When the Holy Spirit prompted the Apostle Paul to return to Jerusalem, he couldn't be talked out of it, even though there were threats of imprisonment looming. As we follow Paul's return trip today on Truth for Life, we'll learn the importance of Christian fellowship, guidance, and discipleship. Alistair Begg is teaching from the opening verses in Acts chapter 21. 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 ticket stamped. 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 be 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, 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 let me 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 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 Azotus 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.
Now, I've already made a point of application, but I'll come back to it one more time. I just really want to say three things about this, which I hope you will agree emerge from this and I hope are equally helpful. First of all, to reiterate, number one, the precious nature of Christian fellowship, the precious nature of Christian fellowship. In Acts chapter 2, remember when the three thousand are converted, they're baptized. We read immediately, Luke says they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayers and so on. It wasn't something that was arduous for them. It wasn't some rule that had been established that they needed to obey, but they loved God's people and they loved the company of God's people. Now, it is that that gives insight into the verb here, which is the verb to tear. It's interestingly the same verb that is used in verse 30 of chapter 20, even from among your own number, men will arise, to draw away disciples after them.
The whole idea of pulling and tearing and wrenching is used in that negative way in chapter 20 and then in this more positive light in chapter 21. What you have here is the heart-rending nature of the farewell. Farewells are hard, aren't they? Again, in Belfast the other day as we were fiddling with our baggage and cars were pulling up and people were saying goodbye, all of a sudden we were caught up in a scene. First, we weren't aware of it. It was just a car pulled up, someone was getting out, a bag was going, and then it's almost as if it just went into slow motion. And here it was, a mom and dad and their married daughter and the tiny baby coming out of the car seat, and it was goodbye.
And it just was… I stood there and I said, oh, look at this. Now, we all understand that. On a human level, we understand that. If you ever had a boyfriend or a girlfriend and you loved them and you wanted to live with them for the rest of your life, you wrote them songs that were all about this, didn't you? Well, I don't know what kids do today. I don't know.
Write to me and I'll send you a book if you do. That's a terrible line from Verworth. But anyway, in the sixties, we at least did songs. I don't know what the songs are today. But tell me you don't remember these lyrics, old fogies.
Here we go. Now, now the dawn is breaking. It's early morn. The taxi's waiting.
It's blowing his horn. Already I'm so lonesome I could die. So kiss me and cry for me and tell me that you'll wait for me and hold me like you'll never let me go, because I'm leaving on a jet plane. I don't know if I'll be back again. Oh, babe, I hate to go.
All right? I can tell by some of your eyes, I just took you to a place. I'm not sure it was a good place, but I took you to a place.
Why? Because you identify with the emotion that's involved in that. That was my song. It can be your song. That was my song. Tell me that you'll wait for me. That was the line.
After all, she was only 14 years old, and then she was 17 years old with an ocean between us. Tell me that you'll wait for me. Repulse all those American fellows, handsome with muscles. Drive them from you. Wait for me.
Now hold me like you'll never let me go. We understand that on a natural level. Now if Christian fellowship means anything, it has to take us into this dimension. Now it may not take us into it with every person that ever identified themselves with our local church. We recognize the nature of personality. Even within family life, not all brothers and sisters, if you come from a big family, have the same sense of connection, even though they love one another and so on.
But it ought to be there somewhere and with someone. And I say to you again, if it isn't, then it may well be that you do not even understand what it means to be connected to Christ because it is impossible to be connected to Christ without being connected to those who love Christ. And that's the importance not only of coming here and sitting in this big room, but of going out of here and being involved in a smaller group, involved in praying for one another, involved in caring for one another, and so on. All of these things are simply the mechanisms that are the outflow of relationships because of the precious nature of Christian fellowship. His pain and parting, not only there, but also in the repeat event, as it were, down in verse five, is more than matched by the warmth of the welcome in verse 17.
And when he arrived at Jerusalem, the brothers received us warmly. Isn't it nice to get a warm welcome? You know, you go in a room, and it's like, wow, what's the problem in here? You know?
You cut the air with a knife. Everybody's waiting for everybody else. Love always takes the initiative. If there's no welcome in the room, you be the welcomer. If there's no initiative in the room, you take the initiative. If there's no love in the room, shed a little love. Shower the people with love you love.
Show them the way that you feel. Right? Now, we have to go, because there's only three minutes left and two more points of application. The precious nature of Christian fellowship, the practical nature of Christian guidance.
I'm just going to tease you with this and move on. But I want you to notice verse 2, we found a ship. Verse 4, we found the disciples.
There's no peculiar drama in that verb, is there? Where are we going? Well, we're going across the sea. Okay. This may be a good time for finding a ship.
Brilliant, Paul. Why don't we see if we can find a ship? Okay. They found a ship. We found a ship.
Good. They land. Let's go find the disciples. They're not on some kind of divine global positioning system where they land, they go up here, turn here, and boom, they find them.
No. They check around. They ask in the thing. Is there people meet here?
Do you know any Christians here? Whatever it is, they go and find the people. Have you used a global positioning system in your car?
I don't have one in mind, but I used my brother-in-law's and it was fascinating. A lady in the car, but not in the car, talking all the time. But I called her Brenda, because I wanted to talk with her.
But I mean, they're fabulous. She said, in 200 yards, turn left. And then at the next roundabout, take the second exit.
And then the one I love best, as soon as possible, do a U-turn. Oh, sorry, Brenda. Sorry. I was trying my best. But what I discovered was that as soon as I went on the GPS, I quit thinking.
I stopped using my own faculties. I mean, driving down streets I even know, places I know, and I'm letting some voice tell me where to turn. I know you don't turn there. That's not the quickest way.
But as soon as I went on the GPS mode, then my brain was out of it. Some people think that's the nature of Christian guidance. And what they do is they say, do not rely on your own insight. Yes.
What's the verb? Don't rely on. It doesn't say don't use.
It says use it, but don't rely on it. And when we disengage our brains in trying to think things out about the where's and why for's of our own Christian pilgrimage, we put ourselves in real difficulty. Of course, we understand the nature of God's mysterious interventions. Philip is a classic example in chapter 8, and the Holy Spirit said, go to the road that goes down to Gaza. How did he say that?
I don't know. And when he was on the road, the Holy Spirit said, join yourself to the chariot. Again, I don't know how that happened. It happened, and God is able to work as he chooses to work. But we'll get ourselves in real difficulty if we confuse the divine nature of God's Word to us with the fallible deduction that we make from God's Word. Now, that's the only way that I can understand this apparent contradiction. The Holy Spirit is not contradicting himself. The Holy Spirit cannot contradict himself. So what do we make then of this dramatic prophecy in 10 where Agabus takes the belt, ties it around his hands, notice what he says.
The Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles. That's the prophetic word. Verse 12, when we heard this, we pleaded with Paul not to go to Jerusalem. But what was the prophetic word? It was a prediction. It was not a prohibition. And the people deduced from the prediction the necessity of a prohibition. Don't go, Paul.
It would be wrong for you to go. Back in verse 4, presumably the same thing is going on. Through the Spirit, they urged Paul not to go to Jerusalem. They were sensitive to the prompting of the Spirit of God. And so the warning, if you like, was a divine warning.
The deduction was human. And they made a deduction which they then tried to hang on Paul, incidentally and in passing. This causes us a cautionary note—not one that overturns this principle—but causes a cautionary note when we continue to affirm that the nature of guidance is that there will be a subjective sense of call with the objective ratification on the part of those who know and love as best. The objective ratification on the part of those who knew and loved Paul best did not come. It ran counter to what Paul had decided to do, what Paul felt compelled to do. And what is true in that respect, in terms of Paul's sense of urgency and their move, may also be reversed in some cases where the mind and understanding of the group is very clear and right, and the deduction on the part of the individual is wrong.
Now, that's why I say to you that the issue of guidance—whenever you see a book that explains guidance, it will have helpful points in it, but it will not ultimately explain guidance. Because the very nature of the way of God's unfolding drama is untidy at best. It's just untidy. Read missionary biography and you'll know how untidy it is.
Read the story of local churches and you'll know how untidy it is. Take, for example, Gladys Aylward. She couldn't get involved with a missionary agency if her life depended on it. All of the group in their wisdom told her, you're too small, you're too uneducated, you're too physically frail. And here she was questioning herself, wondering why it was that she was such a tiny little person, not even five foot tall, smaller than that, and with straight black hair. What could God possibly do with such a tiny little person with straight black hair, especially when she thought that those who had a lovely blonde hair and the curls were so far more attractive and perhaps of better use? But you see, God knew exactly what He was doing. And when she got off the ship in mainland China and looked across the quay, she looked into a scene of tiny little women with straight black hair, whom God had prepared for her to be an evangelist to.
So you see, these guys who were really clear protecting her and protecting, you know, the agency, may be commended for their desire to protect, but history bears testimony to the fact that they were wrong. Remember that the best of men are men at best. And finally—I'm sorry, finally—notice not only the precious nature of Christian fellowship, the practical nature of Christian guidance, but the powerful example of Christian discipleship, which is provided for us in Paul. I'm going to Jerusalem, he says, and nothing can dissuade me. This one thing I do, remember Philippians 3, forgetting what is behind, I press on. He couldn't be dissuaded from reaching Jerusalem.
It wasn't that he was unfeeling in pursuit of his goal. In verse 13, he says to the folks, you're breaking my heart. You are breaking my heart because, and it's the sense of tornness that he feels again in writing to the Philippians.
I don't know what to do. I desire to depart and be with Christ, which would be far better, but I actually desire to stay with you, which would be useful for your encouragement. You've got much the same thing in that scene in verse 13.
You're breaking my heart. Don't go breaking my heart because I'm going to Jerusalem. Neither his sensitivity towards them nor their sympathy and desire for his protection of him was able to divert him from the fulfillment of God's purpose in his life. In essence, the friend's response was natural. Paul's response was supernatural.
Do you remember what he said? I'm prepared not only to be bound, but I'm prepared to die in Jerusalem. Calvin says this is the only way that we can understand the nature of Christian discipleship. The only way that a man or a woman can ultimately sell out as a disciple of Jesus is when they regard death with contempt.
What a challenge there is in that. I remember I've alluded to George Verbo, but I remember him years ago at a missionary conference pointing out all of these countries where there was no gospel witness. And he said, and people call these closed countries, he said, there are no closed countries. Not on the way in. They may be closed on the way out.
But you can definitely go in. I found a quote from Oswald Sanders in this respect this week, where he describes a young man who is beginning his work as a coastguard. And one of his first assignments was desperately dangerous. A huge storm has arisen. A ship was signaling its distress.
And as this young fledgling coastguard chap took his place in launching the lifeboat, he was frightened by the fierceness of the storm. And as they are moving out the lifeboat, he cries to the captain, We'll never get back! And above the storm, the captain replied, We don't have to come back, but we do have to go out. And I think that's what Paul is saying here. We don't have to come back. He wasn't coming back.
That's the scene at the end of 20. And they wept, and the thing that moved the most was the fact that he told them, You will never see my face again. Why would they care? Because relationships are important.
Why would they be exercised? Because God guides his people. You're listening to Bible teacher Alistair Begg on Truth for Life.
He'll return in just a minute to close today's program. The Apostle Paul was a missionary. He was also a theologian and a martyr.
He faced accusations, beatings, imprisonment, and death all for the sake of the gospel. And today we'd like to recommend to you a book that explores Paul's life and ministry in detail. It's called An Illustrated Guide to the Apostle Paul, His Life, Ministry, and Missionary Journeys. The book tracks Paul's life from birth to death, piecing together what we know about him from scripture and his letters. It invites you to travel along with him on his missionary journeys as he boldly proclaims the gospel. There are colorful maps and photos throughout the book to help you visualize the places where Paul preached and give you a clear picture of who he was, where he traveled, and who he met along the way. You can ask for your copy of An Illustrated Guide to the Apostle Paul today when you donate to support the ministry of Truth for Life.
Go to truthforlife.org slash donate or you can call us at 888-588-7884. Now today is day one of Alistair's annual three-day basics conference for pastors and church leaders. There are more than a thousand men in ministry from around the globe who have gathered for encouragement and fellowship.
The conference begins at 3 p.m. Eastern today. I know Alistair and those in attendance, including me, would appreciate your prayers. Let me mention that if you or your pastor were unable to attend in person this year, you can live stream all the sessions for free or you can catch up at your convenience.
Visit basicsconference.org. Now, here is Alistair with prayer. Father, I thank you that the Bible is not some meandering, contrived concoction of fabrications, but it is a living, active, sharper-than-two-edged sword book that understands us. And we pray that we might become students of the Bible, bowing before you and asking for your help, wrestling with its pages and teasing out its implications and being prepared to go where it leads us, being prepared to think about it again and conclude that our deductions were inaccurate, that your truth was unerring, but the conclusion we reached was wrong, humble enough to acknowledge it, so that people and preachers alike might know that it is your Word that is fixed in the heavens, not ours. Father, we pray that you will walk out with us into the remainder of this day, guard and guide and keep us. Bless us this afternoon as we are able to meet with one another again. Bless those who by dint of acts of mercy and responsibilities and so on must inevitably be in other places and on their way. Thank you for the time of fellowship with one another in this morning hour. May the grace of the Lord Jesus and the love of God, our Father, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all evermore. Amen. I'm Bob Lapine. Hope you'll join us tomorrow when we'll learn how a simple misunderstanding left unchecked can wreak havoc in a church. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
