Paul's Unyielding Mission: The Open-Ended Story of Acts

And so when they did not agree among themselves, they departed after Paul had said one word. “The Holy Spirit spoke rightly through Isaiah the prophet to our fathers, saying, ‘Go to this people and say, Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you shall see and not perceive. For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing. Their eyes they have closed. Les they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn so that I should heal them.” [00:02:42]

Then Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no one forbidding him. May God bless to our understanding the conclusion of this record of the church that was founded in the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. [00:03:39]

And so even now in chains Paul is pouring out his heart to the Jewish leaders and telling them he has that same love for his own people. And he goes on to say “For this reason … I have called for you to see you and speak to you, because it’s for the hope of Israel that I were this chain.” It’s because I’m a Jew. It’s because of my love of Judaism that I am here. [00:12:15]

“So when they appointed him a day, many came to him at his lodging to whom he explained and solemnly testified of the kingdom of God persuading them concerning Jesus from both the Law of Moses and the Prophets from morning until evening.” What was his point of contact? His first point of explanation was the kingdom of God. Because, beloved, if there’s any idea, if there’s any concept, any motif that connects the Old Testament to the New Testament it is that central strand in the tapestry of the Word of God of the kingdom of God. [00:14:19]

And after Isaiah volunteered for the mission, God said to him, Go, Isaiah. You go and you speak. But I’m going to make the heart of these people fat. I’m going to make their ears deaf. I’m going to make their eyes blind, lest they see and understand, lest they hear and embrace and become converted. Your mission, Isaiah, if you choose to accept it, is a mission impossible, because you’re going to be preaching to people who are spiritually dead, who don’t want to hear your message. [00:21:02]

And we’re coming to the end of the whole record of the apostolic testimony of the first century. Have you heard it? Have you seen it? Or have you become calloused to the Word of God? Have you heard it so often you don’t want to hear it anymore? So you turn a deaf ear to the Word of God. You don’t want to see it. You know, it’s impossible to hear the Word of God and remain neutral. It’s impossible to hear the Word of God and to be unchanged. [00:23:08]

And that’s what Paul said to these people who were familiar with the Scriptures, who knew the Scriptures, who had listened to the greatest expositor of the Scripture that was on the planet that Isaiah was telling the truth, because the Holy Spirit through Isaiah spoke rightly. You say it doesn’t seem fair. Why would God close the ears of people, shut the eyes of people and then punish them for not hearing and punish them for not seeing? [00:24:04]

Because the closing of the ears and the closing of the eyes are God’s judgments upon people who in the first place didn’t want to hear and didn’t want to see. That’s the way he operates, doesn’t he? In his judgment he said, “Let him who is evil, let the one who is wicked be wicked still.” If you heard the Word of God again and again and again and it still (follows? falls?) upon a stony, recalcitrant heart, God may give you over to that heart forever. [00:24:56]

And he said, So God is going to close the book on you, and he’s going to take this message to the Gentiles. And then he said to them “and they will hear it.” That’s the only reason we’re here this morning is because these people in the first century refused to hear the gospel, so God grafts us onto this tree as a wild olive tree, and where sin abounded grace even more abounded. [00:25:51]

Then at the close of the chapter we read these words: “Then Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching the things that concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no one forbidding him.” I don’t know what happens next in your Bible, but mine has a period there. [00:26:44]

Now there’s abundant references from early church history that what actually happened after this time is that Paul did come before Caesar, he did have his trial, and he was exonerated, and he was set free, and he resumed his missionary travels and went as far as Spain establishing churches, established a church on Crete and continued freely in his apostolic ministry for two or three years. [00:27:40]

Father, we pray that our study of this history would not fall on deaf ears or on blind eyes, but that Spirit who always speaks rightly will take the message of Acts into our souls that it may bring forth its fruit. For we ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen. [00:32:07]