What Do You See?

0:00 Well, I do have a couple, uh, notes to speak about concerning, uh, as, as I've done for the last, I guess, 15 or 16 months, things that are going on in Israel. I just wanna share with you a couple things. First of all, last, I think it was last Saturday or Sunday, I think it was Saturday, maybe it was Sunday, last weekend. Uh, the, there was a public funeral for, uh, the, the death of Nasra, who, the head of Hezbollah and his deputy who was killed shortly thereafter, after, uh, in Beirut, Lebanon and Israel decided to do a low slow flyover with

0:50 several of their fighter aircraft. And, um, as you would expect, if you've lived in Texas for a long time and have messed with fire ant hills, there was, uh, some outrage that came as be as, as a reside result. But it, it was, it was quite interesting. And then on Monday, by the way, I just wanted, I want you to know that the ceasefire agreement is still technically in place and was last weekend as well. On Monday, there was a rocket that was launched from Southern Gaza. It failed to reach Israel. It actually landed in Gaza and exploded in in Gaza and territory. I'm telling you these things because the ceasefire is not,

1:39 um, it's really a ceasefire for Israel. Nobody ever holds the other side accountable with the return of, of the hostages. Last weekend, if I remember right, I think there were six that were returned alive. One of them was a bedwin. And this is what his father said this week, Hisham mal seed's, father says, his mentally ill son freed after 10 years in Gaza captivity can no longer speak or write As a Muslim, I am furious with Hamas. His condition isn't good. He isn't in our world, a kind of Tarzan, worse than living

2:25 with animals for 10 years. He doesn't communicate. Before he used to speak, he used to write. He may have made bad decisions, but he could communicate. Now, we received a broken man. He tries to talk to share, but he can't. He says many incomprehensible things. He speaks in a whisper, maybe out of fear. He recognizes us. We can hear names from him, but sometimes he gets them wrong and mentions names from 10 years ago. He was in a torture camp. He was with people who were not people. He was in a terrible place. Hamas are liars. They're not honorable as they claimed. This is why they released him without ceremony. He was the one, by the way, who was quietly released without ceremony, unlike the other five.

3:12 They didn't want anyone to see the condition he was in. And that's why there was no ceremony. If they had any respect for people, they would've freed him long ago. I understand that he was in a state of physi of psychological torture. I try or I see him trying to speak, but unable to communicate. And when we don't understand him, he lowers his head and falls silent. We try not to burden him as a Muslim. I am furious with Hamas as the father of one of the hostages who was released this Wednesday. A couple, a few days ago, uh, Hamas handed over four more bodies of hostages that, that were murdered. Uh, Shlomo Monsour, IIK Elgar,

4:01 I and Ohad Omi Hamas has refused to discuss an extension of phase one of the ceasefire deal, which is how we ended up with, uh, these hostages being released. Hamas has insisted that it will not release any more hostages until Israel declares an end to the war and retreats from the buffer zone, uh, from the, and from the Philadelphia Quarter. By the way, I don't know if you witnessed it, but there were also two other hostages living who were brought to the ceremony, to the exchange, to witness the release of the rest of the hostages so that they could continue to be psychologically tortured.

4:47 I've, I've basically relegated this time period right after the kadish to updates on what's happened in, uh, Israel since October 7th. Um, in, in light of, I don't, I don't normally talk politics, or if I do, it's usually on accident. But in light of, uh, some things that occurred this week, I just would like to remind us in the war in Ukraine, that Russia was the aggressor against another sovereign nation, the nation of Ukraine. And that ignited the war that continues now three years, and what are we, three years and six days, or seven days, something like that.

5:34 Uh, that's continuing to go right now. Unfortunately, the longer time goes, the more easily people forget what it was that brought all these things to happen. I would like to continue in this series that we are doing on, on, on the Book of Acts. You're laughing. You're like, oh, wait, this is a series. I thought this was in perpetuity close, but not quite. We are continuing with Acts chapter 14 today.

6:26 In fact, if, if you can believe it, I don't know if you can believe this, but we are going to attempt to move through 18 verses of chapter 14. We're gonna go halfway through the chapter and we'll cover the rest of the chapter next week. And then we'll, 14 will be behind us. We'll see how long you're here today. So Acts chapter 14. I, I'll, I'll read through this and we're gonna stop, as we always do with every chapter, because there's really no clean breaks or there's very few clean breaks. Where we stop is really not where the action stops. It's just where I had to draw a line because I didn't wanna make you guys sit for more than an hour and a half today.

7:13 So now, here in Acts chapter 14, now in I Iconium, the same thing happened. They entered as usual into the Jewish synagogue and spoke in such a way that a large number of Jewish and Greek people believed, but the Jewish people who would not believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So they stayed there a considerable time speaking boldly. And the Lord who was testifying to the message of his grace granting signs and wonders to come by their hands. But the population of the city split. Some were with the Jewish leaders and some were with the emissaries. Now, it happened that an attempt was made by the both the Gentiles and the Jewish people, along with their rulers

8:00 to abuse and to stone them. But they found out about it and fled to the laconian cities of lystra and derby in the surrounding, in the surrounding countryside. There they proclaimed the good news. Now, a man was sitting in Lystra without strength in his feet, lame from birth, who had never walked. This man heard Paul speaking, when Paul looked intently at him and saw that he had faith to be healed, he said, with a loud voice, stand right up on your feet. And the man leaped up and began to walk around. Now, the crowd seeing what Paul had done, lifted up their voices saying, in Likeon and the gods have become like men and come down to us.

8:47 And they began calling Barnabas, Zeus and Paul Hermes because he was the main speaker. The priest of Zeus whose temple was before the front gate of the city, brought bulls and garlands. He wanted to offer sacrifice with the people. But when the emissaries, Barnabas and Paul heard of it, they tore their clothes and rushed out among the crowd, crying out and saying, men, why are you doing these things? We too are human just like you. We proclaim the good news to you, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that is in them and past generations. He allowed all nations to go their own ways.

9:33 Yet he did not leave himself without a witness. He did good by giving you rain from heaven in fruitful seasons, filling your heart with joy and gladness, even saying these things, they barely restrained the crowd from sacrificing to them. So let's, I I I, just so you have a, a pictorial understanding of where we are. Let's see if I can, uh, technologically grasp this. You ever see the, the dot that just continues to the rolling wheel?

10:19 All right, here we go. Are we good? Maybe. There we go. We are going. I just want to, before we get into chapter 14, I, I want to just remind us how we got here. If you'll be, if you'll remember, Paul and Barnabas were in Antioch, uh, with, with John Mark. And they were, they were praying and seeking the Lord and the Lord. Uh, basically the congregation, the the elders in the community commissioned them to go on this trip to go share the good news. So they have gone from Antioch over here, and they went to Cyprus.

11:06 They walked across the, the, the width of Cyprus. Then there's a closer up. They caught a boat from Paphos and came up here to Perga in Paraphilia. And John Mark went back to Jerusalem. Then here they walked up to Antioch Pisidia. So we're in modern day Turkey, just in case you're wondering. And they shared the good news in Antioch, and they, they, uh, were run out of town, and they, they were run out of town. And this week starts off with an Iconium. So here we are, an Iconium.

11:53 Let's, let's go one more. Here's just a modern day view of the area. Um, where they were, they, they sailed from Cyprus to here, came up here down like this, and there's somewhere in this area. Yeah, everybody have an geographical understanding, a little bit of where they are. So here today, they're in this province called Liconia, and they flee from Iconium. Well, actually, before I get into that, I want to, I wanna make a note for us, and I'll try to do this as we continue through the book of Acts, uh, un until the end, to the best of my ability, or at least, at least I'll give you some options.

12:42 Turkey is also known in this time period or is divided up into these different areas. You have what is called Asia on the western side of Turkey, and you have Galacia, which is here in the middle, and Cappadocia, which is here on the eastern side, Oh, wow. That's interesting. When it doesn't keep up with the way I talk, Galatia is in the middle. Does that sound at all familiar to anyone from another book in the New Testament? It reminds us of Galatians, or it should call us to Galatians.

13:30 Galatia is a territorial designation for Central Asia Minor or today modern Turkey. It was a Roman Roman province created by Augusta Caesar in 25 bc. Uh, Galatia covered a large territory that included ethnic Galatia as well as other parts, uh, Fri, GIA, Pisidia, Laconia, and other regions in Asia Minor. So if you're like, wait a second, you just, you went too fast. So I wanna point out Laconia is here, which is where we are in this province, in in, in our message today. Um, fry Gia is, um, right here.

14:17 Maybe I should, uh, let me erase these. Is this easier to see now? Laconia is here. Oh, it hasn't changed. Give it a second. It'll catch up. It might catch up. No. Okay, nevermind. Okay, so Liconia is here. Is that even, oh, man, I love technology. Joshua, can you, um, oh, no, you can't because I'm running it from up here. Right in the middle of the green section of Galatia is Liconia just, oh, yeah, there you go. Just to the left of that.

15:02 Well, now it's okay, let's try this. To the left of that is Frige. There we go. And we have Sidia. Sidia is here. And am I missing one? What we find out later is actually during, during this time period, uh, by the way, I was quoting, um, a, a bible dictionary for this. Uh, thank you, Marcus. What what we find out is actually during this time period

15:48 of Paul's journey, that pedophilia was likely also considered pedophilia is this purple section right here. Um, which should be, should, should ring a bell because that's what axis chapter 13, where, where Paul lands is in Perga. In Paraphilia. Man, look at this thing. He's got a mind of its own, okay? I'm saying all of that because all of this area could be considered Galatia. And it's quite interesting because when Augustus Caesar took, uh, took control of it, the ethnic Galatia is actually their descendants of Celts. And they came down into the region

16:34 and they, they did their Celtic thing and they inhabited the region. And now the, the ethnic Galatians are called Galls. That's where you get Galatia. Um, but they're, but they're ethnically, they're Celtic. So in 25, B, CE, the Roman Empire annexed Galatia into it. And the Romans, uh, initiated an extensive urbanization program in both the northern up here, Northern Galacia and southern Galatia. And they, they, uh, uh, initiated this program in both northern and southern parts of the province that involved building cities, constructing roads,

17:20 and establishing the imperial cult roads where we're going. We don't need roads where we're going. We don't need a PowerPoint either. Um, okay, it will catch up in a moment. The most important road in Galatia was called the V best, which was built in six BCE to connect the various colonies and also to pacify the south, the southern part of Galatia. There's numerous milestones still standing today that indicate the root and the extent of the road as it cut across the south of the province.

18:06 If they traveled as recorded in Acts 13 and 14, Paul and Barnabas would likely have traveled on this road while journeying in the province of Pisidian Antioch to I Iconium to Lystra and back again. Um, I'm gonna stop mirroring guys for just a second. 'cause I want to, I wanna try to, I have a Roman roadmap, which I wanted to show. So you could see the Roman roads, because the Roman roads actually changed the way civilization interacted because you could get anywhere much more quickly. It would be today the equivalent of the development of the modern airplane to be able to get anywhere

18:51 around quickly. And you could have messengers go, and you would have, Rome would have stations along the way where a messenger could, could, uh, refuel if you will get on another horse, uh, at some point. This will work until that point. We'll keep talking. There are, there, there are two theory theories considering, um, to whom or the recipients of the letter of Galatians. One theory is the North Galatian theory, which is technically it's more of a territory in an ethnic designation, and it would restrict the audience to the Galatians who were ethnically Gauls or descendants of, of the Celts.

19:37 The other theory, the South Galatian theory, Let's try this again. The South Galatian theory is that Galatia w was Paul, when Paul wrote to Galatians, it was kind of an all encompassing idea, and that included provincial cities such as Antioch, Iconium, RA, and Derby. And perhaps, as I mentioned earlier, paraphilia and Perga, where we'll end up next Shabbat. Okay, well, it's not cooperating. So if you, I I'm saying all of that to say that Acts 13 and 14 may actually be the seedling

20:22 or the beginning, if you will, of the communities, to which Paul writes later with the book of Galatians, what we call the book of Galatians, which was a letter. I'm saying that because in part, I don't know if you've ever read Galatians, Galatians can be kind of, uh, daunting when you read it. And, and Paul's a little bit strong in his language, and I wonder if some of the things that come up in Acts chapter 13 and 14 are the very seeds of the problems that we then see in the book of Galatians. So here we are in the book of, uh, in the book of Acts,

21:10 as Paul and Barnabas are going through this area. And here we come to this in, in chapter 14, they're in Iconium, which you saw on the map. And the same thing happened. They entered as usual into the Jewish synagogue. So here as usual, it could be actually a reference to what Paul has already done in terms of going into the synagogue on Shabbat, as usual, as was his custom as he's done. And what we'll see he'll continue to do through the rest of the book of Acts. The same thing happened. Luke is now connecting this story in Acts 14 to the prior story in Acts 13. So if this is your first Shabbat here after service, you should go read Acts 13 so you understand how we get to Acts 14.

21:56 Or if you didn't read Acts 13, you should do that too. There's a large number of what the text tells us. What Luke tells us is there's a large number of Jews and Gentiles who believe, we're assuming that they believe, and by assuming, I think it's pretty, it's clear enough for us to make this assumption that they believe in the redemptive work of Yeshua, the Messiah. That's what Paul is there sharing with them. The Jewish people who did not believe the textiles us stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. Why are they stirring up the Gentiles? Well, there's a couple different options that we, we have in this text. One of them is, it could be that they had the most political

22:46 and judicial power in the city, or civic power, we could call it that. So if they, if they wanted to get something done civically or in the city under the jurisdiction of the city, they would have to get those who were in charge of the city upset In order to have them removed from the city. The leaders of the city had the ability to enforce regulations and to punish people. Or could it be that there is some, if I can call it this, I don't know, competition among, uh, there could be some competition regarding the manner

23:32 by which Gentiles can become associated with Israel. This could be affecting the other Gentiles who have already gone through the conversion process and become, if you will, a part of Israel, but they were born from the nations. If, if that makes sense. Maybe they're in the process, maybe they completed the process. But Paul, very clearly in all of his texts that's in, in actually, but what I would call in disagreement with what Paul teaches, Paul says, you, you don't have to do that. In Paul's case, there's no skin in the game.

24:23 Okay? That was apparently a bad joke. So what we could have here is, is a competing or a competition between how best to include Gentiles into corporate Israel, and what does that look like? If you're followers of Yeshua, if you've already gone through the process of conversion, you're like, I did it. Everybody else has to do that too. Like if I, you, you get it. Like, if you go the full mile, you don't want anybody else to get a half mile and, and get the same reward. You're like, I, I need, I'm gonna need you to do everything.

25:09 Like don't hold back. But Paul is here saying, you don't have to be become Jewish. You don't have to complete the conversion process to be saved and to, to, to be underneath, if you will, the umbrella or, or to, maybe I can put it this way, to be brought into the commonwealth of Israel. So Paul, in this other group are, they're teaching two different things. And it's clear here in this text that they're doing that. And if you take Galatians and take how strong Paul comes out in Galatians, in all of the rest of his books, Paul has a greeting like, Hey, it's so good to see you guys loves what you're doing, but now let me tell you how to fix something.

25:56 Paul comes out, guns blazing in Galatians, he doesn't hold back. So I don't know, perhaps thi this is reflective of what's going on here in Acts 13 and 14, Paul and Barnabas, as they're experiencing all of this and, and, and the people are now trying to get the rulers of the city involved and, and, and riling them up and getting them upset to the point that they, they want to stone them, abuse and stone them. Paul and Barnabas are staying there. They're staying there at considerable time through all of this, through all of this, uh, verbal abuse or, or whatever it looks like.

26:42 The text doesn't tell us exactly what it looks like other than that the minds are being poisoned against the brothers or against Paul and Barnabas and, and his cohort, but they choose to stay there a considerable amount of time speaking boldly in the name of the Lord. They're, they're staying in the midst of persecution for the purpose of sharing the message that God has, has what Paul says. Paul. Paul says, God downloaded it to me. I didn't get it from anybody else. It went straight from Yeshua to me. And now Paul is out there sharing this, and, and he's doing it in despite all the opposition.

27:30 And now here, the, the leaders, there's an attempt by the Jewish and Gentile leaders to abuse and to stone them. And finally they said, okay, it's time for us to go. It's interesting because there's no like shaking off the dust this week of the feet. Uh, there's no, there's no need for me to jump. Um, but, but they move on. They move on from meconium, they go to Lyra into derby, which you saw on the map, By the way. I just want to, I wanna point out just something interesting and, and we will continue to hit tidbits here. Um, but if you've read the New Testament, you probably recognize that we're going to, we're gonna meet one of Paul's companions in a couple chapters, and his name is Timothy. Timothy is a disciple of Paul, who Paul trains up and, and,

28:20 and, and, um, encourages along the way. Timothy's from Lyra, which is here where Paul is at this moment. Paul doesn't meet him until his second trip through, but I'm telling you that because here we have the seeds being planted, because what we find out is Timothy's say Timothy's grandmother, if I remember right, came to Faith and Lystra, well, I wonder if she didn't come to faith here with Paul the first time around. So here they are. And now a man was sitting in Lystra without strength in his feet. Were continuing in in verse eight, lame from birth who had never walked. This man heard Paul speaking, when Paul looked intently at him and saw that he had faith to be healed, he said, with a loud voice, stand right up on your feet.

29:07 And the man leaped up and began to walk around. Now, the crowd seeing what Paul had done, lifted up their voices saying, in Laconian, the gods have become like men and come down to us. And they began calling Barnabas, Zeus and Paul Hermes, because Paul was the main speaker. The Lord is always willing to work in our midst. And it's quite evident here that the Lord is working in the midst of Lystra. There's a miraculous healing. This man was sitting without strength in his feet, lame from birth, who had never walked. It's, you know, one of those, one of those, uh, what do you call 'em, adjective phrases, agit phrases. I don't know if that's the right word, but I'll make it up.

29:52 One, one of those phrases would've been enough, right? To tell us that he couldn't walk. But Paul wanted to make sure that we knew that he couldn't walk, and that we knew that we knew, that we knew that he couldn't walk. Just a little extra emphasis, but also it should strike you. Last week, I, I mentioned how Luke seems to be putting Peter and then Paul to bring Paul, if you will, into the same realm of influence or authority as Peter. And, and we talked about the content of the, of the speech last week of Paul's speech, how similar it was to Peter's speech in Acts two. Now we have in Acts three, guess what Peter does?

30:38 Peter goes to the temple in Acts three with John, and at the temple gate, there's a lame man who can't walk who's been lame from birth. You notice the, the multiplicity of, of descriptions here, and in, in Acts three, healing comes to the man through Peter, and the man gets up, walks, leaps and praises the Lord. It's quite interesting actually, because it's a little bit different. In this case, the man, that man was begging for something and Peter says, I don't have money to give you, and in this case, Paul just looks at the man. Oh, you ever have someone that moment where someone just like looks into you

31:24 and they like look into your eyes and you feel like they're reading your soul? I just imagine Paul like that. Paul's just looking at him. Wait, wait for it. Ah, there I see in the soul. I don't know if you, those moments, you're always like, if you're the recipient of that gaze, you're like, I don't know, what are you doing? Paul looks at him intently, sees that he has faith, and says, stand up on your feet. And the man gets up and leaps it. It's quite different than Peter, except it's the same miracle. I'm telling you this because God

32:13 may choose different methods, but the the miracles are still the same. He works through us today just as he has always worked through his people. And sometimes it's unexpected. In fact, I would just tell you probably most of the time it's unexpected. We don't wake up in the morning like, okay, what kind of, what kind of, uh, lame people can I get to heal today? I mean, you may come in and what kind of lame jokes do I do? I get to hear today? But anyways, the reaction to Peter's healing of the lame man was that the crowd was filled with wonder and astonishment.

33:00 And when they, when they see all of this, the crowd goes, oh my goodness, these men must be gods. They've come down from the heavens and become like men to visit the people. These men recognize the supernatural element of what is actually happening. They miss who comes down from heaven and becomes like a man. They misidentify Paul and Barnabas. It's quite fascinating because Yeshua is that Yeshua's the one who came down from the heavens? Oh, wait, maybe this is later in my message.

33:46 Nope. Now I'm trying to remember. I thought I included this, but I, let me just, uh, I wanna, I wanna flip over to one of Paul's letters to Philippians chapter two talking about Yeshua, who though existing in the form of God did not consider himself to be equal to God, a thing to be grasped, but he emptied himself, taking on the form of a slave, becoming the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man. He humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death,

34:32 even death on the cross. For this reason, God, I'm just gonna finish this passage 'cause it's a great passage. For this reason, God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Yeshua, every knee should bow in heaven and on the earth and under the earth. And every tongue professed that Yeshua, the Messiah is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Amen? Amen. Here they are talking about Paul and Barnabas being like Gods, but they've missed the Yeshua element. And Paul and Barnabas, oh, it is in I just missed it. You, you guys ever have that moment where you missed the thing that you wrote down?

35:19 Anyways, Paul and Barnabas, they're in the midst of this that I just want you to note something they're being called as Gods in a different language. So Paul and Barnabas actually don't immediately react. You notice that Now we're going to move on to the next, the next next couple verses. The priest of Zeus whose temple was before the front gate of the city brought bulls and garlands. In other words, they're praising them as if they're the gods. And there's enough time that goes in between that the priest can get the bulls out. So he brings the bull out and garlands he wanted to offer as a sacrifice with the people. But when the emissaries were in verse 14, but when the emissaries, Barnabas

36:04 and Paul heard of it, they tore their clothes and rushed out among the crowd crying out and saying, men, why are you doing these things? We too, were human just like you. We proclaim the good news to you, telling you to turn from these worthless things to the living God who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations, he allowed all the nations to go their own way. Yet he did not leave himself without a witness. He did good by giving you rain from heaven in fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with joy and gladness, even saying these things, they barely restrained the crowd from sacrificing to them. So here they are, they're out. They're just outside.

36:50 If you, if you haven't grasped in the text, they're just actually outside of the city proper. They're outside the city gates because it tells us that the, they're near the temple of Zeus. And the temple of Zeus is before, if you will, or outside the city, gates. And the priest brings animals to sacrifice. And now Paul and Barnaba are hearing, I don't know if you guys have ever been in a place where, where you're speaking and someone's translating, and then there's like a whole commotion and and you can't follow along what's actually being said. So you're just sitting up there smiling. Paul and Bart may be sitting up there smiling, and then all of a sudden the translator catches up and they happen to look over. And the priest from the temple of Zeus is, is is bringing his his bull, uh, over.

37:37 There's, there's a load of it in that he's bringing the bulls in the, in the garlands over for the purpose of sacrifice with the people. And Paul and Barnabas are sitting there going, wait, wait, wait, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They protest the moment they get it, but it takes 'em a little bit because of the, of the delay in translation and takes 'em. And Paul says, why are you doing these things? We're only human. We proclaim the good news to you. In other words, we're just messengers. We're telling you to turn from these things to the living God who made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. It's quite interesting actually,

38:23 because it could also be, um, that where they are locationally at this time, uh, there was a, a, a cult practice, uh, with mother earth as the goddess. And that it, it could be that, that there by, by including the God, the turn to the living God who made the heavens the earth to see and all that is in them. By the way, there's gods and pagan cultures for every single one of those entities, uh, and and every entity that's within those entities. But here, Paul says, the living God created all of those. In other words, whatever your God is, if he's the Son God or the mother God of Earth

39:08 or whatever, this one, he's over them all. You're just worshiping the wrong one. It could be that this is a little bit of the standing in the opposition to the mother earth goddess or even the the, uh, Zeus, which we see. But here it says, God said, uh, Paul continues that God let the nations go their own way, but he left a witness for you, namely giving you rain from heaven and fruitful seasons, filling your hearts with joy and gladness. This is Paul's using what we call, or what I would call today, uh, natural theology. In other words, you go outside and you look at everything. Now, perhaps you have to go drive an hour to get outside

39:55 of the glow of the metroplex, but if you go out, if you go outside at night and you get out outside of the metro, the, the, the light pollution of the metroplex, and you look up, you think one of two things, number one, you look up and you're like, oh my goodness, look How much bigger everything is than me. And it makes me so insignificant. On the other hand, God made all of this and he chose to make me in his image and to think about what that actually means

40:43 to be made in the image of God, to be made in his likeness. But when we're out there, we, we get into these areas where there's, uh, I was about to say mountains, but not here in north Texas. But you get into areas where there's mountains and all of, well, I'll tell you what they have in Texas. What we have are a bunch of things that can kill you. And you get out there and you begin to appreciate life because of all of the different things that can kill you while you're out there and you're like, oh my goodness, Lord, this is amazing. And you begin to look at the stars and, and on a dark night, you look at all of the stars and you think, and you remember when the Lord said

41:31 to Abraham, he said, I'm gonna make your children like the stars of the heavens. And you look at the stars, look, as a child, I would look at the stars and be like, I think I can count them. Lemme start over here, 1, 2, 10, infinity and then beyond. But you look at the heavens and, and to think that God formed the heavens and the earth's foundation and and you really begin to realize that everything that we see, the wind, that we hear, the the trees, everything is, is here praising the Lord. And if we see it, it leads us to him.

42:18 That's what I call natural theology. You look at all of his creation and we can't help but realize that there's something bigger that created it all. Paul uses this and says, the Lord provides rain. When you need rain, this should draw. He, he's filled your hearts with gladness and joy. That's the witness for you that he exists. But even saying these things, they barely restrained the crowd from sacrificing to them. Even after all of that, when you begin to look at all of that, the crowd's response is still, we really wanna offer a sacrifice.

43:03 I just wanna point out how often it is as, as humanity that we take a step back and, and we would rather worship the creation than the creator. We would rather it, it's, I don't know, maybe it's because our brains can actually comprehend the creation and we can't comprehend the creator. Maybe that's it. Maybe it's just easier for us to recognize how similar this creation is. And and I'm like, oh, that's, that's great. Let's worship the sun. I mean, I'm not, I don't say that, but some people are like, well, we should worship the sun. Why The sun gives us light without the sun. We wouldn't have plants, we wouldn't have oxygen, we wouldn't have food.

43:50 Uh, we wouldn't have food that could be eaten by the food. We wouldn't have all of these things without the sun. So we, the sun must be God. But then you think about what happens at night, a whole nother life comes to, comes to life. You, you hear insects and animals and all sorts of different sounds and, and, and everything becomes terrifying. And you're like, you see a shadow and you're like, oh no, what is that? And you're like, well, maybe the moon must be God.

44:35 But all of these different things, they're just the creation. When we think about it all, we have to go one step beyond and say there's something beyond all of that that created it, put it together and continues to be involved in his creation. It's kind. Well, no, I'm not gonna give you, it's kind of like, so what does this mean for you and me when we are speaking boldly for the Lord? Or let me rephrase. When we're living our lives, what do we do when we come into strong resistance, especially when we're, when we're presenting

45:23 the redemptive work of the Lord, what do we do? Are we able to stay engaged for a considerable amount of time as Paul does, and continue attempting to persuade people to Yeshua when he asks us to stay in the fight? Are we able to recognize the time when we're supposed to be done with our presentation and it's time to leave to go somewhere else? I'm just gonna, I'm gonna point out those two things. I know I just said two opposites. You have to be extremely sensitive to the Lord, to know when to stay and when to go. Sometimes it's stay and sometimes it's go. And I can't tell you this time it's gonna be this way

46:09 and this time it's gonna be that way. Paul, they're about to stone him and he leaves. Does that mean every time that Paul's about to get stoned by the people that he leaves? No. Paul gets stoned and they think he dies. So I can't tell you, I don't have a, a, a magic eight ball that says, should I stay this time? And it pops up. I'm telling you, you have to be attentive to the spirit of the Lord in your own life. The Lord wants to work in our midst today as he has throughout creation. Here we have Paul with this man who can't walk. And, and the Lord miraculously brings healing to him

46:55 and he leaps and jumps and walks away, walks around. It doesn't actually say he walks away. I'm telling you, the Lord didn't intervene in the Book of Acts and then say, okay, acts is done. We're gonna be, we're all done with intervening in humanity. No, the Lord has continued to intervene and be faithful for his people to his people, for his covenant, for three and a half thousand years, 4,000 years. And he will continue that way. Does that mean that that the, the people who couldn't walk and were healed, that stopped back then? No, I'm here to tell you that's not true.

47:41 Can I tell you how God wants to do miracles today? No, but he wants to. And the only reason I can tell you that's true is because the miraculous existed in the Book of Acts coexisted in the book of Acts with the people of Israel. And the people of Israel continue to exist today, thereby God must continue to want to intervene and, and bring change and miraculous accounts into our lives without one, you can't have the other, you can't have Israel without the miraculous. Can I just tell you it's the miraculous that Israel continues to exist today.

48:28 It was miraculous that Israel, the the Jewish people weren't wiped out by Hitler. It was miraculous that the Jewish people founded the state of Israel in 1948. It was miraculous last weekend that the, that more that, that the no one, not one person was injured in a bus bombing with five that were found with what? I understand that there were 15 others and five suicide bombers that were all ready to hit Israel during, during, uh, morning traffic during morning rush hour. Not one person was hurt. Is that miraculous? Yes. Does God continue to intervene?

49:14 Absolutely. Do we recognize it when he intervenes? That's the real question. Do we recognize the work of the Lord in our midst or even do we allow him to work in our midst? Do we attribute something that was done to something or someone other than the Lord? I'll tell you, we can attribute most of what we see. Certainly in the West. We can attribute to someone else. We can say, ah, well, you know, so and so was there. I would've gotten in a car accident, but my kid had a poopy diaper and I had to change his diaper. And so then I left the house and then I, on the way, I saw

50:00 that there was an accident right where I would've been three minutes earlier if I hadn't have changed a poopy diaper. Is that miraculous? You can leave that to be determined. Do you like to deal with that? No. Is it miraculous? Maybe, maybe that was God's way of keeping you out of that accident. Maybe it wasn't. I don't know if you, this total sidebar note, I dunno if you ever have these moments where you're just angry, you're like, I'm supposed to be at work 45 minutes ago, I couldn't do this. I couldn't tie my shoes. I couldn't, couldn't think straight 'cause my kids are talking, I couldn't get outta the house. And then I got outta the house and I ran outta gas and then I had to go to the gas station and they didn't have gas. I had to push my car to the next gas station and, and then I had to call AAA because I couldn't push my car

50:47 because I'm haven't been spending time in the gym. So I had to call aaa and they came and brought me a gallon of gas. And then after all of that, I got to work only to find out 12 accidents happened on the way or something else. I'm telling you, take a moment and thank the Lord that he intervened in your life. We get these moments of frustration of why do I have a poopy diaper? I've gotta go.

51:36 That's the moment where you just take a breath and you thank the Lord for everything that he's provided because you don't know what he just kept you from Or you don't know what He slowed you down so that in five minutes you're gonna recognize and you're gonna have a conversation that's important for him. You don't know that if you just get angry and you just like, I'm gonna bull rush all the way everywhere. You missed the conversations that you could have had along the way. You missed whatever other opportunity that the Lord has for you. We get some, sometimes we get so frustrated because we have our whole day. I don't know, maybe this is just me. We have our whole day planned out.

52:22 God, I am doing all of these things for you today down to the microsecond. Inevitably after the first one thing, something goes wrong and it changes the rest of your day. And, and if you are like me, you're like, but I had a good plan. Like it was all gonna work. And God just sits there and laughs. And if you can't laugh with him and then readjust to whatever he has in your plan, you're gonna have a really frustrating life when, When we're presenting to others the message of Yeshua, when we're presenting to others

53:09 about our living God and their reaction. By the way, I don't know about you guys, but I've never had anybody be like, whoa, that guy's Hermes or Zeus, like, let's offer sacrifices to Rabbi Ari. I don't know about you guys, but that doesn't happen to me very often, if ever. But you may have a different circumstance in your life with, man, this person is amazing. This person is God's gift to humanity, this person. And then you find out, by the way, that person is a human and they do wrong things just like you and me. And you're like, wait a second. What happened to you?

53:57 I'm telling you, don't elevate people to God's status and don't allow yourself to be elevated. You know what that takes? It takes really strong character and integrity to go and say to someone, look, I'm just a human like you. Like I know you have all of these grand thoughts about me because I walk back and forth on the stage and I read God's word every Shabbat, and you're like, oh, you're like, whatever. I'm just a human like you. We all have our pitfalls.

54:44 We all have our moments where we're not necessarily the most obedient servants of the Lord, but it takes character. You have to have character. You have to let the Lord develop character in your life so that when that moment happens, by the way, those moments are what develop character when those moments happen, how you respond is illuminating what your character actually is. So if you don't respond, your character gets weakened, your integrity gets weakened. If you do respond, it gets strengthened so that the next time it happens, you're able to respond again.

55:30 So my real question is, what level of character have we allowed the Lord to develop in our own lives? And does our character push us to acknowledge and attribute to God what rightfully belongs to him? Because it's really difficult in our lives to declare what rightly belongs to him. And in fact, sometimes you have to investigate what actually rightly belongs to him. I mean, all of it belongs to him, but he's given us the ability to have domain and dominion in our own lives. And thereby we have to recognize, oh, this is God's. I gotta, this is, this is the Shabbat. Like this is God's in our, in my own life.

56:15 Whatever that looks like, this is God's. It's untouchable. And then you have to stay with that and it's really difficult. So just so you know, we're to continue to speak boldly for the Lord. The Lord wants to work in our midst and then he wants to receive the glory when He re when he's working in our midst. And we have to be the elements, the the conduits that point to him point all of the glory to him in our daily lives. When we interact with anybody and everybody, we have to say, when somebody says, that was great, thanks. The Lord gave me skill. Like I can do something.

57:02 But also it it, this is really his like I was feeling really off today. And really this is, this was, this was one on God. It's rare that you find that, but I want you to know you have to cultivate that in your life. That's not something that grows easily. It's something that takes discipline and you have to work hard at it. So may our Father in heaven. Lord, I thank you for this example from Paul and Barnabas from chapter 14 of the Book of Acts. Lord, I pray that you would continue to work in our lives. Lord, I pray that you would enable us to speak boldly in Your name and Lord, that we would give to you all glory and honor that are due to you.

57:48 Oh Lord, we bless you in Yeshua's name. Amen. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

58:44 In the name of our Messiah, Yeshua Shalum.