04-12-26 Study of Acts Chapter 17:1-3 Men Who Turned This World Upside Down Part 1

➡ This Bible study focuses on the book of Acts, specifically chapters 16 and 17, which detail the early history of the church and the journeys of Paul and his disciples. The study emphasizes the transformative impact of the church, likening it to turning the world “upside down”. It also highlights the hardships faced by the early church founders, encouraging listeners to persevere in their faith despite challenges. The study concludes by praising the determination of Paul and Silas, who continued to spread their message despite facing significant adversity.
➡ The text discusses the importance of making a difference and standing up for what you believe in, using examples from the Bible. It highlights figures like Paul, Elijah, Jeremiah, and Amos who made waves and disrupted the status quo because of their strong beliefs. The text encourages readers to be bold, confront issues, and teach others, rather than just going along with the crowd. It emphasizes that making a difference often involves creating chaos and facing opposition, but it’s worth it to stand up for what’s right.
➡ Paul was accused of polluting a holy place, leading to chaos and his persecution. Despite this, he continued to preach the truth about Jesus, causing further uproar. His actions led to him being seen as a troublemaker, but he remained steadfast, believing in the importance of representing Christ. This story encourages us to stand up for our beliefs, even in the face of adversity.
➡ The text talks about the importance of courage and conviction in making a difference in the world. It emphasizes that regardless of one’s status, everyone has the potential to impact the world positively. The text uses the example of Paul, who despite facing persecution and hardship, continued to spread his message because he believed in its importance. The key takeaway is that courage and a strong belief in one’s purpose can lead to significant change.
➡ Paul, a man of great courage, was not afraid to share his beliefs, even when faced with confrontation. Despite the challenges he faced, he remained committed to his mission, spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ to both Jews and Greeks. His unwavering faith and trust in God gave him the strength to persevere, demonstrating that true courage comes from a deep conviction and a strong calling. This story encourages us to trust in God, face our fears, and stay true to our beliefs, no matter the obstacles we encounter.
➡ This text emphasizes the importance of trusting in God, confessing sins, and thanking God in advance for victories. It suggests that courage and boldness in faith come from a strong understanding of God and His teachings. The text also highlights the need to confront sin and challenge complacency, stating that the truth of the Gospel is meant to disrupt and challenge, not to blend in with societal norms. Lastly, it underscores the importance of having not just courage, but also the right content or message, emphasizing the power of truth and the impact it can have when shared boldly.
➡ Paul, in his teachings, emphasized that Jesus is the Messiah who had to die for the sins of people. Over three Saturdays, he used scriptures to explain and defend this belief, encouraging questions and dialogue. He stressed the importance of understanding and defending one’s faith, not just emotionally, but intellectually. Paul’s approach was to use the Old Testament to show that the Messiah had to suffer, die, and rise from the dead.
➡ Paul used the Old Testament to show that Jesus Christ fulfilled all the prophecies about the Messiah, proving his divinity. However, many Jews, including Jesus’ disciples, didn’t understand this because they didn’t know their scriptures well. Paul emphasized the importance of studying and understanding the scriptures to truly know God. He praised the Bereans for their open-mindedness and eagerness to study the scriptures, which led them to believe in Jesus without needing persuasion.
➡ To truly understand and share the teachings of the Bible, one must first confess and repent of all sins. Then, they must study the Bible diligently, as there are no shortcuts to understanding it. Next, they should apply the teachings to their own life, making it personal. Finally, they should share what they’ve learned with others, as teaching is a great way to reinforce learning. This process helps one to live a life that aligns with God’s teachings and to effectively share these teachings with others.

Okay, welcome. This is our Sunday morning Bible study. We’re in the book of Acts and we’re studying about the history of the church. We are moving from chapter 16, which is basically the, pretty much the introduction of Paul, into his first discipleship journey. We’re now moving into the book book chapter 17, which really gets into the heart of the churches from this point forward to the end of the book, which is in chapter 28. And we’re going to look today at subject matter of the men that turned the world upside down. This, this phrase ought to be, ought to not be new to you because it was the advent of the church that taught people how to view the world.

And if you recall from our substack, many moons ago, we began to lay out the scientific side of creation. We talked about the world in an upside down position. We showed you scripture, we showed you art, we showed you the Roman Catholic Church everything in regards to that. And what, what chapter 17 begins to do is flip that system upright. And that system had to be flipped upright. Beginning with the Church, you could not do that with the individuals. You had to do it with the collective body of the church. So that is exactly what we’re going to look at over this, this week and the last week of April.

And when we come back, we’re going to look at these two guys, look at several men and, and you need to realize that the history of the church is not all rose rosy conditions. What you might think you’ve gone through and what you might think you are going through or will go through is nothing to what the, the, the men who began the church had to go through. And when you begin to compare your life as the church, remember in Ephesians you studied individual application. How do you structure your life into the relationship with Jesus Christ? And in Acts, you’re learning how to become the church.

And it is the Church that is in the body of Christ. I want you to think about that. In Ephesians, it doesn’t talk about to you about being in the body of Christ. It talks about you as an individual. In Acts, it talks about you being in the body of Christ. So it is here where your relationship actually takes hold in its final format before you go home. It’s here where you are the body of Christ. It’s here where you obtain all the blessings in Christ. It’s not as an individual, it’s when you become the church.

Now that’s not a corporate church by any stretch of the imaginations. That is you understanding that you’re the Body of Christ as an entity called the church. So when we look at this and we approach chapter 17, the apostle Paul, along with his friend and co disciple Silas, have, have just been released from the jail in Philippi. We talked about that last week and we understand that God did the releasing, right? He did it with an earthquake. He broke the change. They stayed in jail so that the jailer didn’t, didn’t pay for the, pay for the sentences of all of the inmates.

And we understand that the jailer was going to commit suicide and Paul stopped that process by indicating to the jailer that they were all still there. And so the church in Philippi has been established in namely the name of Lydia, the lady who Paul met at the riverbank where there wasn’t enough men to create a synagogue, so in her household and the jailer in his house and there’s this little congregation of believers there. Now the pressure was on. The local Jordanians along with the rulers of Philippi, didn’t want Paul, nor Silas, nor Timothy hanging around. And for that matter, they most likely didn’t want Luke around either.

But he remained in Philippi after Paul, Silas and Timothy left. But in as we come in now into chapter 17, Paul, Silas and Timothy have left Philippi after a horrified, harrowing experience. And Paul and Silas having been beaten with rods and just bruised and bloodied, they had been thrown in a dark inner dungeon. They had gone through all kinds of pain and in the stocks and stretch with their limbs and cramped with their muscles. You recall that from last week through it all, Jesus Christ had been glorified. And I want you to stop and think about that on your self assessment.

When you go through times and trouble, Scripture says you need to thank him for those times. And you still need to glorify him in those times. What are you doing? Okay, you want the blessings through those times, do what the Bible says. And consequently they had rejoiced and now they have left Philippi. And it might be a time when you would assume that maybe they would just go about thinking whether or not it was worth it and, and contemplating whether this whole idea of discipleship couldn’t be done in some other simpler way with less pain. But that is not the case.

When you get down and out self assessment, you look for the easiest way to the door. You look for the easiest way out. You look for how to make this go away and never come back. And you forget about the growth of what you’re going through. And you forget about that God is an unchanging God. And he’s going to make you do whatever he wants you to do. And if you don’t acquiesce to it, you’re just going to get more pain. Oh, remember when you told your child, it’s just better to come clean and stop lying to me.

The punishment will be less if you do that. The more you drag this on, the more hurt you’re going to get. Well, that’s exactly how God treats us. And so as they left Philippi, they went immediately, and we get this from verses 1 through 17 to Thessalonica. And here we see again this tremendous and dotted spirit that characterized Paul. Now, David Lewiston once said one time, I am prepared to go anywhere as long as it is forward. And he really echoed the sentiments of Paul. The idea of going backwards, Paul would say, this is tough. Let’s go back and retrace our steps and get back with some people we know and get a little comfort before we blast into another territory.

That kind of concept never entered into Paul’s mind. All he wanted to do was move forward. Creating the church. Now, Paul and Silas were characterized by the people at Thessalonica with the most interesting characterization in verse 6 of chapter 17 I’m going to use as our jumping off point at the end of the verse. The people in determining the characterization of Paul and Silas chose some interesting words. These that have turned the world upside down are calm here also. Now that’s a very interesting definition of two people. These that have turned the world upside down. That’s amazing.

When you now understand the history of the Old Testament and what Lucifer had done throughout his control point of the Old World Old Testament and church was coming to turn that completely upside down. Now, if you recall that there’s two great commissions. One is to go teach the people of the gospel of Christ saving them, and the other is to remove the pagan governments from their system and placing them in hell. As you’re learning in our Monday twice a month, return of the gods. That was their charter. And I find it amazing that these people chose to use those terms that any man or any men could be men who so affected the world that the people said they’re turning it upside down foreign.

I’m quite sure they didn’t have the same knowledge base that you have today. If it was amazing to them, then it should be ultra amazing to you now. I mean, there are people who live their whole life and the world doesn’t even know they exist. That’s some of you. There are Christians who have absolutely no effect on anything. Here were two people of whom the world said they. They’re turned this place upside down. But if you think that’s amazing, get this. They’re on. They’ve only been in one town and they got this reputation in one town, Philippi in Europe.

Can you imagine the reputation at the end of their complete journey before Paul died? Can you imagine the condition that people thought then? And already through the events of one few days in one town, the world is convinced these men are turning it upside down. And the rumor has drifted all the way into Thessalonica, which is over a hundred miles away. Now, I want you to think about that. No horses, no, you know, they walked 100 miles. And they got there before they got there. When you turn the world upside down in your lifetime, that’s going some.

Okay, when the world says you’re turning it upside down and only been around a few weeks, that’s really going somewhere. And as we look at these two individuals, Paul and Silas, the amazing consequence of their disciple discipleship in Europe can really be based upon some very, very key factors. There were reasons that they did what they did, and there were reasons that they had the effect that they had. Well, first off, they had two great commissions to fulfill. That’s the basis of why they did what they did. But as a characteristic for you to understand your life as the Church, you need to see that from Paul’s eyes and then from people who looked upon him and characterized him and what he was doing.

Somebody said one time, there are people who watch things happen, and there are people who make things happen, and there are people who don’t know what’s happening. We’re here in that these are people who made things happen. Every time they took a step, the world shook. They had an effect that mattered. I remember when I was graduated from high school and I received the first mentorship job from a. A government electronics company, and my mentor basically allowed me to participate in everything he participated except board meetings that I couldn’t go to. And he always sat in the back of the room.

He didn’t sit at the table. This, my mentor became the. The chairman of the board of Raytheon by the name of Lol Lawson. And he sat at the back of the room in all meetings, not at the table unless it was just, you know, a couple of people. But if it was a room full of people, he always made sure that he set to his back against the wall at the back of the room, and he always came in last. And what he taught me was is you can walk through room. And people anticipate you and you.

This term I’m going to use is not the meaning of evilness, but you can read a room. You know who’s there, you know what the demeanor is of that individual, and you know how they think just by walking through the room. That’s what Paul was when he came in. He commanded the room. Now, he didn’t do it. Christ did it through him as the church. There’s another writer that says there are only two people that count in the modern world, a committed communist and a committed Christian. Everybody else is only along for the ride. The two extremes, the two extremes, you’re either all out for Christianity in your life or you’re all out for the leftist communistic way of slavery.

In the middle. What does God say? You’re riding the fence. And if you’re riding the fence, you’re on the evil side. See, some people count. Some people just sort of. And I used to call this kind of eternal dinglings. They never amount to anything. They just go along to be going along. They float, they’re in limbo. And then there are people who count for something. There are people who make waves in this world. There are people who upset the system. There are Christians who disturb the comfort of sinners. And Paul and Silas were those kind of people.

That’s what you should be. See, God always know. God always had those kinds of people who made ways. God always had the people who upset Satan’s apple cart who took a placid, sinful situation and threw it into total chaos. Now, there’s one that I particularly like and I like to read about and I like to quote about, especially when we get into looking at the Old Testament. And I’d like to share a few illustrations really quick with you. And that’s Elijah. See, Elijah made waves all over the place. He was always hassling Ahab. If you recall from Old Testament scripture, Ahab would have made a black mark on a piece of coal.

He was bad, really bad. I mean, evil bad. He had a woman that was just as bad by the name of Jezebel. But it came to pass when Ahab saw Elijah. Ahab said unto him, are you he who troubles Israel? You’re the guy messing up the system. And you gotta love Elijah’s answer. He says, no, I haven’t troubled Israel. You have. You and your father’s house. In that you have forsaken the commandments of the Lord and followed Balaam. Elijah made waves. And if you recall the. The statement he made to Ahab is exactly the statement that Jesus Christ quoted in the Sanhedrin.

You are of your father’s house, the devil. There was another guy, and he did it much in a different way. He was more a soulful, kind of sensitive person, and his name was Jeremiah. But Jeremiah created havoc because of the kind of man he was. In Jeremiah 38, I’m going to read you a couple of verses here, 2 through 4. He tells Israel this. Thus saith the Lord. He that remaineth in this city shall die by the sword, by the famine and by the pestilence. Jerusalem is in for it. You think God is not a war God? You think God is this just unconditional, loving God that you can do whatever you want and have no consequences, no judgment, and think whatever you want? You are sorely mistaken.

Israel got off by thinking they could get away with it, number one. Number two, by thinking they could get away with it, they acted upon it and they did exactly what God told them not to do, and they died for it. Now tell me that’s an unconditional, loving God. But he that goeth forth to the Chaldeans shall live, for he shall have his life for a prize and shall live. He’s talking about the Chaldans are going to come down and wipe out the city and take some people captive. If you look at Israel history, that’s all that Israel was, was captive.

They were let go. They did the same darn thing. God put them back in captive. They conquered them again. He killed them over and over and over again. What do you think he’s doing to the church? Foreign. Thus saith the Lord, this city shall surely be given into the hands of the king of Babylon’s army, which shall take it. Now he says Babylon’s going to knock off Jerusalem. That’s what God says. Now you want to get the reaction after the announcement of Jeremiah. Now we get to. Now we got to get armed up and get ready to go because Babylon may come over here.

We’ve got to have this thing in hand. Therefore, the princess said to the king, we beseech you, let this man be put to death. This is Jeremiah. Let’s kill Jeremiah. And the king says, what do you want to kill him for? For thus he weakeneth the hands of the men of war that remain in the city. And the king says, what do you mean? He’s wrecking the moral of everybody, Said the prince, now here we’re getting ready to fight Babylon. And he’s saying, nope. God says, you’re all going to get wiped out. What do you think that’s doing for the morale of the army? He’s speaking such words.

Jeremiah is and this man seeks not the welfare of the people, but the harm of the people. And so, oh, Zedekiah turns him over and says this, okay, he’s in your hands. You decide what’s going to happen to Jeremiah. Jeremiah made waves and they wanted to get rid of him because he disturbed the complacency of sin. Where are you? You’re supposed to be bold. You’re supposed to confront. You’re supposed to teach. Now here’s another man, a very simple man. He’s kind of a farmer, but he made waves. His name was Amos. In Amos, chapter 7, verse 10, Isaiah, the priest of Bethel sent to Jeroboam, king of Israel.

And this is what he said. Amos has conspired against thee, which was a lie. Amos was speaking the truth, and these guys are prop propagating error. Amos was conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel. And the land is not able to bear all his words. People cannot handle it. Amos made waves and they wanted to get rid of that guy, but they couldn’t take him. It wasn’t that he was personally offensive, it was that what he said offended them. The truth shall make you free. God has always had people that made waves when they confronted the system and the sinners that make up the system.

You’ve now you’ve learned. And we’re studying once again, creation. We’re studying God’s creation, but it’s God’s creation of two systems. One, evilness that we term synonymous with Lucifer, and the other one, holiness, that we term synonymous with God himself. And when you come back to the book of Acts, you got another guy and it just happens to be Paul. Every time he put his foot down, something rattled. In Acts, he didn’t go into a town and just gently leave an impression. He turned the town into complete chaos whenever he ministered there. In Acts, chapter 21, verse 28, he had been in Jerusalem just a little while, and they were so upset that they stirred up all the people and had a riot.

He created riots everywhere he went. And they started yelling, men of Israel, help. We got to get this. Paul, help us. This is the man that teaches all men everywhere against the people and, and the law and this place. And further, he brought Greeks into the temple and polluted the holy place. It didn’t say scripture, didn’t say he did that at all. Say, when he reads scripture, your mind plays games. With you. You think he did it? No, he didn’t do it. They were coming after him because he thought about doing it. They saw him talking to a guy named Trophimus who happened to be from Ephesus.

So they assumed he took him into the holy place. What they did was trump up all kinds of allegations to get rid of Paul. Persecution and persecution. You grow. Your strategy of life ought to be persecution because then you’re going to live a Christian life. In verse 30, the whole city was moved. The people ran together, took Paul, drew him out of the temple at once the doors were shut. And as they went about to kill him, it was a mess. He created chaos, not because of what he did, but because of what he said. And what he said was the truth.

Why aren’t you producing chaos? Why are you sitting on the couch and not saying a word? Where are you in the battle. Is because of what he said. Now if you create trouble because of what you are, you’ve got personal problems. Why you created it. That’s what I said. If you got issues in your life, go look at the mirror. You created it. If you just make trouble, you say, well, I get out there and I try to witness and I get into all kinds of trouble. Well, maybe it’s because you’re an offensive person. That’s a personality problem.

You’re hold of yourself and not allowing Christ to work through you see, it wasn’t Paul that offended it. Was that what he said that offended them? Chapter 22 gives us another illustration of this. See, the people listened to him until this word lifted up their voices and said, away with such a fellow from the earth. Now that’s pretty serious. What they’re doing is saying, kill him, get ready, get him out of town, get him off the globe. He’s not fit that he should live. These people were upset. Well, you ask, how do we know that they’re upset? Well, go look at the next verse 23.

As they cried out, they threw their clothes off. They were upset. In Jewish tradition, when you get upset, the first thing that goes is your clothes. When you get upset, what’s the first thing that blows is your mouth. At least they could put back on their clothes. You can’t take back what you say. They’re upset. Now if that wasn’t bad enough, it said next they threw dust up in the air. They’d gone bananas. It was like they were thrashing in the bush, you know, they took off their clothes, now they’re throwing dust up in the air, dust getting all over everything.

Okay, well, that expresses a tremendous frustration. They’re trying to release their hostility and they’re just tearing the clothes and throwing dirt. Dirt. Really upset. But see, all he had done is preached what Jesus. He made ways. You think if you have an issue at the office, because maybe you’re talking church. Oh, you just got to shut up. Well, no. Oh, I’ll get fired. Okay, who are you representing? Yourself or Jesus Christ? What’s your priority? Who’s your priority? And so Paul did the same thing in chapter 24, verse 5. We have found this man, a pestilent fellow, a mover of sedition among all the Jews throughout the world.

Now isn’t that very interesting? See, they thought this guy had actually turned the world on its ear. He’s the ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. He goes about to profane the temple and so forth and so on. And they said the same thing about him in chapter 8, verse, chapter 28, verse 22, his third mission, his third discipleship mission. He desired to hear of thee what you think. For as concerning this sect, we know that everywhere it is spoken against what he had done. He had made Christianity the issue everywhere he went. The priority of Christ was his life.

Your self assessment. Now what is it that makes it in Elijah, say Old Testament, not Paul. Christ had come. Holy Spirit was in Paul. What made it in Elijah. What is it makes a difference between a no name in Jeremiah, between Amos and a Paul and a nobody. A Christian who just never amounts to anything. He’s just there. But no one really cares. Why? Because no one knows them. Why have we gotten 10,000 times 10,000 missionaries and only vaguely remember names like Livingstone and Carrie and Martin and Drum and Judson? Why is it that? Why have we forgotten hundreds and thousands of preachers and vaguely remember seminarial and Hus and Wesley and Luther and Calvin and Edwards and Spurgeon and Moody? Why? Why we.

Why are we vaguely remember these names but we don’t remember most? What is it that makes a man who really shakes the world? I think the characteristics are right here in the narrative in chapter 17. It’s not listed here in order. It’s not it. It’s in the text. Implied. As we watch these men and read about these men, how they operate. I’m not, and you shouldn’t be only interested in what they do. I’m interested in why they do it. I want to get behind the actual activity. I want to know what motivates them. I want to know what pushes them to do this.

Against all odds. It doesn’t do me any good to study where they went. That’s nice. History of the church. I don’t have to go there. Why? Because we got the seven letters of the church in Revelations. We got the seven letters of that Paul wrote to the seven churches. We know where he went. What were the principles operating in their ministry that made it what it was? That is your key points. Why? Because that is how you look upon yourself. Now I’m gonna look. We’re going to look at five things. These five things that made these men men who shook the world, man who turned it upside down, who upset the system.

And I’ve narrowed them down to these five and they need somewhat of def definition. And we’re going to define each one of them, but we’re not going to be able to do it all today. But I’m going to give you the five so you can stay. The first one is courage. The second one is content. The third is converts. The fourth is conflict. And the fifth is concern. Now because these two stories are so closely parallel, we’re going to take them together foreign. We’re going to look at Thessalonica down to verse nine and then straight on through Berea.

We’re going to just take the passages together. Now we’re going to compare the verses in our study, but we’re going to look at the spiritual principles that made these men men that really turned the world on its ear. And I think once you get these principles down, they’re going to be such an exciting element of your self assessment for you. Now we have two towns, we have Thessalonica, they were in. And we get that in verse nine in the first nine verses. I’m sorry. And Berea, they were in beginning in verse 10 through 15. They were very, very different towns.

The makeup was different, the attitude was different. So forth and so on. Thessalonica was big time. New York City, Dallas, Texas, Houston, California, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami. Big time, big time cities. Thessalonica had been named in 3, 315 BC by the wife of Cassandra, one of Alexander’s main men. Cassandra’s wife, who named this town incidentally after herself, was I think a stepsister to Alexander the Great. If you study history, they had become a very famous city. It was a city of about 200,000 people at least. And it was a city that was the capital of Macedonia.

There were three great rivers through it and converged into the sea. And so it was a very port, important port city for trade. Also the Ignatia highway went right through the middle of Thessalonica, which made it the great place where the armies all march through and everybody who was traveling east and west came that way. Now incidentally, today if you go to the area that was Macedonia, you’ll find that the city is still the most important city in the part of the world, but the name of it is changed. Solonica, on the other hand, Berea was nowhere.

Berea was strictly the in the boondocks. Now I can think of very, very small cities, dumpster fire cities. It was approximately 50 miles away. Some, some may say 40, some say 50, some say 60, but it’s approximately 50 miles away. The original site south and west of Thessalonica was an off the beaten track, out of the way place called Berea. That never would have amounted to anything probably had not Cesario reflected upon it and had not the apostle Paul gone there, that those two people put Berea on the map. So we have two very different cities.

Oh, think of it this way. One’s prosperous and one’s poor your life. One’s prosperous and one’s poor your life. One on a highway, one on a byway. But you have the same thing going on in both places that illustrate to us the principles that make a man the man that turns the world upside down. What is he saying? There is no difference in anybody whether you’re prosperous or poor. You’re all the same. You don’t have woe is me. That’s an attitude that you should take shape of going Back to Ephesians 4, 5 and 6. There’s one thing that number one, I had to learn.

Number two, I was taught number three, I was assured that I was on the right track. But it’s always been my ambition for my life to count for something. Why would I want to live if. If my life is not account for anything? I couldn’t think of anything worse than to think that I never would have any effect on anything. Such a worthless life. When I used to grow up, my mentors, not typically my dad always used some type of reverse psychology. And they said to me because I goofed off, you know, I just didn’t have to study, I didn’t have to do a number of things.

I got good grades without studying. I blah blah, blah, blah blah. They tell me I’d never make hell beans. I think it was somewhat wise for them to begin to shift my mindset into thinking about my life. Because at a point in time a mind shift occurred. I shifted from being the lazy person that I was into something, that I was going to be assured that my life was going to be accountable for something. I’ve always had this fear. Fear is a bad. A word that I shouldn’t use because or not to fear. But I’ve always had this grudging thought that I would never really count for God.

And that haunted me for a long time. And I can only say, I hope there’s one in you. I hope you want to matter. I hope you want to be somebody who believe who. Because you live. There’s a difference. So as you look at these men in these two different cities, these two different encounters of life, we’re going to see the same feature set that illustrate to us in a double dose what the principles are that make a man a man who changes the world. It’s not your condition, it’s your destination. Principle number one, courage. We’ll see it in Thessalonica.

We’ll see it exhibited in Berea over and over again before. Before we look at this passage, we have seen that courage and boldness was part of the early church genius. That’s what Christ did in sending the Holy Spirit back at Pentecost. We saw from the very beginning how they would go into a town and they would run into pressure and immediately they would get courageous. You find that all throughout Scripture after Pentecost. Oh, thank. The Holy Spirit was sent back to give you what? Power. Power. And the more pressure, the more courage, and the more courage, the more dynamic message they had.

See, it’s a fantastic ingredient in everybody’s ministry, especially in the early church, and it still is today. Courage, boldness, fearlessness. The Apostle Paul had all of this, and there’s really no question about it. Over in Acts 20, verse 22, he says, I go bound in the Spirit to Jerusalem, and I don’t know what’s going to happen. Power. He knew it was all going to be bad. See, he set himself up strategically for persecution. He just didn’t know what kind of bad. You say. How did he know it was going to be bad? Well, he listened. See, the Holy Spirit witnesses in every city saying that bonds and afflictions await me.

But none of these things move me. Neither cannot my my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy. And the ministry. I’m going to finish the ministry God gave me to do, even if it kills them. And it ultimately did. But you got to see he was a kind man. He wasn’t a kind man when he started out, but in the change on Damascus Road. He became a kind man. He was an understanding man, an undoubted undaunting man. And you got to believe me when I, when I say that this is so basic.

No one ever. And I say this again, no one ever really affects the world. For Christ who doesn’t have the courage of his conviction and the courage of his calling, You can’t. You can be convicted about many, many things, but if you’re not willing to tell somebody about doesn’t do any good. You need not only the courage of your conviction but the courage to carry out the calling that God called you for. Get off the couch. See, it’s a courageous people who make the difference. Look at verse one, chapter 17. And let’s see the courage illustrated.

Now they had finished up in Philippi and they left. You remember they had made situations secure for the Christians there, right? What? Because the. Paul blackmail. Paul blackmailed the Romans. You recall the story from last week. He had the goods on them and he says, if you do anything, I will expose you. And in that exposures they would have died. Paul telling them he. He was a Roman citizen and that kind of set things in order. They were scared of him from then on because they had persecuted a Roman citizen against the law which. So the Christians were going to be able to rest for a while at Philippi.

So what did Paul and Silas do? They pressed on. And when they had passed through Ampolis, now that was about 33 miles from Philippi. They went from Empolis to Apollo Polyia, that was 30 miles from Ampolis. And then they went to Thessalonica which was 37 miles from AMP. Apollo. Apollonia, which was 30 miles from. For Polis, which was 33 miles. And they didn’t. They. Don’t you ever forget it. From Phil. Philippi. It’s in the middle. And what’s the significance of that? The significance of that is that they had their mindset on Thessalonica. They had their mindset on Thessalonica.

They probably stopped for the night in Apollonia and at Fapolis, if they went that way and did cover 30 miles a day and stayed overnight at these two places which were perfect points of. In their journey to stay. Evidence. Some, some scholar tell us says that evidence that Paul didn’t walk everywhere he went. He probably hired horses, which is an interesting thought in itself. But nevertheless they just stopped overnight at these two cities. That isn’t the text. That’s a likely conclusion, by the way. And so they came to Thessalonica where there was a synagogue of the Jews.

Meaning there were 12 men in the synagogue. Now hang on a moment. Who had. Who had happened on the first discipleship journey? Every time Paul went into a town, where did he go first? The synagogue. And what happened every time? One word, it starts with a P. Persecution. Every time they went into a synagogue, they got persecuted. Now there was a synagogue in Thessalonica. Oh, and you might say, well, I hope Paul learned his lesson. No, he always went to the synagogue first to speak to Jewish leadership. Look back in chapter 13 of Acts. Every time he got near a synagogue, what happened? He got persecuted.

Chapter 13, verse 6. They had gone. They had met a sorcerer. In verse 6 of chapter 13, the first place they went, the Isle of Cyprus. They met a sorcerer who was a Jew. Every time they got close to Jews, they got persecuted in confrontation with Satan. Go about, go to verse 45. It says that when they came into the area of Galatia, the whole place came together to hear the word. Verse 44. When the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled within. Be spoke against these things which had spoken by Paul. And contradicting and blaspheming.

Look at verse 50. The Jews stirred up the devout and honorable women and the chief men of the city and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas. Expel them out of the borders. You get into chapter 14, verse 1. They went into the synagogue of the Jews. There were some Jews who believed they were just stirred up at trouble. First two, the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and they tried to stone them. In verse five, they fled. In verse six, go down to 19. They threw them out of the city of Listeria. Stone them there. And it was always the Jews who persecuted Paul in his ministry.

Well, when he goes there at Thessalonica, What do you think happened? Went to the Jews in the synagogues and he said, now that, my friends, is courage. He had just gotten over terrible pain. He just got excruciating agony in Philippi that we described last week. But which beggars words to describe. He had been through pain and terror and threat every time he went into the synagogue on his first discipleship journey. Now he’s going to the Seneca. He’s just been in jail. He doesn’t want a vacation. He just goes right back into the synagogue again. Why? Self assessment, guys.

Why is he doing this over and over and over again? Because that was God’s calling to him. You want the easy up. Some of you don’t even want any confrontation. The man not only had the courage to believe what he believed. But he had the courage to do what God had called him to do. Now, guys, that’s courage. That’s basic. To have an effect on the world. Paul said in Romans 1:18, I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It’s the power of God to them that believe to the Jews first also to the Greeks.

And so the priority in his mind was to go to Israel. And he says in Romans 10:1, My heart desires and prayer for Israel is that they might be saved. He had such a heart for Israel, he could almost wish himself to be accursed for their sake. He went there knowing exactly what he was to expect. And believe me, he got it every time. Not going to take the time right now to go through the entire book of Acts. Why? Because you’ll find that every time he went to the synagogue, the same thing happened. But you see, that did not move him because he did not count his life dear unto himself.

But he knew there was joy in finishing the ministry that Jesus had given him to do. That’s courage, guys. Well, you might say it could have been a new beginning. I mean, you know, it wasn’t the synagogue in Philippi, because they didn’t have a synagogue. So he hadn’t gotten into that deal yet. He’d been in a lot of trouble just recently from the Greeks, but not the Jews. Maybe this would be a new time. I mean, after all, the Macedonian vision had him had been a man from Macedonia. After all, he wasn’t the apostle to the Jews.

Who was apostle to whom? The Greeks. Here was Europe, a whole new ball game. Maybe he could just find a cool kind of place and avoid this issue. Well, if you think that you don’t know Paul too well, and if you don’t know Paul too well, you don’t know the consistency of the church. And if you don’t know Paul too well, you don’t know what calling, God’s calling really means. And if you don’t know Paul too well, you’re going to fail at your own calling. He never, ever avoided issues. In spite of all of the pain.

He had a love for Israel. He had an obedient spirit to the Lord. And the spirit was leading him to go to the synagogue and he went. That’s amazing. He went right in there as his manner was. And he never had a thought for the pain that he was going to have to bear. Now he did the same thing in Berea. When he got there later, look at verse 10. And the brother immediately sent away Paul and saw us by night into Berea, onto Berea. Now look, now look at that. When you, when they’ve sent him away by night, when they’ve sent him away by night, you know they’re trying to get them out of trouble.

He ran into trouble in Thessalonica and we’ll see that a little bit later. But what happened when he got to Berea? They shuffled him out at night. They got rid of him down the road about 50 miles and they, they stuff him off in Berea from Thessa. They figure, man, he’s safer there. There’s nothing going on in that town. He’s safer there. This town is dead. So therefore he’s going to be dead. They’ll have no more voice. They just wanted it to be cool and restful. Now look at this. By night unto Berea, who’s coming there? What did he do? He went into the synagogue of the Jews.

There was no other way. He knew what he believed and he knew where he wanted to take the message. And it didn’t matter to him one bit that he just jumped up out of one fire into the next. He didn’t rest in Berea and lick his wounds. Self assessment. Guys. Do you remember back In Lestra chapter 14, they stoned him. We talked about that and that was a horrible thing. They had stoned him so badly that they thought he was dead. They actually took his body and threw him out of the city in a dumpy. And the Bible says he was on the dumpy and the people came out to look at him.

The Christians did by the way. And all of a sudden he rose up, dusted himself off and began to go back, you might say. Was this a miracle? Oh, to tell you that it was a miracle. Did he dust himself off and beat for the hills, get out of town? No, he dusted him off in chapter 14, verse 20 and went back into the town. That’s courage. He had the courage of his conviction, but he also had the courage of his calling. He not only believed what he believed, but he, he wasn’t afraid to say it to whom he needed to say it.

I got to tell you, that’s some kind of courage. Now ask yourself, how do you get it? You don’t get it by sitting around thinking about it. Ask yourself, what’s that kind of courage based on? Well, I’m going to. This is probably where we’re going to end today. I’m going to give you three steps to that courage. I think you need to write these down and look upon Your own self assessment. Now, step one, and this maybe is going to sound a little stupid and simple, because it is. Anita, aren’t you glad the Bible is simple? It’s really not complex when you study it correctly.

Step one. Trust God. I’m gonna show you what I mean by that. Trust God. Psalms 27. This is terrific. David, he was in trouble all the time. He was in trouble all the time. So what does he say? What does David say? Well, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? You like that? Now that’s like Ephesians 6. Be strong in the Lord and in the power of what his might. You don’t go in there in your own strength. Oh, I don’t know if I can handle all that. If I get into too much pressure, what am I going to do? If you think that way, you’re going in your own strength.

You’ll know what will happen. And you won’t handle it. David says, the Lord is my light and my salvation. Who shall I fear? Listen, guys, the Lord is the strength of my life. Of whom then shall I be afraid? When God is on your side, you are. Are. Who are you going to fear? When the wicked, even my enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell. Said as if I saw my enemies running after me, and they all fell down in front of me. And I didn’t do a thing.

God did it all. Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me. In this will I be confident. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek. After that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and inquire in his temple, what is he saying? The thing to do is, when you get all of this problem going on and all this trouble coming after you and all this persecution, you’re just as focused on the Lord.

Think of all the things above and not the things of this earth. He says, one thing I desire, that’s to focus on him. As long as we, the believers, really put his, our trust in God, he has absolutely nothing to fear. Now the question is, do you believe that? Is your attitude going to take you down a road of not only disbelief, but of pain and suffering? Why? Because you don’t know who Christ is. Therefore you do not know who you are. But I have to say that’s easier to believe than it is to practice. And he goes all the way down through it like this.

I like verse 13. It starts out, I would have fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord. Oh Christians, you will faint. You will poop out in every stress situation. If you don’t trust God, you’ll run for the door because you’re going it alone on your own strength. Then he says, wait on the Lord, be of good courage. How can you be of good courage by waiting on the Lord, by letting it be his battle. Be still and know that I’m God. I always think in this, these types of lessons. The battle of Israel.

Remember, when the Lord says Israel, you don’t have to worry. Put the choir in front. Can you just imagine an army with a choir in front of it might say, why? Well, the battle’s not yours, the battle’s Lord. We’re just along to praise him, so why not put the choir in front? We’re not worried about fighting. See, that’s the point. Wait on the Lord and be of good courage. He shall strengthen thine heart. And I say, wait on the Lord. So you see, any kind of courage you’re going to have depends upon your theology, your doctrine.

If, if you’ve got an inadequate doctrine of God, you’re going to be a co. Over in verse, over in Psalms 31, verse 23. O love the Lord, all ye saints, for the Lord preserveth the faithful. All you have to do is just trust God. He’ll take care of everything. We could talk about it in chapters 34, 42 and all over the place. How that if we trust God, we don’t ever go out into a battle against the foe using our own strength. Self assessment. Trust God. Always trust God. Second thing, in order for God to be present, you have to confess your sin.

If you go into battle with known sin in your life, there there not going to be a much of a victory for you. If you go out to witness to the world and you’re living a sinful life, you wonder why you get shot down. Well, that’s if you’re going to be a vessel unto honor, you’re going to be a pure vessel. Ephesians 4, 1st Timothy. Now listen to the Psalm 7, verse 1. O Lord my God, indeed do I put my trust. Save me from all those who persecute me and deliver me, lest they tear my soul like a lion, surrendering it in pieces while there’s none to deliver.

O Lord my God. Then he goes on and says this, if I have done this, if there be inequity in my hands, if I have rewarded evil unto him who was in at peace with me. Let the enemy persecute my soul and take it. Let him tread down my life on the earth and lay my honor in the dust. What is David saying? God, if there’s sin in my life, I desire everything that comes but God. Your declaration based upon his word. If I’ve lived a pure life. Ephesians 4, Deliver me and show your glory. Listen to this verse 10.

My defense is with God, who saveth what the upright in heart. Boy, if you’re going to go to battle against the enemy, you better be sure. Number one, you trust God. Number two, you confess your sin and you’re pure. Remember the breastplate of righteous in Ephesians 6 that we studied about. If you go out with a battle with a hole in the breastplate of personal righteousness, Satan will jab you every time. Third thing, in the midst of all it not only trust God, confess your sin, but thank him in advance. Do you have a clue what that does for your attitude when you go into battle and say, God, I’m going out there and be bold and I’m going to put it on the line and I’m going to say what I need to say and I’m going to thank you for the victory that hasn’t yet even been one yet.

That’s fake. You might say, whoever did that? Well, Paul did Acts 28:15, your apostle for the church. Your example. I love this. He thanked God into courage. He had just arrived in Rome and he says this. Thank you God for victories. We’re going to have a great time here and just moved in so that there’s that have theirs, that have courage. Trust God. Well, you might say, well, how can I trust Him? Well, the first thing you got to do is know him. What have I said? You’re not going to know who you are until you know who Christ is.

And you’re not going to know who Christ is unless you are doing what? Being sanctified in him. How are we going to know Him? Well, read the Bible, dig into the text. You’ll get to know him. The better you know him, the better you trust him. The better you trust him, the better you’re going to be able to enter into battle with confidence and not fear. God will always deliver you. He’s in the business of deliverance. It’s one of his declared products for you. So courage then depends upon your theology. If you got a lousy doctrine of God, you’re not going to have any confidence.

So the first Feature then of effectiveness in turning the world upside down is boldness or courage. And these two men had it. Now, a lot of people have courage, but they don’t have the second one, which is content. Matter of fact, you can be. You can. You can have a whole lot of courage and be a bully, but if you have the right content, you’ll always have grace. You know, when you go out to really turn the world upside down, you’ve got to be courageous, but you’ve got to also be right. You need to speak the truth.

And there are a lot of people with a lot of boldness and a lot of courage. They just don’t have anything to say. I’m really amazed how courageous cults are. And some of these weird religions that we continue to speak about, they’re bold, they’re unbelievably bold. Matter of fact, they put a lot of us to shame in their boldness. But the problem is that you’ve got to have not only courage, but you got to have courage with content. They’re heavy on the courage. They have none of the content. It’s amazing how courageous they are in the propagation of era.

But that’s been true for a long time, since the beginning of the world. So many people don’t make waves because they don’t ever say anything that’s divisive. They don’t even bring up issues. They just sort of gently slide in and out of every issue. That’s not Paul and that’s not the church, and that shouldn’t be you. Paul created ways, so should you. He smacked the world on its head, nose to nose with issues. When right content is declared, you’re going to have effects. Some people might say, I’ve been a Christian a long time, I work and there’s never any trouble.

I have no effect. Oh, what did I have? Always told if you have no effect, you’re living in danger zone. You’re living where the devil wants you to live. That’s terrible to admit, though. You know why? Because when you’re not courageous or two, you haven’t got anything to say. Paul, you’ll see, never got into trouble because of himself. He got into trouble of his message, his content. And that is so basic. There are Christians who are offensive, and it’s maybe their personality or their breath or whatever that makes them offensive. They stink. They don’t like showers or deodorant, whatever it is.

There’s all kinds of ways to be offensive. But see, Paul was never personally offensive. He was always offensive because of what he said, the truth. It wasn’t just his dynamic person that created the start. It was his content. You’re going to say, well, I just don’t want to offend anybody. I want to blend into society. I don’t want to keep my social status in the community. Therefore, I’m just going to go with the flow. And you do that all the time. You have got to offend people. The one thing you do want to do is take a whole lot of complacent, placid sinners who are just rolling along in their sin and you want to blast them to pieces.

You want to rattle their securities. Read Romans, chapter one. He goes all down through there, talks about sin, and then chapter two approaches all of the securities of the Jews and the Gentiles and blows into bits and leaves, stripped bare stark naked in chapter three, and then offers them Jesus Christ. See, we’re in the business of exploding securities and offending sin. That’s your priority. See, God’s been f offended long enough by sin, don’t you think? And it’s time we offended some sinners. The Gospel is set up to offend. The truth is set up to destroy. Romans 9:33.

I lay in Zion a stumbling stone, a rock of offense. First Peter, chapter two, verses six through eight. He says, the stone which the builders rejected the same has become the head of the corner. Now, what stone is that? It’s a stone of stumbling, the rock of offense. And who is that, by the way? Cornerstone. The head. Jesus Christ. And see, people have been stumbling over him and been offended by him ever since the propagation of the truth and in the Old Testament that he was coming. Say you need to offend sinners. Sinners. Now, I don’t mean you’re obnoxious.

I don’t mean you’re belligerent or you’re distasteful or unloving. I just mean that you hit the issue head on in accordance to Ephesians 4, 5 and 6. Say if you don’t, you’ve not done anybody any good unless you confronted them with the honest issues. And that’s exactly what Paul did. Now, if Paul’s going to talk to the Jews in the synagogue at Thessalonica, what do you think the issue is? The issue is who is the Messiah. Not only that, what was the biggest hang up of the Jews had about Jesus being the Messiah? Oh, the fact that he died.

See, they couldn’t see a dead Messiah. Paul says in Roman 1:18 and Romans 1:23 that the cross to the Jews is a stumbling block. They can’t see that. So what’s the issue? The issue is Jesus is the Messiah and he had to die. Why? Somebody had to pay for the sin of the people. So what do you think Paul’s going to talk about? The weather, religion, social issues of the time? No, he’s going to talk about Jesus, the Messiah and the fact that he had to die. That’s the issue. And that’s exactly what he does. And what has happens.

He gets persecuted right there. Yeah. Jeff. Tracy. Whichever one. Verse 2. Paul, as in his manner was what went unto them. And three Sabbath days, three Saturdays in a row, he reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, opening and alleging that Christ must needs have what suffered. That’s the issue. And risen again from the dead. And that this Jesus whom I preach unto you is the Messiah. I love the fact that he got right at the issue. Some people say, well, you can’t really witness, you can’t really get going. You’ve got to warm up and get to know them first.

No, you’re not supposed to associate with what sinners. You’re to love and pray for them and you’re to boldly confront the issue, Self assessment. Say if you want. If you say you got to warm up and know them, you, you and you try to test that in the Scripture, you’re going to have a very hard time because that attitude would not be defended by Scripture. Don’t beat around the bush. It took him three Sabbaths and he nailed that thing. Now you got to see how the pattern went. As his manner was, he went in unto them and three Sabbath days reasoned.

That’s a most interesting word. It’s a word from which we get words like dialogue and dialect. And it indicates not just a formal sermon. He didn’t just get up there and preach, say he allowed for questions and dialogue. Why is it important for us to do the teachings as we do it? To give you a chance to question and dialogue of the truth. A knowledge base of transfer in understanding what the Scriptures actually say. And in the imperfect tense indicates a renewed kind of repeated questioning. So there was an interchange. And that’s exciting, guys. This guy knew his stuff.

Now when we’re going to go into the synagogue and we’re going to say, now here’s my message. Any questions, I’d be happy to answer them as we do all the time. So you know what we’re talking about. Peter said we should be able to do that. Shouldn’t every question be able to give to every man What a reason for the hope that is in him. An answer. You know, majority of us present Christianity in our own way. Typically we do it by testimony of things going on in our life. But when the questions start coming in, you shrivel up.

It’s amazing how many Christian people are always asking questions. So and so said this, what should I say? What is the answer to this? You see, this is where you need to study the Scripture. We’re always happy to answer questions because that’s one way you learn the answers. But you need to pursue the kind of testimony that can present the content and then defend it. Asking questions without understanding the content of do not allow you to defend it. When you get in front of the enemy, you run or you’re buried. You sh up, say your Christianity ought to be defensible.

Self assessment is it. And here’s old Paul standing on his three Sabbaths in a row firing out the message. And they’re giving questions and he’s giving answers. This became his pattern in the synagogue. It worked so well, God just kept using it. Chapter 18, verse 4. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath and persuaded the Jews and the Greeks. See, he used the mental approach of dialogue. Now you got to keep this in mind. Nobody ever gets saved by emotionalism. The only people who ever get saved are people who believe in their minds the true facts of the Gospel.

And how do they do that? Because the Holy Spirit caused them to believe. So salvation is then first of all a mental thing. It’s not emotional, it’s mental. You must perceive the truth. Now it becomes an emotional response, doesn’t it? But the salvation is a mental thing. You don’t want to get somebody all mushed up and emotional into salvation. No, you do not. Matter of fact, if they become emotional, you should stop. You want their mind to be clear so that they can truthfully apprehend the facts. So Paul used reason and he persuaded them in their own minds that these things were true.

Then the Spirit had the truth to use to open their hearts. Just like lydia. That’s in 18 acts 18 forward, 1819 does the same thing again. He came to the synagogue in Ephesus and reasoned the same term again the same idea. He used the dialogue approach. Chapter 19, verse 8. The Word, the disputing and persuading was what he did there in Ephesus. And then in verse nine, he was doing it in the school of a guy named Tyrannius. Disputing again is the same idea of dialogue. And in chapter 24 you have the very same Thing again there it’s trans, translated as preaching.

So it was the idea of dialoguing and discussing on his feet his understanding of the Scripture to defend it. He was defending Christianity. True evangelism is defensible. Your life as a Christian ought to be defensible. It’s a defensible presentation of your Christianity. It’s not a hit and run. It’s being able to stand your ground. What as Ephesians chapter 6 says, stand your ground and give answers. Where did he get his information? Where did he start? Well, look at verse two. This is the greatest approach to apologetics. As his manner was. He went into them the three Sabbath days, he dialogued with them.

Out of what, philosophy? No, Scripture. He was an expository preacher. Now, I don’t want to get on my hobby horse, but let me just say this. There was only one really effective activity to teach in the long run, and that’s to teach description. Opinions do not matter. It’s only the truth. Where have you heard that? Many times say, but Paul didn’t have the New Testament yet. That’s right. He taught the Old Testament. The Old Testament is the New Testament unrevealed, and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. So whatever you get out of the New Testament, you can, you can glean from the Old Testament.

And if they were expositors of the Old Testament, how much more carefully should he be expositors of the New Testament? What he did was this. He took the Old Testament. Whenever you see the word Scriptures in the New Testament, it always refers to the Old Testament. Paul took the Old Testament and from it he opened and alleged. That means he did an exposition that Christ must needs to be suffered. Now, the word Christ does not necessarily mean Jesus Christ. It simply means anointed. It is in the New Testament the word for Messiah. So Paul took the Old Testament and showed that Messiah had to suffer and die and, and rise from the dead based upon the Old Testament.

Say I give you an assignment. Let’s say you’re going to speak to a whole lot of Jewish people and your assignment is this. Prove to them that Jesus is the Messiah. Here’s where you’d begin. You would take the Old Testament and you would show that whoever the Messiah was going to be, he would have to die and he would have to re be risen from the dead. Now, if you’re going to show that he had to die, what scripture would you use? Well, I would use Isaiah 53 and you maybe would go down through Isaiah 53.

He was led as a sheep to the slaughter. And like a lamb before his shears is dumb, so he opened not his mouth, he was taken from judgment, etc. Etc. Etc. I’d go all the way down. And his crucifixion with the thieves is even mentioned in chapter 53. The whole picture of the cross in detail is Isaiah 53. Oh, and then when you got done with that, I would probably go to Psalms 22. What does that say? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? They cast lots for his garments. They they looked upon him, and all of his bones were visible.

And so forth and so on. They pierced his hands and feet. And all of that’s in the Old Testament. Oh, you’d probably take him to other places in the Old Testament. All the way through you’d say, now you see he must die. Then you’d say, now I want to show you he will arise. Oh, and then you probably go back to Psalms chapter 16. Take them through verses 8 through 12. Thou will not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption. Thou will not leave his soul in shoal. God says, I’m not going to leave my Holy One dead.

He’s going to rise from the dead. This was the text of Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2. So you take all of these Old Testament passages and a lot more that I haven’t suggested to you, and you would say, you see now, beloved, what happens? He must die and he must rise. And then you would say, now may I introduce you to the one who was, who has. And then you would introduce Jesus Christ and you would open an allege from Scripture that the Messiah would fit all these qualifications. And then you would open an allege from history that Jesus did.

Say the most convincing argument for the truth of who Jesus Christ is is the absolute and total fulfillment of prophecy. Old Testament. And that’s exactly what Paul did. He just took the Old Testament and did an exposition on it and showed exactly what was going to happen to the message, the Messiah. And then he says, oh, let me show you this Jesus whom I preach unto you. He is the Messiah by virtue of the fact that he fits the Old Testament scripture patterns, he fits them all. That’s powerful shot to do. The Jews didn’t hardly know their Old Testament.

Did you know that in Matthew chapter 16. Let me read you something very insightful into the Jewish problem of ignorance. In verses 21:22, from that time forth, begin Jesus to show unto his disciple how he must go to Jerusalem. Now Listen. He started telling them about that. How he must suffer many things from the elders and the chief priests and scribes and watch and be killed and be raised. The third day now here’s the Messiah. He’s arrived. He says I’m going to have to die and be raised. The third day. Can you imagine what the disciples probably said? Oh, you are the Messiah, aren’t you? But that’s not what happened.

Say big mouth Peter opened his mouth. He let Satan talk through him and said, be it far from thee, Lord, this shall not be unto thee. Do you know that even the disciples didn’t understand the scripture? Remember he had to come back in the 40 days prior to ascension and teach them the scripture to prove to them that he was the mess Messiah. They didn’t know the Messiah had to suffer and die. They blew it. There were two of them crying after Jesus rose and walked along the road moaning and groaning and all of a sudden Jesus joins them.

If you recall the story, they didn’t recognize him. In Luke 24 he says, oh fools, you doos, you stupid people. Slow of heart to believe. All the prophets have spoken. Not Christ. To have suffered these things and then enter in his glory, then be resurrected and inter glory. And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures. The things concerning himself. They were all there. They just didn’t know it. Why? They didn’t read it, they didn’t learn it. And you say they only saw the kingdom thing. They only wanted. They wanted, only wanted to get out of persecution.

See, that’s all they wanted. Get me out of this self assessment. See, they didn’t see the suffering and death and the resurrection. See that’s Paul’s approach, content. I mean he got right to the issue, presented the truth of Christ and defended it. He knew the scripture sanctification in him. He could take the scripture and use the scripture to present his point, defending it. Knowledge, wisdom. He could match the life of Jesus with scripture. He was able to do the Old Testament and the New Testament together to be a convincing argument. He was a student of the scripture.

You cannot be sanctified in Christ without being a student of the Scripture. That’s basic. If you’re going to turn the world upside down, you’ve got to know the word of God and the word is the leverage. It does the job, not you. Now let’s look at Berea. Same thing. He came to Maria and gave the same message. Then in verse 11 they these were more noble than those in Thessalonica There’s a better class of people there now you might say, does that mean aristocracy at that time? No, they were just noble for this reason. They received the word with all readiness of mind and searched the Scripture daily with whether those things were so.

They tested what they were supposed to test. You might say. Why were they noble? Why were they noble? What, what, what is the term noble mean? You can’t be noble and be closed mind. The only way you can be noble is to have an open mindedness to the truth. In verse 4 it says this and some of them believed the actual Greek there is Pythio, to be persuaded. Some of these, those people in Thessalonica were actually persuaded. The idea is against their own desire, against their own preconceptions. Paul had to persuade them. Now look at verse 12.

It says therefore many of them believe in Berea. It’s not the word patio, it’s the word pistat, pistiro. They believed and it’s not passive, it’s active. They weren’t persuaded. They believed on their own. Oh, what’s the difference in the two groups? One of them had to what, be persuaded into the truth. The other one was so ready. Holy Spirit, readiness, right. Pre preparedness, so open. They searched it out for all themselves, like Cornelius did. Remember that’s the difference in nobility of the Bereans that they have any of those terrible pre prejudices. Self assessment. Guys, your issues are yours.

At what point are you going to start dealing with them? Do you know when the persecution came to Ria came from the people who followed him from Thessalonica because the Jews of Berea were open minded and honest seekers of the truth and had no prejudice. They weren’t hung up on Gentiles getting saved. They weren’t hung up on all of this other stuff. And so they were noble in the sense that they were open to Scripture and they honestly had a desire of understanding the truth. Paul spoke to them the same truth, but he didn’t have to stand there and persuade them into it, he just spoke it to them.

Much like Peter did with Cornelius. He spoke it and allow the Holy Spirit to take charge and do what it’s supposed to do. And they went right back to their Old Testaments, yanked out the scrolls and started looking it up themselves, testing, testing, testing. The difference in their character was just their open mindedness and sensitivity to the truth in an unprejudiced way. The word for notice. It says that they search the Scripture every day. The word for search is to examine It’s a word to speak of judicial investigation. They sifted the evidence carefully. I believe that a man who honestly sifts the evidence of scripture is going to come to the right conclusion.

I think the scripture defends itself. Jesus had said in John 5:39, he says, Search the Scripture for in them you think you have eternal life. And watch they are that they are they which testify of being. He says, go ahead, study your Old Testament. You know what you’re going to find me. Verse 46 of the same chapter John 5. For had you believed Moses, you would have believed me. For he wrote of me and he says, and how shall you believe me if you don’t believe him? Over in chapter 7, verse 17 he says, if you really want to know who to do God’s will, you’ll know the truth.

Oh remember in Luke 16, the rich man and Lazarus. Lazarus the rich man died. I went to Hades and ladders died and went to Abraham’s bosom. And the rich man, being in torment, said abraham, Aaron, dip your finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame. And he said, would you please send somebody, send Lazarus back from the dead to warn my brothers. What did Abraham say? No sense in doing that. If they didn’t believe Moses and the prophets, they won’t believe the one raised from the dead. You might say, are you sure that’s true? I am one raised from the dead and they didn’t believe him.

They still don’t. It’s all in the Old Testament by the way they searched the Scripture and believe me, God reveals himself. Paul said to Timothy, all the scriptures given by inspiration of God and is possible for doctrine, correction, instruction and righteousness that the man of God may be mature, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. You study the Old Testament, he said to Timothy, and you’ll find the truth of righteousness there. Your examples. So these noble folks didn’t need to be publicly persuaded. They sought it out themselves. There were such noble people. As you can tell from all of our studies and from everything you’re doing in self studies it behooves us to know the book.

To know the book. People in the world who turn it upside down, people who affect this world are people who know the word of God. Now you know where I come from. I believe that with all my heart. I believe that there are people who can stand on their feet eyeball to eyeball with people and defend what they believe. And there are people who can take people who where they’re at and say here’s what I believe. You take it to the Scripture and let it stand for the test of scripture, and you’ll find it confirmed. You give men answers that you can defend on your feet and answers that you can defend through the word of God.

And then you’ve given them answers, not opinions. John, you might might say, I’d like to be able to do that. How can I do that? How can I have content like that that can make me turn the world upside down? Okay, I’m going to fire four pieces of information to you and we’re going to stop. If you’re going to have content, you’ve got to confess and repent of all sin. That’s where you start. You start by confession, laying us all, all malice, G, hypocrisy, envy and evil, speaking as newborn babies desire the sincere milk of the Word.

Before you can ever get into the Word to grow by it, you have to lay aside sin, purify. Point number one. Point two. Study. You’ll never know the Bible. There is no shortcut. There’s. There’s only absolute. If there is a shortcut, I would have found it a long time ago. There’s no Cliff Notes to this. None. Paul says to Timothy, studies shows, thyself approved unto God. What does that mean? Be such a good student that God is excited about the fact that you know the truth. Third, personalize the Word. What does that mean? Translate what is academic into your own life.

Oh, live scripture. Be like Christ. Put on Christ. Think like the mind of God. The things that you’re going to be effectively teaching other people are the things that you have learned by your own living. For Pete, for me to put something on a piece of paper and teach it to you is one thing. For me to teach you what God has been doing, doing in my life is something completely different. Paul says, be renewed in your mind. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. In other words, you know the Word and it changes your life and you speak it out of experience.

So you confess sin, you learn the Word, and then you personalize it. Last one, you got to share it. You say, I’m going to learn it. And when I get it all learned, I’m going to come out of my room and say it to somebody. That’s ridiculous. You should be talking about it as you have learned it. There’s no better way to learn than to teach. We who teach, especially me, find out that I have much to learn because I learn every time I prepare and every time I teach. Philippians 2, 15. Be blameless, harmless children of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation among whom ye shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life.

That’s part of our responsibility. Don’t bottle it up and. And stick it out. You might say, I wish I had the content. I wish I could defend the Word. I wish I could send people to Scripture and that they could learn it. I wish I could build a framework for people to really examine the truth. Well, here you can do it. Confess your sin, study the book, personalize it. Make it your own. Before you have any right to tell anybody something, you ought to have it in your own life. What does the Bible say? Be not hearers of the Word only, but what doers for you are.

For here you deceive yourself. Learn that. Learn that. Without it, you’ve tilted your own operation, your own life. And I have ended. And I have made it through without having to split it up. Questions, guys? Comments? Anything? Yeah, done. Gotta get off. Mute. Foreign. We good? All right, let’s pray. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for the study of your Word. Thank you for giving us the ability to understanding, using Paul example, exactly how our life should be and fulfilling our Christian walk with you. May you ever be so present in our lives that you continue to reveal yourself to us through our complete study of your Scripture and the ability of being able to show to you that we’re faithful in knowing who Christ is so that we know who we are.

We ask that basically, you continue to. To. To be with us. You continue to give us peace and joy and understanding of what’s going on in this world and the things to come. And we ask that you grant us the ability of continued life, journey through the Scriptures. And may you be bold enough, as you say you are, to reveal yourself to us. Father, thank you for your Son. Thank you for his death. Thank you for his resurrection and ascension. Because without that, we would not have the ability to go home. We give you all the praise and glory and thank you for everything that you have been doing, will are doing, and will do to come ask these things in your Son’s name.
[tr:tra].