Erik Luchetta - Characters of the Bible: Apostle Paul (2019)

How's everybody doing tonight? Are you ready for another wonderful night at Monday Night Bible Study at Lakewood Church? Awesome. We are going to have a great time. Last week we started a new series on characters of the Bible. Tonight and next week I'm going to be talking about the Apostle Paul. How many of you know what Saul's birth, or Paul, I just gave it away. I assume by the way that you're laughing that you know the answer is Paul's birth name is Saul. In understanding Paul you really have to understand Saul. So tonight we're going to talk about the Pharisee named Saul and then next week how he becomes the great Apostle Paul. So we are going to have a fantastic time. I also want to welcome our online viewers. You are our special guest. You're our extended Lakewood family. Give them a hand clap everybody. Thank you for tuning in. We also have two special guests tonight. Gary and Linda Tyner from Indiana. Give them a hand clap. Miss Doty. These are some of Miss Doty's friends and we're just so glad that you're here visiting us. So like I said we're going to talk about Paul, the Apostle Paul, but we're going to talk about him the pre-Christian Paul, Saul. We're going to have a great time. We're going to look at what is a Pharisee because Saul was a Pharisee. What did Pharisees want to accomplish? Why were they so hung up on the law to the point where they would even persecute the church? So we're going to dive into Saul so that we can better understand how he becomes Paul next week. Sound good? Let's pray. Father we give this night to you. We ask that you would reveal yourself to us through your word. Teach us Lord the things that we need to know tonight. We thank you Lord that you are faithful to do it in Jesus name. Amen. So like I said before he became the great Apostle Paul he went by his birth name Saul, Saul of Tarsus. We know that he was a Pharisee who also was well known for persecuting the church. How many of you know that? Great persecutor of the church. He did not like the name of Jesus and he did not like Jesus followers. We're going to discover tonight why that was. We know that he approved the killing of the first Christian martyr. Who knows who the first Christian martyr was? Stephen. Wow well I might as well go home. Stephen was the first Christian martyr. There's something that Stephen says that causes him to be killed. He says something that we have to understand the meaning of it because it launches Saul on his campaign to destroy the church. Saul as a Pharisee was committed to arresting Christians putting them in prison and see to it that they were beaten for what they believed in. But as a Pharisee like I said they were very hung up on the law because to them to follow the law was the greatest demonstration of obedience to God. Loyalty to God for a Pharisee was in following the law because for them you kept yourself pure from the corruption of the pagan world. You distanced yourself from the immoral behavior of the pagan world by following the law. So it was a way to stand against the pagan beliefs of that day, the immoral, the immorality of that day, the pagan gods of that day. They followed the law to keep themselves pure as an act of loyalty to God and as an act of rebellion towards the Roman Empire. But it wasn't enough for a Pharisee like Saul to keep himself pure. He took it upon himself along with other Pharisees to purify Israel. He strongly encouraged, strongly encouraged the Jewish people to follow the law as strictly as possible. Why would that be so important though? Why would the Pharisees take it upon themselves not only to keep themselves pure but to keep the nation pure? What did they hope to accomplish? You see now we're getting to understand what are the goals, what are the aims of the Pharisees. This is how you get into the Apostle Paul's or Saul's mindset. What drove him? How did he see God? How did he see the world? And in particular, what was he hoping God would do? As a Pharisee, as a Jew, he was hoping God would do something. And that thing that he hoped, that he longed to see, he believed the Christian church was working against it. The Christian church became a threat that had to be removed because Saul as a Pharisee, just know that when I say Paul, I mean Saul. If I say Saul, okay. I just have a feeling I did it about 16 times already tonight, so bear with me. There was something that Saul wanted God to do in the world, but he felt like these Christians would hinder it. In other words, if you didn't follow the law, you are a pollution to Israel that must be purged. So they kept not only themselves pure, but they strongly encouraged their fellow Jews to uphold the law. Otherwise they would have to be purged to keep Israel pure. Say purged. Say pure. Now we have to understand this to get into Saul's mind. What did he expect? What did he believe? What was he hoping for? Why did he believe the nation had to stay pure and he had to stay pure? I think the best place to go for many reasons is to go to Daniel chapter 7. Turn to Daniel chapter 7. Let me give you a little bit of a background. Daniel chapter 7. Daniel chapter 7, God gives Daniel a vision. Keep in mind, this was written 500 years before Saul. So when Saul reads this vision, he's reading a vision that was written down 500 years early. But this vision that we're going to go over was so near and dear to the Jews of that day and especially the Pharisees of that day. We know historically from extra biblical writings. You know, we have writings from that day, from Jesus's day that aren't in the Bible. We have letters and just documents from rabbis of that day, Pharisees of that day. You can read it and see what they believed. One of the things that many Pharisees did was they would read this vision that we're about ready to go over and they would meditate on it and they would think about it and they would even pray to God to give them the same vision. They wanted to see what Daniel saw because it was so important what Daniel saw. What I'm saying is this, as a Pharisee, Daniel 7 is the heart, the heartbeat of being a Jew in Jesus's day. Waiting for God to fulfill the vision, the promise he gave Daniel. To understand Paul, we have to, Saul, we have to understand Daniel 7. And to understand why Stephen was stoned and Saul approved, we have to understand Daniel 7. They go hand in hand. So turn to Daniel 7. Daniel 7 verse 9. Now I'm going to go through this kind of quickly because we have limited time. And I can appreciate it's been a long day. Many of you are coming off of work and you're tired, but try it, like I always say, try and use that last brain cell that you have firing to tune into what we're talking about. This here, what we are about to read is a vision of a heavenly courtroom. 500 years before Jesus, before Saul, this is the vision that God gave Daniel. Daniel 7 verse 9. As I looked, thrones were set in place and the ancient of days took his seat. Let me read that again. As I looked, this is Daniel, as I looked into this vision, thrones were set in place and the ancient of days took his seat. Notice thrones, plural, thrones. The ancient of days, God almighty, the creator God, father God, comes into the courtroom and he takes his seat. So court is in session. The judge, the creator God almighty, comes in. He takes his seat on the throne. Now jump to verse 13. In my vision at night, I looked and there before me was one like the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the ancient of days and was led into his presence. Stop right there. Get the picture of it. Court is in session. Almighty God comes and takes his seat and this one, like a son of man, comes into God's presence. What does God do at this moment with this son of man? Verse 14. He was given authority, glory, and sovereign power. All nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed. Who is that? Who is that? That's Jesus. So court is in session. The judge, God almighty, comes. This son of man, who turns out to be Jesus, is presented before God almighty and God almighty says, all authority, power, and dominion is given to you. You will rule over, listen, all nations. All nations, all people will worship him. So this isn't just going to be Jesus Lord over the Jews. This is Jesus Lord over all of the earth. All of heaven, all of earth is given to this son of man who turns out to be Jesus. Now watch. As a Pharisee, they hung their hopes that one day God would send a worldwide ruler coming from the line of David, that David's throne would be re-established, and that this king that comes from David's line would not just be a king over the Jews, but he would be a king over the Gentiles as well. All nations would come. All nations would come and worship God, the true God, the creator God, through this son of man. They hung their hopes on that, that all nations would come. A worldwide ruler. Now jump to verse 19, verse 18. What else do we see here? We have to put two things together here because this is what will drive Saul into a frenzy to destroy the church. Verse 18, but the holy people of the most high, let me stop right there, but the holy people of the most high, in other words, the people of God, say people of God, the people of God will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever. Yes, forever and ever. Now watch this. This is how it works. Let me give you a clearer picture here. The son of man comes before God almighty. And according to Daniel here, after a time of suffering, after the son of man suffers at the hands of God's enemy, God pronounces vindication on the son of man and says, take your throne over heaven and earth. After a time of suffering, this son of man is going to receive a throne. But according to verse 18, the holy people, the people of God will also be vindicated for suffering at the hands of God's enemies. They will be persecuted, but this son of man will see to it that his vindication is also their vindication. After suffering at the hands of God's enemies, the son of man will be vindicated. He will be given authority, but the people of God will also be vindicated. They will also be given the kingdom. So how would Saul read this? Imagine Saul. He's a Pharisee. He knew this. He read it. He prayed it, and he probably asked God to reveal it to him, that he would see the exact same thing. Why would he want that? Well, that's because Pharisees in this day, as really, honestly, probably most Jews did, the idea of the people of God suffering at the hands of God's enemies, they viewed that as the Roman Empire. The Gentiles who were ruling over the Jews in Jesus's day, oppressing them with high taxes, slaughtering them whenever there was a rebellion because they were fed up with Caesar or they were fed up with some governor. We know historically there were constant rebellions, and Rome would rise up and just smack the Jewish people back down again. And Saul saw this verse about being vindicated, God's people being vindicated as the destruction of Rome. You following me with that? So this was near and dear. Saul is a Pharisee. He's sick and tired of the pollution of the Gentile world, and it's invading into Israel here and there, and if God would just send the son of man, not only would the son of man become king of heaven and earth, but it would also be the vindication of the Jewish people from the hands of the Romans. Do you see how he's reading that? He reads it as, yes, one day God will send the son of man, and the Romans are going to get what they have coming to them. Now we have to hold that in their mind, because we have to understand this. Let's follow the storyline of the Bible. The reason why the Jews in Jesus's day were being oppressed by Rome is because their disobedience to God got them in that situation. How many of you remember the exile in the Old Testament? Remember they were put into exile, and you hear Jeremiah, he says, well, in 70 years we're going to come back to our land, and in a sense they do. They begin to go back to their land, but when they go back to their land, they don't own the land. They don't have a king. There's nobody from David's line there. Torah isn't the law of the land. The pagan rulers are the law of the land, so even though they're back in their land, everything is still terribly wrong. When will God bring an end to this exile? When will he destroy our enemies? We have to understand in the mind of Saul, if disobedience to the law got them in the mess, what do you think the solution for getting out of the mess is? Obeying the law strictly. Disobedience got us in the mess, so if we strictly adhere, that will get God to move. He'll send the son of man. He will become king of heaven and earth, and when he does, he will vindicate us, Israel, and he will do that by destroying our enemies, the Romans. That's the context that Paul is thinking of right now. This is the context that many, many Jews in Jesus' day believed in. We know that, let me put it this way, we have more fragments, pieces of the book of Daniel from Jesus' day than any Old Testament book. In other words, it's like every Jew on the street knew the book of Daniel. Why was it so prevalent? Why was it so important? Because of Daniel 7, the son of man, God coming back, God vindicating his people, God putting a king over Jew and Gentile, and it's the true God, the creator God, and Saul as a Pharisee saw the pollution in Israel. Disobedient Jews that would not hold to the law as a cause of delay for God's return in sending the son of man. Do you see that there? If disobeying the law got them in the mess, if disobeying God is what put them under the thumb of Rome, well then certainly God's not going to send the son of man if they're still disobedient. Does that make sense? Think about the woman caught in adultery, right? They bring this woman, they throw her before Jesus. How many of you are familiar with that? I think it's John 8. They throw her before Jesus and they all have stones in their hand. Who brought that woman before Jesus? The Pharisees and the teachers of the law. Should we kill her? Do you see how committed they were to keeping Israel pure? That's why the word Pharisee basically means the word sharp or accurate. In other words, they know the law well, they've committed their lives to studying it in detail, and they do their best to implement it, and they do their best to make sure all of Israel implements it. But do you see how that understanding of Pharisees is a little different than sometimes we understand as Christians? A lot of times we say, well you know Pharisees followed the law because they thought if they followed the law, they would go to heaven when they died. In other words, their own self-righteousness in following the law would give them the ticket, a spot in heaven. But actually when we read scripture and we look at historically, the Pharisees weren't following the law because they thought they could be good enough to go to heaven. They followed the law to try to get God to bring heaven to earth. Let me say that again. They followed the law not to try and earn a spot in heaven. They followed the law in hopes that if they follow it strictly, God would establish the Son of Man and deliver Israel. Heaven would come to earth. And is that such a surprise? What does Jesus teach us with the Lord's Prayer? Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In other words, heaven's rule. Let heaven's rule hit the earth. Let the earth reflect heaven the way God intended it to be. What is the solution for that happening? The Son of Man must take his throne. What would be the consequence? Well, when he's vindicated, it will also be the vindication of God's people. And for a Pharisee like Saul, that was the Jewish people who in particular were following the Torah and they would be delivered from the hands of the Romans. And the Romans would be destroyed for their oppression against God's people. So again, this is not about following the law to go to heaven. This is about following the law so God acts on earth and does what he said he would do in Daniel 7. Here's Saul, he's praying, no doubt meditating, asking God, God give me the same vision. I want to see this. What did Daniel see? Lord, when will this happen? We're sick and tired of being underneath the hands of the Romans. Send this Son of Man. Make him king of heaven and earth and deliver us from our oppressors. Punish them for what they've done to us. See, but Christianity then became a threat because Christians were coming along and saying, in Jesus Christ, Daniel 7 has happened. The Son of Man has already claimed his throne. The Son of Man is already seated as Lord of heaven and earth. This was scandalous to the Jewish people, to the Jewish leaders and many Jews. It was scandalous to think that the Son of Man would die at the hands of the Romans on a cross. No, no way, they said. This makes no sense. This Jesus of Nazareth that these Christians are talking about, Rome executed him. If he was the Son of Man, Rome would have never been able to execute him. God would have never allowed that to happen, but God did allow it to happen and they said because Jesus of Nazareth was a lawbreaker and God handed him over to our enemies and Rome killed him. There is no way this Jesus of Nazareth could possibly be the Son of Man in Daniel 7 and to make matters worse, by the time this happens with Saul, by the time Saul comes onto the scene, the church is already two years old. Jesus had already died and risen. It's two years into the church and the church is exploding. Jews are coming to Jesus by the numbers. Think about on the day of Pentecost, how many people got saved from Peter's, one message from Peter, how many people got saved? How many? Say it confidently. 3,000. 3,000 in one day. So all of these Jews are coming. Well now after two years, more and more Christians are coming, but these religious leaders, Saul of Tarsus looks at them as a pollution. He's saying, my goodness, we have to, we have to purify Israel. We have to stamp these Christians out. They are leading Israel stray and if they keep this up, God will never come and deliver us from our enemies. The Son of Man will never become Lord of heaven and earth. We want deliverance. These Christians are standing in our way. They are a pollution to Israel and Saul says, as a Pharisee, I will take it upon myself to purify this nation and how will he do it? By persecuting the church. This is what the heart of Daniel 7 is about and Stephen, as we will see in a minute, will say, I just saw the vision of Daniel 7 with my own eyes and when he says that, they will kill him. Now turn to Acts 6 verse 7. Are you following me tonight? Are you getting this? I can appreciate that it's asking a lot, but here's all you need to get. Saul, as a Pharisee and many Jews, even non-Pharisees in Jesus's day, hung their hearts and their hopes on the idea of the Son of Man becoming King of heaven and earth. King over every human being. King over every nation. They hung their heart on it and they hung their heart on it in large part because when it happens, it will be the deliverance of Israel from their enemies, Rome. That's what they have in their mind. Now let's start at, let me find my place here, let's start at, what did I say, Acts 6 7. Now this is going to lead into the to the first martyr, Stephen, and the reason why we're looking at this is because Luke, who wrote the book of Acts, Luke wrote Acts that we're reading, he decides to introduce Saul through the death of Stephen. So what I want to do tonight is introduce Saul to you the same way Luke does in Acts. We're just going to follow the same introduction. Okay, so verse 7 of chapter 6. So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly and a large number of priests came obedient to the faith. Look at that right there. The church is growing in Jerusalem. Not only that, Jewish priests, those who oversee the temple are becoming Christians. This is a major threat to somebody like Saul, a Pharisee. Now Stephen, a man full of God's grace and power, performed great wonders and signs among the people. Opposition arose, however, from members of the synagogue of the freedmen, as it was called. As it was called, Jews of Cyrene and Alexandria, as well as the providence of Cilia and Asia, who began to argue with Stephen. But they could not give, I'm sorry, but they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke. Then they secretly persuaded some men to say, we've heard Stephen speak blasphemous words against Moses and against God. So they get some false witnesses here. We heard Stephen making these blasphemous remarks against Moses, against God. So they stirred up the people and the elders and the teachers of the law. They seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin. This is the court. They round him up, throw him before the court, before the Sanhedrin. They produce false witnesses who testified. This fellow never stopped speaking against this holy place, the temple. He never stopped speaking against this holy place and against the law. For we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs Moses handed down to us. All who were sitting in the Sanhedrin looked intently at Stephen. And they saw that his face was like the face of an angel. What's going on here? Well, the church is growing. Priests, Jewish priests who don't believe in Jesus start becoming Christians, believing in Jesus. These are religious leaders that are starting to believe in Jesus. So they grab Stephen, they throw him before the Sanhedrin. They create some charges, some false charges. Let's see if we can get him in trouble. So they throw him before them. Now, we're not going to go into how Stephen, the depths of everything that Stephen says, but all of chapter seven is Stephen's response. Basically, Stephen's response is this. It's of no surprise you religious leaders reject Jesus. And he goes on to explain that history, that Israel has a very long history of rejecting God's will. He starts with Joseph. He says, yeah, Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery. God rescued him. And then God rescued his brothers and his family and all of Israel. Here's Joseph, God's man. His brothers rejected him. Then he goes on, he talks about Moses. God sent Moses to deliver us from slavery in Egypt under the hand of Pharaoh. And what did we do? As soon as God brought us out, we made a golden calf and started worshiping it. And he goes through the long history of Israel. And so Stephen is saying, every time God does something amazing, you reject it. Every time God does something, you say no, and you say yes to something else. That's basically his response. You can imagine the religious leaders don't like that so much. You're always rebelling, rejecting God's will. Every time he does something amazing for us, you say no. Now, let's continue reading here. Let's see how Stephen ends his argument. This is Acts 7, verse 51. You stiff-necked people, your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors. You always resist the Holy Spirit. Was there ever a prophet your ancestors didn't persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the righteous one. And now you have betrayed and murdered him. You who have received the law that was given through angels but have not obeyed it. When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth. Let's look at what happens here. He says, hey, your ancestors even killed the prophets when they spoke of the coming one. So I'm not surprised you killed the coming one when he arrived. You did exactly what your ancestors did. You're going in another direction. I'm not one bit surprised. But what he says next, what Stephen says next, is perhaps one of the greatest Christian testimonies in all of scripture. It's explosive. And in fact, we as Christians often miss what he is saying. But what he says next goes to the heart of Daniel 7. It goes to the heart of what the Pharisees and the religious leaders were hanging their hearts on. Daniel 7, the son of man. Let's continue to read verse 55. But Stephen, and we're going to read for a little while here. But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. Look, he said, I see heaven open and the son of man standing at the right hand of God. Doesn't that sound a lot like Daniel 7? Sounds just like Daniel 7. It is Daniel 7. At this they covered their ears and yelled at the top of their voices. They all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city, and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, Lord Jesus receive my spirit. Then he fell on his knees and cried out, Lord do not hold this sin against them. When he had said this, he fell asleep. And Saul approved of their killing of him. On that day, a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem. And all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. But Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison. Let's see what happens here. After Stephen gives his speech and says, you're doing exactly what your ancestors did. He then gives the testimony. He looks up. He says, I see the son of man standing at the right hand of God Almighty. He has, that was a vision for Daniel. Stephen's seeing it in real time. Try and imagine Saul, who would love to have seen that. Isn't that what he would have wanted to see? And Stephen says, I now see it. And who is it? Jesus. He's the son of man at the right hand. He's the one with all authority, power. He's the one that the religious leaders killed. And he's right now, Lord of heaven and earth. He's saying, Jesus, I see him at the right hand of God Almighty, just like Daniel said would happen. But Stephen's actually saying much more than that. He's saying much more than that. He's actually saying this. Heaven's court is in session. He's saying, you brought me before this court. And when you did, God opened up his own court in heaven at the same time. You have me on trial down here. You're on trial up in heaven. Listen to this language. He doesn't say Jesus is seated at the right hand of God. This is very, very important. He's not seated. He's standing at the right hand of God. This is a picture of Jesus at full attention. In other words, as the court is in session here on earth. And those people who bring false testimony against Stephen, as they stand up to hurl their false testimony, Jesus stands up and he begins to offer testimony in the courtroom of heaven in front of God himself on behalf of Stephen. You see the parallel there. They're in court on earth with people standing, rising one after the other to give false testimony against Stephen. And he says, I see him standing. In other words, Jesus isn't just the son of man. He's not just the Lord. I see him in action. He is working right now on my behalf to find favor before the court of heaven and before God himself. Picture this, friends. Imagine the court is in session. All the Sanhedrin and all the religious leaders are sitting there. And everybody who's going to bring false testimony against Stephen, they're all sitting down. And as that's going on, court is beginning in session in heaven. Imagine God the father and the son, Jesus Christ, sitting down on their thrones. And as soon as those here on earth in the court of the Sanhedrin, as soon as those people who want to bring false testimony, as soon as they stand up, Jesus stands up. And as soon as they start giving testimony, Jesus starts giving testimony. Stephen is very clearly saying, you might find me guilty, but Jesus, the son of man, is giving testimony right now and before God almighty, before the court of heaven. You might find me guilty, but he will vindicate me. And I'll say this, friends. Make no mistake about it. God does not like the idea of people bearing false witness. And what God did for Stephen, he will certainly do for each one of us. Every time somebody brings false witness against you, anytime somebody stands up, you better believe Jesus will stand up and say, father, I know this one. I testify on his behalf. No guilt. You got to understand, look, Jesus will take up for you. You're not left alone when you're going through something. And you're definitely not alone if somebody's going to bear false witness. Has anybody ever lied about you? You don't have to get mad at them. If anything, you should have pity. Because as they're lying about you, Jesus is in heaven and says, oh, it looks like we're going to court today, father. I'll take up for him. Keep that in mind. Simultaneously, as the court of the Sanhedrin is in session, heaven's court is in session. And as they stand and as they rise to bear false testimony, Jesus rise and he bears testimony on behalf of Stephen. So how do the religious leaders react when they hear this? You see, these are educated Jews. Like what I just explained now, it takes some learning for us to understand that, right? But if you're a learned Jew, you understand exactly what he means. If the son of man is standing next to, that means there's court in session. Stephen is clearly saying he's being vindicated. So again, how do they respond to this? Well, they kill him, right? They stone him. Why such a violent reaction? Because what Daniel is doing here is he's radically reinterpreting Daniel 7. Let's see this now. Remember, Saul as a Pharisee believed that when the son of man claims his throne, the people of God will be vindicated, released from their oppression of their enemies, and their enemies will be punished. All right? Well, if Stephen is saying the son of man is Jesus and he's on the throne and I'm being vindicated right now, that would mean that he and the church are the people of God. Let me say that again. If Stephen is being persecuted and Jesus is on the throne, then the people of God in Daniel 7, those who will be vindicated from their enemies and their enemies punished, the people of God must be those who follow Jesus. But if the people of God are those who follow Jesus, if they are the ones who will be vindicated, then who are the enemies according to Stephen? The religious leaders. In other words, you're not God's people. You are God's enemy if you're persecuting me right now. Doesn't Daniel 7 say that the people of the Most High will be vindicated? And he's telling them, whose side are you really on? If he's on the throne and he's standing up for me, if the son of man is on the throne and he's standing up for me, well, then I must be part of the people of the Most High God. And you must be God's enemy. You must be the enemy of those people. And you thought it was Rome, but it's you. And what do they do? They lose it. They become drunk on murder. They grab him. They throw him out of the city, and they begin to stone him. Do you see how Stephen reinterprets Daniel 7? Jesus is the son of man. The people of God are the church, and the oppressors in that moment is the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, and all the religious leaders. Now, think about this. As soon as they hear this, they must think, the religious leaders, they must think to themselves, is this really what Christians believe? Now we've heard it. Do they really believe that we, the people who run the temple, the Sanhedrin, the priests, the religious leaders, they think we are the people of, they think that they are the people of God, and we are the oppressors? You can imagine how they said, this is a pollution in Israel. These people have, if this is what they believe, they must be removed from Israel because the true son of man will never come if we allow this to continue in Israel. Thousands already believe this, and now that we caught them for what they really believe in, Saul in particular says, I am going to destroy the church. If this is what they believe, they are a pollution to Israel. They are hindering God's plan for Israel. They are hindering what I want to see God do for Israel, and so they look at it as they will honor God. This is Saul. He will honor God by destroying the church and killing Christians. Let me say that again. They will honor God by killing these Christians and purifying Israel, and if you think about it, should we be so surprised? What does Jesus say in John 16 verse 2, right before he goes to heaven, right before he's arrested and executed? What does he say in John 16 verse 2? They will put you out of the synagogue. In fact, the time is coming when anyone who kills you will think they are offering a service to God. Service to God in the original language literally means worship. They think that they will actually be worshiping God when they kill you. They think that they'll be purifying Israel and offering up worship to God, a purified Israel. They will actually think that's what they're doing. See, in their minds, they want to keep Israel pure. These Christians who believe what they believe are a pollution to Israel, and they are hindering what they want to see God do in Israel, and so death for Christians becomes a viable option. Let's kill them and show God how committed we are to the law. We'll show God how committed we are. We might even hurry up the coming of the Son of Man if we show God that we're willing to kill in order to keep Israel pure. So again, it's no surprise, and so explains what happens next. I'm sorry, Acts 8 verse 1. And Saul approved of their killing of him. On that day, a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him. Listen to that. On that day when they heard Stephen say that, when they heard Stephen say, Jesus is the Son of Man, and you are the enemies of God, and you're persecuting us, you're persecuting. You want to persecute Christians? You want to persecute me? It proves that you are the enemy of God in Daniel 7. And from that moment, it says, great persecution broke out. Listen to how widespread it is. It was so bad. All of the Christians left Jerusalem except the apostles. That must have been quite a persecution for everybody to get so scared, possibly thousands of Christians to run outside of Jerusalem. That's how strong the persecution. So who's the architect of this persecution? Who's the mastermind of this massive campaign to destroy the church? It says Saul is the mastermind. Saul is the mastermind. He's the one who heads it up. He's going to destroy the church. He's going to go from house to house rounding up Christians, throwing them in jail, striking terror in the hearts of Christians. How dare you believe what you believe? Don't you know you are polluting Israel? And I will take it upon myself to purify Israel. I'll honor God. I'll offer up worship to him by destroying the church. Now, not only did he go house to house, we can read later on in Acts where he says, I went from synagogue to synagogue looking for Christians. I arrested them and I made sure I had that they were beaten. So he was a terrorist. So you have to understand, he's a He believes the law is the means by which God will vindicate Israel. He believes that Israel's purposes, that through them, through David's line, a global worldwide king will be established. That's what he believed as a Pharisee. That's what he longed for as a Pharisee. That's what he prayed for as a Pharisee. And he saw these Christians declaring that it was done. He said, no way. And if you're going to say that, you're going to destroy this nation and I'll destroy you first. So now you might think, boy, this ends on a pretty gloomy note. Actually, it doesn't. Luke, who wrote Acts, is very intentional the way he structured this right here. It doesn't end on a sad note. It actually begins the transition to the remainder of the book of Acts, because look what it says here. Go to verse four. Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. In other words, what Luke is going to do here, starting right here, and it will continue on, the theme of the rest of this book is this. As the persecution explodes, the evangelism of the gospel explodes along with it. That as Saul persecutes the church, the church only grows. He thought he would silence the church, but it only caused the church to expand. The gates of hell will not overcome the church. The gospel will go forward. And Luke, amen to that, amen to that. And what Luke will do here is explain that every time there's intense persecution, the church grows. Every time there's persecution, every time there's an explosion of suffering and persecution, there is an explosion of evangelism. That will be the theme for the rest of the book. The more the persecution, the more the growth. In other words, and I'll close with this. Saul, before he became Paul, Saul was even used by God to cause the gospel to go forward. God took what the enemy meant for evil and did what? Turned it around for good. You can't keep God down. God will take everything and use it for good, here and in our lives as well. That's the point of it. You can't keep the church down. People are constantly worried about the church. Oh, look at the church. Look at the church. Where are we heading as a church? Look, I know sometimes it doesn't look so good. We ain't going anywhere. We're not going anywhere until the appointed time. We will not be stamped out. If the devil could have done it, he'd have done it 2,000 years ago when there was only a couple hundred or a couple thousand, but now there's billions of us worldwide. So next week, what we're going to look at is how Saul becomes Paul, how he realizes he was wrong, how his way of knowing becomes different. He doesn't just adopt a new set of beliefs, like I don't believe this anymore, I believe this. No, we're going to learn actually what Christianity is. Christianity is not a checklist of beliefs. Christianity is a new set of lenses that you put on and you see the world differently. Everything becomes interpreted through the lens of faith and truth. We believe what we believe, not as a checklist of things to believe, but because we see things differently. The way we see things causes us to believe what we believe. So next week, we're going to see how Saul, who hated the church and hated the name of Jesus, ends up loving the church and preaching the name of Jesus. All right, see you next week. We love you. See you next week.