Paul's Suffering in Christ's Service

I covered a couple of weeks ago. Actually, I believe it was the Sabbath before Pentecost, which has been several weeks ago now. It doesn't seem like it was just yesterday, but it goes by quickly. But prior to Pentecost, I covered in a sermon the amazing conversion of Saul to become the Apostle Paul.

That story is one that we may often read. I don't know how often we read it. At least it's clearly written in the book of Acts. It should be one that we are very familiar with.

As I pointed out at that time, what really is significant about the transition and the change that came over the Apostle Paul was not only the fact that he ran into Jesus Christ on the road to Nazareth, or not to Nazareth, but to Damascus. He was confronted by the risen Jesus Christ. Clearly, he made an impression on this particular man who had been filled with rage and anger and hatred for the church.

He changed all of that. Of course, that was what we studied back at that time. That the Holy Spirit has a capacity of turning anger, which Paul clearly had for the church. He was out killing the church to love.

Such a love that he was able and willing to give of the entirety of his life. As you see, as you study what his life involved, you'd have to say that Paul's life wasn't too pleasant. Now, you'd say that in one sense because it wasn't too pleasant from some of the things that he went through.

But I think you can also see on the other hand that it was very pleasant in many ways because of his focus, because of what his eyes were set on, because he wasn't really worried about the first death. That wasn't a concern. If that happened, that happened. And ultimately, it did happen, of course, about mid-60s. Paul ultimately was beheaded. But the power of God changed his anger to be able to have the love of God for the brethren, for Christianity. And it also helped him in overcoming his, he faced some unbelievable obstacles. Many of us feel that we have serious obstacles in our lives. And undoubtedly we do. We struggle with our own nature. We struggle with this society.

We struggle with situations that come up in our lives. And yet, as was pointed out about Paul, he was given tremendous help to be able to overcome. So I want to continue talking about Paul today and probably will so next week as well, because I don't believe I'm going to get over that chart I just gave you, or it's not a chart, just a couple of maps. I'll go over those in a little bit, but I want to continue in a study of the book of Acts. Because when you look at the book of Acts, and we read a good part of that in the the sermon about Paul earlier, you see in chapter 9, he met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus. In chapter 13, you see a beginning for Paul having been trained by Christ over several years, having been introduced to the church, and yet in some ways not accepted. He was still pretty much repulsed, or other people were repulsed by his. They didn't even want to have him around, because they knew, of course, what he had done. And yet, when you look at chapter 13 on through the end of the book, chapter 28, it's almost entirely about the apostle Paul. The first part of it talks about Peter and John, and you see James being killed, and Philip and Stephen. You see several of the apostles and what happened in different congregations, or in different settings with them, but then primarily beyond chapter 13. You see this written by Luke about mostly the activity and the travels of the apostle Paul. So I want us to think about that today.

I know Luke was the author. He was a traveling companion of Paul at times. He traveled with others of the apostles at times. He was not one of the original apostles. Although he obviously wrote a gospel account of the life of Jesus, he did that through compiling information and from eyewitness sources. And as he states himself, and I often tell, say, sometimes newer people who are wanting to even get a good overview of what they need to know from the New Testament to read the Luke and then read the book of Acts. Both of them are written by Luke. They're written in a very methodical way. They're written in what you might say is pretty simple to follow away, and yet they give a remarkable account of the life of Jesus. And then the beginning of the New Testament church and the New Testament church as it developed through the first 30 or 40 years of the church. We see at the end of the New Testament the book of Revelation. Of course, that was written by John later on. It was later in the latter part of the first century. And yet this setting for what Paul was going to contribute to the New Testament is described here in the book of Acts because he went about establishing churches wherever God would raise those churches up.

We see in the first part of the book of Acts that God added people to the church there in Jerusalem. It says he immediately, right after the day of Pentecost, added thousands of people to be a part of the church, to be repentant, and to be a recipient of the gift.

A recipient of the gift of the Holy Spirit, the most incredible gift that God could offer any one of us. And of course, you see how the church reacted and responded and what it was that happened when you read through those accounts in the book of Acts. But as I said, Luke wrote those two books that pretty much just kind of go together. One follows the other. They were both written to Theophilus, who seemed to be a noted individual that Luke was reporting to so that he would have accurate information about what we're hearing about this unmade development that's taking place in the world. And how it was, even as Luke would later record, what Paul was then teaching or beginning to teach and what others of the apostles were teaching, how it was turning the world upside down. Christianity was going to change the entirety of the, in essence, pagan world, but also changing the Jewish world as well.

You know, because Christianity was superseding Judaism. It was going to expand far beyond, you know, just the religion of the Jews, and it was going to go into the Gentrial lands.

See, Paul's journeys are detailed in the book of Acts, and when you get to the very end of the book of Acts, you see that it concludes, and for whatever reason, Luke stopped and God caused that, you know, to be the end of the book of Acts with Paul being in Rome. He was basically, he was detained, but he was pretty much able to come and go and do what he needed. He lived in his own house, but he was preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. He was preaching about who Jesus was, because that's what people needed to know. They needed to know Him as the Son of God.

And yet, what we find about in accounts, other accounts and records about the Apostle Paul's life, that even after he had been in Rome there initially, which we see clearly written about in the book of Acts, he later would be released. He would travel more. He would, we think. He went into Spain. Possibly he went up to Britain. He traveled, and he later was then put back in prison.

He ultimately was in Rome when he died. And as I said, when he was beheaded, that at least is what the record shows about his death. And so understanding where he went and kind of what he was doing, and this is all coming from the book of Acts, at least most of it. Actually, some of it are most of it from the book of Acts, and others coming from what Paul himself wrote. And so I think it's helpful as we understand where Paul went, where he was writing the books that he wrote, how it was that he went about the years. Because he had about, see some of you, actually many of you, have been members of the Church of God longer than the Apostle Paul ever was. See, he only had about 30 years from the time of Jesus to the time of his death to where he was put to death. So some of us have been around longer than that. Our study of the Bible should be quite comprehensive. We should be very familiar with what I'm going to go over here today.

But again, if we haven't rehearsed it recently, then it helps. It helps us to be reminded, these maps that I just gave you certainly are not the only maps. You probably have maps of the similar type in your back of your Bible or maybe in an atlas. But I'd like for us to just take a look at a second here with what it is that I provided. The map that looks like this that has the boxed locations. I thought it was a pretty good map in that it shows, and again, whenever we read through the geography that is being described in the book of Acts, it is dealing with the eastern Mediterranean. And it's dealing with from Jerusalem up and around the northern coast of the Mediterranean and then on over to Rome. And you can see that from this map. You can see that's what it covers. You can see that the bolded or the highlighted or boxed cities there are where churches, they were not the only locations where churches were, but they were locations or congregations where Paul wrote a letter that became a part of the New Testament.

He wrote a letter to the church in Rome. He wrote a letter to Thessalonica and Philippi and to Corinth and to Ephesus and one to Galatia, which is not a city but kind of a region, and one to into Colossae, which again is a city. Now, I point that out just because it helps us whenever you later read the book of Philippians or the book of Corinthians, then we understand better about where it is.

Of course, this is dealing with Turkey and Greece and Italy, as we would think of them today, and then down into the Middle East a little further into Syria and, of course, down at the bottom, down to Israel and Jerusalem. But this type of map can be helpful to us because, see, Paul didn't write all those letters at the same time. He wrote some of them as he went along. He wrote them as they were needed. He wrote them as they became needed or necessary. And you see, some of his travels, well, it's actually on the other map. If you flip over your map, you can see on the other side. This is a map, and the little line is describing the voyage that Paul went on, mostly by sea, in the Mediterranean Sea, to Rome.

This is pretty easily documented when you read through chapter 27 and 28 of the book of Acts.

I'm not going to get into that today. I may be able to get into that next week.

But this particular map, and again I said these are not maybe any better than many other maps you might look at, but this one shows you the names of the geographic areas like Macedonian. See, it's interesting to me.

Thessalonica was a part of Macedonia, so was Philippi. And you see down where Corinth is, Achaia. You see that as a reference whenever you're reading in the book of Acts.

Of course, the islands of Crete and Cyprus. You see in western Turkey, the city of Ephesus.

That is in a province of Asia, or Asia Minor. You see Bithnia. These are mentioned in the book of Acts. Cephedocia, the middle part there, Galatia, the mid part of what we would know of as Turkey, and Cilicia, which I do want to mention a little bit more a little later. You also see Syria and of course on down the coast to ultimately where Jerusalem is in Israel.

I thought these were helpful maps to me, so I'm passing those on to you. And it might be of help through these particular accounts today and even next week if you keep it around, you'll be able to follow it a little bit easier with a map.

But what we find about the Apostle Paul that is very, very unique is that God brought him to a transformation. He brought him to a conversion that transformed him from the angry, the zealot, the somewhat hate-filled man that he had become. Even though he was quite accomplished in Judaism, that wasn't what God wanted. God wanted someone who was humble, someone who was teachable, someone who could be reached, someone who would be determined, someone that he could work through to take the gospel to the Gentile world. And that of course is what we're going to find as we look at the Apostle Paul's life. I want to mention, I guess, three things today. The first of those things about Saul is recorded here in Acts 22. You see an account of Paul actually, in a sense, defending himself. He had been arrested. This is when he was in Jerusalem. He was taken and arrested at the temple. Amazingly, you find, and this is whenever you read through the account of the book of Acts, you see that in many ways Paul's life paralleled some of the same things that Jesus endured. Because clearly Jesus did not deserve any of the things that he received. He didn't deserve the punishment. He didn't deserve the flogging. He didn't deserve the criticism. He didn't deserve clearly the death that he would suffer. And yet, of course, that was done for a reason. That was done to set an example. That was done to set the pattern that Christianity would then follow. And in Paul's life, you find that Paul suffered a great deal.

And many of the things that he was accused of, he wasn't even guilty. He didn't do things that, even though he brought a message from God, he wasn't doing things in a way that would have caused him. He was falsely accused, just like Jesus was. And we'll see part of that as we go along.

But here in chapter 22, you see something about Paul. And actually, what I'm wanting to point out is that Paul was born in Tarsus, which was a city in the province of Cilicia, and that he was a Roman citizen. Now, that's an important factor here because you're going to see Paul using this fact as he goes through some of the problems that he was facing. Here in chapter 22, Paul is actually defending himself. He's being allowed to do so. He says, even in chapter 21, verse 39, he says, I'm a Jew from Tarsus and Cilicia, a citizen of an important city, and I beg you, let me speak to the people. Here, he was willing to defend himself. He was being falsely accused.

He was being wrongly accused. And yet, what you find, starting here in chapter 22, verse 2, when they heard him addressing them in Hebrew, they became even more quiet, Hebrew or Aramaic. And he said in verse 3, I'm a Jew. So he was of the nation of Judah. He later said he was of the tribe of Benjamin. Benjamin partially made up the house of Judah with Judah and Levi and Benjamin, all three of them made up what you would call the house of Judah. And so Saul was a Jew. He was born in Tarsus in Cilicia, and he was brought up in Jerusalem in this city at the feet of Gomelial. So he had been born in a Roman province, Cilicia and the city of Tarsus. Let me see if I can read. Tarsus is the capital city in Cilicia in Asia Minor. Of course, it's Paul's home, a Greek-speaking Roman province in southeastern Asia Minor. It was an important city, a major center of learning. It was actually on a highway that linked Antioch in Syria with the rest of the Middle East. And then it was on a highway that would later... So you find this about the Roman Empire and the Roman development. They created a lot of roads, a lot of very impressive roads, actually very impressive roads for the time. That's one of the things that the United States benefits from greatly is the road systems that we have here in this country.

And yet the Roman Empire was in a sense collected. It was in a sense supervised by the fact that they built roads and they could send their military wherever they needed to.

The type of roads are well known and even the design of the roads was impressive because it had kind of a little hill type in the middle where it would drain off to the sides. It was often very smooth. It wasn't the super highways like we see today, at least the ones I've seen, look like they're made out of rocks. So they're not near as smooth as what we would have, but they were able to transport their military and then other shipping and goods and trading throughout the Empire. Much easier than you might have imagined.

But Tarsus was a city that was a Roman city. It was in a Roman province and that's why Paul would say that that was where he was born. Everybody who would hear that would understand in a sense what he had gone through. Many of us are, you know, I'm a citizen here of the United States simply because I was born here. Perhaps that would be the case for many of us, maybe not all of us. But because of that, and because not only here in America but in other countries around the world, you have certain rights, certain privileges, and being a Roman citizen allowed you to have certain rights, have certain privileges, have certain protections that should be afforded to that individual. Now we're going to find in Paul's life that wasn't honored. It wasn't honored at least all the time. It was honored at times. Whenever it furthered the work of God, it was honored. And so I point this out. He says I'm a Jew of Tarsus, of Cilicia, and he says I was schooled in the city of Jerusalem at the feet of Gamaliel, educated strictly according to our ancestral law. This is in verse 3, being zealous for God just as all of you are today. And I persecuted in verse 4 this way up to the point of death by binding men and women and putting them in prison. As I, priest, and the whole council of elders can testify about me. And from them, I also received letters to the brothers in Damascus, and I went there in order to bind those who were there and to bring them back to Jerusalem for punishment. He was in a sense just saying, you know, this is my past. This is how I grew up. This is where I'm from.

I have been a persecutor of the church. And then, of course, he talks about his conversion. And we've gone through that, and I'm not meaning to go over that again. But I do want us to drop down to verse 22, because here, you know, Paul is talking to the Roman leader there, the tribune.

In verse 22, up to this point, they had listened to Paul, and then they began to shout away with Paul, away with this fellow from the earth. He shouldn't be allowed to live. You know, that sounds a little bit like the way they misrepresented Jesus. You know, he needs to be crucified. He needs to be put away. But in verse 23, while they were shouting and throwing off their cloaks and tossing dust in the air, the tribune, this is the Roman leader there, directed that he was to be brought into the barracks and ordered him to be examined by flogging to find out the reason why there's such an outcry against him. And so in verse 25, when they had tied him up, Paul said to the centurion who was standing by, is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who is not condemned? So he pointed out the fact that, are you doing something that's illegal? Something that's unauthorized? Something that, you know, you could get in trouble for. And when the centurion heard that, he went back to the tribune and he said, do you, what do you want to do about this? This man is a Roman citizen.

And the tribune came and asked Paul, he said, tell me, are you a Roman citizen? Of course, he said yes. And the tribune answered and said, you know, becoming a Roman citizen costs me a large sum of money. See, that was one way you could become. You could become a born citizen, or you could buy that through certain means, probably through maybe even through certain activity, maybe certain military service. There would be different ways that you might become a Roman citizen. But this tribune says, I became a citizen of Rome by spending a lot of money.

And Paul said, but I was born a citizen. And so immediately those who were about to examine Paul drew back from him. And the tribune was also afraid for he realized that Paul was a Roman citizen and that he had actually bound him. He'd gone beyond what he should have, and he was really planning to flog him and planning to, you know, get it out of him. What has he been doing that so infuriated the Jews? But I point this out simply because, you know, Paul uses this to his advantage.

He uses this as needed to further the work that God had commissioned him to do. The second thing I want to point out, and in some ways this is simply laying a groundwork for reading more about his travels and about the books that he would write that would make up much of what we read in the New Testament. Beyond the Gospels, much of the writing of the New Testament is from the apostle Paul. So here the second thing I want to mention is the significance of the Church of Antioch, Syrian Antioch, which was actually a base of operation. I think you can see that on both of the maps. Yeah, it's on both of these. Syrian Antioch, it says, one of them. The other one just says Antioch, but you can see where that is. You can see that this is not right in Jerusalem, but this is up the coast from Jerusalem to the north. And yet I want us to recognize the significance of this city because it was a remarkably significant city in the life of the Church. Now we often think of the area around Jerusalem certainly being, in a sense, a home office or a headquarters area for the Church of God and for the development of Christianity.

And yet the city of Antioch and Syrian Antioch was a significant city and became, in a sense, a place where the Gentile churches would begin and expand out from. Paul actually used this as a base of operation. We find this in Acts 11. You see the city of Antioch mentioned here. And actually the activity that was taking place there in Antioch was remarkable. Following we can go ahead and read, starting in verse 19, now those who were scattered because of the persecution that took place over Stephen traveled as far as Phoenicia, so that again is to the north of Jerusalem, to Cyprus, which is the island, a very big island in the east Mediterranean. It's off the coast aways, but it's a pretty good-sized island. It says, whenever the persecution got so great in Jerusalem, and much of this happened at the death of Stephen, and clearly Paul was involved in that. He was giving consent to that. He was the one who was in a sense the ringleader for that.

But it says that at that time there was great, maybe we can back up and read that here, in chapter 8. When Stephen died, it says in verse 1 of chapter 8, Paul approved of his killing, and that day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria. And devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him, but Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house, dragging off men and women, committing them to prison. See, this was a persecution that Paul was a part of back in a little bit earlier than what we're going to read in chapter 9.

So, well chapter 11, excuse me, let's go back to chapter 11, because this is talking about, in verse 19, some of those who were scattered from Jerusalem went north to Phoenicia, to Cyprus out in an island, and then to Antioch, which is Syrian Antioch. And they spoke the word to no one except Jews. But among them were some men of Cyprus and some men of Cyrene, who, on coming to Antioch, spoke also to the Greeks, proclaiming the Lord Jesus. And so here you see an expansion here in the eastern side of the Mediterranean, not only around Israel, but to the north, and then out into the island of Crete, down into Egypt, in Cyrene, and up into Antioch.

And you see that there were Gentiles who were beginning to believe. This is actually even before Paul gets there. And it says in verse 21, the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number became believers, and turned to the Lord. And news of this came to the years of the church in Jerusalem in verse 22. And so they sent Barnabas to Antioch. Now, Barnabas was actually from Cyprus. He was from the island of Cyprus. He had come to Jerusalem. He was directly involved in serving the church and in supporting the church, even. But Barnabas was sent from the elders in Jerusalem to Antioch. And when he came and he saw that the grace of God had been extended to the Gentiles, he rejoiced, and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast devotion. For he was a good man, and he was full of the Holy Spirit and full of faith. And a great many people were brought to the Lord. And so, as Barnabas came to Antioch and saw what God was doing. How Saul, not Saul, but the brethren had been scattered, and they were now proclaiming the message. And the response was happening, and Barnabas was excited about this. In verse 25, it says, Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, because at this time Saul had gone through his experience on the road. He had been in Arabia. He had come back. He was in Damascus. He had come back to Jerusalem. He was later going back home to Tarsus. He went back home, and this is where Barnabas would come and find him. Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul in verse 25. Verse 26, when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. And so it was that an entire year they met with the church there. They taught a great many people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians. See, this was a significant note outside of the city of Jerusalem, outside of what you could say would be the center of Judaism. You have the Antioch church being raised up by God, and actually the Christians called Christians first there in Antioch.

And it says in verse 27, at that time people came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, and so this was going to be causing some trouble. One of them named Agabus stood up and predicted that there would be a severe famine all over the world. And this took place during the reign of Claudius. And the disciples determined that according to their ability, they would each send relief to the believers living in Judea, which they did, sending it to the elders by Barnabas and Saul. And so they were being able to gather enough food and supplies to be able to help the people in Judea. They were going to be taking those down there. But what I want to point out is just that when we read through the other chapters here regarding Saul's missions, you see him coming and going from the city of Antioch, the church at Antioch. I think he had to have a love for the people there. They were relatively close, not exactly from Tarsus, but they were relatively close. In Syria or Syria in Antioch, let me see, this Antioch was known as the Queen of the East.

It was the capital of the province of Syria. It was actually the third largest city in the Roman Empire after Rome and Alexandria. So this was a large city. You saw of the entirety of the Roman Empire, Rome and Alexandria, down in Egypt, and then Syria being the largest cities in the Roman Empire. You also find Syrian Antioch and Alexandria and the city of Ephesus, being some of the major cities in the eastern Mediterranean, excluding Rome, of course. But Ephesus and Antioch and then down in Alexandria, those were the large population centers that were around the eastern end of the Mediterranean. The third thing, or the last thing that I want to focus on here today, is just simply how it is that Paul endured such suffering. He endured such distress, and yet it appears he did that. What you might have to say was with a smile.

He did that, in a sense even rejoicing that he had the privilege of suffering for the message that he had been given from God. Here in Acts 9, this is actually a part of what it says about Paul's conversion. But when Ananias was sent by God to release the blindness from Paul, to be able to open his eyes to the light, open his eyes to the way of God, open his eyes to his knee for the Holy Spirit and for the transformation that was going to take place through God starting to work in him. You see in verse 13, Ananias said, Lord, I've heard about this man. I've heard how much evil he has done to your saints in Jerusalem, and he even has authority from the chief priests to bind of all of those who invoke your name. But the Lord said to him, I want you to go, Ananias. For Saul is an instrument whom I have chosen to bring my name before Gentiles and before kings and before the people of Israel.

And so this, of course, was an additional direction about what Saul's mission was, about who it was that he would come before, how it would be that he would achieve the job that he was given from God. But in verse 16 is what I want to mention. God is saying this to Ananias.

He says, I've chosen Saul to go before Gentiles and kings and the people of Israel, and I, myself, in verse 16, will show him how much he is going to suffer, how much he is going to suffer for the sake of my name. And of course, Ananias went and did what he was told. He achieved the job.

And yet in verse 16, it points out that Saul had persecuted the church. He never forgot that.

He knew he was forgiven of having done that, but he never forgot that because he would later remind people that I was out persecuting the church. But of course, he was doing that and saying, well, look what God can do. He can make something out of nothing. He can turn things around. He can perform miracles. And yet, this statement in verse 16 involved the fact that he was going to suffer as a Christian. See, many times, and of course none of us like to suffer. We don't like to endure affliction. We don't like to be put out of our way. We don't like to have things go wrong. You know, that was pretty much a description of Paul's life. Seems like everything always was going wrong. He was opposed by just about everybody. Now, you do see, he had certain friends. He had certainly the brethren. He had people who loved him and who were greatly affected by him and his teaching, his preaching, his heart, and his deep love for them. But initially, the church was afraid of him. They didn't want to accept him. They didn't want him to come to Jerusalem. They knew who he had been, and they really couldn't believe. In essence, I guess they were not really understanding how much power God has to change his life, but also to change their own. But see, he was opposed by the church, and they didn't even want him. Barnabas had to kind of take him and introduce him to people that he thought people would receive him. And later, of course, he would be received. But you'll see that he was opposed by many of the Gentiles he went to. I've got some verses here we can cover here in a little bit. But he was opposed by them clearly. When you read the book of Acts, you see him opposed by the Jews in almost every place he goes. Even though some believe, others feel that he was a traitor, a traitor to Judaism, a traitor to their...you know, he was stepping on their toes. He was meddling in their business.

They didn't like that, and of course they rabble-roused and caused all kinds of problems, even went from place to place to place following Paul, creating problems. And so you find that as Paul was opposed by the church, he was opposed by the Greeks, he was opposed by the Jews, he was also opposed by false brethren. And he enumerates that. He said, some of the brethren are pretenders. Some of them are only warming a seat. And some are actually, and as he mentioned, Alexander and Hymenaeus and Paulides, there were people directly opposing him to his face.

And he was having to write about that in order to protect Timothy and others of the members of the church. And so clearly Paul, you know, lived a life of suffering. And I want us to look at this in 2 Corinthians 11. 2 Corinthians chapter 11, of course, we all know that 1 and 2 Corinthians were written to the church in Corinth. You can see where it is. It was, what you might say, was a unique church. It was a church that God had drawn a number of people into. I don't know what the size of that church or congregation would have been, but it would appear to be sizable. It talks about Paul spending 18 months there because God had many people that he was going to draw into the church. God says, I had many people here in this area. And clearly it was, you know, a licentious place. It was where the temple of one of the temples, Aphrodite, I believe, was. There was legalization of all kinds of prostitution. Everything seemed off track in Corinth. And yet, God raised up a church there. And when you read the book of 1 Corinthians and then 2 Corinthians, you find that there were a lot of problems that Paul needed to address, that he needed to do correct. And yet he did that out of love. He did that in disciplining, guiding, loving, caring, and helping the church to grow. That's where you find him talking about, look, don't you realize that God has given you the Holy Spirit, that you're the temple of the living God? That you have been drawn into a relationship with the most powerful being in the universe, your creator. That's what he describes in chapter 2 and 3 of 1 Corinthians.

See, brethren, that can never be overlooked. It can never be minimized. It always needs to be expanded. It needs to be understood more fully. It needs to be comprehended more deeply by every one of us. Because as Paul would write, not only 1 Corinthians, but then 2 Corinthians, he would offer a lot of encouragement, but he would also offer correction. And here in chapter 11 of 2 Corinthians, others whom he calls false brethren, false apostles, were opposing him. They were boasting about a lot of different things. And Paul, when you read through this, you see, he says, well, I'm going to make a few statements that are obviously foolish.

That's what he was going to say about himself. If we start in verse 21, to my shame, I must say, we are too weak for that. Or, you know, it's breaking into a thought there. But in verse, latter part of verse 21, but whatever anyone dares to boast of, I'm going to speak as a fool. I'm going to dare to boast as well. He says, if they want to say something, if they want to try to make themselves look good, if they want to try to pick themselves up, you know, I'm going to tell you a little bit about what I have gone through. He says in verse 22, and again he was saying this in his defense, are they Hebrews? Well, so am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. Are they ministers of Jesus Christ? He says, I really am talking as a madman. I'm a better one for far greater labors, far more imprisonments, far more countless floggings, and often I've been near death. So you hear he's describing, he says, I don't like to have to talk like this, but this is what I have gone through in the name of Jesus Christ. He says five times, I've received from the Jews 40 lashes minus one.

See, that was one of the punishments that the Jews could offer. You know, they could lash them 39 times. You know, they weren't supposed to go over the 40, so they'd always stop at 39, try to be sure, because the lash er, if they got to 41, he got killed. So he stayed away from that. That was a part of the punishment. But he said, I went through that five times. In verse 25, three times, I was beaten with rods. Now, this is really ridiculous, because this was a Roman punishment.

And clearly, as a Roman citizen, he wasn't supposed to be beaten with rods at all.

But that doesn't always, you know, cut it. They many times would carry out activities that they'd find out later. Well, maybe we shouldn't have done that. That's what he was saying in chapter 22. You really think you ought to be doing this? Some of them that he may appeal to like that may have thought, yeah, I think we should. Undoubtedly, they must have. He says, once I received a stony.

So you read about that in chapter 14, verse 19. Chapter 14, let's drop back there, because this is remarkable. This is in Acts, I'm sorry, Acts chapter 14.

This was in Lystra, the city of Lystra. It says in verse 19 of chapter 14 that these were the Jews who were following Paul around and punishing him and causing him all kinds of grief and bringing up all kinds of accusations, false accusations. The Jews came there from Antioch in verse 19 and from Iconium, and they won over the crowd, and then they stoned Paul and drug him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. See, they didn't stone them just to give them a little pain. They stoned them with the intent of killing him. But it says in verse 20, and this has got to be one of the most understated verses in the Bible, when the disciples surrounded him, he got up and went into the city.

You know, either God healed him or he resurrected him from the dead, one or the other. You know, Paul just says, I was stoned with the intent of dying. And yet the next day he went on with Barnabas into Derby. You know, just like that was a brief interruption in the trip. But, you know, that's what Paul is saying in 2 Corinthians. I've been beaten by the Jews, I've been beaten by the Romans. I was stoned once. This was actually by the Jews.

And of course, this was in Lystra, as I said. He says three times, I've been shipwrecked.

And when you study the eastern Mediterranean, you find, you know, that that wasn't all that easy of a sea. It's a very large body of water. It's not the Atlantic Ocean or the Pacific Ocean. It's smaller than that. But the eastern side of that, particularly, is treacherous. And it's not easy to navigate. And clearly it wasn't 2,000 years ago. It was far worse than anything that we might imagine. I was shipwrecked three times. A night in the day, I was adrift at sea on frequent journeys in dangers from rivers or perils, from rivers or from bandits, from my own people, from the Gentiles. Danger or peril in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brethren. In toil and in hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked. And besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of the care.

The care that I have and the responsibility I feel for all the churches. Who is weak? And I'm not weak. Who is made to stumble? And I'm not indignant. See, he had a great deal of concern for the congregations that God had raised up, many times through him, but other times even through others that he had love and care for. And so he says in verse 30, if I must boast, I'll boast of the things that show my weakness because the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, bless me, behave forever, he knows that I do not lie. See, even though Paul said I'm doing this boasting somewhat foolishly, and maybe I, you know, this isn't going to serve the purpose that I I hope it would, he says, God knows I'm telling you the truth. God knows what I have suffered for the sake of Jesus Christ. And so as I said, you know, Paul was opposed everywhere he turned.

He was opposed, as I said, initially by the church. He was opposed by the Greeks. You can read that in chapter 9. Actually, if we turn over to Acts chapter 19, I'll give you one illustration here.

He was opposed by the Greeks. Here he is in Ephesus.

He says in verse 23, About that time no little disturbance broke out concerning the way that would be regarding the life that the Christians were to be living and the life that Paul would be teaching them. See, a man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made small shrines to Diana, brought no little business to the artisans.

And so here he's disrupting their business. He's disrupting the sale of little idols at the temple of Diana. And of course, after this, Demetrius discusses this and says, you know, look, they're going to take away our business and maybe even worse than that, the temple of Diana will be looked upon in a bad light. It says in verse 28, when they heard this, they were enraged and they shouted, you know, great is Diana the Ephesians. See, this was a response of those who were going to be affected by what Paul was teaching. As he was teaching about the Unknown God, he was teaching about the God who was the creator of all.

He was teaching about Jesus Christ who had come to be the creator of all. He was teaching about Jesus Christ who had come from the Father and who was far different than any of the idols and any of the gods or goddesses that the Greeks here in the area worship. It says in verse 29, the city was filled with confusion and people rushed together to the theater dragging with them Gaius and Aristarchus.

These are Macedonians who were Paul's companions and Paul wished to go into the crowd, but the disciples wouldn't let him. See, actually, Paul wanted to go in and start defending himself or defending them, but the disciples kept him out of there. And even some of the officials of the province of Asia were friendly to him, sending him a message urging him not to venture into the theater.

And so meanwhile, some were shouting one thing and some another. Now, this is an amazing description of what we watch here in the U.S. People just completely out of control, not thinking about what's going on. Some were shouting one thing, some another, from the assembly was in confusion and most of them didn't know why they were even coming together. This is kind of a mob rule mentality. And what you find in this particular case, some of the crowd gave instructions to Alexander, whom the Jews had pushed forward, and Alexander motioned. See, he's going to start talking and he is going to settle the crowd.

And he said, we ought to lawfully try to take care of this because there's really, you know, we're going to be charged with rioting today. That's what he says down in verse 40. And when he had said this, verse 41, he dismissed the crowd. See, these are the type of obstacles that Paul would run into, and not only Paul, but his traveling companions. And Luke was one of those some of the time. He wasn't always with him, but he was with him much of the time. And so you see him writing about this type of suffering, this type of opposition. And I'd like for us to realize that as Paul went through the areas of what we can see of his turkey, as he went into what we know of his grease, as he would later go to Rome, what we find is that God was directing his actions.

You can see this in Acts 16. There's a couple of other verses that I want to cover here, so I'm going to take a little more time to do this. Here in Acts 16, starting in verse 6, they went through the regions of Phrygia and Galatia, and having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia, when they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithnia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them.

So passing by Mysia, they went down to Troats. And during that night, Paul had a vision, and there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, Come over to Macedonia and help us. And when he had seen this vision, he may immediately try to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.

It's very clear from that little section there that they were prevented from going one direction and another direction, and yet into Macedonia, into Philippi, and into Thessalonica, those were the cities that they were going to go to. They were going to be receptive. God was going to honor the message that he could teach and preach, that Paul would preach there. And we might also drop back into the book of Romans, because here in Romans 15, you get the mindset for what Paul thought about his job.

He was persecuted almost everywhere he went. His message was received by some that God would draw to be believers. That was what we see reported at times, but you usually see some believed and some didn't. They didn't receive the message that Paul was giving. But here in chapter 15 of Romans, Paul is talking about just how it is that God had been working with him. He says, I feel, in verse 14, I feel myself confident about you, my brethren, that you yourselves are full of goodness and filled with knowledge and able to instruct one another.

This is a part of his closing to the people in Rome, as he was writing to them and directing and guiding, giving them encouragement. But in this case, I think it is pretty encouraging to see that he felt that they were doing well. Nevertheless, on some points, I have written to you rather boldly, by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the Gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable and sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

In Christ Jesus, then, I have reason to boast of my work for God, for I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, to win obedience from the Gentiles by word and by deed, by the power of signs and wonders, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, so that from Jerusalem and as far away as the Lyricum, I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ.

It is thus I make it my ambition to proclaim the Gospel, not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written, those who have never been told of him shall see, and those who have never heard of him shall understand. So he realized, I don't need to just stay in Jerusalem.

I don't need to stay in Antioch. I don't need to go back to Tarsus and enjoy being retired at home. That wasn't what Paul's calling was. He was going to go through the entirety of Turkey. He was going into Greece. He was ultimately going to go to Rome and further. Here he's talking about a trip that we don't really see record of in the Bible, but you do have reports of Paul later going to Spain, and even later being in Britain.

Again, you don't have that written in the Bible, so I don't know exactly how valid that is, but historically you see some reference to that. Paul says in verse 22, this is the reason that I have so often been hindered from coming to you. This is what he's saying to the people in Rome. I've wanted to come to Rome over and over again, but God has not made a way whereby that were to happen. But now, with no further place for me in these regions, I desire, as I have for many years, to come to you, to come to Rome, and I want to do that whenever I go to Spain.

So it looked clearly that he had his eye on Spain. He was headed that direction, and if you look on the map, that's a long way. He's in the Mediterranean Ocean, or the Mediterranean Sea, to be able to get there. But at present, however, in verse 25, I'm going to Jerusalem in a ministry to the saints, because the people of Macedonia and Achaia, the people in Philippi, in Thessalonica, in Athens, in Corinth, they had been pleased to share their resources with the poor among the saints in Jerusalem.

And they were pleased to do this. Indeed, they owe it to them. For if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessing, they ought also to be of service to them in material things. So when I have completed this, and I have delivered to them what has been collected, I will set out by way of you through Rome to Spain. And I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness and the blessing of Jesus Christ. I appeal to you, brethren, by our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in earnest prayer to God on my behalf, that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my ministry to Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, so that by God's will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company.

And the God of peace be with all of you. See, Paul had about his optimistic outlook, as you could possibly find. He was enduring a great deal of misery, a great deal of suffering, but you always find, and of course you see this in his writings to the churches, he says, rejoice. Brethren, I tell you, rejoice in the Lord.

He's saying, look on the things that are positive. Look on what God is actually doing. Don't worry about the fact that I'm in prison. Don't worry about that.

I'm in jail. Don't worry. He didn't have a worried outlook. He had an optimism that is really incredible. And I think even as we see Paul being directed by God, he went on three different journeys or trips before he later would be taken in captivity to Rome. That's what we're going to be able to cover next time. He was always looking out for the brethren. He was always looking up to God. He was always optimistic.

And it talks about even when he's in jail that they're singing songs or singing hymns. They're joyful. They're being uplifted. And I think that many times we need to keep that in mind as we realize that, well, even though God allowed Paul to suffer, he also achieved a great deal of good throughout his life. And he also, in a sense, caused a number of the books of the Bible that would be put together for our benefit to be written by this man who was directed by God in the travels and the trips that he made over the eastern Mediterranean Sea. So we will cover some more of his travels here next time, but that's pretty much all we can cover here today.