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Then last: Acts 23. Paul has been told by God to go
deliver the Word at Rome. Paul’s not difficult to
figure out when you study him. He considers himself the
most honored of mankind that one as unworthy as he is is
chosen by God to tell the Gentile nations—all ethnic
groups other than Jew—that God didn’t just choose the
Jew to be His family. He also chose out of every ethnic
group, and the world is totally ruled as he knows it by
Rome, and he’s not ashamed of this good news that he’s
proclaiming because it’s the dynamite, “power of God
unto salvation”—and so where’s the most powerful center
of the world ruled by Satan? He, Paul, is gonna take
this dynamite message to the most powerful center of the
then-known world, and that’s his mission and reason for
being. And in getting there, he’s going by Jerusalem to
deliver some gifts he’d garnered along the way for them
and to deliver another testimony there to his brethren
in the flesh, and then he’s gonna go—his brethren the
Jew that he lamented for and would be an apostate
himself if he could, by that, save them; he loved them.
But his message is other ethnic groups and Rome is the
center of it all.
He goes. He gets torn apart by a mob, beaten, rescued
by a Roman guard and then he’s in prison and
conspirators, the word comes to him, have planned a way
to kill him. He’s gonna die in this cell and in the
coldness of that night with his calling and purpose
apparently thwarted and his ministry ended, the Lord
appeared to him and said “As thou has testified of me in
Jerusalem, you’re gonna testify of me in Rome.” I would
add the word, though it’s not in the original, “As
you’ve testified of me in Jerusalem”—because it’s
implied—“no matter what it looks like to you tonight
Paul, I called you, I sent you, you’re still gonna bear
witness in Rome. I’m in charge, not this mob; not even
these Roman guards. In fact, I….” If I wanted to ad
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we know because we know the rest of the story, God’s
gonna use that very Roman imprisonment to carry him to
Rome. But the Lord appears and says “Paul, be of good
cheer.” Whistle in the dark, grin like Pat Robertson,
have a hallelujah fit, laugh for Jesus, blow bubbles for
Jesus. I hope those who preach a caricatured,
watered-down, disgrace-for-a-man kind of Jesus end up in
hell married to one, man or a woman.
‘Traditions have made void the Word of God’ and not the
least of the application of that phrase is making void
the Living Word of God who stepped on the stage of
history. They called Him a ‘winebibber and glutton.’
Not true, but they based it on the fact that He enjoyed
Himself with sinners. In this same chapter’s the call
of Matthew. Matthew was the lowest reprobate sinner in
the view of religious leaders of the day to be found in
that country. He was a sell-out to the Romans, who
collected taxes for the Romans, and made his living by a
surplus he could garner off the top. Nothing was hated
in the Jewish community of Jerusalem more than the tax
collector for Rome—a sell-out. Not a Roman doing it—a
Jew selling out to the Romans making profit off of the
taxes. And Luke has it—Matthew doesn’t tell that
himself—Luke has it, and they call, if you have trouble
sorting it out in some places he’s called Levi; in other
places Matthew—same man, as Simon and Peter—he threw a
party.
Jesus passed by; he’s
sitting at the custom table and Jesus said “Follow me.”
He didn’t say “Well, I gotta arrange my books. I’ve got
certain things I have to do. I have to take this money
and put it in my hiding place,” wherever it is.
“Straightway he forsook his table and followed Jesus.”
A pariah of society, here comes Jesus who wants him to
follow Him, and He didn’t say “Go home Matthew and
disguise yourself till nobody will know who you were,
and hide |
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