Acts 26
February 23, 2010
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Bible Passage: Acts 26
In today’s reading, Paul repeated his conversion experience to King Agrippa, who even though could not make any decision about Paul’s case.
Paul took every opportunity to testify for God whenever he had a chance. This is something that we must remember and learn:
Preach the word, be urgent in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, and exhort, be unfailing in patience and in teaching.
2Ti 4:2
In chapter 21, we read that a prophet called Agabus came from Judea to Paul and warned him of the danger which Paul would face if he carried on to go there, but that did not instill any fear in Paul, or did it give any hints to Paul that God had commanded him not to go to Jerusalem.
So Paul stood firm in his calling, which was to preach the Gospel and to suffer for the Name of Jesus. The Holy Spirit did not stop Paul from going to Jerusalem, but through Prophet Agabus, Paul was told what he would face in his missionary work in Jerusalem.
Many times we tend to “judge” our listeners or the people whom we could preach to, according to their negative attitudes, that they will not be convinced and come to believe in Jesus, just like how Festus commented about Paul when he was still defending himself,
And as he thus made his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, “Paul, you are mad; your great learning is turning you mad.”
Act 26:24
When we hear such comments from people, do you still want to go on and preach to them?
Not long ago I had a few correspondence emails with a person from another church. He saw a Malaysian brother’s blog talking about the speaking in tongues, so he wrote some comments in his blog. So this brother asked me to correspond with this person, and there were actually only two emails from him, and in these mails, he kept insisting on the point that we Christians need no tongues to confirm that one has the Holy Spirit.
These are the usual words that we often get from Christians from other churches, but what put me off was his second and final mail, which he said, “Tongue speaking has nothing to do with lay believers, tongues were only for the apostles during their era! You and your church have seriously misunderstood the word of God, and I really pity you people for having such beliefs. But I pray that God would soon open up your minds to see His truth.”
When I read these words, I was dumbfounded. I nearly gave up and I told myself that if I go on explaining to him, it would be a waste of my time. But after calming down and pondered for awhile, I continued to reply him in another email, explaining the truth about the Holy Spirit and the importance of praying for it, but he stopped writing back to me since then.
Persecutions, insults and hate from the people whom we witness to will come, for our Lord Jesus had already told us,
Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel,
who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life.
Mark 10: 29 – 30
Let us all take courage that in carrying out our commission to evangelize, we will surely meet with trials and even persecutions, but our Lord had already promised and prepared us, and He is a faithful God who will never go back on His words, He will see us through.
The mirxacle in Acts 2:5-12 happened in a similar way in Acts 9:7. However it became clear only in Luke 26:14.
Acts 9:7 And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one.
Paul could converse with Lord Jesus in Acts 9:4-8.
Acts 26:14″And when we all had fallen to the ground, I heard a voice speaking to me and saying in the Hebrew language,’Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’
Lord Jesus spoke to Paul in Hebrew. However at the same time those accompanied Paul could not “hear(ch bible: 听明 hear and undestand) the voice of Him who spoke to me.” (Acts 22:9, 9:7)
Like in Acts 2:6 there were some whom “everyone heard them speaking in his own language”. But others didn’t understand and “mocking, said,”They are full of new wine.” (Acts 2:13)
Acts 26:17-18 “I will deliver you from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I now send you, to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.”
Although Paul was sent by Lord Jesus as the apostle of the Gentiles, Lord Jesus told Paul that he was to suffer under the hands of both, Jews and Gentiles.
More importantly Lord Jesus assured Paul that He will deliver Him!
Hi Gentiles (ie u n i),
Lord Jesus delivers us too.
No? Yes, we are.
We are delivered from the power of Satan to God.
We receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance.
On the condition that we are sanctified by faith in Lord Jesus.
（又因信我，得蒙赦罪）
Faith in Lord Jesus sanctifies us.
In faith, there is no the pride of life.
Just for mutual encouragement:
When i just receive the Holy Spirit, prayers are wonderful experience. The new-found communion with Lord Jesus in prayers, with the Holy Spirit praying for me opened a completely new territory in prayers.
Bec this Holy-Spirit-interceding-prayer-ground was totally new, to have a better understanding, i started to ask some brethren about how they feel in their prayers. May be they were shy, their answers were quite brief.
In one of Pr Shee’s sermon in adam before he departed for training in Taiwan, he commented that in one of his prayers many years back, he was praying especially hard bec he wanted to decide whether to dedicate himself for preacherhood, suddenly he heard the gnashing of teeth of the devil at his ear before it left in anger.
Bec of my own inferiority, i dare not approach Pr Shee, then Bro Tze Loong, to ask more. What he said taught me a valuable lesson: for us, Christian/children of God, every prayer is a spiritual training. To the devil, every of our prayer is a spiritual battle with it.
i learn that i must be more vigilant and focused in prayers especially praying in the Holy Spirit. No room for slackening or complacency (Jude 20)
This privilage is for us in the true church only. We cannot expect others to understand our church teaching of Holy Spirit, and prayer per say, as well as we understand it.
May be we can invite them: Come and see for yourself.
We pray for them too.