 Amen. So Acts chapter 18, this is our second week in Acts chapter 18, so go ahead and look down at verse number 7 is where we're going to start. This evening Paul, of course, is in Corinth, so you don't really need your maps tonight because we're going to be in the same place throughout the entire sermon. Paul stays in Corinth for quite a while. So he stays there, of course. Jesus tells him to stay there. It's kind of interesting throughout the book of Acts a couple times in the book of Acts. You'll see red words if you have a red letter Bible, meaning the words of Jesus actually show up in the book of Acts. In this case, Jesus again speaks to Paul at night, kind of in a dream, in a vision at night. He speaks to Paul, but look down at verse number 7 of Acts chapter 18. So we saw last week that Paul is basically, he was a tent maker, he was working, and we looked at how Paul kind of just, he just shut the Jews down and he said, look, I'm going to the Gentiles from now on. Obviously he'll still talk to Jews as he goes along, but this is where that major shift in Paul's ministry comes where he goes to the Gentiles and we looked at Romans chapter 11, which basically shows how the remnant was there, some Jews did get saved, but then Paul mainly went to the Gentiles and he was hoping that one of the benefits of being this apostle to the Gentiles would be that the Jews were provoked to envy. They envied the Gentiles that were getting saved and then some of them would get saved from that. So that's what we looked at last week. Look at verse number 7. Something else happens here. He's still in Corinth. The Bible says, and he departed thence and entered into a certain man's house named Justice, one that worshiped God and whose house joined hard to the synagogue. And Christmas the chief ruler of the synagogue believed on the Lord with all his house. So here's that, you know, there's another one of that remnant right there. And many of the Corinthians hearing believed and were baptized. So many Gentiles and then this chief ruler of the synagogue get saved, then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision and these are those red words that you see in your Bible. It says, be not afraid but speak and hold not thy peace for I am with thee and no man shall set thee to hurt thee for I have much people in this city. So God is telling him, look, Jesus tells him, look, I want you to stay here for a while. And of course, you know, this becomes a church in Corinth that Paul is very, very passionate about. You know, there's two books in the Bible about this church where Paul is correcting this church. You can tell Paul's heart is in Corinth but he spent a long time there. Look at verse number 11. It says he continued there a year and six months teaching the word of God among them. So Paul spends a year and a half in this city. So you can see how a church gets established here. Not only a church, but one that Paul is very passionate about. And you see him kind of, you know, really correcting harshly or seriously admonishing them in the books of 1st and 2nd Corinthians. Look at verse number 12. And when Galio was the deputy of Achaia, the Jews made insurrection with one accord against Paul and brought him to the judgment seat, saying this fellow persuaded men to worship God contrary to the law. So Galio is, you know, he's kind of the Pontius pilot here. He's the Roman Gentile ruler of this area. And the Jews, again, they get together very similar to what happened to Jesus. The Jews get together and they bring Paul before the Roman ruler and look what happens. And so they said this fellow, he's persuading men to worship God contrary to the law. So basically they bring this, they bring Paul to the Roman ruler and they say, look, this guy's trying to convince people to break the law. They're trying to get this ruler against Paul. Okay, look at verse 14. And when Paul was now about to open his mouth, Galeo said unto the Jews, so notice Paul didn't even say anything. Okay, Paul didn't even defend himself at this point. And Galio says to the Jews, if it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with you. But if it be a question of words and names and of your law, look ye to it, for I'll be a judge, I'll be no judge of such matters. And he draved them from the judgment seat. So this is interesting. Go back to verse number two. The first point I want to make here before we even get into the sermon is that with the Romans, the Jews are clearly wearing out their welcome with the Romans. Look at verse number two of the same chapter. It says, and found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy with his wife Priscilla. Why? Because the Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome and came unto them. Now, secular history will actually back this up. Secular history actually documents this edict from the emperor Claudius to basically push the Jews out of Rome. He's trying to, and it was basically because they were causing all this trouble over what the secular historians will call it Crestus, but most people agree that it's this Christ. They're making all this trouble and all this stir over Christ. Most people think that the Romans basically looked at Christians at this point as just like some sect of Judaism, some sect of the Jewish religion and they were just getting very irritated with the Jews causing all this trouble over this Jesus Christ individual. So the point I'm trying to make is that they're wearing out their welcome. They've been pushed out of Rome and here even this guy that is in Corinth is just like, hey, I don't want to have anything to do with judging your law. It's interesting because it's very similar to Jesus Christ and Pontius Pilate except they actually, you know, pressed Pontius Pilate into actually letting them kill or actually into killing Jesus. But the point is this, go back to verse number 14. The point is this. What were the Jews trying to do here in verse number 14? What were the Jews trying to do? They were not successful but this is something that is very common and you will see this throughout history in especially Christianity. You will see this pattern again and again and again. Look at verse 14. When Paul was now about to open his mouth, Paul didn't say anything. Galeo said under the Jews, if it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, you know what that means? He's saying, look, if he would have actually done something, if he would have actually taken some sort of action or did some lewd or perverted thing or whatever, he's like, then, you know, we could do something. He's like, but if it's just, if it's just, you know, names, he says. He says, it's just names and words is what he says. That's all it is. So what the Jews were trying to do is use the Roman government to shut Paul up. What you're seeing here is an unsuccessful attempt at government sponsored censorship right here. That's what you're seeing. All right? Look, they were trying to get the government of the Romans to silence who? The Christians. So here you had a guy or a group of people trying to get the government to silence Christians. Boy, the more things change, the more they stay the same. You see the pattern here? Even though it wasn't successful here, I mean, look, Ecclesiastes 1-9 is right here. You know, and there's no new thing under the sun, the Bible says. This is always going to be the case with the Christian message. There's always going to be people out there trying to get government, the powers, as we'll look at in just a few minutes, to silence the Christians. Wasn't successful here, but it's been successful and it is successful all the time, even in the day that we are living in. Look, folks, the information war is as real as any war is as real and it's as important as any physical war. Any propaganda. Go read up on the propaganda of the Germans in World War II and how important that was to accomplish the goals that they wanted to do. Information is a real war. You know, just the control over what people can say and what they cannot say. This is what the Jews were trying to do. And guess what? Christianity is at the heart of this proof. Because guess what? No one cares what the Mormons have to say. No one in government, no one in power cares what the Jehovah's Witnesses have to say. They don't care what the Buddhists have to say. They don't care. As a matter of fact, they'll celebrate many pagan religions and just bring them to the top of the crop and celebrate these different religions. But the Bible? No, it shut it down is the message for the Bible. It has always been this way and it always will be this way. So I'm going to explain this to you tonight. I'm going to explain why this is. Why it will always be this way and why it will always be this way and then I'm going to give you three steps, three steps or three things to look for so you can identify truth in the world that you live in even though everyone's trying to shut down the truth today. So the first thing is go to Ephesians chapter 6. You say why is this? Why is it that it's Christianity that they're trying to shut down Christianity. They're trying to shut down God's word. They're trying to shut down the Bible. Why not anything else? Why not all these other ideas and philosophies as we looked at a couple weeks ago? Why the Bible? Why is it always the Bible? And look, it's not just the Gospel. It's biblical truth in general that's being shut down, that's being attacked and it's being attacked because people convince the governments to attack it. Always. Like this is just, it just repeats itself again and again and again. And this is the pattern that we see here. Albeit it wasn't successful in this case. It is still the same pattern that you see throughout history and that you see throughout even present day. Even in the martyr's mirror who is it that is always persecuting these people and always executing these people. It's the government that's been convinced to do it. They weren't even the ones that really had the doctrine and had the problems but they were convinced by the church or some heretic that these Christians need to be, and usually they did it by like these Christians. It was some king that just demanded like everyone just like worship him and they're like, they don't worship you. They worship this other king Jesus Christ. That's how they got a lot of them right there. That's how the antichrist is going to get them too, by the way. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Look at Ephesians chapter 6 and verse number 12. So let me just explain why this is first of all. Look at Ephesians 6-12. The Bible says let's really break this down. I know you've all heard this before. Let's break this down. It says for we not wrestle not against flesh and blood. So what does that mean? It says we don't wrestle against flesh and blood. That means we don't wrestle against physical people. We're not like in a physical fight here. This is what this is saying. It says no. What it means, what it implies that we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, it says no we wrestle, we're wrestling with ideas. We are wrestling with truth. But then look what it says. It says but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. So this is saying, look we don't battle with guns and we don't fight wars, which is what you will never see the apostles or the disciples doing. But what this is saying is that we're battling wickedness in high places. This is Corinthians chapter 4. Principalities, powers, meaning the people in charge, the people at the organizations, these governments. What they're saying is the real battle for us is they're trying to stop us from speaking is what they're saying. It's not a battle with swords and guns and tanks for the Christians. It's not a flesh and blood, that's a flesh and blood battle. That's a flesh and blood wrestle or struggle right there. But look at 2 Corinthians chapter 4. It says wickedness in high places. You say what do you mean? Why is there wickedness in high places? Is every ruler bad throughout history? But look at what the Bible says in 2 Corinthians chapter 4 in verse number 3. It says if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. Okay we get that. We shouldn't hide the gospel which means we need to be able to do what? We need to be able to speak. We need to be able to go out there and verbalize the Bible. We need to be able to go out there and let people know what God's word says. We need to be able to go out there and just give God's truth to people. But look at verse number 4. It says in whom the God of this world, look there's people that are lost and it says in whom look at these words, the God of this world blinded the minds of them which believe not. It says who are those that believe not? The people that are not saved. Okay so it says there's a God of this world lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ who is the image of God should shine unto them. So the Bible says that there's this God of this world. Meaning what? Lowercase g. Meaning this guy or this being, lowercase g is in charge of this world. The physical world. Meaning every leader and every principality is underneath his influence is what the Bible is saying. This is talking about Satan right here. This is talking about Satan being the God of this word. Look we understand that Jesus Christ and God the Father, we understand that they are sovereign. We understand that. But God is allowing Satan to operate in this world for a time. And that is who the God of this world is. And he is controlling. Who does he go after? Who does he go after first? He goes after the people at the top first. This is why churches shouldn't be denominations. This is why Jesus didn't create a bunch of denominations. Why? Because every single denomination today is corrupt. Why? Because you just got to take down one guy, you know, board of directors and you got the whole thing. And you've taken down, name me a denomination today that even has the right gospel. It's crazy, you can't name one. Because denominations aren't in the Bible because it just makes too easy of a target for the God of this world. It's outside God's design for churches. Look I'm not saying that independent churches don't go bad. But if an independent church goes bad, it's one church. If some church even that we know just goes bad. And the pastor flies off the rails or some wolf got in and he wasn't saved and starts preaching a false gospel in some independent church. Look it doesn't affect all the other independent churches because we're not a denomination here. You know I don't get sermons emailed to me every Tuesday or whatever. Look we're not a denomination because the God of this world goes after the top of organizations. That's what the Bible says that we battle spiritual wickedness in high places because the God of this world is going after control of the leaders. So he controls the leaders first. That's not to say that you know there can't be some godly leader somewhere. But could you show me one today? You say oh is this true? Is this a blanket statement? No it's not a blanket statement. In theory there could be a godly leader. There could be a Bible believing Christian leader. But where is that guy today? I don't see him. I don't see him. Because the God of this world is good at corrupting those principalities of powers. And that's why there's spiritual wickedness in high places. And look this is what we have to battle because those spiritual wickedness in high places are used to shut up the Bible. To shut up the exact thing that Satan doesn't want people to hear which is God's word. Alright so that is why you see this happening to Bible believing Christians all throughout history. Because it's all being run by Satan. It's all flowing down from Satan. And he is trying desperately to shut up the Christians. To stop these Christians that actually believe what the Bible says from actually speaking the Bible. And it's like I said it's not just the Gospel. It's everything. It's everything. So how can you find the truth? How can you find the truth using the Bible? So look these Jews were trying to stop Paul from speaking the truth. I'm going to give you three ways that you can identify the truth today. The first one is just applying Ephesians chapter 6 in verse number 12. When powers and these principalities. Here's the first way to identify truth out there. When these powers and these principalities are trying to stop ideas and stop words from being spoken you know you're over the target. If you want to know what the truth is find out what the principalities and the powers are trying to stop from being said. That's your first clue. Like oh you can't say that. You can't say that. Well you know what? Why can't you say that? Why can't somebody have a dumb idea? I mean why did the Jews have a problem here? Why did the Jews have a problem? I mean if they had, if their way was so much better but look they couldn't compete with this idea. That's the problem. That was the problem that these Jews had. You find out what you aren't allowed to say. Or what you know in extreme cases where people like the Jews in this case have made it or tried to make it illegal to actually say things find out what you're not allowed to say, find out what's illegal to say and you're over the target. That's your first clue on finding truth. That was happening to Paul. His message was resonating with people. Because guess what? The Gospel resonates with people. The Gospel matches the conscience that comes with the human package. It matches that nothing could compete with it. Nothing that anybody else could compete with the Gospel. Even the Gentiles, it fit with them. It fit with the Gentiles. And the Jews are just like, ah! Because guess what? The Gospel, it makes sense to people. How many times have you been given the Gospel to somebody? You've been given the Gospel to somebody? Maybe even somebody that's been in church for their whole life? And they say to you, boy, this just makes a lot of sense. How many times, I can't even count how many times that has happened. That's a sign by the way that you're given a good Gospel presentation. Only your Gospel presentation. Because many people, they're just very confused. They go to church and they're confused and their church doesn't have the right Gospel. They don't even know what the Gospel is. The Gospel. Good news. What's that mean? I don't know. How do you go into heaven? I hope so. Wow! If I'm pretty good, I'm trying to do the best I can every day. They don't know. They need to preach the Gospel. But that makes a lot of sense. It's the thing, folks. Works based salvation, it doesn't make any sense. If people would actually sit down and think about it, it doesn't make any sense. You could never know. You could literally never know that you were going to heaven if it was by works. You could never know. There's no list. There's no ranking of how many sins you can commit a day. There's no list of how to get rid of your sins. Because there is no way to get rid of your sins. You're just racking up a bunch of debt. Doing a bunch of good stuff doesn't take away the debt. The Bible literally says that. And the Gospel, look, the Gospel, the true Gospel is the only way that the Bible actually fits together. And once you believe the Gospel, it's the only way that I still remember how clear the Bible just became to me after I got saved. Because you have the Holy Spirit in you. Just from a logical standpoint, you can't read the Bible and make it make sense if you believe works based salvation. It won't make any sense to you. One verse will sound like this, and the other verse will sound like this, and you'll just be like, this makes no sense to me. That's why you'll find people that are that seems like they just can't understand even the simplest verses in the Bible. If you don't understand people, they don't understand what that means. So look, the Bible, the Gospel just makes sense to people even the Gentiles who knew nothing. And the Jews are like, we can't have this. We have nothing that can compete with this. Even besides the Gospel, folks, just the Bible on living the Christian life, it just makes too much sense to people. On the way you should live your life after you're saved, it's just the ideas are just better than everything else. I mean, the Bible in general speaks against perversion, it speaks against naturalness of every kind. I mean, it speaks against childhood seeing today with all this perversion and unnaturalness. So that's why people have to say, oh, that's hate speech. Because why? Because they have to shut it up. They want to make laws against saying things in the Bible that are there in the Bible, in God's Word. Why? Because they can't compete with it. Because they know if we're allowed to preach the Bible, they know that people will be like, you know what, that makes sense. But what? There's no swords and there's no battles here. It's just Bible ideas. It's just Bible, it's just the Bible way. That's it. That's all it is. So they're trying to shut up the Bible. It's nothing new under the sun, folks. It just makes too much sense to people that you're male or female. That just makes a lot of sense to people. It makes a lot of sense to people that boys should be raised to be masculine. And girls should be raised to be feminine. And these two have different roles in life. And you know that your children should, I don't know, obey their parents. That your children should grow up and find someone, you know, if a boy should find a girl and they should get married and they should have children. That people like that. People like hearing that. Every single person that has a child, you like your child to grow up and get married and have grandchildren one day and serve the Lord and just live a profitable Christian life. Look, that makes a lot of sense to people. People like that. They can't have that. That is why they try to use these powers and these principalities to silence this view. Because it's the best way. So they'll use Satan's minions to shut up the Bible. Because look, too many people will choose it. You know how much I love feminism? There's a famous feminist. Simone de Bevoir is her name. And she actually said this. She died in the mid-80s. She's in hell now. But she said this and this just stuck with me. So I went and I looked up this quote. I looked up this quote. And this is what she says. You talk about these people, liberals, they want people to be free and they want people to make their own choices. Look at what this woman said. She says no woman should be authorized to stay home and raise her children. Women should not have that choice precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will take it. It's like we got to shut these people up. That's what she's saying. We got to shut these people up otherwise this idea of getting married and obeying your husband and having children and staying home and raising your children, being, I don't know, being a mother look, women are going to choose that. Women are going to choose that. We have to, I mean, we should ban that, she says. We should ban that and we should just equate to just oppressing women. Because they have to silence the other side because it just resonates with people's conscience really. We always have the conscience of every person that they start with is such an advantage to the Christian. This is why they need to silence us. So look, that's the first thing right there. When you find out what they're after, what they're trying to make illegal to say, what they're trying to make illegal to just preach or say, you know that you're close to the truth. That's the first thing. The second thing is this. And this explains the Jews that were after Paul that drug him in front of this magistrate or this deputy, as the Bible says. People without solutions always despise those with them. What's that mean? People that don't have any ideas, they're always upset at people that do have the ideas. You'll see that, look, you're going to see that throughout your life. Okay, especially, you know, if you start pushing forward on your Christian life you're really going to see this. What do the Jews have? What do the Jews have? They just had another workspace religion. Nobody wanted to go to verse 17. Nobody wanted to hear from them. Nobody wanted to hear another, you know, there was nothing of value in what they had. Just how great they were and, you know, they were broadening the borders. I mean, just how great they were. Look at us. Look at how godly we are. They had nothing to offer people. The Gentiles, look, the Romans were literally kicking them out at this point. Look at verse number 17. Look, the guy didn't just say like, the guy didn't just say, hey, get out of here with that. They beat him up. They beat him up and the governor's just like, whatever. Look at verse 17. It says that all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat. And Galileo cared for none of those things. He's like, whatever, the guy is annoying. They had nothing to offer. And so they were upset at the guy that was offering the gospel. Because nobody wanted to hear from them. You know what? It sounds like they were being provoked to envy. It sounds like, you know, it was working what Paul says in Romans chapter 11. It was working. And it would get a few of them saved, though the majority of them would stay just like, you know, this ruler of the synagogue. But look, you'll find this if you're an idea person. You'll find this. If you're an idea person, you know, you have an idea. Most people are just going to tell you why it won't work. Most people are going to tell you why it's stupid. And all these different things. Look, you just have to look past those people. It's just envy. Just like what was happening with Paul. Right? The Christian life. You're going to have people come after you for the Christian life. You're doing things the way the Bible says. People aren't going to like that. It's just envy. It's just envy. That's all it is. Turn to Proverbs chapter 18. Turn to Proverbs chapter 18. So the first thing is, just when you find out what you're not allowed to say, that is when you're close to the truth or that's when you're on target. Okay, the second thing is that a lot of people just aren't going to like the fact that you have ideas or you have truth. So if you go out preaching the gospel, don't be surprised if people get upset. They don't believe the gospel. Why? Because that's just what happens. It happened to Paul. It happens to everybody. So look, they're trying to shut up people with ideas. The second thing is, or the third thing is this. How to identify truth. Look at Proverbs chapter 18. Look at Proverbs chapter 18 and look at verse number 17. The third one is this, listen to all sides and the truth will become evident. Listen to all sides and the truth will become evident. You say, how can you listen to all sides if, think about this. Think about if like preaching the gospel became, because look, this is like one of the last things that we have that's good in this country. Okay, is that we're allowed to go out and preach the gospel. But what if the gospel, preaching the gospel became illegal? You say, how could someone listen to all sides if they can't ever hear the truth? Think about that. Think about this. Most people are born into a false religion. Have you ever thought about that? I was. I was. And look, I'm telling you, I was born into a false religion. I had false beliefs. I was not saved. I had a desire to seek for the truth. But if it wasn't legal to preach the gospel anywhere in America, would I have heard it? So all sides needed to be available and I was able to find the truth. I was able to, you know, run into someone who was preaching the gospel. If the Bible is illegal, I mean, what chance does somebody have to get saved? I mean, if they're born into the wrong religion, look at Proverbs chapter 18, verse number 17. Proverbs 18, verse number 17. It says, he that is first in his own cause, seemeth just. But his neighbor cometh and searches him. Look at this first part of that verse. It says, he that is first in his own cause, seemeth just. It's like when you hear one side of a story, you're just like, man, it's like, I know, man, like your buddy that comes and complains about his girlfriend or something. And you're just like, man, that's terrible that she said that. Or his wife, don't ever get into these things, by the way. Somebody that comes to you complaining about their spouse, their husband or their wife, and you're just like, man, they sound like the worst person ever. That's terrible that that happened, right? But here's the thing, there's always three sides to a story. There's one side, there's the other side, and then there's the actual truth. So listen to both sides and the truth will become evident. And look, here's another thing you need to understand, especially in this world that we're living in today, with like information overload. You say, how could I possibly know every side of every situation? Here's the thing, you can't. Okay? You can't. You have to understand that this is a little, this is an asterisk on item number three. Yes, listen to all sides. Listen to all sides, as the Bible says. But here's the thing, you have to understand that only Bible truth can be fully known. You say, what do I mean by that? I'm talking about like, what's going on in the world? What's going on in the world? I operate on like, I listen to all sides. I like going to look at all sides of everything. You say, what's going on in the Ukraine Russian war? I like to look at all sides of everything, because there's propaganda on all sides. And then you got to just try to kind of work out what you think might be right. But here's the thing, with situations like that, we will never know the full truth. And here's the thing, folks, we don't have to know the full truth of those things. That's why we're not like, super overly political here. Because you just can't know the full truth of these things. Alright, we look at, like, we can look at these things. Here's where they're really valuable. We can look at these things like clues and milestones, and we can see things you know like prophecy, we can see alliances forming, we can see a cashless society moving in that direction. We can see governments try to control through various means of technology to accomplish all these goals that the Bible says will come to pass. That's really where that information is useful for us. But we could never know every detail of all these things. Because honestly, folks, governments like, they're just professional lying organizations. That's what they are. Like all of them. You know, especially, you know, the big ones. You can never really know it's not our responsibility to know. They literally specialize in lying. This is what intelligence agencies are. I mean, I'm serious, they literally exist to cover up the truth. That's their whole goal. You know, but what? In the name of security. In the name of your safety. Trust us. Trust us. We know what we're doing. Turn to Proverbs chapter 21. But what does the Bible say? What does the Bible say? So look, I have an open mind. I like to look into every side of everything. Especially what they tell you you shouldn't look into. You know, I actually just finished a book. It was called Panzer Commander. It was a memoir of a Nazi tank commander in World War II. I was like, you know, it was really interesting because I wanted to see the other side. Here's this guy who's just like, you know, coursing the memoir. But you got to read between the lines. It takes a mature reader to read stuff like this because what people will do is they'll read one side and they'll just be like, the Nazis are great! You know, he wasn't even like, he wasn't even pro-Nazi in his memoir. He wrote it in the 80s or something. So he's all like Hitler's bad and all this. And of course he's saying that because, you know, they lost. But the point is it was an interesting perspective just seeing like all the different campaigns and all these things. But honestly, I kind of got to the point where I was just like, man, I mean, like you should have started questioning at some point. You know what I mean? It's just like, you're just invading country after country after country. But guess what? It was an interesting perspective. It was an interesting perspective because what are we taught? We're taught one side of everything. It was an interesting perspective that was different. So look at every side of everything and just, you know, realize that the Bible is the only truth that you could ever know. You know, I mean, I got in, I've been in with other pastors. I've just been in some really deep conversations about like what's happened throughout history and geopolitics and all these different things. Like just really deep stuff about these things. At the end of the day, we're all like, yeah, you know, I mean, really, the Bible is all that matters. Because you just can't know all this stuff. You can't know what really happened because like the governments, they're just like, they're just, they're experts at covering up the truth. You know, especially, you know, Nazi Germany, they had a propaganda machine that was just like, it was one for the historical ages. But they convinced an entire country of people to go and do this horrible thing that they did. And it was all accomplished through propaganda, through controlling information that people saw. Right? So look, when people tell you trust us, you know, in governments, that's why I don't trust governments. You know, I don't need the government to protect me. Look at Proverbs chapter 1 or Proverbs chapter 21 and verse number 31. The Bible says the horse is prepared against the day of battle, but safety, here's where my safety is right here. Safety is of the Lord. My safety is in the Lord. But see, here's the problem with all these nations that are just lying and covering up the truths. Look, including our own. Here's the problem with them. They don't have the Lord. They don't have the Lord. So what do they have to do? They just have to lie and they get all these agencies that go and cover everything up and do all these covert things. Nobody really knows what's going on and you don't know why we're going over here and doing that and why we're sending people to die over there to do that. You have no idea because they don't have the Lord. So they're like, we have to do this for our own safety. Safety of our economy, safety of whatever. But how about this? How about we just get the Lord? That's the pattern in the Bible is the nation that sticks with the Lord. Look, the Lord will protect you. Where was the intelligence agency of Old Testament Israel that was just going around just lying to everybody all the time and just doing all these underhanded deals everywhere and assassinating people and all this kind of stuff. Look, it just didn't happen because their safety was of the Lord. And that's what God told them all the time. He's like, hey, you stick with me. Your children stick with me and I will protect you. But you go and you go and chase other gods and you go off with these other nations and you marry them and you just chase all these other gods. He's like, then you're going to be destroyed. You can come up with all the, you know, protections and military and all these different things that you want. You can lie until you're blue in the face because it's not going to help you. Look, it's not going to help us or anybody else that does it either. It's stay in the Lord and stay in truth and we will be safe. But of course nations don't do that so they're like, let's try lying. So look, folks, at the end of the day the only truth is the truth in this book right here. This is the only truth we can ever really know. But guess what? The better you know it though, the better you know it and the better that you follow, you know, the process is in it and the principles in it, you will be surprised how well you recognize other truths. You will look if you know that, I mean, just take Matthew 18 as an example. Just the process of Matthew 18 of conflict resolution. You know, if I have a problem with, you know, brother so and so, the Bible says I am to go with brother, go right to brother so and so and say, hey, brother Joe, you have offended me. What I am not to do is go to brother George and brother Bob and brother Anthony and brother all these other people and be like, you know what, you know what Joe did to me? You know what Joe did? You know what Joe did? And he just caused this big. You know what the Bible calls that? The Bible calls that gossip. So here's what you need to realize. You know, this will help you find truth if you know the processes and the right way to do things in the Bible when somebody comes to you, when brother Bob comes up to me and says, hey, you know, you know, brother Joe said this to me and you know, that really offended me and he said this about my wife and all this kind of stuff. Right away I should be like, whoa, did you talk to Joe about this? No, I just wanted to tell you. I would be like, whoa, red flag, something's going on here. Something's going on here. You know, you're getting what? You're getting one side of a story here. Right? This is why the Bible says just go straight to the person because many times it's just a look, but here's the thing, if people know Matthew 18 and they don't follow it they're not following it for a reason because they're trying to purposely be not be truthful. They're trying to conceal truth. So look, the Bible just knowing that the ingenious design of God's word will help you identify truth, even truth that isn't specifically in the Bible. Because the Bible doesn't cover every specific scenario that could ever happen to you. It doesn't cover every single thing, but it gives you a process to weed through lies and get to, you know, weed to stop God's truth and get to the truth. And it really works. So just the principles of the Bible will help you find truth. So look, folks, just to recap. The Jews are trying to stop truth, and they were trying to use the government to stop truth. Satan wants to hide the truth, and that's why he uses government, he uses principalities, he uses that spiritual wickedness in high places to cover the truth. So watch for things that governments, the first one was watch for things that governments are trying to silence, and you will really find truth there. Just using that principle right there. You will usually find truth. I mean, why can't we say this? Why can't we say names and words just like Galileo said? He's like, it's just names and words. What's your problem, man? So whenever you have a government saying, you know what, you can't say those names, and you can't say those words, it's always these words, by the way. Look, there's truth there. I mean, look at all the news coming out that's being used governments to influence social media. Look, this for sure changed the election results. For sure. Like, literally, I mean, I don't know why no one cares about this. It's just like, but what do they do? They control information. They control what is brought to the top, and what is silenced. But look, you literally had governments, like looking through massive corporations that control the information that everyone sees silencing one side of the story. It happened. It happened. And everybody's just like, whatever. So find out what they were silencing. You'll find truth there. You'll find truth there. The second one was beware of people wanting, beware of the people like the Jews were in Acts chapter 18. Beware of the people that are wanting to use the governments to silence people, to try to control people in general. And then the next one, the last one, is just look at every side of everything. That's how I got saved, folks. Question everything. That's why I like conspiracy people. They're going to be right many times. I don't believe in every single conspiracy theory out there, but look, what I see with somebody that's, you know, thinking and looking into things is that they're questioning everything. And look, I don't know how you could not question everything with how many lies that we've all been told throughout our whole lives. Especially by people in charge. The governments, the organizations, the institutions, they're all lying. They're all lying. Question every narrative. The Jews tried to control Paul's narrative through the force of government. It didn't work in this case, but many times throughout history and today it does work. Alright, so hopefully, you know, that gives you some things to think about from this example of Paul. It wasn't successful here, but it's very successful today, and it's been successful at shutting down and persecuting Christians throughout history. Alright, so what Paul's dealing with here? A pattern that we will see throughout our whole lives. Alright, let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.