Acts 24:1-9

I got my main man here with me this morning. Today we start Acts chapter 24. Why don't we have some? Well, we tend to say the intro, don't we? Good morning and welcome to Coffee and Devotion. 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 from the book of That's right, well not fight Lehman's by Lehman, right? He's a man. So it's one person fighting Lehman. Yeah. Well, why don't we have some coffee? Yeah, no, you got chalk, but I gotta grab my glasses over here and We are at Acts chapter 24, the first 9 verses this morning. Acts chapter 24, the first 9 verses. Do you want to read the first one? Now after five days, Ananias the high priest came down with the elder and assorted orator named Tertullus. These gave evidence to the governor against Pope and when he was called upon, Tertullius, became his accusation.
Seeing that through you we enjoy great peace and prosperity. Prosperity is being brought to Felix. to this nation by your full foresight. Accept it always and in all places. Most noble, noble I beg. most noble felix with all thankfulness nevertheless not to be tedious to you any further i beg you to hear my courtesy a few here by your courtesy a few words from us for we have found what Rolled. Having a hard time jumping lines, huh? Do you want to use my glasses? Yeah. We have found this man.
A. Plague. A creator of dissension among all the Jews throughout the world. And a ringleader of sect. Of the sect. I made your eyes water a little bit. A ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.
He even tried to profane the temple, and we seized him and wanted to judge him according to our law. But the commander, Elysius, came by with great violence, took him out of our hands, commanding his accusers to come to you by examining him yourself. You may say all of these things of which we accuse him and the Jews also Assented yeah, I mean Maintain team maintaining that these things were so all right well We need to ask ourselves three questions. What are they? A, what is this about? B, what is the meaning? What is the best verse to summarize? And C, what are we called to do? All right, so what is this about?
So Paul has been arrested. He's been taken to Caesarea Maritima. And now the Jewish leaders are coming and they're giving their case before Felix, the governor. Do you know what an orator is? Nope. An orator is somebody who's trained at speaking eloquently or trained at speaking well. Yeah, often in the ancient world, they're the lawyers of the day. So they send, so it's not just the high priest who comes, it's not just the elders who come, but instead of all of them talking, they have a certain orator named Tertullus.
He's the one who comes. And here it comes again. What type of stuff does he say to the governor, Felix? He's bringing another Journal of Religions. He's not supposed to be here. Things like that. Well, not necessarily he's bringing in other religions, but he's of a sect. The sect of the Nazarenes. Isn't that interesting? These people are Jewish, and they think that Christianity at this point isn't a different religion than Judaism, but they see it as a sect. A sect. A sect is like a... Pot.
Apart, but it's like an offshoot of something So a sect might be like yeah, they're they're kind of like Jewish But you kind of believe some weird stuff and the rest of us don't And so there were other sects during this time, like there was a sect of Essenenes. So these really radical Jewish people who lived down in the mountains and they had all these really intense purity cults and stuff like that. Purifying cults. And so they mainly were down by the Red Sea. And so they're saying, oh, this Paul, he's one of them. This Paul, he's kind of talking like them. But here's the main thing he says. He says, for we have found this man a plague. Does that sound very good about Paul? Nope. No. Do we like plagues? Nope. No, the coronavirus was like a plague. And it's no bueno, no good, right?
And so he says, we found him a plague and here's the main charge. A creator of dissension among all the Jews throughout the whole world and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. What's a ringleader? Meaning he's the one who's like their chief head. He's one of the people who's leading them around. Now is it true that Paul's the leader of the Christians? Yep. Yeah. Who is the Nazarene that they're talking about? Who's from Nazareth? Paul. Jesus. yeah so they're not calling it the way they're not calling them Christians here they're calling them the Nazarenes because they follow Jesus who is from Nazareth so they say he's a he's one of the leaders of the people of this religious sect and the main charge of this is is that he's a creator of dissension do you know what that means a creator of dissension I know it has something to do with pulling apart. Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
He's causing strife. He's pulling people apart. He's causing trouble. Do the Romans like trouble? No. Or do they like things in order? They like things in order. If you look at their armies, it's not planned out. They're going down. That's right. And so this is a big charge that they're leveling against Paul. They're saying he's causing problems.
And there's already been all sorts of problems in Jerusalem, all sorts of almost war. The Romans are really, really, really keen on this. They do not want war in Jerusalem. They want it to be, they're always at war in Jerusalem. There's always fighting in Jerusalem. There's no peace in that place.
And so they say that Lysias, the commander, when Paul had come in with the four Jewish guys, they said, he came in too quick. We're going to take care of this, Paul. We're going to take care of the problem ourselves. And then the commander came, stole him away from us. And now he's forcing us to make these, to come in. And do this.
Oh, I just realized that only one microphone was on. I hope everybody's been able to hear this well. Well, that's OK. So. So he took him by violence out of our hands, and now he's made the accusers all come up here. And so everybody agrees with this. What do you think is the best verse to summarize this?
Let's go ahead and underline. Was my mic off? I think your mic was on and my mic was off. Yeah, I think in my Bible I'm I would underline verse 5 for we have found this man a plague Creator of dissension among all the Jews throughout the world and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes. I Think that's what I would underline. Would you underline that or would you underline something else?
I Think that's Main Okay, well now we have to get to the harder thing what do you think how do you think this applies to our life Well if we think about the chapter that came just before this I Jesus tells Paul, be of good cheer, Paul, for you have testified for me in Jerusalem.
So you must also bear witness at Rome. Is God sending Paul to Rome? Yep. He's sending him there. And so, uh, is God in charge of even what's going on here? Yeah. Right. Even this is the Lord's going to use now. There's another thing. The other thing I would say is, are some of these things true? Is Paul a leader of the Christians? Yeah. So he's a leader of the Nazarenes? Yeah.
He's an apostle, right? He's an elder. He's one of the ones that Jesus sent out to proclaim this message. So is he taking this message to all the Jewish people all over the world? Yeah, everywhere he goes does he go to the Jews and then does he go to the Gentiles? Yeah, so he's doing this stuff all the time but Is he telling lies and creating dissension or is he telling the truth?
So who's who are the ones who's really creating dissension Please High Priest Paul didn't even do what they said. He didn't they said that he brought a Gentile into the courts of the temple Paul didn't do that So what initially sparked all of this Paul didn't even do that thing So you see it when somebody gives their just their opinion about something and We need wisdom to understand the whole.
And we shouldn't be surprised as Christians when people twist the truth, bend the truth. They say evil things about us. They testify against us because did they do that against Jesus? That's what Jesus said. Don't be surprised when they persecute you and they throw you into prison. When you tried, if they did it to me, they'll do it to you also. Yep. So, that's kind of scary though, isn't it? Could you imagine being thrown into prison for your faith? Well, can you have like a free thing of faith? Well, in America you can. Well, I mean like, like in world, could you have?
So if it was if Paul was just a normal citizen Yeah, I'm sorry. Paul was just a normal person. Yes, but he was a Roman citizen So I'm gonna try to clear my throat here for a second. Sorry everybody online So if Paul was just a normal Jewish person, yeah, but because he's because he's a Roman citizen, he has certain rights. If he wasn't a Roman citizen, they just say, oh, OK, just judge him according to your own law. That's what they did with Jesus. That's what they tried to do with Jesus. But. With Paul, he's a Roman citizen, so are they allowed to just do that?
No. So if you let's say became a missionary And you went someplace like Saudi Arabia or North Korea, yeah, could they throw you into prison Yeah, and would you have any rights no because you would you be a citizen of that country I Nope, so maybe today could we pray for the missionaries? Let's let's pray for two things Let's pray for the missionaries And let's pray for people who are in in jail right now because of their faith. Did you know that there's Christians in jail right now?
There's a pastor named Wang Yi. He's a pastor in China And I think right now I think he's at like year two and a half, maybe something like that of a nine year prison sentence. You want to know his, his, uh, sentence, why he was thrown in jail because he was seditious. He was causing dissension. China's a communist government.
And the only Christian church allowed is a three-self church. And he was a pastor of a non-registered church. And he wouldn't stop preaching Jesus Christ. And he wouldn't... Man, I got stuff in my throat today. And he wouldn't allow people to tell him what he could and couldn't preach.
So let's go ahead and pray. God, we pray. How about you pray for the people in prison and I'll pray for the missionaries. You start. God, please help the people in prison. Please help. Not even the people in prison, please help any of the people that are suffering for their faith in other countries.
Please help. them to not stop believing in their faith, because Jesus said that he would get prosecuted, why shouldn't they? And they were going to get prosecuted. But Jesus also said that they should stand strong, in Jesus' name. Father we do pray for the missionaries. We pray that you would give them strength. Pray that you would give them endurance. Pray that they would not be ashamed or afraid of the gospel. For it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. To the Jew first and also to the Greek. So God please give them strength. Give them endurance. Let them endure suffering and persecution for your name's sake in Jesus' name. Amen. May the Lord bless you today. May you walk in the joy and peace of Jesus Christ, and I'll see you tomorrow. Bye. You want to press the outro button?
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.