Acts 25:13-Acts 26:32 Paul Preaches to King Agrippa | Amy Anthony

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Amy Anthony

April 15, 2026, Lesson 20

WOW Acts 25:13-26:32

Before Gentiles, Kings, and the Children of Israel

1. RECAP: Chapter 25 opens with Paul in chains in Caesarea  (25:1-12) 
   1. Felix is out, Festus is in. 
   2. The Jews want Paul brought to them 
      1. “It is not likely that the new governor knew anything about the original plot or even suspected that the Jewish leaders were out for blood. Since a Roman court could meet in Jerusalem as well as in Caesarea, transferring Paul would be a normal procedure. Festus would probably not demand a large retinue go with him, so an ambush would be easy. Finally, since it was a matter involving a Jewish prisoner and the Jewish law, the logical place to meet would be Jerusalem.” Warren Wiersbe
   3. Festus says no, you come to me 
   4. Paul appeals to Caesar 
2. The neighbors, King Agrippa II and Bernice, stop by to say “hi” (25:13-27) 
   1. Festus shares his dilemma 
   2. Herod jumps at the chance to hear Paul’s case 
   3. *Side note-”Herod Roundup” 
   4. Festus has no charges against Paul 
3. Paul before he met Jesus (26:1-11) 
   1. Paul shares about his early life as a Pharisee-he’s Jewish to the core, and God’s promises were the source of his hope. 
   2. “This hope was the hope that God would keep the promise which He made to the fathers of the nation long ago; it was this hope which gave life and meaning and purpose to the ordinances of divine worship, faithfully maintained by the twelve tribes of Israel generation after generation, especially to the unceasing services of morning and evening sacrifice and prayer. It was the hope that God would one day come down to deliver His people as He had done when they were slaves in Egypt, that HE would raise up for them “a horn of salvation…in the house of His servant David, as He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from of old.” F.F. Bruce 
   3. “It was because of his Jewish heritage, not in spite of it, that he believed and preached what he did. The Jewish hope finds fulfillment in the Christian gospel. It was, therefore, ironic that the Jews, of all people, should have charged him with disloyalty.” Dr. Thomas Constable 
4. Paul’s conversion experience (26:12-18) 
   1. Paul met Jesus on the road to Damascus 
   2. He was on the road to do one job, but left with another-to go to the Gentiles and open their eyes. 
5. Paul after he met Jesus (26:19-23) 
   1. Obeying and proclaiming 
   2. The REAL reason the Jews wanted to kill him 
6. Agrippa after Paul (26:20-32) 
   1. Not persuaded to faith, but persuaded of Paul’s innocence.

Frank Robinson, a successful Major League Baseball player famously said, “Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.” Agrippa was soooo close to being persuaded, to accepting the truth of who Jesus was, that he even makes a joke about it. But it’s no laughing matter. If you don’t know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, let today be the day that changes. Please, if you don’t know Jesus, but you want to know more, we’d love to talk with you.

If you DO know Jesus as your Savior, maybe it’s time to make sure your faith doesn’t look like that faith of the Herods. Don’t be Christian-ish. If your life was the only Bible a non-believer read, what would they learn about your Jesus? And whatever conviction just struck you when I asked that? That’s your application. 

Perception might be reality for the person...“For the rest of the notes
email WOW@Shepherds.org"

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Ladies, my story this morning is going to finish a story that I told a couple weeks ago because a couple people asked me about it. Whenever my husband and I, or I should say, whenever I found my one-year-old child in the middle of the soccer field and had not even known he was missing, right? And my husband and I have often laughed about that story because he remembers me walking up carrying the child that was supposed to be in the stroller that he had arrived with 20 minutes earlier and still didn't have noticed that the child was missing. And he said he looked at me and that baby and then looked at the stroller and then looked at me and the baby and looked at the stroller again. And I don't remember because I'm sure I had steam coming out of my ears at that point. Like, what is going on? But we have just laughed. Don't you wish you had a um one of those GoPro cameras? You know, the ones that are in the front of cars now where they kind of I'd like a GoPro on that one-year-old's head, knowing how he got out of that stroller and got that far away. But ladies, it reminded me. I know it's gonna shock you. It reminded me of our study this week, but it did because he was found before he even knew he was missing, right? And isn't each of us found by our Lord God and Savior who knew us from the beginning of time? And it takes a time whenever we finally get to the point where we recognize that we need a savior, but he was already pulling us before we even knew we were lost. And I feel like that's what we saw this week with Saul. Whenever he was on the road to Damascus, he had no idea how spiritually he blind he was. But I loved what Joyce Demo said in our leaders' meeting this morning. She said that he had to become physically blind in order to spiritually be able to see. What a great statement and a true statement for each of us. Ladies, I've talked before to some of the um younger people in the world who have this mantra on their hearts, like, I deserve more, I deserve better. Have you heard that before? And I want to just say, no, we deserve hell. And the only reason we don't go there is because Jesus died for us. And he died for Saul, Paul, as well. And I'm so grateful to be learning from him this year. So thank you for joining me in that learning. But next up for our lecture, I'm super excited to welcome back one of our own. Here is Amy Anthony.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Good morning, y'all. It is no little thing to be the person who has to follow the week that Pastor Davy does his thing. I'm glad Evelyn's here today. I'm glad all of y'all are here. I'd just like to say that y'all could all channel a little bit of Evelyn's enthusiasm. It's very encouraging to all of us. Amen. Um, if you know me, you know I'm a get there fast sort of person. I walk fast. If you've ever been to Disney with me, like Tara has, you know that that's true from firsthand experience. And um, well, I'd love to say that I have deep spiritual connections with Pastor Davy. The one thing I can say that we share in common is that we both like to go a little bit fast behind the wheel. Younger me had a much greater need for speed, that older me has gotten more under control now that I've come to appreciate the legal, financial, and safety implications of that need. In fact, while I'm not likely to get any tickets for traveling unsafely under the speed limit, I do try to keep it in that generally accepted like safe zone around the speed limit. Which is why I was completely devastated to get a speeding ticket in November of 2019. I was driving a stretch of road that I very seldom drive, and I wasn't really aware of the fact that the speed limit drops very quickly for a very short stretch of the road from 45 to 25. It was nighttime, I missed the signs, and suddenly there were blue lights flashing behind me. And then a very unsympathetic police officer at my window. I have been traveling 47 in a 25. That is 22 miles an hour over the speed limit. It's the highest ticket I've ever gotten in my entire life. There was nobody else, and I mean nobody else on the road that night. And what I really struggled with was that like, unlike all my other past speeding indiscretions, and there have been a couple, this one wasn't intentional. I didn't choose to be speeding. And I do get that ignorance of the law does not make you not guilty of breaking the law, but sigh. All right, so fine, I have this huge speeding ticket, and I have two teenage drivers at home at that time to whom I have preached about not speeding. So of course I was determined to not let them know that I had just gotten this huge speeding ticket. And now I'm here to tell you to this day, I don't think they know. So if you know those two kids of mine and you tell them, that's gonna be between you and the Lord. So I hired a lawyer because in North Carolina, speeding more than 20 miles an hour over the speed limit is a criminal offense. It goes down as a misdemeanor on your now criminal record. So I prayed a lot, and I waited for my March 2020 court date, and the world shut down for COVID. And I got a letter saying my court date was postponed, and they would let me know when it was reset. And 2020 passed, and eventually the world opened back up. I don't know if any of us can remember when that exactly happened, but I never heard back. I kept praying and wondering, but not really wanting to remind them about me either for the obvious reasons. 2021 came and went. 2022 came and went. 2023 started, and in November of 2023, I got a letter saying in December I had a court date. More than four years after my original ticket. I mean, surely there's got to be a statute of limitations on those things, right? So I reached back out to the lawyer, who by this point has completely forgotten about me, but was rejoicing in the free money he had made off of my ticket because I paid him and I got him back to work. So the day of my hearing, the lawyer went to court and it turned out the ticket had already been dismissed. It just hadn't been properly processed. When I got a court summons, what I should have gotten was a dismissal notification. Four years later, and I was finally legitimately free of all the charges. And y'all, I know that that was God's mercy because I was technically guilty. But I'm here to tell you that God's timing is perfect, and he had some reason for that waiting. Erwin Lutzer says the work God does in us while we wait is usually more important than the thing for which we wait. And Paul knew that too. In his case, he's not about to get out of a speeding ticket, he's about to get an audience with a king. To recap, he's been held in Roman custody in Caesarea for two years, simply because Felix wanted to do the Jews a favor, so he deferred ruling on Paul's case. And now Felix's time is up, and Festus is in charge, and Paul is his problem. Why? At this point in time in history, Judea, where Jerusalem is, is no longer its own nation and it's under the control of the Roman Empire. And currently they're being ruled directly by Rome through a series of procurators. Felix has actually served for the past eight years, and that's a long time. Only Pontius Pilate served longer, he served 10 years. According to Jensen, governors or procurators were rulers of designated territories, appointed by the emperor and directly responsible to him. Much of their work involved finances such as taxes. They also had supreme judicial authority, such as Pilate used regarding Jesus. Their official residence was in Caesarea. The area of their responsibility was usually that area that was not ruled by a contemporary king. Despite his long tenure, there was a lot of unrest during his term. And Felix was, according to Josephus, in it for his known for being in it for himself and his friends. So when Rome caught wind of his shenanigans, he was out and Festus was in, leaving Festus to inherit all of his problems, including Paul. Acts 25 opens with Festus heading up to Jerusalem three days into his term. And the Jews were waiting for him. They had a favor to ask. Bring Paul up to Jerusalem and decide on his case here so we can kill him on the way. Warren Wearsby says, it is not likely that the new governor knew anything about the original plot or even suspected that the Jewish leaders were out for blood. Since a Roman court could meet in Jerusalem as well as in Caesarea, transferring Paul would have been a normal procedure. Festus would probably not demand a large retinue go with him, so an ambush would be easy. Finally, since it was a matter involving a Jewish prisoner and the Jewish law, the logical place to meet would be Jerusalem. But Festus says no. You can come down to Caesarea. And just in case you don't have a good handle on the geography, Jerusalem is high and Caesarea is low. And that's why the up and the down don't match the north and the south. There's a map. So high, low, north, south. There you go. We aren't told specifically in scripture that that was God working, but you can bet that it was. His plans for Paul did not involve Paul getting killed on a road outside Jerusalem. And once the Jews come down to Caesarea, they and Paul get busy making their case in front of Festus. Festus was in the same pickle that Felix was. He cannot afford for the Jews to make an uprising under an area that he's meant to be controlling. But he can't hold Paul without charges, and Paul's already been held for two years. He wants Paul to make it easy for him by agreeing to go to Jerusalem to be tried. But a Roman judge could not force a change of venue without the accused agreeing to it. And Paul at that point makes an appeal that is available to every citizen of the Roman Empire. He appeals to go to Caesar. And that brings us up to today's lesson. But before we move forward, it's important for you to know exactly who Paul appealed to when he appealed to go to Caesar. Paul was appealing to go to Nero, the same Nero who murdered his own mother, wife, and stepbrothers, who likely participated in, but definitely profited from, the burning of Rome. Who lit Christians on fire and used them as garden torches? That Nero. But because I learned something new for this lecture, so do you guys get to learn something new? During the first five years of his reign, he wasn't apparently a stark, raving, mad lunatic. And Rome enjoyed a miniature golden age during what was called the quinquenium neurones. So Paul was legitimately appealing within his rights, according to what God's spirit directed him to do, and with a reasonable expectation that Nero was going to actually hear him out. So now Paul has put him, now that Paul's appealed to Caesar, Paul has put Felix in a bigger pickle than ever. All the goodwill that Felix has just gained with Rome by keeping the Jews happy and content in Jerusalem is going to go out the window if he sends him before Caesar with no credible charges against him. And according to chapter 25, verse 26, Festus knows he's got nothing against Paul. And he can't just send him to Caesar with the charge, the Jews hate him, right? But what he does have is a neighboring king just popping by to say, Hi, one who is well versed in all the matters of Paul's situation concerns. And one who actually has some skin in the game, Herod Agrippa II. And because every aspect of my life is fair game when it comes to Disney references, we're going to borrow heavily from the movie in Canto for a minute. And we're going to, instead of a grandkid roundup, we're going to do a Herod Roundup. Except I promise we're not going to burst into song. I know. Aw, well, I appreciate someone out there who thought we should just sing this. But it all starts with a man named Antipater. He's seen here in an obviously original photo as he appears before Caesar. He was an Edomite, but in the Greek they called them Edomeans. These people were a thorn in the side of the Jews, because generally in the Old Testament side times, try that again, they worshiped everyone but God. And yet God commanded that they were shown mercy in Deuteronomy 23, 7, when he said that the Jews should not abhor the Edomites because they are brothers. For those of you who have ever had to slog through Shakespeare in high school English, you're going to have a leg up on the next part. Because Antipater gets caught up in the middle of Pompey's power grab against Caesar. In that Roman Civil War, Antipater marched in to save Caesar from Pompey, and Caesar repaid him kindly by making him procurator of Judea. And that's where this whole thing starts. He also makes his son Herod, who isn't great yet, the governor of Galilee. Julius Caesar is killed at Tubutai. Antipater is poisoned by a rival, not Herod yet. Mark Antony and Octavian make Herod the Tetrarch of Jerusalem and Galilee. A year later, Herod's looking a little more great when the Roman Senate confirms him as the king of Judea or the King of the Jews. This was called a client kingdom. These kings were typically appointed or at least approved by Rome and were the highest local authority, reporting directly to the emperor. They owed the empire loyalty, military support, and tribute. But they had their own government, laws, and culture. Here are some things you should know about Herod the Great. Herod was appointed a client king in 40 BC, but he didn't actually get to his kingdom until with an army to retake it, until 37 BC. From that point on, he's the sole ruler and rules Judea for the longest of any of the Herods, 33 years. He starts rebuilding the temple in about 20 BC. He was Jewish. Josephus wrote, Antipater, who was of Edaean descent, had been appointed procurator of Judea by Hyrcanus. The Edemeans had been compelled to adopt Jewish customs and laws so that by this time they were considered part of the Jewish nation. Antipater's son Herod, therefore, though of Edemean, though Edomaian by birth, was raised in the Jewish religion and became king of the Jews. Or maybe he was Jewish-ish. Because he definitely had a lot of wives, like 10. And a lot of kids, like at least 15 that history records. Badly enough, that he ordered all the little boys to and under in the region of Bethlehem killed. And finally, he even had one of his own wives killed. And three of his own sons killed because he was worried that they wanted his throne. He was a real winner, Herod the Great. Because of those three sons that he killed, they were his three closest descendants. He was left without an heir. And he was a paranoid hot mess. So up until the time he died, he was drawing and redrawing his will. And ultimately his kingdom was divided into four parts. His sister Salome I got the small orange area along the seacoast and the profits from her estate and some money. And before we go any farther, y'all just need to know that Herod the Great and George Foreman had a lot in common when it came to their naming practices. So I'm going to mention a lot of Herod's, but rest assured that it is a name and not a title. And several of them went by their middle name for the obvious reason, right? Because it gets really confusing otherwise. Herod Archelaus, or just Archelaus to his friends, was Jewish-ish and becomes Daddy's favorite heir. He's given the territory of Judea, Samaria, and Edema. His dad wanted for him to be king, but Emperor Augustus took a hard pass on that one and made him Ethnarch, a title that means ruler of the people, with the promise to make him king if he was a good king. Spoiler alert, he was not. He ruled for about 10 years, and then Rome took all that territory back. And then all of that land gets ruled by a procurator. Herod Antipodus, Antipas, try that again, was also Jewish-ish and becomes Tetrarch, meaning ruler of a fourth, since the kingdom was divided in four parts of Galilee and Perea, which is shown up there in blue. You know him. His rotten apple falls straight off his daddy's tree. He divorced his first wife to marry his niece, who had also been married to his half-brother. Gotta love it. He's the one who beheaded John the Baptist, and the same Herod that we read about in Luke 23, 11, who treats Jesus with contempt and mocks him during his trial, during the crucifixion. And finally, the last ruler was Philip, who was probably also a Herod, according to Wilbert and Zuck, but it's hard to tell because Herod the Great also had another son named Herod Philip, and history confuses the two of them. But this Philip, the Tetrarch, ruled a bunch of places you've probably never heard of, and I probably can't pronounce correctly. So it's the area that's up there in the green, and you can just see it on the map. What you should know though is that he established the city of Caesarea, Philippi. And that was named for Caesar and himself. That's the place, though, that Jesus was at when he asked his disciples, who do people say I am, and who do you say I am? And Peter responds, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Those four people are the people who get Herod's original kingdom, right? But they are not the Herod in chapter 26. So where does he come from? Well, none of those four left an heir. So we got to go back to the original Herod the Great. Remember those three sons that he killed? Well, one of them was named Herod, go figure. Herod Aristobolus. And he was the father of Herod Agrippa I. Herod Agrippa I was a Jew by birth, but schooled in Rome, and he knew how to work those political connections. He ruled under different titles from 37 A.D. to 44 AD, and eventually Caligula, who was the emperor then, named him king of a pretty of an area pretty much the same as his grandfather ruled. Ironically, he was the most Jewish of all the Herods. The Jewish Encyclopedia says he honored the law. Like the merest commoner, he carried his basket of first fruits to the temple. With the people, he celebrated appropriately the Feast of Tabernacles, and he devoted The sanctuary, a golden chain with which Caligula had honored him. It's hard to match that description with the description we get of him in Acts 12, where he kills the apostle James, has Peter arrested, and claims God's glory for himself, so he ends up getting eaten by worms. I don't know. Which brings us to this guy in chapter 26, Herod Agrippa II. His dad, Agrippa I, clearly practiced some elements of the Jewish faith. And according to Acts 24, 24, his sister is a Jewess. That's Drusilla. For context, they like to keep power in the family, and she married Felix, the procurator that just got ousted so Festus could get put in his place. Young Herod Agrippa II was only 17 when his father died. Since he was so young, he began his rule in 48 AD by ruling a small area given to him by Emperor Claudius, which is shown in the pink at the very top. But soon he traded that for a larger area, the green stuff that his uncle Philip used to rule. And a few years later, when Nero comes to power, he gave him more land, the stuff that's yellow. But none of that land is the land where Paul was. So why do they want to involve him in this, right? He is Jewish in upbringing, thanks to his heritage and particularly his father, but the Jewish encyclopedia notes of his religious life, very little that is praiseworthy can be mentioned. And various historical documents tell us he was having an incestuous relationship with his sister Bernice, so there's also that. But there's no denying that given his family's heritage, he would indeed, if not be a practicing Jew, at least be well versed in all things Jewish. Paul and Festus, even though both were newly arrived on the scene, would likely understand the fullness of that situation because the Herod's Jewish-ish was well established, and Agrippa's behavior with Bernice had turned that rumor mill all the way back to Rome. No, what made him such an appealing audience was the other power that was granted to him way back when he was 17. He doesn't rule Judea, but he's the supervisor of the temple in Jerusalem, and has, for the past several decades, had the responsibility of petitioning Rome for all things Jewish. The temple rebuilding projects, protecting the holy vestments, which one emperor wanted to wear at one point in time, and the treasury. In that regard, he's actually done a pretty good job. Another thing he was tasked with was temple operations and maintenance, and the appointing and removal of the high priests, which he took advantage of several times. To do such a good job in that supervisory role, though, he built himself an elaborate palace that overlooked the temple. He basically became a peeping tom to temple affairs. And that brings us back to Festus, his pickle of a situation, and his current guests, Herod Agrippa II, and his sister slash special friend, Bernice. And there's going to be a bit of the NAT or New Amy translation going on to speed us through this chapter and a half. Festus has the decency to wait a couple days into the visit before bringing up his problem, but he knows that this is going to pique Agrippa's curiosity, right? Given all that I've just told you about who he is and what he does, not as a king, but for the temple and as a nominal Jew at the very least. He has to tell the story in just the right way, though. There's this guy, Felix left me. Maybe you've heard of him, Paul. The chief priests and the elders told me about him too when I went to Jerusalem, and they wanted me to rule against him. But of course, I had to tell them that I have to hear their accusations and let the guy answer. The problem was their accusations pertained to Jewish stuff. And some guy named Jesus who had died, but then Paul said he rose again. And that was all just beyond me. So I asked Paul if he would go to Jerusalem to be judged, but then he appealed to Caesar. So now I'm just holding him until I can send him. And Agrippa bites. He's like, I want to hear this guy. And Festus is like, Done, we can do that tomorrow, right? So they do. Agrippa and Bernice come the next day with great pomp. The word there is fantasia. It's a fantasy. It's a show. It's a spectacle to behold. It might have been about Paul, but it was really about them. This was a who's who of who was important in Caesarea. Besides the king and his sister, Festus was there, the leaders of the military were there, prominent city men were there. And then at the end, just to reinforce where they thought he stood in the pecking order, they brought Paul in. And now Festus addresses them and lays it out bluntly. King Agrippa and all the men who are here present with us, you see this man about whom the whole assembly of the Jews petitioned me, both at Jerusalem and here, crying out that he was not fit to live any longer. But when I found that he had not committed anything deserving of death, and that he himself had appealed to Augustus, which was a title and not a name, by the way, I decided to send him. Therefore I have brought him out before you, and especially before you, King Agrippa, so that after the examination has taken place, I might have something to write. For it seems to me unreasonable to send a prisoner and not specify the charges against him. Now, just to be clear, none of these men, except Festus, had any legal right to determine Paul's fate. But here Paul stands in front of them all. Not because they could judge him legally, but because the man who can has failed to come up with a charge and needs to save face. So he's gone on record here saying he's asking them all to be his think tank and give him a reason. Don't miss the fact that Festus was counting on Agrippa to really grill Paul for them to examine him thoroughly. But in 26-1, Agrippa just hands Paul the reins to this whole thing and says, You are permitted to speak for yourself. It says that Paul gestures with his hand. And part of that might be because at this point he's a skilled orator and knows how to work a crowd. But I kind of think it was a not so subtle reminder to everyone in the audience that he was there in chains. After Festus just fessed up about not having any definite charges against him, what were the charges? I don't know, but I did keep him locked up, right? Once upon a time, many years ago, I was a blogger. You know it was many years ago because we call them influencers now, right? Anyways, for years I professionally reviewed homeschool curriculum on my blog. So I have some writing street cred. But in the past year I started working, and recently I was asked to write a blog post for my job. And that was a whole different thing. That was more like this. Lots of research, documentation, quotes, links, etc. But unlike this or my personal blog, it needed to be more professional, less m-dashes and ellipses, and more like a college term paper. And I kept telling my boss she was welcome to correct or rewrite any part of it she wanted to. And she kept handing it back to me and keeping my feet to the fire. And what we have here with Paul's speech is the same thing. This is his longest speech that we have record of, and it's before a mostly Gentile and, as I already mentioned, a mostly aristocratic audience. So, as one commentary says, the construction of this speech is more careful than usual. The grammar more classical, the style more literary, as befitted the distinguished audience. The argument is designed to appeal particularly to the mind of Agrippa, who was reported, reputed, sorry, to be interested in Jewish theology, even if Festus found himself completely out of his depth after the first few sentences. Paul was in his element, and he was right where God said he would be when God told Ananias in chapter 9, verse 15, that Paul is a chosen vessel to bear my name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. And in his normal MO, he butters Agrippa up a little first, letting him know that he is happy to present his case in front of Agrippa because he's an expert in all things Jewish, all the questions and the customs. Paul begins with history, both his and the Jewish peoples. He was a Pharisee. Everybody knows that. And now he's standing on and being judged for the hope of the promise God made to their fathers. What was that hope? F.F. Bruce says, this hope was the hope that God would keep the promise which he made to the fathers of the nation long ago. It was this hope which gave life and meaning and purpose to the ordinances of divine worship, faithfully maintained by the 12 tribes of Israel, generation after generation, especially to the unceasing services of morning and evening sacrifice and prayer. It was the hope that God would one day come down to deliver his people, as he had done when they were slaves in Egypt, that he would raise up for them a horn of salvation in the house of his servant David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old. That's what Paul wants them to know. That's why he's so happy to get these audiences when he to take these audiences when he gets the chance. There were over 500 verses in the Old Testament that point to a coming Messiah, and at least 300 verses that Jesus fulfilled while he was alive on earth. The verses on this screen are just a few examples. Where Paul's hope was, who Paul's hope was. But I want y'all to know that Agrippa and all the other Jews who were there should have known it too. And several commentaries that I read, including Charles Swindah, think that what we are reading here, when Luke just says the promise is a summary. Paul would have taken the opportunity to present lots of Old Testament verses to support what he said. Because he asked at the beginning to be heard patiently for what is, when we read it out loud, a five-minute speech. And that doesn't require much patience. So throughout his defense, there was probably a lot of supporting evidence that he offered from scripture. And Luke and the Holy Spirit just don't give it to us here. I don't know why. Maybe because we already have the completed counsel of God's word. His other hope, and the one that he managed to steer the argument cleverly toward two years ago, was in the resurrection, which we know is a hope that ties directly to Jesus conquering death in his resurrection. But it was safer ground with the Pharisees and tumultuous, tumultuous ground with the Sadducees. And that meant that they were going to fight each other and ignore Paul. So that's where he went. And while there are fewer references to the resurrection or to resurrection in general in the Old Testament, there definitely were some that they would have been familiar with. And his point was that his hope was in God's word, in the promises that God made, that any believing Jew should have embraced. Why would you not believe that the God of Genesis, the God who spoke and it was, the God of the Red Sea, the God of Jericho, the God of the Holy of Holies? Why would you not believe that he could resurrect the dead? Especially when he already did it twice in the Old Testament, especially when he says he will in his word. And how could believing that, believing his word, be wrong? Dr. Thomas Constable says that Paul declares to them that it was because of his Jewish heritage, not in spite of it, that he believed and preached what he did. The Jewish hope finds fulfillment in the Christian gospel. It was therefore ironic that the Jews of all people should have charged him with disloyalty. But Paul goes on to say he gets it because he was them. He punished them for their worship and compelled them to blaspheme their Lord until that same Lord found him on the road to Damascus. Jesus stopped Paul on that road, spoke Paul's language, called him by name, told him to stop being stubborn, told him he had a job for him to do, and it was not the job that he was doing. No longer would he persecute the church. Now he would proclaim it to the world. He was being sent to nations to open their eyes, to turn people from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, from being sinners to receiving forgiveness, and from being under judgment to being sanctified by faith in Christ. So in verse 19, he says, Obviously, King Agrippa, when God speaks to you, when God spoke to me, I obeyed. I declared him here, there, and everywhere, that they should repent, and after they do, their deeds should reflect that repentance. And that, he says in verse 21, is the real reason that the Jews seized me in the temple and wanted to kill me. For 25 years, according to Terry's handy timeline, Paul says, I have testified to great and small, saying nothing but what the prophets and Moses said would come to pass, that Christ would suffer, and that being the first to rise from the dead, he would proclaim light to both our people and the Gentiles. This again is one of those places that Paul would probably have provided lots of scripture to back up his claims, which is why Festus says, Your great learning is driving you out of your mind. And why Paul replies, I'm not crazy, and Agrippa knows it. Because I know none of this has escaped his notice. And that both flatters Agrippa and puts him in the hot seat. But then Paul doesn't let up. He flat out asks Agrippa, Do you believe the prophets? Weirsby says when Paul asked if Agrippa believed the prophets, he was forcing him to take a stand. Certainly the king would not repudiate what every Jew believes. But Agrippa knew that if he affirmed his faith in the prophets, he must then face the question: Is Jesus of Nazareth the one about whom the prophets wrote? Agreeing here would also imply he supported the resurrection, aligning him with the Pharisees, not the Sadducees, and make him a laughing stock among his Gentile colleagues, because the Romans didn't believe in resurrection at all. So Paul lets him sit there for a moment and then piles it on with, I know you do. And Agrippa has two choices: admit, believe, confess, and save his soul eternally, or save his face politically. And he chooses door number two. While Agrippa might not have been persuaded to faith, he was persuaded of Paul's innocence, making this the third time that the Romans have officially said he's done nothing worthy of the charges. But he's appealed to Caesar, so to Caesar he must go. It is not generally applied this way, not to a lecture, but y'all know I like to bend the rules a little. So we're gonna apply it this way this morning. If you don't know the soap method and you want to know how to really do it, I'm happy to explain it later. So please come talk to me. Um, y'all, we read this scripture this week. In addition to our homework, I have just given you tons of observations. So it's application time. As Frank Robinson, a successful Major League Baseball player, famously said, close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Agrippa was so close to being persuaded, to accepting the truth of who Jesus was, that he even makes a joke about it. But it's no laughing matter. If you don't know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, let today be the day that that changes. I know that I speak for all of the leadership team here at WOW when I say that we join Paul in declaring, I would to God that all who hear me this day might become such as I am. Please, if you don't know Jesus, but you want to know more, we would love to talk with you. If you do know Jesus as your savior, maybe it's time to make sure that your faith doesn't look like the faith of the Herods. Don't be Christian-ish. If your life was the only Bible a non-believer ever read, what would they learn about your Jesus? And whatever conviction just struck you when I asked you that, that's your application. Third, perception might be reality for the person perceiving it, but that doesn't make it truth. Everyone in that auditorium thought they had a clear understanding of who was important and who was not. But as Bruce says, most people nowadays who know anything about Agrippa and Bernice and Festus know of them as persons who, for a brief period of time, crossed Paul's path and heard him speak words. Which might have brought blessing to them had they been disposed to pay serious heed to what he said. It would probably surprise everyone to learn that history has flipped the script on who was truly important at that hearing. To everyone in that auditorium, it looked like Paul was on trial, but he was the only free one there. And that was just a precursor to the judgment they will face if they never choose to bend the knee. With salvation ever on his mind, Paul was happy to be standing there in chains, proclaiming life to them. Don't let your perception of who someone is keep you from ensuring you know whose they are. And finally, you can be in the Lord's will and still be in chains. In fact, when Paul tells Agrippa of Jesus' mission for his life, he says Jesus came to appoint him as a servant and a witness. The word for servant there means under rower. It was a position in the belly of a ship that literally faced backward in dark, tight quarters, just rowing along with others, never seeing where you were going, making forward progress. It was a thankless and unseen and physically exhausting job. And on Roman ships, it was frequently done by slaves who were chained in place. And that was the job that Paul was commissioned to do. From the moment God called him, Paul stayed the course, preaching where God told him to go and what God told him to say. And yet, time and time again, he found himself in physical peril and sometimes literal chains. He just had to trust. Do you, do I trust that deeply? In moments when you doubt, when the world is telling you, if this was of God, or if your God was real, surely you would insert whatever's applicable. Not be sick all the time, have a better job, not be struggling to make ends meet. The list could go on and on. Ladies, don't listen to the world. Find your hope, find your encouragement in the same place Paul did, in Jesus, and be encouraged by Paul's indomitable witness. And the fact that we know that he was right where God wanted him to be, to fulfill the plan for the church to spread to all the world. And the same God whose hand we see in Paul's story is working in your story. Even if you find yourself in proverbial chains. So, like Paul, just trust and obey. Amen. All right, y'all, let's pray. Father God, we thank you this morning for the opportunity to come together and to study your word. I pray for any unbeliever that they would take this opportunity now to go from almost believing to knowing that you are their savior and Lord. For all the Christians in the room, I pray that they would just walk worthy of your calling, that we would be able to identify those places, those areas that we might not reflect you well, and that we would um you would burn off that dross in us, Lord, and that we would glorify you. I pray that we would be bold, like Paul, to proclaim your gospel here, there, and everywhere, and to everyone, no matter their position. And I pray that you would help us to just trust and obey no matter what circumstances we find ourselves in. Um, and that you would help us to follow your will for our lives. I pray for these ladies as we leave that you just would keep us all safe, that you would bless us for these last few weeks of this study, um, and that everything that we say and do would glorify you, Lord. We thank you for who you are and all that you've done for us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.