In Numbers chapter six, verse
13, let me read this to you. This is the law of the Nazarite.
This is the vow that Paul had taken. This is the law of the
Nazarite. When the days of his separation
are fulfilled, he shall be brought under the door of the tabernacle
of the congregation. And he shall offer his offering
under the Lord. One he lamb of the first year. without blemish for a burnt offering,
and one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish for a sin
offering, and rum, one ram without blemish for peace offerings. Now, when a man took the vow
of a Nazirite, there was three sacrifices that took place. blood sacrifices. Now you will remember if you
were here last week, we'll go over that a little bit, but let
me read in verse 26. Then Paul took the men and the next day purified himself
within entered into the temple to signify the accomplishment
of the days of purification until that an offering should be offered
for every one of them." Now the offering of the Lord Jesus Christ
had already taken place. one offering that did away with
all other offerings. I've entitled this message, what
was Paul doing in the temple? Well, we read, he was there waiting
for an offering to be made and in doing that, he was denying
everything he had stood for. Look in verse 20. And when they heard it, the church
of Jerusalem of which James was the pastor, they glorified the
Lord and said unto him, thou seest brother, how many thousands
of Jews there are, which believe and. Now do you remember that
passage of scripture Rick just read? This is the work of him that
sent me. that you believe on him, whom he had sent. Period. That's so very important. Period. But these fellows said, thou
seest brothers, how many thousands of Jews there are, which believe
and they are zealous of the law. and they are informed of thee.
Somebody's let them know about you, that thou teachest all the
Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, saying that
they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk
after the customs. What is it therefore? The multitude
must needs come together, for they will hear thou art come.
Do thou therefore this that we say to thee, we have four men
which have a vow on them. That's the vow of the Nazarite. Them take, And purify thyself
with them and be at charges with them. Show how much you mean
by this, by paying for everything, pay for all the sacrifices, pay
for what needs to be done. That they may shave their heads
and all may know that those things, wherever they're informed concerning
thee are nothing, but that thou thyself also walkest orderly
and keepest the law. That's what I want them to see
in you, and you need to demonstrate this, that you walk orderly and
keep the law. Verse 26, he said in verse 25
that the Gentiles don't need to do this, but Jewish believers
do. And then in verse 26, then Paul took the men, and the next
day, purifying himself with them, entered into the temple to signify
the accomplishment of the days of purification until that an
offering, a blood sacrifice would be offered for every one of them. Now, as we considered last week,
James was wrong. in asking him to do this. James
was an inspired New Testament writer. His writings are inspired
without error. Paul was an inspired New Testament
writer. His writings were inspired and
without error. But these two men were not without
error. They were sinful men, just like
you and I are. And when they did this, both
of them were in the wrong. They were in the temple for no
good purpose. It was a bad thing. It was a
denial of the completed work of Christ. You see, when Christ
said it is finished, and that veil in the temple was rent in
twain from the top to the bottom, God doing this, he lets us know
the entire Levitical Old Testament system has been abolished. It
is no more. And now Paul comes along. I'm sure he was tired of the
conflict. And I understand that. Don't
you get tired of conflict? It's just, I'm sure he was tired
of it. And he, I don't think he thought
it out. He said, well, maybe I ought
to do it. I'll go ahead and submit to this. Now, I think this is
interesting. I need to bring this out. Sometime
before, As far as a chronological sequence of events sometime before
Paul rebuked Peter publicly when Peter got up from one table and
went to another. Paul rebuked him publicly in
front of everybody and said the truth of the gospel was at stake.
And that move Peter made simply by going from one table to another. And in doing that, he was saying
that you're better off as a Jewish believer than you are as a Gentile
believer. He made a distinction. He made
a difference. And Paul said, you're denying
the truth of the gospel and doing that. And Paul should have said
that. And when he reveals to us what
took place, it took place in scripture. He was inspired in
giving us that event. And yet after that, Paul does
something worse than Peter does. I mean, what he's doing is actually
worse than what Peter does. Now, this is a reminder to me,
and remember this, we hear of great men of God. There's no
such thing. There are weak, sinful men that
God greatly uses for his own glory. And you see that in this
example where Paul caved in to this pressure in the temple. Now, while he was getting ready
to do this, verse 27, when the seven days were almost ended. You see, the Lord didn't allow
him to do this. When the seven days were almost
ended. I wonder if we have any idea
of what sin we would commit if the Lord didn't prevent it. Anything we don't do is because
the Lord prevents it from happening. Don't you know that so? Don't
you know that so with regard to you? Anything we don't do. The Lord mercifully prevents
it from happening. And that's why we're taught to
pray, Lord, lead us not into temptation. I don't want to be
tempted. I don't want to be brought into that position. Just put
a hedge about me and keep me from being exposed to that which
if I am exposed to it, I'll fall. You ought to know yourself enough
to know that. And the Lord teaches us to pray,
lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. But
in verse 27, and when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews,
which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, now he
was in the temple in order to avoid conflict. That's why he
was there. He was tired of it. He was there
in the temple to avoid conflict. Guess what happened? It came
anyway. It came anyway. All he did to
try to prevent it, it came anyway. When they saw him in the temple,
they stirred up all the people and laid hands on him. He was arrested. Now, God's mercy and God's grace
prevented this from happening. Paul intended to do it. That
was his intention. But God's mercy and God's free
grace prevented this from taking place. Aren't you thankful for
the provenient restraining grace of God? And here again, we see
what only God can do. He always brings good out of
evil. Now, let me repeat that. With
regard to the believer, he always, no exceptions, he always brings
good out of evil. Now my sin, I can't look at my
sin and say, well, God ordained that, he purposed it. I wouldn't
have committed it or I wouldn't have done this thing or I wouldn't
have gone this direction had he not caused it, therefore I'm
not responsible. No, I'm responsible for my sin.
You're responsible for your sin. You can't blame God. You can't
say, well, God caused that. What you did, what I did, we
did because we wanted to. We did with an evil motive. We
did with a wicked motive. Anything, any sin, it's all our
fault. But here's the glory of God.
He brings good out of our sin. Somebody squints at that. Well,
what about the cross? the greatest wickedness to ever
take place, the murder of the son of God. What good God brought
out of that. Glory to himself and the complete
salvation of his people. I could go on and on about that
all night, but here Paul goes into the temple with no good
intention. And what happened? He got arrested.
He got arrested. Uh, we really learn a lot about
gospel preaching by the accusations they made against him. We're
going to get to that in a minute. Uh, not only do we learn a lot
about what gospel preaching is supposed to be from these accusations
made against him. You know, he went to Rome and
was thrown into a prison because of this, because of this event. And you all happened while he
was in Rome in that prison cell. He wrote the book of Ephesians.
He wrote the book of Philippians. He wrote the book of Colossians. He wrote the book of Philemon. And this event is used for Paul
to give us this great defense. in Acts chapter 22, that would
have never happened. We would have never had Paul's
account of the road to Damascus had this not taken place. And
I can't wait to get into that in Acts chapter 22. Now look
at this accusation against Paul. When the seven days were almost
ended, verse 27, the Jews, which were of Asia, when they saw him
in the temple, stirred up all the people and laid hands on
him, crying out, men of Israel, help. This is the man. Now, before I go on reading,
why didn't they accuse James of that? James wasn't in trouble
with these people the way Paul was. And you see that by what
James was insisting on. But this is what they said with
regard to Paul. They didn't know why he was in
the temple, but here's what they had to say. This is the man that
teacheth all men everywhere against the people, against the law. against this place. And further,
he had brought Greeks also into the temple of polluted this holy
place, but they'd seen before with him in the city of Trophimus
and Ephesians, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the
temple and all the city was moved and the people ran together and
they took Paul and drew him out of the temple and forth with
the doors were shut. And as they went about to kill. Now these people were mad. They
weren't agreeing to disagree on anything. They were going
to pull Paul to pieces and to kill him. Now, when I look at
this accusation they made against Paul, we find out something about
what men should hear when they hear the gospel preached. What
did they hear? After hearing Paul preach, well
he's preaching against the law. He's preaching against the people.
And by that he's talking about the Jews. And he's preaching
against this holy place. Now when he preached against
the people as they heard it, what they meant was the Jews,
and here's the fact of the matter, the Jews believed that they had
something. that entitled them to life because
they were Jews. They thought they had something
in them that entitled them to salvation that the Gentiles didn't
have. And they said, Paul is taking
that all away. That's what we're hoping in.
We have Abraham for our father. That's what they were hoping
in, their Jewish heritage. They thought they had some kind
of connection, some kind of entitlement with God because of that. And as they heard Paul preach,
he was taking all of that away. Well, Paul did preach, we before
proved, both Jews and Gentiles, that they're all under sin. John
the Baptist did say, say ye not in your heart we're children
of Abraham. God is able of these stones to
raise up children of Abraham. Paul did say with regard to Jew
and Gentile, there's no difference. For all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. He did say he's not a Jew, which
is one outwardly. Neither is that circumcision,
that which is outward in the flesh, but he's a Jew, which
is one inwardly, whose circumcision is of the heart and the spirit,
not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God. Yes, he did preach that. Now, he wasn't preaching anything
new when he said that. Turn to John chapter eight for
just a moment. John chapter eight. Verse 31, then said Jesus to
those Jews which believed on him, if you continue in my word,
then are you my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, we be
Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man. And I dare say some of the people
they were in bondage to were present at that time. They were
under the thumb of the Roman government. They were in bondage
totally to the Roman government. But they were saying, we've never
been in bondage to any man. How sayest thou you shall be
made free? Jesus answered them, verily,
verily, I say unto you, whosoever committeth sin is the servant,
the slave of sin. And the servant, the slave, abideth
not in the house forever, but the son abideth forever, If the
Son therefore shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. I know that you're Abraham's
seed, but you seek to kill me because my word hath no place
in you. I speak that which I've seen with my father, and you
do that which you've heard with your father. They answered and
said unto him, Abraham's our father. Jesus saith unto them,
these physical descendants of Abraham, if you were Abraham's
children, You do the works of Abraham, but now you seek to
kill me, a man that has told you the truth, which I have heard
of God. This did not Abraham. You do
the deeds of your father. They said unto him, we be not
born of fornication. We have one father, even God.
Jesus said unto them, if God were your father, you'd love
me. All of God's people have that
in common. All children of God, for I proceeded
forth and came from God. Neither came I of myself, but
he sent me. Why do you not understand my speech? Even because you cannot
hear my word. You're of your father, the devil,
and the lusts of your father you'll do. He was a murderer
from the beginning and abode not in the truth, because there's
no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh
of his own, for he's a liar and the father of it. And because
I tell you the truth, you believe me not, which of you convinces
me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do
you not believe me? He that's of God hears God's words. You
therefore hear them not because you're not of God. Now, is Paul
saying anything different than what the Lord said at that time
with regard to who the true children of Abraham are? Now, when Paul
rebuked Peter, I've already referred to it. He was inspired by God
the Spirit to do it. It's recorded in scripture. And
all Peter did, now you think about this, all Peter did, he
was sitting there eating with the Gentiles and all of a sudden
these Jewish believers come who thought you ought to be under
the law. What did Peter do? He gets up, doesn't say anything,
and he moves tables and sits down with the Jews. That's all he did. But by that
action, he was denying that Jesus Christ is all in salvation. That's what was going on. And
my dear friend, here's the only hope that me and you have, and
any other sinner has, is that Christ is all in my salvation,
that all that God requires of me, he looks to his son for.
And I look to his son for all that God requires of me. And
Peter, just by that action, was denying that. And what they heard
when they heard these Jewish believers, when they heard Paul
preach before, he's preaching against the people. He's saying
it doesn't count anything that we were born Jews. He says it
counts for nothing. Anytime you or I preach a message
in such a way as people will see that what they're hoping
in doesn't count, that's when they're going to get upset. That's
when there will be Persecution and they wanted to kill Paul
out of this but their first accusation he preaches against the people
and Then it says next he was accused of preaching against
the law Look in verse 28 men of Israel help this is the man
that teaches all men everywhere against the people and the law You know even These men from
the church of Jerusalem were making the same accusation against
him. You need to show everybody that you're orderly and that
you keep the law. This stuff of you saying that
circumcision is unimportant and so on, that's not right. You show everybody that you're
walking orderly and keeping the law. And somebody says, well,
how could a believer say something that contradictory? You know,
really, when we ask a question like that, we display a lot of
ignorance about ourself, because you and I could easily do it
apart from the grace of God. And we'd be in the same place
as Peter, we'd be in the same place as Paul. We pray for grace
for that not to take place, but when you say, how can a believer
do that? Well, how can you do the things you do? How can I
do the things that I do? Have you ever thought that? How
can I be a believer and do these things? How can I be a believer
and think these things? How can I? Well, whenever you're
looking that way, what you're doing is you're looking to yourself.
And you will ask, how can I be a believer? But I'm not a believer
because of what I do. I'm a believer because of what
he did. I'm not a believer because of who I am. I'm a believer because
of who he is. That is the hope of the gospel. Now, he taught against the law. Now, the law, think of this scripture,
I'd love to be able to preach on this verse of scripture as
it ought to be preached on, but we read in John 118, these are
the words of John the Baptist. He says, the law was given by
Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. Now, is anybody
going to say the law is not true? I'm not going to say that, but
it's not the truth. It's not the truth. Truth and
grace come by Jesus Christ. Now, we love God's law. Don't
you delight in the law of God after the inward ban? I love
the Ten Commandments. They're beautiful. I love God's
law. His law is holy and just and
good. And understand this, if you're
saved, you're saved by that law being honored. You're saved by
that law being kept perfectly by the Lord Jesus Christ. That's
the righteousness that every believer possesses, the perfect
law keeping of the Lord Jesus Christ. But what Paul was saying
was, is you can't be saved by your works of obedience. Anything
that you need to do, before he can do anything for you is law. Now do you hear that? Anything
that you must do before he can do something for you is law. Fill in the blank, I don't care
what it is. If it's something you gotta do before he can do
anything for you and respond to you, all that is is salvation
by law. So if they meant that no man
could be saved by their own law keeping, that would be true.
I think of that scripture in Romans chapter eight, what the
law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh. Now,
that's talking about us. That's the problem. Problems
aren't with the law. Problems with us. What the law
could not do and that it was weak through the flesh, God sending
his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned
sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. Now
what does it mean to walk not after the flesh but after the
spirit? It means to look to Christ only. Don't take it any further
than that. It means to look to Christ only.
That's the spirit-filled life. To look to Christ only. You look
to your flesh, that's not looking to Christ. You look to Christ
as the fulfillment of the law. You see, Christ kept the law,
fulfilled it, and so did everyone he represented. I love that scripture
when he said to John the Baptist, when John said, I need to be
baptized of you. He said, thus it becometh us,
us. He was talking about me. Yeah,
he was talking about John the Baptist, but he was talking about
every one of God's elect. Every single one of them he did
as an us. If God be for us, who can be
against us? Thus it becometh us to fulfill
all righteousness. He was made sin, condemned sin
on account of sin, and every believer stands before the law
of God justified. Now, what they were accusing
him of against the law was half true. He was saying, you can't
be saved by your law keeping. You can't be saved by something
you do. but it was only half the truth because he was the
only one, and the believer's the only one who honors the law
and glorifies the law. I honor the law when I look to
Christ only as my representative, as my obedience before that law.
You know what I do? I honor the law. You know what
I, when I dishonor the law? when I look to my own acts of
obedience. All I prove by that is my utter
ignorance of God's holy law and my utter ignorance of the sinfulness
of my own actions. Now, they were half true. Yes,
he preached against salvation by law, but he didn't preach
against the law. Do we make void the law through
faith? God forbid. Yea, we establish
the law. That person who looks to Christ
only honors God's holy law. And then they said he teaches
against this place, this temple. Well, he did say he dwells not
in temples made with hands, nor is he worshiped with men's hands,
as though he needed anything. God is spirit and they that worship
him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Now he's teaching
the same thing the Lord taught. You remember in John chapter
four, where that woman at the well, He said to her, go call your
husband. I love that. Go call your husband. And she said, I don't have a
husband. And he said, in this I said truly,
thou hast had five husbands. And he to whom you're married,
or to him you live with, he's not your husband. In this said
thou truly." And she didn't quite know how to answer, so she went
to religion. Well, our fathers say, in this
mountain is the place to worship. And you say, in Jerusalem, at
the temple, is the place to worship. He said, woman, believe me, the
hour cometh and now is when the true worshipers will worship
God in spirit and in truth. For the Father seeketh such to
worship him. God is spirit. I love any God is that's scriptural. God is spirit, God is holy. God
changes not. God is just. Go on. Every God
is spirit, and they that worship him must. This is absolutely
necessary. They must worship him in spirit,
by the Holy Spirit of God, according to the truth of the gospel. So when Paul was preaching against
the temple, temple worship is over. The body of Christ, the
church is the habitation of God. The church is the temple of God. Isn't that amazing? Temple of
God's right here. It's wherever God's people meet
together. That is the temple of God. You
know, you've gone into edifices and seen the columns and maybe
this music and it just, I remember one time I was in one place and
I remember hearing somebody say, isn't this a holy place? And
I didn't say anything. Maybe I should have said, no,
it's not. It's an evil place to try to put God in a temple. We got him here where we can
find him. He's here in this building. If we want to find God, all we
got to do is go there and there he is. No, he dwells not in temples
made with hands. And this is what the people heard
when they heard Paul preach. And, um, further, he brought
Greeks also into this temple and polluted this holy place.
He thought he was bringing somebody that didn't have the right to
be in the temple. And they didn't understand if you have a right
to be in the temple, you don't even know what the temple is.
If you think you have a right. For they had seen before with him
in the city of Trophimus and Ephesians, whom they supposed
that Paul had brought into the temple, and all the city was
moved. And the people ran together, and they took Paul and drew him
out of the temple, and forthwith the doors were shut, and they
went about to kill him." Now, don't miss this. If you preach
the gospel in such a way, as someone will say, That means
I don't have any hope in what I'm hoping in. That means what
I'm hoping in isn't any good. That's when people will go back
to kill you, too, just like they did Paul. Now, I know people
can't kill people the way they could back then as easily. We have laws. I'm thankful for
that. But they would if they could. That's the point. They
would if they could. And they went about to kill Paul
over this. While Paul's taking away our
hope. Our hope is that we're Jews. Our hope is in what we
do. Our hope is in we have this temple.
That's our hope. They were gonna kill Paul. And as they went about to kill
him, tidings came into the chief captain of the band that all
Jerusalem was in an uproar. who immediately, this man, took
soldiers and centurions and ran down unto them. And when they
saw the chief captain of the soldiers, they knew trouble might
be up, they left beating of Paul. Then the chief captain came near
and took him and commanded him to be bound with two chains and
demanded who he was and what he'd done. And some cried one
thing, some another among the multitude. And when he couldn't
know the certainty for the two mult, he didn't know what was
going on, he commanded him to be carried into the castle. And
when he came up on the stairs, so it was that he was born of
the soldiers for the violence of the people. They were still
reaching after him, wanting to kill him. For the multitude of
the people followed after him, crying away with him. And as
Paul was led into the castle, he said into the chief captain,
may I speak unto thee? And the captain replied, canst
thou speak Greek? Art not thou that Egyptian, which before these
days made us an uproar and led us out into the wilderness, 4,000
men that were murderers? Paul said, I'm a man which am
a Jew, a Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, a citizen, a Roman citizen who
had certain privileges that nobody else did with regard to courts
and due process and so on. He said, I'm a Roman citizen
of no mean city and I beseech thee suffer me to speak unto
these people. Now these people who hated him, he loved them. Isn't that beautiful? He loved
them. He said, brother, my heart's
desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be
saved. That's what he desired for him. He said in Romans 9,
I could wish that I myself were cursed from Christ for my brethren,
my kinsmen, according to the flesh. He loved these people.
And when he had given him license, Paul stood on the stairs and
beckoned with a hand unto the people, and there was made a
great silence. He spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue, saying,
Men, brethren and fathers, hear ye my defense, which I now make
unto you. Now, this word defense is where
we get the word apologetics from. Remember when he said to the
church at Philippi, I'm set for the defense of the gospel. Now
I want me and you to understand this about defense. This doesn't
mean I'm standing up defending the truth. That's not the main
object of the defense he's speaking of. I'm to preach the truth. You know, getting in arguments
with people, trying to defend it, using logical arguments and
so on, I'm not interested in that. And neither was Paul. When he's talking about the defense,
here you might defense, which I give, he's not talking about
some kind of logical, um, apologetics and theology and so on. Here's
what he means. You remember when Peter said,
always be ready to give an answer to every man that asks you a
reason for the hope that's in you. Always be ready to give
a defense. Always be ready to give an answer. And that's what he does in Acts
chapter 22. Lord Willen will consider this
in the next few weeks. But here my defense. Here my reason. Here's the reason. Here's the reason for the hope
that's in me. Jesus Christ kept the law and
when he did it, I was in him so that I kept it too. Hear my defense. When Jesus Christ
died under the wrath of God, I was in him and I died too. All my sin was put away. Here, my defense, when Jesus
Christ was raised from the dead, I was too. And he was raised
for my justification. And I stand before God. Here's
my defense. Here's why. Here's my hope. Here's
the reason for the hope that's in me. Jesus Christ justified
me. He made it to where I don't have
any guilt, where I don't have any sin, where I stand before
God's holy and glorious law without guilt. That is our reason for
the hope, the hope of being in heaven. It's by what he did. And you know, when we observe
the Lord's table together, which we're gonna do now, We're giving
a reason for the hope that's in us. I wish I could say this the way it ought to be said,
but my hope is seen in what we're doing right now to shed blood,
that Bread and wine representing the broken body and shed blood
of Christ. And that is all my salvation. All of it. All of it. And that is our apology. That is our defense. That is
our reason. Preach way too long tonight.
I don't normally do that. Thanks, Claire. I wish I hope
everybody's thinking that, but you know, I preach too long,
but let's pray together. Lord, we. Thank you for your
gospel. And we ask that we might be indeed
enabled. To eat this bread. And drink this wine in remembrance
of you. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.