The Book of Acts 28:16-31 Paul's witness in Rome

OK, so today we're going to probably going to reach Rome. What was interesting is and actually we need to read the verses. That would be a good start here. So can I get a volunteer to read Acts 16 through 31? Also, I'm sorry, I didn't get 20. That's very poor. Thanks, Tom. Chapter 28, verses 16-31. Well I'm there.

Now when we come to Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard, but Paul was permitted to dwell by himself with the soldier who guarded him. And it came to pass after three days that Paul called the leaders of the Jews together. So when they had come together, he said to them, men and brethren, though I have done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans, who, when they had examined me, wanted to let me go because there was no cause for putting me to death. But when the Jews spoke against it, I was compelled to appeal to Caesar, not that I had anything of which to accuse my nation. For this reason, therefore, I have called for you, to see you and speak with you, because, for the hope of Israel, I am bound with this chain." Is that it? I'm sorry. Oh, thirty-one. Thirty-one. We neither receive letters from Judea concerning you, nor have any of the brethren who came reported or spoken any evil of you. But we desire to hear from you what you think, for concerning this sect, we know that it is spoken against everywhere.

So when they had appointed him a day, many came to him at his lodging, to whom he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus from both the law of Moses and the prophets from the morning till evening. And some were persuaded by the things which were spoken, and some disbelieved. So when they did not agree among themselves, they departed after Paul had said one word. The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers, saying, Go to this people and say, hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive. For the hearts of this people have grown dull, their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them. Therefore let it be known to you that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles and they will hear it. And when he said these words, the Jews departed and had a great dispute among themselves. Then Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house and received all who came to him preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no one forbidding him.

Great. Thanks, Holly. Sure. Okay. Well, you know, what's interesting is that some have kind of complained, well, wait a minute. Wait a minute, Dr. Luke. You didn't get this long story. Paul's going to Rome. Where's the trial? Where's all the hoopla about this trial? And you don't tell us anything about that.

All you do is tell us about You know, Paul had some guys over, talked to some Jews over, talked to them, and you know, that's the end of the story. So it's interesting that the Lord has chosen not really to focus so much on, let's say, what happened to Paul and his interaction. And there's some, and I read a bunch of different, you know, there's some accounts that, you know, Paul actually had another missionary journey and blah, blah, blah, blah. The Lord didn't focus on that.

He focused on basically the issue, So what do you think, in those verses that Holly read, there's one verse that kind of sums up, what has transpired in the book of Acts? Could you say it in a sentence or two? What's transpired? It's been a tremendous amount of things. We've got Peter was in there for a long time. Is there any bottom line statement you can think of that's happened in the book of Acts? The Gentiles believed the Jews did not That's very close to what I'm looking for. It's along that line. Anything else that you can think of along that line?

Isn't the message, isn't the message that we see with Paul especially, over and over again, he goes into the synagogues, he tells them about the Lord Jesus, he points out that that's their Messiah, they've been waiting for, for all these years, the hope of Israel. And like I said, some believe and some don't. And you could argue that's the same today, right? we tell the message of the Lord Jesus Christ, some believe and some don't.

So the message of the book of Acts is that in I think verse 28, somebody said verse 28, 28, 28 is the key of the summary, let it be known to you therefore that the salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles, they will listen. So notice before that, he read them, that's the commission to Isaiah, and Isaiah points out that people the Jews have become dull of hearing. They learned about Messiah, but Messiah came and they didn't recognize him. So, the message closing the book of Acts is that the Jews, some listened, some didn't, and Paul, as his commission was, as he met the Lord on Damascus Road, he's taken the message to the Gentiles. And that's us. So, thank you Lord, thank you that that And God knew that in advance, it wasn't a surprise to him. I had some quick points here about these verses.

So basically, the first day that Paul arrives in his situation in Rome, he has this kind of cool deal where he's in these quarters, he's a prisoner, but it's really pretty amazing. People come and go, he invites people to come over, come over and talk with me. He has a lot of freedom in that situation. He sort of has his first, I call it a conference, he has his first dialogue within three days of arriving.

He has this dialogue with the Jewish leaders. Then he has his second conference where a whole bunch of Jewish leaders show up. And that's where he points out to them about the word Jesus and some believe and some don't. And then he basically says, I'm going to turn to the Gentiles. And then he basically has a section on the gospel of the Gentiles.

And then we have some ending statements about what happened at the very end of Acts. And then I kind of added this one last little chart at the very end of all the charts. Remember, we started off a year ago in January, where we showed all these kind of summary statements in the book of Acts. And the final summary statement is the last verse, verse 31 in Acts 28. And it's these summary statements. We'll just kind of compare those again.

So that's kind of where we're headed. So we're just going to kind of march through this. So first of all, Paul arrives in Rome. And here's the last, you know, we don't have to spend a lot of time on this. There's these, Dr. Luke uses the plural, we or us, a bunch of times. And it occurs in these particular sections. And this happens to be in verse 16.

This is the last we statement, you know, and it says, it doesn't say Paul arrived in Rome. It says we entered Rome. And he uses that apparently to let us know that there were folks accompanying Paul, at least Dr. Luke and others were with him that went in that sea journey. And if you look at, if we turn to Acts 16 for a second, let's look at Acts 16.

And actually I have a lot of verses down here. We're not going to be able to look at all these verses because it will take us forever. But in Acts 16 in verse 10, it says, And when he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia. And there's a we in verse 10. There's a we in verse 11. Therefore, putting out to sea from Troas, we ran a straight course. So you see plurals in the 12. We have another we. So we see these section of verses where Dr. Luke uses a plural to indicate there were more than one person.

So I'm not going to belabor this a long time, but this is the last occurrence So when he got to Rome, Paul wasn't by himself. He had a group of people that could support him, so to speak. And that's going to be kind of, you know, kind of interesting.

And if you look, I didn't really do a lot of. But if you look at the epistles that Paul wrote in Rome, he wrote what's called the prison epistles, Ephesians, Colossians and those. He wrote at least four epistles or more in Rome. So that was a very fruitful time period when he was in Rome, even though he was in prison, so to speak.

Kind of amazing. Did he really have, Vern's shown in the main services, was he actually chained to a person? I don't know what that was the situation. Not clearly. He was in chains. He says he's in chains. But I'm not sure he was in a situation where he was actually chained to a guard. Maybe he just had chains around and the guard was kind of just, you know, rolling around the room or out in the hallway.

I don't know. But being chained to somebody is a lot more invasive than having a person standing outside there, right? So, I don't know. What a job that would be. You're going to be chained to this guy. I don't know. It's probably more information than you want to have, right? About this guy. That's a little bit more... A little bit too close, right? Yeah. For both parties. Right. Exactly.

I wouldn't want a bad job to watch somebody. No, I don't think so. I don't think we'll sign up for that job. OK, so it says here that Paul is allowed to stay by himself with the soldier who is guarding him. So it's with the soldier. So it doesn't say he was chained to the soldier.

And there's actually a verse that kind of, let's look at Acts 24, 22, and 23. Acts 24, 22. And this kind of tells the situation. This kind of gives you how it was kind of set up. 2422 it says but Felix having a more exact knowledge about the way put them off saying when Lyseria Lysia the commander comes I will decide your case now this is the verse I wanted to kind of focus on and he gave orders to the centurion for him that's Paul to be kept in custody yet have some freedom to and not to prevent any of his friends from ministering to him.

So he had some freedom, and his friends were allowed to come and minister, give him food, interact with him. So that seems to be the modus operandi that he's there in Rome. He can have people come and go, and he's going to have large crowds that come and go. So it's a pretty conducive atmosphere for Paul to minister to people. OK, so the next part. So actually, he doesn't waste any time.

After three days, Paul calls together those who were the leading men of the Jews. Now, obviously, Paul is in detention or in some kind of prison. He can't go. His custom was to go into the synagogue, right? But apparently, they wouldn't allow him to leave. I mean, he couldn't go in there and do it. So he asked them to come to him. And they apparently had no problem with doing that.

So. So what do you think? So Paul's going to have this. This is sort of the quickie, the quickie conference, right? Three days pass. He says, OK, all you guys come. You know, apparently they were willing to come. I mean, they must do something about Paul. But there's an interesting thing that's going to happen here. They do something, but not a whole lot. So why? Why do you think Paul is proactive here?

And. For the sake of consistency, he had always preached, or at least presented himself to the Jew first and also to the Greeks. Okay, that's real good. I like that. You know, others have said also that it may be that Paul wanted to have the first word. He knew that there may be rumors about him, that he had been detained by the Romans, that he had been in prison, and he wanted to make his case, stake his case first.

Isn't it better if you're going to Don't you like to get your, you know, here's the way it is. And you get the, you get the word out first and he'll come to you. So what about this? And what about that? He wanted to say, here's my case and here's what I've done. And he wanted to have the first word. That's some people argue that too. Okay. And when they came together, he began saying to them, and he, he, he's basically going to give, this is sort of a short summary. You know, Paul had these, in front of Felix and Agrippa and all these other people.

He had a series of defenses that he made stating his case, why he was he shouldn't be in prison. He shouldn't be held by anyone. He had that nothing he had done was the only thing he had done is basically saying that Jesus was a messiah. And that was enough to get him in a lot of trouble.

Right. Basically. But he said I'm guilty of no crime. There's no crime I've committed. I've only told you about the hope of Israel. So he starts into this defense and he addresses them as brethren and brothers. I've done nothing against our people. And if you look in that verse, Acts 20, 25, 8, it basically says I've committed no offense either against the law of the Jews or against the temple.

They accused him. You know, in his defense many times, Paul and others would talk about how the Lord Jesus said, you know, that he'll destroy the temple, of course he was speaking of his body, and it will rise again in three days, or be rebuilt in three days, and that caused a lot of confusion about what he's talking about.

So he goes through that, or the customs of our fathers, and if you look in Acts 6.14, you'll see that it says, We have heard that, and this is Stephen, well let's look at that just for a second, Acts 6, 14, this is Stephen's, this is actually Stephen's defense, but it kind of mirrors what Paul did in some cases. Okay, Acts 6, 14 says, for we have heard him say that this Nazarene Jesus, and this is who I was speaking of, will destroy this place after the customs which Moses handed down. When they talked about destroying the temple, that was the worst thing a person could ever say. This is in Stephen's case. This is going to be the stoning of Stephen in here. Basically, he points out that in reality, he never spoke against the customs of the Jews. Other than the fact that they were dull of hearing and that sort of thing.

Lastly, I was delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem. into the hands of the Romans. The Acts 23 account is when Paul was, remember when they had this plot against his life, and there's the barracks of the Romans, and it's right kind of overlooking, looking into the courtyard of the temple, and they came and they rescued him out of there after the plot. Remember he had a nephew that went to the city jury and said it was a plot against Paul's life, and they rescued him and he was delivered. to the Romans.

That seems to be what that's talking about there. So this is the beginning of his defense. It kind of continues on to the next part. And when they had examined me, they were willing to release me. So basically, that theme comes up over and over again. You know, we see that Paul says that when he was before Claudius, and with Claudius and with Festus. Let's read the one about Festus. Let's see, let's go over here. There are no grounds for putting him to death. Let's look at Acts 25, 25. Okay, Acts 25, 25. It says, but I had found that he, this is actually before Agrippa. Paul, let's try it before Agrippa.

I found that he had committed nothing worthy of death. Since he himself appealed to the emperor, I decided to send him to you. That theme is going to come up over and over again. There was nothing worthy of death. Every time he was examined and explained his case, there was nothing really against him that was worthy of death. Other than the fact that the Jews were after him and they wanted him dead. But as far as Roman law was concerned, there was nothing worthy of death that he committed.

And the same way with the Lord Jesus. In a way, it's kind of the same picture with Paul. There is nothing against the Lord Jesus that was worthy of death, other than the fact that the Jews wanted him dead, in the same way with Paul. So then he says here, but when the Jews objected, I was forced to appeal to Caesar. So he was kind of, in a way, And some, you know, some have argued. I don't agree with him that, you know, when he objected, that forced him to be sent to Rome. Right. And we saw that many, many passages there. One of those in AX, since we're in AX 25, we're in AX 25. Let's look at AX 2511. It says.

If then I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die. This is Paul speaking. But if none of those things is true of which these men accuse me, no one can hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar. So to prevent being handed over to the Jews, he appealed to Caesar. And they were bound, since he was a Roman citizen, to request him to fulfill his request.

And he also goes on in his defense to say, not that I have any accusation against my nation, for this reason I request to see you and to speak with you. So this is the mini conference, like I said, so he's appealing here to the Jews, he gives his defense of what's happened to him and he says, Based upon that, I want to talk with you and see you. And he's talking to the Jews that came to that first little mini conference and speak with you. And then he points out, obviously he's in chains at this point, where I'm wearing this chain for the sake of the hope of Israel.

You know, what was interesting in looking at the, I think we've talked about this. I think Jeremy talked about it a little bit. So do you remember what the, I always kind of mentioned it. What's the hope of Israel? We probably mentioned it before. And I found there might be multiple things that you could... But is there something that kind of... So what was the hope of the nation of Israel?

That there would be a savior? Or a deliverer? Right, a messiah was going to come, right? Also, remember what Martha, remember the Lord came to Martha and Mary and they met him and Martha came first, right? And he told Martha, he says, your brother will rise again. And she says, yeah, I know he'll rise again. You know, in the end times, in the future, he will rise again.

So the Jews understood, they understood the Old Testament, but they understood there would be a resurrection of of people from the dead. So let's look at a verse or two here. So I see there's at least a couple of parts to this. There's a part of the hope of Israel that there's going to be a deliverer, a messiah. And there's also going to be a hope that there's going to be a resurrection of the righteous and the wicked. So let's look at that first. Acts 24. And I haven't actually picked up on both of these. Acts 24, 14 and 15. Can I get someone to read that? Acts 24. 14 and 15.

But this I admit to you that according to the way which they call a sect, I do serve the God of our fathers, believing everything that is in accordance with the law and that is written in the prophets. Having a hope in God, which these men cherish themselves, that there shall certainly be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. Right. So this is Paul.

He's again making his case, and in making his case, he's talking about there's a hope, a hope in God, that these men, and he says, you men cherish this idea, and actually, Martha knew about that. Martha knew about that there would be a resurrection, because she told the Lord Jesus, she said, Lord, yeah, my brother will rise again in the end times. She realized that, and the Lord says, no, he's going to rise again right now. He may rise again then, but he's going to rise again right now.

I'm going to bring him. I'm going to bring back to life right now, which is pretty cool. So. So I think that's one of the as part of the whole. And the second part is in X. Let's go back to X 13. X 13. X 13, 33. Actually, let's go back a little bit, because Paul, this is this actually.

Paul's talking here, he's preaching on the Sabbath, says, but God raised him up by Christ from the dead, and for many days he appeared to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, the very ones who are now witnesses to the people. And we preach, talking about what Paul said, we preach to you the good news of the promise made to the fathers. So that's part of the good news, that's good news too, the good news that that Jesus Christ came, and he's coming again, and there's going to be a millennial kingdom, and he's the Messiah, basically. So actually, now here's what's interesting. So the Jews, if Paul makes his defense, he gives his account.

So now we're about in verse 21 right now. So the Jews said to him, So here's kind of amazing. They claim, and this is what some have really scratched their head. They claim, they said, we've neither received letters from Judea. Remember, this is Rome. We're in Rome now. Judea is where Jerusalem is. We've neither received letters from Judea concerning you, nor have any of the brethren come here and reported or spoken anything bad, wicked or evil, about you.

So someone said, how can this be? Paul was a high profile, out in the world, And Rome, apparently Rome and Jerusalem communicated. How could it be that they didn't know about what had happened with Paul? So some have said, well, God has miraculously blinded them. And there's been all kinds of theories about how they didn't know.

He had just barely gotten into Rome from this kind of perilous journey. Things looked okay at the start, but they rapidly deteriorated the further west they went. And finally he limps in, rests after three days, and then is able to say this much at least. And there was no way you could have gotten there by land that quick, much less this, with winter coming on.

Yeah, well I see your point in that travel. But I guess that Paul's ministry encompasses a bunch of years, always missionary journeys and stuff. all the synagogues he went into and all the different times he encountered with all the different king, Agrippa and Festus. And so that was a long drawn out affair. And it's kind of amazing that they claim that they have.

So someone said, well, maybe they just wanted to plead ignorance. So we don't really know. But this basically says that they say, we don't know much about you, Paul. One thing we do want to know is what's your opinion about this sect? And that comes up. But we desire to hear from you. Your views are for concerning the sect, and the sect is the way. It is known to us, and is spoken against everywhere.

So they heard about the way, the quote, about the believers, basically. And they wanted to know what Paul's opinion was about the sect. That's all they, whether his issues he had with the Romans, or he was in prison, or they didn't seem to care about, what's your opinion about the way? I got the feeling the rumor mills overrode any facts. They were just easily ignited by just the... that there's an opponent out there and it's called the way. Hey, forget your stupid arguments. Let's find out what this way is really about. Yeah, and it could be the case.

It seemed like they didn't care so much about Paul's personal thing. What's your opinion? We're going to judge about you, what you think about this sect right here. We've only heard bad things about it. But it's amazing that they heard about the way, but they didn't hear about Paul.

I know. That's what that's what seems incredible. So, so, so I think they scratch their head. That's something that they're willingly ignorant. They didn't want to get involved. You know, it's sort of like somebody comes to your door and says, Oh, what's your opinion about? And you don't want to talk about that. He's like, I know nothing. I don't want to get involved. I want to just back away from this and, you know, don't talk to me. I don't know.

That's that's all conjecture anyway. OK, so that's that's that's the response of Jewish leaders. So now we have this is a main conference and this conference. Basically, the first conference set up the second conference. And when the Jews had said it said a day for Paul, They came to his lodging in large numbers. So now we got a lot of Jewish folks come to see him. Okay. And this takes something, this is not just, apparently it's more than one day, it seems like.

And he was explained to them and solemnly testifying. And that phrase solemnly testifying, it shows up. If you look at, there's a lot of passages, you'll see that term solemnly testify. It just means bearing witness. And it's like we see it in Acts 2.40. And with many other words, they solemnly testified and kept exhorting them, saying, be saved from this perverse generation. So that's early part of Acts. So basically that term is a very familiar term, and it occurs in multiple places in scripture. So he was testifying about the Kingdom of God. What's interesting is the word Jesus said a similar thing.

In Acts 1.3, it was said of the word Jesus, Acts 1.3 says, to these he also presented himself alive after suffering by many convincing proofs appearing to them over a period of forty days, and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God." The kingdom of God basically is the idea of God's rule on the earth. Primarily focused on the Millennial Kingdom, is usually the context. So, it's going to be the Messiah is going to come and set up his kingdom, and this is what the Jews are looking forward to.

So he's talking about that, but also encompasses the fact that Jesus is the Messiah. And that kind of picks up the next part, trying to persuade them concerning Jesus. And then his proof text for persuading them, he used the law of Moses and he used the prophets. So he used the Old Testament scriptures, and this is what the early church, what Peter did, what Paul did, what Stephen did, what Philip did, they used the Old Testament scriptures to make their case.

And we see that like in Acts 8.35. We see that Stephen did that. 8.35 says, And Philip opened his mouth, beginning from this scripture he preached to preach Jesus to them and that refers back to the previous one where a lamb was led to the slaughter.

There was a quotation in the previous, just a few verses up from that, Isaiah 53. So he points out that the Lord Jesus is a fulfillment of Isaiah 53, a lamb led to the slaughter. So they use the Old Testament scriptures to convince, you know, to make his case to these Jewish folks.

And they really didn't have anything else to use. You're right. But what was cool was he was using he was using their own scriptures to say this is this is the long promised Messiah. He's the one. And it's a different morning to evening. So so that implies to me that this is more than this wasn't one day. It was, you know, possible multiple days. And then here's kind of the bottom line to that. And that's kind of the bottom line we see in a bunch of places. in acts, some are being persuaded, and they're being persuaded is the idea to convince that idea by the things spoken, but others would not believe.

So we see that division and that occurs in, just think about the number of different synagogues Paul went into. I mean, he kind of lost track after a while, we've kind of gone through so many, you know, what was the typical modus operandi? He goes into a town, he goes to synagogue, he's there for a while, may like it for a while, but over time, it seems like, what are you really saying? Pretty soon they don't like him and he's running out of town. Or worse.

A few places, it wasn't that way, but most places, Paul goes into the synagogue, he preaches the word of Jesus, they listen to him for a while, then after a while, some are persuaded, some don't believe. So the same thing happened again here in this very last part of Acts. So what Paul is going to do, he's going to, and when the Jews did not agree with one another, they began leaving. So they didn't agree, but they started leaving. He spoke one word. It was a long word. I was going to say one word from Paul. So, I think I'm a little confused. Okay, sure.

So, when Paul went to Rome, they're not Jewish, right? No, no, no. They are Jewish. They are apparently in Rome. There are synagogues. a group of Jewish people that reside in Rome. Yeah, but I mean, when he went there originally, wasn't it like for the government? Okay, here's the deal. This is why people objected. They don't like this ending. It's sort of like, if you read a story or a movie, you don't like the ending. Some people say, I don't like the ending to Acts.

Well, see, his whole reason for going to Rome was to be tried in front of, he appealed to Caesar, right? Right, and that's not Jewish. No, that's all Roman. But he's being held by the Romans in detention. But he's allowed all this freedom, right? People can come and go. So he uses that as his launching pad, or as his pulpit, if you will. He invites the local Jewish leaders in, just like his... Right, so this went from government to Jewish people. Well, here's the thing.

The Lord, in his wisdom, has decided to tell us what happened with Paul's interaction with the Jewish people rather than what happened with the Roman authorities. We don't know exactly what transpired. He was taken to Rome to see Caesar. how it seems like that information, like Paul's coming and he's going to be, and I could see how they might not include the Jewish leaders on letting them know what's going on.

So what you're saying is, they're saying, who cares what the Romans are doing? We don't care about the Romans. We hate them. I'm not going to pay any attention to what the Romans are doing. And the Romans are saying, you know, who cares about the Jews?

We'll find out. And we're not going to fill them in on stuff. So I could see maybe where they'd say, we don't have any information on you because the Romans didn't really tell us. And the connection there will be true. The communication between the Romans and the Jews was, at best, confrontational. They didn't like each other. So this went from being a legal Roman thing to a Jewish persuasion thing.

Or better, remember, the Holy Spirit is showing us what the Lord the important points of history. It's sort of like we divide the world into World War I, World War II, Korean War. You can divide history a lot of different ways, right? Well, what God is doing here via the Holy Spirit, he's saying here's what's important for Paul's time in Rome. This is a really important information.

Yes, he went to Rome to be tried, but I'm not going to tell you what happened in his trial. if there ever was a trial. I'm not sure there ever was a trial. I'm not sure we ever got to see. Because Paul was not a big cheat in the scope of things. A Jewish guy that's talking about this sect, it would be like, what would we care about? I don't know. I don't want to name a nomination. He's not big in secular history. Right. I mean, who cares about the Jewish? There's a sect of the Jewish people called the Way that believe about this guy who came back from the dead and named Jesus. Who cares about that? I mean, from the Roman perspective, that's not a big deal.

Yeah. And so the Jews that he's talking to aren't like really deciding. He's not on trial with them. Oh, no, no, no. He's just, OK, now I've got it. I'm sorry. But he used, what's interesting is, he used the same discussion points, bullet points he used with all the kings, Agrippa, with Festus. He uses the same points. He makes the same points.

There's nothing I've done wrong. I've only told you what is true. I've honored the Jewish scriptures. I've honored our customs. And this is the truth about Jesus. He's the long-awaited Messiah. So he made his point. So he could have made his point or not made his point. If he would have set these Jewish people off, they might have went to the government and said, Right, deal with this guy. It's interesting that the Lord kind of, and maybe that's why the Lord blinded these folks, that they didn't have anything personally against Paul. They thought he wasn't right. Some believed what he said, some didn't. We have something recorded that shows there was another riot. The Jews didn't riot. Of course, they're in a Gentile city. They better be a little bit careful if they get put in jail too. But there's no big riot that happens after the...

They argue amongst themselves, sort of. They leave, and they just go, and they leave, and that's the end of that. So, what the Lord is telling us about, he tells us about something that in the scope of man's history wouldn't seem very important. That you have this Jewish guy, former rabbi, who's arguing about this guy who came back from the dead. The world looks at that and says, what's that? They don't think much about that. Anyway, okay, that's a good point. Thanks for Okay, so here's one parting word.

So he's going to basically he's going to point out he's going to go back to the Old Testament And he's going to point out what Isaiah the prophet said He said the Holy Spirit rightly spoke through Isaiah the prophet to you to your father saying So here's actually is in caps here, right? And in my Bible what they do is or in the New American Standard, they'll bring they'll put any quote from the Old Testament will be kept, all the caps. I find that a little bit irritating, but it does kind of show you that it's a quote. So what Isaiah said, go to this people, so whenever you see the people or this people, that's usually Israel, the nation of Israel, go to this people and say, so Isaiah was charged with going out and telling, this is back in Isaiah's time, and telling this, you will keep on hearing, And actually the idea is here, he said, go out at once. This is to be something immediate. Go out at once and say to the people, you will keep on hearing and you will not understand. It says you will, and actually it's literally, you will positively not understand.

So people are hearing, but they're not taking the information and they're not understanding. Okay, that's part one. Part two, you will keep on seeing, but will not perceive. Same idea. You will positively not perceive. It's like our society today. We take in just tons of information. You can just deluge yourself with more information than you can possibly remember. It hasn't changed much. Keep on hearing, but you're not understanding. Keep on seeing, but you're not perceiving.

That's verse 9 in Isaiah 6. For the heart of this people has become dull, or better, hardened, or calloused, so the heart has become dull, and with their ears they scarcely hear, they have closed their eyes, and they have actually shut them tightly closed. Don't confuse it with the facts.

This is the mindset of the people, the Jewish people he is talking about. Otherwise, if they didn't do this, something wonderful might happen. Otherwise, they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their heart, and return. actually has the idea of returning to God. God desires that the people return to Him. He wants to heal them. He wants to save them, basically. And I would heal them.

He points out to these Jewish people, just like Isaiah the prophet said, you're in the same boat, your hearing's become dull, you're seeing all this stuff, but you're not understanding. He said, you've missed it. And that's actually verse 10. It's a quote from Isaiah 6, 9, and 10. Those verses right there. I have a question. Go ahead. I don't know if you can answer it. Do you think that's something that the Holy Spirit does or that the person themselves have sort of a, it's their own thing, you know? I know it's all part of God's plan. We do know this.

We do know from scripture, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and John, he says he has three things. He convicts the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. So the Holy Spirit, 24-7, is out there in our world, convincing men that need to know the Lord Jesus of those three things. Sin, that they are sinners. Righteousness, that God is righteous. Judgment, there is a judgment coming. From God's perspective, He is 24-7, this information is going out. What you're asking is, why do some men respond to that and why do some men not respond to that? I guess so. That's the question. That is the question that all of us, I mean, I think about myself, you know.

Why did I, my sister has not responded. She has not believed. Right. She's four years younger than I am. I talk with her many, many times to the point where she doesn't, gets angry at me after a while. Right. We grew up in the same family. Why did I respond and she didn't? I don't know. And you can look at that. You can go through multiple family and you look at brothers and sisters and friends. Why did I respond and this person didn't? Was I any smarter? My sister's a nurse practitioner. She's a very, very smart lady.

And then there's like with the Jewish people that, you know, maybe there are some people that God kind of hardens their heart and makes them dull and so that it could go to the Gentiles, because if it didn't, then that would have been the end of it, right? I wouldn't worry about that. They would have brought the gospel to the Gentiles if the Jews had believed. Say that again? The Jews, if the Jews had believed, they would have brought the gospel to the Gentiles. So we would have eventually gotten it.

I don't think God ever hardens the heart first. They harden their hearts. Because wasn't there some, back in the Old Testament, that he hardened his heart three times? But really, Pharaoh hardened his heart first. Yeah. So yeah, our part is to believe what God has revealed to us. Yeah, sometimes it's giving up, giving up the hardness, maybe. Then I guess you could go back to Adam and say, why did Adam refuse to die? believe God. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I guess that's it. He was made with a choice. Yeah. And he made his choice. Yeah. Just a little one. I thought. OK, that's fine. Yeah. So.

So basically, Paul's going to just like as Tom pointed out, the typical approach that Paul used, he presents a message to the Jews first. When that wouldn't, you know, some believe something. He says, I'm now I'm turning to the Gentiles. So basically, He says, therefore, let it be known that this salvation, and it's referenced there in that passage, has been sent to the Gentiles.

They will also listen. So what Paul's saying is that the Gentiles will listen. You don't listen. They will listen. So I'm going to present people that will listen. And then actually, this is a statement from Constable. Well, you know, some people will listen, some people won't. And you're right. And the Jews, some people listen. And the same will happen with the Gentiles. Some will listen, some will not. But at least give them the opportunity. Well, but you can think about, in the bigger picture of things, and like Bonnie was kind of pointing out, God wants a message to go out to the entire world. Yeah. So, it's going to go out there. And some will.

So, actually 2828, some have said, it doesn't seem very climactical, 2820 is probably the ultimate climax of Acts. It summarizes the main theme of the book, having presented the gospel to the Jews in Rome, having witnessed their rejection of it, Paul now focuses his ministry again on the Gentiles. So that's the important message at the end of Acts. that Paul did just what, that was his commission, to go and take the gospel to the Gentiles. And this is how it happened in Rome, so to speak. And actually, verse 29, in my Bible, I'm not sure, has little brackets around it. It's not in the best manuscript, so I'm just going to skip over it right now. It's not a biggie in my mind. And then there's a few closing statements here.

And he, Paul, stayed two full years in his own rented quarters. And actually, some of, basically that's the concept that, I don't know, people were helping him at his own expense. So he's paying for this. Somehow people were helping him out and paying, so he was paying for it. It's funny, you're in jail and you're paying for it. I just got too ahead of myself a little bit. But maybe he isn't. Maybe he was acquitted or something somehow. I don't know. Sounds like he might be on his own. Doesn't say there's still a soldier there. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. OK.

And he was well, he welcomed all who came to him. He was preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the word Jesus. So this is a very fruitful, like I said, there are four, four of the epistles they call the prison epistles, Ephesians, Colossians, Philippians. So all those were penned in Rome during this time period. So he was a busy guy. with all openness and unhinderedness. The Lord provided a situation that he had freedom to share the gospel. What's interesting is that the Jews weren't after him and the Romans were after him. It couldn't get any better than that. He could talk about the Lord Jesus, people would come to him, and people wouldn't be on his case. That's really wonderful.

So this is the very last thing, that one last chart. I just kind of threw in here, you know, there's like there's like six, at least six summary statements in acts. You know, let me just go. And this this is the final one. And they all talk about kind of the progress of the church and where it's going. They all kind of talk about how God's word is going out. So if you look, you know, kind of scan through this, you know, like in 1244, it says, but the word of the Lord continued to grow and to be multiplied 1615. So the church will be strengthened in their faith.

We're increasing in the numbers daily. So this is the, this is the Lord's lie of the Holy spirit. This is the Lord's summary of what happened at the end of sections of acts. And so, uh, you know, and this one here, we just read. He, Paul, was preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus with all openness and unhindered.

So that's interesting. Someone asked me early on, does the book of Acts talk about Paul's trial before Caesar? I didn't actually know the answer. So now I know the answer. It doesn't record that, if that ever happened. It's not clear what If that if that ever really happened, did Paul really go to in front of Caesar? It's not clear that ever really happened. Well, Harris is unhinged, unhindered.

So apparently he went away and they just dropped it. They may have dropped the case. Who knows? Well, because of that hanging chat of the guard still there, I get the feeling they said this is a low priority. We don't even want to have him change. Right. You know, find a loose guard. He's just pointed to him. That's the serve out is a term till he's retired or something like that. It's like a low intention to make the juice and ignore him. He'll go away.

But what's wonderful is. You know, just like the so typical of the Lord, he provides a situation which in man's estimation would be, well, I'm here to be in detention as kind of a place that all is safe and was being supported. People were helping him and he could he could do the Lord's work and write, you know, write for at least four letters of scripture.

I don't know history. So this is in Rome. Yes. Did this eventually lead into the whole Vatican Catholic Church thing? Well, you realize what would happen eventually here is at this point, you know, right after this, there's a big persecution of the church comes along where is it Nero? Nero has this really, crazy thing where he lights Christians on fire, you know, torches for his patio on his patio. But eventually what happens is the Christian, the Christian faith becomes if that's a foot Constantine, Constantine all of a sudden says, I think this is wonderful. I'm going to make Christianity the main religion. So everything, persecution all of a sudden does a flip and it becomes Christianity is what's number one.

So that's history. That's man's history. But right after this, within two or three years, there's a severe persecution of Christians. Very severe. And I've heard both. And actually, I was listening to somebody and they were kind of reading some accounts. Just really very, very terrible, terrible things happened.

Well, thanks for thanks for a year in action Your father we thank you so much Lord. We thank you for the lessons. We have where we thank you for our time this year in acts Lord Thank you for just the things we've learned and pray would help us to understand your word in Christ's name Amen