Acts chapter 18 and verse 18. And Paul after this tarried there
yet a good while. and then took his leave of the
brethren and sailed thence into Syria, and with him Priscilla
and Aquila, having shorn his head in Cancria, for he had a
vow. Let me just put that in a little
bit of context to you. I should have done before I started
reading. He's coming to the end of It seems to be at least 18
months, perhaps a little bit longer, of a time that he had
spent in Corinth. Cancria is the port of Corinth,
and it's from here that he is sailing with these friends that
he has met and made, Priscilla and Aquila. And we're told that
he's sailing to Syria. The intention is that he gets
back to Israel, back to Jerusalem. But while he's sailing to Syria,
he's sailing in the general direction of Syria. And he does stop off
and we're going to encounter that little stop in the next
verse. So, and he came to Ephesus, which
is in Asia, en route to Syria, and left them, that appears to
be Priscilla and Aquila, there. But he himself entered into the
synagogue and reasoned with the Jews. When they desired him to
tarry longer time with them, he consented not, but bade them
farewell, saying, I must by all means keep this feast that cometh
in Jerusalem. But I will return again unto
you, if God will. And he sailed from Ephesus. And
when he had landed at Caesarea and gone up and saluted the church,
he went down to Antioch. And after he had spent some time
there, he departed and went over all the country of Galatia and
Phrygia in order, strengthening all the disciples. And a certain
Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in
the Scriptures, came to Ephesus. This man was instructed in the
way of the Lord, and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught
diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism
of John. And he began to speak boldly
in the synagogue, whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they
took him unto them and expounded unto him the way of God more
perfectly. And when he was disposed to pass
to Achaia, the brethren wrote, exhorting the disciples to receive
him, who, when he was come, helped them much which had believed
through grace. For he mightily convinced the
Jews, and that publicly, showing by the Scriptures that Jesus
was Christ. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word and just if you still have that little
sheet of paper with the map on it and you want to have a look
at it then you can see There, sort of that far left-hand side
as you're looking at it, where you go down the list, Corinth
is at the bottom of that list under Achaia, and there's Cancria
on the coast. That was where they sailed from.
So that little arrow with the six underneath it is the journey
that he's taking, and then a long sweep of seven back down to Caesarea. From Caesarea, he went to Jerusalem,
and then up to Antioch. And so that's the journey that
is in our mind today. In these few verses, it's quite
a long way to have travelled, but that's the distance and the
direction that the apostle was going in. So here he has come
to an end of his time in Corinth and he plans to go to Jerusalem. It seems that he stopped at Ephesus
on his way there, not intending to stay for very long, but taking
the opportunity of being in Ephesus in order to go to the temple
or the synagogue, I'm sorry, and there to reason and to declare
the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ, as was his want, as was his frequent
desire. And it seems that here he left
his friends Priscilla and Aquila. And it's interesting to see that
these two, who had come from Rome, you'll remember, and had
been there in Corinth when Paul arrived, had obviously built
some affection with Paul. They had entertained him in their
home, and now they leave and continue with him on his journey. And it shows us the usefulness
that the Lord put a number of people to. And here in Ephesus,
Paul reasoned with the Jews again. They asked him to stay longer,
but he said he could not because he wanted to press on in his
journey to Jerusalem. He promised he would return,
and I wonder if you noticed what he said there, if the Lord will. That's a lovely attitude for
us to have. Always to be thinking ahead is
a good thing, but also to be remembering that our days and
our actions and the providences of our life are all in the will
of God. And strange things can happen
in the space of just a moment and sometimes our plans are thwarted
and sometimes our aspirations are dashed. and sometimes the
life that we live just changes all of a sudden. So let us take
that and keep that in mind, that while we make our plans, it is
God who disposes, and it is God who leads us into his plan, and
it is good for us to be humble and ready and prepared to accept
the will of God, even if that might be a disappointment to
us. It's not clear why this feast
was so important to Paul. He definitely wanted to get back
to Jerusalem for a feast, and as we know, as a believer now,
he was not any longer under any obligation to be at the feasts
in Jerusalem, but perhaps he felt it was an opportunity to
preach to a large gathering of people. He knew the power of
the influx of people from all nations and he had a desire to
get back to Jerusalem, perhaps simply that he could be there
to preach the gospel to as many as were gathering. It's not that
he made that journey every year, as was the Jewish custom, because
we know that he had spent the last 18 months in Corinth, so
he hadn't been at Jerusalem the previous year. Then in verse 22, we are told that he goes to Jerusalem. So he had sailed away from Ephesus. Look at verse 22 and verse 23. I just want you to mark this
in your head, if not in your Bible. Because, and when he had
landed at Caesarea, so that was a port, probably not the nearest
port to Jerusalem, but the easiest port to access, which is again
a lovely little incidental fact from scripture, and had gone
up and saluted the church, and that's it. That's it. That's
all we know about this journey here to Jerusalem. So he's telling
us all this time that he's planning to get there, planning to get
there. And then he says that he had gone up and saluted the
church. So he greeted the church there.
And then what did he do? He went down to Antioch. So I
wonder if you can remember where he started the second missionary
journey from. Antioch, he's done it, he's completed
his second missionary journey. That's him, he had been round
all, his first missionary journey had been amazing enough, going
up into Turkey and Asia and all these towns and then back to
Antioch and then he went on another not this time with Barnabas,
but with Silas. And he went on another missionary
journey. And then when he had been planning to come back round
and go back to Antioch, remember what happened? He got called
to go over to Macedonia and he took the gospel into Europe.
And that was where he was at Thessalonica and Berea and down
to Corinth ultimately before sailing back. So now his second
missionary journey is complete. And you know what? he starts
the third one. In the same verse, he begins
the third missionary journey. So this is such an important
little verse, and you would just glide over it if it wasn't pointed
out, perhaps, to you. And after he had spent some time
there in Antioch, verse 23, he departed and went over all the
country of Galatia. So that's him back up into Turkey,
into Asia, into Northern Turkey. and Phrygia in order, strengthening
all the disciples. Okay, quickly into the last section
and then we're done here. And a certain Jew named Apollos,
born at Alexandria. Here we meet Apollos for the
first time. And he has a reputation of being
a very fine preacher and an able Bible scholar. We are told that
he was mighty in the word and what that means is that he was
mighty in the Old Testament scriptures. He had studied the prophecies
of the Old Testament. He knew all about the coming
Messiah. There was an eagerness and an
an excitement in this man's ministry. He anticipated the soon arrival
of the Messiah and he went around declaring to all the Jews, it
seems to have been that he had a preaching burden, much like
Paul had, to go and speak in different places to the Jews
in the synagogues and tell them about the imminent arrival of
the Messiah. but he hadn't realised, he didn't
know that the Messiah had actually come. So here is Apollos telling
people to expect the Messiah, expect the Messiah. And Priscilla
and Aquila heard him preaching in the synagogue. And they said
to him, come aside. It's lovely that they did that.
You know, there's a good lesson there. If ever you've got to
correct the preacher about something, don't do it publicly, please.
call him aside afterwards and maybe just speak to him. It seems
that they did it perhaps even in the privacy of their own home. They showed him hospitality.
That was gracious on their part. You know what was also very gracious?
Maybe more so. Apollos took the wisdom and the
instruction of these two tent makers For all of his eloquence
and his learning, for all of his understanding and his might
in the pulpit, he took the instruction of tent makers. Proud men would
say, you deal with your tents, I'm the preacher here. But they
showed him. just sufficient from being in
the presence of Paul for the time that he was in Corinth,
they had something to say to Apollos which opened up his whole
understanding and showed him that in fact Jesus of Nazareth
was indeed the Messiah that he had been so eagerly anticipating. It seems as if Apollos was just
familiar with the teaching of John the Baptist. He at least
had caught up with the teaching of John the Baptist. Maybe he
was, well, somebody speculated the son of some of the disciples
of John the Baptist, but who knows? He knew of the baptism
of John. He knew of the eager anticipation
of John's ministry. Now we find that this man is
being used by God as a mighty preacher of the Lord Jesus Christ. And verse 27 and verse 28 says
that he became very useful in the churches of the new gospel
church. And verse 28, for he mightily
convinced the Jews and that publicly, showing by the scriptures that
Jesus was Christ. At the end of verse 27, he helped
the churches which had believed through grace. And that just
reminds us that Apollos knew as well that salvation was by
grace and he knew what it was to preach grace and to preach
the Lord Jesus Christ. That's an introduction to Apollos,
an end of the second missionary journey, the beginning of the
third missionary journey, and my, you can hardly keep up with
these men, can you? Amen.