place of truth.
That, that word of God is always going to be bringing us to
a place of being sober minded.
And so obviously when we preach the truth, people are going
to really be upset with that.
I mean, very, very quickly, just preach the gospel for about
five minutes.
People are going to be upset with that.
People are going to be upset with the fact that the Bible calls
us sinners.
The Bible's going to tell people that there's only one way
to salvation.
The Bible's going to tell people a lot of things that go against
culture today.
And people are going to call us mad.
People are going to be upset with that.
I don't know if you guys saw that today in the news.
There was a church up in Michigan, they got attacked and they're
calling it a terrorist attack.
And thank goodness the security team was able to come together
and protect the people.
But the truth of the matter is, is that the more we live for
the truth, the more people are going to come against that.
People that are living in darkness don't want to be revealed.
Right?
If we turned out all these lights in this room and we, we sat
in here for like a day, all right, maybe even like eight hours,
we would get used to the darkness.
And the moment we flip that bright light on, it would make all
of us recoil.
It would make all of us, it would hurt.
And that's what's happening in the world today.
Everyone has been living in darkness for so long that when the
light of the truth is shining on them, it hurts.
They recoil from that.
That doesn't make any sense to them.
And so I remember it was Pastor Spicer.
He always like, he would always want the lights on in the
office.
He's like, hey, men, men love darkness rather than light.
We should have light in here.
No darkness in here.
Always want to turn all the lights on.
And I appreciated that.
But the truth of the matter is, is that that's exactly what's
happening here.
Festus cannot understand the truth.
And for him it seems crazy.
Paul says, no, I'm preaching truth and soberness.
Verse 26.
For the king knoweth of These things before whom also I speak freely.
So Paul says, no, Festus Agrippa understands what I'm saying
about the Old Testament.
He understands what I'm saying.
He says, and I'm speaking freely to him.
For I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him,
for this thing was not done in a corner.
So he says, look, the thing that Jesus did, the things that we
see in Scripture, they're not done in private.
It's very evident to people.
It would have been evident for the people that live back at that
time frame to know what Jesus did and to know his miracles and
to know his power, but yet they were turning a blind eye to
the evident truth right before them.
And that's what we see today.
You know, there's a lot of people that say, you know what?
I would just believe if there was enough proof.
If God would just come down right now and show me the truth,
I would believe.
And the answer to that is he already has, right?
2,000 years ago, Jesus came down and demonstrated everything
that he needed to demonstrate.
It's recorded in his Word, and we have everything that we need.
And the vast majority of the people that say, I need to have proof,
even if Jesus came down and showed himself to them, they would
deny it, and they would say, it's a.
It's a vision.
It's a.
It's an hallucination.
It's some kind of artificial intelligence.
And I even.
I saw that one time there was this.
This famous atheist.
He was.
He was debating somebody and they said, well, what if, you know,
the intelligent design basically was the debate.
And they were saying, you know, could.
Would you concede that, you know, something implanted this on
the Earth and something grew to who we are today?
And he says, yes, maybe.
He goes, possibly it could have been aliens that came and dropped,
you know, some things down.
So this guy was willing to believe in aliens that came and planted
in this earth people and could not believe and couldn't.
His could.
He couldn't, in his brain, come to the fact of identifying who
God was and identifying that that could actually happen.
What I would say is this.
There's a lot of people that are rejecting the truth of God because
of the fact that they don't want to be accountable to the truth
of God.
They don't want to be accountable to a higher power.
Verse 28.
Then Agrippa said unto Paul, excuse me, go back.
Verse 27, Paul turns the king Agrippa.
So this is Paul's invitation, and this is important.
This is why we talk to people when it comes to the understanding
of the Gospel.
Because if you just talk and leave it out there, that's one thing.
Another thing is to put the test out there.
Are you willing to believe this?
Verse 27.
King Agrippa believest thou the prophets.
He says, hey, Agrippa, do you believe in the prophets?
I know that thou believest.
He says, so if you believe in the prophets, then you have to believe
in Jesus.
Verse 28.
Then Agrippa said unto Paul, almost, this is some of the saddest,
you know, words in Scripture.
Almost, thou persuadest me to be a Christian almost.
And what was holding Agrippa back?
There's a lot of theories about what was holding King Agrippa
back.
Some would say that it was.
It was Festus over there.
Festus was a man of power.
And you just called Paul crazy for believing in this.
And so maybe Agrippa was afraid of what Festus would say if
he believed.
Or.
Or some would say that maybe it was his wife that was holding
him back, who was there.
We don't know for certain.
Ultimately, it was a lack of belief.
But he says, almost thou persuaded me.
And basically in the.
In the Greek, it literally means in a little bit you could persuade
me.
And it just.
If maybe I just need a little bit more.
I just need a little bit more.
I need a little bit.
Maybe it's a little bit more time, a little bit more proof, whatever
it is.
He says, in a little bit you could persuade me.
Verse 29.
And Paul said, I would to God that not only thou, but also all
that hear me this day were both almost and altogether such as
I am, except these bonds.
And so what does he say here?
He says, you know what, Agrippa, I hope you and everybody
else, you don't just come close to being saved, but you completely
trust in Jesus Christ.
He says, I hope you have what I have.
Except.
He says, except for these bonds.
He says, I don't.
I don't wish this on anybody.
I don't wish anyone this type of persecution.
He goes, but I wish that you.
I pray that you would come to Christ.
And that's really the way that our prayer should be, that.
That people could understand the blessings that we have in our
life, to understand the hope that we have in our life, to understand
the confidence that we have in our life.
And so Paul says, I.
I hope that.
I pray that God would save not only you, but all those that are
here today.
Verse 30.
And when he had thus spoken, the king rose up and the governor
and Bernice, his wife, and they that sat with them.
And when they were gone aside, they talked between themselves, saying,
this man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds.
He said, this.
This guy is not guilty of anything.
He doesn't deserve to die.
He doesn't even deserve to be in jail.
Then said Agrippa to Festus, this man might have been set at liberty,
let go, if he had not appealed unto Caesar.
So even at this point, Agrippa's like this guy.
Paul made the wrong decision.
He should have never appealed to Caesar.
He could have been out right now.
But Paul knows that God has a purpose for him to preach the gospel,
preach the gospel to the highest court, the highest authority.
And so Paul preaches the gospel message.
So what can we learn from this?
What can we learn from the lesson of Paul preaching to Agrippa?
I think there's a couple things that we can learn here that
we should be joyful when we have the opportunity to preach the
gospel to anyone, specifically people of high authority.
And though he was a prisoner in chains, Paul said he was joyful.
And so that's one lesson that we could learn.
One other thing that we could see is that Paul preaches the gospel
unapologetically and completely.
I think it's important for us when we preach the gospel to people,
to preach it unapologetically and completely, persistently.
Paul understood and knew how he should appeal the gospel to Agrippa.
So know our audience.
Agrippa knew the prophets.
Agrippa knew the Jewish customs.
And so that's what Paul appeals to there.
Paul appeals to the truth that Agrippa understood.
And so Paul used Festus's outbursts to appeal to the king.
And so Paul brought this to Agrippa and says, do you believe?
And there's that point of decision there.
Do you believe?
He doesn't say, what do you do?
He doesn't say, how much church do you go to?
He doesn't say, how many offerings do you give?
He says, do you believe?
Do you believe the prophets?
Do you believe the Scriptures?
And so when Paul called Agrippa to faith in the prophets
and ultimately to Jesus, what does Agrippa do?
Agrippa refuses to believe.
And he says, you know what, Paul?
You almost persuaded me.
You almost got me there.
And I think another lesson that we can learn here is that no
matter what case we bring to a person, it's ultimately the Holy
Spirit that saves them.
I can have the greatest argument, I can have the greatest
message that I've ever preached in my life.
But at the end of the day, it's the Holy Spirit's work in that
individual's life to come to faith.
And so Agrippa's reply basically is you can actually almost,
through the text, see his.
His sorrow in it.
You almost.
You almost convince me.
And so almost being a Christian means what?
That I'm not a Christian.
And there's a lot of people out there that are almost there,
and there's a lot of people that maybe we're tempted to give
up on.
The Bible says that we have to keep going, we have to be consistent,
we have to be persistent.
And so ultimately, what we can see here is that there's a lot of
lessons.
And so what stopped Agrippa, I don't know.
But I think the biggest thing that we can point to is the fact
that he did not believe.
But Paul appeals with his testimony, with the power of God
to Agrippa and all those that were there.
And so what I would say here tonight is, is the challenge for
us, and it's a challenge for me is a lot of times I see sharing
my faith as a burden.
I see sharing my faith as an inconvenience.
I see sharing my faith as something that is going to cause
me fear and trepidation.
But what I would say is that let's be like Paul.
Let's.
Let's get to a place in our life.
As Acts 26, verse 2 says that he was happy to share with the king,
he was happy to share his faith.
And I think all of us at some point in time could have a testimony
of God's power in our life.
I mean, think about the testimonies that were given this
morning.
The fact that that fella had all these things that happened in
his life and transpired that protected him from a plane crash
and.
And God healed him from cancer.
Like, we all have testimonies like that.
We all have times in our life that we can point to and say, wow,
that was a God thing.
That was something that I could not explain for myself.
Hey, those are things that we should be excited about telling other
people to.
To.
So, so he appeals to Caesar.
And so that's what King Agrippa thinks is Paul's worst decision.
He says Paul could have been free, but no, he appealed to Caesar.
Why did he have to do that?
Well, we know why he had to do that.
Because it was ultimately God's plan for him to present the
gospel to Caesar and to all those that were in Rome.
And so Paul Says, I wish that you could believe.
I hope that you can believe.
I pray that you can believe.
But ultimately, you have to make that decision for yourself.
And so we're going to see in chapter 27, Paul is going to be sent
to Rome, and Paul is going to.
We, you know, today, in today's time, we jump on a plane,
we're there within a day.
We're going to see that Paul is going to get on a ship and there's
going to be a storm and there's going to be a shipwreck,
and there's going to be a lot of things that happen between the
time Paul gets to Rome.
And then, even after Paul gets to Rome, he doesn't immediately go
to Caesar.
He isn't immediately persecuted for his faith.
He's thrown in prison there, and he's got to wait.
So a lot of Paul's latter life is a lot of waiting and a lot of
thinking.
And we know a lot of writing, all the prison epistles came through
the time.
And so we know that God had a plan for Paul in prison.
And I, I, one of the, one of the.
I mean, honestly, we were going to be announcing here very
soon that we were planning a trip to Israel in 2026.
And obviously, you guys see the news and know that that might
not be happening.
Probably not happening.
We had just gotten word that everything was clearing up over there.
Believe it or not.
I was talking to the representative, and we were.
We were, like, praying about it.
We're like, okay, we're gonna bring it to the church.
And, you know, we were excited.
And literally, like, three days later, all this stuff started
transpiring, and we're like, okay, all right, so maybe God doesn't
have that plan.
But the point I'm trying to make is one of the places that was
a really sobering place was when we went to Caesarea.
When we went to Caesarea Maritime, that's where Paul was held.
And we saw all the different places, and then we went to this
place and it was, it was.
You could tell it was a room.
And a lot of people, the, the archaeologists there said that this
would have been a prison cell.
And I thought about.
I'm like, I wonder, I wonder if this is the exact place that Paul
was being held while he was waiting in captivity there for two
years.
I don't know for sure, but it took me back.
And it took me back to that place in my mind where I thought
about, hey, you know what, what was Paul thinking when he was
there, when he was writing these letters.
And ultimately, we know what his thinking was.
If you go to the book of Philippians, Philippians, chapter
one, he said, you know what, if it takes me to go to jail and
go through all these problems, and if it takes me to go to death
for people to trust in Jesus, great.
That's what I want.
And that's.
That's amazing to see that Paul's heart for his people, his
heart for the j.
It's one thing that he had heart for his own people, by the
way, his people are the ones that betrayed him.
But then Paul had a heart for the Gentiles, Paul had a heart for
those leaders.
Paul had a heart for all these people.
And so the Bible very clearly tells us as a believer, we should
have that same heart.
We should have that same desire.
Now, God hasn't called you maybe to preach to a king.
He hasn't necessarily called you to go to prison, but he has called
you to do something in your life.
And I think that all of us understand to some degree the basics
of our call.
And if you want to know the basics of the call, you can go to
the very end of the Book of Matthew, you can go to the very beginning
of the Book of Acts.
And we have what's called the Great Commission.
We have the Great Commission to tell people about Jesus.
But more than just tell people about Jesus, the Bible says to teach
them to make disciples.
And I know for me, one of the goals in my life is to help people
find the truth of Jesus.
But not only find the truth of Jesus, but also follow the truth
of Jesus.
Because it's one thing to come to Jesus and believe in him, it's
another thing to grow in our understanding of him.
And I believe that that is something that all of us have been
called to do in our lives, is to bring people to Jesus and to teach
them what it means to walk in the truth of his word.
So Paul comes to Agrippa, and Agrippa says, almost out persuaded
me.
And so we see God working even in the midst of difficulty with Paul.
You can go back to Acts, chapter 9, verse 15.
From the very beginning, we know that it was God's plan for Paul
to bear witness to the kings and to the leaders.
And we see that happening through Felix Festus Agrippa.
And ultimately we're going to see that not necessarily in Scripture,
but we are going to see that as he goes in church history and
appeals to Nero.
And Nero is an evil, evil leader who is going to persecute
Paul and ultimately put him to death.
But nonetheless, Paul was faithful through it all.
And I hope that we can stay faithful as well.
Well, we're going to go ahead and close out here in chapter 26.
And next week, Lord willing, we'll be back and we're going to
read and go through chapter 27 and we're going to see Paul's path
because Paul is going to be shipwrecked, he's going to be snake
bit.
Some of you guys know that story.
It's a pretty neat story.
But we're going to see Paul's ups and downs, circumstances, ups
and downs.
But we're going to see a standard of faithfulness in his life,
not only his faithfulness, but most importantly, God's faithfulness
to him.
And so we're getting closer and closer to the end of the Book
of Acts.
It goes there Through Acts, Chapter 28.
And then we'll be done.
And some people will ask, what are we going to be doing next?
I'll be announcing that here in the next few weeks.
We're going to be moving on to another study here on Sunday evenings.
And I hope that this studying the Book of Acts has helped you.
I think that one of the things that has helped me in the study of
the Book of Acts and is just to understand what mattered to God
in the early church.
And, and what, what it's, what it's taught me through this study
is that many of the things that we believe are so important
in today's church really weren't important to the Lord back
at the time of the early church.
I don't, and I'm gonna speak frankly here, and I don't want to
get anyone upset, but I don't see anybody in the Book of Acts saying
that they weren't picking a church because there wasn't enough
programs for them.
Okay.
They, they were there because of the fellowship that they had ultimately
with Christ and with each other.
It was a family.
It wasn't like we have today with churches being consumeristic.
Well, this church is going to bring this, this and this.
I like the music here, I like the programs here.
I like the preaching here.
And so therefore I'm just going to, you know, the truth is,
is that back then, yes, I do believe that at the core of it, you
could go to Acts, chapter 2, verse 42, and you could see was at
the heart of their fellowship.
It was, it was fellowshipping with one another.
It was the preaching of the word of God.
It was the breaking of bread and the, in the remembrance, in that
regard, and it was prayer.
And one of the things that I've seen is that we've so commercialized
Christianity in our world today.
And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with trying to seek
a good Bible believing church and pick the church that's right
for you.
But what I am saying is that so many times in churches we can
look at the things that really didn't matter so much to the Lord
back then and put that as our priority.
And the things that really did matter for the Lord back then, we
just kind of put as a back burner.
And so what I would say is that there's nothing wrong with ministries.
There's nothing wrong with children's ministries, there's nothing
wrong with men's ministries, ladies ministries, you know, different
ministries that we have.
But what we would say is this, that at the core of that, it's why
are we doing what we're doing?
And the big thing that has gone through my mind as we've been
studying the book of Acts is this, why are we doing.
And fill in the blank.
Why do we have this ministry?
Why do we do this?
Why do we meet here?
Why do we meet now?
Why do we give this way?
And a lot of the things in my own life, I've had to realize that
a lot of the things that I'm the most comfortable with are things
that I'm just comfortable with because that's traditionally what
we've always done.
And there's nothing wrong with tradition.
There's nothing wrong with understanding that to be that.
That's what I'm comfortable with.
But at the end, what we understand is that, and Paul taught
against this, if the traditions take precedent over what
God says, then that's when we have an issue.
And so if we have everything in line and our priorities, the big
thing is priorities, right?
The biggest thing is priorities.
Think about this.
How many of you, how many of you were hungry today?
Raise your hand.
Some of you were hungry.
During my preaching this morning, I heard some of the stomachs
growling from up here.
Just kidding, I.
Did you guys smelt that, those hot dogs cooking out there?
No.
How many of you were hungry and you ate?
You remembered to eat.
It was a priority, right?
Some of you said, no, I skipped a meal.
Okay?
Your priority is that you skip that meal.
But we all understand priorities.
We, we, we all understand that list of priorities.
And, and so for some of us, what happens is, is that though that
priority list, okay?
So putting God first and all the things that God calls us to do.
And.
And then it goes down like.
And so there.
There are certainly things in our life that should take priority
over other things.
But what happens is, is that God being the top priority and ourselves
being.
Should be the bottom priority in many cases.
What we usually do is we usually flip the script and we put
ourselves up here and we put everything else that God has when
we have enough time, right?
When, When I get to it, when, When I have enough here, when I.
We could be like Agrippa, like, in a little bit, I'll believe,
right?
And remember what happened with.
There was a Felix when he said, there's a.
At a more convenient time, I'll believe at a more convenient
time.
I'll do that at a better time.
And what's happened for me is sometimes my.
My priorities have shifted to, hey, you know what.
What brings me pleasure.
Instead, our priorities should be, ultimately, how do I glorify
God?
Because when something is a priority for us, we will make sure
that we are getting it done.
We will make sure that it's important to us and that we will
be there.
And so what I'm saying here this evening is that I think all
of us, including myself, everyone, everyone needs to reevaluate
priorities and say, what is my spiritual priorities?
And I would encourage you, actually, not just to make it a theoretical
thing, like, I'm actually encouraging you to either write it
down or record what are your priorities?
What's your list of priorities?
Because if you don't.
If you don't plan for something, it's not going to happen.
So if you say, well, you know what, Pastor, I do have a priority.
I want to read my Bible every day.
It's a priority for me.
Okay, fantastic.
We'll put that priority over something else that isn't as important
to you in the spiritual realm.
Okay.
You know, I.
I want to make sure that I'm serving in this ministry.
I want to make sure that I'm doing this for the Lord.
Well, put that on the list and make sure that's the top priority.
My family's.
My family's high on that priority list.
It's not at the top because if I put my family before Christ, I'm
missing out.
But what I'm saying is, is that my family is high in the priority
list.
Sometimes my priorities get shifted.
Sometimes my hobbies take priority over the things that I should
be doing.
And I go here and I go there.
The truth is, is at the end of the day, we have to look and we have
to say, lord, align Allow me to align myself with what your priorities
are.
So align my priorities with his priorities.
And I think that's a lesson from the Book of Acts that we can
take with us.
And I hope that it's been a blessing for you.
I encourage you to read through the Book of Acts here and
there, remind yourself of what happened.
Because a lot of the things that are happening with Paul and
the book of Philippians, in the book of Romans and the book of
Ephesians, Colossians, all these books that you know of, a lot
of that is tied together with what's happening in the Book of Acts.
And so it pieces the puzzle together for us.
It helps us understand it better.
So when we hear in Philippians chapter one about Paul being in prison
and we see his heart there, we can connect the dots and say, yeah,
that was his heart back there in the Book of Acts.
And it.
I believe that when we see the Bible from that perspective, from.
From it not just being 66 separate books, but when we see it
as one book, we understand it from the perspective of, hey, this
makes more sense.
And for me, that's what made things click in my brain when I used
to.
You know how I used to read my Bible?
I'm getting off on a tangent here, Brother Dan, but I'm just going
to keep going.
I used to read my Bible like this.
I would sit at home and I go, what am I going to read?
So when I was a high schooler, I would just open my Bible to any
page.
I would just open it up and I would just read three or four verses
and I would.
That would be my Bible reading for the day.
I might open up the Song of Solomon, I might open up to Ezekiel.
I might not know what I'm talking about there, what I'm reading.
But when we have a formulated plan of, okay, I'm going to read
this book of the Bible, I'm going to understand it in context.
I'm going to understand it from the perspective of who Jesus
is and what he has done for me.
Then it's going to make a lot more sense.
And so that's why we go book by book.
Sometimes it's long, sometimes it's tiresome when we go through
long books.
But the reason why we do it is because it's helping us understand
the bigger picture of the Word of God.
So I wanted to share that with you guys before we.
We stopped here this evening.
Well, let's go ahead and close in a word of prayer.
I've got a few announcements and then you guys can be dismissed.
Lord, I thank you for this time that you've given us.
I thank you for the opportunity to come together tonight
to study your word, to look into this wonderful story of Paul
appealing to Agrippa with the truth of the gospel and ultimately
going to appeal to Caesar.
And so Lord, I pray that we can present the truth of the Gospel
to those around us.
We don't know who our Agrippa is.
We don't know who our Felix and Festus is.
But Lord, open that door for us.
Give us eyes to see, Lord.
Help us to see those opportunities.
Lord, help us to have someone this year, just maybe one person
that we can tell the truth of Jesus Christ to and ultimately teach
them what it means to walk in accordance to your word.
Pray that you be with our fellowship to follow.
Pray that you keep us safe as we go our separate ways.
This evening we ask all these things in Jesus name, Amen.
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church
Podcast.
I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.
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Thank you so much.
God Bless.
Have a wonderful day.