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That's connectwithskip.com. Now, let's get into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. 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. 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 9, 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 and go, 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, just easy going. 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. 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, the 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. Now, this must have been a disappointment for Paul. He sees a man of Macedonia saying, come over to Macedonia and help us. They go, come on, God's in this. They go over to Macedonia, they don't see a man.
They see women meeting at a riverside. And Paul must have been thinking, huh, that's not kind of what I thought was going to happen once I got to Macedonia. I thought I'd like meet the man I saw in the vision. Well, it goes downhill from here because he's going to get arrested, he's going to get thrown in jail, and he's going to get beaten in Philippi.
It's going to go from bad to worse in a very short period of time. You know the old joke, and I've said it many times, is that whenever Paul would travel, go from one city to the next city, whenever he'd hit a new town, he'd say, excuse me, could you give me the directions to the nearest jail? I just want to know where I'm going to be spending the night tonight. Because he seemed to end up in a lot of incarceration facilities. And he will end up in the Philippian jail.
Now, I'm painting this picture because I want you to see a point. God is leading Paul every step of the way. The steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord. God's leading his steps.
It's not what he anticipated, it's not what he expected. Kent Hughes, a Bible commentator that I've always enjoyed reading, said that the guidance of God is like a multifaceted jewel. He doesn't guide only one way. He has a variety up his sleeve of ways to direct and guide your life. Closed doors, open doors, direct revelation, peace in the heart, disease, prosperity, a number of ways God guides your life, which I've always enjoyed. I've always viewed following God as the greatest adventure possible. Who cares about a predictable life?
You can get that anywhere. You follow God, you don't know what you're in store for. But you're going to go on a wild ride. It's going to be quite an adventure. And God has all sorts of ways of directing his children as he did to Paul. The Bible says commit your way into the Lord and he will do it.
Just let him do it. Commit your way to the Lord and then sit back and enjoy the ride. Here's why it ought to be an adventure. Where is this ride you're on taking you eventually? Where are you going to end up when it's all done?
Heaven. So your destination on this wild ride is secure. Why not enjoy the view? Why not look around, roll down the windows, get some fresh air, say, Whoa, that's a bump in the road. Boy, I didn't expect that turn. But enjoy it.
Why go through life with clenched fists and teeth? I'm going to go following God. Who wants that? I want to see the joy of the Lord because you don't know where he's going to take you next. So Paul, I get a vision from God after hearing no and no. I go to Macedonia. That's what I expected.
I see women in Riverside. What's up? What's God's up to? Well, you're going to go to prison and get beaten.
How's that? Before you go, Oh, that can't be the will of God. Ask Paul tonight if you could be in heaven. Do you think it was worth it to get beaten up and thrown in that Philippian jail? Were you angry at God?
Are you mad because God allowed that to happen in your life? Paul would say, Are you nuts? Do you not know about the jailer who received Christ and his family and were baptized and the church that developed there? 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. Now let's continue with today's teaching from Pastor Skip. Verse 14, now a certain woman, this is part of the Riverside gang, a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us saying, If you have judged me be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay. And so she persuaded us.
We can piece some things together in these verses and get a little composite understanding of who this woman was. She was a businesswoman. She was from Asia Minor, that's where Thyatira is. So she's not a local. She has moved from Thyatira and set up shop in Philippi.
Why? Well, Thyatira was known historically for a product that it harvested and that was a purple cloth because they had access to a very rare kind of purple dye in that area. And so purple cloth came from Thyatira. Purple cloth was very expensive. Only the wealthy could afford it.
Usually kings and people of royal stature had it. So she made probably a very good living, moving from the area, having a direct line for manufacture of it, where she could then sell it in that part of Eastern Europe. And so she was a businesswoman. Even Homer, by the way, Homer, the writer of the Iliad and the Odyssey, years before the writer, said and noted about the luxurious purple dyed fabrics of Thyatira.
So it was well established as a place that reveled in this kind of cloth. And it says the Lord opened her heart. And so she becomes a believer. She gets baptized.
Now, she's a businesswoman, and can I add, she was probably a very successful businesswoman. And I say that because just the way she talks to Paul and the team. It says, if you have counted me faithful, then you'll stay at my house and let me keep you up there and give you what you need. Now, that's just putting the pressure on them. If you've counted me faithful, you'll let me take care of you guys. In other words, if you don't let me put you up at my house, you haven't counted me faithful. So she's just got a good technique, kind of a high pressured salesperson. That's how I view her, just by her wording. I would also surmise that she has probably a nice home, a sizable home. Because in verse 15, she has a guest facility for Luke and Paul and Silas and the other team members to be housed there, taken care of. And in verse 40, it would seem that the brethren, that is the Christians of the church at Philippi, were meeting in her home. So I think that's probably enough said about her and an accurate description of who she is.
But think of her this way. The Lord opened her heart and she became a Christian. She opened her home and it became a church.
Beautiful tie together of those two things. Now it happened, verse 16, as we went to prayer, that's Riverside prayer, that a certain slave girl, possessed with the spirit of divination, she's demon possessed, spirit of divination, met us who brought her masters much profit by fortune telling. This girl followed Paul and us and cried out saying, these men are the servants of the most high God who proclaim to us the way of salvation. Now what's wrong with what she said? What she said was true. She's demon possessed and she speaks something true. And most people would hear this and go, well, that's good advertising. That's free advertising. But Paul doesn't want to let Satan do his advertising. So she did this for many days. But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.
And he came out that very hour. But when her master saw that their hope of profit was gone, it was all about the bottom line, they seized Paul and Silas, dragged him into the marketplace to the authorities and they brought them to the magistrates and said, these men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city. And they teach customs which are not lawful for us, being Romans, to receive or observe. Then the multitude rose up together against them and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. The Romans believed in corporal punishment. They would beat prisoners with a whip. Jesus was beat with a flagellum.
We've described that on several occasions. Sometimes, and in this case, they would beat prisoners with rods, sticks, hard sticks, and they would put welts on them. It's interesting that there is a country across the world from us that believes in corporal punishment, a very sophisticated and advanced country called Singapore. And if you go to Singapore, what's amazing is that you don't see gum on the sidewalks. It's punishable.
You don't hear certain kinds of language or advertisement. It's punishable. And certain activities are punishable by beating with a cane, a stick, a rod.
Some of you will remember the hoopla back in 1994. Do you remember that when a 19-year-old American was over there and was arrested for vandalism and theft? They arrested him, put him in jail for four months. The sentence was four months and six strikes with a cane.
Sentence was reduced to four. So they believe in corporal punishment. The Romans did as well, but much more severely than Singaporeans. Paul talks about the punishment that he received in his ministry in one of his letters, and he says, three times I was beaten with rods. This is one of those times. The other two, we don't have the assurance on when that was, but he says, three times I was beaten with rods. I had many stripes laid on me, innumerable stripes, but three times in particular I was beaten with rods.
This is one of those times. Just wanted to tie that thought. Verse 24, having received such a charge, he, the jailer, put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in stocks. Now is the low point of Paul's ministry in Philippi. Now he's in the inner prison. Roman prisons had three parts. They had sort of an outward community part where there was both light and air that was fresher for prisoners who had minimal charges. Then there was the interiorum, the interior portion of the prison, where they were separated by metal bars and gates and placed in stocks.
But then there was the inner prison, the third part, sort of like a dark hole in the ground, like the Mamertine prison in Rome. Paul was placed in that inner dark prison. Now he is looking for the will of God. He's out to serve the Lord.
He's in the ministry because of the call of the Lord on his life. He gets a no and then a no and then a vision. The vision said, come to Macedonia and help us. I'm coming, Lord. I'm coming, man, from Macedonia. Gets there, no man.
But a few chicks at the river and one of them says yes to Jesus. We're off to a good start. Not what I expected. Here we go. Now I'm in jail.
Now I'm in the inner prison. That's a love point. What does Paul do? Does he blame God? Does he get angry with God? How could a God of love allow this to happen to an apostle? No, he praises God.
He worships God. It's the amazing part of the story, verse 25. But at midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them. Now I don't know how excited they were to hear them at midnight. I mean, you might want to just try this at midnight tonight when your wife or husband is sleeping.
Just sit up and start singing to them and see how they respond to you. I don't know if they were so stoked to hear hymns at midnight. It's like, dude, get some sleep. It's hard enough in here.
Just a thought. Suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were open and everyone's chain was loosed. Paul's in prison.
What did he do? You know, I'll tell you what. What would you do? You follow the will of God. You want God's will for your life.
You think God is leading you and he is. But to a jail? In the inner prison?
My feet in stocks? What do you pray? How do you pray for those who arrested you? Well, a psalm comes to mind. David once prayed for his enemies, a prayer that I have memorized.
Break their teeth in their mouth, oh God. Isn't that a great prayer? That would be my prayer if I were Paul in that prison. God get them. You know how to get people.
Get them. But he worships. He turns it into a sanctuary. And the keeper of the prison, awaking from sleep, seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword, was about to kill himself.
Why? Because he'd be killed anyway. The punishment for a soldier.
If prisoner's escape was death. Paul called with a loud voice. Got to love Paul, saying, Do yourself no harm. We're here. Not like the door's open. Let's get out.
He's staying. And then he called for a light and ran in and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas, and he brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? Don't you love it when somebody asks you that question? Very rarely have I had this happen, but I have had people come to me in the weirdest situation, saying, So how do I get to heaven? What do I need to do to be saved?
That's an open door. That's probably an indication that God wants you to witness now. What must I do to be saved? And, of course, Paul says, Well, you should join a church and pay your tithe and you should be baptized. No, his answer is, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved and your household. What does that mean?
We'll tell you next time. 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 get 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.
