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That's connectwithskip.com. Now let's get into today's teaching with Pastor Skip Heitzig. He wasn't afraid to die. So it's not the death penalty issue that he's struggling against. He's not there to overturn that. He's saying, if I'm guilty, kill me.
But to him, it's an issue of justice. So he rolled his eyes. He knows he's not going to get a fair trial with the Jews.
He knows that it's just going to be a circus. So he goes, I don't trust Jewish law, and I don't trust this monkey circus courtroom. Called the Sanhedrin, I take it to the Roman courts. And so he said something that every Roman citizen had the right to say. And he says it here, I appeal to Caesar.
Odd cesarum provocatio would be the Latin. When you say that in antiquity, when you say that phrase, you are saying, I am appealing my case, my provocation. I'm appealing to the highest in the land, in the world, Caesar. Every Roman citizen had that right to have a Supreme Court hearing before the Supreme Court, in this case being the emperor himself. And he could say this before he was found guilty or after he was found guilty in a lower court. And so the governor confers and says, well, you appeal to Caesar, to Caesar you will go. He had that right, he took that right.
Now, you know, this fascinates me. Because as soon as he said I appeal to Caesar, he knew that he was going where? Rome. As soon as he said that, it's like all the lights went off, all the planets aligned, some would say. It's like, you know, the Lord told me that I gave a good testimony in Jerusalem. The Lord spoke to me that night in prison and said, you've given testimony here. Now you're going to be able to give testimony in Rome. And when he said I appeal to Caesar, it's like, that's how the Lord's getting me to Rome. I'm going to Rome. I just bought my ticket to Rome. Actually, I just got given a ticket by the Roman government to Rome.
They're paying for my trip. I appeal to Caesar. But what's interesting is the Caesar that he appealed to, and that was Caesar Nero. It would not be easy to stand before Caesar Nero. Caesar Nero was not only a tyrant, he was a crazed tyrant. He burned Rome. He killed so many people. So for Paul to say I appeal to Caesar meant I know I'm going to be able to stand before Caesar Nero.
He knew he was nuts. But again, Paul's not afraid to die, and he thought, I'll be able to witness to Nero, a crazy old creature. I'm going to be able to give my Gospel testimony before him. Now eventually, it will be Nero who will take his life. This will be his death. It will be his undoing.
Not immediately. He's going to go to Rome, spend two years there. He'll be on trial. He'll be under house arrest.
He'll be let go. He'll be brought after a rearrest and then beheaded by Caesar Nero, the one he appealed to. But Paul sees all this in the providence and sovereignty of God, so he says I appeal to Caesar. And after some days, verse 13, after some days, King Agrippa and Bernice came to Caesarea to greet Festus. When they had been there many days, Festus laid Paul's case before the king, saying, There is a certain man left a prisoner by Felix, about whom the chief priests and the elders of the Jews informed me when I was in Jerusalem, asking for a judgment against him. To them I answered, It is not the custom of the Romans to deliver any man to destruction before the accused meets the accusers face to face in his opportunity to answer for himself concerning the charge against him. Therefore, when they had come together without any delay, the next day I sat on the judgment seat and commanded the man to be brought in. When the accusers stood up, they brought no accusation against him of such things as I supposed, but had some questions against him about their own religion, and about a certain Jesus who had died, whom Paul affirmed to be alive.
And because I was uncertain of such questions, I don't know these Jewish things, I'm a Roman, I asked whether he was willing to go to Jerusalem and there be judged concerning these matters. This Herod that is mentioned here, Herod Agrippa, is Herod Agrippa II, now he's noteworthy, because when he's gone, all the Harods are gone. You're not going to read of another Herod. Effectively, the Herodian dynasty ends with this guy. But this guy is Herod Agrippa II, who happened to be the son of Herod Agrippa I.
It's funny how that works. So his dad was Herod Agrippa I, just want you to know who he's dealing with. His dad was Herod Agrippa I, Herod Agrippa I was the guy who had James the Apostle beheaded and was going to kill Peter, because he saw that the Jews liked that.
That's his dad. His granddad is Herod Antipas, who gets John the Baptist beheaded and puts his head on a charger or a platter. His great granddad is a guy named Herod the Great, who kills all the babies in Bethlehem three years or two years and under, when the wise men, the magi from the east visited Bethlehem and did not come back to report to Herod the Great.
This is the dynasty Paul is standing in front of. This is King Herod Agrippa II. Now his father, Herod Agrippa I, remember how he died? You know your Bibles, you know how he died. Acts 12 tells you how he died.
He was eaten by worms. He stood in Caesarea, probably in that great theater of Caesarea that many of us have been in on a tour. He stood up there in a gold robe that shone in the sun and people just poured flattery on him. It's the voice of a god and not a man, and he just loved it and soaked it in. And because he didn't give praise to God, God struck him dead on the spot.
That's him. So this is the son, so his son is from that dynasty, has a Jewish Edomite background, so he is versed, he knows about Jesus of Nazareth. The governor doesn't, he does.
He knows because of his own history. Now when his dad died, Herod Agrippa I, he was only 17. Herod Agrippa II was only 17 when his dad died. Everybody figured he was way too young to govern Judea, so they did not let him govern Judea. He was not the king of Judea in the dynasty of the herets. So what Rome did, because now you've got the 17-year-old kid who's now the heir apparent of Judea, don't let him be the king, they said.
Rule the district with governors, procurators. So Pontius Pilate is a procurator, you know of him, we've mentioned him. You know of Felix and now you know of Festus.
We know of three, there were 14 altogether. But they started ruling until he could come of age, so what they did with this kid, Herod Agrippa II, is give him a territory way up north out of the way, just a small little territory in the area that is today Lebanon, but not Lebanon, just a part of Lebanon. That's where he reigned, he was the king of that little portion way up north in modern-day Lebanon. Later on, because he was doing a good job, they gave him another portion of land in Galilee, not all of it, but a portion of it. So this king goes to make relations to start everything off with his new procurator, pays a courtesy call to him, a visit. But he knows the history of Jesus of Nazareth and he knows of the spread of Christianity. So he comes and he visits, but notice who is with him, it says, and Bernice.
Now get a load of this. Bernice, who is with him, is his sister. Bernice is the daughter of Herod Agrippa I, like Herod Agrippa II, it's his sister. She had been married to somebody else, he died, and ever since he died, she moved in with her brother. Rumors were rife that the relationship was an incestuous relationship, that brother and sister were having sexual relations together.
That was the rumor, and that rumor happened to be substantiated by no less than Flavius Josephus the historian, who writes quite plainly that it was incest and everybody knew it. So this is Herod Agrippa II, not unlike some of the previous crazy Herods that we've read about in the past. We've gone through and explored them in depth in the Gospels and so far on Acts.
This is the last of them. But what's interesting in our text is that wherever you see his name, she's there. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. Before we return to Skip's teaching, we want to tell you about this month's resource titled The Holy Spirit Then and Now, which comes with two books by Chuck Smith. The Book of Acts commentary will help you understand how the Holy Spirit worked in the early church, and Power, a biblical balance on the person and work of the Holy Spirit, will help you see how he works in you. You'll be inspired as you discover that the same Spirit who worked in Paul, Peter, and the early church is active and involved in your life today. We'll send you the Holy Spirit then and now as our thanks for your gift of $50 or more to reach people with God's love through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copy when you give. Now, let's get back to Skip for more of today's teaching. In fact, if you want to know who he is, just look at these verses of Scripture. So it says, verse 13, after some days, King Agrippa and Bernice came to Caesarea to greet Festus. Verse 23, so the next day when Agrippa and Bernice had come with great pomp into the theater, now look at chapter 26.
Go to verse 30, when he said these things, the king stood up as well as the governor and Bernice and those who sat with him. If you want to know who Herod Agrippa II was, just take that phrase and Bernice because wherever he was, she was. They became so joined at the hip in this weird relationship that the only thing he became really known for, famous for, was this incestuous, crazy relationship with his sister. It's this Herod and Bernice, unbelievers, Jewish background, allied with Rome, ruling in the north.
Oh, something else. Eventually, Bernice is going to move back to Rome. She has been involved with several people in Rome already, but always went back to her brother. But she will move to Rome and become the mistress of another emperor and his son. The emperor is Vespasian.
Does that ring a bell? He's the guy that ordered Rome to be destroyed in 70 A.D. And his son, Titus, is the guy that attacked Jerusalem and leveled it to fulfill the prophecy of Jesus in Matthew 24. So she's going to go hang out and be the mistress of both father and son, Vespasian and Titus in Rome.
Just a little intrigued to spice it up a little bit. So that's who Paul is standing in front of. Therefore, when they came together, verse 17.
Oh, I already read that. Verse 21. When Paul appealed to be reserved for the decision of Augustus, the emperor, I commanded him to be kept until I could send him to Caesar. Then Agrippa said to Festus, I also would like to hear the man myself.
Tomorrow, he said, you shall hear him. So the next day, when Agrippa and Bernice had come with great pomp and entered the auditorium with the commanders and the prominent men of the city at Festus' command, Paul was brought in. Look at the word pomp.
It's a very interesting word in the Greek language. The king comes in with great pomp. Fantasia. Fantasia.
Fantasia. Fantasy. We get the word fantasy from this Greek word. And it means a display, an open show of fantasy. So it's a word that was used to describe kids who dress up in character. It's their fantasy.
They play act. So this guy really wasn't much of a king, but he dresses up probably in his purple robe and the gold little ringlet crown on his head. And he probably told Festus to dress up as well. So he came in his purple robe, the typical robe for the affairs of state. He had all of the ceremonial guards with him.
It was just a great fantasy dress up with all the officials there. And then it says Paul was brought in. Now, this scene to me, I'm just imagining the pomp of the king and the prisoner Paul, a pompous king and a prisoner named Paul, face to face, eyeball to eyeball.
You couldn't have two more different people, one in royal robes, one in peasant garb, one absolutely free to make any choice he wants, one who is at the subject of that choice, it would seem, in handcuffs. As King Agrippa stood upright with his goofy-looking little crown, pompous robe, everybody oohing and aahing, there stood Paul. And now, Paul, we only have one physical description of Paul, one source that tells us what Paul the Apostle looked like.
It may or may not be true, but this is the only one we have, so we'll go with it. It says that Paul was a man of very short stature, a little bent over, bald, hook nose, what they call what would be translated beetle brows, B-E-Tail, like a unibrow, thick brows that joined in the middle. So he'd picture a little bald guy, kind of bent over, and also the description was he was bowlegged.
So a bowlegged bald guy with a unibrow, crooked nose, and he squinted because he had bad eyesight. And this pompous king looks down at that guy and goes, all of this palaver over this thing? But in that courtroom, the most significant person was not King Herod Agrippa II. It was that little bald-headed, beetle-eyed, bowlegged preacher.
And he is not at all intimidated by this king or this governor. And Festus said, King Agrippa, and all the men who are present with us, remember, this is great pomp. You see this man about whom the whole assembly of the Jews petitioned me both at Jerusalem and here, crying out that he was not fit to live any longer. But when I found that he had done nothing deserving of death and that he appealed to Caesar, I decided to send him. I have nothing certain to write to my Lord concerning him.
I don't really have any evidence. Therefore, I have brought him out before you and especially before you, King Agrippa, so that after examination has taken place, I may have something to write. Or it seems to me unreasonable to send a prisoner and not to specify the charges against him.
It's great, great humor here. So I've got to take this guy to Caesar. It only makes sense that we've got to have something to charge him with. Now, there were plenty of charges against him. There's just no evidence for those charges.
None. This is the fourth trial Paul is on since he was in Jerusalem, and there is nothing that sticks to him in terms of evidence. So he's hoping something's going to come out of this. Then Agrippa said to Paul, you're permitted to speak for yourself. So Paul stretched out his hand. Picture that bald-headed, bold-legged, short, unibrowed, hook-nosed preacher. Sticks his hand out. You see, you're laughing.
That's what everybody was doing in the theater in Caesarea. And he said, I think myself happy, King Agrippa, because today I shall answer for myself before you concerning all the things which I am accused of by the Jews. Paul sounds ready, doesn't he? Paul doesn't sound like he has a loss for words. He turns like, oh, like now? You want me to say something now? He goes, I'm ready. You know what Peter said right in his epistle?
Always be ready to give a defense and answer to anybody asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Paul was ready. So this is the greatness of the story. Paul is on trial. He turns the trial into a testimony. He turns the opposition into an opportunity. He uses it for the glory of God. I'm happy.
I'm ready to speak for myself. Jesus was like this, always ready to turn a trial into a testimony and opposition into an opportunity, always look for opportunity. So he's at the well in Caesarea, and he's speaking to a woman who came there to draw water. And he used that as an opportunity to speak to her about living water. Drink of this water, you'll thirst again.
Drink of the water that I give, you'll never thirst. Using the moment as a testimony for a witness. He did that when the crowd came to him and heard him give his speeches in Galilee. They were hungry.
Jesus miraculously fed them, but then used it as an opportunity to teach them about the bread of life. John chapter six and seven. I am encouraging you to always be ready. You, always be ready.
You, always be ready to give an answer, to give a witness, to never be caught off guard, to be ready, to give a defense. Here's why I believe. This is why I live the way I do. And not only you, but also train your children to do that. Because what happens too often is children who grow up in church and are sheltered and only live with a Sunday school education get out into the world unequipped. Their parents never taught them how to defend the faith, never how to present any kind of an apologetic whatsoever. They get to college and they drop off the face of the spiritual map.
And then they scramble, what do I do? My child didn't believe. Get him ready for that. I remember telling my son, the reason I'm sending you to a secular school in your primary education is because I want you to hear what people believe about God and I want you to be able to give an answer to them. Later on, he was involved in Christian education, but I didn't want that at first. I wanted the opportunity for him to hear where the world is at and stand up for what he believed in a secular environment.
One author put it this way. Let's say your son has been raised in a Christian home, has gone to a Christian school, and runs with Christian friends and has spent all of his formative years in that rather sheltered environment. To make matters more complicated, you have said very little about the real world and done nothing to equip him for what he is sure to face. When he goes off to college, he is thrust into a school that is not Christian.
He is surrounded by young adults who, for the most part, are not Christians. Almost overnight, he is introduced to an environment that he hardly knew existed. This is where the rubber meets the road.
That is when all the theory either works or goes down the tube. Paul was ready. He had heard it all before. And people who were with Paul, he got them ready. So get your kids ready.
You get ready. Always be ready to give an answer, to give a defense. So what Paul does here is he pulls out of his apologetic toolbox his first and, I would say, the first line of offense or defense, depending on how you want to look at it, depending on your conversation. And that is his testimony, your personal testimony, how you got saved.
Learn to say it in a few sentences and say it in a few different forms so that you can quickly tell people how you came to Christ. Why is this important? Because you're telling them, essentially, I have a vantage point you don't have. You are an unsaved person. I am a saved person who used to be an unsaved person. I've been on both sides of the fence. You're only on one side of the fence.
This is what happened to me. Here is my story and how I got from that side of the fence to this side of the fence. That's your story. Now, you can't stop with your story.
You then want to buttress it, and you want to fortify it, and you want to strengthen it with not just your story, your subjective story, but then you show them objective evidence that shows why your subjective story can stand scrutiny and is reasonable. We're glad you joined us today. Before you go, remember that when you give $50 or more to help reach more people with the gospel through Connect with Skip Heitzig, we'll send you The Holy Spirit Then and Now, featuring two books by Chuck Smith to help you understand how God's Spirit worked in the early church and how He's active in you today. To request your copy, call 800-922-1888.
That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. For more from Skip, be sure to download the Connect with Skip Heitzig app where you can access messages and more content right at your fingertips. Come back 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 all 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.
