Morning, everybody. If you'd
like to turn to your text, it's Acts chapter 28. Acts chapter
28. We're going to take our text
this morning from verse 23, but I want to give you the back story
of what's going on here. Hopefully it'll give us a better
understanding of the text. In Acts 28 here, this is the
last chapter of the Book of Acts. What we're going to pick up is
the Apostle Paul, and he's in a Roman prison. He's a Roman
prisoner, rather. You remember the story. It was
all the way back in Acts 24. He was falsely accused by the
Jews, and he was brought before the lower Roman authorities,
Festus and Agrippa. And they would have let him go,
it sounded like, but then Paul appealed to be judged by Caesar,
and he was a Roman citizen, so that was his right. So they said,
yeah, okay, we'll do it. So they put him on a ship, and
he takes this tumultuous journey. Remember, we looked at Acts 27
last time I was here. And he gets shipwrecked, and
the Lord brings him through all these trials and tribulations, and
all these different things happen, but he's finally arrived. He's
finally here in Rome, and he's a prisoner. But it doesn't appear
that he's being treated Like every other prisoner, he's getting
some preferential treatment. Now look in verse 16 here, we'll
look at it. And when we came to Rome, the
centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard,
but Paul was suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that
kept him. So this is by the Lord's grace,
the Lord's mercy, but Paul is not thrust into general population
with the rest of the prisoners. He's allowed to dwell alone by
himself. Look over in verse 30, we get
some more information about this. It says, and Paul dwelt two whole
years, and listen to this, in his own hired house. and received
all that came in unto him. And so Paul had a house, and
apparently he was being supported by the other brethren from the
other churches, but they were letting him actually be on house
arrest. That's what we would call it nowadays. So he couldn't
go out, but people could come to him, and he would preach the
gospel to these people. And he did this for two solid years. I guess
he was waiting in line to be judged by Caesar, and it was
gonna take a while. Caesar's a very busy man, so for two years
he would live in this house, and he was a prisoner in his
own home, but these people would come and he would preach to them.
And as soon as he gets here, when he gets to Rome, just three
days afterwards, he sends word to the Jewish leaders of the
area. And he says, I want to meet with
you all. I want you to come see me. And these men, as I understand it,
would have been Pharisees. They didn't know Christ. Paul
would have described them as having a zeal for God, but not
according to knowledge. They didn't know Christ, but
they agreed. They agreed to come meet with Paul. But the reason
they do it is interesting. Look at verse 22 here. This is them corresponding back
with Paul. It says, but we desire to hear
of thee what thou thinkest. For as concerning this sect,
we know that everywhere it is spoken against. And they knew
Paul. They knew who Paul was. They're
saying, Paul, we know you. And we know what you preach. They
knew that Paul preached that Jesus of Nazareth, whom they
had killed, Paul preached that he was God. that Paul preached
was he was Messiah, he was God's son. Paul preached that the only
way a man will be saved is if