Tzedakah

0:02 This week, there was, uh, quite a substantial amount of newsworthy items to talk about. Uh, so I've just split it up into three different sections, and hopefully I'll be brief. Um, in terms of Israel, just a couple things that that came to my mind that I thought it would be important, uh, for anyone to know, especially as you, part of the reason I give i I give you these times of news is, is part A or one, uh, for the purpose of prayer? This is something that you can pray into, maybe may not necessarily be something that you can affect other than through prayer.

0:47 But number two, some of these may be lesser known items so that when you enter into conversation throughout the week, you have, um, for the lack of a better term, you have return fire. Uh, it, it, it should, you so need it. So, number one, Israel, especially over the last, uh, maybe three days, but it's really been the course of the war, has been the recipient, and it's not just Israel by the way, and we'll get to that in a minute, but has been the recipient of cluster bombs, shot from via ballistic missiles from Iran. Cluster bombs are aim,

1:34 these cluster bombs are aimed at civic centers or civilian po all civilian populations to, to Aviv, to Jerusalem. They're not aimed at military bases, Uh, which by the way, makes it a more crime when you, when you deliberately aim at, uh, civilian, um, civilian centers without military presence. But number two, these cluster bombs. What they do, they, they come over on a single warhead, and then they break up into 20 or 30 different bombs, and it's like a cluster. They just kind of go out and they spread out. And it's, it's nearly impossible

2:21 to neutralize them once they break, uh, because now you have lots of different pieces that you're trying to neutralize. 20% of these bombs failed to detonate. No, no, no. Well, yes, hallelujah. But also they failed to detonate, which presents a problem because when Israelis emerge from the bunkers, from from their bomb shelters, there's live munitions, live bombs there. Uh, how many of you have 5-year-old boy? What do 5-year-old boys love to do? Touch stuff, touch Stuff, and, and really, I say five-year-old boy, it could be number one, any boy, like, I mean, we never really grow out of it.

3:11 But really, when you emerge now, you have a very dangerous, volatile, explosive that's sitting there on the ground. So those then have to be taken care of. So I just, I just want you to understand that, that 20% of these bombs don't detonate, which then presents a bigger problem for when people emerge from the bomb shelters, that if they do detonate, now there's a higher casualty rate. I, I, I read something, I'm sure I am sure everybody has heard this one, but this one I couldn't help just because some of my favorite movies, um, are Top Gun and Top Gun Maverick. And I love speed, uh, like,

3:59 like the, the act of going fast, not the other. I love going fast. I love dangerous, I love all sorts of things. And so I, I found it fascinating that there was this week a dog fight between an American made, but an Israeli F 35. I, I'm, I'm giving the qualification here. It's an Israeli F 35, but it's American made. They bought 'em from America. So what what Israel does is they buy American hardware and then they retrofit it with Israeli software. Uh, this has been throughout the course of Israel's history. They always take the hardware and they bring it to Israel.

4:45 They take it apart, and they put it back together, and it's somehow better. I don't know how, uh, but it is. But this week was a historic event, and it was a, uh, an Israeli flown F 35, shot down an Iranian Yak one 30, which is a Russian made airplane. It's the first time in history of a dog fight between these two and one taking the other one down. I just, I, I, I found it fascinating because I like speed, uh, uh, like flying speed. Um, anyways, number two, okay, not number two. Okay? So that's stuff that I found very interesting in regards to Israel in regards to the United States.

5:32 All of you should probably be aware of this, and if you're not, um, I don't know where you've been, but on Sunday last week, there was an incident, which I, I don't have a problem qualifying as a terrorist attack. Um, but it was a man who attacked a bar in Austin on sixth Street, and he was wearing a shirt that said, a sweatshirt that said the property of Allah, and underneath an, an Iranian T-shirt. And he went on a shooting spree in Austin. And three, the last, last count I saw three were dead, 14 injured, Uh, in terms of Iran. So I kind of breaking up into different sections today,

6:18 in terms of Iran, uh, Khomeini's radical son has now been appointed as the new Supreme leader. It, it, I think this is the second point to you if I, if I am tracking correctly, um, Iran has now fired weapons at every neighboring country that they have. I I, I find it very interesting. I don't know if you ever really thought about this, but when America, when, when, when the bombers last summer dropped bombs on Iran, the retaliation flew against Israel. Now there's, there's an attack by Israel and by America, and the retaliation is against Israel,

7:04 but it's really, it's hitting every other country purposefully, by the way, with, with, with ballistic missiles and suicide drones. And, and they're not aiming at military installations. They're aiming at, uh, the gr for, for instance, in Dubai, the biggest grandest hotel that anybody could stay at. That's what they're aiming at. And, uh, I also saw, I, I think this was yesterday maybe, that they had fired ballistic missiles as far as the countries of Georgia and Azerbaijan, uh, to the north. During this last week, Iran has lost most

7:50 of their military bases to airstrikes, and now they're moving their military forces into schools, sports stadiums, and university campuses, which again, is a violation of, uh, of, of, of war. Uh, it creates war crimes. I, I read another interesting note that Iranian youth had taken over a courthouse in the province of, uh, comb, I think that's how you pronounce it, and which is the center. It's the central, um, support province for the Ayatollah. And they have accessed the armory there and taken the weapons to arm themselves. Uh, and in addition, I, I think this is gonna be my last one.

8:36 In addition, the Kurdish military have been, uh, last I saw were amassing on the border between Iraq and Iran. Um, it looked like for a potential action, um, yet to be determined or known or seen. I don't know. I don't know. Somebody may know. So the, the situation in the Middle East is serious. It is on the one hand, the Ayatollah, his death, uh, is, is I would say an immediate, um, defendable action by America, because he chance death to America and death to Israel.

9:21 This is what he promotes. On the other hand, uh, with his death in now of vacuum in leadership, uh, any number of radical people could, uh, become very influential in Iran. And so, uh, now is not the time to stop praying. In fact, I think now we're probably, at least we knew what he was doing. Maybe I could put it that way. We knew he was trying to get a, a, a nuclear weapon. We knew he was building, uh, uh, ballistic missiles. Now, we don't know. And, and that becomes a little bit more dangerous. So we are continuing our series in the book of Acts,

10:08 and we are finishing out chapter 24 today. And just as a reminder, let's, let's, let's remember where we are. Paul has gone up to Jerusalem to worship. There's been a mob. Paul was arrested. He, uh, testified before the Sanhedrin, then he was relocated. The, uh, Cornelius, uh, no, not Cornelius, is his name. Cornelius, Lucius, uh, Not Cornelius anyways, can't remember his first name. He, the, the commander has relocated Paul and taken him down from Jerusalem down to Caesarea

10:54 and to stand trial. And now the high priest has arrived with his lawyer and other, um, people who were seeking to accuse Paul. And they have present, they have both presented arguments before, uh, the governor, governor, Felix. And last week we finished with Paul's argument and his defense, and now we will continue, because what we, what we ended with last week was Paul's crying out. He said, the only thing I'm guilty of is standing in the Sanhedrin and crying out that the resurrection of the dead is the reason I'm on trial. That's how we finished last week. And so now, we'll, we will, we'll finish reading through this chapter, and then we'll discuss it. Start, uh, acts chapter 24, starting in verse 22.

11:42 But Felix having a rather extensive knowledge of the way, Put them off, saying, when Lus comes down, uh, the commander comes down, I will rule on your case. Then he gave the centurion orders for Paul to be kept in custody and yet have some freedom and not to prevent any of his friends from attending to his needs. Now, some days later, Felix came with his wife, Illa, who was Jewish. He sent for Paul and listened to him speak about faith in Messiah, Yeshua. But as he was arguing about righteousness, self-control and the coming judgment, Felix became afraid and said, go away for now,

12:29 when I find time, I will summon you. At the same time too, he was hoping that money would be given to him by Paul. So he sent for him frequently and would talk with him. But after two years had passed, Felix was succeeded by Porsche Festus and wishing to do the Judean leaders a favor. Felix left Paul in prison. So here we are, Felix. Luke is informing us, the readers or the hearers of the text. Luke is informing us that Felix has an extensive knowledge of the way. Why is it important? Well, number one, it's important because the high priest lawyer, Tuus brought it up

13:17 and then Paul chooses to defend. But it's important also because it, even just the way it's written, we understand that Felix is not concerned. I don't know if you'll remember my delineation last week about the sect, how Tuus called the way, um, the followers of Yeshua, a sect. And then when Paul responded, he said, we, I'm a part of the way, and he didn't call it a sect, he said, that's what they call it. In other words, implying some political ambitions. So what this does here is it actually deescalates the political nature. Felix is not concerned about this sect because he doesn't see them causing geopolitical issues

14:04 for him and Rome at this moment, perhaps his extensive knowledge of the way has afforded him an opportunity to determine the potential risks versus rewards that would come with a delay in the trial. In other words, if the way was a very risky sectarian movement that was, that was seeking to rebel against Rome actively and violently, then I don't think Felix would've said, Hey, let's, let's put a delay on the trial. We're just gonna, we're gonna crush it right now. But rather he sees there's not much risk of that behavior. And he says, so let's delay the trial. Why Luke tells us he's trying to get paid.

14:52 He's trying to make some money. He thinks that there's a possibility that he'll receive a bribe from Paul as an effort to get out of jail. Now, some of us, like, how could he think about this? This is, these are Yeshua's followers that we're talking about here. They're not corruptible like everyone else. They're not like the, the, the high priesthood who they're sending bribes back and forth with Rome. This is a community that they're poor. They, uh, they rely upon the, the, the contri contributions from, from all of these other places. I, I just wanna remind you, even in the book of Acts,

15:40 there have already been two documented financial indiscretions among the leadership of the way. Number one was with Yeshua's follower himself, Judas, he was the, he was the, uh, he was the purse holder. Isn't that, uh, I think it's, he held the purse strings. He chose how to spend money and how to not spend money. We see that in, in Acts chapter one. But also, if you'll remember, not, not long thereafter, there's another very wealthy couple who they sell a piece of land and they choose to withhold the money and lie that they're giving all of the money.

16:25 Now, I I, I gave my whole message on this like a year, no, two years ago. So if you wanna go listen to that message, go listen to the message, because they could have, they could have sold the land and given apart and been fine, but they sold the land and they gave apart, but they said they were giving all of it, and there is the problem. But here we have another financial indiscretion. And Paul himself just admitted in his defense that he came bearing Akah or charity for the poor from in, from all of these communities where he's been serving in, in, in, throughout the, throughout the Mediterranean.

17:17 So he, Felix, he's going to delay. He's like, Hmm, obviously he's probably looking at Paul thinking you don't have any money on you. I can tell that. But if I hold you in custody, in, in, in, in a light form of custody, and I allow your friends to come and visit you, you know, to take care of your needs, to provide you whatever you need so that you can provide whatever I need, you scratch, I'll scratch your back. You scratch my back. Felix thinks there's a chance that he's gonna get bribed by Paul. So he uses, he uses this argument. He says, I'm gonna wait for the commander,

18:04 but by the way, all, I don't know if you really noticed it, the nobody really wants to hold this potato. You ever play hot potato when nobody wants to hold this potato? The commander's like, lemme give it to Felix. Felix is like, oh, I can't do anything about it until the commander comes back and it's like going from one to another, and he holds it so long, he's like, oh, I'm outta here. See you guys, I'll, I'll let the next guy take care of it by the end of, by the end of the passage this week. But he says, he says, I, you know what? We're gonna wait for the commander to come down from Jerusalem. Let me just make an a, it's just a side note. Even Felix knows the terminology to use when going to and from Jerusalem, because he says, we're gonna wait for the commander

18:51 to come down from Jerusalem. So to me, it tells me that Felix, really, that Luke's perception of Felix knowing the way well is actually true. He understands the intricacies or some of the intricacies, at least in Judaism. So Felix gives this order to the centurion to keep Paul in custody, but let him have a certain amount, let him, his friends, visit him, let them attend to his needs. And, and 'cause he's hoping that this charity or this akah that Paul mentioned in his defense that he was bringing to Jerusalem, he's hoping that they begin to bring it to Paul piece by piece so that Paul can pay him a bribe to get out.

19:38 So now we move on to the next, to the next, uh, set of verses, verses 24 and 25. Now, some days later, Felix came with his wife, Silla, who was Jewish. He sent for Paul and listened to him speak about faith in Messiah, Yeshua. But as he was arguing about righteousness, self-control in the coming judgment, Felix became afraid and said, go away. For now, when I find time, I will summon you. So Paul's friends have been allowed to visit for some days, and Felix is like, okay, I've seen about, you know, five or 10 of them come, let me, lemme go see if there's any sort of reward that I might be able to eke outta Paul. So he comes, he visits Paul,

20:23 and he's like, Paul, how are you doing? Are you comfortable? Do you have, do you have Netflix plus, or just, do you have to watch the commercials? Like, uh, can we, can I make your stay a little bit more comfortable? Is there anything that you might have for me? Paul says, yes, I have something for you. It's this message about Yeshua, the Messiah, about the resurrection, about self-control and about the coming judgment. I just think, I just want you to think about Felix, he's there looking for a bribe, and he gets a message about resurrection self-control and the judgment coming. It, it's actually quite comical, but also coming with Felix in this, in the same uh,

21:12 group is Dilla. And Paul tells us, or uh, excuse me, Luke tells us that Dilla, uh, is Jewish. Let me just, what does he say? He says his wife Dilla, who was Jewish. Yes. So let's, I want to talk about Dilla for just a moment. Herod the greats family tree. Um, if I can say this as respectfully as possible, it's a messed up family tree. There's like lines going and connecting like through three or four different generations. And by when, you know, when lines connect, that means that's where there's marriages and children that come from.

22:00 Uh, so Drusilla is the great niece of Herod Antipas. Herod Antipas was the Tetra who beheaded John the Mercer. So when John, the Mercer comes before Herod in, in, in the book of Luke, and he says, um, you're living in a sinful relationship. Oh yeah, here we go. You see all these lines, like all the connections. Herod the Great is the one who initially tries to murder Yeshua as a baby. Uh, he is succeeded by Arco Herod Aus, who is on the throne for a short period of time.

22:48 And then Rome says, that's enough. And Herod Antipas is the second husband of HEROs. And this is what John points out, he says, he says, Herod, you're living in some immorality. Why? Because Herods was previously married to Herod. Philip, his cousin. I mean, do you see the, do you see the family blending going on? He's previously married to Herod Philip, she's previously, so Herod and Topa, uh, let's see, I'm sorry, going back up a generation through Mario Monet, she's a Hasson and princess daughter of Herod the Great, it's through her

23:35 where carried King Herod Agrippa, Herod Agrippa, who is in the trial of Yeshua. Uh, right. Did I just, or did I just put No, I think that's right. Then his daughter is Dilla. You see her right in the middle. Number 13. She's the one who's married to Antonio Felix, number 12, who deals with Paul while Paul's in prison. You can see, by the way, all of the, the, uh, the murder that goes on between Herod's family line and the followers of Yeshua, uh, it's quite fascinating, Illa.

24:26 This, this is, this is the even more fascinating element. This is not villa's first marriage to Felix. This is actually, she was betrothed to one, one king, and that king wouldn't become circumcised. So her dad said, we're not cutting off the betrothal. She then was betrothed to another king. He was the priest king of a neighboring kingdom. And I, I didn't make the note as to what the kingdom I, it begins with an E, uh, I can't remember this. King got circumcised for the sake of marrying silla. So in essence, he was willing to take on Judaism to marry her.

25:13 He married her by this time her father is dead, and her brother gets approached by Felix. Felix says, she's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. I want your sister, uh, not your sister. Your, uh, yeah, yeah, your sister. So King Herod Agrippa two says, okay, he divorces her from her first husband. Her first husband. She probably married when she was about 14, 14 or 15. She now in this text is somewhere around 20 or 22. Uh, she was born in the year 38 ce. So she's now married to Felix,

26:03 and she comes before Paul. I just want you to note, Luke narrated everything that happened with John, the Mercer and hers and, and Antipas and Philip, and now it's almost a repeat of the situation, but a generation or two later, There's no mention that Felix succumbed and was circumcised for the, for the purpose of marrying her, but maybe it was with a promise that he would consider it and maybe later happen later. We don't know that. So this is,

26:51 this is the, the Jewish girl that Felix is married to, and this is her family lineage. Thank you guys. Y'all man, I just wanna say our media team is fantastic. You see how quick they got that up? So Felix, he sends for Paul, he comes, he has this interaction with Paul. Paul takes the opportunity, oh, listen, Paul probably knows Felix is looking for a payout. Felix is like, you got anything for me? And Paul says, man, do I, it's not silver or gold. Now I'm reflecting back to Peter and John,

27:36 but you understand like there's, there's some similarities here. This is the next generation, if you will, Paul. He gives this explanation of the faith, including righteousness. Now, this is fascinating, including righteousness, which is in Hebrew, Sah, which is also the same terminology that he used when referring to the charity that he brought for the poor of Jerusalem. You see, Felix is looking for Akah, but Paul says, let me show you Akah. You, you say you want this. Let me show you this. Paul is speaking to him about the difference between being righteous, doing righteousness,

28:24 and saying things that appear to be righteous. Then Paul says, we're we're told that Paul talks about self-control. By the way, self-control, how can I say this nicely? All of us like to be in control of our circumstances of whatever we're we're going through in life. All of us like to be in control. Why? Because we don't like to, we don't like to weather unknown things. So if we can be in control, then we can control what we weather. The reality is I'm gonna burst everyone's bubble today. The reality, reality is the only control

29:10 that you have is self-control. You have control of nothing else except for how you respond in any given situation. And that's called self-control. And if you don't have the ability to control your response in any given situation, that I'm not trying to like be super duper hard when I step on your toes right now, but I suggest that you would ask for a greater, um, indwelling of the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit, the evidence of the spirit in your life is in the amount of self-control that you have. So if you have none,

29:59 then you should ask for some, at least start with some self-control is perhaps the most difficult thing that any of us will ever have to control. But we like to pretend that we can control other things. It makes us feel better. You know, like that moment when you're driving down 6 35 and somebody cuts you off and you're like, and you're yelling at the person, and then your child from the backseat goes, dad, why are you yelling at the person? They can't hear you, and all of a sudden you realize your child is smarter than you?

30:47 No, that hasn't happened to me recently, but perhaps Paul is talking about exercising self-control as an expression of righteousness. And that Yeshua's righteousness was so great that it purified the impure that it cleaned the unclean. Do you ever, do you ever see this? Do you ever notice this? I I know I'm, I'm, I'm kind of tracking in lots of different passages, but the woman who has the, the, um, the issue of blood, uh, in theory, according to the Torah, her touching Yeshua should make Yeshua unclean.

31:34 But Yeshua is so clean That he doesn't get unclean. Rather he makes her clean by her touching him. I don't know if you ever, anybody ever asks you if you use bar soap and, and you're like, is that bar soap clean? And you're like, yeah, it's soap, soap cleans. And then you're like, well, when you shower, think about what the pla last place you use the bar soap. And then are you willing to put it on your face? And, and, and then you'll really decide whether or not you think bar soap was actually clean. Bar soap is not what Yeshua is.

32:19 Amen. Yeshua is so clean, so righteous, so pure that it doesn't matter what comes into contact with him, that element changes, not him. Finally, he's talking about the coming judgment, the judgment that will happen in the future, and righteousness will be known at that time. You see the presence of righteousness in every element here. By the way, what did Yeshua do for the sake of righteousness?

33:06 How is righteousness taking a hold in your life? And in the coming judgment, will, will righteousness prevail? It's all here in Paul's message. And Felix, what's the text tells us? The text tells us, Felix becomes afraid and he sends Paul away. It should naturally ask, you should naturally ask the question, why is Felix afraid? Because something that Paul says about righteousness, self-control, and the coming judgment has caused Felix to become afraid and to respond. Was he convicted concerning his unrighteous behavior? We don't know. Maybe it was about the bribe

33:54 that he was looking for. Maybe it's about the way that he acquired his wife. And maybe he thinks Paul knows it in this text. Maybe it's about the way he's currently treating his wife. All we know for certain is that Paul, whatever Paul said about righteousness, self-control, incoming judgment made Felix afraid and then respond or react. I found it fascinating as I was studying this week as a side note, that according to Josephus, Felix hired assassins to murder the former high priest, Jonathan,

34:40 and they murdered him and as, or assassinated him in the year 58 ce, which is this year in this text, or I can make an argument, its this year. And the way they murdered Jonathan, the high priests, is they waited on the temple grounds during a festival and they with knives in their, in their coats, and they successfully assassinated him and escaped. It sounds remarkably similar to what Paul's being accused of at at least in, in, in, in a way. There's some similar elements, but I just, I found it fascinating because here Felix is waiting for a bribe maybe

35:26 so he can go pay some assassins to go do what now Paul is being accused of doing defiling the temple and doing all of these different things, and he's the one doing it. He's the one engaging in unrighteousness. So here, let's move on. Verses starting in verse uh, continuing in verse 26. At the same time too, he was hoping that money would be given to him by Paul. So he's sent for him frequently and would talk with him. But after two years had passed, Felix was succeeded by Porsche Festus and wishing to do the Judean leaders a favor. Felix left Paul in prison. Excuse me. Felix continues to try to go to Paul

36:14 and to pull a bribe out of him for two years, Felix is meeting with Paul. Hey, Paul, you sure you don't have anything for me this week? Wait, I, I noticed you've had a lot of friends coming through. You sure that there's nothing that you can share with me? Well, I can share with you about righteousness, self-control in the coming judgment. Okay, I'll see you next week. He's sending for him frequently and he's talking with Paul frequently, Paul's experiencing, if you will, a little bit of freedom in his imprisonment, but it's not total freedom, but it's as if he's, uh, he's um,

37:00 he's not in Supermax, he's in like, uh, what's the, you know, the light and restrictions and everything where you get Netflix. But here's the question. Here's a question I have for us. Felix does this for two years. Is the two years for the sake of Felix or for the sake of Paul, what do I mean by that? Is the Lord giving Felix ample opportunity to repent and to turn to him during this time? The Lord's extending the time. Oh, here, how about two years?

37:47 It reminds me of Genesis 15 Where the Lord says to Abraham, he says, your descendants will go off and become slaves in a foreign nation. And he says, why? He says, because the sins of the Amorites have not come to the fullest measure. Let me, let me say it another way. The Lord is giving the am rights, ample opportunity to repent. 400 years. He's giving them to repent for their sins. And then when their sins finally become a certain amount, the Lord says, enough is enough. He allowed his people, Israel.

38:32 The scriptures tell us, Israel is firstborn. He allows them to become slaves in a foreign country for the sake of extending the repentance time for the Amorites. Why? Because the Lord is looking for all to repent. Or let's turn the question the other way. Or is this the Lord allowing time for Paul to experience some physical restoration and some camaraderie with the local body of Messiah in Caesarea, by the way, Caesarea is, it's not, it's not just a Bywater town

39:19 with no followers of Yeshua. This is where Philip has settled. Peter came here and met with Cornelius. The body of Messiah, I can imagine in Caesarea is actually strong. I would imagine Philip is still living here at this point. And at least we know that his, his daughters are still living here from when Paul actually, no, we know Philip is still living here. 'cause Philip and his daughters are there when Paul's coming up to Jerusalem. So the community is strong in Caesarea and they're, I'm sure they're coming every day to visit Paul and to, to interact with Paul. And Paul is getting some both emotional, spiritual, mental and physical restoration. Paul has been beaten, he's been tortured, he's been stoned,

40:05 he's been all of these things and he's continued to push on. And now he's given two years in a, in a minimum security prison. That was the term I was looking for earlier. Minimum security prison with ample opportunity to visit with all the people around him. And, and Paul is getting strengthened. Why? Because Paul's on one final mission that's gonna be very difficult. He's gonna go through shipwreck after shipwreck. He's gonna go through, uh, being bitten by snakes. He's gonna go through all of these different things that should kill any one of us, but he's gonna have to go through it and still remain faithful to the Lord always.

40:53 So is the Lord giving Felix time to repent, or is the Lord giving Paul time to be restored? My my answer is yes, probably a little bit of both. Felix was replaced by Roman 60 Ce by Porsche Festus as the text tells us, and Felix as a parting bribe to the Judean leaders decides, I'm gonna leave Paul in prison for your sake. You see, he's garnering favor even as he's leaving, he's, he's bribing the Judean leaders and saying, I'm gonna leave him in prison. So what does this mean for us today?

41:38 By the way, I forgot to mention you should have, you should have had the ability to get some of my notes with questions when you came in. If you didn't get 'em, I, they might be on the, in the foyer still if they're not run out. So fi my my final co couple questions are this, number one, what's mo What motivates us in our actions, our daily actions? What motivates us? Because just the act of doing good isn't enough. The scriptures tell us, tell us that the Lord looks at our heart. He weighs what's on the inside versus what we are portraying to everyone else.

42:24 This, by the way, is why Yeshua gets angry all the time when he gets angry with the, with, with the, especially with the Pharisees. It's not because he hates the Pharisees. It's because he says, he says, you, you should follow, you should do what the Pharisees tell you to do 'cause it's the right thing to do. He says, but don't do what they do because they don't even listen to themselves. Yeshua looks and he sees cups that are polished on the outside clean, beautiful, but full of dirt and fungus and gross things on the inside. That's what Yeshua hates is hypocrisy.

43:11 And he hates it in us too. He wants our outside to look like our inside. That doesn't mean go roll around in the mud. It means you should focus on taking the amount of effort that you do for the outside and put it on the inside and, and allow the Lord and the Holy Spirit to clean you out. Now, that is a very painful process If I can forewarn you. So don't ask for it if you're not ready for it, because the moment you say, okay, Lord, I'm, I'm ready for this, the Holy Spirit comes in like, Ooh, let's sign a little flashlight. What you got going on over there?

43:56 And you're like, oh, that's not much. We'll, just Glad that's all the Holy Spirit found. Then the Holy Spirit's like, Hmm, what you got going on over here? And you're like, whoa, that was an off limits one. Don't you know that? Like you're not supposed to know that's there, but by the way, that's what the Holy Spirit does. Or, or the Holy Spirit goes, what is that? And you're like, I didn't even know that existed in me. Those are the ones that are even more difficult. You're like, I didn't know that existed. Where is that coming from? And it gives you a whole new area that you have to deal with. So what is it that motivates our actions?

44:43 Secondly, what is the good news that we share with others when we're out and about? We're sharing the good news with people. What is that good news? And does it include righteousness, self-control in the coming judgment? Because that's what Paul shares, righteousness, self-control in the coming judgment. Finally, why, why? And you're gonna ask this question your whole life, but I'll ask it today. Why does the Lord allow us to stay in a single circumstance for a long period of time, whether it's a good or a bad circumstance? And I'm gonna say the same thing I did with Felix and with Paul. Is it to provide an opportunity for us to repent

45:33 or is he preparing us for what is to come? Because it's one or both of those in any given circumstance. So don't lose heart when you're in that moment. Allow the Lord to do what he does of en Sha may our Father in heaven. Lord, we thank you for this text about Paul and Felix. Lord, we thank you for this word that Luke scribed for us to, to continue to read today and to study.

46:18 Lord, we thank you for your faithfulness, your righteousness, your ability to dwell within us, to strengthen our ability for self-control. And Lord, we look to the to the day of coming judgment when Yeshua will return. And Lord, we ask that you would continue to work within each and every one of us in preparation for that day. We bless you in Yeshua's name. I mean, 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.

47:23 Yeah, I don't know. In the name of our Messiah, Yeshua. Amen.