 Good morning everyone. Thank you for connecting on today's class. You will pray and get into the rest of the chapters from the Book of Acts. So I would like to request one of us to please lead with the word of prayer. Anyone? Finally, Father, thank you for this day. Lord, thank you for teaching us on through the last three and a half months. For your servant, Lord. Thank you for teaching us on the Acts. Acts and life of God. Lord, help us to emulate this truth in our lives, Father. Into our ministry. What you have learned in this class, Lord. It may work effectively in our lives where you minister in this part. They give you all the glory. We thank you and praise you. Even this morning, Lord, we recommend you to pass through into your head. And enter into the spirit. Speak to us Lord. Wonderful for that our life will be touched. In Jesus' name we pray. Just every one of us who was connected will be connected to us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you, Brother Manohar, for leading us. We have been talking about the trial of Paul now. And my intention was really to complete the chapters. But then I realized that it is a little bit of a rush. So I will see how it goes. I do plan to complete it if it works out. But if it doesn't, we still have the next week's sessions with us. So we will see how it goes. We really don't want this to be just about finishing the potions. So let's begin from where we stopped. I think we had started with Acts 23. And we saw how the commander, when he witnessed this uproar against Paul in Jerusalem, Paul had gone to Jerusalem at the end of his third missionary journey. And one of the reasons why he had actually gone there was of course to worship because that was part of the culture of even the apostles, the leaders of the church at that time. But in addition to that, as the church leaders of Jerusalem suggested to Paul, they mentioned to him that he had a reputation for discrediting and dishonoring the rules and laws of the Jews. So they felt that if Paul can take this additional step to go and there were certain men who had vowed to God and if Paul could pay for their vows and just support that tradition which these four men were keeping that somehow this will allay all the wrong notions that people had about Paul that he was discrediting the Jews and he was siding the Gentiles. For that reason now Paul went up for prayer, Paul went up for the ritual to the temple in Jerusalem. But as soon as he went there, he was quite well known by then. He was well known for his work in the nearby regions of the Roman Empire. And suddenly people noticed that one of Paul's team members was an a an aficion. He's an Asian person and so they felt that Paul is actually bringing in non-Joseph into the temple and defiling the temple. So with this began the uproar against him and soon it was chaos to the extent that if somebody had not intervened in this situation where Paul is being accused he would have been beaten and who knows he could have even been murdered under this mob violence. But thankfully the commander of that time comes in. We've seen this in other places as well even in Ephesus. We've seen it in Corinth where if there is disorder in a province in a city in a region immediately in the Roman Empire they would kind of begin to rule over that place from the center. And so the local leaders did not want that and so they will try to bring a car. And that's exactly what they tried doing even in this uproar in Jerusalem. And so the commander takes charge of Paul and he wants to take him away. But at that point you know Paul requests and he says okay can I please speak to the people here in Hebrew. So he begins to speak in Hebrew. So then there's that connecting factor and he starts to narrate story of what exactly happened. So it's a very beautiful passage when we talk about the life of Apostle Paul. It's not like we have everything about his beginnings, his background, his work in one section. One particular book of the Bible or anything like that. We have to actually get the pieces of the puzzle and begin to paint the picture. So in chapter 21 we saw earlier on in Acts chapter 9 Luke wrote about the whole journey. About his persecution and all that and how exactly he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus. But Acts 21 is another passage where you get some more pieces of Paul's journey. So he narrates it and he says that he was actually a Jew but then he was touched by the call of Jesus and he began to serve according to the call on his life and he explains. He goes to the point where he says that he began to share this word to the Gentiles. So that's the point where the crowd is unhappy with him because their perception of Paul in the first place was that he was defiling the temple by bringing in non-Jews. And now you have Paul mentioned Gentiles. So they are very upset and you know once again they are intending to tear him up. Thankfully you know again because of the commander they decide that he needs to be brought out protected and in the Roman Empire at that time they had different kinds of punishments for people who were under their custody and many of them they would just use their authority without being in line with the given law. So in this case you know Paul is accused but he is not convicted so they don't have the right to treat him like a convict but they scourging is what we read. So scourging is a way of beating up the prisoner with whips and in the Roman context beating up somebody with scourging was so bad that during those scourging people would die. So we can imagine what Paul was actually going through so he was in that situation but you know he has the wisdom of God in his life and he reveals to the person or the in charge over him that he is actually a Roman. Now this had many implications a Roman citizen could not be beaten up without convictions like they really needed a proved reason why they wanted to punish the prisoner. So when the person in charge heard this he ran to the commander and he explained and he said oh look he is saying that he is a Roman citizen now what do we do because it's illegal for us to beat up a Roman citizen and at that point you know the commander comes to inquire and he is amazed he is wondering how in the world is this individual how did he get Roman citizenship because Roman citizenship was very expensive to be purchased and if you were to go any other route to get your Roman citizenship that also was extremely difficult so the people who had Roman citizenship at that time where you could say privileged or lucky or you know sort of the cream of the society who could easily get the citizenship so they began to wonder how did Paul how did this prisoner how did this man who has so many people opposing him get the Roman citizenship but that was enough for the commander to feel insecure about what he had done he had already beaten up Paul which could work against him and so he really needed to now figure out how do we resolve the matter how do I escape the scene to ensure that you know I am not ill treated by the highest authorities of the Roman Empire so he comes up with this idea he feels that okay now that you know I am in this situation let me just wash my hands off and have Paul sent somewhere else and that way you know it basically the ball is no longer in my court so I am no longer responsible I just did the initial protecting you know a person from mob violence whether he is really a perpetrator of some sort of a crime whether he is the he will be convicted by the accusations which are brought by the Jews that is another question and so he writes to the governor of the province at that time the Judean province and he plans to send you know Paul to that place now before doing this he did try to call for an assembly of the Sanhedrin because he thought that okay that might bring this issue to a conclusion all these learned and reputed people in the Sanhedrin maybe they can take a call of whether or not the accusations are true about him so that's when you know acts 23 started and we saw how as he was brought into the council when he made a statement he said I'm in all good conscience before God until this day you know that was a statement which was quite provocative for the listeners because obviously if there's an individual who has good conscience before God and people he's blameless and so when Paul made a statement like that it was like telling the people in authority that I'm already there's nothing wrong with me and so that made Ananias the high priest very angry and Ananias he gives an instruction and says strike him on his mouth for a comment like this and when Paul is hit you know he of course gets very upset and he addresses this high priest as the whitewashed wall okay so that shows his anger and his rage at that point for you know without reason how can they do things like this and later he realizes that the person who gave that order was actually the high priest but you see actually speaking we can dwell many hours you know studying line by line you know as we are told that scripture all scripture is God inspired and that in all of scripture you know we can receive something for ourselves you know something to impact our spiritual work with the Lord whether it's correction reproof instruction so many things we can actually receive from scripture so over here one more thing that we notice is verse 5 of chapter 23 Paul says I did not know brethren that he was the high priest for it is written you shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people so it really goes to show us that here is a man who is doing the best that he can to live by the scriptures okay was he perfect I don't think so and you know human being is perfect even when we talk about Apostle Paul at the end of the day he was a human being but look at his heart that when he recognizes okay I accuse the high priest I did not know he's the high priest but we've been taught that we should not have an accusation against somebody who is in leadership he's willing to repent he's willing to repent okay so that is the beauty of it that this man and you will begin to notice later that shh Paul's trial if he was guilty it could have ended in a moment it could have ended in Jerusalem or it could have ended right under the hands of the commander but why this confusion why handing him you know from one place to the other and saying okay you decide no no you decide you decide because even by the law and in this case before the commander sends him to Caesarea you have high priest people who are aware of the scriptures even they are not able to concretely bring something up against Paul so it just goes to tell us that as a believer and even as a leader and Paul writes about this in so many other places give no offense give no offense to the Jews or the churches of God he's saying I do my best to live the right kind of life to have the right conscience whether it is before God or it is before men and when he knows that what he probably did just now was not in line with God's word you know accusing a leader among the people he is repentant of it and then you know later on we saw how he had to escape the situation so he recognizes okay part of the Sanhedrin you had the Pharisees the Sadducees and the bone of contention obviously is the issue on resurrection so he just says look what did I say I was just talking about you know I believe in resurrection and I don't think it's wrong you know something like that so when he said that the Pharisees took his side because he was a Pharisee at some point in his life and then of course you know the Sadducees opposed it there was even more chaos the kind of chaos that the commander had rescued him from in Jerusalem you know he's trying to rescue him over here also with the Sanhedrin council as the audience so that was unfortunate though so thinking about you know thinking about what exactly Paul must have felt at this point two things one is he would have felt relieved that he escaped being being it's not he was not afraid of being convicted because he had not done anything wrong but he realized that getting a fair trial that was not assured okay he was quite clear about that which is why he needed a way to get out of this council they were definitely not going to give him a fair trial so Paul was not afraid of being convicted but neither was he convinced of a fair trial so it's a sticky situation so to get out he brought this matter of resurrection and he comes out of it but you know what being the person that Paul was the passion which he had to share the gospel may be may be he would have felt in both of these instances that I missed an opportunity remember what was his passion he went around you know as you as you look at the number of cities that Paul traveled at least 40 different cities he went to how would he manage to you know make that journey unless he carried that fire in him to preach about Jesus and let people know about Jesus he definitely carried that fire and there was a promise on his life that he would be a speaker of the gospel to the Gentiles as well as leaders isn't it so that was a promise on his life he did get an opportunity in the temple to talk to the Jews the Jewish audience and part of the Jewish audience would have been influencers and now this was an incredible opportunity standing in front of the Sanhedrin where he could preach about Jesus but both of these opportunities were in a sense missed by Paul because there was no conclusion there was no conclusion he was not able to really bring them to a place where he could give them a call and say okay do you believe in Jesus this is who Jesus is he is the Christ and you know he paid for our sins and he bought our redemption so this is how it went and now there is a plot against Paul and I think Christopher read this passage if you all remember so shall I just explain it instead of reading it again I think we read from verse 11 to verse 22 okay so I'll just share what is in this portion now every verse is very rich with revelation even as we start with verse 11 okay so we have now seen Paul has escaped the commotion of the Sanhedrin okay what next he should have been happy that you know that situation of persecution he was able to come out of that but in the night okay it seems like like any other human being Paul was also under much stress he was under anxiety because verse 11 says but the following night the Lord stood by him and said be of good cheer Paul for as you have testified for me in Jerusalem so you must also bear witness at Rome okay now when does God say be of good cheer anyone any opinions or any ideas why would God need to say be of good cheer or when have you seen in passages of scripture of God saying be of good cheer yes say one very good example was Joshua where God told him that he should not be afraid there should be of good courage so we see similarity here between Paul and Joshua because Joshua was about to take upon a leadership role that was bigger than him and for Paul here for Jesus to have appeared to him we usually don't see this we've not seen this in a while reading through scripture but for Jesus to have appeared to Paul it shows really that he must have been in fear anxiety and again it goes to show again his humanity just like he pointed out he's still a human being most times when we talk about Paul we talk about him as a super Christian as if he's not also someone like us you know kind of but who grew in his faith and did miraculous stuff so basically this was a time that he was most likely perplexed and the Lord Jesus Christ appeared and encouraged him which he does for every one of us when we are down moments thank you yes thank you say for sharing and there are some comments here on our chat Kung says I have overcome the world Jesus telling his disciples Kennedy says when undergoing trials yeah so you know God is so faithful that he brings a word of encouragement when we most need it earlier even in Corinth remember there was an uproar against him people were shouting and screaming in the amphitheater and Paul was hearing these words it would have created you know a lot of fear within him and that's when God actually comes to him and says you know I have many people in the city it's not just you so be strong okay I'm with you I'm with you Paul and God is faithful whether it was a Joshua or the disciples of Jesus or Paul the Apostle and you know we can we can come up with so many other places where encouragement has come one or the other way but God is faithful and he knows our humanity and you see how Apostle Paul needed an affirmation and God himself it says the following night the Lord stood by him and said now he would have been under a lot of tension stress anxiety remember he was scorched few days earlier so his body was in pain he had a burning passion for the gospel in his heart you know so many things are going higher and he definitely needed that word from the Lord so the Lord stood by him it says so encouraging so encouraging so the Lord stood by him again we can talk so much about it what does it mean to see a vision did he have a dream did he actually see the Lord Jesus physically next to him we can speculate but the Lord stood by him and said we have good Paul having heard your own name so personal God is saying ok I know you I know you what you're going through Paul for as you have testified for me in Jerusalem ok see what could have been encouraging for God to say you will no longer have any difficulty Paul I'll remove all persecution oh God didn't promise that because that is the prophecy which he received isn't it chains await chains await me as I you know go towards Jerusalem and also Agabus he said the man whose belt this is he'd be bound so Paul knew all these trials everyone said don't go don't go Paul don't go Jesus is also not saying I am removing the persecution from you he never said that but he said we have good cheer what does he add to encourage you have an assignment waiting for you till that so what does it imply Jesus gives him a clue there he says as you have testified for me in Jerusalem so you must also bear witness at Rome so then Paul knows I'm not going to die till I go to Rome however long that is so let these people do whatever they want to do at least I know that God is giving me more ministry God is entrusting me with more work okay so you know the blessing for the faithful is more work or more assignment because the person who gave the work knows that it will get done and so they are willing to give more work and that's what Jesus is saying he's saying you testified for me in Jerusalem you must also bear witness at Rome Paul there is more work for you to do have a greater assignment you have to go to Rome till that time nothing is going to happen to you so don't worry okay so it's like telling him it's not over till it's over and so Paul is encouraged and then you know we saw later on that apparently there was a set of 40 assassins who were passionate about murdering Paul and they were getting ready to do that they had taken a vow saying either Paul dies or we die and they had started fasting because they took an oath they said we will not eat or drink till we have killed Paul so this kind of plot was against Paul rising up in Jerusalem and Paul had no idea but you see the grace of God Paul's nephew it says Paul's sister's son he heard about this plot against Paul and he goes and tells Paul Paul immediately let's tell his nephew why don't you go and inform the commander who is in charge of me and you know let's see what the commander does and so when he went and told the commander that's when the commander decided that okay this guy needs to be handed over now it's not safe anymore for Paul to be here in Jerusalem so let's make a plan and let's send him away to Caesarea and then you know a letter is written to be sent to Felix now Felix is the governor of the Judean province and he was in Caesarea which is why Paul was packed off to Caesarea so the commander writes a letter he from verse 23 now I think it might be helpful for us to read can somebody please read verses 23 to verses 35 of Acts 23 and he called into him two Centurions saying make ready 200 soldiers to go to Caesarea and horsemen three some and ten and spearmen 200 at the third hour of the night and provide the beast that they may set Paul on and bring him safe unto Felix the governor and he wrote a letter after this manner the Claudius Lysas unto the most excellent governor Felix ascended greeting this man was taken off of the Jews and should have been killed of them then I came then came I with an army and rescued him having understood that he was a Roman and when I would have known that known the cause where for they accused him I brought him forth into the under this council 20 till 28 the end of the passage okay who might perceive to be accused of questions of their law but to have nothing to lead to his charge worthy of death or the or of bones and when it was told me how that the Jews laid wait for the man I sent straight way to be and give command to his accusers and also to say before the what they had against him the farewell then the soldiers as it was command them took Paul and brought him by night and anti-patrice on the on the morrow they left the horsemen to go with him and return to the castle who then who when they came to a Caesarea and delivered their pistol to the governor presented Paul also before him sorry and when the governor had read the letter he came to know what provides he was and when he understood he was of Cilicia I will hear the and I will hear I will hear the said he when then accusers are also come and he commanded him to be kept in heroes judgment hall thank you thank you brother so here we we've seen how the commander is now going to transport Paul safely so that these 40 men you know don't are not able to accomplish the oath that they have taken one of the primary reasons is now whether Paul is a blasphemer or not that we will we will you know these these governors and leaders will figure out under trial one key thing which made everyone shudder is he's a Roman citizen okay and you could not a Roman citizen illegally and that was the reason they wanted to make sure that he was safe and alive before an accusation could be proved against him so the commander sort of in a rush he packs him off he has 200 foot soldiers why 200 foot soldiers it is said that till that place right anti-patris there where it will there were people who would just kill with the sword you know even if people were walking through that region many would get murdered so it was very unsafe for for various reasons and they did not want anything to happen to Paul so they made sure one is send foot soldiers to keep him safe and transport him by night so that you know those 40 men have no idea and he wrote a letter to the governor Felix and he wanted to send away Paul to Caesarea so that's that's what you know we have seen so far so now Paul is handed over and now when Felix has to make so it was quite easy Felix based on the inputs that he had because he's an ex-person in authority he could have made a decision and said something like okay Paul you are innocent or Paul you are guilty but knowing a little bit about Felix the governor it is said that he was a very corrupt man and he was wanting to sit on the fence we will see in the next chapter that he will drag the trial of Paul for up to two years because he had an expectation from Paul as a corrupt governor he wanted you know maybe some money so if Paul would have given him money who knows he would have let him out of the prison but for that reason you will see that Felix will just drag the case he says okay you are from Cilicia that means that okay it's kind of a related region so we can judge over this case but we will do it slowly we will see we need proper evidence investigation so you know you have some people like that right just drag it even if you can make a decision so Felix being the corrupt governor that he is you know he sort of thinks of getting some money out of Paul okay say you have something to say yes Pastor I just had an observation it's not really in line with what we were talking about but I just thought we should take a cue from Paul you know Jesus had appeared to him encouraged him is he finds out about the Jewish leaders plotting to kill him I mean a radical Christian would have said Jesus has promised that I will go testify I don't need to fear anything but he takes advantage of the fact that there are things in the nature that the Lord has provided for us you know to be able to get to wherever we are going safely or accomplish whatever he has given us to do I just wanted us to draw a balance here that even if God has already promised it doesn't mean that we should just be careless about our lives this is Paul here we are learning from he tells his nephew to go inform the soldiers and he gets protection you know look at the number of soldiers I had to escort him you know to Syria so this just goes to show that there are things in the nature that we also need to do on our own side with the backing of Christ you know with us in whatever thing the Lord has actually called us to do I just thought we draw that balance and lesson from Paul thank you yes thank you say thank you for that observation very true so one of the things that we can learn as you rightly pointed out is Paul or the other believers for that matter did not you know take on persecution did not take on an unsafe environment to prove the strong conviction of their faith they didn't in other words it's like walking into a lion's den and saying you know I believe God will protect me they never did things like that so even here knowing that God will protect him and that he still has to go till Rome he could have been careless but he wasn't you know he was careful enough to escape the scene and now he is with Felix so let's now begin to read from Acts 24 and see what happens under the custody of Felix so let's read from verse 1 till verse 21 please anyone quite long but if you can read that will be good yes Asha please go ahead after five days the High Priest and Arayis came down with some orders and spokesman one turtle is being laid before the government with case against Paul when he had been summoned turtle has began to accuse him next to you we enjoy much peace since by your foresight most excellent Felix reforms are being made for this nation in every way and everywhere we accept this with all gratitude but to detain you no further I beg you and your kindness to hear us briefly for we have found this man at play one who stirs up riots among all the Jews throughout the world and a friend is a ringleader he even tried to fulfill the temple but we seized him by examining him yourself you will be able to find out from him about everything of which he accused him then he is also joining the charge affirming that all these things were so when the governor had noted to him this week Paul replied knowing that for many years you have been a judge over this nation I'll carefully make my defense you can verify that it's not more than 12 days since I went up to worship in Jerusalem and they did not find me disputing with anyone or stirring up a crowd either in the temple or in the synagogue or in the city neither can they prove to you what they now bring up against me but this I confess to you that according to the way which they call a said father's believing everything late on by the law and victim of the profits having a hope in God which this man then says accept that there will be a resurrection of both the chest and the unjust so I always take pains to have a clear conscience toward both God and man now after several years I came to bring alms to my nations and present offerings while I was doing this they found me purified in the temple without any crowd or tumble but some Jews from Asia they ought to be here before you and to make an accusation should they have anything against me or else like this man then said what film they had found when I stood before the council other than this one thing that I cried out while standing among them it is with respect to the resurrection that I am on child for you this day yes thank you Asha for reading this entire section so now we know that Paul is with Felix and he can make a decision however Felix invites Ananias the high priest if you recall this was the high priest who had ordered for Paul to be hit on his mouth so why is Felix doing this basically he is trying to get more evidence he is trying to investigate the case in a more holistic manner so he wants the opinions of every side and all of that so he invites Ananias the high priest when he comes down with the elders but during those times in trials they would also have it says orator here but more like a lawyer so there was somebody to speak the offensive against Paul by the name of turtleist he puts out this whole he puts out his issue with Paul but he begins by doing his usual way of flattering the governor so he says so many things like we have enjoyed great peace and prosperity which was brought to this nation by your foresight so it is all a learned way of talking during those days and no wonder this man turtleist was an orator so he begins that way and then he starts to share that Paul in verse 5 he says we have found this man a plague a creator of dissension among all the Jews throughout the world and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes so Paul is being accused of someone who brought about dissension confusion and notice he says a ringleader of the sect of Nazarenes so there is no connection of Nazareth to Paul except that he follows Jesus of Nazareth but Nazareth among all the cities of the Roman Empire it was one of the backward cities so the moment you said Nazareth and somebody from Nazareth it would be something to condemn or look down upon and so that is the reason he is trying to leave Paul and Nazareth together and he says he is a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes he even tried to perfect the temple and we seized him and wanted to judge him according to Avila so notice there is an accusation but nothing factual now they need to prove everything that they are saying but maybe because of the culture of those times and the corruption anyone could get away saying anything and that is what they are trying against Paul yes they are saying he stirred up dissension and that he tried to defile the temple but what are the facts it's not like Felix is also asking for any facts so said all these things and for Paul there is nobody like an orator to speak for him he is all by himself but thank God you know for the wisdom and the courage that Paul has in trial he begins to give a difference for himself he starts sharing narrating I am not going to go over all the small details over there because you know we already know that he is talking about how he came to believe in God and how he is also saying like Felix I have hope in God so he is trying to remind Felix look this is what the scriptures say and finally we are seeing the fulfilment of those scriptures and I have hope in what you know the scriptures talk about so I don't see what exactly is wrong with me so in verse 15 he says I have hope in God which they themselves also accept that there will be a resurrection of the dead both of the just and the unjust verse 16 this being so I myself always strive to have a conscience without offence toward God and men so he is trying to say look I am doing my best to have faith in what the scriptures say they talk about resurrection they give us a hope and all of that and I am just doing my bit believing it and I had only gone to the temple to for the purification ritual so I didn't go there with any intention of creating a dissension ok so here is the session in front of Felix what was stating his thing and Paul stating his thing and we can later on see when we come back you know how what Felix does whether he takes a comment or not and you know how the case actually proceeds so let's take 10 minutes and shall come back after that