This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,
County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
Many commentators as you study these teachings believe that you
know Paul missed the Lord on this situation, as did the
leadership. If he wasn't there, would God
still be able to work without Paul being in Jerusalem?
Of course there was all kind of other believers there.
The movement of God was never completely dependent on one man.
It never has been and never will be.
God uses people for specific times and periods in history,
but eventually we move on. With the 90s Chicago Bulls
completely dependent on Michael Jordan or was it a team effort?
Would Dale Earnhardt senior have won seven NASCAR championships
without his pit crew? You never know how history could
have unfolded if the players had been different.
In today's message, Pastor Clark teaches you that God doesn't
need any one man to accomplish His will, but he works through
those who are available. Are you available to be used by
God? Are you looking for His will to
be done in your life now? Here's Pastor Clark in Acts
Chapter 8 with today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
Philip was translated and This is why he was able to go from
1:00 point in time and space and he was taken to another place
approximately 3035 miles away without having to take any kind
of human transportation. The Holy Spirit got him there.
He ends up in Caesarea where he's eventually going to spend
most of his life in that area to become a servant of the Lord.
And so this is where he ended many years ago, about 2520 years
ago. Of course, didn't wouldn't have
known Paul at that time. Paul was in the process of
persecuting Christians. So now this man had four virgin
daughters who prophesized. Interesting that this man had
godly young daughters or middle-aged daughters.
I don't know how old they were, but these women don't appear.
Doesn't give any history that they had family or marriage or
kids or anything. They were called by God to speak
the truth of God at the time because the Bible wasn't
completely written yet like it is now.
So different people had giftings to talk about spiritual things
and truth. And so they were very anointed
women of God. And it notes this here in in the
Bible and verse 10, as we stayed many days, a certain prophet
named Agabus came down from Judea.
Now, Agabus was the prophet that warned the believers at the time
there was going to be great world famine, predominantly
dealing with the area of Jerusalem.
And that's when Paul had this desire to get an offering
together, to be able to take the money to the church in Jerusalem
to help the people who were struggling with famine.
So Agabus is a gifted prophet. He warned them of the famine.
It came to pass. Here he is showing up again.
When he had come to us, he took Paul's belt, bound his own hands
and feet, and said, Thus says the Holy Spirit, That's pretty
dramatic. So shall the Jews at Jerusalem
bind this man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands
of the Gentiles. That's the second warning that
the apostle Paul got that he shouldn't go to Jerusalem.
Now when he heard these things, both we and those in verse 12
from that place pleaded with him not to go to Jerusalem.
So not only did he hear 2 voices speak the same thing it says in
the mouth the two or three witnesses.
Let something be accomplished or approved or justified.
Paul answers. What do you mean by weeping and
breaking my heart? For I'm ready not only to be
bound, but also to die. Jerusalem for the name of the
Lord Jesus. Now is he have a martyr complex?
I don't know. You got to remember when we
study the Bible, there's only one true, perfect holy person.
His name is Jesus Christ. He's without sin, without air,
without mistakes. Now, we honor the apostles and
prophets, but they're human beings.
They made mistakes. We read about these things at
different times. Peter messed up, you know, and
Paul, you know, he had his own issues with Barnabas and the
falling out with John. Mark wasn't, you know, really a
biblically or a Christian like approach, but here he is right
now. He is so compelled personally
that it's almost like he doesn't want to hear anything anybody
has to say but what he believes the Lord's telling him to do.
What's dangerous about these kind of things in any of our
lives is like, if I as a pastor, decide I'm going to do stuff
independent of my fellow elders, and I say, well, I don't care
what you guys say or think, I believe the Lord wants us to do
this and we're going to do this. I'm in big trouble, right?
We need to have everything checked and the multitude of
counselors. The Bible says there's safety.
And so when we have something we sense God wanting us to do, if
we're not in unison or an agreement, we just don't do it.
No matter how strong I feel or some other leader feels, we got
to have the mind of the Lord and that's how God protects his
church. He has a plurality of
leadership. He doesn't have one person
running the church. Jesus is the head of the church
and then there's a body of believers and then there's
people who ordained to help lead and oversee the flock of God.
But Paul, for some reason here is not standing reason.
He's willing, he says, to go up and go through whatever he feels
he needs to go through. It'd be like me telling you
guys, well, I'm really compelled, you know, by the
Lord. And there's people in North
Korea that need the gospel and I'm going to go over there and
I'm going to go preach in North Korea.
What would you say to me? You're crazy, right?
We just read the documentation here.
As soon as I get off the plane, I don't even have a chance to
talk to anybody. They're taking me to one of
those camps, you know, and probably put a gag on my mouth
or kill me or whatever. I mean, you have to have wisdom
to know where to go and where not to go.
Our country, thank God, understands some of these
nations that they're on the travel advisory.
They're red alert. Don't go to this country because
you're going to risk your life. It's not safe.
And if you just blow by that and say, well, the Lord's going to
protect me, well, maybe he will and maybe you'll get through it.
Maybe you'll be martyred immediately the first day you're
there. It's not good to test the Lord
and put him to foolish test. But anyway, so Paul's, you know,
being emotional here. And so it says in verse 414.
So when he would not be persuaded, we cease saying.
In other words, he didn't listen to the first two people.
He didn't listen to the crowd of people exhorting him, please
don't go. So finally the people say, OK,
the will of the Lord be done and it will be done.
So in verse 15 we continue. And after these days we packed
and went up to Jerusalem. Also some of the disciples from
Caesarea went with us and brought with them a certain
Masson of Cyprus, an early disciple with whom we were to
lodge. So they're up there hanging out
with another brother who's giving them lodging facility
there and helping them. And when he had come to
Jerusalem, Paul, the brethren received us gladly.
On the following day Paul went in with us to James and James
was the overseer of the first among evils, if you may have
that first church in Jerusalem, but he was also with the elders
and he was accountable to. So they had a group of leaders
there. They were present and when he
had greeted them, he told in detail the things which God had
done among the Gentiles through his ministry.
The Paul was primarily A preacher to the lost Gentiles.
That'd be people like us. We're not Jewish, and he would
spend a majority of his time ministering to them and wouldn't
bring in Jewish tradition or culture or any of that kind of
stuff. These issues of Judaism are
presenting a real problem here, and this is what Paul's going to
have to deal with. When he had greeted them, he
told in detail all the things that the Lord had done among the
Gentiles through his ministry. Wasn't Paul was the Lord through
the ministry that the Lord had given Paul?
Verse 20 And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and
they said to him, You see, brother, how many myriads of
Jews there are who have believed, and they are zealous
for the law, that they have been informed about you, that you
teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles who forsake Moses,
saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, nor
walk according to the customs. What then, Question Mark?
Paul never once told any Jewish family that they couldn't
circumcise their kids. Never did he tell them that the
teachings of Moses were obsolete.
What Paul did say though is that they were shadows of things to
come, that circumcision was a picture of baptism and the
teachings of Moses was only pointing toward the ultimate
teacher of the gospel and the real sacrifice for sin that
would come through Jesus Christ and him alone.
So Paul always used his own background as a Jew and
understanding the beauty of some of the tradition that helped
them to understand the new covenant.
The Old covenant wasn't bad. It was a covenant that God
instituted until the new covenant came.
When Jesus Christ died on the cross and said it was finished.
You know, there was no more need for ritual law and sacrifices of
animals to pay for people's sins.
Jesus Christ himself, the Lamb of God, was the only one that
could ultimately pay for our sin and die for our sin.
So he's being accused of things that aren't really legitimate.
And so they're asking him about some of these issues because
he's Judaizers are really causing a problem here and
slandering Paul's ministry and saying that he's telling them to
forget everything about their own heritage.
So what then? Verse 22?
The assembly must certainly meet, for they will hear that
you have come. Therefore do what we tell you.
So they're giving him some direction here as to how to calm
everything down. They say we have 4 men who have
taken a vow. There's a Nazarite vow.
These four guys are going to commit themselves totally to
being under God's authority, to serve Him all the days of their
life, and to commit themselves 100% to being servants of the
Lord. This is a big issue and this is
not something to be taken lightly.
Paul even took a Nazz right vow a while back as a part of a
symbolism of his commitment as a Jewish person to the one true
and living God. And so take them and be purified
with them and pay their expenses so that they may shave their
heads. And that all may know that those
things of which they were informed concerning you are
nothing but that you yourself also walk orderly and keep the
law. So these were traditions of
Jewish people that were still valued and honored by the Jewish
believers. And Paul wasn't trying to
eradicate every part of any kind of worship or symbolism that
Jewish people had because they were brought up differently.
They were brought up through the Old Testament and they
understood the law and the prophets much better than the
Gentiles would have ever understood these things because
they, the law and the prophets were done by Jewish people.
So historically, the majority of the movement of worshipping the
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was a Jewish focus.
It wasn't a Gentile focus or a Pagan focus.
And so as a result, this is what's happening here.
So they're giving Paul this information as to how to deal
with this at the time and they're hoping this will calm
down the waters there of these Jewish people that are all
upset. So he said, the elders did say
in verse 25 though. But concerning the Gentiles who
believe, we have written and decided, and they had decided
this already at the Jerusalem Council.
We studied that a good while back, that they should observe
no such thing. This isn't something for
Gentiles. This is for Jewish believers.
This is their custom. To this day, many Jewish
Christians still are real strong on kosher.
You know, they eat kosher foods. That's what they do.
They don't eat a lot of stuff that we would eat.
And there's nothing wrong with that as long as they don't say
that, well, we're doing this and we're closer to God than you are
because we do this and you don't.
That's where the downfall is. OK, But you respect the
traditions of people for whatever reason they do it, as
long as it's not circumventing the truth of the gospel.
So this was what they told them. This is what they observed.
They don't have to observe this kind of vow kind of system,
except that they should keep themselves from things offered
to idols, from blood and things strangled, and from sexual
immorality. So that was basically all that
was told to us as gentile believers in regard to all these
ritualistic backgrounds of of the Jewish people, that we
wouldn't be intentionally eating anything that would be offered
to an idol. We wouldn't be eating certain
things that were not dealt with properly in regard to the blood
of the animal, and from things strangled in the key from sexual
immorality. So then Paul took the men, and
the next day, having been purified with them, he entered
the temple to announce their expiration of the days of
purification. It was a week at which time an
offering should be made for each of them.
Now when the seven days were almost ended, verse 27 the Jews
from Asia seeing him in a temple stirred up the whole crowd and
laid hands on him crying out men of Israel help.
This is a man who teaches all men everywhere against the
people, the law and this place. And furthermore, he's also
brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled the holy place.
For they had previous seen seen Trumpius the Ephesian with him
in the city whom they suppose that Paul had brought into the
temple. Well, Paul didn't bring any non
Jewish person into the temple. There was no reason really for a
non Jewish person to want to go into the temple.
I mean, it wouldn't relate to us.
And so they had a wall of separation that would be there
to prevent people from entering the temple that weren't fully
Jewish. And Paul didn't stumble anybody.
He didn't bring anybody in there.
But this is what he's being accused of.
So this whole deal, this whole ceremony that the elders and
James recommended Paul do, thinking it would pacify these
people didn't work out. It became a disaster.
And so this again shows us that man at his best point in regard
to leading or thinking they're being LED of the Lord, James and
the elders, it didn't work. And Paul's now being accosted
and arrested, warned not to go to Jerusalem because of this
very thing that he's going to begin to encounter and have to
deal with. Now, many commentators as you
study these teachings believe that, you know, Paul missed the
Lord on this situation, as did the leadership.
If he wasn't there, would God still be able to work without
Paul being in Jerusalem? Of course there was all kind of
other believers there. The movement of God was never
completely dependent on one man. It never has been and never will
be. God uses people for specific
times and periods in history, but eventually we move on and
most of us won't even be remembered a year after we're
gone. Some of the great men that we
have commentaries from in the past that lived solid lives for
the Lord, that helps us stay on course with the truth of the
word of God. They're remembered for their
names and their testimony and their lives, but they're not
here anymore. You know, any way we can hear
from them is through radio broadcasts or books that we
have. Whatever.
And thank God for that. But Paul in this situation was
in a bind, and it was going to create a lot of problem.
He was going to be in prison for two years in Jerusalem and three
years in Rome because of this. Now, in retrospect, what could
he have done? He could have listened to the
people when they warned him and there was enough evidence why he
shouldn't go there. And he could have gone to some
other region and been free to minister, right?
I mean, but now he's got to spend the all these years in
prison. And that wasn't a pleasant
experience. Now, God worked it out.
He wrote the prison epistles. And, you know, he did witness
while he was in prison. But it's much better to be free,
to be able to move around than to be isolated.
And so that's something you can, you know, consider and think
about in regard to, you know, how God works in your life.
You know, this city is all uptight.
It's disturbed. Now in verse 30, the people run
together, they seize Paul, they drag him out of the temple.
Immediately the doors are shut. Now they're seeking to kill him.
News came to the commander of the Garrison that all Jerusalem
was in an uproar. He immediately took soldiers and
centurions and ran down to them. And when they saw the commander
and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul.
Then the commander came near and took him and commanded him to be
bound with two chains. Prophecy came fulfilled from
Agamus. Now he's being chained.
His hands were locked together, and he asked who he was and what
he had done. And some among the multitude
cried one thing and some another.
So when he could not ascertain the truth because of the tumult,
he commanded him to be taken into the barracks.
When he reached the stairs, he had to be carried by the
soldiers because of the violence of the mob, for the multitude of
the people followed after crying out away with him.
And then as Paul was about to be LED into the barracks, he said
to the commander, May I speak to you?
He replied, Can you speak Greek? Are you not the Egyptian who
some time ago stirred up a rebellion and LED the 4000
assassins out into the wilderness?
They're mixing Paul up with some other false guy.
But Paul said, I am a Jew from Tarsus and Cilicia, a citizen of
no means city, and I implore you permit me to speak to the
people. So when he had given his
permission, Paul stood up in the chair on the stairs and tension
with his hand to the people. And when there was a great
silence, he spoke to them in the Hebrew language saying, and
we'll pick that up in chapter 22, where he's going to give his
testimony of how at one time he was one who persecuted the
church, hated Christians. Obviously he was responsible for
the martyrdom of Stephen. He endorsed that held the coats
of those who threw the stones at Stephen, the first martyr in the
New Testament. So whenever you're in a
situation that is perhaps misunderstood, you have family,
you have a wife, you have a husband, you have children, you
have brothers and sisters and that kind of thing, and you're
very convinced about something, but they aren't.
That doesn't mean that God isn't at work directing you, but at
the same time in humility, you need to hear people out and you
need to consider what people say because God puts people in your
life to help you and that help you have wisdom and make right
kind of decisions, right? And then you pray and you say,
OK Lord, please clarify to me what is your will?
There's a proverb that says how can two walk together except
they'd be agreed. It's nothing more beneficial, I
found out in my own life than to be able to have the unity of my
wife and any decisions I make whenever I don't have unity with
her. It's not a good thing.
Never worked out. She's never come to me.
So we, I think maybe one time she said, yeah, you were right
that time, one time. So most of the time you were
totally off base, right. So, you know, even though the
husband's supposed to be the head of the house, that doesn't
mean he's a dictator. He's someone who facilitates,
hopefully, the leadership of the family toward the things of God,
that the wife is in the family as well.
We're heirs together, the grace of life, Peter says, and we're
to submit to one another and the fear of the Lord.
It tells us in Ephesians that we might find the will of God
together. So Cindy and I, when we are up
against things and we're not real sure about what to do or
how to handle something, we talk about it, we pray about it.
Sometimes we argue about it. You know, we fight about it.
And then we come back and humble ourselves and pray and, and we
listen. And it's always good to have
unity in the decision making process, especially in a
marriage and in the home, but also in the church.
And I just want to assure you guys, when you come here, I'm
not running this Church of the Lord's running the church.
And I lead it with other guys who are also responsible to help
lead it so that we do the best we can with what God has given
to us to do for your benefit and for the glory of God.
So please pray for us, you know, and if you guys are ever dealing
with something, you need some encouragement with her, her
counsel. We're always here to not to tell
you what to do, but at least give you another opinion, right?
It's good to have another opinion sometimes.
Sometimes, you know, the doctor gives you a diagnosis and what
are you going to do to say, OK, I guess you know, he knows, you
know, I got a second opinion, maybe a third opinion, you know,
So it's, it's always good to do that to make sure you're making
the right decision. Amen.
Let's pray. Father God, we thank you, Lord,
for this time now that we can celebrate you and remember what
you've done for us on the cross. Lord, your precious death and
how you died for our sins according to the Scriptures, how
you were buried, how you rose again the third day according to
the Scriptures. And that Lord, you were seen by
over 500 witnesses after your resurrection and even revealed
yourself physically to Paul as one of the apostles.
And Lord, there's much for us to learn in these scriptures in
regard to hearing your voice and knowing your will and not
arbitrarily just doing what we think we should do, but getting
godly counsel, especially when it has to do with things that
could cause danger or cause problem, unnecessary conflict.
Well, we're thankful that you wrote the scriptures in such a
way that we could see the humanists and the leaders.
We could see the fallenness at times.
We could see the sin even, and some of the greatest people that
have walked the face of the earth.
For you, Lord, all of us have feet of clay and only you alone.
Our God, our trust is in you. Lord, we're not to trust a man.
You tell us to trust in You with all of our heart and not lean
into our understanding and all our ways.
Acknowledge You and you'll direct our paths.
We're thankful, Lord, that you give us wisdom.
You tell us if any of us lack wisdom, we can ask of You and
you'll give it to us. You won't hold it back.
You tell us, Lord, the multitude of counselors there is safety.
Thank you, Lord, for writing these things down for us to read
and to obey and to listen to so we don't have to be fools, Lord,
trying to run our lives based upon our own opinions.
We're going to follow your leading Holy Spirit.
We're going to be LED of You, and we want to have that godly
support and council of others you surround us with, especially
in our homes, Lord, with our spouses.
Amen. Thank you for listening to this
edition of Living Waters of Grace.
Pastor Clark is teaching us about the book of Acts in this
series. Acts is a powerful and unique
part of Scripture, not just because it records the spread of
the Gospel geographically from Jerusalem to the ends of the
earth, but also culturally. Acts shows us how the message of
Jesus moved beyond its Jewish roots and began to reach the
Gentile world. What started with Peter leading
a small group in the Upper Room became a global movement with
Paul taking the gospel to cities, synagogues, and
marketplaces across the Roman Empire.
Acts captures this vital transition and reminds us that
the good news of Jesus is for all people in every place.
May we be inspired to carry that same gospel boldly into our
world today. Living Waters of Grace comes to
you from Calvary Chapel, Westmoreland.
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