Lord, Liar, or Lunatic?

0:00 At this time, I'd like to call up Rabbi Ari for our message today. Oh, I'm sorry. Please be seated. Dear Lord, thank you for Rabbi Ari and his faithfulness to this community. I pray that you would salt his lips, Lord, that you would salt his words, that he would hear your voice as he speaks, God, that he would be a vessel for you, and that he would help us to see things in the Bible that we haven't seen today, Lord. Give him wisdom beyond his years, and give him strength and endurance to run the race. In Yeshua's mighty name, amen. Amen. Thank you, Joe.

0:49 Just want everyone to know, he just prayed for me to be salty today. We are continuing in our series on the Book of Acts. We're continuing in chapter 26. We did the first two-thirds a couple of weeks ago, and then we're wrapping up chapter 26 today. So what I would like to do, as I've done with the previous two in chapter 26, I'm going to read this time the whole chapter, so that you have everything in the context in your mind as we're talking today. So we'll start in chapter 26, verse one.

1:35 "Agrippa said to Paul, 'It is permitted for you to speak for yourself.' Then Paul stretched out his hand and began his defense: 'Concerning all I am accused of by the Judean leaders, I consider myself fortunate, King Agrippa, that it is before you that I am to make my defense today, since you are especially knowledgeable about all Jewish customs and issues. Therefore I beg you to listen patiently to me. Now all the Jewish people have known my manner of life ever since my youth, starting from the beginning in my own nation and also in

2:22 Jerusalem. They have known about me for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that according to the strictest sect of our religion, I lived as a Pharisee. Yet now I stand here being judged for the hope in the promise made by God to our fathers. It is the promise that our 12 tribes hope to obtain as they earnestly worship night and day. And for this hope I am accused by the Jewish people, O king. Why is it judged incredible by any of you that God raises the dead? In fact, I myself thought it was necessary to do many

3:08 things in opposition to the name of Yeshua HaNotsriti, and that is what I did in Jerusalem. Not only did I lock up many of the Kedoshim in prisons by the authority I received from the ruling Kohanim, but I cast my vote against them when they were being condemned to death. I tried to cause them to blaspheme by punishing them often in the synagogues. In furious rage against them, I persecuted them even in foreign cities. While journeying to Damascus with the authority and the commission of the ruling Kohanim, at midday, O king, I saw on the road a light

3:54 from heaven, brighter than the sun, shining around me and those traveling with me. When we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in Aramaic, "Sha'ul, Sha'ul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads." Then I said, "Who are you, Lord?" And the Lord said, "I am Yeshua, whom you are persecuting. But get up and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and a witness to the things you have seen, as well as the things I will yet reveal to you. I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles

4:40 to whom I am sending you to open their eyes, so they may turn from the darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive release from sins, as well as a place among those who are made holy through trusting in me." Therefore, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. Rather, I kept declaring first to those in Damascus and then in Jerusalem throughout all the region of Judea and also the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds consistent with that repentance. For this reason some Judeans seized me in the temple, and they tried to put me to death. Since I have had God's help to this

5:28 day, I have stood here testifying to both small and great. I am saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said was going to happen, that the Messiah was to suffer and that, being first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light both to our people and to the nations.' As Paul was thus making his defense, Festus said with a loud voice, 'You're crazy, Paul! Your great learning is driving you insane.' "But Paul declares, "I am not insane, most noble Festus. Rather, I am speaking the sober truth, for the king knows about these things, and I speak freely to him, since I

6:14 am convinced that none of these things escape his notice, for this was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do believe." Agrippa said to Paul, "In such a short time, you're trying to persuade me to be a Christian?" And Paul said, "For whether short or long, I would pray to God that not only you but also all those who hear me today would be such as I am, except for these chains." Then the king stood up as well as the governor, Bernice, and those who were sitting with them. When they had gone away, they began talking among themselves, saying, "This man has done nothing deserving of death or chains." Then Agrippa said to Festus, "This man could have been set free

7:00 if he had not appealed to Caesar." So we have just read the entire chapter. Actually, it's very nice to kind of have it all together in one setting. Paul here is presenting himself as an insider in and among the Jewish people and the Jewish religion. He does this by appealing to all of the Jewish people who've known him from his youth, and even in Jerusalem. And those people, they all knew about Paul's religious zealousness. In the preparation of this message, apparently I created a word. And then I was looking through it this morning, and I was like, "I don't think that's a word."

7:46 But I thought there was a word zealous... What did I think it was? I think it was zealous. I don't know. I can't remember. Anyways, the word is zealousness, and apparently, I try to create English words. Anyways, they all knew about his religious zealousness, and it was this zealousness that led him to act against the followers of Yeshua until he had a personal encounter with Yeshua himself, and this personal encounter changed the trajectory of his life. That personal encounter happened to be on the road to Damascus. The Lord directed him to go to Jerusalem, Judea,

8:32 and then to the Gentiles. It sounds quite familiar. Well, for those of you who have been here for about three years, you'll remember when we started the Book of Acts, we spent a long time on Acts 1:8, which the Holy Spirit would come and would empower the disciples to go and to create disciples or to share the good news of Yeshua. Where? To Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to all of the nations. So here, Paul does the exact same thing. He goes to Jerusalem, Judea, and then to the Gentiles, and he's promised that he would testify before nations, kings, and the children of Israel. At this point in his life, Paul has already

9:20 testified by his own declaration before all Israel. And I wonder what set this trajectory back in 21, if Paul's opportunity to stand and share with all of those present in the temple was a taste of what he felt was him sharing with all Israel. He's now testifying before what is known as a Jewish king. So he's testifying before all Israel, he's testifying before kings, and he is now about to be on his way to testify before Caesar, who is king of nations. So you see what Paul was originally told

10:05 he was going to do in Acts 9 is coming to fulfillment, and here we are in Acts 26, and we'll see it through 27 and 28. His personal encounter with Yeshua opened his eyes to the idea that the Messiah was to suffer, as it mentions in both Moses and in the prophets, and that the Messiah was to suffer, was to rise from the dead, and proclaim light to the Jewish people and to the nations. Okay, that's the introduction. So now we'll get into this text today. As Paul was making his defense, Festus says with a loud voice, "You're crazy, Paul!

10:51 Your great learning is driving you insane." But Paul declares, "I'm not insane, most noble Festus. Rather, I am speaking the sober truth." Festus interrupts Paul's defense. Luke doesn't tell us why or some motivation for Festus, but he interrupts Paul's defense to accuse him of going insane. In fact, it's quite fascinating. I assume, and I just realized I probably shouldn't assume, but it's good I've got Joe here. I can just toss questions from the TLV translation standpoint. No, but the text here says, "Festus says," and then it says, "Paul declares."

11:38 The text seems to have changed, I don't know, is that called tenses? I'm not a very good English person. I like to make up English words. I'm a much better math person. I agree with you. I think counting, I think math is God's language. English, not so much. But it's interesting, just this change in the way Luke is writing may indicate that Luke has now rejoined the groupThat Luke perhaps wasn't a part of the group from the point up on the temple in chapter 21, 22, until this point, but now Luke has rejoined. And then if we cheat and we look forward, we know Luke is on the boat,

12:25 going, setting sail for Rome. So it may indicate that Luke is there. And here, Festus interrupts, and then Paul says, "I'm denying your accusation. And not only that, not only am I denying that I'm not a lunatic, but also I'm denying that there's any lying. In fact, this is the sober truth." When I was young, and I say young, I think I was in junior high, I read a book, and I would assume that probably most of you who are my age or older, probably older, have read the same book, called "More Than a Carpenter" written by Josh McDowell.

13:12 Written in, I think it was in the late '70s. And it was a very simple defense of the lordship of Jesus. The fascinating thing is he has a chapter, chapter three, which the chapter is entitled "Lord, Liar, or Lunatic." And it's based upon, he takes us into the text and he creates an argument for us about Yeshua, about this idea that either he is Lord, or he's a liar, or he's a lunatic.

13:59 Those are your really three, one, two, three options. I can count. Those are your three options. Lord, liar, or lunatic. In fact, if you're interested, just a total aside, if you use the YouVersion Notes, I dropped a copy, a digital copy, or a link to a digital copy if you want to go read the book. If you don't like reading digital books, our library will have a copy or two next week for you to come check out if you're interested in that. So go see our library, because I'm promoting reading. I think reading is very good for you.

14:46 Let's see, where was I? Lord, liar, or lunatic. He goes into this discussion based upon what Yeshua says about himself in the four different Gospels. It leaves you with three options. There's really no Jesus was this great guy, but that's it. Or he was a wise prophet, but that's it. It's not an option. Based upon what Yeshua says about himself, you have three options. He's either Lord as he says he is, or he's a liar. But here's the thing, you can almost scratch out liar because if he's a liar, he's such a great liar that he's actually a lunatic.

15:32 Because he's so deep in the lies that he's lost track that they're actually lies, and therefore he's a lunatic. So those are your three options, and this is in fact what Paul is being accused of here, is he's being accused of being a liar and a lunatic. He's not being accused of being the Lord, he's being accused of promoting Yeshua as Lord. When Paul says, "I'm not insane, I am speaking the sober truth," he's denying the lunacy accusation, and he's denying the liar accusation.

16:22 And it leaves the only other option for Yeshua, which is Lord. We'll continue in the text. "For the king knows," this is what Paul says, "For the king knows about these things." You see, he shifts from Festus back to the king. "For the king knows about these things, and I speak freely to him. Since I am convinced that none of these things escape his notice. For this was not done in a corner, King Agrippa. Do you believe the prophets? I know that you do believe.' Agrippa said to Paul, 'In such a short time you're trying to persuade me to be a Christian.' And Paul said, 'Whether short or long, I would pray to God that not only you, but also all who hear me today would be

17:08 such as I am, except for these chains.'" Paul redirects the conversation to the king, and he declares, "You, King, know these things." Now, you have a couple different options with Paul in his interactions with the king. You can either assume that Paul is speaking the truth to the king and saying, "King, you know all about these things. I know you do." Or you might be able to take an approach of, "King, you think you know about all of these things," where Paul's propping him up in front of everybody because this man is proclaiming to be the Jewish king, and he's not. In either case, I think Paul's argument wins. He says

17:55 it's so funny, he goes, "King, you know all about this stuff. I'm going to speak freely with you, since I'm convinced that none of these things have escaped your notice. In fact, you already know all of them, but I'm just saying them for everybody else's sake."Because all of these things about Yeshua the Messiah, they weren't done in the corner. They weren't done in hidden. They were done out in the open. This idea of being done in a corner could have been a Greek idiom at the time. It certainly is later, and the phrase later used by philosophers and sages indicates that something was done, I don't know, in secret, off to the side. Just like what you would say if I were here, things are done around

18:43 the wall, and they're done in a corner over there. I don't know what's going on. That's perhaps what he's saying. But he's saying the things about Yeshua are not secretive. And in fact, things that are secretive or done in a corner in an empire often are for the purpose of empire overthrow. So Paul comes straight out and he says, "It's not secret. It's known everywhere. None of it has to do with overthrowing the empire." I don't know if you can see Paul is putting out the fires of potential rebellious speech in a political realm also. He says it's not secretive, it's not subversive in any

19:31 way, but it also could be connecting to other groups that were at the time. There's all sorts of groups during this time period and now that claim to have secret knowledge only revealed to me, only revealed to those who have achieved this level within our society. You got to come up to this level of membership before you can become a knower of all of the secrets. Listen, we all know all sorts of societies that are like that,

20:17 both today and it's easy to find them from back then also. Paul is saying, "No, no, we're not that. This is easily observed by anybody. All you got to do is look. It's all there. The messiahship of Yeshua is all there." In fact, when I was looking at this passage, one of the commentators, he said this: Some later rabbis warned that false teachers work in secret, but true wisdom is proclaimed openly. Alluding to Proverbs 1:20 and 21 where it says, "Wisdom calls aloud in the streets. She raises her voice in public squares." She doesn't go into the corner. "She cries out above all of the commotion and at the entrance of the city gates,

21:04 she utters her speech." This is what knowledge about Yeshua is doing. The stories about Yeshua they're not hiding. They're not being tucked away for the plot of overthrow of the empire. And then he says... I don't know if you catch it, how quick he is. He goes, "King, do you believe in the prophets? I know you believe in the prophets." He doesn't even give him a chance to respond. He says, "I know you believe in the prophets." Which perhaps there's a little bit of, I don't know if you've noticed in Paul's defenses over the last, I don't know, four or five chapters, Paul has the ability to split a room quickly.

21:51 Perhaps something might be going on like that again. "King, I know you believe in the prophets." It seems there could be an element here that could be divisive. And what is that? The prophets. Why could it be divisive? Because some of the accusers may be part of the Sadducean tribe, and what it indicates, what we know about the Sadducees from that time period is they were what I would call Torah primarily. Can I put it that way? The Pharisees were like the Torah, the prophets, everything, give us it all. Like this is it. The Sadducees were like, "You know what? We're going to go with the Torah."

22:37 That sound and we're just going to kind of maybe not think about the other stuff. But by insisting that Agrippa is a believer in the prophets, he may be dividing the group that's ruling here. Agrippa, who is wanting to be king of the Jews, would have had an alliance with the Sadducean party. Why? Because they were the rulers of the temple. They were the aristocrats, the nobles of Jewish society, the wealthy of the society, and he would have had an alliance going on with them, and now all of a sudden Paul is driving a wedge in the alliance and splitting them.

23:25 You've often heard the maxim, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. The flip of that is if I can divide my enemies and get them to focus on what divides them, all of a sudden my enemies aren't united against me anymore. So here we have a struggle, if you will, between prophets and priests. The struggle, by the way, between prophets and priests isn't limited to this time period. You can see it throughout the entire Tanakh. There's a struggle between prophets and priests in the, what is the word? The primacy? The superiority.

24:10 Who goes first? Which one takes authority? Moses and the prophets, here he's coming back. Moses and the prophets were clear about the coming MessiahThe vast amount of the people of Israel in the first century, the Second Temple era, the vast amount of the people of Israel, the people of Israel, not the rulers, not the nobles, not the notable people, but the vast amount of the people, the people who worked the farms, the people who worked the land, the people who had to absorb the taxation of a Roman Empire,

24:55 the vast amount of those people were waiting for a coming Messiah. How do I know that? Because you can just take a look historically and see how many false Messiahs came in that, I don't know, call it 150, 200-year period, and how quickly the people were to jump on. "Oh, this guy, this is Messiah. Let's get on." In fact, I think this whole story started off with an Egyptian who the Roman officer said, "Oh, we thought you were the Egyptian who was trying to raise up a rebellion against Rome." He goes, "But since you're speaking Greek, I see you're not an Egyptian." I think that was in chapter 21. There's all sorts of false Messiahs coming.

25:40 They're popping up all around. In fact, there may be an argument that... Oh, I just dropped it. I just lost the name. The guy who was about to get crucified and then Yeshua took his place. Barabbas. Barabbas. There's a potential understanding that Barabbas was one of those false Messiahs who was potentially leading the people in a different direction. And the fascinating thing is Yeshua took his place. He did what the real Messiah was supposed to do but was being missed because everybody was focused on political aspiration and political

26:29 superiority, and people were forgetting that the spiritual is the element that goes first. They were focused on political sovereignty, on an independent Jewish nation, and they forgot that the Lord wrote in Ezekiel, "I'm going to cut your hearts of stone out and replace them with flesh." The people have forgotten that. But they're waiting for a Messiah, and they're so quick to jump. Everybody's waiting for a Messiah. And Paul is talking to Agrippa, and Agrippa says...

27:14 By the way, I don't think Agrippa's reply is as directed as Paul's statements are to him. He says, "In such a short time, you're going to make me a Christian?" The TLB says Messianic, but the Greek says Christianos. It's quite fascinating because we know from Acts chapter, was it 14, where they were in Antioch, where they were first known as Christians. And why in Antioch? Because that's where the inclusion of the Gentiles began. Where the inclusion of the Gentiles began in number, like in mass.

28:02 I'm not talking about just Cornelius and his family, but in a mass congregation, this is where Gentiles began coming in, and it's where they were first called Christians. So you can make an argument that the term Christian might have only referred to the Gentile followers of Yeshua. I'm okay with that argument. I'm also okay with another argument which says different, and you should say, "How are you okay with both arguments?" Because we live a life in tension, and if you can't live a life in tension, being pulled one way and another, then you forget that that's how Yeshua provided redemption for us, was a life and a death in tension.

28:49 But it could be that he's saying, "In such a short time, you're trying to make me into a Christian?" And if he's taking the idea that Christian is for Gentiles, now he's saying, "You're not recognizing me as the Jewish king," number one, and number two, "Let me throw this back into your camp because this is the whole reason you're here in the first place, is because Jews and Gentiles, what do you have to do worshiping God together?" It doesn't work like that. In fact, today, you can find agreement with basically the whole world and the Jewish world that Jews and Gentiles don't worship together.

29:38 I don't know about you, but it seems to me it works fine just here. I don't know. Paul's response is he wishes... Paul ignores, whether it's a slight or whether it's not a slight, Paul ignores it and he says, "I wish that everybody would believe like me. Everybody would be as I am, a follower of Yeshua, the promised Jewish Messiah. Only I wish that you weren't in chains." Now, here comes Paul's Jewish humor, and he's like, "I wish you would be like me, just not without this stuff that you've chained me with."So we continue in verse 30, "The

30:26 king stood up, as well as the governor, Bernice, and those sitting with them. When they had gone, they began talking among themselves, saying, 'This man is doing nothing deserving of death or chains.' Then Agrippa said to Festus, 'This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.'" So here they are, they've heard Paul's defense. The king, the governor, Bernice, and those sitting with them, they get up, they go off in a corner and have a private conversation. They realize and they're declaring to each other, Paul is basically innocent. In fact, Agrippa says Paul could've been set free at this moment. But what Agrippa doesn't understand

31:12 is Paul's not there to be set free. Paul is there to be sent to have a legitimate audience before Caesar himself. Why? Because this is what the Lord promised him in the beginning when he said, "You're going to go to the nations and to kings." And again, when he's in the Roman... Where they kept the Roman soldiers and the prisoners in Jerusalem. I can't remember the name. The citadel. Not the citadel. I can't remember. Anyways, when he's there and he says, "Yeshua appeared to me and said, 'Don't worry, Paul, you're going to

31:58 make it all the way to Rome.'" And so Paul's here going on his way to Rome. Why? Because he knows he's going to have an audience with Caesar. Let me pause and back out and put it into our context. If the Lord told you you're going to have an audience before the King of England, and not that the King of England has any sort of jurisdictional relationship with us. But if for some reason you could, through some legal pathway, get sent to the King of England from America, you're going to do everything you can to follow that pathway. Maybe it makes more sense to go have a hearing before the Supreme Court or

32:45 Congress or whatever. But you're going to do everything you can, and by the way, I don't know, this may just be Paul's thriftiness, it's on the taxpayer dollar. His journey is being paid for by everybody else. He doesn't have to pay for it. He doesn't have to pay for the boat trip. I mean, not with money. The boat trip, by the way, I can't wait because we're going to have about two months of fascinating investigation of 27 and 28, and there's so much in those passages. So much fun. Anyways, Paul knows that they have to honor his appeal

33:33 to Caesar, and he knows he's going to Caesar. He doesn't want to be free. He wants to be before Caesar because that's what the Lord told him to do. He's guaranteed, if I can put it this way, he's guaranteed to have at least one more captive audience before his death. You realize in every single one of these cases, Paul has had a captive audience. They have to listen to him. And he lays it out. He lays out the good news of Yeshua in all of the different circumstances. Yes, he puts it different ways, but he lays it out for everyone to hear because he has a captive audience. How often do you have a captive audience with the mayor of Dallas

34:22 or the governor of Texas or the whatever, any people who have that sort of influence? He's like, "Keep them coming if you want. Give me some more appointments." Can you imagine that? Paul's in prison like, "Give me some more appointments with all those, the important people." So what does this mean for you and me today? I've broken it out into three questions. What do I believe? How do I educate myself? And how do I present what I believe? Number one, what do I believe? Is Yeshua Lord, liar, or lunatic?

35:08 Because you have to believe one of them. Figure it out. It's a decision you have to make yourself. None of us can make it for you. Your parents, your grandparents, your great-grandparents, none of them can make that decision for you. You have to make it yourself. You have to own it yourself because at some point, you'll have to present it yourself. If we take the writings that we have and we assume that they're relatively accurate in their reporting of Yeshua, who do we say that he is? Is he Lord, is he a liar, or is he a lunatic? Those are your three options. It's like a Scantron, A, B, or C.

35:56 Pick one. All of a sudden, now I just dated myself with the term Scantron. Okay. Use your number two pencil and fill it in the circle. Not all the way complete. Anyways. Number two, how do I educate myself? Do we believe that Moses and the prophets really reveal Yeshua as the Messiah? Because if we do, we need to know them.This is a challenge I gave to the Wednesday night class. Was that two weeks ago? I think it was. I left with the final question. We were already late. I left with the final question. Go find me the

36:41 passages that prove, because Paul says there's passages, plural. There's plural passages. Go find them for me that prove that Yeshua is the Messiah, that he is to suffer and to die and to live and to be resurrected. And I said, "Don't come back with Isaiah 53." I said, "You go find me other passages because they have to be there." So that's your homework. If you believe that Yeshua is Lord and not a liar or a lunatic, you have homework. You have to educate yourself. How do you know that he is that without using the Brit Chadasha? Why? Because when you have a conversation with a Jewish person

37:30 who doesn't believe that Yeshua is the Messiah, you have to be well-versed enough to engage in the Tanakh. You have to be able to engage for this. And even if it's not a Jewish person, the Tanakh is where the foundation is laid. The Brit Chadasha is the building that we live in. But you can't live in the building without the foundation. So you have to know the foundation in order to understand the type of building you're in. So go and investigate, find the passages, and there's at least two, both in the prophets and both in the Torah. Why do I say that? Because he uses the plural when he talks about Moses and the prophets, and that it's all through there. So there's at least two.

38:17 Go find them. Educate yourself. You won't get the answer here next week. But if you want to have a discussion about it, we can have a discussion about it after you tell me the two passages. Okay. And then finally, how do I present what I believe? I had a great little video, and we couldn't get it to work. But if you have the YouVersion app, the link is in the YouVersion app to go watch the video. It's on Instagram. I'll narrate to you. It was this African American man who was on... What is the show where they're performers and they got three or four judges?

39:05 "America's Bunch." "America's Got Talent." Yeah, Bunch. You're right. There's this one guy who's British, and he used to be on one, and now he's on this other one. "America's Got Talent." Wait, wait, what? "America's Got Talent." "America's Got Talent," is that it? Yeah. The guy, his name is Simon. Is it Simon? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. This guy comes up. It's on whatever show. Yeah, yeah. So it's on whatever show he's the judge on now. I know he used to be a judge on one show, and now he's a judge on a different show. That's all I remember. He used to be on "American Idol," now he's on "America's Got Talent." That's right. He was on "American Idol," now he's on "America's Got Talent." Good. I'm glad he switched from "Idols." But anyways. Just playing, just playing.

39:50 That's the saltiness side of me. Okay. Anyways, this man comes up, and he starts describing white church versus Black church, and it is absolutely fantastic. And he says white church is simple, and he does this like doot-doot-doot-doot on the keyboard. And he's like, "Jesus came for you. Doot-doot-doot-doot." He's like, "All you have to have is grace, is understanding that Jesus died for you, and that's the end." And he goes, "And you're done with white church." He goes, "Black church is a little bit different." He goes and he plays this really complicated thing on the keyboard,

40:36 and he gets his rumbling voice as the pastor. You got to go watch the video. I'll be like a horrible narrator. But anyways, it's really funny because he says, "It's a lot longer," he said, "but in the end, it's about the same message." Why do I say this video? Because the dude used the opportunity of being on "America's Got Talent" to share the good news of Jesus to the audience and the millions of people who were watching, and he did it in a really funny way that engaged everyone. That's what I want to point out. He engaged the entire crowd.

41:21 If you watch the video, he's going to engage you because it's hilarious and it's true. So my question is, how are you going to utilize your own situation, your own circumstances, to share the good news of Yeshua? Because you will be given the opportunity. In fact, maybe I should say you are given the opportunity every day, whether or not you realize it. The moment when somebody says, "Well, that was a really kind thing of you to do." Understand, the implicit question is, "Why are you so kind?"

42:06 That's your opportunity. The person just asked why. Or, "And that's a really different way to think. I've never thought about it like that." The person just asked why are you different. Anytime someone asks why, they're ready to hear an answer. If they don't say anything, they're not ready for the answer, so don't talk to them.Oh, that sounds really bad. Engage it if you want to. Maybe I should say it's one of the maxims I learned from one of my favorite movies, which is don't throw effort after foolishness. You can throw effort all day long, but if somebody's not ready to listen, they're

42:53 not going to hear it. But the moment somebody says, "Why?" or "How come?" or "What's so different here?" is the moment they want to know. And the moment they want to know, you have a captive audience. Now, you got to start quick and let them ask the next question also. But if you're not educated and you don't understand what you believe, you won't know how to present it. Perhaps you don't know what you believe. You could be at any point on these three steps. What do you believe? Where are you in education? And how you present what you believe. I'm not saying you have to, for education, by the way, I'm not saying you have to

43:40 go to university. Some of that education is just reading the Bible. Someone once told me, "Stop reading books about the Bible and read the Bible." That being said, I love reading books about the Bible because- ... there's so many good ones. But the book is also a good book. There's a reason it's called the good book. So, what do you believe? What are you doing to educate yourself?

44:25 And are you ready to present what you believe to others? Avinu shebashamayim, our Father in heaven. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity to study the Book of Acts. Lord, we thank you for Luke's diligence to write down these details, for Paul's faithfulness to speak when you called him to speak. Lord, we just ask that you would continue to work within each and every one of us today, this week. Lord, we ask that you would give us the opportunity to read more, to learn more about you.

45:11 And Lord, we ask that you would open our eyes to recognize the opportunity to share our story with others. Lord, we bless you and praise you in the name of Yeshua, our Messiah. 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 his countenance upon you and give you peace. Yevarechecha Adonai ve'yishmerecha.

45:56 Ya'er Adonai panav elecha ve'chunecha. Yisa Adonai panav elecha ve'yasem lecha shalom. Beshem Yeshua, mashicheinu. In the name of our Messiah, Yeshua. Shabbat shalom.