Bible Guys Classics: Acts 21 Part 1

Well, Jeff, today Paul pulls a Willie Nelson, does he Yeah, because he's back on the road again. Okay, he's heading on the way to Jerusalem. Is that right? Yes? Okay, So he's Chris and I'm Jeff and we're the Bible guys. I just can't wait to get back on the road again. Yeah, Jeff, there you go. Yeah right, Okay, So, hey, today we have a very special segment. I don't know that we've done this segment before, and I'm super excited about it. I'm super excited about it. It's called said. I just found out a minute ago that Jeff's the one has putting me on the spot. That's right. So it's a who said it? And what I'm going to do is I'm going to read some Bible quotes and you have to guess who in the Bible said so much pressure. Well, you're one of the Bible guys. Well this one. I'm hoping that they chose ones that are semi obvious. Yes, right, though, Well, in Sunday School, the answer always was Jesus Moses, right right, Peter chose to Abraham. Those were kind of the four answers. So yeah, anyways, I can promise you. Here we go. That's not those aren't the answers? Here we go? The first one, who is the Lord that I should obey his voice? That's the whole quote. Well, it goes up, Leave my people, go worship the Lord, Take your flocks and herds and go? Can you shait again? Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice? Up? Leave my people, go worship the Lord, Take your flocks and herds and go. That's uh Pharaoh talking to most Pharaoh. There you go. If I hadn't told you to take your flocks and herds and go, it would admit it hard. Because I know what the heck you read the first part? I want the audience. I said, who is the Lord that I should obey his voice? Okay? Anybody who said that? No, that only comes up just Pharaoh. But okay, okay. There's no context in that. Okay, here you go. This one has no context. Will you indeed sweep away the righteous and the wicked? That Abraham or Abraham? There a lot very good and you're killing them. That's the one. I'm not sure I would have gotten, to be honest. Good job on that one. Oh, this is an easy one. Oh Lord, I'm not very good with words. I never had been, and I'm not. Oh yeah, yeah, that's Moses. He was arguing, saying he had all these problems. Remember I told you most of the answers in Sunday School or Abraham Moses, Oh. Yeah, yeah, but the Pharaoh one. Without the context, I wouldn't have got the Pharaoh one. Don't you fear God even when you've been sentenced to die? Jes Don't you fear God even when you've been sentenced to die? Is that can maybe kidniser? Oh? Who are the answers? What are the Bible answers in Sunny School? A Jesus okay, yeah, almost almost, Jesus getting close. Almost Jesus the Holy yeah yeah yeah no, no, no, no, not the Father. He was very close to Jesus. Very close to Jesus. Yes, uh Jesus yeah yeah. Oh man, so uh there were it was Jesus and two other guys. Oh Jesus, uh uh, it would be Peter and uh okay James. John No, no, no, Jesus and two other guys were in a very unique situation. Everybody else was watching them. Two angels, no thinking of the resurrection. Yeah, well, you're getting really close. It's not the resurrection, but it's the what's right before the resurrection. The oh, two guys is a thief on the Christ. There you go, you go, there you go. When you say close to Jesus, you're talking about you're talking about physically, like in proximity. I was thinking like, oh, he's such a good friend of it. So we got you there, we got you right. Okay, here's the last one. And this was a tricky one, Daniel. I've come here to give you insight and understanding. The moment you began praying, a command was given. That's the angel, right, Yeah, which angel? Oh, it says the name of the angel says it? Well, just guess, I'll guess Gabriel. Gabriel. Yeah, he's always the messenger. That's right, That's right. All right, Yeah, very good. So remember he mentioned this is one of those passages that blows my mind about prayer. Right, Dani's been praying for what twenty something days, and Gabriel shows up and says, the day you began praying, God sent the answer, but this demon stopped it. And so I had God sent Michael the archangel to fight that demon, and here, I am to tell you this this information, right, it's just it's phenomenal, that's right. Yeah, that's just great, amazing, So good job man. So you were easily four out of five. Yeah, and with just a little bit of help you. Got fire like nine answers to get to the thief on the gross. That was great. It was fun. That's a fun one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, for desiree who's listening, who makes up these show sheets, Yeah yeah, if you're gonna stump Jeff choose like really obscure, really hard. Yeah yeah, yeah, great, thank you. I'll fail every one of them. I'll go zero for five as well. So hey, before we get into the passage here, just share, share us with your friends, share us on your social media. Oh see, just let everybody know that we're doing this. And every week, it seems like every month, there seems to be an increase in followers and people that are paying attention, and it's expanding the opportunity maybe to make an impact on people. So yeah, and if you're listening on YouTube, we always love comments and feedback. We always love people cooking, like just because again it just helps our metrics. That's right. And when we did the big Connect Night, which we have another Connect Night coming up pretty soon. Right, yeah at our church. But when we did Yeah here to Church, when we did the Bible Guys Live, I mentioned that we always they're telling people to share and to like us, right to subscribe, and yet what we what we know as the stats say that fifty six percent of the people who watch us on YouTube have not yet subscribed. So do it. Wow, they're not yet subscribed. I know, that's what I said. So how do you subscribe? You have the budges, you. Know, go to the Bible Guys on YouTube and just click subscribe. It's a button rate there. It's super easy. Oh, it's it. Literally, it takes this much that much work. Just just think it. All you have to do is just do it. Well, you did it three times? Are you sore? I know? I know. I'm worn now I'm exhausted. Or maybe fifty six percent of the people who watch us go, I'm not subscribing to that junk. That's true. That might be it too, that's true. So anyways, let's move on. So today we are continuing in the Book of Acts. So if you're new with us, what we've been doing is going through the Book of Acts. And then when we get to a spot in the Book of Acts where Paul paused to write a letter, maybe he was in prison, or maybe he was traveling or whatever, we would pause and then go through that letter and deal with it in that context. So now we are in fifty five a d. Fifty four to fifty five AD. He has written the Book of Romans, and now he's we're back into his travels. So we finished up the Book of Romans. Now he's back in his travels. And the last episode that we did he was talking to the elders from Ephesus. And then here we go in Acts chapter twenty one. After saying farewell to the Ephesian elders, we sailed straight to the island of Kosts. The next day we reached Rhodes and then went on to Patara. There we boarded a ship sailing for Phoenicia. We sighted the island of Cypress, passed it on our left, and landed at the harbor of Tire in Syria, where the ship was to unload his cargo. We went ashore, found the local believers and stayed with them a week. These believers prophesied through the Holy Spirit that Paul should not go on to Jerusalem. When we returned to the ship at the end of the week, the entire congregation, including women and children, left the city and came down to the shore with us. There we knelt, prayed, and set our farewell. Then we went aboard and we returned home. The next stop after leaving Tyre was Ptolemay, where we greeted the brothers and sisters and stayed for one day. The next day we went on to Cesarea and stayed at the home of Philip the Evangelist, one of the seven men who'd been chosen to distribute food. He had four unmarried daughters who had the gift of prophecy. Several days later, a man named Agabus, who also had the gift the prophecy, he arrived from Judea. He came over, took Paul's belt and bound his own feet in hands with it, and then he said, the Holy Spirit declares, so shall the owner of this belt be bound by the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem and turned over to the Gentiles. When we heard this, we and the local believers all begged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem, but he said, why all this weeping, You're breaking my heart. I'm ready not only to be jailed in Jerusalem, but even to die for the sake of the Lord Jesus. When it was clear that we couldn't persuade him, we gave up and said the Lord's will be done. After this, we packed our things and left for Jerusalem. Some believers from Cesarea accompanied us, and they took us to the home of Nason, a man originally from Cyprus and one of the early Believers. When we arrived, the brothers and sisters in Jerusalem welcomed us warmly. The next day, Paul went with us to meet with James and all the elders of Jerusalem which were present. After greeting them, Paul gave a detailed account of the things God accomplished among the gentiles through his ministry. After hearing this, they praised God, and then they said, you know, dear brother, how many thousands of Jews have also believed, and they all followed the Law of Moses very seriously. But the Jewish believers here in Jerusalem have been told that you are teaching all the Jews who live among the gentiles to turn their backs on the Laws of Moses. They've heard that you teach them not to circumcise their children or follow other Jewish customs. What should we do? They'll certainly hear that you have come. Just through twenty one, and I just. Finished it twenty two. It was a bonus material. Yes, I was giving bonus material. Freuche for it, extra rut there. I like to just give our listeners even more than they expected from them. It's like when you go to five guys, they lived up the fries and it goes, it overflows and there's even fries at the bottom of the bag. Yeah. Actually my notes to say that we were supposed to go to verse twenty five. Ah, so you're cheating them by four. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah a storyline. I finished it in just a second. Both doesn't want you to have all you deserve, listeners. That's what I want to point. That's right, he says, what should we do? They'll certainly hear that you've come. Here's what we want you to do. We have four men here who have completed their vow. Go with them to the temple and join them in the purification ceremony, paying for them to have their heads ritually shaved. Then everyone know that the rumors are all false and that you yourself observe the Jewish laws. As for the gentile believers, they should do what we already told them in a letter. They should havebstained from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood or the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality. And that's where he ended it. Yeah, sexual immorality. Yeah, that's a good. Well, avoid eating meat strangled and offered to idols. Yeah, so you know why I get confused because it's acts twenty one. So in my brain, I was like, you have to stop at verse twenty one. That's what it was. Yeah, you had that look on your face though, for the people who are watching and not just listening it to look on your face like Jeff, when if you're going to shut up? That that was kind of the book. Now that only happens on Sundays. Yeah, so hey, say hey, by the way. I thought what you said on last Sunday it was so funny. You were poking fun at me, you know, because you're teasing me. We tease each other. Yes, And I'm in I'm in the I'm in that crowd. By the way, it goes on nostine. I'm in the crowd, and you said something about you and me speaking or something, and you said, you know, as wonderful as I am, and oh, because you were talking about don't just trust the preachers, trust the Bible. Right. We was talking about the Brians, how they went and looked to see what the if y'all said was true in the Bible. Yes, and so it's always fact check any preacher. That's what you were trying to say. That's what you were saying, right, And then you said you go as wonderful as I am and as hard as Chris tries. I thought that was so funny. It just flowed out of your mouth like just like like you like you were working on that all morning. Yeah, No, I wasn't. It just came out. It was very funny. I don't know that. So I only said that in that service that you were in, so we for our listeners that didn't know, we do three identical services every weekend, but it was the one that you were in. It was the one I said that in here. Yeah, So I thought about standing up and shouting something back, which would have been funny. I would have had the ushers remove you. Yeah, it's so funny. That's funny. So here we are fifty five a d. He's kind of coming to the end and and I think there's there's a couple of interesting things here. At the beginning, he has these prophecies, multiple prophecies, don't go to Jerusalem. You're going to be arrested, they're going to hand you over to the gentiles, you're going to be killed. Right, that's pretty big. But the amazing one was where it says. Uh, these believers verse four, these believers prophesied through through the Holy Spirit that Paul should not go on to Drew, and he goes on to Jerusalem. And so does this mean Paul was disobeying the Holy Spirit? Well, I think he only went to Jerusalem because he felt like God wanted them to. Yeah. So then I mean that's an interesting phrase then that this is the Holy Spirit saying don't go on to Jerusalem. And so I'll be honest with you, I've read that half a dozen times, dozens of times probably, but probably a half a dozen times. I thought, So, what's the deal, Paul. If somebody prophesied don't go in the Holy Spirit, right, what do you do? So then this is the first time I've ever noticed this. You know, we love to use the Life application study Bible. I think these notes are great. And the note for verse four it literally says did Paul disobey the Holy Spirit? Which I thought was funny because that's always my question when I get to that spot. It says, no more likely the Holy Spirit warned these believers about the suffering that Paul would face in Jerusalem. They do. They drew the conclusion that he should not go there because of that danger. Acts twenty one, ten and twelve support this. The local believers have hearing that Paul would be turned over the Romans begging him to turn back. So they're begging him to turn back. So the prophecy was You're going to be turned over. Paul's confidence later on in this chapter goes, hey, I'm willing to die for christ Ione to go in chains. He'd already been arrested a bunch of times, has already been beaten, he'd already risked his life many times. So he's like, I'm not afraid of this that's happening, and I'm convinced I'm supposed to go. But the believers they also heard the same thing. Bad things are going to happen to you. But and so then their interpretation was you shouldn't go, But Paul knew he was supposed to go. So my question for you is this, have you ever been in a situation because I think he used to minister like gangs in Central PARKI yeah, yeah, right in Chicago, in Chicago. So have you ever been in a situation where you felt like this is what God wanted you to do and it was dangerous? Oh yeah, and you did it anyway. Yeah, So, like, give us a fun story, because that's actually pretty inspiring because for a lot of us, we have a hard time even speaking up because we think it's going to make somebody feel uncomfortable. That's the amount of danger we shy away. Yeah yeah, yeah. Right back when I was in my twenties, I worked for a while with a ministry that served gang members on the northwest side of Chicago, and there was a kind of a war going on. Then A and the channel A and E had used to have a TV show called Gangland, and they had an entire episode all about what was happening while I was there in the early nineties, and so it was the Cholos, the Insane Latin Disciples, the Latin Kings were fighting quite a bit, and then they bordered up against some of the African American gangs were raped just to the south. So they would fight there and over and over and over again. We had guys that were getting killed and things. But every week we'd pack up. We'd be there all day Saturday, all day Sunday, late into Monday morning and engaging. And there were a lot of times where we would all of a sudden either have some kind of word would come to us, or somebody would tell us, Hey, this is going to go down and this is going to be really bad, and we would kind of pull back, especially a lot of the young women that were working on our ministry. We would say, hey, maybe this is the week that you guys just take the week off. Why don't you pray? Why don't you because we're not sure what's going to happen. And on more than one occasion, there was a lot of violence, a lot of bad things. We never had any of the people in our ministry. One time somebody got hurt, but beyond that, it was mostly you know, gang related. They weren't targeting us, but being in a situation where you know, there were shootings and stabbings and you know, we lost I probably lost eight or ten young teenagers that I knew that were killed. You know, we'd be at the hospital with the parents and things. So, yeah, danger happens, and sometimes you know, a message will come, hey, watch out, and then you have to weigh this, you know, is God telling me don't go? Or is God just telling me be careful? And most of the time we had a sense that God was just saying, you know, be careful. Yeah, So that's really interesting because you know, sometimes God calls us to do things that are risky. You know, they have a penalty, they have a high cost, right, and sometimes it could not necessarily be the most safe environment, right. Yeah. Yeah, sure. I've had to happen all over the world as well, and it's kind of one of those things I don't tell my wife until I get home right right about what happened. But you know, I just have this very very strong sense. Even when I found out I had cancer, I had this very strong sense, You're not going to arrive in heaven and God, go, what are you doing here so early? Right? Right? But I'm not going to go. I'm not going to arrive in heaven and how to go. Hey, you're fifteen minutes late. When my time is done, that's my time. It's not going to surprise God. Book of Hebrews, which we'll get to. The Book of Hebrews, well, it says it's appointed unto man wants to die. That means every one of us has an appointment. I can't avoid it. I can't prolong it, I can't avoid it. My appointment is my appointment. I'm not going to show up early. I'm not going to show up late. And so instead, I just have to make sure that we are living our lives fully, living out God's purpose for our life every moment. And I think that's what Paul's saying. He said, Hey, I'm willing to be in chains, I'm willing to go to prison, I'm willing to die if I have to. But I know that I'm supposed to keep moving forward. And he had this predisposition for action. Paul does. He doesn't stay around very long, I mean a couple of years at the most, but he has this predisposition to move forward and just believing that God was going to take care of him or provide for him. And then if you remember when we were reading he said in Sewo Corinthians was it Secretius where he said, you know, I'm kind of torn between the two. To go to heaven is gained. To stay here is better for you. So whichever God decides is fine. Yeah. Right, it's pretty amazing. Pretty it's very amazing. What a way to live your life. Then, right, right, So these people who had not been in chains, these people who had not been beaten, these people who had not gone to prison, these people who had not faced trials, when they get the message from the Holy Spirit that hey, it's going to get tough up Paul. I almost said three different names, Thomas, Peter, Paul, It's gonna get tough Paul. The people who had never been through any kind of persecution or struggle like him, they were like, don't go right, But Paul's like, oh, I've been through that kind of stuff before. Don't wry about God. Carry me. It's that nothing. Well. I think that that if we would see our trials and our troubles not as problems to avoid, but their opportunities to get stronger. Paul's faith is unbelievably strong at this point where he's virtually fearless. And it's because God had brought him through all those other things, not that he would have chosen to be beaten, not that he would have chosen to go to prison, not that he would have been he would have chosen to go through those you know, shipwrecks and all those kinds of things. But because he went through them and survived them, and God brought him through, it built his faith and strengthened him and made him so much stronger that he wasn't fearful of the future. What a way to live your life that when you come to the end, you're not afraid of the end, right right. Yeah. And by the way, I love Paul's response to them when he says, why all this weeping. Yeah, you're breaking my heart. I'm not only ready to be jelly Jerusalem, I would even die for it. Right. So, in other words, he's saying, like, listen, it doesn't matter, Like whatever you say is going to happen to me. Whatever danger waits, I'm prepared for it. You know. It's almost like he's saying like uh, He's like, uh, here, hold my root here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I think it's it's pretty sweet too. He's why all this weeping, You're breaking my heart? Right, So here they are. They're thinking you're gonna die, Paul, and he's like, oh, I feel so bad for you that you're so afraid I'm gonna die. Right right, that's hilarious, Right. That's fantastic. Hey, I think it's interesting. Just we kind of blew over this, but he stays with Philip. We saw Philip earlier in the Book of Acts, right, right. This is the Philip that met with the Ethiopian eunuch. Remember he runs up to this Ethiopian treasurer of the Kingdom of Ethiopia and he leads him to Christ in his chariot and then they go down and he baptizes him. This is the same guy. Yeah, and in chapter eight and yeah, and it's great because Philip then was transported remember yeah, yeah, yeah, and you know, not many supernatural things came up out. Of the water and Philip was not right. Yeah, he's not there, and all of a sudden he found himself like the neighboring city, which was just crazy. So yeah, so Philip definitely is caught up with some pretty supernatural. Yeah, there's a few callbacks. Here, you've got Philip, you've got Agabus, he had been in there fifteen years earlier, all those things. But with Phillip's daughters. It mentions his daughters here that he had four unmarried daughters who had the gift of prophecy. And here's four young women that are gifted to declare God's word to God's people, right that sometimes we know, you know, in the New Testament or in the Bible, sometimes prophecy means that there's maybe a future component to it. But all the time, whether there's a future component or not, what they're doing is saying, let's say it. The Lord God says these things. And so what he's kind of highlighting here is, yes, there's some danger in my ministry, but he also recognizing you've got Agabus and Phillips daughters, and you've got this evangelist Philip. He's also recognizing there are so many other people doing ministry. It's not just about me. And I think he's kind of trying to deflect the fact that it's not just about Paul in this story. Yeah. Yeah, And and by the way, it's it's important to realize, like God gives the gift of prophecy to women here and and uh, and women are contributing to the direction of the church, you know, to the to the leading of the church. And so the women have been gifted and we see that over and over again. Uh, you know, them being a part of the leadership of the church, which. Is great, so great. Well, I think that's going to be a good place to wrap up. I think so too. We're right at that time. So we'll see you next time on the Bible. Guys,