Colliding Values

SERMON: 2014-11-02--ac14144--colliding-values-part-2 SOURCE DURATION: 00:46:02.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 2 CONFIDENCE: 0.98 APPROVED: false REASON: Candidate 14 concludes a prayer/benediction (sermon content). Candidate 15 is explicitly labeled as '(soft music)', marking the clear transition out of the sermon. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:00:00.000; remove through 00:00:04.140] [CUT] (thunder crashing) [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:00:04.140; resume after this marked segment] Well, for those of you who may not have been here last week, we were looking at this story in Acts chapter 16 where Paul and Silas experienced persecution at the hands of Gentiles. Just for the record, there's only two instances in the book of Acts where the persecution that Paul experiences in his missions are caused directly by Gentiles. Every other place, the instigators are the Jews. But two places, it is instigated by the Gentiles and one of those places is here. And we have been looking together at lessons that we can learn from what Paul and Silas experienced at the hands of the Gentiles in this community. Let me quickly review those two practical lessons that we looked at last week. The first lesson is that the gospel is inherently divisive. That is to say, wherever the gospel goes, it forms opposing factions. And the reason for that, we know from scripture, is because heaven's values and the values of the world are always diametrically opposed to each other. Heaven's values, faith, hope, and love, the world's values, the pride of life, the lust of the eyes, and the lust of the flesh, those two are always in conflict with each other. And to the degree to which you and I embrace one or the other, to that degree, we will be at odds with the other and the other will be at odds with us. Jesus put it this way, he who is not with me is against me and he who does not gather with me scatters. When the curtain falls on history, people are either in the kingdom in the presence of God or they are outside of the kingdom excluded from the presence of God. There is no middle ground. The gospel is inherently divisive. You're either for me or you're against me, says Jesus. There is no neutral ground. The second thing that we looked at is this conflict plays out on two levels. It plays out on a physical level and it plays out on a spiritual level. Ephesians 6-12, our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. And in this story before us, the immediate cause of their trouble is flesh and blood. It's the business owners, the owners of the slave girl, it's the community that rises up in league with them, it's the magistrates, it's their agents who do the beating. It's a battle against flesh and blood. But we know from scripture that beyond the human face, unsuffering and persecution throughout the course of history are spiritual powers who use people against the purposes of God. And the reason that's so important is because spiritual powers cannot be defeated simply by human elements. Out in the Middle East, we've got this huge battle waging, as you know, against ISIS and we are launching soldiers and bombing them and all kinds of other things and that certainly has its place because that's an important part of winning a battle. But we're mistaken if we think that weapons alone will defeat the spirit that stands behind it because the spirit that stands behind it is a spirit that wants to have world domination and that is not hesitant to use whatever needs to be used in order to accomplish the coming of their kingdom. Well, that brings us this morning then to still a third lesson that I think we need to learn from this story here in Acts chapter 16 and that is this. In this conflict, in this conflict, the battle between good and evil, Christians will not always be treated fairly. How many of you believe that? Christians will not always be treated fairly. Here's the irony of this story that is easy to miss. Philippi was a Roman colony in a Greek colony in the Greek province, remember? It's part of Macedonia, which is part of Greece, but it is a Roman colony under Roman military rule. That's the significance of the term that is translated magistrates in this particular passage. The Greek word there is stratagois from which we get the English word, guess what it is? Strategie, but it was a military term and these magistrates are military people who have been appointed to manage the civil affairs of the colony. Now, if you know anything at all about ancient Rome, you know that they prided themselves something fierce in their law and order. And they had grave concerns about making sure that people got treated fairly before the law, particularly if they were Roman citizens. And so you had access to due process, you had access to a fair defense, and the punishment had to be fair. Roman citizens couldn't be crucified. For example, they could only be beheaded if they were guilty of capital crimes and all of that kind of thing. Well, here's the irony. None of those Roman provisions for law and order are applied to Saul, to Paul and Barnabas in this particular story. I mean, let's just go through it. First of all, they are falsely accused. Listen again to verses 20 and 21. They brought them, that is Paul and Silas, before the magistrates and said, these men are Jews. They're throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice. There's at least two and a half, two and a half, relies in that particular passage. I'll walk you through them just very quickly. First of all, the accusation is that these men are Jews. Well, no, they are Christians. Now understand that in the early days of the Christian church, it was hard to distinguish Jews from Christians because of course Christians came from a Jewish background but their beliefs because of faith in Jesus were very different. But you see the accusation they are Jews is intended to inflame the population and is intended to cast them in a negative light because all over the Roman Empire, the Jews were known as troublemakers because they were so contentious. And Emperor Claudius at this particular time in history had just told all the Jews to get out of Rome supposedly because they were nothing but troublemakers. We come into that in the next chapter where we meet Aquila and Priscilla who were believers who had been part of that exodus out of Rome. So by casting them into this ad hominem argument, this argument of they're Jews trying to set the stage to say these are just really bad people. And then it goes on. The next accusation is that they're throwing our city into an uproar. Really now? I mean, who caused the uproar? First of all, it was the slave girl. Then who caused the uproar? It was the owners. Then who caused the uproar? They got the whole city on board. So the net result of that is that the magistrates are under an incredible pressure to restore peace to this city. And with a background of Jews causing trouble everywhere, they short-circuited the process of justice, beat the snot out of them, and put them in jail. And so the passage says, these are throwing the city into an uproar. Let me backtrack for a moment, talk about the third accusation, and that is advocating customs that are unlawful for us Romans to observe. Kind of half a truth there. Because see, the Roman Empire was extremely generous to allow their conquered people to hold on to their own religion. Because they knew that if they were trying to force a different religious belief on people, they had nothing but trouble. Religious beliefs keep people together. And so they allowed the Jews to be the Jews, for example. Even in Rome, until they caused them a lot of trouble, they were allowed to believe what they wanted to believe and practice what they wanted to practice as long as it didn't impact the rest of their society. But they weren't that generous to their own citizens. Their own citizens were not allowed to adopt the Christian faith because Rome was held together by a common deification of the Caesar who was the God to whom everybody looked, and that kept everybody together. So yes and no, Paul and Silas were advocating customs that were unlawful for Romans to observe. But remember, he's not preaching so much to the broader community as it is to the people who are gathered at that riverbank. And besides that, it wasn't his preaching of Christianity that caused these businessmen to have such a fit, was it? What was their concern? It's money, we're losing business, and these people are causing us to lose business. Gotta get rid of them. But you see, you can't go to the magistrates and say, well, these guys have cost me money, so put them in jail. Have you ever noticed that people who don't care one bit about the law, as long as it suits them, often suddenly become incredibly concerned about law and order when it suits their convenience? That's what you got happening here. These people are costing us money. So the net result, as I said, is the mob gets involved. We read in verse 22, the crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and then, of course, the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. And the next verse goes on to tell us that they were flogged severely. So they get thrown into jail without due process. Nowhere along the line does anybody ask the Apostle Paul what happened, what's your side of the story? Nowhere is he allowed a defense in his own name. In fact, people have raised the question, why doesn't Paul object as he does later in the Book of Acts and say, excuse me, you can't do this to me because I'm a Roman citizen. Later on, he gets smart enough to say that to them because you can't just beat up a Roman citizen. And there were different theories about that. My theory is, and you can take that for what it's worth, is that this got so out of control that nobody knew that was going on. And before you knew it, this is how we placate the crowd, you see, doesn't matter who's right or wrong, let's just get these guys out of the way so that we can settle down the mob. And there is a profoundly important principle in this whole situation that you and I would do well to observe and understand, and that is this. In the conflict between the values of heaven and the values of earth or the world, it is seldom about truth. It is all about winning. And if winning means breaking the rules, violating due process or due procedure, so be it because you are a threat to my way of life, you are a threat to everything that I stand for, and so you must be removed lest your values get imposed on my values and I suffer under your values. Do you understand what I'm saying about that? I hope you do because this is the cultural battle of our own age. And if you read the news at all, you will know how consistently Christians are being marginalized because the world fears Christians asserting their voice or pushing their values down their throats even while the world does that to you and to me with impunity because nobody cares about the truth, people just care about winning. Remember, this is what happened to Jesus. There was nobody more without sin than Jesus was. But you see, he was a burer under the saddle of the religious leaders of his day. His values and their values were absolutely opposed to each other. They saw the writing on the wall, they couldn't wait to get rid of him, and in violation of every due process and procedure, they kept at it until they thought they found some measure of guilt in him so that they could hand him over to Pilate and have him sentenced to death. And Jesus said, if this happens when the tree is green, wait what happens when the wood is dry. And I think he meant by that, as the power of evil increases, then the temptation to ignore due process and violate the rights of God's people will increasingly happen. And you and I need to understand that in those situations, it's more often than not, it's not about the truth, it's all about you're a burer under my saddle. And because your values are in conflict with my values, I'm gonna do everything that I can to get you out of the way so that my values will dominate. Peace in the News, just yesterday's newspaper concerning Trinity Western University. A lot of you will know its history, it's a Christian university out in Langley, BC. Back in 2001, they went to the Supreme Court of Canada because the British Columbia College of Teachers would not certify their education program because all the students that attend Trinity Western University have to sign a biblical covenant subscribing to a particular lifestyle that includes among other things, not engaging in sex, apart from a committed marital relationship between a man and a woman. You can imagine where that goes. The British Columbia Teachers College took issue with that and said listen, we do not want to certify the teachers coming from Trinity Western University because they will not support our secular values of what we are looking for in a society. So they took that to court back in 2001 and they won a major decision by the Supreme Court of Canada. Only one dissenting judge. Rolled the clock forward. We're now in a situation where Trinity Western University is trying to establish a law school. You may have heard these news stories. And at first, a number of law societies in each province who have to approve this process were all in favor because they couldn't argue against it and that included the British Columbia Lawyers Society. Well, as time has gone on, other societies began voting against it. The British Columbia Law Society did a plebiscite among its people and just in yesterday's paper, this little piece that says, members of the Law Society of British Columbia have voted overwhelmingly against accrediting a Christian university law school. The referendum was called at the end of September by the society's governors and was sparked by a community covenant at Trinity Western University in Langley. That covenant prohibits students and staff from sex outside of marriage between a man and a woman. And the law society said that 8,000 and some of 13,000 voters had cast their ballots and almost 6,000 voted against accrediting the university and a little over 2,000 in favor. Now I know Trinity Western is also taking that to the Supreme Court of Canada. The interesting thing will be to see where does the Supreme Court of Canada go with this today because the slide is in that direction. The values of heaven will always be in opposition to the values of the world and the more the values of the world get established, the more Christian values will be ignored, pushed into the ground. We have a family here, I won't identify who they are, but they're right now in the middle of a custody battle over a child. And some of the judgments that have come down from the particular judge who was handling this situation are clearly prejudicial against a Christian parent. And you shake your head at how those things can happen, but that's the spirit of the age. And I'm not laying this on you to point fingers at anybody or to get us all indignant in wrong ways, but it is my job to alert you to the fact we live with the spirit of the age. The rights that you and I have exercised in our society by virtue of our Judeo-Christian heritage are going down the tubes incredibly fast and I would not be doing my job if I didn't let you know how serious that is. One more example and then we'll go on because there is good news in the middle of all the bad news. Don't know how many of you are familiar with the story of Bethany Paquette. The name probably doesn't ring much of a bell, but she's a graduate again from Trinity Western University. And she applied with the Amerik Corporation, which is a Norwegian corporation that does wilderness expeditions in Western Canada and she applied for the position of assistant guide internship. And the company wrote her back to say that she wasn't qualified, which is not true because she's more than qualified. But then the owner of this outfit goes on to spell out what we believe are the real reasons. And listen to this, I couldn't believe this, but anybody be stupid enough to put this in paper just for the record. Considering you were involved with Trinity Western University, I should mention that unlike Trinity Western University, we embrace diversity and the right of people to sleep with or marry whoever they want. And this is reflected within some of our staff and management. You see where that's going? And then he goes on to add the coup de grace and that is this. He says, and I want you to know that it was Christianity that destroyed the Norse culture. Now think that through. The Norse culture were the Vikings. You know what the Vikings did in Europe? They invaded England. They destroyed virtually every monastery that they could, killed the priests and plundered Christian belongings and Christianity destroyed Norse culture. Well, thank you very much. You're welcome to your culture. I'm glad Jesus is Lord and out of the end, he's gonna win the battle. Just understand. If you're a Christian, you will not always be treated fairly. Get used to it, learn how to handle it. Perhaps we'll talk more about that later on. But there's a fourth lesson that I want us to just look at in the time that remains. And that is the fact that our deliverance, because there is deliverance, but it lies with the Lord. Our deliverance lies with the Lord. If there's one theme that runs throughout scripture is that the Lord God is the most high God. And he opens and nobody can close and he closes and nobody can open. His eye is on the sparrow. His eye is on you and me. And he is sovereign in all that he does. And ultimately he will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants. That is Psalm 135. The Lord will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants. Psalm 72, 12. For he will deliver the needy. Keep that verse up for a moment. He will deliver the needy who cry out, the afflicted who have no one to help. And therefore we can say with confidence, the Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What can man do to me? And that is of course illustrated so powerfully in this story. Can you imagine a more discouraging situation than having your back laid open, having been beat by rods, your feet fastened in stocks, sitting in the innermost cell block, chained to whatever you are, wondering how in the world did we get here for doing good and how in the world are we gonna get out of here? Not the kind of stuff that most of us would cause to do some hymn singing as they did. But Paul and Silas knew that they were in the hands of God and that if God wanted to deliver them, he would. And of course in this particular instance he did, as he did many times for Paul in his ministry, he's able to say in 2 Corinthians 1 verse 10, he has delivered us from such a deadly peril and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us. And then close to the end of his life in 2 Timothy 4, the Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom, to him be glory forever and ever. God is simply bigger. And as long as we are in his hands, nobody but nobody can touch us. God is our deliverer. But here's the problem. And reality means we have to address that. Not everybody gets delivered. For every person who prays for healing, there's another person who prays for healing and they die. For every person who finds himself in a pickle and cries out to God, "Oh God, deliver me," there is another person who doesn't get delivered. Isn't that true? Isn't that in fact one of the paradoxes of the Christian faith? And isn't that why Jesus says in the end of days when he comes, will he find faith on earth? What do you do with the fact that God doesn't always seem to deliver and that the enemy and injustice and untruth will triumph over the truth and the justice. Those are major, major issues. And they were issues in the Bible. Peter, in response to the prayers of God's people, get released from jail. James gets his head cut off. Stephen is a martyr. All around the world today, here's a statistic that I heard just the other day, 100,000 Christians a year are being martyred for their faith. And if you have followed the news again this past week, story out of Iraq goes back a number of months, but it just came out this week. ISIS executed in cold blood over 600 men who had been imprisoned. Just lined them all up in front of a ravine and shot them. About 30 or 40 escaped, told the stories, but those are horrible stories. Other story out of Mexico this past week, 43 young student teachers have disappeared. Did you hear that story? They're likely all dead. And you know why they're dead? Because the mayor's wife, get this, the mayor's wife was afraid they're going to disrupt her party and said to her goons, "Deal with it." And so they did. And it ties into that whole distorted system where police and criminals and government officials are all in cahoots together and injustice reigns. And I have to tell you, for those of us who sometimes grumble against governments or when you get a ticket from a policeman, or don't ever underestimate what happens when law and order disappears. Don't ever underestimate the chaos when there is nobody to execute the righteousness of God in righteous ways because that's the job of government. They've not been given the sword in vain. But when the sword is used to build yourself up with the expense of truth and justice, then see, that's where the Psalms come from. Don't know how recently you've read, but the Psalms are just filled with cries to God, vindicate me, deliver me from the people that are too strong for me. Isn't that true? And so far in our culture, we've had the benefit of law and order. And when we find ourselves aggrieved, we can go to courts and hopefully justice comes our way. But remember I said, the more Christian values change, the more those values will turn against you. And I can guarantee you that that's going to happen. So what do you do then? So in closing, let me give you three quick principles that we need to hold on to when there is a gap between the deliverance that God promises us and our actual experience of it. And the first is this, God is sovereign. But that means he is bigger than anybody and there is nobody that can touch you or me outside of his permissive will. Jesus put it this way, he said in Matthew 10, as he sent out his disciples, are not two sparrows sold for a penny. Not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your father. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid, you are worth more than many sparrows. As the song says, his eye is on the sparrow and he watches over me. If there's one thing, the story of Paul, as you follow him along through the book of Acts and then read about his experiences in his letter, there's one thing that stands out so clearly for all the trouble that comes his way. Nobody can stop him until his career and his ministry is finished. Do you know that? God will save us from evil until such a time as our lives and our ministries and whatever it is that we're about has been accomplished for the sake of his name. I don't know about you, but that's a tremendous level of security. The devil cannot pluck us out of his hand. People cannot pluck us out of his hand. He's simply bigger than everybody and he loves us with a love that is everlasting. And amen would be good. - Amen. - Thank you. Second principle that we need to understand is that if God does allow evil to come our way, he usually has a greater purpose. What we have to remember about God is that everything is geared towards the eternal kingdom that he is building, the city that has foundations whose builder and maker is God where everything is done God's way. And whatever happens in the world during this temporary time is geared towards the fulfillment of that kingdom. We need an eternal perspective and because God is working towards an eternal perspective and while there are many mysteries as to why he does what he does because his ways are so much higher than ours, there are two things that we need to understand about the purposes of God. And the first is that he uses difficulties and persecution to purify the church or in other words, to make us more like Jesus. His intention is to spend eternity with you and me. His intention is that we share his holiness. His intention is that nothing evil, nothing wrong, nothing crooked will invade his eternal kingdom so that there will no seed be present that one day could uproot his new... Do we understand that? God is infinitely holy, cannot tolerate the degree of sin that corrupts this world and so because he is so anxious to share eternity with you and me makes it his business to conform us to the image of Christ. We're all familiar with those classic verses from Romans 8, 28, and 29. We know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose and then he spells out what that purpose is in verse 29. Those God for knew, he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son that he might be the first born of many brethren. So hear me well, when stuff goes wrong in your life or mine and when God allows persecution into our lives, the purpose is to make us like Jesus. You've heard me say this many times. Lord willing, I'll continue to say it. You cannot love your enemy until you have an enemy to love and so there will be people in your life that are grace testers who misrepresent you, who falsely accuse you, who pick on every flaw that they can find in your life and who will publicize it and who will broadcast it to all the rest of the world and you'll cry out to God and you will say, "God vindicate me." And God isn't doing a diddly squad about it because he's trying to teach you what loving an enemy looks like. Anybody can be nice to those who are nice in return, but you want to see whether the life of Christ lives in you or not. See what you look like when you get misrepresented, misunderstood, falsely accused, or even criticized. Some of us, we're so thin skinned, if anybody criticizes us, we're into a puddle of indignation and pain. Is that not true? Oh, God's people are like porcupines, a lot of fine points, just don't try getting too close to them. God's wanting us to grow up. That's one side of the equation. But remember, there's another side to the equation and that's one that we don't understand very well at all. And that is this, God is setting the stage to prepare the world for judgment. Now remember I said, nothing unclean is going to come into the holy city. That means God has to expose everything that is unclean, even when it is deeply hidden in the hearts of people. And so one of the reasons God allows persecution historically and why he will allow persecution to come our way, believe you me, if the Lord tarries and our culture goes down the tubes, it's because the Lord uses the persecution to fulfill the measure of the sins of those who don't know him and who are opposed to him. Listen to these words, it's a lengthy passage, but it's profound. Paul's writing to the Thessalonians. As I said, that's the next city on his journey. And he says, for you brothers became imitators of God's churches in Judea, which are in Christ Jesus. You suffered from your countrymen the same things as those churches suffered from the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to all men in their effort to keep us from speaking to the Gentiles so that they may be saved. Now notice this phrase, in this way, they always heap up their sins to the limit. The wrath of God has come upon them at last. The phrase, they heap their sins to the limit, in other translation says, to fulfill the measure of their sins. That's a phrase that occurs about three times in scripture and what it means is this. God lets bad people go on for as long as he can because he doesn't wanna judge them and he doesn't wanna send people to hell. Gives a lot of opportunity for repentance. But at the same time, as people keep on choosing sin, he lets that sin go on until every hidden vestige is out in the open and you know exactly what people are after so that come the day of judgment, listen to this, nobody will be able to say, God, you were unfair to me. You were unfair to my wife. You were unfair to my, if only you had given us more time, we would have come to faith, we would have come to salvation. If only we had seen more miracles, we would have believed in you. And God says, listen, I gave you every opportunity under the sun and you used every opportunity to be more and more rebellious and even as God uses that kind of persecution to purify the church, God uses the suffering of the church to fill the measure of people's sin so that there is no doubt in anybody's mind that people are evil, they are worthy of God's judgment and God is justified in wiping them out. Israel was in bondage for 400 years in Egypt. Why? Because the sins of the Amorites, the people who lived in the land of Canaan was not yet full. So God allowed his people to suffer for 400 years while he gave them every opportunity to repent, their wickedness got worse and worse and worse until God says, now you can see that this is a bad crop and it's time to cut it down because if I don't cut it down, it's going to destroy all of creation. The judgment of God, as I've often said, is the reverse side of God's love. Think of God as the great physician who says, if I don't treat this cancer, the patient will die. And it's the mercy of God that God steps in in history as well as at the end of history to remove all evil so that his kingdom can stand. All the more reason, of course, that you and I need to flee to Jesus because apart from Jesus, none of us has a chance. But in Christ, we're delivered from that judgment because he bore it on the cross. Well, very quickly, wind up with this. The bottom line, of course, is that our ultimate vindication is in the age to come. Our ultimate vindication is in the age to come. The Apostle Paul makes an interesting observation in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. He says that if for this life only we had hoped in Christ, he says we'd be the most miserable of all people, why? Because following Jesus is not always easy. And if you want an easy life, turn your back on Jesus and follow the values of the world. It's the broad way and it's the easy way, but it leads to destruction. Why follow Jesus? Because we know that in the end, God's people are going to inherit a kingdom that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. And one of the big challenges for God's people throughout the course of history is to live in faith that even if in the present, my hopes and my dreams are not vindicated, even if it feels like I'm pulling on the short end of the stick, God is not unjust. He's keeping track of everything. And there is coming a day when he is going to even the scales and we will know that he is our God. Paul puts it this way, God is just. He will pay back trouble to those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled and to us as well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. The same day, that will be a day of frightfulness. For those who have opposed God historically and people will cry out for the mountains to cover them and to hide them from the glory of the presence of God in the face of Jesus. That day for you and me will be an incredible day of relief because God will not only comfort us, he will vindicate us and he will say, well done good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over little. I will put you over much. That's what keeps God's people going and that's what keeps them serving the Lord when all around them everything goes to hell because they know the end of the story. And so Paul at the end of his life and I'm gonna end with this, he can say, I'm already being poured out like a drink offering and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge will award to me on that day and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. May God give us grace to know and to believe that he will do what he has said he would do. 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