Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev19980823.htm

ACTS: THE LOCAL CHURCH AS GOD'S AGENCY FOR DISCIPLING MEN
Part LI: Understanding And Functioning In Times Of God-Permitted, Relentless Misrepresentation
(Acts 21:15-23:11)
  1. Introduction
    1. Being negatively, relentlessly misrepresented is hard. It is even tougher to understand why God permits it.
    2. God has purposes in allowing misrepresentations to occur, and illustrates for us what those purposes are and how we are to function in such times in Acts 21:15-23:11 as follows:
  2. Understanding And Functioning In Times Of God-Permitted, Relentless Misrepresentation.
    1. Before Paul entered Jerusalem, God revealed that trouble was ahead, Acts 20:22-23. He was ready for it!
    2. Now, when Paul arrived, knowing trouble awaited him, he tried his best to do righteousness:
      1. By meeting with the Jerusalem elders, Paul sought to engender fellowship with Christians, 21:15-20a.
      2. He also sought to heed the Christian elders' suggestion to gain more unity amongst Jewish believers:
        1. As the Jerusalem Christian elders reported to Paul, some Jewish believers had concluded that Paul strictly forbade Jewish believers from observing Jewish customs in his stand on the Law, Acts 21:20b
        2. This misrepresented Paul who held believers to be only no longer bound by the law, Gal. 3:11-14.
        3. The elders proposed Paul reveal his tolerance of Jewish customs for Jews by entering the temple, stating his doing so would not counter their Acts 15 ruling releasing Gentiles from the law, 21:22-25.
        4. Well, concerned about unifying Jewish and Gentile converts, Paul heeded the elders' advice, 21:26.
    3. Yet, misrepresentation on another issue led to Paul's getting into a riot in the temple, 21:27-36:
      1. While in the temple to pay Nazarite vows, a group saw Paul, and errantly assumed he had brought an uncircumcised Gentile into a forbidden court area, Acts 21:27-29. This created an uproar, 21:30-31.
      2. Accordingly, as the Spirit of God had previously predicted, Paul was bound by Gentiles, Acts 21:32-36.
    4. In the uproar, Paul's effort to diffuse the riot by addressing the Roman captain who arrested him almost led to further trouble as the captain assumed Paul was an Egyptian insurrectionist, Acts 21:37-38.
      1. Paul addressed the Roman captain in Greek to get an audience to find release, Acts 21:37a.
      2. Hearing Paul speak Greek, and having seen the mob complain that Paul had brought a Gentile into the temple, the captain wondered if Paul was really a noted Egyptian outlaw who had recently led a group uprising only to disappear without a trace, Acts 21:37b-38, Ryrie Study Bib., KJV, ftn. to Acts 21:38.
    5. Paul kept working to diffuse misrepresentations, but his efforts kept backfiring, Acts 21:39-23:10:
      1. Paul said he was a Tarsus Jew, explaining his fluency in Greek, and asked to address the crowd, 21:39.
      2. When this persuaded the captain to let Paul speak to settle the crowd, Paul used Hebrew, the beloved Jewish language, to build rapport with the people and at first settle them down, Acts 21:40.
      3. This worked (Acts 22:1-2) until his address testifying of his call to the ministry mentioned his being sent by Christ to the Gentiles. The riot broke out again, but this time with a vengeance, Acts 22:3-21,22.
      4. Paul escaped flogging at the hands of the soldiers by mentioning he was born a Roman citizen, 22:23-29
      5. To get more facts, the captain brought Paul unto the sanhedrin, Acts 22:30. Well, that only led to another misunderstanding, this time on Paul's part, a consequent effort by Paul to avoid trouble as a result and another riot as an aftermath of his whole effort in the sanhedrin to avoid trouble, 23:1-10.
    6. Accordingly, Christ appeared in a vision, encouraging Paul that the fray had fulfilled His plan for Paul to testify in Jerusalem, and paved the way to do so again in Rome, 23:11. Thus, Paul's goal formed in Acts 19:21 to evangelize in Jerusalem and in Rome would be fulfilled through this difficult Jerusalem situation!
Lesson: (1) Since the DEVIL is a slanderer (the meaning of the Greek word diabolos = "devil"), Satan can create many misrepresentation situations for believer to get us humanly restricted in ministry. (2) However, as signaled BEFORE Paul came to Jerusalem, GOD KNOWS and may ALLOW Satan's slanderous activity to go unchecked as THROUGH it He can even overrule in Satan's efforts to open doors to ministry advance. In Paul's case, that meant evangelizing at the temple before an attentive throng only to travel to Rome to evangelize. (3) Thus, (a) get READY for the conflict by God's WARNINGS ahead of it, and (b) practice righteousness in it , (c) trusting God to overrule in the ensuing trial. (d) In the messy fray, look to God for encouragement as Paul did!