Trusting God to Turn Hearts - Life of Paul Part 57

Thank you, Tom. Let's remain standing for prayer, shall we? Lord Jesus, what we've just sung about is really true. That You went to the cross and You thought about us above all. And so as a result of that, what else can we do but surrender all that we are, all that we have, all that we'll ever be to You.

Because, Lord, everything we have in our is because of You anyway. And so may this song really represent the reality of our heart. May we be able to sing it authentically that we surrender all. Lord, may You accept that surrender this morning as part of our worship to You, that we, to the best of our ability, give everything we are and will ever be to Jesus as our Lord and our Savior. Now, Lord, we would take a moment and remember our military troops around the world this morning. We pray that You would watch over and protect them. We thank You for the swift completion of hostilities in Iraq, but we know it's still dangerous there and dangerous other places around the world for our military personnel. And so we ask You in a very special way to be near and dear and close to every one of these men and women who have put their lives on the line to defend our freedoms. And, God, we ask You to bring them home safely to their families and to enable us to see a very quick establishing of government there in the Middle East so that we can bring our troops back. Lord, thank You for the casualties being so light. We do, however, pray for the families of those who lost loved ones, that You would comfort them in the knowledge of knowing that not only was the service of their loved one much appreciated by we, the American people, but, Lord, also was appreciated by You. Lord, now we commit our time together in the Word of God to You this morning. Use the Scripture to challenge our hearts and really teach us about how to live in a way that brings the power of God to bear on our lives and on the world around us. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Hey, have a seat, will you? So glad to see you guys here. How about taking a Bible?

Let's open it together to Acts chapter 18 and we're going to be continuing in our study of the life of the great man, the Apostle Paul. Hi to you guys down at Overflow. We love you guys down there.

Thanks for being here this morning. You know, it's spring here in Washington and you know what that means, of course. That means cherry blossoms and tourists and outdoor cafes and yard work and pollen and allergies.

But it also means something else. It also means that the D.C. housing market kicks into high gear once again. And if you've tried to buy a house here in Washington lately, you know how wild and crazy things have gotten with multiple contracts and automatic escalation clauses and houses selling for thousands of dollars more than the asking price. In fact, there was an article in the Washington Post that talked about some of the schemes, some of the strategies that people are using to try to get sellers to take their offer.

I mean, the number one issue in Washington now when it comes to buying a house is not how much do I offer. It's how do I get the seller to want to sell to me instead of all these other people? How do I get the seller's heart to turn to me?

How do I find favor in the seller's heart? And some of these strategies include the Post said that some people are attaching their personal resumes to their contracts. Other people, this is true, other people are offering stock to the sellers to go along with their cash offer for the home.

I hope it's not dot com stock. Some people are offering to waive inspections and even pay for previous damage by termites and others so the seller doesn't have to. And my favorite one, one lady sent her real estate agent to the contract meeting with a family photo, a personal note and a plate of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Now that's pretty clever, I think. So anyway, you say, Lon, why are we talking about this? Well, because this is kind of what we're going to talk about today. You say we're going to talk about buying houses?

No, no, no. We're going to talk about turning people's hearts towards us. We're going to talk about God's willingness to give us favor in other people's eyes and turn their heart towards us and the incredible power that we have in God's willingness to do that. We're going to use an incident from the life of the apostle Paul as our classroom. So let's look together here in Acts 18, a little bit of background. Remember the apostle Paul is on his second missionary journey.

Let's show you a map. Paul has passed over from the northwest part of Turkey, the city of Troas, across the Aegean Sea to the town of Philippi in northern Greece. He's preached at Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea.

Then he went south to the city of Athens where he preached to the intellectual elite of the Roman Empire. And now, of course, he's at Corinth which is where we pick up the story and the Bible says that Paul spent 18 months here at the city of Corinth preaching and teaching the Word of God. One other thing we should remind ourselves of and that is that early in his time here in Corinth, Paul had a falling out of major proportions with the Jewish community in this town. If you remember, they essentially ejected him from the synagogue. He went next door to the house of a Gentile, tedious justice, and stayed there 18 months essentially setting up a Corinth Bible college.

But don't forget, the Jewish community in this town continued to harbor a seething hatred, a visceral hostility towards the apostle Paul and we're going to see that in our passage for today. Verse 12, let's look. It says in verse 12, while Gallio was proconsul of Achaea, proconsul meaning he was the Roman governor, and this word Achaea, let me show you. Achaea was the Roman province of Achaea.

It's everything you see in blue here on the map. It's the southern part of Greece that included both Athens and Corinth. This was the Roman province of Achaea and Gallio was the governor of this province. And notice he set up in Corinth, his headquarters, because at the time of the apostle Paul, Corinth was the key and influential city in this province, not Athens. That's why he was here.

So the Bible says he did that. And friends, this is another place where we can use historical records to corroborate the accuracy of the Bible because Gallio was a very well-known figure in Roman history. His father was a man named Seneca the Elder, a very famous Roman orator. His brother was a fellow named Seneca the Younger who was a politician, a philosopher, and a tutor of future Emperor Nero.

We've all heard of Emperor Nero. This man's brother, Gallio's brother, was his tutor. We know from Roman records that Gallio became the governor of Achaea in July of 51 AD. We also know from Roman records that he got sick while he was here in Corinth and he only stayed a couple of years.

He left to go travel to try to improve his health. So he was only proconsul here in Corinth from the years of 51 to 53 AD. Now what's interesting is that is exactly when the Bible says Paul was in town. And so the fact the Bible says that Gallio was here and all of this happened while Gallio was proconsul fits perfectly with the Bible's timetable.

Once again, we have historical records confirming that the Bible's chronology is exactly accurate. Well, what did Gallio do? Well, it says when Gallio was proconsul of Achaea, the Jewish people, verse 12 in Corinth, made a united attack on Paul and they brought him into court. When the Bible says they brought him into court, literally what this says in Greek is they brought him to the bema. The bema was a platform, a stone platform that was in the middle of many ancient cities and on this platform they had public affairs, public speaking, city events. But one of the most important things they did on the bema is that they held court. They had their legal proceedings were held on top of these bemas and this is where they drug the apostle Paul.

It's interesting when archaeologists unearthed the city of Corinth, they found this bema that the Bible talks about exactly the way the Bible says it ought to be there. Let's show you a picture. Here's a picture of the bema. There you see it.

The platform with people around it in the distance right in the middle of the ancient city. Let's show you a little closer picture. Here is the bema where Paul was dragged on the top of this where Gallio was sitting to try this case.

And we even have a picture of a very famous international personality standing next to the bema. We'll show you that and there we go. So anyway, I'm just teasing.

I'm just kind of having some fun with you. But anyway, the point of all this is that when they dug up Corinth, they found the bema that the Bible speaks of exactly the way the Bible said. And you know what we love to say here, the more they dig out of the ground, the more the Bible proves to be right. May I stop for a moment and say if you're here today and you've never trusted Jesus as your real and personal savior, you know one of the reasons that people hesitate to do this is because they're not sure that the Bible is really accurate.

They doubt whether the Bible is really trustworthy and they're not sure they want to place the entire weight of their life on what the Bible says about eternity. But friends, I'm here to tell you that no book has been scrutinized in the last 200 years more than the Bible has. It's been scrutinized historically. It's been scrutinized archaeologically.

It's been scrutinized in terms of transmission of the text. And after 200 years of the most intense scrutiny, the Bible has emerged probably more trustworthy in people's minds than it went in 200 years ago. Listen, you have nothing to fear in trusting the Bible as a trustworthy document historically, archaeologically, transmissionally, or spiritually. That's why Jesus said the person who builds their life on the Bible is like the person who builds their house on the rock. And the winds blow and the rains come down and the storms rage, but the house stands firm because it's built on the rock. And that is the Word of God. The more they dig out the ground, the more the Bible proves to be right. You can trust it and I hope you will. Well, let's go on.

What happened? Verse 13, the charge they made against Paul, this Jewish mob, is that this man is persuading people to worship God in ways contrary to the law. Now, the law that they're speaking about here was Roman law. You see, in the Roman world of Paul, certain religions had been granted the status of approved. Other religions were disapproved. If you were an approved religion, and Judaism was one of these approved religions, you were allowed to preach openly, proselytize, seek converts. If you were a disapproved religion, it was against the law for you to speak in public about that religion. Now, as I said up to this point, the Roman authorities not only granted Judaism the right to be an approved religion, but they also regarded Christianity as merely a new brand of Judaism, as merely an isotope of Judaism.

You can understand why they felt that way. I mean, Christianity started in Jerusalem. It was carried on the missionary work primarily by Jewish believers. It operated in and around the synagogues, so you can understand how the Romans felt this way. What these Jewish activists were doing here in Corinth is they were asking Galileo to make a legally binding decision that declared Christianity a disapproved religion, not a part of Judaism, and therefore a religion that would not have been allowed to speak.

Paul would have had to be quiet or he could have been thrown into jail. You understand what they were asking? Everybody with me? Okay, so here we got it now. We have the proconsul, Galileo, sitting up on top of the bema ready to hold court. We've got the Jewish mob there ready to rip the head off the apostle Paul, and we've got Paul ready to be perimason in his own defense in front of Galileo. Here the scene is.

Now, just before we go on, let me ask a question. Do you think Paul was praying as all this was going on? I do. Do you think Paul was talking to God as he's standing there getting ready to defend himself?

I do. What do you think Paul was praying? If you were standing there, what would you be praying in a moment like that? Well, I think I'll tell you what I think Paul was praying because indeed what I was praying, if I were there, I would be praying, Lord, I need you to please give me favor in this man's eyes. I need you to turn Galileo's heart towards me and towards the work of Jesus Christ. I need you to cause this man, Galileo, to be sympathetic to my cause and the cause of Christ and to rule in my favor. That's what I need, Lord. You've got to turn this man's heart towards me. That's what I'd be praying.

I bet you would too. Well, what happened? The Bible says, verse 14, just as Paul was about to speak, Paul hadn't said a word yet, Galileo said to the Jewish people, if you Jewish people were making a complaint about some misdemeanor or serious crime, it would be reasonable for me to listen to you. But since this involves questions about words and names and your own law, settle that matter yourself. I will not be a judge of such things. And so he had the mob ejected from off top the bema, from the court.

Is this amazing or what? The apostle Paul gets exonerated of all charges and he never even had to open his mouth, never said a word. I mean, you talk about God turning Galileo's heart in his direction, holy smokes. Verse 17, then the mob all turned on Sophanies, the synagogue ruler, and beat him up in front of the bema.

But Galileo showed no concern whatsoever. Well, the synagogue ruler, of course, was the leader of the Jewish community. The big kahuna of the Jewish community. He obviously is the one who had orchestrated this mob. And when Galileo rejected him, the crowd says, well, I guess we're here to beat somebody up, so we'll beat him up. And so they did.

Is this amazing? The apostle Paul walked away without a scratch and the guy who organized this whole thing, Sophanies, he got schwacked. I mean, does God have a sense of humor or what?

Well, he does. See, this is biblical humor, that's why you don't get it. But this is hysterical what happened here, all right? Ah, whatever. Okay, so that's the end of our passage now, but it causes us to want to ask a question. And I know you know the question, so is everybody ready? Here we go.

One, two, three. Go, what? Right. You say, Lon, so what? Say, ah, that's okay, whatever, whatever. What difference does any of that make to me in my life, 21st century?

Well, I think it's a big difference. Let me see if I can help you with that. You know, I got a blue care card with a prayer request on the back, one of the many that I got this week. And by the way, you know, when you write prayer requests on the back of this, we really pray for these things. We split them up among our staff every week, and we pray for every one of you that writes one of these in. If you want something you want us to pray about, write it on here and give it to us. We pray for these things.

Well, I got this one this week. I think it's a lady because there's nothing on the front, but it says, please pray for my son who is a recovering drug addict and will soon be facing a judge to request that he, my son, can attend Teen Challenge to seek God's help in his recovery. He has many God-given talents to share. And what this basically was, it was a request. She goes on to write some more, but it was a request from this lady asking for prayer that God would cause this judge to show mercy and compassion towards her son, asking that God would turn this judge's heart towards her son's request. And friends, you know, in all of our lives, there are times when we find ourselves in situations just like this young man on this care card, just like the Apostle Paul in Corinth, times where we need favor in a person's sight, times when we need the heart of somebody in authority to turn towards us and grant us grace and grant us understanding, situations where we need somebody in authority to feel kindly disposed towards us, even though they might not even understand why they're feeling that way. Now, it could be a boss. It could be a teacher at school. It could be a college professor or a coach or a judge, as in the case of this young man. Maybe it might be a potential client, and we need that contract.

Or maybe it might be a college admissions committee or even a police officer. Now, as followers of Jesus Christ, when we find ourselves in that kind of situation, God has some great news in the Bible he wants to share with us. It's in Proverbs 21.

Look what he says. He says, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, and the Lord directs the king's heart wherever God wants. Here, friends, the Bible tells us that God has the supernatural power to turn people's hearts in any direction God wants them to go. God can cause people to want to show us grace. God can cause people to want to grant us favor, even though the people doing the granting have no idea why they feel that way or no idea why they're leaning in that direction. It doesn't matter. It's because God is turning their heart, and the Bible tells us that God's power in this arena is unlimited. It doesn't matter how powerful a person are. You could be the king yourself.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how influential a person may be, God can turn their heart. Now, this is, as followers of Christ, is a very important truth for us to know as we move through life.

It means when we're in a spot like Paul was in Corinth, it means that when we're in a spot like this young man is on this blue card I read you, when we desperately need somebody to show us favor, when we desperately need somebody to show us grace, what this means is that as followers of Jesus Christ, we have a secret weapon. And that secret weapon is not our own human salesmanship. It's not our own human charm. It's not our own human charisma. That secret weapon is God's supernatural ability to turn people's hearts. And when we ask God to do this in prayer, and then we rely on God and not our own charisma, charm, and salesmanship, it is amazing what we see happen. One of the great examples of this in the Bible is a fellow named Nehemiah.

Let me give you a little background. Israel fell to the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The Babylonians ripped the city down, burned the walls of the city, tore the temple down, deported most of the population, and essentially Jerusalem was a ghost town for the next 150 years. 150 years later, Nehemiah was alive, and the Bible tells us that he was the cup bearer. He was the official assistant to the king of Persia, King Artaxerxes of Persia, and this was his official role. And then the events of Nehemiah 1 unwrapped.

So let me show them to you. Nehemiah 1. I was in the capital of Susa, Nehemiah writes, when a fellow Israelite came from Jerusalem and told me that Jerusalem was in bad condition.

Now Jerusalem at this time was under the control of the Persian Empire. He said, its walls are broken down, its gates burned with fire, and its people in disgrace and distress. And when I heard these things, I sat down and wept, and then I prayed to the God of heaven. And you know what Nehemiah prayed?

Let me summarize. In his prayer, he asked God to please let him go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the city. Now that was a journey of some 800 miles across no man's land full of bandidos and all kinds of bad guys. But he said, that's what I want, God. And he finishes his prayer by saying this. Remember, to do this, he needed permission from the king.

He worked for the king, alright? He closes his prayer and says, Nehemiah 1 verse 11, O Lord, let your ear be attentive to my prayer. And God, when I go ask the king for permission to do this, give me success. Look at this, by granting me favor.

Aha! By granting me favor in the presence of the king. What is Nehemiah asking God to do here? Friends, he's asking God to turn the heart of the king of Persia towards him. He's asking God to grant him favor in the eyes of the king of Persia. He's asking God to give him success by softening the heart of the king of Persia before he, Nehemiah, ever opens his mouth so that the king would be inclined to let him go do this. Do you see what he's depending on?

He's not depending on his own charmed charisma and salesmanship. He's saying, God, you need to turn the king's heart so he'll want to let me do this. Well, what happened? Nehemiah chapter 2. So I told the king that the city of my father's lies in ruins. And the king said to me, what is it you want? Nehemiah said, I pray.

I said, all right, God, here we go. And I answered the king, please send me to Jerusalem so I can rebuild it. And, oh, by the way, king, I also need a letter to the local governor there telling him that I have your okay to rebuild the city. And, king, I also need a military detachment to go with me and keep me safe across 800 miles of no man's land and then to stay there in town and protect us as we're working on the wall. And, king, I also want to ask you if you would please pay for the entire thing out of your own money. That's what he asks him. You talk about chutzpah.

Yeah. He said, well, that was a little more than I thought he was going to ask him. Well, it may have been more than Nehemiah thought he was going to ask, but he was on a roll.

What happened? Nehemiah chapter 2 verse 8, and because the gracious hand of my God was upon me, the king granted all of my requests. The king paid for this, did it all. The point here, friends, is that Nehemiah's strategy for success and going in to get this request to his done, his strategy for how he was going to get it done was not based on his own charm, his own ingenuity, or his own salesmanship. His plan was based on God's supernatural ability to turn that king's heart towards him. And do you see what Nehemiah did? Nehemiah didn't bring God behind him, and after all of his own efforts had worn out, he said, okay, God, your turn. Nehemiah put God in front of him. You understand what I'm saying? And he said, God, you run the ball.

All I'm going to do is follow you. You say, well, Lon, you know, God bless you up there, son. You're working so hard and preaching.

We love you for that, but you know what? This is Bible stuff. This stuff works in the Bible. This stuff does not work in real life. In real life, this does not happen. This is only Bible characters that this stuff happens for. Oh, no, no, no, no.

I believe that this strategy that Nehemiah used, friends, still works today if we're willing to use it. You know, the year was 1971. The Vietnam War was raging. I was a senior in college, and I went and I had my military physical and passed it, and I was declared eligible for the draft. But in the meantime, in the spring of 1971, I came to know Christ as my personal Savior. I gave my life to Jesus.

And right after I got out of school, I moved up here to Northern Virginia. And as I began to grow in my Christian life, I began believing with all of my heart that God was calling me to full-time Christian ministry, that God wanted me to go into full-time Christian work and preach Jesus Christ. But I needed training. I needed to go to seminary. I didn't know what I was doing.

I didn't have any background in all this. And the problem was that the draft board was getting in touch with me and telling me that it was time for me to start my service. And so I had a little bit of a problem because I wanted to go train for the ministry. And so I called up the draft board down in Alexandria, Virginia, and I said hi. I said, I would like to know if I could get my draft status changed to 4D. There was a special deferment for divinity students to go to seminary. And you were deferred until you got out of seminary. And I said, I'd like to know if I could get my draft status changed so I could go to seminary. And they said, son, you've already passed your physical. No, no, that's impossible.

You can't get your draft status changed. And I said, well, okay, so there's got to be somebody in the Pentagon I can call. Give me the name of some general I can call up. So she said, what? And I said, yeah, there's got to be some general that runs this thing.

Give me the name. So she gave me the name of some general. And she said, good luck. And I'll never forget it.

I was living right here in Arlington, Virginia. And I'll never forget, I sat at the desk and I bowed my head and I said, now, God, I need you to give me favor in this man's eyes. I believe with all my heart you want me going in the ministry. I believe with all my heart you want me going to seminary to train. And I need him to change my draft status so I can go to seminary and I can do God's will for my life. And it doesn't even matter to me if he knows why he's doing it, God. You need to change this general's heart.

Amen. And so then I dialed him up. And I got him on the phone and I said, general so and so, my name is Lon Solomon and I need you to change my draft status and here's why. And I gave him my whole personal testimony.

I mean, I didn't give him the executive summary, friends. I gave him the whole megillah. I told him about the drug abuse, the alcohol abuse. I told him about the partying. I told him about my girlfriend that I got pregnant and forced into having an abortion and what a rotten guy I was and then how Jesus Christ had come into my life a few months before and changed my life and had called me to preach and I knew he'd called me to preach and I needed to go train to do that. And I said, sir, I need you to change my status so I can go do this.

I went on for like 10, 12 minutes without coming up for air. And when I finished, the phone was completely silent. And then he said, son, he said, that is the doggone to story I ever heard in my life. He said, frankly, I don't even know what to say. He said, I'm stunned. He said, so I need to think about this. Call me back next week.

I said, okay. I called him back next week, no lie. The first words out of his mouth were, son, I don't even know why I'm doing this.

But he said, I figure nobody could make up a story like that. He said, so I'm going to change your draft status. I'm going to give you that deferment. You go to seminary, son. We'll talk to you again when you get out. And he said, all I can tell you, I'll never forget it.

At the end of the call, all he can say, all he said to me was, he said, son, all I can tell you is, go be the best preacher you can possibly be. And that man changed my draft status. That's true story. And, of course, by the time I got out of seminary in 1975, I was ready to go serve, but the war was over and they didn't need me anymore. And so that's how it happened.

And you say, well, Lon, in 1971, nobody was getting their draft status changed. How in the world do you explain this? Well, I got a very simple explanation. The heart of the general is in the hand of the Lord. And the Lord turns the general's heart wherever he wants it to go. And, you know, I'm convinced that as followers of Jesus Christ, this is probably the most underutilized weapon in our whole spiritual arsenal. You know, we go out and when we need favor in somebody's eyes, when we need somebody to do something to advance God's will or God's kingdom in our life, you know what we do. I already said it. We go ahead with all of our human salesmanship, human charisma, human charm, human ingenuity, and when all of that fails, we pull God out and we go, all right, God, your turn.

No. Friends, that's not what the Bible says at all. That isn't what Nehemiah did. Nehemiah said, God, you go first.

You go change some hearts. You go turn people towards me and I'm going to rely on you and your power, God, so I don't even hardly have to do anything. He pulled and he didn't have to open his mouth. Nehemiah barely had to say anything and we don't use this weapon the way we should.

A lot of us don't even know we have this weapon and if we haven't, we don't use it. Folks, I'm telling you, we will see God do unbelievable things for us if we'll just give Him the chance to go first and not last. If we'll give Him the chance to change hearts before we try to go in and even make our request.

God not only says He's able to do this, folks, God says He's willing to do this if you and I as followers of Jesus will just give Him a chance. So where are you today where you need somebody to show you favor? I mean, we're coming down to the end of the spring semester. You may have a high school teacher that, I mean, man, you need some favor seriously in that class. All right, well, why don't you ask God to turn that teacher's heart towards you?

Maybe you're applying to college and you're not in yet the one you want to be in. You're on a waiting list and you need some academic committee to grant you favor. Well, why not ask God to give you favor in their heart?

Maybe you're going for some contract and you desperately need that client to give it to you and there's 10 other people going after it. Well, why not ask God to turn that client's heart towards you and want to give you the contract or whatever? You understand what I'm saying here? Folks, this truth works and it's practical if we'll use it. May God help us do so. I'm telling you, you'll see God do stuff that you'll stand back and go, whoa, that's amazing. God's willing to do it, just give Him a chance.

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, thanks for talking to us today about real down to earth stuff right where we live, teaching us that your power is available to us today, just like it was to Nehemiah, just like it was in Paul's day, that we have that same power available today. Help us use that power. Lord, we're sitting in a building that's the result of that power. We saw you change the hearts of the whole board of supervisors. From there is no way in the world you're getting this through to 10 to nothing as the vote in our favor. God, you do this if we'll give you the chance. So Lord, whether it's with a college teacher or a high school teacher, whether it's with a client, whether it's with a judge or a boss, whoever, Lord, teach us to let you go first and we'll follow you. Change our lives and change the way we live here because of this spiritual truth we've learned today. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.