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That's connectwithskip.com. Now, let's get into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. Interesting thing about Paul, he reached into the younger generation. And he seems on his journeys as part of the makeup of his team to have younger men with him. On the first trip, it was John Mark, not so much on the second trip.
But on the second trip, as if to replace that zeal that maybe John Mark had initially, he brings Timothy. Okay, he's got a good reputation, well-spoken of, very energetic, very zealous. I'm going to train him. I'm going to take him under my wing. I'm going to instill my principles into the next generation. Why?
Because he knew that's the future. I'm always on the lookout for young men with that fire in their eyes to do ministry. And when I find one who really, really, really wants to serve the Lord no matter what, that's worth investing in because you want to make sure that you're going to have those people who are going to carry on the ministry when they carry you out. And Timothy will do that, one of his young men for Saul of Tarsus or for Paul the Apostle.
So what does that mean? It means that for the next few years in all of the cities he's going to visit, Timothy will be able to listen as Paul preaches sermons. He'll be with Paul as he has individual conversations with people. He'll be with Paul when he's in the synagogue arguing with people about Judaism, faith versus grace versus works, et cetera.
And in all of that, it's going to shape him. It's not so much his preaching as much as following his lifestyle and being around him for such a long period of time. He's going to get and impart, have imparted to him those values of Paul. Somebody once said that ministry is more caught than it is taught. You can teach a person classes on theology and teach them all sorts of head knowledge, but to just be able to observe someone's life up close like Timothy did with Paul is tremendous. Howard Hendricks, who is now in heaven, once wrote that every Christian, every disciple, every follower of Christ needs three relationships.
You grade yourself as to how you're doing on these. He said everybody needs a Paul, some mentor, someone who inspires their faith, meets with them regularly, semi-regularly, inspires them in the things of the faith. Then he said everybody needs a Barnabas because we all need encouragement. You feel down. I'm not going to make it. I quit. The Lord can't use me anymore. You need somebody to go, oh, yes, he can. Let's get up and try it again. But then Hendricks said everybody needs a Timothy, that person that they can pour their life into, pour themselves into and help shape their future.
So evaluate how you're doing in those three relationships. Who's your Paul, your Barnabas, your Timothy? And it says in verse five, so the churches were strengthened in the faith and increased in number daily. Now, when they had gone through Phogea and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. After they had come to Mycenae, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Holy Spirit did not permit them. So passing by Mycenae, they came down to Troas.
So get the picture here. They are moving from the east to the west. And as they move from the east to the west, they're evaluating where to take the gospel next. So they attempt to go south. That would be the area at this time of Ephesus, Colossae, Sardis, Smyrna. It's an area of what's today modern-day Turkey.
I've been to those places. But they met resistance. They were unsuccessful. Luke writes the Holy Spirit didn't let them.
So they thought, huh, well, what do we do now? Well, let's go north to Bithynia. Bithynia is, if you were to look at a map, you would see that it's the southern shore of the Black Sea.
It would be the area of what would be Nicaea and Nicomedia. Again, the Holy Spirit said no, didn't allow them to go. So they have come from one direction. They try to go south, no. They try to go north, no. So they go to Troas.
Now, I've got to just tell you something. I love Troas. I've always been drawn to Troas because of this verse. What is going to happen because they go to Troas changes the world. It's the reason the gospel leaves that part of the Near East and launches around the world because it gets now, for the first time, into Europe. Eventually, it will go all the way to Rome. But it makes that leap now from Asia, Asia Minor, those Roman areas, all the way now into Europe.
So it's a pivotal point. I remember one time we did a tour, a Journeys of Paul tour. It was by bus through Turkey. These were long days on a bus because I had this romantic idea that we're going to see all these cool places. And they were cool.
At least, I thought they were cool. And one of them was Troas. And I remember telling the people who put together the tour, I said, I want to go to Troas. They go, where? And I told them where and showed them where in the Bible. So they said, why do you want to go there?
Nobody goes there. And when I went there, I saw why. There's nothing there anymore. The city's gone. The harbor's washed away. There's just a few ruins.
There's a little restaurant and a little, it's like a 7-Eleven store, but scale down. And I had the people on our bus off on the beach and we were on the stones by the ruins and just going through the section of the Book of Acts. But this was such a pivotal moment for Paul because he had gone from one direction to another direction to another direction.
It was no, no, no. Finally, he's at Troas thinking, what does God want me to do? That's when he gets the vision of a man from Macedonia.
Okay, freeze frame for a moment. Let's say you were there and you happen to be at Troas and you walked up to Paul the Apostle and said, Paul, where are you going? Where's the Lord leading you, man? He would say to you, I have no idea. I haven't a clue what God is saying. Now, I bring that up because I've had people ask me the question, what's God saying in your life lately? And they expect some profound answer.
They don't expect, I don't know. I got nothing. But Paul said, I got nothing. That's what he would say.
He did not know. All Paul could tell you now is that every place I've chosen to go is a closed door. And Paul is learning a very important lesson.
I wonder if you've learned this lesson. God's know is just as important as God's go. Closed doors are one of the ways God leads you. Why isn't God opening a door?
Because he doesn't want you to go there. Isn't God's leading wonderful? So, the Bible says, Psalm 37, the steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord. And he delights in his way.
Do you get that? The steps of a righteous man. Every single step that a person makes in the Lord, the Lord directs those steps. The steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord.
But there's another truth. The stops of a righteous man are also ordered by the Lord. God's know is just as important as God's go. So, Paul stopped, doesn't know what to do, has no word of revelation from God, doesn't know where he's going.
Now, God's going to reveal very dramatically through a vision where to go. A couple of thoughts to tie this up. I think you would agree that Paul, his personality, he was headstrong.
Would you agree with that? Yeah, he was a pretty determined guy. He's just going to go until he hits a wall, and he hit two walls. Bam, whoa. Goes another, bam, whoa. Okay, I'm not going there again. Now I'm going to sit and wait at the intersection until God gives me a green light. He was pretty headstrong.
How do I know this? Because later on he's determined to go to Jerusalem for one final time. It ends up, and he goes to the shores of Miletus, and he calls for the Ephesian elders, and they gather around him.
And he says something interesting. He goes, Now I want you to see that I go bound in the Spirit, bound in the Spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things which will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit says in every place the chains and tribulation await me. But none of these things move me, nor do I count my own life dear to myself, that I might finish my course with joy in the ministry of the gospel by the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's headstrong. Yeah, I'm going to Jerusalem. I don't know what's going to happen, except everywhere I go, I get these words from the Lord that say that it's not going to be good, not going to be good, not going to be good.
A lot of beating, a lot of tribulation, a lot of pain. I don't care. I'm going.
See ya. And he keeps going. When he makes it to the shores of Lebanon, he goes to Tyre. He gets another set of revelations saying, Paul, they're going to beat you up at Jerusalem.
The Holy Spirit is saying through all of these means, all of these people, that it's going to be bad. When that happens in Tyre, he goes all the way down the coast to Caesarea on the coast, and he goes into the house of Philip the evangelist. We read about him, and there's this strange prophet named Agabus, who is very visual in his prophecy. He didn't give vocal prophecies. He gave visual prophecies, sort of like Ezekiel in Jeremiah. He grabs Paul's belt and ties himself up in front of the church, and he goes, the man who owns this belt is going to be bound by the Jews at Jerusalem and given to the hands of the Gentiles.
It was Paul's belt. So it says Paul's entire team, as well as those in Philip's house, all begged him with tears not to go to Jerusalem. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, we want to help you learn more about God's radical love for all people by sending you four booklets by Skip Heitzig that will encourage you in God's abounding love and challenge you to love even the unlovable, just like Jesus did. This resource is our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share solid biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copies when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Let's get back to today's message from Pastor Skip. Now, listen to Paul's response. He said, what do you mean weeping and breaking my heart?
For I am willing not only to be bound but to die for the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, what do you do with a guy like that? You let him go. That's what you do. A guy that's that headstrong, you just don't tap him on the shoulder and say, yeah, I think the Lord doesn't want you to go.
It's not going to work. He's got to hit a wall. Some people are attuned to the Spirit. God can move them easily. Others are a little bit headstrong and take more dramatic means for God to get a hold of and direct their lives.
Bob Pierce, who started World Vision and then Samaritan's Purse, had a great saying. He said, God gently leads his children along. Me, he yanks. Have you ever been yanked by God? A couple times I've been yanked by the Lord. Where he gets your attention, okay, I get it. And so Paul hit a wall, hit another wall.
Now he's in Troas and he's waiting. Now, here's another question. It says the Holy Spirit forbade Paul to go on. How?
By what means did the Holy Spirit forbid Paul to go where he wanted to go, those two no's? Well, the answer is we don't know. You can guess. You could say, well, maybe he didn't have a peace in his heart. You know how people say that. I don't feel a peace about this.
Of course, you can say that after a bad meal. It could be that he just lacked peace to go in a direction. I don't think so. It could be that there were political policies that forbade him to go from one area to another area. He couldn't traverse a border crossing, so to speak. But we're just not told. It just says that the Holy Spirit forbade him. Maybe it was by direct revelation. After all, he got one in Damascus or on the road to Damascus. You know, the whole Lord Jesus appeared to him.
That's pretty dramatic. But we're just not told. Now, let me give you another way of thinking about this.
It's a possibility. I don't know how the Holy Spirit said no, but it could be, and I lean to this, he got sick. Now, I know that my brothers and sisters who believe in a faith theology would disagree with that because, after all, they would say Paul the Apostle would never get sick. The problem is you have to pull out and rip out and destroy verses in the New Testament to believe that. But I believe Paul got sick.
How do I know this? Because he just came from Galatia. Do you remember the book of Galatians? He said, the reason I ministered to you in Galatia for as long as I did is because I had a physical ailment, a physical infirmity.
That's why I extended my ministry to you there. And he said, you were so filled with love, you would have plucked out your own eyes and given them to me if you could. So perhaps he had an eye disease, but certainly he did get sick. That's why he ministered in Galatia, as he did and as long as he did.
He could have come with that sickness because he came from Galatia, and he tried to go to Bithynia, tried to go south. The Holy Spirit said no, so now he's at Troas. Not only that, but who wrote the book of Acts?
Shout it out if you know it. Luke. What was Luke's profession? He was a doctor.
In verse 10, which we're gonna read in just a few moments, trust me, we're almost there, for the first time in the book of Acts, the writer of the book of Acts uses the personal plural pronoun we, indicating that at this point Luke joins Paul's team, and from now on he's writing not they, not this is what Paul's told me, but we because now I'm a part of the team. The doctor joins the team in Troas. And it could be that Paul needed that personal physician for the rest of the trip because of his sickness. That could be, it could be as simple and as ordinary as he just got sick, and that's how the Holy Spirit was forbidding him to go.
But at the end of the day, we just don't know. Verse nine, and a vision appeared to Paul, so he's in Troas, and a vision appeared to Paul at night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, come over to Macedonia and help us.
He's on the seacoast. He would have to take a boat ride to get to Macedonia, but he has this vision. Now, after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called them to preach the gospel to them. I got a laugh at that verse. Let's see, we tried to go that direction, couldn't go that direction.
Tried to go that direction, couldn't go there. We came from here, tried to go there, tried to go there. Now I get a vision from heaven that says, come over there. And I wake up going, you know, I conclude that that's what the Lord wants us to do.
Duh. You get a vision from God saying, go there. So we conclude.
I just like the way it's worded. We concluded that we're to go to Macedonia. God had called them to preach the gospel. Now notice in verse 10, the we. After he had seen the vision, immediately we, that's the first use of that term from the author's perspective in the book of Acts. We, so Luke joins the team, sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us, Luke's now part of that team, to preach the gospel to them. Who was the man from Macedonia that Paul saw in the vision? Anybody know? It's sort of a trick question because there really is no answer.
I don't know. Some have speculated that it was Luke himself. Luke the doctor from Troas was, that's what Sir William Ramsay, the New Testament scholar, believed.
I don't know, I think I would discount that. Others believe William Barclay, the New Testament commentator, said it was probably a vision of Alexander the Great, the archetypical Macedonian man. The man who tried to join the eastern part of the world and the western part of the world together, that was his dream, to unite them as one. And that perhaps he had seen this vision of the historical figure of Alexander the Great saying, come over to Macedonia and help us. But Paul had never met Alexander the Great. He'd been dead a long time, so he probably wouldn't have known that anyway. The answer is we just don't know who it was.
It was just a man from Macedonia. Therefore, sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and the next day came to Neapolis, which is the port in Macedonia. Now, that means it took only two days to get there, which means the winds were at their back. The winds were favorable.
I bring this up because later on, when he takes his journey by boat, the prison boat sailed from Caesarea to Rome in Acts 27, it will take him five days to get from this place to that place. The winds were against him. Isn't that funny how life is? Sometimes you go somewhere and the winds are at your back.
It's just easygoing. And so you go, oh, isn't God good? This must be confirmation. This is the Lord's will. Well, was it any less the Lord's will for Paul to go to Rome the way he did later on?
No. And yet the winds were against him, and yet he had a shipwreck. But sometimes the winds are at your back, and sometimes they're not, and you can't always think it's because it's an easy road that this is the Lord's will. You just go with it. And if you're determined because you believe God called you there, so what? I'll get on another boat.
That sinks, I'll get on another boat. But on this journey, the winds were at their back. And from there to Philippi, which is the foremost city of that part of Macedonia, a colony, meaning a Roman colony. They prided themselves in being, well, Rome away from Rome.
Everything you would see and get in Rome, you would get to a lesser degree but have all of the accolades or all of the accoutrements, I should say, of Rome in that colony city of Philippi. And we were staying in that city for some days, and on the Sabbath day, we went out of the city to the riverside where prayer was customarily made, and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there. According to Jewish law, if you had 10 Jewish males in a city, you would establish a synagogue, a meeting place, a gathering center. For the reading of the law, for fellowship, you would have an actual place called a synagogue. However, according to Jewish law, if you had less than 10 Jewish men, you didn't build a synagogue.
So it indicates there are less than 10 Jewish men in the city of Philippi. But there are women who gather at a riverside. Why a riverside? Why did Jewish law stipulate a riverside?
Well, it's interesting. Part of Jewish worship is to be cleansed ceremonially from your defilement, from your sin, in a little font called a mikvah, and a mikvah is like a baptism. You go in, you soak in it, you get out of it, you dry off, you say prayers, you're cleansed, et cetera. Well, the law of the mikvah, that little baptism, is that water has to flow in and flow out of it.
Even if it's just a little bit, the water, listen to the description, the water has to be living water, not stagnant water, not dead water, moving, living water. So if you couldn't have a synagogue because there were fewer than 10 Jewish males, you could meet at a riverside because the river was living water, moving water. We're glad you listened today and hope you've been strengthened in your walk with Jesus. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resource, the Jesus Loves Them bundle, which comes as thanks for your support of Connect with Skip Heitzig today. Request your bundle when you call and give, 800-922-1888.
That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. We'll see you next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig. Make a connection Make a connection At the foot of the crossing Cast your burdens on His word Make a connection Connection Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
