Acts 22

Well, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together, we get into the Lord's Word, and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2022, we'll make it through all, well, from the book of Acts to the book of Philemon. And today we are at Acts chapter 22. We got quite a bit to chew on this morning, a bunch to think about, a bunch to be encouraged with.
So let's have some coffee, let's pray, and we'll get into the Lord's Word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this time in your word. And we pray, Father, that as we read your word now, that we would understand it, that it would be what it truly is, your word, that your spirit would apply it to our hearts. In Jesus's name, amen.
Acts chapter 22. So remember Paul has just been, caused a ruckus at the temple and he's standing on the steps of the Anatolia and he's told the people, you know, he's motioned to them, be quiet. And now he's going to address them with a speech in Hebrew, in the Hebrew language, Aramaic or Hebrew, most likely Aramaic, but we'll let the, we'll let the scholars argue that out. Okay, here we go. Acts chapter 22. He's not speaking to them in Greek. He's not speaking to them in Latin. He's speaking to them in the language that they know. And so they'll lean in a little bit more.
Then he said, I am indeed a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the strictness of our father's law, and was zealous towards God as you all are today. I persecuted this way to the death. Binding and delivering into prisons both men and women, as also the high priest bears me witness, and all the council of the elders, from whom I also received letters to the brethren, and went to Damascus to bring in chains even those who were to Jerusalem to be punished. Now it happened, as I journeyed and came near to Damascus at about noon, suddenly a great light from heaven shone around me, and I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?
So I answered, who are you, Lord? And he said to me, I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting. And those who were with me indeed saw the light and were afraid, but they did not hear the voice of him who spoke to me. So I said, What shall I do, Lord?
And the Lord said to me, Arise and go into Damascus, and there you will be told all things which are appointed for you to do. And since I could not see for the glory of that light being led by the hand of those who were with me, I came into Damascus.
Then a certain Ananias, a devout man according to the law, having a good testimony with all the Jews who dwelt there, came to me, and he stood and said to me, Brother Saul, receive your sight. And at that same hour I looked up at him, then he said to me, The God of our fathers has chosen you, that you should know His will and see the Just One, and hear the voice of His mouth. For you will be His witness to all men of what you have seen and heard. And now, why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.
Now it happened when I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple that I was in a trance, and saw him saying to me, Make haste and get out of Jerusalem quickly, for they will not receive your testimony concerning me. And so I said, Lord, they know that in every synagogue I imprisoned and beat those who believe on you. And when the blood of your martyr Stephen was shed, I was standing by consenting to his death and guarding the clothes of those who were killing him. Then he said to me, depart, for I will send you from here to the Gentiles.
And they listened to him and tell this word. And then they raised their voices and said, away with such a fellow from the earth, for he is not fit to live. Then as they cried out and tore off their clothes and threw dust in the air, the commander ordered him to be brought into the barracks and said that he should be examined under scourging so that he might know why they shouted so against him.
And as they bound him with straps, Paul said to the centurion who stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man who is a Roman and uncondemned? When the centurion heard that, he went and told the commander saying, take care of what you do for this man is a Roman. Then the commander came and said to him, tell me, are you a Roman?
He said, yes. The commander answered, with a large sum, I obtained my citizenship. But Paul said, I was born a citizen. Then immediately those who were about to examine him withdrew from him. And the commander was also afraid after he found out that he was a Roman because he had bound him."
Well, we need to walk ourselves through this. What is this about? What's the best verse to summarize this in? What are we called to do in response to this? So, what's this about? Well, Paul addresses fathers and brothers. And he gives kind of this pattern of where he's born, where he's raised, and where he's educated. This is pretty normal pattern for what is going to be talked about in the Book of Acts. Where is he born? Yeah, he's a Jew from birth. He's not a Greek. He's not a proselyte. He's Jewish from birth. Mother and father. And yes, he's from Tarsus in Cilicia, but where did he spend his formative years? Where did he spend his boyhood? Where did he spend his teenage years? There, right there in Jerusalem. He was not just raised in Jerusalem, the formative influences of his life was not just in Jerusalem, but he was raised at the feet as a disciple of no one else other than Gamaliel. We had come to Gamaliel earlier.
He was one of the writers of the Mishnah. He's one of the founding fathers of modern Judaism. He's one of the chief rabbis, the chief scholars of his time. And he's saying, I sat under his feet. He was zealous towards the law. He was all for their father's understanding of strictness to the adherence of the traditions. And so he uses this language of, you know, I was zealous towards God as you all are today. If we went and we looked at the book of Philippians, you know, he was a Hebrew of Hebrews. He was a Jew of the Jews, a son of Abraham circumcised on the eighth day. As to the law, blameless. He did everything. And not just that, he was even a persecutor of the way. He tore people out of households. He wanted to murder people. He was there at Stephen's stoning, giving consent to what happened that day.
But then he tells of his conversion. when he's walking along that road to Damascus, and the blinding light during the noonday, not noon, it's as bright as it can get, but there's a light that's not from the sun, it's the glory of Jesus Christ, and it blinds him.
And he hears, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Who are you, Lord? I love this. Who does he say in verse eight? I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting. Notice how Jesus associates himself with his people. Paul is persecuting the believers, and yet Jesus says. Saul is persecuting him. And so he's relating this to these as he's on the steps, as he's speaking in Aramaic, the temples right behind these people. And so he speaks of how he was told to go to Damascus and how Ananias had come to him and how he had told him, beginning at verse 14, the God of our fathers has chosen you, that you should know his will. I love how it talks about Jesus here. And see the just one. And see the righteous one. We believe in a righteousness that comes by faith. We are righteous because we receive Christ's righteousness.
And this was the one Paul was now being sent out to be an apostle for, a witness of, one to make disciples for this righteous one. He was going to see Jesus and hear the voice of his mouth. And then he was to be a witness to everything he had seen and heard. And so he asked him, so now why are you waiting?
Ananias just puts him right on the spot. He's like, all right, dude, listen up, man. It's time to be baptized. Have your sins washed away. Whoa, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Push on the brakes, wait a second. Paul was, according to the tradition of his fathers, blameless. And yet he has come face to face with the righteous one. And when he stands before the holy God, the one before the seraphim have to cover their eyes, the one before whom Isaiah has to say, woe is me for I'm a man of unclean lips. When he sees this righteous one, when he sees Jesus, what's the response? You need to be baptized. You need to be washed of your sins. You need to be cleansed of your guilt, because he knows all of a sudden that he's not the righteous one. He needs to be baptized into Christ. He needs to receive Christ. He needs to receive the righteousness that could only come by faith in Christ, calling on the name of the Lord. It's only when we call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that we will be saved.
And so it happens, he came back to Jerusalem, he's in a trance, he's at the temple, and he says that the Lord told him he shouldn't stay there. Not going to receive his testimony. And in Paul's mind, he's kind of debating with the Lord. He says, look, they know who I am. The Jews know that I once persecuted the way I was there at Stephen's death, so it's as if Paul thinks that maybe the people will listen to him and the Lord says no. No. Verse 21, then he said to me, depart for I will send you far from here to the Gentiles, to the ethnoi, to the nations. Paul was an apostle, not by his own choosing, not by any person sending him, but by Jesus Christ himself sending him out.
And it's at this point that the people freak out, flip out, tear their clothes, throw dust in the air, and they're going to kill this dude. Remember, it's a boiling point in Jewish national history. He brought Gentiles into the temple. That's the charge against him, and now he's saying he was the one sent to the Gentiles, sent to the nations, and in their mind this means, this fool did it! And he didn't bring a Gentile into the temple, that was a false charge, but he was sent to the Gentiles. to tell them about the righteous one, to tell them about the just one, to tell them about Jesus Christ. And so the guards are like, OK, we can't do this anymore. So they go and they get him and they drag him into the barracks. They drag him into the Anatolia. They get him inside and they bind him with chains. And they're about to scourge him. And as he's bound in chains, as he's leaning over the log about to be scourged, Paul says to the man next who's over him, he's, you know, is it lawful? Is it lawful? Is it lawful for you to discourage a man who is a Roman and uncondemned? Now, Roman citizenship was a big deal. To claim you had Roman citizenship and didn't, you could die. But this is what Cicero wrote when he was talking about Roman citizenship. He said, to bind a Roman citizen is a crime.
To flog him, an abomination. To slay him, almost a murder. and they had bound him with chains, a crime, and were about to scourge him, an abomination. This had cost the centurion, the commanders, it cost them their necks. If they chained a man who's uncondemned, who's a Roman citizen, and are about to torture him to get information, this is illegal. And it could cost them everything. It could cost them their lives.
And Paul knows what scourging means. They would take these leather straps. and they would sometimes weave knuckle bones into them so when they whipped them on the back it would rip them apart or it might have strands of wire intertied into it or even lead shot in it. So I mean it could maim someone for the rest of their lives or it could even kill them if it was done too harshly.
It's at this point that Paul brings up his Roman citizenship. There's only twice really in the book of Acts where Paul brings up his Roman citizenship once in Acts chapter 16 with the Philippian jailer when they're going to, you know, release him quietly. And he says, hey, no, no, no, I'm a Roman citizen.
You can't do that. You know, you're going to escort me out of the city. And they do. And here, So Paul uses his citizenship every other time he doesn't bring it up. But here he brings it up in these two situations. Not out of pride or anything like that, but he does it so that he's able to escape. A type of danger. And so, you know, the commanders, I had to buy my citizenship, Paul, you know, mine's better. He's from a noble family. He's been a Roman since birth. And they're afraid and they back off. They realize what they've done is wrong and that we're gonna pick up more later about what happens because this isn't the end of Paul's time in chains. He's going to continue to be in chains.
What's the best verse to summarize this section? Well, I got a whole bunch underlined, but I think at the heart of this passage is Ananias' words. The God of our Father has chosen you that you should know His will and see the just one and hear the voice of His mouth for you will be His witness to all men what you have seen and heard and now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins calling on the name of the Lord. I also have underlined the second part of verse 18 as well as verse 21. What are we called to do in response to these words?
Do you stand in awe of the Just One? Do you marvel at the Holy One, Jesus Christ? Do you serve Him with fear and reverence? Do you love Him? Do you follow in His ways? Do you hold to His promises? Have you been washed from His sins? Do you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead? For if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us of all of our sins and to cleanse us from all of our unrighteousness. Do you wear the robes of Jesus's righteousness? Have you been cleansed from your sin? Do you trust and hope in Jesus Christ alone? If that's the case, then you need not be ashamed of the gospel.
For it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also, yes, even to the Gentiles. Because the just shall live by faith. For we have a righteousness that comes by faith. So have faith, believe, stand before the Holy One of God, stand before the righteous one, and find refuge for your soul.
Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day, and we thank you that your good news is going out throughout all the world. We pray that it would be buried deep within our hearts, that we would latch on to Jesus Christ, and we would love you with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We know we don't do that perfectly, Lord, But Father, we thank you for Jesus and his righteousness. We pray that we would follow after you this day, unashamed to be your disciples. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, may the Lord bless you today. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ. May you never be ashamed of the gospel. And I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.
Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith in your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue, Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.