Let the Will of the Lord Be Done

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And we're going to now open on the Word of God together.
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So if you want to open your Bibles to the 21st chapter of the book of Acts, the title of today's message is, Let the Will of the Lord Be Done.
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Let the Will of the Lord Be Done.
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And our Scripture reading comes from the 21st chapter.
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Now, my goal today, and I know it's a lofty one, my goal is to go through the whole chapter, but we're going to focus on verses 10 through 14.
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So we're going to hone in on five verses, but we've been doing this extended study of Acts, and I want us to start to draw to a close, because what we're going to see in the last few chapters of the book of Acts is Paul's journey from Jerusalem to Rome, and all of the events that took him from Jerusalem to Rome.
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And we know that he ends in Rome, having not yet reached his final goal, which, of course, is to preach the Gospel before Caesar.
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But he does have all of these events that happen before that.
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And we're going to be looking at them somewhat in snapshot form in the weeks to come.
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We're just sort of going to go through in broad scopes and look at what's happening and hone in on a few particular points as we go to make our way toward the end of the book.
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But in the 21st chapter of the book of Acts, we now come again to what is the end of Paul's third missionary journey and the finality of all of the missionary work that he has done so far as he is being moved now into a state of being under arrest.
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We have seen so far in Acts that it began all the way back in chapter 1 with Jesus telling His disciples that they would be His witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
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And the book of Acts, if you wanted to say what's the thesis or the theme of the book of Acts, that one verse, Acts chapter 1 verse 8, when Jesus looks at His disciples, He says, you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem.
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And the first few chapters is that Jerusalem ministry.
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And then persecution comes and they are scattered out into Judea.
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And so, because of persecution, the church spreads.
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It doesn't die.
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It spreads out into Judea.
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And persecution continues and it spreads up into Samaria.
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And then persecution continues and it spreads up further into Syria.
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And then we come, there is Antioch, that church which sends out the missionaries, Paul and Barnabas, and they go up into Asia Minor in that first missionary journey.
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And they go up through the region of Galatia and all of those areas to bring the gospel.
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And then Paul comes back and they send him again.
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And he goes out into Macedonia and he plants churches in Philippi and in Corinth.
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And then he comes back to Asia Minor and he plants a church in Ephesus.
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And then he goes back to Antioch and they send him out a third time.
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And he goes out a third time.
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And this time he goes out and takes a collection for the church of Jerusalem which is still under persecution.
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All of these things have been happening and there is still persecution happening in Jerusalem.
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So Paul takes a collection from these churches.
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And he brings it back to Jerusalem.
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And that's where we find ourselves at the beginning of chapter 21.
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We find ourselves with Paul headed back to Jerusalem.
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And I want us to again focus on verses 10-14.
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But we're going to read the whole chapter so we might as well start at verse 1.
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So let's start at verse 1.
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It says, And when we had departed from them and set sail, And notice the personal pronoun here, the plural of we.
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And the understanding here is that Luke has now joined with Paul.
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Luke is the author of this book.
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And so when he speaks of we, he is now with Paul and going with Paul.
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We came by a straight course to Kos, the next day to Rhodes, and from there to Patera.
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And having found a ship crossing to Phoenicia, we went aboard and set sail.
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We had come inside of Cyprus, leaving it on the left.
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We sailed to Syria and landed at Tyre.
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And there the ship was to unload its cargo.
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And having sought out the disciples, we stayed there for seven days.
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And through the Spirit, they were telling Paul not to go on to Jerusalem.
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Now that phrase, the Spirit telling the disciples that Paul was not to go, that needs to stick in our mind.
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Because that's going to sort of undergird what we learn as we go.
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Paul has gone and everywhere Paul has stopped, he sought out disciples.
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And here he sought a group of disciples.
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He stayed with them for one week.
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And during that week, they have received a message from the Holy Spirit that the Apostle Paul was about to be persecuted.
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And they interpret that message as, don't go.
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I mean, wouldn't you interpret the message that way? If God gave you a message that said, hey, Brother Mike comes to us and says, hey, this week I'm going to go down and I'm going to preach at the monster truck rally.
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I'm going to go preach outside.
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And I get a vision from God.
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And I know we don't really practice understanding the gifts that way now.
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But if for some way God awoke me and said, you know, Mike's going to get beat to death at the monster truck rally, I might say, hey, brother, don't go.
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Well, that's what's happening here.
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These people have received from the Spirit, it says very clearly, this isn't just on their own idea, from the Spirit they've received that Paul is going to be persecuted.
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So they say, don't go.
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Don't go.
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Verse 5, When our days there were ended, we departed and went on our journey.
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And they all, with wives and children, accompanied us until we were outside the city.
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And kneeling down on the beach, we prayed and said farewell to one another.
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Then we went on, boarded the ship, and they returned home.
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So the disciples went out, prayed with him, and sent him on his way, knowing full well what was about to happen.
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Verse 7, When we had finished the voyage from Tyre, we arrived at Ptolemaeus, and we greeted the brothers and stayed with them for one day.
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Last time he stayed a week, now he's only staying one day.
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Verse 8, It says, On the next day we departed and came to Caesarea.
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When we entered the house of Philip the Evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him.
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Now, very quickly, just as by way of reminder, if you go back to Acts 6, you'll remember that there were men who were chosen to be the first deacons.
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The diaconate prototype is chosen in Acts 6.
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One of those men was named Philip.
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Later, that same man would go and preach the gospel, and he was the one that gave the gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch.
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Remember, he was the one that was there on the road? And that's why he's often referred to as the Evangelist.
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In fact, that's what he's called here, Philip the Evangelist.
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So here we have this man who has a reputation throughout the Scriptures as being one who is strong in the faith, a faithful servant, and a preacher of the gospel.
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He has invited Paul to stay in his home.
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Verse 9 makes mention of something that's quite interesting.
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It says, He had four unmarried daughters who prophesied.
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Now, I thought about this week, speaking on the subject of female preachers, but I decided against it.
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Only because that's really not the focus here.
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But this passage has been used to promote the idea of female pastors.
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That is not to draw from this text the meaning.
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The Bible does say, and it says very clearly in Acts 2, that when the Spirit was poured out, it was poured out on men and women, and men and women both prophesied.
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But that did not change the foundation of the structure of the church where the Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Timothy chapter 2 that pastors and elders are to be men.
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1 Timothy 2 and 3 make that so clear.
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And I don't say that as a sexist, or as anybody who hates women and somebody who would accuse me of such would be foolish to say so.
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I simply say that because it's what the Scripture teaches.
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However, we have to understand, in the early part of the church, the gift of prophecy was given to men and women, but the gift and the office of pastorate was not.
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And there is a distinction to be made.
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And the gift of prophecy that was active in the early church, I don't believe is active anymore.
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I think it was one of the gifts that was given in the early church for the foundation of the church.
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So just to point that out, like I said, I could have spent a whole message.
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I decided to just say, let me just say this quickly.
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Those who make the argument for female pastorate from this passage are reading into it more than what it says.
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That's all that really need be said.
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But I do want to mention this about these women.
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When it says they were unmarried, that says more than just the fact that they were unmarried in the sense of, I said, well, here's a woman who's unmarried, here's a man who's married.
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This speaks of their quality of character in general.
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In fact, some of your Bibles say the word virgin.
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How many of your King James Bible? It actually says virgin, doesn't it? It doesn't say unmarried.
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The modern translators translate that as unmarried, but it's more speaking of the fact that they were devoted to God.
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They had not entered into a relationship of marriage because they had devoted themselves wholly.
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And you remember the apostle Paul talks about this in other places in Scripture.
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He says some people get married and that's good, but some people stay unmarried for the purpose of being able to serve God with all their heart and not be bound to that relationship of marriage which does take part of our lives and force it into a service that is outside of the work of ministry.
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Paul says, it'd be great if everyone could be single, then everybody could focus on serving the Lord, but not everybody can be single because not everybody's gifted to singleness.
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And I know I ain't.
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I was not given the gift of singleness and so God gave me a wife.
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And I praise Him every day for that gift.
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But these women did have a special place and a special quality of character that they were devoted in their lives to the Lord and they had a gift to use in the service of God's church.
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Now there's another man who is mentioned here who's also a prophet in verse 10.
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And this shows too that all prophecy was not given from a pulpit or from a place of proclamation.
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At this time in the history of the church sometimes prophecies or words were done in the communication of individual to individual or in small group settings.
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Because look at what Agabus does in verse 10.
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It says, for we were staying for many days, while we were staying for many days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea and coming to us he took Paul's belt and bound his own feet and hands and said, thus says the Holy Spirit, this is how the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.
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So Agabus comes in as an itinerant prophet.
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He looks at the apostle Paul and under the power of the Holy Spirit he takes Paul's belt off.
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Probably a little interesting way that that all worked out.
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I don't think I've ever gone up to a man and just removed an article of clothing but he did.
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And he tied him up with it and he says, thus is the same that will happen to the man who owns this belt in Jerusalem.
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Ultimately the prophecy is pretty self-explanatory.
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You're going to be bound.
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You're going to be imprisoned.
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Here's what it's going to look like.
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Now you would think that this would make the apostle Paul say, hmm, I spent seven days with this group over here and the whole time I was with them they were saying we're getting a message from the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit's saying don't go because you're going to be persecuted.
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And now he comes to a man who is a prophet who's already prophesied earlier in Scripture.
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We can go back to Acts 11 and see his prophecy earlier.
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We know this man is a prophet and he has as it were the reputation of being a prophet.
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He's made the way all the way to where Paul is to tell him what's about to happen to the point of giving a visual demonstration.
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You're going to get bound in Jerusalem.
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And so what does he do? The apostle Paul.
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Seems at this point it would be right to say okay guys, I'm going the wrong direction.
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Jerusalem's that way.
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I'm going to turn around and go the other way.
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But verse 12 When we heard this, we and the people urged him not to go to Jerusalem.
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Then Paul answered What are you doing weeping and breaking my heart? For I am not only to be imprisoned, but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.
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You see, Paul knew this from the very moment of his conversion.
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He knew from the words of Jesus Christ himself that he was to suffer for his name.
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And though there have been times where Paul has avoided persecution and he has run out of a town or hid himself during times of persecution he knows that now his time has come.
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And he looks at these people and he says guys you're tearing me apart.
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I know what's coming.
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I know what's about to happen.
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I know and yet you want me to run.
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You want me to hide some more.
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I'm not going to hide anymore.
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I'm not going to run anymore.
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I'm going to where God has decreed me to go.
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And experience what God has called me to experience.
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Verse 14 this is what the title of the message is based on verse 14.
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And since he would not be persuaded we ceased and said let the will of the Lord be done.
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Let the will of the Lord be done.
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After this Paul goes into Jerusalem and I'm going to sort of paraphrase because there's a lot more of this chapter I'm sort of going to paraphrase at this point.
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Paul continues to Jerusalem and he meets with James and the elders of the church in Jerusalem and they discuss Paul's ministry they discuss the the the powerful things that have happened in Paul's ministry and they also discuss what people are having issue with Paul's teachings.
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They talk about the fact that there are people who are accusing Paul of not keeping the law of Moses and telling other people not to keep the law of Moses.