Well, we are officially finishing the book of Acts. We started this journey through Acts during the fall back in August of 2020 and this is the 57th sermon we have had in this series. A lot has changed in our church in the past four years and I can’t help but feel very thankful for all God’s grace and providence in our church through some challenging times. And this is timely because this is exactly what we see in this last passage. This last passage of Luke’s account of the early church, while it might not seem like the ending we want, it is the ending we need. This passage shows us that God has done everything that he said would happen. God said Paul and the gospel would go to Rome and it did. God said many of the Jews would reject the gospel and they have. God said that the gospel would go to the gentiles and it has. And we see all three of these in this short passage. 

1. God said Paul and the gospel would go to Rome

To see this, we need to go all the way back to the beginning of Acts. Luke tells us he is writing this account to a man named Theophilus. We don’t know who Theophilus was, but we do know he was asking the question, how did this small Jewish sect In Jerusalem become this new religion that has spread all over the Roman Empire? Now, we know Christianity is not a new religion, but that is the way Theophilus thought about it. Personally, I think Theophilus is somehow connected to Paul’s looming trial. He may be some sort of representative of Caesar. He could even be Paul’s defense attorney. 

And in Acts 1:8, Luke answers this question and his answer is essentially, because Jesus said it would happen. Jesus said, “ 8 But you will receive npower owhen the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and pyou will be qmy witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and rSamaria, and sto the end of the earth.” - Acts 1:8 The gospel went to Jerusalem in chapter two, it went to the Samaria in chapter eight, it went to the Gentiles in chapter ten, and it is now officially at the ends of the earth in Rome. 

But, not only did Jesus say this to the apostles, he also said it to Paul himself. Back in chapter 23 Jesus told Paul that he would not be put to death at the hands of the Jewish council, but “Take courage, fors as you have testified to the facts about me in Jerusalem, so you must ttestify also in Rome.” - Acts 23:11 In chapter 27 in the storm, an angel appeared to Paul saying that they would not die on that ship, because Paul needed to stand before Caesar. In chapter 28, as Clark pointed out last week, they landed in Italy, Paul took courage (the same word as Jesus commanded in Acts 23) and in the very next verse they arrived in Rome, the ends of the earth. 

How is Rome the ends of the earth? Rome was the core access to the known world. The best analogy I can come up with is from Matrix 3. Neo had to go to the center of the machine world to defeat Agent Smith because it is only at the center of that world that he can influence all of it to free captives everywhere. This is why we still say ‘all roads lead to Rome.’

And just think for a moment how perfectly it has all come together. It may look like Paul has arrived in Rome by the skin of his teeth, but this is literally the only way he would stand in front of Caesar as Jesus said he would. You could no more walk up to Caesar’s palace and see him in that day than you could Joe Biden in the White House today. The only way Paul could gain access to Caesar was as a prisoner waiting to stand trial. We see a situation where what looks all but hopeless at one moment becomes the very vehicle by which God is going to fulfill his promises. 

Just let that settle in because he does the same thing today. We have talked a lot about the promise in Romans 8 that God is going to use all things in our lives for our good and his glory. You may feel like all is lost in your job, you may feel like all is lost in your marriage, you may feel like all is lost in your finances, you may feel like all is lost with your kids…but God is going to use those things to accomplish this promise in our lives in the same way he did to bring Paul to Rome by way of his arrest and dangerous travel. 

So here in this passage we have Paul sharing the gospel for two years under house arrest, writing his letters to the Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians, and at that point, Jesus’ promise of Rome has happened and from there over the next two thousand years the gospel has traveled those Roman roads, every river, every ocean, and now through the air invading almost every part of this world. 

1. God said said the Jews would reject the gospel

I’m not saying every Jew rejected the gospel, obviously Paul, the other disciples, and thousands other Jews put their faith in Jesus, but many Jews did reject the gospel. Paul arrived in Rome and he was still chained, but allowed to interact with people in Rome. So, he did the same thing he did in every other city. He went first to the Jews. Actually, they had to come to him in his house arrest. There were around 11 synagogues in Rome at that time and the leaders of these synagogues came to visit Paul and hear what he had to say. And there he did the same two things he always did. First, he explained the character of God and the kingdom and, secondly, he tried to convince them about Jesus from the Scriptures. I don’t think you could summarize the calling of all Christians to make disciples better than that. Explaining the character of God and His kingdom and who Jesus is from the Scriptures. Some of them believed, but many did not. 

And at this point, Paul closed his time with them quoting the happy words in Isaiah six. I’ll be honest, if I were there I’d be like, “Paul, don’t do it. Come on Paul, this is only going to make them mad.” But, Paul went a decidedly different direction I might have. He says, t“The Holy Spirit was right in saying to your fathers through Isaiah the prophet”26  u“‘Go to this people, and say, v“You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive.” 27  wFor this people’s heart has grown dull, and with their ears they can barely hear, and their eyes they have closed; lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and xturn, and I would heal them.’ - Acts 28:26,27

He is applying these words God spoke through the prophet Isaiah to the Jewish leaders in Rome. He draws a distinction between hearing and understanding, between seeing and perceiving, and attributes their lack of believing to their deliberately hard hearts, deaf ears, and closed eyes. Why would Paul do this? Is he just mad and trying to provoke them? No, again, he’s saying that this is exactly what God said would happen. Paul cares more about their souls than his comfort. It’s harder to speak the truth out of love than it is out of hate. Paul loves them and is saying hard, but true things to them. 

So, this raises a related question that I’m a bit nervous to address, especially on election week. What are the implications now for Jewish people generally and Israel specifically now? Now, what I’m going to say, some of you might disagree with and that’s ok. My request is that you would curiously engage. You can’t be critical and curious at the same time, and my hope is that we would all engage this question with curiosity. 

You hear people say things like, “Well, God has one plan for Israel and a different plan for the church, both leading to salvation” and I would say you can’t find that anywhere in Scripture. Now, I’m not trying to start a fight or be controversial, but I feel like I would be committing pastoral malpractice not to address this from this text. The only plan of salvation is faith in Jesus Christ. There is no alternate route. You’ll also hear people say things like, “We need to side with Israel today because God has promises for them and we want to be on their side.” I said this back when I was a candidate for pastor at OGC, but I don’t think there is anything in the Bible that says the church or the United States needs to side with Israel. Now, you might have a good geo-political reason for doing that and I want you to feel free to do that…I’m not saying not to support Israel, but just that I don’t think you can make a Biblical case for that. 

All the promises for Israel in the Old Testament are fulfilled in Jesus and inherited by the church. This is why Paul says that every promise in Scripture finds its yes and amen in Jesus. Christianity is not some new religion as Theophilus thought, it is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant. The Jews who believed were carried into the New Covenant and all of us Gentiles are grafted in with them and that is what we call the church. The hardhearted, unbelieving posture of the majority of the Israelites that you see back in Isaiah’s day is precisely the reason for the New Covenant. So there is not one way of salvation for Jews and another for Christians. There is one plan of salvation for every type of person on the planet. 

Paul covers this extensively in Romans 11, but the most chilling thing Paul does is quote Psalm 69 which is an imprecatory psalm. That means it is a prayer by David to bring curses down on his enemies only Paul is applying it to unbelieving Jews in his day. Let their table become a snare and a trap, a stumbling block and a retribution for them; let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see, and bend their backs forever. - Rom 11:9,10 What is Paul doing here? To understand this, we need to also see that this Psalm is quoted not only here, but also by Jesus in John 15 saying,  25 But qthe word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: r‘They hated me without a cause.’ - John 15:25

The way Jesus uses this psalm, you can rightly say that the true speaker of the psalm is Jesus himself. He is both the speaker and the subject of the psalm. And Paul is saying that Jesus is speaking this imprecatory psalm about the unbelieving Jews. Paul is turning the tables on Israel. If you were a Jewish person in Jesus’ day, who were the enemies that God is going to destroy in Psalm 69? The Roman gentiles. The Jews in that day would have seen themselves as the anointed, righteous ones who were being persecuted. But, Paul is saying that enemies in Psalm 69 are now the unbelieving Jews themselves! That means Jesus is calling down curses on his enemy, unbelieving Israel. They have become the enemies because they have rejected God and become the one upon whom he calls judgment down. 

You’ll often hear people say that modern day Jews in general and Israel in specific are God’s chosen people so we need to support them. Well, how can you come to that conclusion given what Paul has said? God’s chosen people are those who put their faith in Jesus. Paul says exactly this in Romans 9. He’s talking about unbelieving Jews versus believing Gentiles. 8 This means that it is not the children of the flesh (that is those who are ethnically Jewish, but don’t believe) who are the children of God, but qthe children of the promise are counted as offspring. - Rom 9:8

But, Paul’s hope is that they don’t stay there. All they have to do is believe. And this is important because in no way does this justify any kind of anti-semitism. Paul loves them and called them brothers earlier in this passage (that is an ethnic and cultural brotherhood, not a spiritual one). Paul goes so far as to say he himself would be cursed, that is be sent to hell, if it meant that these unbelieving Jews would believe. Paul cares deeply for them. And it is out of this love for them that he tells them the hard truths. 

So we should love them, pray for them, and share the gospel with them just as we should their Muslim neighbors across their border.. And Romans 11 does make me think that God will do something near the end of time for the unbelieving Jews at that time to bring many of them into the church, but that is going to happen through them placing their faith in Jesus. And this only proves my point that God’s only plan for salvation is faith in Jesus. God has no other plan of salvation for the Jews outside of them believing the gospel. 

These Jews do not believe Paul and after quoting Isaiah six, Paul says, 28 Therefore let it be known to you that ythis zsalvation of God ahas been sent to the Gentiles; bthey will listen.” - Acts 28:29 And by implication Paul is saying, “Not to you Jews who do not listen.” The message of the gospel is going to go to the Gentiles who will listen with open ears, open eyes, and open hearts. And Paul says in Romans that maybe God will use that to make the Jews jealous and believe. Isaiah said this would happen long ago and now we see it happening. 

1. God said the gospel would go to the gentiles

We can go way back in the Bible well before Acts 1:8 to see this. God told Abraham that through you all the nations will be blessed. The goal in giving Israel the law was to be a blessing to all the nations. But not only did they not bless the nations, they perverted the law they were to steward. This promise to Abraham is not saying that modern day Israel will be a blessing to the world, it is fulfilled in Jesus and inherited by the church. This is exactly why Paul writes in Galatians, 7 Know then that it is ithose of faith who are jthe sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that kGod would justify3 the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, l“In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. - Gal 3:7-9 The promise to Abraham is carried on through all those who place their faith in Jesus and that door is now opening wide for the Gentiles to do that. 

That brings us to the last two verses of Acts. Paul 30 He lived there two whole years at his own expense,7 and cwelcomed all who came to him, 31 dproclaiming ethe kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ fwith all boldness and gwithout hindrance. - Acts 28:30,31 Now, while I’m sure there were Jewish Christians who came to visit Paul, Luke is saying from this point on Paul focused on the Gentiles. That’s what Luke is emphasizing. John Stott says that, “The Gentiles visiting Paul were the precursors of the vast, hungry Gentile world outside. They will listen!” 

And he does the exact same thing he did with the Jews. He teaches about the kingdom of God and preaches about Jesus. He taught and he preached. Now, while we can overplay the difference between teaching and preaching, we shouldn’t underplay it either. There is a ton of overlap between them as there was for Paul. Paul’s preaching had doctrinal content and his teaching still had evangelistic purpose. But they are different at the same time. In our context, Equipping Hour is going to be more teaching and worship is going to be more preaching. 

And Paul did this with all boldness and without hindrance. I’m again drawing from Stott, but boldness is speech that is candid, it’s clear, there is no trying to conceal the truth. It’s confident and has no fear of the consequences. That pretty much describes Paul in a nutshell. And without hindrance means that even if there was military surveillance on Paul, Paul didn’t stop. His hands were bound, but his mouth was open. His feet were chained, but the word of God was not. 

It’s hard to overstate the importance of this moment in redemptive history. I don’t know how many of you have ridden the new Tron ride at Disney, but I’d like to use that ride to illustrate this moment. You go to Disney, you wander to this ride, you wait in line, then the ride arrives and you get on your bike and there is this slow build up as you make your way through this dark tunnel and then you see the light and stop and at this moment you are shot out at what feels like a hundred miles per hour on this amazing ride that goes all over the place both inside and outside the building. In the story of redemptive history, this passage is the church speeding out into the world at a hundred miles per hour. Going on this amazing journey through every culture on earth. And all this happened exactly the way that God said it would happen. 

We need to sit in that for a moment. Just think about all these things that God said would happen and against all odds, it really happened!! And if God is faithful to do all these things that he has promised on such a huge scale spanning thousands of years and thousands of miles, how much more can we trust him for the smaller things we need in our lives. How much more can we trust him that he loves us. Not because we deserve it or because Jesus made him love us. He loves us so much that Jesus came to redeem us. And we can trust him that he will one day bring us home. Where we will be with him and every other saint from every tribe, tongue, and nation free from pain, guilt, strife, and sin and satisfied more than we could ever imagine for all eternity because we will be with him. 

And I know most of us read this and want more details about Paul. What happened when he saw Caesar. Did he ever go to Spain as he said he wanted to? How did he die? We want some Marvel extra scene here at the end that we don’t get. I actually think Luke wrote the end of Acts before Paul went before Caesar and that this book and Luke’s gospel were used in some way in that hearing, but we don’t know that for sure. We do have a good idea from church history that he did go before Caesar and he was let off, but two years later he was arrested again..that is when he wrote 2 Timothy… and he was executed. 

But this book isn’t about Paul so why would we expect that? This book isn’t about Paul, but how the gospel went to Rome. This book is about what Jesus is doing in and through his church. Luke ends his gospel with the hope of the gospel going to the nations and he ends his book of Acts with it happening. Theophilus, here is your answer. How did this small Jewish sect become this religion that is taking over the empire and has Paul in chains? Because Jesus said it would and God has been faithful to do what he said he would do. 

This might not be the ending we want, but it’s the ending we need. We get to be encouraged by what all God has done to bring us into the church and we get to be a part of that mission today. We get to be reminded by Paul’s writings during this two year period to the Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians of the supreme, sovereign, undisputed, and unrivaled Lordship of Jesus Christ regardless of what circumstances we find ourselves in.