Again, our scripture is taken from the 22nd chapter of the book of Acts. I was thinking when Brother Jarvis did the response reading. I was thinking of when my son was growing up, he was a little boy, and he was a little clumsy, and he knocked stuff over. And once he went with me to a breakfast that I was speaking at, and of course, that meant I was at the head table, and while we're sitting there, I spilled a glass of orange juice all over the table. And as I'm embarrassed, I'm looking over at him, and there was like a look of glee in his eye to be at a table when something was spilled, and he didn't do it. So on our way home this afternoon, my wife reminded me or informed me that on the last first Sunday, I failed to read the preparatory scripture. And I said, oh, oops. And so Brother Jarvis forgot the last two verses on the response reading. And I couldn't help but point it out to him because it just, again, I wasn't the only one that was like my son. Somebody else messed up, too. So I'm not reveling in your oversight. I'm just, we are reminded. Years ago, we did a conference, Pastor's Conference. First Pastor's Conference, we did for the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals and Phil Reichen, who's now President of Wheaton College, was preaching on First Corinthians 2, where Paul said, I came to you with, or we were actually doing a roundtable discussion. I came to you not in human wisdom and strength, but I came to you knowing nothing but Jesus Christ and crucified. He says, you know, sometimes in our preaching, we try to be too fine-tuned. It's okay that the Lord allows us to drop a verb, miss a word here and there, miss pronounce a word, because the power is not in our eloquence, but the power is in the one who we proclaim. So, again, thank you, brother Jarvis, for reminding me. Our scripture, I want to read down to verse 22, ordinarily I would say that it's already been read, it's a long passage, but I'm reminded also that the word, as it goes forth, isn't just confined here. We broadcast on sermon audio, and so others have not maybe had the opportunity to have had the scripture read for them, so I will read verses 1 through 22 of the 22nd chapter of the Book of Acts. Brothers and fathers, hear the defense that I now make before you, and when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew language, they became even more quiet, and he said, I am a Jew born in Tarsis and Celicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamel, according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day. I persecuted this way to the death, binding and delivering to prison both men and women, as the high priest and the whole council of elders can bear me witness. From them I received letters to the brothers, and I journey toward Damascus to take those also who were there and bring them in bonds to Jerusalem to be punished. As I was on my way, and we drew near to Damascus about noon a great light from heaven suddenly shown around me, and I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And I answered, who are you, Lord? And he said to me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting. Now those who were with me saw the light, but did not understand the voice of the one who was speaking to me. And I said, what shall I do, Lord? And the Lord said to me, rise, and go to Damascus, and there you will be told, all that is appointed for you to do. And since I could not see because of the brightness of the light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me, and came into Damascus, and one anonias, a devout man, according to the law, well spoken of, by all the Jews who lived there, came to me, and standing by me, said to me, brother Saul, receive your sight, and at that very hour I received my sight and saw him, and he said, the God of our fathers appointed you to know his will, to see the righteous one, and to hear a voice from his mouth, for you will be a witness for him to everyone, that everyone of what you have seen and heard. And now, why do you wait? Rise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on his name. When I had returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance, and saw him saying to me, make haste and go out of Jerusalem quickly, because they will not accept your testimony about me. And I said, Lord, they themselves know that in one synagogue after another, I am prisoned, and beat those who believed in you. And when the blood of Stephen, your witness was being shed, I myself was standing by, and approving, and watching over the garments of those who killed him. And he said to me, go, for I will send you far away to the Gentiles. Up to this word, they listened to him, then they raised their voices and said, away with such a fellow from the earth, for he should not be allowed to live. May God richly bless both the reading and the hearing of his holy word. Last week, we looked at the compromise, the great doctrinal compromise of the church in Jerusalem. For the cause of peace with those who did not have a true and pure love of the gospel, they allowed Paul to be put in harm's way and greater than the physical harm that they allowed Paul to endure. They themselves compromised the very heart of the gospel. The gospel is God's message of salvation apart from the law as one embraces by faith alone the person and work of Jesus as the promised and prophesied Messiah of the Old Testament, the one who would obtain righteousness and pay for the sins of those that come to him by faith, by adding anything else to that message. They were compromising and undermining God's message of salvation by grace alone in Christ alone for his glory alone. Well, they've already done their due. In fact, it would be helpful to look just for a moment over in Galatians chapter 4 because it's here where Paul, it's based on this encounter in Jerusalem that Paul eventually has a different assessment of the church at Jerusalem or the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem and perhaps even those who have compromised the message. Beginning in verse 21 of Galatians chapter 4, Paul says, tell me you who desired to be under the law. Do you not listen to the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the son of the slave was born according to the flesh while the son of the free woman was born through promise. Now this may be interpreted allegorically. These women are two covenants. One is from Mount Sinai bearing children for slavery. She is Hagar. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia. She corresponds to the Jerusalem for she is in slavery with her children. Now she says this about the leaders, the Jewish people in the Jewish sect in Jerusalem after this showdown because basically what was taking place is the leaders were doing what Jesus himself had foretold that they would do. In fact what he indicts the Pharisees of his day for doing, teaching the tradition of men as if it were the law of God and reducing the law of God to nothing more than a tradition held by men. So for this reason Paul gives them one last chance and so as he, this is actually his last moment of freedom in a sense because he will be taken and he will be taken to Rome to be tried but he will be held in prison or imprisoned as a result of this encounter. And so Paul therefore at least gives them an opportunity because no one can change the hearts of anyone else only the gospel can. So what Paul does in his defense is he gives them an opportunity to really hear what they're saying and what they're doing. So what I want to do is just kind of look at three things. Well first let's look at the things that were prized by the Jews that were charging Paul. But one thing that was being prized over the gospel of grace were their traditions, their tradition. That was what was being prized. Who could go in and out of the temple because remember they had a problem with possibility of Paul bringing a Gentile into the temple as if it would defile it, not knowing that the temple itself had no purpose outside of Christ so they were holding to the traditions of their people. They were also holding fast to the misconception that they could be made righteous by the law. And that's why they had a problem with Paul's message of grace because for them to jettison any portion of the law, including the ceremonial portion of it meant that one was not righteous. And the third thing that they were safeguarding is their prejudice against Gentiles. And so in a broad sweep we will see how Paul challenges all three of these precious possessions that were held by the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. Their desire to hold their tradition above the word of God, their desire to hold to the misconception that they could be justified by the works of the law and their desire to hold on to their prejudices against the Gentiles. So as we look at Paul's response, it's a lot of verses, but I want to just kind of break it down into three main sections. The first section is actually verses two through five. And what we'll see is that Paul in addressing this congregation or this mob, but in addressing them he begins on common ground. In other words, he speaks to them about things and in terms that they would understand. That was very similar to his evangelistic method. We see at Mars Hill that he addresses the people according to their own understanding of things. He quotes the poets and philosophers that they would be used to. But in this instance, what he does is he addresses this Jewish congregation or this Jewish mob on their own on common ground. Three things that indicate that. Number one, we see in first two that he speaks to them in Hebrew. It was interesting that the footnotes in the Reformation Study Bible and it's good in a lot of respects. But the footnote here says that he probably spoke Aramaic. But I'm going to be in disagreement, far be it for me to say that I know more than these guys, but I'm going to be in disagreement for this reason. Aramaic was the common language that was spoken by the Jews in that setting and at that time. The uncommon language in the language that was reserved for either the temple or for holy discourse was the Hebrew language, which was not ordinarily spoken in the streets. But it would have been a language that was understood by those who came to the ordinary services in the temple. So therefore, the translation here, and I think one of the reasons I say that is because when it speaks of the common vernacular of the first century Jews, we would think Hebrew would be the language that they spoke, but it wasn't the common language. Hebrew was the sacred language or the scholarly language among Jews. But it says specifically here that he spoke to them in Hebrew. So I'm going to go on the side that says he actually spoke the sacred language. And so that probably surprises them, and that would actually explain because you noticed by the way in the previous chapter in chapter 21, verse 37, when Paul speaks to the Tribune, he speaks in Greek. He asked him, can you speak Greek? And he's probably using Aramaic to speak to ask that question. And so when he finds out that the Tribune speaks Greek, then he speaks to him in Greek. And so here he is speaking so that he can have a way of communicating. Here, I think he uses the sacred Hebrew language to get their attention. And I think that's confirmed by what we see in verse 2, where it says in the opening of verse 2. And when they heard that he was addressing them in the Hebrew language, they became even more quiet. And in other words, speaking the sacred language got their attention because they had a lot of misconceptions about Paul. One of them that it was that he probably had no knowledge of the law itself. And he was not concerned about the things that they were concerned about. So the first thing that Paul does to show that he has common ground with them is he speaks the sacred language. In other words, he speaks like a teacher of the law. He uses the language, not just the common Aramaic which they would have ordinarily expected. But he speaks the language of the people, the sacred language of the Hebrew text. The second thing that he does to connect with them is that he emphasizes that his training in the law came from one of their respected teachers in Jerusalem. In fact, he says he was raised in the city and he says that even though he was born in Tarsus, but he was raised in Jerusalem in this city. And he was trained in verse 3 under by sitting at the feet of Gamel. Now, Gamel is the one that we don't know much about but we do read of him in the fifth chapter of the book of Acts in verse 34, when there was a concern about what to do with all of these disciples and so forth. And then in chapter 5, or beginning in verse 34, it says, but a Pharisee in the council named Gamel, a teacher of the law held and honored by all the people stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while. And he said to them, men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. For before these days, a Theodos rose up claiming to be somebody and a number of men about 400 joined him. He was killed and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing. After him, Judas, the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished and all who followed were scattered. So in the present case, I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone. For if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail. But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God. So this came from Gamel in response to the first wave of teaching that came from the apostles in the book of Acts. And so Paul says to show that he is no stranger to the issues that they are concerned with. Paul says not only is he a Jew and not only was he raised in this city, but he says that he was trained and noticed this according to the strict law as taught by Gamel. And Gamel was one who was highly regarded and highly respected even among the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. The third thing that Paul does to connect to them is that he makes it clear that he once shared the same kind of erroneous zeal that they share or that they have. In verses 3 through 5, Paul makes this very point that he is letting them know. Yes, he is not comfortable with what is going on, but he understands what is going on. So look at how he describes himself in his activities in beginning in verse 3. As beginning in verse 3 says, I am a Jew born in Tarsus and Selissia, but brought up in this city educated at the feet of Gamel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, very important term which he will return to later, according to our fathers being zealous for God as all of you are on this day. In other words, I stood where you stand. Brothers and sisters, there is nothing wrong with saying I was wrong. And that is what Paul was saying, I stood where you stand. In fact, he goes on to make the case that he perhaps even went further. He says I persecuted, now when he says this way or the way was one of the ways they referred to the early church. They didn't call them Christians and those outside of the church didn't always refer to them as the church of Christ. They were called the people of the way, which is a term that we find earlier in the book of Acts. So Paul says that here is what I used to do. I held the same convictions that you hold today. Even to the point of persecuting those, persecuting this way to the death, binding and delivering to prison, both men and women. In other words, I had no shame. It didn't matter, gender didn't matter to me. I was as willing to imprison a woman as I would a man, not because he hated women, but because he was zealous, but he was wrong. Remember this morning we talked about the native darkness of our fallen souls. But if it's the only light that you have, you don't recognize that you're in darkness. And this is what Paul is illustrating here. So in verses three through five, he goes on to talk about how he persecuted those who stood, who held to the way. So here's what he's done. He's made common ground with them. He's trying to appease them, in other words, give them an opportunity to step back from what they're doing and really take heed to what they're saying. And certainly you can't help but think of the words of Gamel. Gamel says that, listen, if this is a man, it won't last. But if it's of God, you won't last in essence. And what you're actually doing is opposing God. And so Paul uses these common points from their background, from his own background. The second thing that Paul does is he explains to them his turning point. This is one of the few places, by the way, where Paul actually goes into great details about his conversion experience. In verses six through eight, he explains the turning point that he experiences because of in light of this great zeal that he has. And so he tells us in the first place, in verses six through eight, he tells us that he was first confronted by Jesus of Nazareth. And notice that phrase, it's important because they know who Jesus of Nazareth is. Go back to Peter's first sermon on the day of Pentecost and he says that this Jesus who you offered up, who you offered up and participated in his crucifixion. This Jesus of Nazareth Paul says after his death that this Jesus of Nazareth confronted him. He doesn't see a ghost. He does talk about seeing a vision later. But he is grounding his faith, grounding his message in a very important element of the Christian religion. And that is Jesus of Nazareth lives. Not that he lived. Yes, he lived. But he who lived died. But he who died lives. And so Paul says that he was confronted on the Damascus road by Jesus of Nazareth who then raises a question. Why are you persecuting me? That was a question that he raises and Paul says, Lord, how am I persecuting you? And of course we know how that's answered later. But Jesus says in essence that what you are doing to the people of the way, you are doing to me. So Paul says here's his turning point. He's confronted by Jesus of Nazareth who is on record of having died. And he is now one of the countless witnesses to say that he lives. Brothers and sisters might I say that if Jesus is not presently living, then every man is free to say, think, do, and be whatever we want. Because there is no greater hope than we can have than that Jesus is alive. And if Jesus is not alive, then that means we are still in our sins. And if Jesus is not alive, then he can't be Lord. And so what Paul does is he acknowledges that Jesus of Nazareth offered up by the Pharisees and the religious leaders of his day that they thought they had killed has been raised. And he says that he spoke to him and he is identifying with that motley crew called the people of the way. So Paul says that he confronted him. But then we also see not only that he says that he was confronted by Jesus himself, but in verses 12 through 14, he now turns to another Pharisee. He gives a testimony from another Pharisee. This other Pharisee is Ananias who lived in Damascus. And his point about Ananias, and again, notice what he says about Ananias. Ananias says that the God of our fathers has appointed you speaking of Paul. Again, we see that phrase. The God of our fathers. And the point that Paul is driving home by repeating this phrase is that the God he speaks of and the God that he is preaching among the Gentiles is no less than the God of Holy Old Testament Scriptures. He is the God of Abraham. He is the God of Isaac. He is the God of Jacob. He is the God of David. He is the God of the prophets. Because the people in essence were claiming that Paul is preaching another God. And so he says that from the mouth of one of your own Pharisees, and I, by the way, was one of them, and I understood God as you understood him. And I thought I was doing God's will by wreaking havoc upon those who were of the way. Notice what he says that Ananias says of him. For important things that the God of our fathers speaks through Ananias about Paul. He says in the first place, God wants, has appointed Paul to know his will. Now that hits them right in the middle of their theological teeth. That wraps them right in the middle of their evangelical smile. Because basically what he's saying is that prior to the confrontation of Jesus on the Damascus road, what he thought to be the will of God was not. So he says God, the God of our fathers has appointed you to know his will. Secondly he says the God of our fathers has appointed you to see his righteous one. Now it's not only so that Paul could be an eyewitness to the resurrection of Jesus. But that's an important sense, even not just metaphorically but spiritually and mystically. In other words, to see the righteous one of God, and who is the righteous one of God? If you would ask Paul that while he was in the midst of persecuting Christians, you know how he would have answered that? Who is the righteous one of God? He would have answered like any good Pharisee I am. But here's what God has appointed him to see. God has appointed him to see the true righteous one. The God of our fathers has appointed you to see his righteous one. And who is the righteous one? It's Jesus. And brothers and sisters, if we see righteousness that is satisfactory to God anywhere other than Jesus, then good luck for you. We are not approved by our own religious resumes, nor are we approved by our zeal for that which we wrongly understand. Here's what gives us the right standing before God, that God, and thank God that He appoints us to this, because as he appointed Paul for a specific purpose, he appoints all of us who comes to saving faith in Christ, he appoints us to know his will, and as Jesus says in the sixth chapter of John's Gospel, when they come to him wanting to make him king, and then he tells them that God has sent his son to do, that those who are approved by God are those who do his will, and they say, well, what is his will? You know what he says? To believe on the one that he has sent. That's the work that you must do to believe on the one that he has sent. So Paul says that Game or that Ananias has told him, has revealed to him that God has appointed for him to know his will, to see his righteous one, and to hear his voice, to hear his voice. And when it says his voice, that could be one of two things, either hear the voice of God himself, or hear the voice of Christ, because to hear the voice of Christ is to hear the voice of God. But in either case Paul has been commissioned or appointed by God to hear his voice, and again you think of the words of Jesus as it relates to salvation in general when he speaks in John's Gospel, that all of this sheep will hear his voice. And here Ananias says that God has appointed him to hear his voice more than likely to hear the voice of his righteous one. And then fourthly Ananias says, God has appointed Paul to be a witness for him. God, the God of our fathers, he says, has appointed you to know his will, which is different from what he understood his will to be according to his traditions, to his Phariseical traditions. The God of our fathers has appointed him to see his righteous one, rather than to stand in his own righteousness. The God of our fathers has appointed him to hear the voice of his righteous one, because as the writer of Hebrew says, God who in sundry times and diverse manners has spoken to the fathers through the prophets, has spoken in these last days through his son. To know the will of the father is to know that the son is the righteous one of the father, and to know that the voice of the father is heard in the voice of the son. And that is what Paul is to be a witness to. In other words what Paul is saying is that the God of our fathers has appointed me to this task. He is the one who has given me the message, he is the one, if I am saying faith in Christ other than works of the law is because I've been appointed to this by the God of our fathers. That the righteous standard of God's law is met in his only begotten son, and here's what he's commissioned me to do to be a witness to that. Well that brings us to the third thing, and that's Paul's third part of that, and that is Paul's dilemma, which is seen in verses 17 through 20. Here's Paul's dilemma, as he thinks about it, he says, okay now wait a minute, let me get this, let me get this straight. You want me to go back to the very people. And notice the way he breaks this down, he reasons, he says, when I returned to Jerusalem and I was praying in the temple I fell into a trance and saw him saying to me, make haste and go out of Jerusalem quickly because they will not accept your testimony about you. He's addressing the same audience that he's addressing here, he says, and I said Lord, they themselves know that in one synagogue after another I am prison and beat those who believed in you, and when the blood of Stephen, so in other words, he's saying I should be good here. Because they know, they know what my background is, I've got credentials to preach in this place, and he says, and the blood of Stephen of your witness is being shed, he says I myself was standing by and approving and watching over the garments of those who killed him. So here's what Paul is thinking, I'm a Jew, I'm a Pharisee, who can reach, who better to reach Pharisees than me. And the Lord has said no Paul, they're not going to believe you, you need to go, and here is where we get the difficulty, so that brings us to the third main heading. Paul says that he basically was expecting to minister right there in Jerusalem, but God says no, they're not going to believe you are testimony. No matter how dramatic it appears, they're not going to believe it, and so here's what God has sent him to do. The God of our fathers tells him in verse 21 that therefore go and I will send you far away to the Gentiles. Imagine what this does to Paul's Jewish Phariseical sensitivities. He's thinking well, no, the best place for me, and it's funny how we have that homogenous sense of evangelism, the best person to evangelize this person that comes from there. Not always, not always, and in this case where Paul is basically implying, when God says I'm going to, they're not going to receive your witness, then Paul says no, they will because they saw me, they saw me in action, and he says that's it because it's not you. Essentially what he's saying is the problem is me, they have a problem with gospel, and therefore what I'm going to do is send you away to the Gentiles, and here is what you are to tell the Gentiles. You are to basically tell the Gentiles what my will is, and my will is that they would see that Jesus of Nazareth is the righteous one, and my will is that they would hear his voice as you proclaim this message. And as they proclaim, as you proclaim this message, then they would hear that their sins to are forgiven, but notice then how the Jews respond in verse 22, they pretty much respond the way God said they would when he tells Paul initially in his ministry. And that's probably what's going through Paul's mind. He knew that he was going to face difficulties when he came to Jerusalem, he had no idea that it would come from church folk, maybe from some of the unconverted Jews, but not from church folk, but it's come from church folk. And so now here's what they cry out in verse 22 up to this point it says they listened to him, and then they raised their voices and said away with such a fellow from the earth for he should not be allowed to live. Brothers and sisters, here is the price of preaching the gospel of grace and tearing down and challenging the traditions of men and the smugness of self-righteousness that men would rather kill than to die at the cross of Jesus. And so here's what the Lord tells Paul you go and be a witness and basically what Paul is telling this Jewish audience is the same thing that Gamel had told them before that listen if you leave it alone because if it's if it's not of God, it won't last, but if it is of God and what you will find yourself doing is opposing God. Brothers and sisters, only God can change a heart and the way he changes the heart is with the message that Jesus of Nazareth is the righteous one and faith in Him is your righteousness and therefore when you hear His voice that is equivalent to hearing the voice of God. It's interesting that into the Ephesian church when Paul writes to them and he says we quoted earlier in this morning from Ephesians 4 verses 17 through 19, well in verse 20 where he says you don't be like the rest of the Gentiles in verse 20 he says but you have not so you have not learned from Christ, that's not what in other words what you hear from them is not what you've learned from Christ if you've heard Him. So when with these Gentiles have heard Christ every time God's word is open by those that God has appointed it is God speaking to his people here's the issue first what's the message we hear and secondly when we hear it what do we hear? Do we hear this irritating little Jewish guy who's troublemaker and break in all of our traditions or do we hear the voice of Jesus of Nazareth who is none other than the son of God who is our righteousness. If we hear nothing more than an irritating former Jew who's a sell out then we have not heard with faith but if we hear the voice of the Savior and that means circumcision that means all of the rituals that means every other custom that we have is to be brought subservient to the Lordship of Jesus. Here's what Paul does he gives them something to choose and they can choose to continue in their way or they can follow the Lord Jesus who's been raised. Brothers and sisters that's the challenge that we hear that we have when we hear the gospel. We can either stand before God challenging or embracing challenging the authenticity of what we hear or embracing that this is truly the son of God. Paul speaks and this is why later in Galatians he is able to say that this Jerusalem on earth this present Jerusalem is associated with slavery and bondage. I pray that we would hear the grace of God and recognize that God grace sees us as one Jew or Gentile as we are in Jesus. Paul says let me speak and when he speaks the people speak back I pray that we would hear with ears of faith and that we would embrace the Jesus of Nazareth that confronted Paul and changed his itinerary. Let's pray.