Bible Guys Classics: Acts 21 Part 1

Well, Jeff, today Paul pulls a Willie Nelson, does he Yeah,

because he's back on the road again.

Okay, he's heading on the way to Jerusalem. Is that right?

Yes?

Okay, So he's Chris and I'm Jeff and we're the

Bible guys. I just can't wait to get back on

the road again.

Yeah, Jeff, there you go.

Yeah right, Okay, So, hey, today we have a very

special segment. I don't know that we've done this segment before,

and I'm super excited about it. I'm super excited about it.

It's called said.

I just found out a minute ago that Jeff's the

one has putting me on the spot.

That's right. So it's a who said it? And what

I'm going to do is I'm going to read some

Bible quotes and you have to guess who in the

Bible said so much pressure. Well, you're one of the

Bible guys. Well this one.

I'm hoping that they chose ones that are semi obvious.

Yes, right, though, Well, in Sunday School, the answer always

was Jesus Moses, right right, Peter chose to Abraham. Those

were kind of the four answers. So yeah, anyways, I

can promise you. Here we go. That's not those aren't

the answers? Here we go? The first one, who is

the Lord that I should obey his voice?

That's the whole quote.

Well, it goes up, Leave my people, go worship the Lord,

Take your flocks and herds and go?

Can you shait again?

Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice? Up?

Leave my people, go worship the Lord, Take your flocks

and herds and go.

That's uh Pharaoh talking to most Pharaoh.

There you go. If I hadn't told you to take

your flocks and herds and go, it would admit it hard.

Because I know what the heck you read the first part?

I want the audience.

I said, who is the Lord that I should obey

his voice?

Okay? Anybody who said that?

No, that only comes up just Pharaoh. But okay, okay.

There's no context in that.

Okay, here you go. This one has no context. Will

you indeed sweep away the righteous and the wicked? That

Abraham or Abraham? There a lot very good and you're

killing them. That's the one. I'm not sure I would

have gotten, to be honest. Good job on that one. Oh,

this is an easy one. Oh Lord, I'm not very

good with words. I never had been, and I'm not.

Oh yeah, yeah, that's Moses. He was arguing, saying he

had all these problems.

Remember I told you most of the answers in Sunday

School or Abraham Moses, Oh.

Yeah, yeah, but the Pharaoh one. Without the context, I

wouldn't have got the Pharaoh one.

Don't you fear God even when you've been sentenced to die?

Jes Don't you fear God even when you've been sentenced

to die? Is that can maybe kidniser?

Oh? Who are the answers? What are the Bible answers

in Sunny School? A Jesus okay, yeah, almost almost, Jesus

getting close.

Almost Jesus the Holy yeah yeah yeah no, no, no, no,

not the Father.

He was very close to Jesus.

Very close to Jesus. Yes, uh Jesus yeah yeah.

Oh man, so uh there were it was Jesus and

two other guys.

Oh Jesus, uh uh, it would be Peter and uh

okay James.

John No, no, no, Jesus and two other guys were

in a very unique situation. Everybody else was watching them.

Two angels, no thinking of the resurrection.

Yeah, well, you're getting really close. It's not the resurrection,

but it's the what's right before the resurrection.

The oh, two guys is a thief on the Christ.

There you go, you go, there you go. When you

say close to Jesus, you're talking about you're talking about physically,

like in proximity. I was thinking like, oh, he's such

a good friend of it.

So we got you there, we got you right. Okay,

here's the last one. And this was a tricky one, Daniel.

I've come here to give you insight and understanding. The

moment you began praying, a command was given.

That's the angel, right, Yeah, which angel? Oh, it says

the name of the angel says it? Well, just guess,

I'll guess Gabriel.

Gabriel. Yeah, he's always the messenger. That's right, That's right.

All right, Yeah, very good. So remember he mentioned this

is one of those passages that blows my mind about prayer. Right,

Dani's been praying for what twenty something days, and Gabriel

shows up and says, the day you began praying, God

sent the answer, but this demon stopped it. And so

I had God sent Michael the archangel to fight that demon,

and here, I am to tell you this this information, right,

it's just it's phenomenal, that's right. Yeah, that's just great, amazing,

So good job man. So you were easily four out

of five. Yeah, and with just a little bit of

help you.

Got fire like nine answers to get to the thief

on the gross.

That was great.

It was fun.

That's a fun one.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, for desiree who's listening,

who makes up these show sheets, Yeah yeah, if you're

gonna stump Jeff choose like really obscure, really hard.

Yeah yeah, yeah, great, thank you. I'll fail every one

of them. I'll go zero for five as well. So hey,

before we get into the passage here, just share, share

us with your friends, share us on your social media.

Oh see, just let everybody know that we're doing this.

And every week, it seems like every month, there seems

to be an increase in followers and people that are

paying attention, and it's expanding the opportunity maybe to make

an impact on people.

So yeah, and if you're listening on YouTube, we always

love comments and feedback. We always love people cooking, like

just because again it just helps our metrics.

That's right. And when we did the big Connect Night,

which we have another Connect Night coming up pretty soon.

Right, yeah at our church.

But when we did Yeah here to Church, when we

did the Bible Guys Live, I mentioned that we always

they're telling people to share and to like us, right

to subscribe, and yet what we what we know as

the stats say that fifty six percent of the people

who watch us on YouTube have not yet subscribed. So

do it.

Wow, they're not yet subscribed.

I know, that's what I said.

So how do you subscribe? You have the budges, you.

Know, go to the Bible Guys on YouTube and just

click subscribe. It's a button rate there. It's super easy.

Oh, it's it.

Literally, it takes this much that much work.

Just just think it.

All you have to do is just do it.

Well, you did it three times? Are you sore? I know?

I know. I'm worn now I'm exhausted. Or maybe fifty

six percent of the people who watch us go, I'm

not subscribing to that junk.

That's true.

That might be it too, that's true. So anyways, let's

move on. So today we are continuing in the Book

of Acts. So if you're new with us, what we've

been doing is going through the Book of Acts. And

then when we get to a spot in the Book

of Acts where Paul paused to write a letter, maybe

he was in prison, or maybe he was traveling or whatever,

we would pause and then go through that letter and

deal with it in that context. So now we are

in fifty five a d. Fifty four to fifty five AD.

He has written the Book of Romans, and now he's

we're back into his travels. So we finished up the

Book of Romans. Now he's back in his travels. And

the last episode that we did he was talking to

the elders from Ephesus. And then here we go in

Acts chapter twenty one. After saying farewell to the Ephesian elders,

we sailed straight to the island of Kosts. The next

day we reached Rhodes and then went on to Patara.

There we boarded a ship sailing for Phoenicia. We sighted

the island of Cypress, passed it on our left, and

landed at the harbor of Tire in Syria, where the

ship was to unload his cargo. We went ashore, found

the local believers and stayed with them a week. These

believers prophesied through the Holy Spirit that Paul should not

go on to Jerusalem. When we returned to the ship

at the end of the week, the entire congregation, including

women and children, left the city and came down to

the shore with us. There we knelt, prayed, and set

our farewell. Then we went aboard and we returned home.

The next stop after leaving Tyre was Ptolemay, where we

greeted the brothers and sisters and stayed for one day.

The next day we went on to Cesarea and stayed

at the home of Philip the Evangelist, one of the

seven men who'd been chosen to distribute food. He had

four unmarried daughters who had the gift of prophecy. Several

days later, a man named Agabus, who also had the

gift the prophecy, he arrived from Judea. He came over,

took Paul's belt and bound his own feet in hands

with it, and then he said, the Holy Spirit declares,

so shall the owner of this belt be bound by

the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem and turned over to the Gentiles.

When we heard this, we and the local believers all

begged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem, but he said,

why all this weeping, You're breaking my heart. I'm ready

not only to be jailed in Jerusalem, but even to

die for the sake of the Lord Jesus. When it

was clear that we couldn't persuade him, we gave up

and said the Lord's will be done. After this, we

packed our things and left for Jerusalem. Some believers from

Cesarea accompanied us, and they took us to the home

of Nason, a man originally from Cyprus and one of

the early Believers. When we arrived, the brothers and sisters

in Jerusalem welcomed us warmly. The next day, Paul went

with us to meet with James and all the elders

of Jerusalem which were present. After greeting them, Paul gave

a detailed account of the things God accomplished among the

gentiles through his ministry. After hearing this, they praised God,

and then they said, you know, dear brother, how many

thousands of Jews have also believed, and they all followed

the Law of Moses very seriously. But the Jewish believers

here in Jerusalem have been told that you are teaching

all the Jews who live among the gentiles to turn

their backs on the Laws of Moses. They've heard that

you teach them not to circumcise their children or follow

other Jewish customs. What should we do? They'll certainly hear

that you have come.

Just through twenty one, and I just.

Finished it twenty two. It was a bonus material. Yes,

I was giving bonus material. Freuche for it, extra rut there.

I like to just give our listeners even more than

they expected from them.

It's like when you go to five guys, they lived

up the fries and it goes, it overflows and there's

even fries at the bottom of the bag.

Yeah. Actually my notes to say that we were supposed

to go to verse twenty five. Ah, so you're cheating

them by four. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah a storyline. I

finished it in just a second. Both doesn't want you

to have all you deserve, listeners. That's what I want

to point. That's right, he says, what should we do?

They'll certainly hear that you've come. Here's what we want

you to do. We have four men here who have

completed their vow. Go with them to the temple and

join them in the purification ceremony, paying for them to

have their heads ritually shaved. Then everyone know that the

rumors are all false and that you yourself observe the

Jewish laws. As for the gentile believers, they should do

what we already told them in a letter. They should

havebstained from eating food offered to idols, from consuming blood

or the meat of strangled animals, and from sexual immorality.

And that's where he ended it.

Yeah, sexual immorality. Yeah, that's a good.

Well, avoid eating meat strangled and offered to idols.

Yeah, so you know why I get confused because it's

acts twenty one. So in my brain, I was like,

you have to stop at verse twenty one. That's what

it was.

Yeah, you had that look on your face though, for

the people who are watching and not just listening it

to look on your face like Jeff, when if you're

going to shut up? That that was kind of the book.

Now that only happens on Sundays.

Yeah, so hey, say hey, by the way.

I thought what you said on last Sunday it was

so funny. You were poking fun at me, you know,

because you're teasing me. We tease each other. Yes, And

I'm in I'm in the I'm in that crowd.

By the way, it goes on nostine.

I'm in the crowd, and you said something about you

and me speaking or something, and you said, you know,

as wonderful as I am, and oh, because you were

talking about don't just trust the preachers, trust the Bible. Right.

We was talking about the Brians, how they went and

looked to see what the if y'all said was true

in the Bible.

Yes, and so it's always fact check any preacher. That's

what you were trying to say. That's what you were saying, right,

And then you said you go as wonderful as I

am and as hard as Chris tries. I thought that

was so funny. It just flowed out of your mouth

like just like like you like you were working on

that all morning.

Yeah, No, I wasn't. It just came out.

It was very funny.

I don't know that. So I only said that in

that service that you were in, so we for our

listeners that didn't know, we do three identical services every weekend,

but it was the one that you were in. It

was the one I said that in here.

Yeah, So I thought about standing up and shouting something back,

which would have been funny.

I would have had the ushers remove you.

Yeah, it's so funny.

That's funny. So here we are fifty five a d.

He's kind of coming to the end and and I

think there's there's a couple of interesting things here. At

the beginning, he has these prophecies, multiple prophecies, don't go

to Jerusalem. You're going to be arrested, they're going to

hand you over to the gentiles, you're going to be killed. Right,

that's pretty big. But the amazing one was where it says.

Uh, these believers verse four, these believers prophesied through through

the Holy Spirit that Paul should not go on to Drew,

and he goes on to Jerusalem.

And so does this mean Paul was disobeying the Holy Spirit?

Well, I think he only went to Jerusalem because he

felt like God wanted them to.

Yeah. So then I mean that's an interesting phrase then

that this is the Holy Spirit saying don't go on

to Jerusalem. And so I'll be honest with you, I've

read that half a dozen times, dozens of times probably,

but probably a half a dozen times. I thought, So,

what's the deal, Paul. If somebody prophesied don't go in

the Holy Spirit, right, what do you do? So then

this is the first time I've ever noticed this. You know,

we love to use the Life application study Bible. I

think these notes are great. And the note for verse

four it literally says did Paul disobey the Holy Spirit?

Which I thought was funny because that's always my question

when I get to that spot. It says, no more

likely the Holy Spirit warned these believers about the suffering

that Paul would face in Jerusalem. They do. They drew

the conclusion that he should not go there because of

that danger. Acts twenty one, ten and twelve support this.

The local believers have hearing that Paul would be turned

over the Romans begging him to turn back. So they're

begging him to turn back. So the prophecy was You're

going to be turned over. Paul's confidence later on in

this chapter goes, hey, I'm willing to die for christ

Ione to go in chains. He'd already been arrested a

bunch of times, has already been beaten, he'd already risked

his life many times. So he's like, I'm not afraid

of this that's happening, and I'm convinced I'm supposed to go.

But the believers they also heard the same thing. Bad

things are going to happen to you. But and so

then their interpretation was you shouldn't go, But Paul knew

he was supposed to go.

So my question for you is this, have you ever

been in a situation because I think he used to

minister like gangs in Central PARKI yeah, yeah, right in Chicago,

in Chicago. So have you ever been in a situation

where you felt like this is what God wanted you

to do and it was dangerous? Oh yeah, and you

did it anyway. Yeah, So, like, give us a fun story,

because that's actually pretty inspiring because for a lot of us,

we have a hard time even speaking up because we

think it's going to make somebody feel uncomfortable. That's the

amount of danger we shy away.

Yeah yeah, yeah. Right back when I was in my twenties,

I worked for a while with a ministry that served

gang members on the northwest side of Chicago, and there

was a kind of a war going on. Then A

and the channel A and E had used to have

a TV show called Gangland, and they had an entire

episode all about what was happening while I was there

in the early nineties, and so it was the Cholos,

the Insane Latin Disciples, the Latin Kings were fighting quite

a bit, and then they bordered up against some of

the African American gangs were raped just to the south.

So they would fight there and over and over and

over again. We had guys that were getting killed and things.

But every week we'd pack up. We'd be there all

day Saturday, all day Sunday, late into Monday morning and engaging.

And there were a lot of times where we would

all of a sudden either have some kind of word

would come to us, or somebody would tell us, Hey,

this is going to go down and this is going

to be really bad, and we would kind of pull back,

especially a lot of the young women that were working

on our ministry. We would say, hey, maybe this is

the week that you guys just take the week off.

Why don't you pray? Why don't you because we're not

sure what's going to happen. And on more than one occasion,

there was a lot of violence, a lot of bad things.

We never had any of the people in our ministry.

One time somebody got hurt, but beyond that, it was

mostly you know, gang related. They weren't targeting us, but

being in a situation where you know, there were shootings

and stabbings and you know, we lost I probably lost

eight or ten young teenagers that I knew that were killed.

You know, we'd be at the hospital with the parents

and things. So, yeah, danger happens, and sometimes you know,

a message will come, hey, watch out, and then you

have to weigh this, you know, is God telling me

don't go? Or is God just telling me be careful?

And most of the time we had a sense that

God was just saying, you know, be careful.

Yeah, So that's really interesting because you know, sometimes God

calls us to do things that are risky. You know,

they have a penalty, they have a high cost, right,

and sometimes it could not necessarily be the most safe environment, right. Yeah.

Yeah, sure. I've had to happen all over the world

as well, and it's kind of one of those things

I don't tell my wife until I get home right

right about what happened. But you know, I just have

this very very strong sense. Even when I found out

I had cancer, I had this very strong sense, You're

not going to arrive in heaven and God, go, what

are you doing here so early?

Right? Right?

But I'm not going to go. I'm not going to

arrive in heaven and how to go. Hey, you're fifteen

minutes late. When my time is done, that's my time.

It's not going to surprise God. Book of Hebrews, which

we'll get to. The Book of Hebrews, well, it says

it's appointed unto man wants to die. That means every

one of us has an appointment. I can't avoid it.

I can't prolong it, I can't avoid it. My appointment

is my appointment. I'm not going to show up early.

I'm not going to show up late. And so instead,

I just have to make sure that we are living

our lives fully, living out God's purpose for our life

every moment. And I think that's what Paul's saying. He said, Hey,

I'm willing to be in chains, I'm willing to go

to prison, I'm willing to die if I have to.

But I know that I'm supposed to keep moving forward.

And he had this predisposition for action. Paul does. He

doesn't stay around very long, I mean a couple of

years at the most, but he has this predisposition to

move forward and just believing that God was going to

take care of him or provide for him. And then

if you remember when we were reading he said in

Sewo Corinthians was it Secretius where he said, you know,

I'm kind of torn between the two. To go to

heaven is gained. To stay here is better for you.

So whichever God decides is fine.

Yeah.

Right, it's pretty amazing.

Pretty it's very amazing.

What a way to live your life. Then, right, right,

So these people who had not been in chains, these

people who had not been beaten, these people who had

not gone to prison, these people who had not faced trials,

when they get the message from the Holy Spirit that hey,

it's going to get tough up Paul. I almost said

three different names, Thomas, Peter, Paul, It's gonna get tough Paul.

The people who had never been through any kind of

persecution or struggle like him, they were like, don't go right,

But Paul's like, oh, I've been through that kind of

stuff before. Don't wry about God.

Carry me. It's that nothing.

Well. I think that that if we would see our

trials and our troubles not as problems to avoid, but

their opportunities to get stronger. Paul's faith is unbelievably strong

at this point where he's virtually fearless. And it's because

God had brought him through all those other things, not

that he would have chosen to be beaten, not that

he would have chosen to go to prison, not that

he would have been he would have chosen to go

through those you know, shipwrecks and all those kinds of things.

But because he went through them and survived them, and

God brought him through, it built his faith and strengthened

him and made him so much stronger that he wasn't

fearful of the future. What a way to live your

life that when you come to the end, you're not

afraid of the end, right right.

Yeah. And by the way, I love Paul's response to

them when he says, why all this weeping.

Yeah, you're breaking my heart.

I'm not only ready to be jelly Jerusalem, I would

even die for it. Right. So, in other words, he's saying, like, listen,

it doesn't matter, Like whatever you say is going to

happen to me. Whatever danger waits, I'm prepared for it.

You know. It's almost like he's saying like uh, He's like, uh, here,

hold my root here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Well I think it's it's pretty

sweet too. He's why all this weeping, You're breaking my heart?

Right, So here they are.

They're thinking you're gonna die, Paul, and he's like, oh,

I feel so bad for you that you're so afraid

I'm gonna die.

Right right, that's hilarious, Right.

That's fantastic. Hey, I think it's interesting. Just we kind

of blew over this, but he stays with Philip. We

saw Philip earlier in the Book of Acts, right, right.

This is the Philip that met with the Ethiopian eunuch.

Remember he runs up to this Ethiopian treasurer of the

Kingdom of Ethiopia and he leads him to Christ in

his chariot and then they go down and he baptizes him.

This is the same guy.

Yeah, and in chapter eight and yeah, and it's great

because Philip then was transported remember yeah, yeah, yeah, and

you know, not many supernatural things came up out.

Of the water and Philip was not right.

Yeah, he's not there, and all of a sudden he

found himself like the neighboring city, which was just crazy.

So yeah, so Philip definitely is caught up with some

pretty supernatural.

Yeah, there's a few callbacks. Here, you've got Philip, you've

got Agabus, he had been in there fifteen years earlier,

all those things. But with Phillip's daughters. It mentions his

daughters here that he had four unmarried daughters who had

the gift of prophecy. And here's four young women that

are gifted to declare God's word to God's people, right

that sometimes we know, you know, in the New Testament

or in the Bible, sometimes prophecy means that there's maybe

a future component to it. But all the time, whether

there's a future component or not, what they're doing is saying,

let's say it. The Lord God says these things. And

so what he's kind of highlighting here is, yes, there's

some danger in my ministry, but he also recognizing you've

got Agabus and Phillips daughters, and you've got this evangelist Philip.

He's also recognizing there are so many other people doing ministry.

It's not just about me. And I think he's kind

of trying to deflect the fact that it's not just

about Paul in this story. Yeah.

Yeah, And and by the way, it's it's important to realize,

like God gives the gift of prophecy to women here

and and uh, and women are contributing to the direction

of the church, you know, to the to the leading

of the church. And so the women have been gifted

and we see that over and over again. Uh, you know,

them being a part of the leadership of the church, which.

Is great, so great. Well, I think that's going to

be a good place to wrap up.

I think so too. We're right at that time. So

we'll see you next time on the Bible. Guys,