What do you do when you believe God is prompting you in one direction but prayerful godly friends strongly disagree?
Is it possible for the Holy Spirit to give conflicting guidance? We'll consider these questions today on Truth for Life as Alistair Begg looks at how the Apostle Paul responded when he faced a similar dilemma. We're going to read from the Bible in Acts chapter 21.
I encourage you to turn to it. Acts chapter 21, beginning to read at verse 1. After we had torn ourselves away from them, we put out to sea and sailed straight to Kos. The next day we went to Rhodes and from there to Potara. We found a ship crossing over to Phoenicia, went on board, and set sail.
After sighting Cyprus and passing to the south of it, we sailed on to Syria. We landed at Tyre, where our ship was to unload its cargo. Finding the disciples there, we stayed with them seven days.
Through the Spirit, they urged Paul not to go to Jerusalem. But when our time was up, we left and continued on our way. All the disciples and their wives and children accompanied us out of the city, and there on the beach we knelt to pray.
After saying goodbye to each other, we went aboard the ship, and they returned home. We continued our voyage from Tyre and landed at Ptolemy, where we greeted the brothers and stayed with them for a day. Leaving the next day, we reached Caesarea and stayed at the house of Philip the Evangelist, one of the seven.
He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied. After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. Coming over to us, he took Paul's belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, the Holy Spirit says, in this way, the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles. When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem.
Then Paul answered, Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, The Lord's will be done. After this, we got ready and went up to Jerusalem. Some of the disciples from Caesarea accompanied us and brought us to the home of Mason where we were to stay.
He was a man from Cyprus and one of the early disciples. Amen. Father, we thank you that Jesus is Lord, and we pray that he may reign as Lord over our minds and over my mouth and over our hearts as we look to the Bible together. We're entirely and desperately in need of your enabling, and we come seeking it in Jesus' name.
Amen. I must confess that when I first read this chapter—and you may have had much the same feeling when I was reading it earlier on—it seemed to be little more than notes from Luke's diary. It reads, especially in the opening verses, very much simply like a travel itinerary. And earlier in the week when I returned to this and opened my Bible and read it and then read it in another translation and then read it in a paraphrase, I still, having had it read about four or five times, I had a large blank sheet of paper on my right-hand side.
Having thought of everything I could think of, the paper was confronting me with the inadequacy of any kind of observations. Now, what do you do when you're in that predicament? I mean, Sunday's coming, and you've got your passage, and you've got nothing on the passage, and time is ticking. Well, you pray.
You ask for God's help. It's the work of the Spirit of God to illumine the Bible to us. It's not the responsibility of the teacher to try and be creative or intriguing. And at the same time, you ask questions of the passage, the kind of questions that we've tried to encourage one another to learn. What is the text actually saying, as opposed to what would I like it to say, or what can I make it say?
Why is it saying it in the way that it's saying it? Why is this particular passage here and not somewhere else? And also the question, what is there that is surprising about this passage? Now, when I got to that question, I began to get my first little bit of help, because there is something that is really surprising about this passage, and I wonder if you picked it up. And that is that the promptings of the Holy Spirit appear to be in direct conflict with each other. Did you notice that Paul's sense of the prompting of the Spirit of God was so clear and so defined that he determined I've got to go to Jerusalem? But his friends' response to the promptings of the Spirit of God was actually the opposite.
They determined that he shouldn't go to Jerusalem. And so when I found that, I said, well, okay, at least I've got something that is intriguing enough for me to think about. And then I went back and tried to find the line that runs through it, and I think I did, and you'll be able to tell whether you think I did as well as we go forward from here. There are a couple of important sort of geographical and historical pointers that we need if we're going to make sense of the chapter. The geographical one takes us back to the fifteenth verse of chapter 20, where we discover that Paul was in Miletus. Now, the place Miletus is not in itself significant. What is significant is that Luke is telling us here that according to his record, we've reached the end of Paul's missionary journeys. He doesn't go any further into any other direction from Miletus. What happens from here is the record of him going to Jerusalem, his arrest, his subsequent imprisonment, his appeal to Caesar, and then as a result of appealing to Caesar, his final journey to Rome.
And so we need to make sure that we have that clearly in our minds. And the decision on Paul's part to make this journey can be found in chapter 19 and in verse 21. After all this has happened, Paul decided to go to Jerusalem, passing through Macedonia and Achaia.
After I'd been there, he said, I must visit Rome also. Now, that's an important note in setting the context and finding the line that is running through this chapter. If you look at the sixteenth verse of chapter 20, you add a little piece into the puzzle.
Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus to avoid spending time in the province of Asia, not because he didn't like the province of Asia or didn't want to meet anyone there, but we're told by Luke, he was in a hurry to reach Jerusalem, and if possible, to reach Jerusalem by the day of Pentecost. And then you can add one final note to that in the twenty-second verse of Acts chapter 20, where Paul says, compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem. Now, keep that in mind as you look at the way in which this chapter begins.
Indeed, as you look at the way in which the twentieth chapter ends. If you heap up the verbs that are there, you get the picture very quickly. Here are a group of people that are involved—the group is involved in kneeling, praying, weeping, hugging, kissing, grieving. It's packed with action. It is full of emotion. It is a compelling scene.
And if you look, you will find that all of these verbs are there. And you say to yourself, why are the people as distressed as this? What is going on here at the end of chapter 20? Well, the answer is that Paul is leaving.
Okay. Yes, but why can't he stay? Why is he departing?
What is the reason for his departure? Now, all of these are sensible questions. They are obvious questions that come to mind in reading the Bible, unless, of course, you're simply reading the Bible waiting for something to hit you in the way that something might fall off the roof and bang you on the head, or reading the Bible waiting and hoping for some kind of blessed idea that might strike you. But if you want to read the Bible as a student of the Bible, then you need to come to the Bible in the way that you come to any other narrative, any other book, and you need to ask of it the important and essential questions. That way, you get answers, and you build an understanding of things, and you're better able to become a teacher of the Bible yourself.
Well, of course, we know the answer to these questions, don't we? Back in chapter 19, because he made a decision. When you cross-reference that with what he says in chapter 20, his decision was directly related to the compulsion that he felt from the Spirit of God.
So, we have this picture, two notions set side by side. One, Paul, if you like, applying himself sensibly to the circumstances of his life, saying to himself one morning, okay, that's it, next stop Jerusalem. When someone asks him about the decision that he'd made, he says, well, I can't explain my decision to go to Jerusalem out with the framework of the work of the Spirit of God. And from this point, from Miletus all the way through the end of Acts, you have a man with a mission heading for Jerusalem. A man with a mission heading for Jerusalem. Does that ring any bells for anybody? A man with a mission heading for Jerusalem.
Of course, it does. You're thinking of Jesus, aren't you? And no surprise, because Luke is now in his second volume. In his first volume, right around the end of chapter 9, he explained to his readers that Jesus, at a certain point, said, okay, that's it, next stop Jerusalem, essentially. And the balance of Luke's first book, his gospel, is then taken up with everything that was involved in that journey to Jerusalem and what took place there.
Here we find him doing the very same thing. Here we find Paul in the footsteps of his master. Here, perhaps, was one of the reasons that Paul was able to say, follow me as I follow Christ. Because in a very realistic sense, he was actually doing that as he made his way towards Jerusalem. Now, clearly, it wasn't going to end in the way that it ended for Jesus.
He was going on to roam beyond Jerusalem. We understand that. But there are parallels. Let me give you one other.
I won't bore you with it or make it tedious for you. But do you remember when, in Matthew's Gospel, we have the record of Peter's great affirmation of faith? Remember, Jesus asked the question, Who do men say that I am? And they say, Well, some say John the Baptist and some say Elijah.
Some people are saying, You're a prophet. Fine, he said, But who do you say that I am? And after a moment, Silas, our friend Peter, puts up his hand, and he says, I think I know the answer.
Go ahead. You are the Christ, you are the Messiah of God, you are the Son of the living God. Jesus says, Excellent, Peter, go to the top of the class. So he sits at the top of the class, very happy to be at the top of the class, and Jesus says, Okay, now that we have established my identity, let me tell you how things are going from here.
The Son of Man must go up to Jerusalem and fall into the hands of wicked men and suffer and die and be raised on the third day. The hand goes up from the back of the class, Excuse me, Jesus, no, I'm sorry, never will that happen to you. That will never happen to you.
We cannot allow that to happen to you. Jesus says, Okay, Peter, you've had five minutes at the top of the class. Now come down, sit in the banishing division over here, put the dunces hat on your head, because you have once again gone from glory to absolute ignominy in a relatively short period of time. Well, you see, surely we can applaud Peter for being so concerned for Jesus' welfare.
Yes. So Peter's reaction to Jesus' announcement of his journey to Jerusalem was at one and the same time admirable and wrong. It was admirable, but it was wrong. Now, when you come back into chapter 20 and look, for example, at verse four, the disciples through the Spirit urged Paul not to go to Jerusalem. If you look at verse 12, we, Luke included this time, and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go to Jerusalem.
Their concern for Paul's protection was admirable, and as we'll see, wrong. Now, there are all kinds of lessons in this, not least of all, that the strength of people's concerns and affirmations and deductions must always be held in check, because wisdom from God via his word, which is divine, is then translated into the minds which are fallible minds in each of us. God's Word is fixed, it is true, it is unassailable. Our deductions from God's Word are fallible deductions, and not necessarily right. And not necessarily right even when twenty of us have agreed on it.
When the whole group has agreed on it. Now, you see, when you ask the question, what's surprising about this? You begin to get underneath the surface of it. Now, as you follow the line all the way through, and we just go as far as verse 16, you'll be relieved to know, because we're trying to get to verse 5, as it turns out. But I want to show you verse 5, as I had a revelation this week, which is Acts 21 verse 5. I have discovered something that no preacher that I have ever heard has ever discovered, which is the key to it here, verse 5a.
When our time was up, we left and continued on our way. That is a verse that has been discovered by congregations undiscovered by preachers. Congregations know when the time is up, ready to leave, on their way.
Preachers seldom know when the time is up, myself included. So if you finish your part, which is listening, before I finish my part, which is speaking, then I suppose you're either going to have to wait quietly for me, or I'll catch you up out in the parking lot. So we're trying to get to verse 5. You'll know the time will be up, we'll leave, and we'll get on our way.
But as you continue through it, you will notice that one of the points of emphasis, and we pick this up simply by its repetition, is that Paul, despite his fixation with getting to Jerusalem, despite the clarity of his focus, despite the immensity of his gifting, he wasn't a one-man band. And his journey to Jerusalem is punctuated by a series of hellos and goodbyes. Now I know you think I'm crazy about this, about my preoccupation with saying hello and saying goodbye, but I think it hits me all the time from the Bible. The importance of the way in which we say hello and the importance of the way in which we say goodbye needs to be taught to our children and needs to be underpinned in our lives, because there will be a last time for every goodbye. There will be a last time when you walk away from someone, someone you love, or your boss, or your friend. It is important not to walk away wrongly, and it is equally important to greet people properly. Now you'll find that this is founded and grounded in the absolute wonder and necessity of Christian fellowship.
Now, let me just show you. For example, the verb in verse 1, we have torn ourselves away. We'll come back to that. Verse 4, finding the disciples.
4b, staying with them for seven days. Verse 5, another emotional farewell scene. He didn't just say, okay, we're out of here. And people shut their doors and said, okay, I guess that's Paul. He's gone. No, the whole caboodle came down onto the beach.
Why? Because of the nature of relationships. We greeted the brothers, verse 7, when they landed at Ptolemy. We stayed with them for a day.
Didn't have to do that, except for the fact that relationships were precious. We stayed with Philip. Verse 9, he had four unmarried daughters. Verse 16, some of the disciples accompanied them. Verse 17, the brothers received them warmly.
Verse 15, they went into Mason's home where they stayed and he was an early disciple. Now, in all of these expressions of hospitality, Luke is making a point. He doesn't make it didactically. He doesn't say, now, here is a point about hospitality. Here is a point about the nature of fellowship, the importance of relationship.
It just comes out. You just read it and you say, hey, Paul was really, he was really into this stuff. Staying here, going there in this person's house, in that person's house. If you think about it, it's true for all of us. If we're serious about Christian fellowship, if we find Christian fellowship to be vital to us because of what God has done for us in Jesus. Incidentally, Christian fellowship is something far different from like going to a building, attending church, getting your tickets stamped. Christian fellowship is about a relationship with the living God in Jesus.
It's about a complete change of heart and mind and direction. People don't naturally aspire to know the living God. That is something that God does. And when he puts us in a right relationship with himself, he puts us in a right relationship with other people. And those relationships become the very heartbeat of our lives. We need them. We depend upon them. When we're separated from them, we miss them. When we return to them, we are aware of how thankful we are for them. That's Christian fellowship.
And for those of you who come to Parkside and say to yourself, did it, I've got news for you. You have never begun to understand the nature of Christian fellowship. It's not about rules. It's not about regulations. It's not about man's expectations. It's not about structure.
It's about none of that. It's about the importance that we attach to being put together in the company of God's people, recognizing that when I absent myself from that company, not only do I deprive myself, but I deprive those whom God intends for me to touch by my life, by my love, by my questions, by my prayers. That's the nature of Christian fellowship. Now, in that whole list of meaningful relationships, you know, the one that stands out is Philip the Evangelist with his four unmarried daughters who prophesied. I mean, this is a verse to get you in deep trouble right here, isn't it? Either by saying something about it or not saying something about it.
So I'm going to say something about it. First of all, this is probably the context in which Luke discovered the story that we have in chapter 8 that we imagined in terms of, you know, Dustin Hoffman meeting Morgan Freeman. Remember, Morgan Freeman being the large Ethiopian in the chariot and Dustin Hoffman being Philip the Evangelist running along beside the chariot. For those of you who are harmed by that, just put it out of your mind, which you'll never be able to do again in your life.
For the rest of us, we've just had this picture in our minds. And at the end of that, around verse 40 in chapter 8, Luke says, and they were separated from one another, the Ethiopian got back in his chariot and went to his destination. Philip was caught up from there, went away preaching the gospel out through his Otis until he ended up in Caesarea. So you read your Bible and say, I wonder what happened then.
You keep reading your Bible, you're reading, reading, reading. All of a sudden you come to chapter 21, boom, Philip. Hey, Philip, we know Philip, the evangelist, one of the seven friend of Stephen who was martyred. What's been happening with Philip? Twenty years have passed. He got married if he wasn't already married.
He's got four unmarried daughters who prophesy. What's that about? Don't know. What were they saying? Fortunately, we are not told. Where were they doing it?
Don't know. If we needed all that information, we would have had it. What it does for us, though, is recognizes the fact that the promise of God through the prophet Joel given to us in Acts chapter 2 is in operation here in the home of Philip, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Now, for those who use this as a verse for establishing the role of women preachers, you should come and see me afterwards, and we'll have that discussion in a private and hopefully profitable way. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg.
We'll hear the conclusion of this message on Monday. As we're learning in this study in the book of Acts, God used the Apostle Paul in extraordinary ways. His ministry spanned thousands of miles across Roman roads and angry seas as he boldly proclaimed the message of salvation to all who would listen. Today, we're recommending a book to you that offers an in-depth look at the Apostle Paul's life. It's called An Illustrated Guide to the Apostle Paul, His Life, Ministry, and Missionary Journeys.
This book lays out a timeline of Paul's travels in his letters, along with many maps and photos to help you visualize his journey through each location. Ask for your copy of the book today when you give online at truthforlife.org slash donate or call us at 888-588-7884. And if you'd prefer to set up an automatic monthly donation for your giving, it's easy to arrange at truthforlife.org slash truthpartner. Now, in just a few days, Alistair is hosting pastors from around the world at the annual Basics Conference. This is a three-day conference that aims to encourage pastors and equip them for ministry. There will be more than a thousand men attending to hear from Alistair, as well as guest speakers William Philip and Richard Pratt. Basics is a time for those in pastoral ministry to be refreshed and encouraged, so please pray for safe travels for all and that this would be a time of enrichment and renewed passion to preach the gospel. And if you'd like to follow along online, the live stream starts at 3 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday, May 5th.
Visit basicsconference.org. Thanks for listening this week. Hope you have a great weekend and can worship with your local church. Join us Monday when we'll find out why it's impossible to be connected to Christ while remaining disconnected from those who love him. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
