In the sermon titled 'The Prophet with a Clear Conscience,' Peter Allison discusses the Apostle Paul's trial before the Sanhedrin as recorded in Acts 22-23. Paul, held captive by Roman authorities, is brought before the Jewish council to address accusations against him. He asserts his innocence by declaring he has lived with a clear conscience before God. The sermon explores the concept of conscience, noting its prophetic, judicial, and executive functions, and emphasizes the importance of having a conscience aligned with Scripture. Paul's confrontation with the high priest Ananias, who orders him struck, is examined in light of Paul's prophetic role and his adherence to God's law rather than human authority. The sermon also draws parallels between Paul's boldness and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, suggesting that believers can rely on the Spirit to provide words and courage during times of persecution. Ultimately, the message underscores the necessity of separating from corrupt authority and maintaining a conscience informed by God's word.

Our scripture reading is Acts chapter 22, the last verse. Begin at verse 30 to pick up there. Paul is in Roman captivity. He's been taken as a prisoner by the Roman cohort there in Jerusalem. And beginning at verse 30, to Jerusalem.

Beginning at verse 30. The next day, because he wanted to know for certain why he was accused by the Jews, he released him from his bonds and commanded the chief priests and all their counsel to appear, and brought Paul down and set him before them. Then Paul, looking earnestly at the counsel, said, Man and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God this day. And the high priest Ananias commanded those who stood by him to strike him on the mouth. And then Paul said to him, God will strike you, you whitewashed wall.

For you sit to judge me according to the law, and do you command me to be struck contrary to the law?' And those who stood by said, Do you revile God's high priest?' Then Paul said, I did not know, brethren, that he was the high priest, for it is written, You shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people. But when Paul perceived that one part were Sadducees and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee concerning the hope and the resurrection of the dead. I am being judged. And when he had said this, a dissension arose between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. For Sadducees say, there is no resurrection and no angel or spirit, but Pharisees confess both.

Then there arose a loud outcry, and the scribes of the Pharisees' party arose and protested, saying, We find no evil in this man. But if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him, let us not fight against God. Now when there arose a great dissension, the commander, fearing Paul, lest Paul might be pulled to pieces by them, commanded the soldiers to go down and take him by force from among them and bring him into the barracks. May His precepts bring understanding that we hate every false way. Father in Heaven, You have given us the Scriptures for our learning.

Enable us not to hear them, to understand them, to learn from them, to lay them up in our heart that we might not sin against you, and to live by every word that proceeds from your mouth. Sanctify my sinful lips this morning and preserve them from error that they may proclaim Your Gospel through Jesus Christ. Amen. Well, this section continues. The investigation of that Roman Kiliarch into the circumstances that were behind the disturbance of the peace.

That disturbance of the peace that erupted when Paul was in the temple in the course of following the rite of purification that was prescribed in the law in Numbers 19. Now the Kiliarch has already made, in chapter 22, two or three unsuccessful attempts to learn the facts. He tried first questioning the crowd that initially had started the riot, and tried to kill Paul. And that went nowhere. The people in the crowd couldn't agree on even the basic facts about who Paul was or what even he had done that they were so upset about.

After he allowed Paul to address that crowd, that only led to another outburst from the Jews. They were tearing their clothes off and throwing dust in the air. Then he tried to torture Paul with the scourging to get the truth out of him. But that was rapidly abandoned when it turned out that Paul was a Roman citizen. And you remember the Lux Portia provided for a right of appeal before any corporal punishment or capital punishment could be administered to a citizen.

And the third Lux Portia provided severe penalties up to capital punishment for any magistrate who violated those rights. Typically they would receive whatever punishment they had meted out. So we now come to this passage. The Schilarch is still intent on learning what is going on here. He's still trying to investigate like a good civil magistrate.

He commands the Sanhedrin, which is the highest Jewish court, to convene. And he brought Paul to them so they could, in essence, try him. He had, I think, concluded that the law that Paul had allegedly broke was one that pertained to the Jewish laws and customs. And he figured a Jewish court would be the best place to discover what crime Paul has committed. But we'll find out, of course, as we read, that even this attempt was to fail, leaving him as much in the dark as before.

But at least he's trying to investigate, which is much more than the Jews had done. And although he made some incorrect assumptions about Paul, he's at least to be commended for trying to investigate. Even his attempt at scourging was allowed under Roman law, not just, but it was allowed under Roman law for non-citizens and so he's following the law and When the facts are made known to him Which is more than we can say about the Jews. I think it's worth noting that here's a pagan, a Roman pagan who probably bribed somebody to get a citizenship, who was doing a better job of bringing justice than the Jews were doing, particularly the Pharisees, who prided themselves on their righteous adherence to the law and boasted about it to everyone who would listen. Even to the point of making long prayers, Jesus said, on the street corners, extolling their righteousness.

He's doing a better job. Now this message is titled The Prophet with a Good Conscience in part because commentators are all over the map about Paul's actions on this visit to Jerusalem after his third missionary journey. Some think that Paul stumbled grievously when he accepted or agreed to go along with the plan of the session in the Jerusalem church and pay the expenses of these men and purify himself along with them. Others are less critical, but many find fault with Paul's exchange with the Sanhedrin here in Acts 23. Some excuse it, they acknowledge it was inappropriate in some ways, but will excuse it.

Others are less excusing of this exchange. But I don't find this to be the case. And our focus this morning centers on Paul's three opening statements in his hearing before the Sanhedrin that are recorded in these first five verses. I believe they are the words of a faithful prophet confronting the leaders of an apostate church that lead up to his proclamation in the next section of the foundational tenet of the Gospel that he had dedicated his life to proclaiming. The hope and resurrection of the dead.

If that isn't true, then our faith is in vain. And that's where Paul's headed. But his first statement here in verse 1, his first statement, or this trial, begins with Paul looking earnestly at the council as he begins to speak. Paul looked earnestly at the council. Now the lexicon defines this word earnestly, it defines the Greek word as to look intently at, to stare at something or someone.

So gaze at, look earnestly at, to look intently at, to stare at something or someone. Staring at someone can mean a lot of different things depending on the context, can't it? It can imply a romantic attraction. It can imply honesty or candor. Or simply It can imply confidence.

When you stare, it can be a look of confidence. But it can also communicate a challenge. It can signal that someone is ready to confront someone or to stand their ground. And that's particularly true in the context of authority. If you stare at the policeman who's trying to talk to you, he's going to take it as a challenge, as a confrontation.

And there are two other places in Acts where Paul looks at someone in the same way, with the same word he's used to describe his gaze. And one of those places is in Cyprus, the island of Cyprus, when Paul is about to confront a sorcerer who is actively trying to turn the person who happened to be a magistrate to whom Paul was witnessing. He was actively trying to turn this magistrate that Paul was witnessing to away from the faith. And Acts 13-9 reads, "...then saw who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him." that same word. It's the exact same everything.

It's what's used here in Acts 23. He looked intently at Him. He's filled with the Holy Spirit. And he says this, "'O full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness will you not cease perverting the straight way of the Lord. And now indeed the hand of the Lord is upon you.

And you shall be blind, not seeing the sun for a time. And immediately a dark mist fell on him, and he went around seeking someone to lead him by the hand." Paul didn't say there, it wasn't an imprecatory prayer, It wasn't I hope. That was a prophetic pronouncement. He was filled with the Holy Spirit and He looked intently at him. And as Paul confronts the Sanhedrin, I think he is staring at them in the exact same righteous anger with which he stared at that sorcerer as he prepared to confront him.

His intense gaze here is the Holy Spirit boldness and confidence. It's the same Holy Spirit that supplied confidence that enabled Stephen to gaze intently into the heavens as he was about to be martyred in Acts 7. This exact same Sanhedrin, maybe some of the same people, was gnashing at Him with their teeth and they were so enraged, Luke records in Acts 7.55, that they were gnashing at Him with their teeth. But He, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven. It's the same language there.

He's full of the Holy Spirit, staring intently into the heavens and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He was filled with the Holy Spirit, and that's what brought on this confidence to stare. And so Paul is also filled with Holy Spirit confidence as he confidently declares to the Sanhedrin, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day." In essence, he is saying to this court that's convened to try him that he has done no wrong. The Sanhedrin believes without any evidence that Paul is guilty. And Paul is declaring, I am innocent.

My conscience is clear. Not only about this matter, but I live every day with a good conscience before call. Paul is plainly telling them that they are in error. That their facts are wrong, their conclusions about Him are wrong, and their charges against Him are false. But when Paul says that he has lived in all good conscience until this day, he is saying far more than that.

He is merely innocent of the baseless charges that they are bringing against him at the moment. Of course, Paul is not saying he's without sin. But what is he saying? What does it mean to have a good conscience? Well, for those that weren't at our last recent or our recent class on conscience in our study of Puritan writings, let me summarize the functions of a conscience and what a good conscience is.

Our conscience has several different functions to it. One of those functions is a prophetic function in that it proclaims the will of God. It proclaims the law to us and urges us to do what is right and not to do what is evil. And this is the work of the law written in our hearts. Our conscience also performs a judicial function.

It passes judgment on the things that we do. And what we do is according to the law, as it's understood by our conscience, the conscience assures us that we are not guilty, declares we're not guilty. And when we do wrong, it finds us guilty and declares to us that we are guilty, condemns us. But our conscience doesn't merely pass judgment and issue a sentence. It also convicts or rewards us.

And that's a kingly or executive function. The duty of kings is to punish those who do well and punish those who do evil and reward or praise those who do well. That's the duty of a king, of a ruler. And so when we act according to the law as understood by our conscience our conscience approves of what we have done and When it approves we have a sense of inner peace and of satisfaction that we have done right That's But when our conscience condemns us for breaking the law, we don't continue merrily on our way. There is a conviction that we have done wrong, bringing a sense of shame, remorse, even distress.

And in that case, our conscience bothers us. We are troubled, sometimes greatly troubled. And this conviction, this sense of conviction, this troubling of our conscience, can be overwhelming. And even unbelievers have a troubled conscience because the work of the law is still written on their hearts. Judas' conscience troubled him after he betrayed Christ.

Matthew 27 says, "...Then Judas, his betrayer, seeing that he had been condemned..." Jesus was condemned. "...and was remorseful, and he brought the money back to the chief priest, and he said, I have sinned by betraying innocent blood." King Herod was troubled by his conscience. When he heard about Jesus' works, he said in Mark, this is John who might beheaded, and he has been raised from the dead. His conscience was bothering him because he had unjustly executed, he'd murdered John the Baptist. And that had happened because John the Baptist had rebuked his adultery for having his brother's wife.

Paul says in Romans 2, 14, that when the Gentiles who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having a law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written on their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them." I think John Bunyan captures this aspect of conscience in his classic allegory, The Holy War, which is about the working out in human history of God's entire plan of salvation. It's a wonderful book. And in the Holy War, the recorder of the town of Mansoul, he's called of course Mr. Recorder, he represented the conscience. But unlike the recorder of our country, of our county here, Montgomery County, who merely keeps official copies of our paperwork, Mr.

Recorder also proclaimed the law to the town of Mansoul. Bunyan writes, as, quote, as for Mr. Recorder, before the town was taken, and that's, in other words, before the fall of Adam and Eve, he was a man well-read in the laws of his king and also a man of courage and faithfulness, to speak the truth at every occasion. And he had a tongue as bravely hung as he had a head filled with judgment. Now this man, Diabolus, could by no means abide, because although He gave His consent to His coming into the town, yet Diabolus could not, by all wild trials and stratagems and devices that he could use, could not make him holy his own.

Diabolus therefore feared the recorder more than any that was left alive in the town of Mansoul, because his words shook the whole town. They were like the rattling thunder. And since the giant could not make him holy his own, that giant being Satan, He did all he could to debauch the old gentleman, Mr. Recorder, and by debauchery to stupefy his mind and more harden his heart in the ways of vanity." That's the conscience. See, before the fall, the conscience proclaims the law without corruption to a will that desires to follow the law.

But after the fall, our conscience is fallen. After the fall, our conscience can be ignorant of the law. And it can fail to urge us to do what is right. It can be silenced, or even seared, so that it not only doesn't urge us to do what is right, but even encourages us to do what is right, but even encourages us to do what is wrong. Isaiah 5.20 says, Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

That's a conscience that has been captured by ungodliness and is reversed and perverse. A conscience, though, can also be misinformed about the law, and this is true even of believers. And they can make us feel guilty for not keeping laws that aren't required, that aren't laws. That is a sense of false guilt. The conscience can falsely accuse.

The Bible calls that a weak conscience. Somebody who is troubled by something that's not actually wrong. But we are to respect that weak conscience. We're never to go contrary to what our conscience tells us, even if our conscience is wrong. And so to have a good conscience means that our conscience doesn't condemn us and that it is judging us according to the truth of Scriptures.

To have a good conscience means that our conscience does not condemn us and that it judges us according to the truth of the Scriptures and not according to errors or bad laws, or laws that aren't laws. So a conscience that fails to condemn us when we sin, either through ignorance or through suppression of the truth, is not a good conscience. It's a bad or malfunctioning conscience. A conscience that needs to be retrained. And so given Paul's past where he murdered Christians, how does Paul say that he has lived a good conscience before God until this day?

Well, he can say that He has a good conscience for two reasons. First is His conscience has been cleansed. Hebrews 9, 14, How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? An evil conscience is cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ when we are saved. Hebrews 10-22, Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of our faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

We can draw near to the throne of grace with a clear conscience because it's been sprinkled, cleansed by the blood of Christ. Or 1 Peter 3.21 that we read this morning. There is an antitype which now saves us. Baptism. And then Peter immediately says, I'm not talking about the water baptism.

He says, I'm talking about the answer of a good conscience toward God through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The answer of a good conscience. See, a believer can have a good conscience. Hebrews 13, 18 says, pray for us for we are confident that we have a good conscience in all things desiring to live honestly. So Paul can have a good conscience because it's been cleansed.

Secondly, he has a good conscience because it's been trained according to the Scriptures to judge rightly, to rightly determine what is right and what is wrong according to the law of God. Hebrews 5, 13, For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses trained to discern both good and evil. That's a conscience that has been trained according to the Word of God, to judge rightly, to judge right and wrong according to the standard of God's law. And so Paul has a good conscience.

Even before his days of salvation, he was thinking that he was serving God in what he was doing. He says he did it in ignorance. So even there he was obeying his conscience. It's just that his conscience was misinformed. It had fallen.

But now Paul has a good conscience. It's been cleansed from dead works and rightly trained in the Word of God. Now the high priest is incensed at Paul's rebuke of their false charges. And like all tyrants whose tyranny is charged, he gets angry and orders Paul to be struck on the mouth. And that's not a slap in the face, but a punch right to his face, right to his mouth, to the organ that spoke those words that so enraged him.

You see, Paul as a prophet has proclaimed the truth. He has proclaimed the Word of God, the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that the blood of Christ cleanses our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. And the Word of God we know is powerful. It's a discerner of the thoughts and intents of our heart. And so just like Zedekiah struck the prophet Micaiah on the cheek because he uttered the Word of God against the wicked King Ahab.

You remember that in 1 Kings 22. And just like Pasher the priest struck the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 20 because he prophesied God's coming judgment on the cities of Judah, just like those tyrants, the high priest Ananias ordered Paul to be struck on the mouth, revealing the corruption in his own heart. The Word of God discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart, and it reveals the heart of a very corrupt and evil man. For the pure in heart, the truth is like a kiss on the lips, according to Proverbs 24. And so Paul responds to this strike on his mouth with his second prophetic pronouncement.

God will strike you, you whitewashed wall, for you sit to judge me according to the law, and do you command me to be struck contrary to the law? Now many commentators fault Paul with this response, claiming that he is responding in unrighteous anger with a less than Christian or less than Godly outburst. Some want us to give him a break and excuse this outburst that he has just been given because he's just been struck on the mouth and that's a shock and it hurts. And you know, we say all kinds of things in our, when we bang our head or smash our fingers. But if we take a second look at this response, I don't think these views hold up under close scrutiny.

Paul did not say, may God strike you, or I hope God strikes you down, or let God strike you down. This is more than even an imprecatory prayer. We can pray imprecatory prayers against God's enemies who attack His people and His church and call for God to break their teeth. And we need to. But Paul, This is not what Paul's doing.

Paul says more here. Paul says God will strike you. And as a prophet of the living God, Paul received visions and revelations from God. He received things and saw things that he could not speak about. And so here's the choice we have with this pronouncement.

If Paul says without revelation from God, without the Holy Spirit, that God will do something, then He is bringing a message that God did not give. And this is a false prophet. Deuteronomy 18-20 says, But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die." Now based on God's words, we can proclaim many things. God's Word says that it is appointed unto men, wants to die, and after this the judgment. On the basis of God's Word then, we can say that God will bring judgment on the wicked.

We can say that fornicators will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. If you are a fornicator, I can tell you this morning, you will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. But apart from direct revelation from God, we can't say of a specific person that God will strike them. How do we know whether or not they will repent? After all, Paul was one of these very people who was murdering Christians, dragging them into prison.

Many priests repented and believed on Jesus Christ. See, this is not a general statement that we can speak from the Word of God. Paul declared, God will strike you. Paul is declaring what God will do to him specifically. And if God didn't send Paul with this prophecy, then Paul is presuming to speak a word in God's name that God did not give him, which God had not commanded him to speak, in which case he's a false prophet who deserves to die.

So it's one or the other. He's either a false prophet who deserves to die or he spoke this pronouncement by the power of the Holy Spirit. It's an utterance given to him by the Spirit. And if it's the Holy Spirit that led him to say this, then there is no sin in Paul's declaration of it. He's simply proclaiming the Word of God.

Just like Micaiah did. He said God will strike the shepherd. And Ahab died in that battle. Jeremiah proclaimed God's pronouncement against Judah, and those prophecies came to true. Jesus, in fact, had already said the same thing of this council, that they were a whitewashed wall.

He said, Matthew 23, 27, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness." Now what's interesting here is that when Paul is unjustly struck, contrary to the law and violation of the law, If the assembly had any righteous men in it, they should have backed Paul and called for a rebuke of the high priest. Instead, just the opposite happened. Some of them rebuked Paul, saying, do you revile God's high priest? And the rest remain silent.

Paul has been punished contrary to the law. It's a violation. It's tyranny. Everyone knew it. But everyone's conscience had been so seared and so hardened against the truth that no one responded.

They're silent. Silent complicity of every member of the Sanhedrin. That's often the biggest problem, is all the masses who are silent. Miklas Neizil, a Jewish doctor who sold his soul to Joseph Mengele to save his skin by performing autopsies on all Mengele's victims. He was brought as a prisoner to Auschwitz.

And through a set of circumstances, Mengele discovered that he was a very skilled doctor at performing autopsies. He wrote a book. He lived. In his book he writes of the Sondra Commandos. These were the people, prisoners themselves, who tricked the Jews into entering, not just Jews but everybody, who tricked them into entering the gas chambers under the guise of getting showers.

All their clothes were removed, and then they were gassed, they were pushed into the chambers by these people, they were gassed, And then these people had the job of pulling all their dead bodies out of the chamber. And it was a horrific, horrific job. It destroyed everybody that did it. In fact, it was so destructive to the human soul, that these people could only do this for a few months. And then they themselves were gassed and put to death.

And you would think that somebody would speak up, But they don't. Out of all of these groups of these Sonder Commandos, there was only one group that ever made any attempt to break free. There were over two tons of gold that were extracted from the teeth of the people in the gas chambers, given to the Bank of International Subtlements in Basel. That's like the judicial tyranny we're seeing today. All the abuse of the January 6th patriots, abuse of pro-life protesters, and anybody who crosses those in power.

Take the case of Todd and Julie Chrisley who were recently pardoned. Senator Warren treated this pardon as a get out of jail free card for the rich and famous who cozy up to Trump. Of course she doesn't mention the 8, 604 pardons issued by an auto pen. But here's the facts. These people were never convicted of tax evasion.

The IRS admitted under oath that they owed nothing. Federal agent lied on the stand and admitted it in the audio. The prosecutors called those people the Trumps of the South, and they put this guy's face on a dartboard. Ex parte emails. Those are illegal, unjust.

Between the judge and the prosecutors, prove illegal collusion. So we have this kind of judicial tyranny today. In fact, there was a book written ten years ago based on the Enron trial experience of one lawyer called License to Lie. And it was a detailed expose of all the lying that goes on in the Department of Justice in unrighteously convicting people. Well, that's what's going on here at this trial.

A wicked court. Now Paul's response then to the question of whether he reviled the high priest, His third response this morning, it's been interpreted by some as an admission of guilt, but again, I don't think on close examination that holds up. What Paul is saying in essence is, I don't recognize him as High Priest when I made my statement, and I still don't recognize him as High Priest. He is an imposter. He is a usurper to the title.

It's hard to convey, to translate the Greek grammar of this word here when Paul says, I did not know brethren that he was the high priest. It's both the past and the present. I did not know then and I don't recognize now that he's the high priest. Matthew Henry says this in his commentary about this verse. He says, quoting somebody else, Dr.

Whitby puts this sense upon it, that the prophetic impulse that was upon him and inwardly moved him to say what he did, did not permit him to notice that it was the high priest, lest this law might have restrained him from complying with that impulse. But the Jews acknowledged that prophets might use a liberty in speaking of rulers which others might not, as in Isaiah and other prophets. Paul does not go about to excuse what he had said in the least, but rather to justify it. Quote, I own that God's high priest is not to be reviled, but I do not own this Ananias to be high priest. He is a usurper.

He has come to the office by bribery and corruption, and the Jewish rabbis say that he who does so is neither a judge nor to be honored as such. Yet secondly, Paul does take care that what he has said should not be drawn into a precedent to the weakening of the obligation of the law in the least. For it is written, and it remains a law enforced, thou shalt not speak evil of a ruler of thy people." So Calvin has a very similar view on Paul's response. He's saying, I don't acknowledge him to be the high priest. I didn't and I don't now.

Ananias was a very corrupt and wicked man. And he was far from being biblically qualified to be a high priest. He was appointed by the Romans, but hated by all the Jews. Josephus tells us that Quadratus, the governor of Syria, sent this Ananias, a prisoner, to Rome because he caused such fights and dissensions among the Jews. But that Ananias got off because of his influence, so his trial in Rome he was found innocent, and he was returned to Jerusalem and resumed his duties as the high priest.

That's how corrupt he was. He robbed priests of their ties and used it for his own purpose. He assassinated his opponents. He was an evil tyrant, not unlike the tyrants that we see around our nation today. And he was later struck by God just as Paul prophesied.

He was assassinated by the Jews because they hated him so. He was found in a sewer where he was trying to hide and killed a few years later. So Paul was not a false prophet. God did strike him. So what do we learn from this passage in addition to what we've talked about?

Well, first, there is a time when we need to separate from apostate churches, and sometimes even tyrannical governments. There is a time that we must refuse to recognize the legitimacy of certain imposters. Romans 13 says that we are to be subject to every ordinance of God, to every authority. For the authorities that exist are ordained by God. But you see, that includes the king as well.

He's subject to the authority of God as well. And when he exercises an authority that is not an authority that God has given them, then He is the one who is resisting the authority. Because He is not the authority. The ruler is simply one who has been given an authority. But He's not the authority Himself.

The law, God's law, is the authority. God is the ruler. So there does come a time when it is necessary for us to refuse to recognize the legitimacy of certain offices or certain actions. But lastly, I think this is a wonderful example of what Jesus said in Luke 12. That the Holy Spirit would give us words to speak when we are called before rulers to give an account.

And that we don't need to be anxious about what we will say. Jesus said, now when they bring you to the synagogues and the magistrates and authorities, That's exactly what's happened to Paul here. And that could happen to us too. Jesus says, do not worry about how or what you should answer or what you should say. For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say." That's what he did with Paul.

Now that doesn't mean we ignore things. We certainly need to be those who study the Word of God. What Jesus is saying is that we don't necessarily have to study that and be afraid of that, of being called before judges, because the Lord will give us words to say. He will teach us. And we can put that fear aside and trust in the Lord to give us the right words to say when that time comes.

We don't need to fear persecution. We don't need to be thinking about it and wondering how we'll handle it or how it would be so horrible. God will give us the grace. If He calls us to that, He will give us the grace to bear it in that hour. And for this, we can thank the Lord and Praise Him.

Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Holy Spirit that You have given to us to be a comfort to us, to be a guide to us, to instruct our conscience that it might be held captive to Your Word, to Your commandments. Well, Father, may You give us diligence in the studying of your word, diligence to train our conscience that it may be instructed out of your word, and that our senses might be trained from the exercise to discern good and evil. We ask that You give us a boldness too. That we may not fear man.

That we may not fear what they might do to us. That we might not fear the loss of our earthly possessions. But that we may fear You. The One who has power over the body and the soul. We ask the Lord for that holy boldness that you give to your people so that we can be as bold as a lion.

We ask that you would give us words to speak as we need them. In Jesus name, Amen.