In the sermon 'Testifying Boldly and Unhindered,' Scott Brown explores Acts 28:16-31, focusing on the Apostle Paul's imprisonment in Rome. Despite being under house arrest, Paul boldly preached the Gospel and engaged with Jewish leaders, emphasizing the continuity between the Old and New Testaments and the fulfillment of the hope of Israel through Jesus Christ. Paul's unwavering dedication to spreading the Gospel, his forgiveness towards his persecutors, and his emphasis on the kingdom of God and the resurrection of Christ serve as a model for believers. The sermon highlights the importance of preaching with boldness and the assurance that the Gospel is unhindered by physical circumstances. Paul's example teaches us to use every opportunity, regardless of adversity, to communicate the Gospel's message of salvation and hope.

Please turn with me to Acts chapter 28 as we read verses 16 through 31. When we entered Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself with the soldier who was guarding him. After three days, Paul called together those who were leading the men of the Jews, and when they came together, he began saying to them, Brethren, though I had done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers, yet I was delivered as a prisoner from Jerusalem into the hands of the Romans. And when they examined me, they were willing to release me because there was no ground for putting me to death. But when the Jews objected, I was forced to appeal to Caesar, not that I had any accusation against my nation.

For this reason, therefore, I requested to see you and to speak with you, for I am wearing this chain for the sake of the hope of Israel. They said to him, We have neither received letters from Judea concerning you nor have any of the brethren come here and reported or spoken anything bad about you. But we desire to hear from you what your views are for concerning this sect. It is known to us that it is spoken against everywhere. When they had set a day for Paul, they came to him at his lodging in large numbers, and he was explaining to them by solemnly testifying about the kingdom of God and trying to persuade them concerning Jesus from both the law of Moses and from the prophets from morning until evening.

Some were some were being persuaded by the things spoken but others will not believe and when they did not agree with one another they began leaving Paul after they began leaving after Paul had spoken one parting word. The Holy Spirit rightly spoke through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers saying, go to this people and say, you will keep on hearing but will not understand and you will keep on seeing but will not perceive for the heart of this people has become dull and with their ears they scarcely hear and they have closed their eyes Otherwise they might see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and return and I would heal them. Therefore let it be known to you that this salvation of God has been sent to the Gentiles. They will also listen. When he had spoken these words, the Jews departed, having a great dispute among themselves.

And he stayed two full years in his own rented quarters and was welcoming all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness, unhindered. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time. We pray, Father, that you reveal yourself to us through your word and through Scott, and that you give us a clear understanding of your message so that we can apply it to our lives today. We thank you, Father, in Jesus' name, amen. It was over a year ago that we began our journey through the book of Acts.

And now as Ron has just read, we are aware that we've come to the very last page of the book of Acts. One author called it the end of the beginning because it marks the end of the book of Acts, but it also marks the beginning of the spread of the gospel to all the earth. We're continuing the story here, right here in this room and in our own community. The gospel did spread, the Gentiles did embrace the gospel, The heathens, that would be us, saw the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ. We were rescued from perdition.

He soothed us of our sorrows. He has cared for us by imparting the Holy Spirit. He's brought us into the family of faith, And we are absolutely an extension of this. It's always for me such a tender time to come to the end of a book of the Bible as we're preaching through it in the church. One thing that I would just encourage all of us to do between now and next Sunday when we're gonna go back and do an overview of the book of Acts.

Ask yourself this question, what did God teach me? Why did God drag me through 28 chapters of this book over the last year and a half? And I would just like to encourage the littlest child and the oldest one here to just go back and look through the book of Acts and say, what did God show me? How did he help me? What did he do over this last year that we've been in this book?

It is difficult to move on. The times, as I reflect back on them, of studying the different passages, the statements that are there, meeting all the people that are in the Book of Acts, going to all the port cities and the interior cities in the Book of Acts, meeting all the people is such an encouragement. We will be moving on through this book. This book becomes like an old friend who has been very generous to you. And the book of Acts has been very generous.

God has used it to help us to see the church in new ways perhaps, to bring back things that we knew were true but maybe had forgotten. But so here we are now at the very last verses of the book, the book of Acts. And we find that often in the books of the Bible, in letters or in a lot of different kinds of literature, the last words have particular importance and they have features that seem to be very helpful and very tender. And these last few verses are the same as well. And there are so many theological truths that you'll find all through the book of Acts summed up right here in these last 15 verses.

The patterns of Paul right in these last 15 verses are summed up. You see so many things replayed again right here in these last 16 verses of the book. So they really are important because what's here you can find reference to all the way back, right to the beginning, right from the first several verses of the book. And we find so many of these patterns that I'm sure that we're all aware of now. But here's one thing that we see that I think stands above all of them.

And that is this. Paul has but one message. And wherever he goes, he's an errand boy to that message. You can find him in the field being stoned, and he has one message. You can find Him standing in the great cities of the ancient world and He has one message.

And now under house arrest, He has that same message. And His message is our message. And I hope that As we leave the book of Acts, this message would burn in our hearts, that it would fill us, and it would fill our houses, and our cars, and our businesses, and our walks, and whatever we do, that this is the message that we first of all fill our hearts with and then let it burn there and then let it be a fire in our community as it was with the Apostle Paul. The Apostle Paul here in Acts 28 has a consistent message that we've seen him communicate. And it's the message of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's the kingdom. It's Jesus. It's the resurrection. It's the cross. That's what Paul is all about.

You know, there are many things that you can speak about and many things that you can obsess about and emphasize in your life. But we'll see here in this passage what ought to be that message that fills our hearts wherever we go. Now the first thing that I want to identify here, you have an outline in front of you, is Paul's imprisonment conditions in Rome, in verse 16. They entered Rome after these amazing events. Paul being bitten by a poisonous snake on the island of Malta, being cared for by these gracious people that were there.

Before that, a dramatic shipwreck where everyone was at their wits end and all hope was lost. But what we know of the kingdom of God and life in it is even though it may look like all hope is lost, all hope is never lost. And so now we find Paul able to continue to communicate the great hope of the Gospel there. This is Paul's first Roman imprisonment. He's chained to a Roman guard.

And like so many of God's servants, it doesn't matter where you are, God is with you. And there are particular benefits with the Lord God's presence in all of these times. And we see God's presence here with the Apostle Paul. Even though he's chained, he's like so many prisoners who have gone before him, God has a way of using prisons for his own glory. There's no, as Corey Tim Boone said, there's no hole deeper than the love of God.

And God seems to give unusual favor to the Apostle Paul when he's in a prison, as he has here. And God does this for His people. He gives them the ability to either endure it or He gives them some special favors that carry them on and give them tremendous hope in the midst of it. This has always been the case. In Psalm 106, we read that God always has compassion on those who are in desperate circumstances, and those who are carried away in the Babylonian captivity that God had compassion on them in the midst of their captivity.

That's what God does to his servants. We should never fear a captivity or a reversal because God is there. And that's exactly what's happening with the apostle Paul. Think about Joseph who received favor in prison by the chief guard of the jail and he was given complete freedom to execute his business there. Think of Joiakim who was in prison.

He was the prisoner of the king of Babylon. And 2 Kings 25 says that even though he was a prisoner of the king, the king spoke kindly to him. And he gave Joiakim the most prominent seat, even above the kings that were with him in Babylon and that he was given bread regularly before the king all the days of his life. So Paul is in a similar situation he's in prison but Almighty God is in prison with him. To me, that's one of the most important things to understand in every situation that we find ourselves in.

We may be in prison, We may be in a difficult situation, but there Almighty God is there to comfort us. You know, I just trust that what I've just said now would be a help to every little girl and every little boy in this room for the rest of their lives, that they would never fear any situation that God might put them in, that this would be a fearless generation. Just like the Apostle Paul, yes, imprisoned on the one hand, but on the other hand, Almighty God and all of His angels stand ready to defend and do whatever is necessary. So Paul is receiving favors and these secular forces have worked into the hands of God for the communication of the gospel. So That's the first thing I just want us to observe.

Paul, in prison, but he's not in prison. The Word of God has not changed. The second thing is that Paul wastes no time gathering the Jews. He is there three days after this dramatic time. You know, most of us would say, I think I need a time to cool down.

I think I need a time to recover. Well, it was for the Apostle Paul three days from the time they marched in to this great city of Rome. And he called together those who are the leading men of the Jews. You see that in verse 17. Paul takes initiative.

He does not wait passively for something to happen. He's going after the leading Jews of the city. This should be our pattern in the cities that God has placed us in. We shouldn't just wait in our households for people to show up. We should go after people in the same way that the Apostle Paul.

We should invite them. We should welcome them in. We shouldn't just be waiting for something to happen. We should be going after it and being a prayerful member of the society in which God has placed us. That's exactly what Paul does here.

And it's interesting here that there are Jews in the city. This is kind of startling because we've already learned from Acts 18 that Claudius had ordered the Jews to leave Rome. So why are there Jews still left in Rome? You remember that story, the Apostle Paul is in Corinth, and he bumps into a man by the name of Aquila. And Aquila came from Rome, but he had been displaced because Claudius had ordered all the Jews to leave Rome.

But maybe there were some errant Jews, maybe they were rebellious Jews, maybe they were in hiding, operating underground, perhaps. We don't know. But there were Jews there, and there were quite a number of them. And the Apostle Paul gathers them together to bring the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ and it's amazing to me what he calls them. He addresses them as brethren.

There's a tenderness about all of the Apostle Paul's engagements toward his brothers and sisters. He does have enemies, but he doesn't treat them like enemies. And he brings his brethren to him. These are the brethren that who have at least of a course over time, not the exact brethren, but the kind of brethren who have abused the Apostle Paul. But he still treats them as brethren.

It's so critical that we don't walk around in this world ashamed and afraid of the people of this world or those who might disagree with us. But on the contrary, full of joy, embracing those whom we love because the Lord Jesus Christ loves them and to treat them with tremendous hearts of love. And that's exactly what the Apostle Paul does here as well. He speaks to them respectfully. This should always be our manner in the world, just like the Apostle Paul.

We also find though that Paul defends himself in verse 17. He says, though I've done nothing against our people or the customs of our fathers, I was delivered a prisoner to Jerusalem. He sees himself as part of Israel and he's communicating the historic faith. He's not communicating a new faith. He's communicating a historic faith that has continuity from the Old Testament to the New Testament era.

And he is bringing a fulfillment of all Old Testament prophecy and all Old Testament imagery to these people. He is not against the customs of the Jews. He is not against anything in the Old Testament. In fact, he's bringing a fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ of everything that ever happened in the Old Testament. So the Apostle Paul does here what he's done every time we see him engaging the Jews.

He is making connections with the Lord Jesus and everything in the Old Testament. He doesn't see them as two separate things. They are one. There's continuity in Scripture. The Old Testament is just continued in the new.

The Lord Jesus Christ doesn't destroy everything that's gone before, but he so sweetly and perfectly fulfills it all and explains it in more detail than ever. The Lord Jesus concentrates everything in the Old Testament and explains it in the most vivid terms ever. And so that's what the Apostle Paul is doing. He's defending himself. He's calling back to all Old Testament scripture.

He also acknowledges that the Romans can't find any guilt in him. He also acknowledges that the Jews don't really have anything substantial with which to prosecute him. But he recalls their mistreatment of him. He says, when they examined me they were willing to release me because there is no ground for putting me to death. And he believes the same thing about the Jews.

But there's something really interesting in here that I think we should get. It's astounding to me that he would say this. It shocks me because it's so contrary to the way that I think I would be thinking. But he says that He does not accuse his brethren. He says, I have no accusation against my nation.

Isn't that amazing? This is the nation whose people stoned him and left him for dead. This is the nation who dragged him into the middle of these wild crowds screaming and yelling. He was getting ready to be torn to bits in Jerusalem. And it wasn't his own people that rescued him, it was the Romans who rescued him.

And had to take him out of the city under the cover of night with over 400 guards armed. And his people didn't protect him. It took the Spears of Rome to protect him. But The Apostle Paul has no guile. He has no bitterness.

He's not going to sue these people. He's not countersuing them for what they did to him. Normally when someone is wronged, they want to get their pound of flesh. Paul will have nothing of this. He says, I do not accuse my brethren.

He's forgiving his brothers for mistreating him. They've stoned him and left him for dead. He blesses them and casts a vision for life. That's what the Apostle Paul does. Another observation here is he gives them the motives of his message.

Now, let's listen up on this because I think this is really critical. In this statement we find the heartbeat of the message of the Apostle Paul. And it's something we should learn from. It's something that we should also just be so in love with because it is so wonderful. He says, I am wearing this chain for the sake of the hope of Israel.

And what he's saying here is that these chains have come about because of his speaking of the hope of Israel. He has a physical limitation placed upon him because of the theology that he's been teaching. It has limited him greatly. It has gotten him into grave trouble. But he has risked everything for the hope of Israel.

He's risked everything so that the hearts of his hearers would have hope in Jesus. He's placed his complete trust in literal interpretation of the Old Testament. And he's taken those words and given them to the people and correlated them with the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's risked his whole life on those words. And the Jews thought that it was a political hope.

They thought it was a hope for material prosperity, but it wasn't that kind of hope at all. It was a hope for the resurrection from the dead. It was the hope of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And this is the hope that Paul is communicating, and it's this hope that gave him his chains. And so there are two things mentioned here.

It is the hope of Israel. And that hope is really summed up in two things, the hope of the Messiah and the hope of the resurrection of the dead. And Paul is not ashamed of the Gospel. It's the power of God and the salvation for all who would believe to the Jew first, as we see here in this passage, and also for the Greek. Paul has said many times that he's on trial for the resurrection of the dead.

And that's what we see him saying again here. The hope of Israel is the hope of resurrection. It's the hope of new life in Jesus Christ. And this is the hope that he testifies as well. There's something else interesting here.

Apparently these people that he's speaking to, these leading Jews, have not even heard of the Apostle Paul. The news hasn't reached them. I think that's really amazing. But they hadn't. They say to him, we've not received a letter from Judea about you, and none of the brethren have come and spoken anything." Here's why I think that's true.

Because the Jews knew they didn't have anything to accuse them of anyway. And the distance was so great, And the message of condemnation against the Apostle Paul just died in the ground. And it was a sham anyway. And so it did not reach the Jews in Rome. Now the third thing that we see the Apostle Paul doing, this is the third point in your outline, is in verse 23, he is solemnly testifying and he's persuading.

Testifying and persuading. Here the Apostle Paul gives us the pattern of life that God would have us have in this world to testify and to persuade. So I would just like to use this as an occasion to ask all of us together. To whom are we testifying? To whom are we in the midst of persuading?

Who are we welcoming? Who are we inviting to come? And let's just be very careful to follow this pattern of the Apostle Paul. That we have welcomed, that we have invited to solidly testify and to persuade. Persuasions take time, don't they?

Persuasions aren't the kinds of things that you just have in short sound bites. They take time. They eat up your schedule. They consume some of your real estate. They gobble up some of your food and some of your resources, perhaps.

But this is the work of a kingdom individual, and that is to solemnly testify and to persuade. Let's notice a few things about the Apostle Paul's testifying and persuasion. Let's first of all notice the location. The place that all of this testifying and persuading happened. Well, it happened in the place of his lodging.

Well, Where's the place of your lodging? Is there testifying and persuading going on there? Well it was with the Apostle Paul. It was not a special place. It was his home.

It was the place in which he was under house arrest. But it seemed like it was an apartment. It was an actual living space. It wasn't a dull, dank, slimy prison. God was going to have one of those for Paul later on, but that wasn't this one.

This was more like a home, which could receive visitors. And if people wanted to hear, they could come. If Paul wanted to invite, he could extend the invitation. And they were free to come. And Paul is teaching in his home.

We notice in the New Testament that the home is almost always a place of instruction. It's a place of so many things. It's a place of the healing of Peter's mother-in-law. It's a place of so many wonderful things. In the ministry of Jesus, it was the place where some friends ripped off the roof of one of their friend's houses and lowered a lame man.

The home is a place of instruction, it's a place of healing, it's a place of the grace of God. This is the way that God has determined for our homes to operate. Here in this home, in this dwelling place, was quite a Bible study, okay? It started in the morning and it went on all throughout the day into the evening. Ray Stedman, I was reading in his commentary on this, he said this, He said, I would trade my theological degree to have been at that Bible study to hear the Apostle Paul go all through the Old Testament and explain Jesus from it.

And that's what was happening here. He was solemnly testifying and persuading in His dwelling place. Hey, let's make our dwelling places like this, full of explanation of the ministry of Jesus, from Genesis all the way to Revelation. That that's the content of our houses. Let's get rid of the jive.

Let's get rid of the irrelevant things in our households. And let's fill it with the Gospel. Let's fill it with the ministry of Jesus from Genesis to Revelation. Let's just load it up. Let's let our homes just exude the Gospel from the beginning to end.

That's what Paul did wherever he lived, and that's what we should do wherever we live. We might live in a tent or a trailer or a hovel. We might live in a barn, but wherever we live, the gospel ought to be the center of it. And the gospel should be preached from morning into noon and into night, just like it was here with the Apostle Paul. And there should be invitations, even invitations of enemies, even those who don't appreciate it.

We should be that kind of people, a wide open people, ready to receive the people who so need to hear and to be persuaded of the Lord Jesus Christ. So that's about the location. Well that's not the only thing that you can observe here. How about the quantity of people? It says here that large numbers came.

It was crowded. You know there's something energizing about a crowded room isn't there? You know as our dear brothers, Dan Horn and Steve Brege, have gone to Tennessee to minister this morning, and they're there preaching in this church right now, I pray that God would give them a time just like this, that it would be a large number of people, that it would be an electric atmosphere, that there would be questions on the table, that there would be big ticket items ready to be discussed. Real pains, real problems, real questions, real issues that need to be dealt with from the Word of God. That's what it was right here.

And that's the atmosphere that we should just constantly pray for. That God would just give us packed houses full of big ticket issues on the table. Real things that God can deal with, only God can deal with. That's what Paul did. And that's why we see this next observation is Paul's manner.

He is solemnly testifying. He's dealing with seriousness, serious issues, and he's testifying. He's proclaiming. He's not just saying, oh, let's just throw around all of our little opinions about this issue. This wasn't a time of sharing.

This was a time of proclaiming truth that is true. You know, there's a terrible philosophy that's running in the emergent church today, and it's this philosophy that really we can't really know what the Bible means, but we can discuss it. Let's enter into our conversation. People are not pressing for conversion in these churches. They're pressing for conversation.

Well, that's as much baloney as we can consume today, but that's what's happening in the church. People today, they want conversation. They don't want truth. But with the Apostle Paul, when you gathered in his house, you would have a particular manner of communication, and it was persuasion. It's appropriate to persuade.

We shouldn't let this world, this politically correct world of tolerance convince us that we should stop persuading. Persuasion is the exact opposite of tolerance. Let us not become a tolerant people in the way that it's being defined today. The Apostle Paul would not have had anything of it. We ought to be persuading men not letting them go, holding on to them until they leave, like the apostle Paul did.

Of course, all persuasion is vain unless the Lord opens up eyes and breaks open ears that are stopped up. And then the content of this time in the home of the Apostle Paul was something that we can learn from. And our message should be the same thing. It was a two-fold message. It was the Kingdom of God.

It was a declaration that God is the ruler of all things. That God is the creator and the governor of the universe. And that all men and women are sinners and they need God's government and they need God's grace. They need the blood of Jesus Christ. That's what all of us need here today as well.

We need to see the world the way it really is. That God has His kingdom. And His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. And what drives His kingdom? The kind intention of his will drives his kingdom.

And the Apostle Paul is testifying to the kingdom of God, his majesty, his perfections. And There's nothing more wonderful than the Kingdom of God. You know, the Kingdom of God is what? Some of you can finish the sentence. The Kingdom of God is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

If anyone wants the Kingdom of God, they get a kind ruler. They get the most wonderful governor that ever governed any heart, any home, or any nation. And it is the kingdom of God that the Apostle Paul was preaching. And that should be our message as well. And then he is persuading regarding Jesus.

And he's teaching from the Old Testament in up to his own time of the doctrine of Jesus in the Old Testament. Now Paul could do this quite well. He most likely, being a Pharisee, could recite the law verbatim from beginning to end. He had memorized it most likely. That's what Pharisees did.

You know, many of you I hope are engaging in memorization of Scripture so that you can explain the gospel from beginning to end. I trust that you allocate great amounts of time for the memorization of scripture. I urge you to do it. I urge you to deliver to the world a man or a woman like the Apostle Paul who can start in the Old Testament and by memory Tell of Jesus Christ all the way to the end. That's what we must do in this generation.

When we say, oh, please memorize the book of James, or whatever we're doing, memorize sections of Acts, we urgently want you to do it. We're not just saying, oh, casually, whatever anybody wants to do in their life, they may do it. No. We're saying, urgently, memorize the Old and the New Testament as much of you can, as you can. Give time to it.

We're not prosecuting anyone who doesn't, but on the other hand, we're going to urgently appeal to all of us to memorize, to drive it deep within our hearts, so that we could be like the Apostle Paul, in prison, and able to explain from the beginning to the end the grace of God, the majesty of God, the blood of Jesus, and to see how it all interrelates. Every word of the Bible is a word of Jesus Christ, and the Apostle Paul was persuading concerning Jesus Christ. Imagine what Paul was doing. Oh, I wish we could have a tape of that session to hear what he might have said. I would expect Paul to have spoken about Melchizedek.

I would have expected Paul to speak of Abraham's salvation by faith. I would have expected him to speak of the sacrifices in the tabernacle and the sacrifices in the temple, of the sacrifices of Cain, and the sacrifices of Abel, the sacrifice of the first Adam and the last Adam. That's what the Apostle Paul was doing. He was making all these glorious connections that there is a Savior in Israel. And He is the light of the world.

He's the bread of life. He's the way, the truth, and the life. He's the good shepherd. He's the door. This is the Lord Jesus Christ being explained as well as you can explain Him in an eight or ten or twelve hour day, however long it was.

My expectation was it went until the sun went down, which makes it probably a fairly substantial kind of a day. And this should be the content and the capability that we have in our own households. The length of time was from morning to evening. The reactions were mixed. That's the next point in your outline.

Some were persuaded by the things spoken. In other words, God opened their hearts. They embraced the gospel. Some of the leading Jews in Rome embrace the gospel. How exciting that must have been for the Apostle Paul to invite these men.

He had no idea who would turn, but he invited them all and threw out the net that he might drag some in. And some came in. What a blessing. Can you imagine Paul's thought process through here? I think I'll invite only the ones that are open to the message.

I'll invite the ones who know me. I'll invite the ones who have whatever category. I don't know Paul just invited the meeting the leading men of the Jews He had absolutely no idea who would turn and who would not he did not presume upon it But some did think of your own family members Maybe they hate you for the gospel. And maybe you've judged them wrongly and said, well they won't hear anymore. I'm not inviting them back for that.

Perish that thought. Keep persuading. Keep inviting. Think of your friends, maybe in this community or somewhere else who you might have written off because maybe they said something mean to you Or maybe they actually You know said something to someone else about you and you heard about it and they said that you're just a stupid believer and now and now you're shrinking back you're a spiritual couch potato you're just waiting for something to happen to them instead of inviting them in no That's not the Apostles pattern at all. Some were persuaded, but he had no idea who they are.

Oh Lord, keep us from presumptuous sins. Let them not have dominion over us. We sometimes so presume upon someone's reaction that we shrink back and don't declare the gospel and that's sinful for us to do that. We as a people, if we have that pattern we should break it and be done with it and invite and bring them in even if they may be contrary And we see that they did not agree with one another. That too I would have loved to have seen.

The arguments that were generated from it. The gospel causes arguments. The gospel is not always gonna have a sweet effect. It's death to death for those who do not believe, but it's life to life to those who do. It's so important for us that we understand that the Gospel, though it is the light of the world, Though it is the bread of life, it is also the sword.

It's also thunder. It's also fire and The sooner we realize that The more free we should be in this world not to be afraid of any reaction God will superintend the reactions and we should not be fearful of them at all. But we should preach the gospel with boldness, not knowing whoever might turn. We should not presume on who would or who wouldn't, like the Apostle Paul. Here, they did not agree, and then they left, they started walking out.

And I can just imagine Paul saying wait one more thing and he quotes Isaiah the prophet and He we get his parting words from verses 26 to 29 we read the words and Paul had spoken one parting word. The Holy Spirit rightly spoke through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers, saying, go to this people and say, you will keep on hearing, but you will not understand, and you will keep on seeing but you will not perceive. And here the Apostle Paul, although he is persuading with all his heart, he also knows that God is sovereign over salvation. That ears will shut, that eyes will be blind. And God is sovereign over it all.

You can't miss the sovereignty of God in salvation in this passage. Here's something else you can't miss. The urgent necessity to appeal to all men, regardless of what you think might be their reaction. We have both. This is Calvinism, by the way.

This is evangelism, passionate, urgent, and It's also acknowledging that there will be ears that will just be slammed shut by the sovereign hand of God. This people will not perceive. These ears will not hear. These eyes will not open. And this is the tragedy, and this is of it all, because they will not be open, and they will not be healed.

And that's why we should persuade. We should continue to persuade and persuade and persuade for all men, so that they would be healed. Think about that. There's no healing for anybody without a persuasion of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You think about the issue of healing in a person's life.

You think of all the wounds and the sorrows that are out there in this world. You think of your own wounds and sorrows. If you've come to Jesus Christ, He's healing your wounds. He is sanctifying you through the work of the Holy Spirit. He has taken your tears and put them in a bottle.

And He has taken you on for the rest of your life to work out your spots and wrinkles through the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what happens to those who are being saved. That we persuade men and women. And then we come to the final two verses of this chapter, verses 31, 30 and 31. And we see the words that tell us some very important things about Paul's two years in Rome.

What were these two years all about are explained right here. It says here that he is in his own rented quarters in verse 30. And imagine what a blessing that was for him that God had afforded him a place to engage people in the Gospel. And he was welcoming here, it says, all who had come. And we see Paul's dedication of life to welcoming, to inviting.

He's not a hermit. He's not a monk. He's not off in his own Christian ghetto. He's receiving people, sinful people, worldly people, and religious people who've lost their way. That's what the Apostle Paul is doing.

Would that God would give us homes like that. I don't know how long you'll be in your home, I don't know how long I'll be in my home. Paul was in his home for two years, but however long you'll be in your home, use it to the maximum. Do not lose one second. Don't say oh when I move out of this place, then I'll welcome people in.

Absolutely not. Do it now. Use every square inch, every square foot of the house that you bought or are renting for the glory of God. And that's what Paul was doing here in his own rented quarters. What is the use of these quarters that God has placed us in?

And it's the same use that the Apostle Paul is finding here. And we also see his message, verse 31, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. That was his message. Paul was given an opportunity to be in prison for this purpose. And that is the reason that all of us have been placed in this room, and that's the reason that all of us have been placed in this geography, is to do that one thing.

And we should do it with all of our hearts the way that the Apostle Paul did. Think about your own life and the opportunities that God has given you. God doesn't give each person the exact same opportunity, does He? But He does give every person some opportunity. Paul's opportunity was in a rented quarters.

Maybe some of you are in your own rented quarters. Maybe it seems like a prison to you. It's not. It's the launching pad for the glory of God. And we have a message that is so wonderful and we don't have to make it up on our own and get creative about it.

We just have to deliver it. And that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. During these two years of imprisonment, Paul writes the book of Galatians. He writes 2 Timothy and Ephesians and Philippians and Colossians and Philemon. We don't know what happened after that.

We have tradition. We have historians that have spoken about what happened to the Apostle Paul after this, but Scripture doesn't tell us. I won't spend time speculating about that, except that the historians say, Eusebius in particular, he says that he was released from prison and then he came back and in short time was beheaded under the persecution under Nero. A fire had broken out in Rome. Perhaps the Apostle Paul came back.

The believers were blamed for the fire and Paul was caught up in the persecution that happened at that time. The book of Acts ends with two very, very important words in verse 31. I think it's absolutely amazing that the Book of Acts ends with two words that sum up the whole book. It's amazing. What we read here is the first word, openness and unhindered.

That he was spreading the gospel, he was speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, with all openness or boldness, unhindered. Boldness, unhindered. What does that remind you of? You shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria, and even to the uttermost parts of the earth. You will be my witnesses." And now at the end of the book of Acts, it's cast forth again, right before our eyes, to see the purpose of all of our lives and that is to be bold, to speak openly, to be fearlessly verbal about the gospel of Jesus and he will see to it that it will go unhindered.

The gospel is not chained. It's not chained by any of our circumstances. It's not chained by our intellect. It's not chained at all. And it is free to go unhindered.

Even though Paul was chained as a Roman soldier, the Gospel was not chained. Nothing can stop the spread of the Gospel through the work of the Holy Spirit. And this is perhaps the most comforting thing about this entire book. You know, we don't see Paul complaining about his rented quarters. We don't see Paul complaining about the dastardly slander that came upon him by the Jews.

We don't see him getting out his AK-47 and mowing down the Roman soldiers. Okay? He is under the mighty hand of God and he accepts God's providences quite well and he sees them for what they are, the purpose of God for his life. That God is at work in all situations, at all times, and that God's people should not wait for their next wonderful accommodation before they start using their accommodations for the glory of the gospel. Okay.

I would like to leave you with four applications here, perhaps. The first is this. Be as bold as Paul in preaching the gospel, regardless of the location. Regardless of the location. We don't have enough time in this life to wait for the perfect location to turn our accommodations into a launching pad for the gospel.

It starts right now, today, wherever we are. Number two, Paul preaches the gospel regardless of the results. He invites all that some may believe. God will open blind eyes. God is able to soften a stony heart.

And yes, He is able to do it. You know, there actually might even be some right here in this room who have stony hearts. There might even be some little children here who know their hearts are hard toward Jesus Christ. And with the Apostle Paul, I would just persuade you to turn to Jesus, to cast your cares upon Him, to seek His forgiveness. You know you're a sinner.

Or maybe there's even an adult here now who has not actually believed in the gospel and turned away from their idols. We never know whose heart might turn, And so we should cast a wide net as wide as the Jews, as wide as the Gentiles out into the great ocean of this world. That's how big our net should be. And then follow Paul's pattern of content, the kingdom of God and the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the content of the heart, that's the content of the home.

That's the content of the evangelistic lunch. That's the content of our communication with the world to take the whole counsel of God and speak to it. But first we would have to know the whole counsel of God. And of course that's why God has given churches to deliver the whole counsel of God and to urge one another on to love and good deeds and to acquire wisdom from Holy Scripture. But to follow Paul's pattern of the content means that we are constantly working to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That is our message. That we would be found faithful to be witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the uttermost parts of the earth. And I pray that God would have used this study to help us to function according to the patterns of the early church, to see the beautiful examples that we find here in so many of the personalities that we've met. There is so much to learn from so many people. We'll deal with that next week in some detail.

We'll walk through the entire testimony of the book of Acts and we will meet the people that we already met and we'll review the things that we've already heard that God would perhaps you know drive them deeply within our hearts and that we would be affected that there would be application that we would fulfill the patterns that we would just be hearers of the word but we'd be doers of the Word as well. And that we would take as many with us as who would be appointed by God to come. Would you pray with me? Lord, these wonderful words of life that you've given to us, we know are for our healing, for our edification, And they are for the millions who do not know you, that salvation has not been experienced. We pray that you would set us to it in a mighty way in this world until you take us out of it, whether we're in rented or owned or no quarters at all, but that you would come and fill all these dwelling places with your glory as you did with the Apostle Paul.

In Jesus' name, Amen.