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hymnal. It is officially in December, so now we can really break out the Christmas music as if we hadn't already. Our first hymn this evening is going to be 433 away in a manger. 433 433 away in a manger. Away in a manger, no crib for a bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head. The stars in the sky looked down where he lay. The little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay. The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes. But little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes. I love thee, Lord Jesus, look down from the sky and stay by my cradle till morning is nigh. Be near me, Lord Jesus, I ask thee to stay. Close by me forever and love me, I pray. Bless all the dear children in thy tender care, and take us to heaven to live with thee there. Amen. Brother James, do you want to open us for a word of prayer this evening? Amen. All right, for our next hymn this evening, turn if you would to 429. 429, hark the herald angels sing. With caroling coming up, you just got to make sure that we're well practiced, all right? 420, and it's December. 429, hark the herald angels sing. 429 there, we'll start on that first verse, let's sing. Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king. Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled. Joyful all ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies with angelic host proclaim, Christ is born in Bethlehem. Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king. Christ by highest heaven adored, Christ the everlasting Lord. Late in time behold him come, offspring of a virgin's womb. Veiled in flesh the God and see, hail the incarnate deity, pleased as men with men to dwell. Jesus our Emmanuel. Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king. Hail the heaven born prince of peace, hail the son of righteousness. Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings. Mild he plays his glory by, born that man no more may die. Born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth. Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king. Come desire of nations come, fix in us thy humble home. Rise the woman's conquering seed, bruise in us the serpent's head. Adam's likeness now in face, step by image in its place. So conduct them from above, reinstate us in thy love. Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn king. Amen. Thank you so much for coming to Pure Words Baptist Church. If you need a bulletin, lift your hand nice and high and we should have some still over there on that cabinet for the James. You want to help us with that if someone needs one? On the front we have our Bible memory passage, Romans chapter number eight and we're really close to finishing this one and so I'm really excited for those that are participating. Who has anybody already completed Romans chapter number eight as far as memory? Okay I think we had like at least one person last time I was here so you know at least you kiddos if you can quote this week's verse you can get an ice cream treat after the service. Also we have our service and so many times as well as we have our church stats and then on the right hand side we have the list of expecting ladies. Continue to pray for Miss Darnell. I know they're they're traveling. I think they went to Walt Disney World so we'll pray for them that they're not back sledding and they get back into church. So also we have the list of events. Tomorrow we're going to do our Christmas caroling and then we're having pizza fellowship back here at the church and I've ordered lots of pizza already so we'll go out for about an hour and then come back here and so I encourage you to participate. Try to be here before 5 30 so that way we can get organized and head out right away. Also we have our list of upcoming preachers. I'm going to be sticking around and preaching for Sunday as well so I'll be here Sunday morning and Sunday evening and we can we can give the Sunday morning only as a hard time all right and then also Thursday or December December 19th brother Duncan Urbana is going to be coming down here preaching for you guys December 23rd we're going to have a cookie bake off. The second brother Chris Segura is coming back out here and then the ninth brother Urbana again and then the 23rd brother Naeem so great that brother Segura was able to come out here he even took pictures y'all got pictures of the guy and so you know he is he's real all right also we have prayer requests continue to pray for brother Edward and his health so that's pretty much all I had for announcements at this time we'll go to our third song 431 silent night holy night all right 431 silent night holy night 431 um silent night holy night 431 starting there on the first verse let's sing silent night holy night all is calm all is bright all is bright round yon virgin mother and child holy infant so tender and mild sleep in heavenly peace sleep in heavenly peace silent night holy night shepherds quake at the sight all three street came from heaven a farm her family oh oh sing hallelujah right the sea here is bull horn rise the same here is oh holy night son of god loves pure light radiant beams from thy holy face is with the dawn of redeeming grace jesus lord at thy birth earth jesus lord at thy silent night holy night one drust or let thy light with the angels let us sing hallelujah to our king is amen at this time we'll go to our bible reading as the offering plate is being passed around turn if you would to acts chapter number 25 acts chapter number 25 brother sampson will read point all right acts chapter number 25 turn if you would with me i'm going to read this chapter as always together i'm going to start right here acts chapter number 25 verse 1 where the bible reads now when festivals will come into the province after three days he ascended from keshera to jerusalem then the high priest and the chief of the jews informed him against paul and besotted desired favor against him that he would send for him to jerusalem laying in wait laying in the way to kill him but the festas answered that paul should be kept in keshera and that he himself would depart shortly a little let them therefore said he which among you are able go down with me and accuse this man if there be any wickedness in him and when he had tarried among them more than 10 days he went down unto keshera and the next day sitting on the judgment seat commanded paul to be brought and when he was come the jews which came down from jerusalem stood round about and laid many ungrievous complaints against paul which they could not prove why he answered for himself neither against the law of the jews neither against the temple nor yet against caesar have i offended anything at all but festas willing to do the jews of pleasure answered paul and said will thou go up to jerusalem and there be judge of these things before me then said paul i stand at caesar's judgment seat where i ought to be judged so the jews haven't done no wrong as thou very well know it for if i be an offender or committed anything worthy of death i refuse not to die but if there be none of these things whereof these accuse me no man may deliver me unto them i appeal unto caesar and festas when he had conferred with the council answered has thou appealed unto caesar unto caesar shalt thou go and after certain days king agra and bernice came into caesara to salute festas and when they had been there three days festas declared paul's case unto the king saying there's a certain man left in bonds by felix about whom when i was at jerusalem the chief priests and the elders of the jews informed desiring to have judgment to whom i answered it is not the manner of the romans to deliver any man to die before that he which is accused have the accusers face to face and have license to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him therefore when they were come hither without any delay on the morrow i sat on the judgment seat and commanded a man to be brought forth against whom when the accuser stood up they brought non-accusation of such things as i suppose but had certain questions against him of their own superstition and of one jesus which was dead whom paul affirmed to be alive and because i doubted of such manner of questions i asked him whether he would go to jerusalem there be judge of these matters but when paul had appealed to be reserved unto the hearing of augustus i commanded him to be kept till i might send him to caesar then agrafa said unto festus i would also hear the man myself tomorrow said he thou shall hear him and on the morrow when agrafa was come and burnished with great pomp and was entered into the place of hearing with the chief captains and principal men of the city at festus's commandment paul was brought forth and festus said king agrafa and all men which are here present with us you see this man about whom all the multitude of the jews have dealt with me both at jerusalem and also here trying that he ought not to live any longer when i found that he had committed nothing worthy of death and that he himself have appealed to augustus i have determined to send him of whom i have no certain thing to write unto my lord wherefore i have brought him forth before you and specially before thee o king agrafa that after examination had i might have somewhat to write for it seemeth me unreasonable to send a prisoner and not with all to signify the crimes laid against him by his and a quick word amen we're in acts chapter number 25 and we're continuing the same storyline that we've been having in acts where the apostle paul is basically been seized by the romans in protection against the jews from the jews and he's been questioned and i just kind of being tossed around the court system the legal system of the romans being in prison at different various times and in chapter 24 if we look at the kind of the last few verses it says in verse 27 but after two years fortius festus came into felix room and felix willing to show the jews of pleasure left paul bound so the first few chapters of this situation where we have paul getting arrested and we have him being accused of the jews and then going to the you know into the romans hands and then being sent is a really short period of time it's only like a few weeks or something but then we kind of like fast forward two years as we get into chapter 25 and we see that he's still in the situation of being basically in jail or on house arrest or some variation therein and it's been so much time that the previous ruler or the previous leader has been replaced so we had a previous guy in chapter number 24 felix but now we have festus festus has now come into power and taken felix's position that's what it means by felix room okay so it says in verse one now in festus has come into the province after three days he ascended from cesarea to jerusalem so he comes into power and then only three days in uh he goes to uh jerusalem so they're in cesarea and he's going to jerusalem and while he's there he says then the high priest and the chief of the jews informed him against paul and beside him and desired favor against him that he would send for him to jerusalem lying wait in a way to kill him so right here we have that the jews they can't let this go i mean it's been two years think about this they went and accused paul didn't get anywhere didn't have anything of substance to accuse him and then two years later they're still wanting to kill paul they're still after paul they still can't let this go and they're going to this new leader and they're trying to basically get paul again it says in verse number four but festus answered that paul should be kept at cesarea and that he himself would depart shortly thither let them therefore said he which among you are able go down with me and accuse this man if there be any wickedness in him so he comes into power he hasn't been in power very long he goes to Jerusalem while there the religious leaders they come and they basically are antagonizing festus and they're saying hey you know there's this guy paul you've got in your custody let's let's just just send him over here and we'll kill him on the way down now i'm sure that festus he doesn't necessarily care about paul he doesn't really care about anybody as you read this as you read the chapter but he's probably just wanting to be a little careful here like he just came into power he probably doesn't really want to rock the boat on day three of coming into power by you know sending somebody down to Jerusalem and them getting killed along the way and them getting killed along the way would potentially make him look bad maybe be culpable and maybe kind of suspicious that he sent him down there just randomly right when he came in and so he's kind of like why don't you guys come down and do it properly you know why don't you just come down if this guy is such a bad guy like you're telling me he is why don't you just come and witness and then we'll take care of it there you know from his perspective he's thinking that this guy is wicked that he is really bad let's just go ahead and fix it the proper way so that way he doesn't have any you know issue but notice that the jews they're already willing to corrupt the judge we see that they have like there's no morals the jews that we have in the bible the jews that jesus christ is calling out they weren't godly people obviously they appeared righteous as jesus described them but they were full of excess and extortion and they were full of all kinds of wickedness bribes here that here they're just trying to influence this judge and corrupt this judge and they're trying to get a judge involved in a conspiracy of murder of all kinds of criminal offense and all kinds of evil i mean you know what kind of persona or not persona what kind of perception do you think this guy has of christianity so-called right of the jews religion when the religious leaders themselves are trying to bribe him and are trying to kill people outside of the law doesn't that just give a lot of shame to the god of the bible doesn't that just make the god of the bible look like it's just a fake and it's just a fraud and it's just you know these guys are just in it for the money and so you know it's really just a shame that a lot of people probably have a bad perception of christianity solely because of religious leaders the wicked religious leaders that are in power today you know the charlatans and the fraudsters and you know a lot of people think christianity is a joke because their only interaction of christianity is seeing tv preachers or something and look they anybody can tell those guys are fake you know obviously they dupe a lot of like you know you know a baby boomer old you know widows or something like that but most people that have you know any kind of common sense can watch the tv preacher and be like this guy only cares about money this guy's a weirdo this guy's you know a psycho or something like that and and so they end up thinking that christianity is a joke they don't think that christianity is real they don't think there's any power behind it they think that people are just using the bible for their own gain using it for money using it for power and here's the thing there is some truth to that because there's been plenty of people who have abused the word of god have abused positions of authority have abused christianity have have uh used the name of jesus christ to their own advantage and so it's really important that we have men of integrity men that are not willing to do such things because you know if just every single leader just always turns out to be a charlatan and a fraud and a crook and just selfish and just wicked it destroys a lot of other people's faith along the way you know someone that wants to put themselves in a position of leadership or really wants to just present themselves as a leader whether they're official or not you know they need to make sure that they're willing to count the cost because when they go down others go down with them it's very important that we have integrity in leadership we have integrity in the house of god and we have men that are willing to live a life above approach that are willing to make the sacrifices and willing to set a right example and willing to do the right thing so that people can have faith in the god of the bible so people can have faith in christianity without the the righteous remnant without the few pauls out there without the few men that are willing to take that stand and live a christian life not for one year not for two years for a decade for decades for just year after year just a long period of time so we can look at a guy and say here's a guy that served god for decades here's a guy that's doing that which is right for a really long time he stood the test of time he's seen the people come and go he's seen the wicked get what they deserve and and really a lot of the bible won't even make sense to you unless you've lived a life where it's decades of serving god decades because a lot of the things that happen in the bible take a long period of time you know you but if you go through serving god and i'm not even saying this from personal experience in the sense that i've seen a lot of those things come to fruition i'm just saying from understanding what the bible teaches there's a lot of things in the bible that will never make sense to us until we've gone like a whole 10 years of doing something or 20 years of doing something you know and a lot of people are very naive to just life experience this is making me think of teenagers right as a teenager you think you understand everything you finally figured out the whole world you know you finally got all the information in fact you've now gotten to a point where you're smarter than your parents but the the thing is is you you really don't understand how much more knowledge and how much more life experience is going to teach you and how much more you're going to mature and how much you're going to realize that you never thought of that you've never seen before and there's just so many layers to that onion of life experience that's out there and so it's important not to get lifted up with pride or thinking you know it all you know when you really steadfast when you're really serving god you're going to see epic battles and you're going to see ultimate victories now paul paul has not even been released from custody has been multiple years so i'll say this also you could go through a really hard season of your life that's years years of struggle years of difficulty years of just hardship and it takes a long time for god to bless you it takes a long time for god you know to turn things around or for something to change think about with joseph and egypt right they were gonna go through seven years of plenty but they also went through seven years of famine do you think that was easy i mean seven years of famine you know this church is only like three years old a little over three years old i mean imagine if it was like the first seven years are going to be hard you know that would be you know frustrating you know it might seem like oh man you know why are we in a season of famine but you never know when god is going to end up giving that season of harvest or blessing or turning things around and often he uses the hard times to make good people better to test us to try us to see hey will you really serve me when it's a year of famine will you serve me when it's a decade of famine will you serve me when things are hard how about will you serve me when you've been in jail for two years i mean you don't think that paul woke up you know every day kind of thinking like is this the day i'm getting out you know like hey god i've been praying every day you know wouldn't it be easy to quit praying if after two years you still had no results i mean you're just kind of thinking like i thought i was the apostle paul like you know like if you're gonna leave me in jail for like two years i mean what you'd kind of it would be easy to lose faith and i think us in our flesh we struggle with this too we don't realize that sometimes god's timing is a long time to us at least it seems like a long time right i mean two years is a long time to wait i mean you know a lot happens in two years you know sometimes god will put us through a really difficult time for a long period of time to give us character to give us integrity to give us patience to teach us you know very important lessons and ultimately you know it's better than being dead because what's the alternative i mean he was rescued from the jews now be it he's you know and not in a good situation necessarily but through this chapter we're going to see that paul gets some really unique opportunities that would have never been afforded to him if he wasn't in this position okay so point you know the first point that you know we're kind of looking at and look and seeing here is obviously paul's in a bad situation people still want to kill him and let me tell you when they're going to want to stop killing him when they die there's going to be people that just want the righteous to die until they die it's just going to be a fight forever look at verse six and when he had tarried among them more than 10 days he went down unto cesarea so this is talking about festus he turns back to cesarea he was there uh more than 10 days about two weeks and the next day sitting on the judgment seat commanded paul to be brought so as soon as he gets back i mean this guy is doing the jews bidding isn't he i mean he's basically the jews must have his number or something the day he gets back the next day sitting on the judgment seat commanded paul to be brought and when he was come the jews which came down from jerusalem stood round about and laid many and grievous complaints against paul which they could not prove now this is an interesting verse because it's saying they showed up and man did they give him you know all kinds of just evil just all kinds of just horrible slanderous things are being said about paul paul's a cult leader and paul's a malefactor and paul's wicked and then it's like oh oh he's a malefactor what did he do well he's bad do you have any proof of that look this guy said he's bad too like get up here you know weinstein okay weinstein's like he's bad why do you think he's bad well goldberg said he was bad you know and goldberg's pointing you know to greenback you know greenback goldberg you know all these guys are coming up and they're just like bad bad but then there's just really no evidence they're just like this guy's evil this guy's a cult leader did you hear what he said do you hear what he believes but at the end of the day you know it doesn't make them look good because what does it say in verse number eight it says while he answered for himself neither against the law of the jews neither against the temp so let me slow down because i want to read this for you correctly it says while he answered for himself so they laid many grievous complaints the way this is kind of narrating he's like while he answered himself and then this is him talking okay neither against the law of the jews neither against the temple nor yet against caesar have i offended anything at all but festus so so then you know it kind of transitions so they're saying like he's done all this horrible horrible and then then paul just like just one liner i've not done anything against the jews or the temple or caesar and i'm done there's my defense i rest my case you know i haven't done any of these things so then it says but festus willing to do the jews of pleasure so notice whose side he's on already and let me say something judges oftentimes will just favor one side over the other they're just already on someone's team they're not impartial it's not blind justice here right he's already willing to do the jews of service then he he gets in and they said wilt thou go up to jerusalem and there be judged these things before me now let's slow down for a second they laid all these charges against paul but they couldn't prove any of it okay and then paul's just like didn't do any of it so at this point they have nothing they don't have a confession and everything they said is unprovable so from festus perspective what would he have to do i mean if someone comes up and says we have a case the prosecution is coming against a defendant and the prosecution lays out their case they say we have no case and they're like did you do it no you know what the next thing you gotta do we're ready to go but what does he say he's trying to give the jews another he's throwing a bone here he's like well i don't have anything but how about how about you go back to jerusalem now this shows how wicked festus is because think about it if he just lets paul go now the jews are going to be really mad at him so instead of letting the jews be mad at him what does he do he's willing to go along with their conspiracy plot and literally kill paul and you know what this happens in america all the time where a person is innocent but because of the mob the angry mob outside the judge is willing to hang the man the judge is willing to get a bad ruling against the man against the defendant so as to appease the mob and notice this guy is willing to literally be complicit in murder and a murder plot against paul just so the jews won't be mad at him just so they won't come and pick at his house or go protest him or dox him or whatever evil is going to happen and this also shows that there's no new thing under the sun you know and a lot of cases have happened in this this country this year where you have like the blm protesters you have anti-profit protesters and all these angry people standing outside saying we're going to kill the jury and we're going to kill the judge you better give right justice and blah blah blah and it's perverting judgment it's perverting judgment and it's not right and let me tell you something when you bow down to the mob you're their slave forever you have to just decide you know what i don't want to live in a society where an angry mob gets to tell me what to do i'm going to just take a stand because you know what when everyone takes a stand they back down it just takes a few brave souls to actually do the right thing and give the right verdict in a particular case in a particular subject to me it reminds me of the kyle rittenhouse situation a little bit where it was real obvious that the prosecution had no case he made it very clear he didn't do it and then it's just like well what are we going to do here you got to let him go i mean that's just the rep and praise the lord that there was enough brave souls that were willing to say you know what we're going to do the right thing and we're going to write you know render the right verdict here and you know he was not found guilty of first degree murder it was like first degree reckless homicide or some ridiculous claim as if he intended to kill these people beforehand or had guile against these people he'd never met in his life it's it's insane okay but that's just one example there's so many examples today where judges and the legal system it's just it's just crooked and that's why the bible in first corinthian six is so adamant about not taking brother to law and not trying to drag people it's just unjust judgment they're all wicked you know not all i shouldn't say that but essentially just in generalities the outside of the church judgment's bad and that's what god said i didn't just make that up i mean god's saying why would you go to the unjust for judgment you know the unbelievers go to proverbs 29 now if god's calling them you know unjust then i already know that that's right now proverbs chapter 29 look at verse number four proverbs chapter 29 look at verse number four here's another reason why uh a lot of times judgments are perverted not just from all the pressure but kind of the flip side because not only do these people say like we'll kill you and stone you and you know harass you if you get the wrong verdict but then on the other side they'll typically say well we'll give you lots of money and promotion and jobs if you give the right verdict so they give you the both the carrot and the stick they're like do right get a carrot do wrong no carrot and the stick you know it's just kind of like they are going to use all of their tactics to their advantage proverbs 29 look at verse four the king by judgment establish it the land but he that receiveth gifts overthrows it so notice it's very very important that any area have righteous judgment because if it doesn't have righteous judgment ultimately that area will be destroyed okay and you can see this throughout history you can see this in any area you want to know one of the worst places to live places where they don't have a good legal system a place where the judges are corrupt the judges already bought and paid for the judges just do whatever the government tells them they're already paid off or they're they're too heavily influenced or too heavily biased or there's countries where you're found guilty before you even walk in the room you're just guilty until proven innocent basically they wouldn't arrest you if you hadn't done something wrong basically and so when you don't have good judgment when you don't have righteous judges your city your area your town your country will be destroyed we can see this throughout america there's certain areas where the judges are more corrupt than others and in those areas crime is a lot higher there's a lot more thievery there's a lot more wickedness going on right now in california theft is insane i mean theft is just going on rampant in certain areas why because they've already ruled that they're not going to convict people of petty crime the da got up and is basically like passed new legislation saying that they're not even arrest people for you know stealing things that are under the price of like 850 or something like that you can look it up but it's just like what in the world so basically you know when you're robbing someone be like how much is that worth you know okay and you know i've done a little bit of research on this because i was just interested i've looked up like criminal defense lawyers okay and and specifically stealing because i don't know i just had this interest in like what would happen to someone if they stole a lot of money like what punishments they may receive about that and so i've like looked this up and the worst thing you can steal in these situations is money because you can't devalue money but when people steal goods what criminal defense lawyers will do is they'll try every effort to lower the value of whatever item was stolen they'll say like oh this car was already dinged up and it was already damaged and it's really not worth much you know just trying to knock down the price of whatever it is that they still oh this handbag is a tear it's worn it's out of fashion you know just basically trying to drive down the price of everything that was stolen and they present all this evidence to basically devalue property because if they can get it under certain thresholds the criminal penalties reduce significantly i believe in the state of texas i've looked this up recently so you can fact check me but i believe you have to be under it's either 3500 or 2500 i believe it's 35 if i remember correctly anything under 3500 that you steal is not a felony but if it's above 3500 then it is a felony and then when it gets above more thresholds it becomes even more severe felonies and everything like that now again if you steal property or goods or whatever that's easier to try and knock down when you steal cash it's hard to be like well this cash is less than it now it's the amount that you stole okay and so that's why it's you know if you're going to steal something i'm not giving you advice here but it's better to steal something that could be devalued at least from a criminal defense lawyer perspective okay and and it's just the wicked the criminal system in this world is just so wicked though and so like people are going out and robbing indiscriminately in california and they're basically getting away with it no one's doing anything about it and the cops will arrest people but i saw a cop do an interview and they said right now we can issue them citations and everything like that but the da and the prosecution has already said they won't prosecute so it's basically just handing them like just a note says like please stop and it's not working surprisingly you know when you just hand them a letter and they have to release them because there's two sides of our legal system there's the people that do the arrest and then there's the people that convict them okay just because you get arrested doesn't mean anything you have to actually then get convicted on top of that so if the prosecution will not work with the arresting officer then there's a mismatch that ends up allowing a lot of people to go free from crimes and it'll frustrate police officers and it'll discourage police officers from even making arrests i've talked to police officers and i know they they're discouraged they don't even want to arrest people because they say i'll just arrest this person then they'll just be out and then it'll look bad that i'm like arresting people and nothing's happening it'll affect my record and then it's harder to arrest the person again and then it's like it's all this paperwork and headache and all this so it's like they basically have to work with prosecution and build the prosecution's case for them before they want and then make make the arrest and then just hand over on a like a silver platter with a bow wrapped around it you know the prosecution situation and and the cops are too lazy you want to do that so they shift the burden to the victim so now the victim has to basically you know wrap everything around in a bow and just like here's all the evidence for the prosecution here's it all you know please do your job it's it's kind of a sad reality that we live in but fortunately if you're a motivated enough victim you can do all that you can just wrap around a nice little bow and just hand it off to everybody and say here you go and they're like wow but here's the thing about the judges judges can be bought you know and so that's why you want to just avoid the situation at all costs jesus even teaches this go to matthew chapter five for a moment that's where i want you to turn go to matthew chapter number five when we realize that you know the system back then was rigged and you know if you just like have a brain or if you've ever noticed anything going on in our world you realize that it's rigged here too then then you really want to avoid the legal system at all costs it should always be the last resort and if you do something wrong the bible makes it very clear what you should do it's unequivocal if you actually find yourself committing some kind of crime or you do something wrong against someone or you injure someone or you do something evil what does the bible say well look what it says in verse 25 matthew 5 verse 25 agree with thine adversary quickly whilst thou art in the way with him lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge and the judge deliver thee to the officer and thou be cast into prison now notice what happens if you do something wrong you want to get right quick before what happens the legal system gets involved because once the legal system gets involved you can't stop that train that train those wheels are in motion things are going to happen you know and so that's why it's important to not even get that train going now what does he what does god say verily i say unto thee thou shalt by no means come out fence till thou is paid the uttermost farthing wow that's scary because you know the bible is not saying that the justice system will make sure you pay it all it's saying that god will make sure that you pay it all and that's why it's really really important that when you screw up you get right when you do something wrong you pay it and you make sure to get it rectified early and often you don't want to have to go through the legal system because the legal system will fix it apparently but not because of what they want because god is there and forcing them to take that out on them goviewood back to acts 25 you know and the bible tells us that verily there's a god in the earth that judges you know there he really does judge here too some people think like oh well they'll eventually get it when they go to hell yeah that's true but god also judges here and people are getting what they deserve a lot in this earth they're getting all kinds of evil that happens to them all kinds of pain and suffering people are having a lot of punishment and they do they think it's because you know there is no god it's because there is a god so it's so weird how they think that they're like oh why would god allow all this bad stuff to happen to me if he exists and it's like the reason why all the bad stuff is happening is because god does exist and he's punishing you like for the wicked stuff you did that's the whole reason it's because you're wicked that's the reason why they don't want to believe god is exist because they have to admit that they're wicked they have to say oh the bad stuff that's happening to me is because god does exist and because i'm wicked what they want to believe is i'm good and i would never let this bad stuff happen to me i would never you know punish myself and so therefore god must not exist their logic is faulty though you know even pharaoh had to at one point realize like the lord is righteous and i and my servants are wicked you know i and my people are wicked but he wasn't willing to stay in that state of mind forever because he's a reprobate so he can't then he drifts back and then he goes and attacks the lord's people but in a moment of soberness and consciousness he realized even he was wicked and deserved all the evil that was happening to him look at verse number uh 10 the bible says then said paul i stand at caesar's judgment seat where ought to be judged to the jews have i done no wrong as thou very well knowest verse 11 for if i be an offender or have committed anything worthy of death i refuse not to die but if there be none of these things where of these accuse me no man may deliver me unto them i appeal to caesar now a few things in this verse i want to kind of slow down on this verse because i feel like these few verses are really important first of all i believe that paul must have perceived the danger he was in from that statement because and you know he's not stupid he was in jerusalem not hurting anybody in the temple alone basically just with a few other guys not causing any problems just praying serving god or whatever you know having a quiet time meditating on the lord and he just gets snatched up by a bunch of evil wicked jews that drag him out beating him trying to kill him he gets ripped out of their hands from the roman by the romans then they take them and at some point the romans say like okay we're gonna bring you back down here and let them kind of question you again in the middle of being questioned he gets beat again and they're trying to kill him and they won't harken they won't listen or whatever then they drag him to set caesarea and they come up and they just just lying about him slandering him wanting him to die you know saying all this evil about him and then he's like hey do you want to go back there it's like ah no like duh no but you know it's probably not the best way to answer the judge just like no right so he kind of he's kind of thinking about it and he's like well i'm gonna go ahead and appeal i stand at caesarea's judgment right that's the immediate thing that comes to his mind like get me as far away from these people as possible like i don't want to go to jerusalem i want to go to rome now that would make sense because if you go back to chapter number 23 look what it said in verse 11 and the night following the lord stood by him and said be of good cheer paul for as thou has testified to me in jerusalem so must thou bear witness also at rome so maybe he put two and two together and he's thinking like here's my opportunity to stay away from the jews okay which is a good idea and number two go to rome on a free ticket you know take me to rome let's go god already told him that he would go to rome and what's the purpose of going to rome so he can testify to the lord so he can do some work for the lord and so it makes a lot of sense why he would then appeal to caesar and also you have to understand that when you're in these situations every single word is very important you want to meditate on the words that you're going to use you want to really think about the situation you're in because at any moment that he says what if he accidentally wasn't really really thinking about this and he's like i haven't done anything wrong yeah let me go down there and i'll tell him how i've done anything wrong again he just issued his own destiny at that point not necessarily knowing what he was saying was he so that's why when you're in these situations you want to be really careful here's some good advice say nothing without a lawyer let me give you some practical advice whenever you've been accused of anything any kind of legal situation and the cops literally saying like you know anything you say and do can and will be used against you in a court of law do you know they're giving you your miranda rights you need to be like hey if he's he's like warning me that he's about to attack me with anything i say and do maybe i should not say or do anything and a lot of times they'll bring you into a room and apparently cops don't have to have integrity because i've watched a lot of interrogations when they interrogate people they just lie i mean i've watched a lot of interrogations just because i was curious about it like specifically like people that were guilty and just to see how the guilty people responded that was the goal and then i realized like wow cops are scumbags because i was like man like they just walk in they're like we've got you you're nailed we have all the evidence you're going to jail forever you might as well confess now and they have nothing the like the narrator is saying like if this suspect had known his rights he could have he could have asked if he's being arrested and the cop would have had to say no and then he could have walked out but watch as they put the guy under pressure and then he confesses to the entire crime and you're just like wow you know it was kind of crazy you know when you watch these like scenes and whatever and i'm not trying to help criminals because none of you guys are criminals all right but i'm just saying if you get found in one of these situations you need to ask certain questions like am i being detained do i have the right to leave can i leave because that's your best thing leave second thing would be i'm not going to speak to anyone unless i have a lawyer present that's really good advice because your lawyer you know will know what you can and cannot say what you should should not answer things like that and they can't even use this against you you know it's not you're not allowed to be you're not perceived as guilty because you asked for a lawyer to be present that doesn't necessarily rule into in the court of law now that's why it's funny because at the pal written house juror his during his trial the prosecution tried to use against him the fact that he exercised his fifth amendment right to not speak as a like some kind of sign or evidence that he was guilty or something like that and the judge just like ripped him a new one because that's not even allowed because if you're afforded the right to basically not speak so that is to not incriminate yourself or say something foolish or whatever then you have every right to do that in america at least for now you know we have these rights you might as well use them and we noticed that paul is using his rights paul has the right to appeal to caesar and so he says i appeal unto caesar and that's where he's going to go so it's also no there's no problem in exercising whatever rights you have as a citizen you know whatever god has given you whatever god has blessed you with you know wherever you find yourself it's important to be intelligent to be wise to understand your situation understand you know the rights and the the opportunities you have before you and use all of them to your advantage for the cause of christ there's no point in just dying early being a fool you know the apostle paul is using his rights here he's exercising his rights he's defending himself you know he's answering these questions that were against him and the bible is literally describing you know what paul's doing is answering for himself defending himself you know protecting himself from this very serious situation and because you know the enemy is unsaved and because they're not spiritual a lot of times they'll try to fight you in carnal ways they'll attack you through money they'll attack you through the legal system they'll attack you in these ways where it may not appear like it's an obvious spiritual battle look this is a spiritual battle even though you would think like this is like the court system and this is just like you know weird criminal matter whatever but isn't this a serious spiritual matter oh yeah it is i mean we're talking about the apostle paul getting the opportunity to go to rome they're wanting to kill him improperly and so it's very important that you pay attention to your life in all areas not just thinking like well i'm spiritual at church but everywhere else it's you know not spiritual or something or it's not serving the lord look everything is serving the lord you know our whole life is serving god in every aspect and in every way and we need to make sure that we're careful to handle ourselves and i got this really good advice that if you ever are put in a position to essentially testify like you have to actually answer you have to you know basically give some kind of advice for yourself you're being questioned you're put in these situations where you have to testify give a deposition doing things you know the advice that i was given and i think it's really good advice is that you should pray for the understanding of every single question asked before answering and that you should pray and ask god to give you the answer for every single question before you answer and it'll help you kind of slow down process it and and ultimately you're relying upon the lord to help you you know rather than just speaking for yourself you know the god of the universe that spoke everything into existence through his word is a wordsmith let me tell you and jesus christ he avoided every word salad that the pharisees and the sadducees wanted to give against them and you know what the bible talks about the holy spirit being with us the bible talks about uh you know the god giving his his servants words whenever they're put in these situations you know and so you know ask the lord to help you in one of these situations i think it makes a lot of sense i think it's really good advice and so that's something that we can think of here's another thing he mentions though and this is a little bit different than what we've talked about so far but notice what he says in verse 11 that he says for if i be an offender or i've committed anything worthy of death i refuse not to die now i think that this verse is actually a really important verse and it's a really good verse because unfortunately in the society we live today gotten so perverted weird and they are just history deniers that many christians will deny the death penalty they like think that it's unbiblical or they think that jesus like abolished the death penalty or some kind of bizarre doctrine that's being taught but notice paul i guess paul didn't get this uh memo because notice what he says if he says if i've done something worthy of death i refuse not to die now in every other category is he not trying to defend the faith i mean in every other area where they're basically accusing him or falsely accusing he's taking a stand he's saying nope i haven't done anything wrong you know this is what the bible actually teaches i'm believing in jesus christ so he's he's fully aware of the old testament he was raised a pharisee and now that he's been saved and had revelations from jesus christ he's fully aware of jesus christ doctrine in the new testament i mean this guy's pretty qualified to interpret for us the differences between the old and new testament i mean if there was ever a person on this earth that is the most qualified to tell us what changed from the old testament to the new testament it's paul i mean there's not a better person who who would you pick of anybody on this earth except the god himself to answer the question of like hey what changed from the old new testament it's paul so if paul is saying in acts chapter number 25 that he would take the death penalty then i guarantee the death penalty didn't change otherwise he would have been like no no guys even if i committed you know something worthy of death jesus abolished the death penalty man didn't you hear about the woman caught in adultery that's what i always hear it's like well jesus you know did you not hear that story and i'm thinking like yeah i did i actually did read that story you know whenever they brought this woman you know caught in adultery and they're asking jesus about what what moses said you know and what the law said you know what jesus said and they're like uh no i don't remember what did he say you know they're like bringing up this story and i'm like he said he does without sin let him first cast a stone at her and then i say so did jesus say to stoner or not like uh well he said to stoner sounds like he believes the death penalty then i mean did jesus really say oh the death penalty is gone guys what did he actually say throw stones at her i mean that's if you really want to just break it down jesus did not back away from the death penalty in any way but he did do this he did put a caveat on it so that none of them would be able to fulfill it and it was a really interesting and clever way to answer that question because in no way to deny the old testament and no way to deny the death penalty yet because of what he said though he convicted all of them because they were sinners not willing to cast a judgment and he avoided a situation where people would have even followed that advice because look jesus had a big following and i think that if jesus had said stoner some people probably would have done it some people would have picked up stones throwing stones i mean adulterous a serious sin and you know i know we live in america where it happens every day but you know back then these people were zealous of the law they were going to kill think about this they wanted to kill paul just for the fact that he might have brought a gentile into the temple they were that serious about the law they wanted to stone people for breaking the sabbath okay someone committing adultery of course they would have wanted to stone that woman and if jesus had said stoner there would have been plenty of people that would have picked up rocks and stoned her and killed her right at that moment but then what would have happened the religious leaders would have gone to the romans and said hey there's this insurrectionist that is killing people contrary to roman law because he gave the order to stone her and a bunch of people did picked up stones and stoned her and killed her and then jesus would have been arrested found guilty and executed but not on the cross the way the bible prescribed it and not without sin okay so that therefore he answered it in such a clever way so as to not deny the old testament yet make it where no one was going to throw a stone because they're like well i'm center too you know and notice that the bible says the oldest left first and then it went all the way down to the youngest so the older you are the easier it is to realize your sin apparently okay the younger you are you're still kind of prideful and think that you're right but the older you are the more you've read the bible you think like i sinned a lot but the the death penalty is a very important doctrine and it's something that we should continue to preach so that people will believe in the death penalty you know in texas praise god we still have the death penalty if you commit murder and it's first degree it's intentional and it's the right circumstances you will get the death penalty in texas now there is exceptions and everything like that but some uh situations i've read i've read there's a long list of reasons why you die for getting murdered like it's anybody that's a police officer you get the death you can get the death penalty for that if it's like a first responder like an emt or a fireman or something like that you kill them intentionally it's it's it's potentially the death penalty um there's a lot of other circumstances in which it can be a first degree intentional homicide some kind of violent murder or whatever you can get the death penalty in the state of texas and the state of texas still executes people unfortunately states like oklahoma have recently given pleas or have accepted pleas of people on death road and not uh give them the death penalty and just put them on life in prison you know that what that's going to do increase crime all it's going to do it's not helping anybody you know grieving the guy that's you know not going to be killed he may not even like want to be in prison for his whole life you know a lot of people that are in prison want to die they try to kill themselves on a regular basis because they just want to die and you know it's harder to kill yourself than to let someone else kill you as evidenced by a lot of people in the bible wanted to kill themselves saul didn't want to kill himself but he wanted to die and so whenever no one would do it he finally tried to do it himself he finally fell upon his own sword but you know the death penalty is a healthy thing it's a good thing to have in our society because of sin it's the best way to eliminate certain sins and certain sinners and when it comes to you know the state of texas praise the lord we have it you know some states don't here's a state that doesn't have the death penalty wisconsin very sad thing that wisconsin doesn't have the death penalty because recently there was a man who intentionally was driving or at least this is the alleged the ledgeman there's a man who is alleged to have intentionally driven his vehicle through parades this like christmas parade or whatever and he injured like dozens and killed at least six potentially even more including elderly and even a young child like eight-year-old boy or something like that and according to two detectives it's already come out they've given testimony that the guy was like slowing down speeding up swerving and at times it looked like he was swerving in the direction of people for the most damage making it pretty clear that it was seemingly intentional but if you look up this guy's rap sheet he was literally released recently on bond a thousand dollar bond after he'd run over his ex-girlfriend his ex-girlfriend came and was like you know and argue with him at a gas station and he intentionally ran over her and then was facing charges was released on bond so those are pending charges on someone before that he had like a decade of just all kinds of serious crimes warrants for his arrest in multiple states how about rape and impregnating a teenager what do you have to do to go to jail like how do you have how do you have all of these crimes you know that was like a conviction running over his girlfriend with a car all kinds of abuse and all kinds of other evil that he's done in his entire life i mean it took 20 minutes 20 minutes for the prosecutor just to read the charges of conviction that he's had in his past just 20 minutes of just like in 2002 this and 2003 this and 2004 this and 2005 this and 2006 and then just over and over and over so where we live in a society where you can commit all manner of atrocity and crime and evil and still be roaming the streets oh because of covid right you know literally they've released thousands of prisoners criminals from jails because of covid in fact a lot of people were saying that the prisoners were trying to find someone that had covid and like rub their body on them and like have them cough on them or whatever just so they could get sick so they could be released from prison just you know i mean think about it if you were in life in prison or you had a long you know 10 years in prison and they say hey just go get this flu for like a week and you'll get out it's like yeah you're gonna get that you know everyone's gonna get that and so it's just insane the world that we live in where we don't have the death penalty we don't have serious uh punishments for these people because when you have the death penalty people are thinking like i don't want to do that maybe i won't actually commit that crime because i'll actually be killed but when they realize that they might get off or you know there's not that serious of a penalty and i and i looked this up because i was just interested but this man currently faces six charges of intentional homicide which if found guilty the maximum punishment is just life in prison that's it that's the max punishment if he gets that but in 1853 they repealed the death penalty in wisconsin that was a long time ago 1853 now the reason why is they've only had one execution in all of their state's history one and it was in 1851 two years before they ended up abolishing the death penalty the person who was executed his name was john mccaffery he was found guilty of drowning his wife murder just first degree intentional homicide at the time wisconsin state law the only penalty for first degree intentional homicide was the death penalty so if anybody was found guilty of first degree intentional homicide on this was the death penalty so this guy found guilty was sentenced to death was killed well then after witnessing this guy's execution some legislator or something goes on a campaign to to end the death penalty now this is the logic that they used they said well because the only punishment for first degree homicide is the death penalty juries are not convicted because they because they realize that you know we're basically sentencing this guy to death if we found find him guilty so they're having too much pity too much empathy for these criminals and so they're just ruling not guilty on a regular basis and so they wanted to have lesser punishments to try and entice the jury to end up convicting now that's a long time ago okay we're talking 170 years ago it's hard to know what's real and this is one thing that people don't understand when it comes to history usually a lot of revisionist history meaning we have no idea what was really happening okay i think it's possible that two things are true about this either a this guy is just making up a lie to try and you know essentially change the law or it could be true i think it could be true because the bible teaches that when there's the death penalty says thine eye shall not pity so god is already anticipating the fact that there's going to be a lot of people that don't have the stomach for putting someone to death or sentencing someone to death or being willing to be complicit with the death penalty and that tells me this that they've really probably just don't know the bible and they probably are just ignorant of god's word and that's why we need the god the word of god to thunder forth so that people would have the stomach would have the appetite for the death penalty because it's appropriate you know we shouldn't shy away from such a penalty we should desire it now go if you would in your bible x is 31. i want to go to a few places real quick what's interesting is after reading this it says that there is many attempts to bring back the death penalty throughout uh you know wisconsin's history yet there was it was never successful but there was in 2006 they did a poll and they asked people they said we're thinking about bringing back the death penalty and if we brought back the death penalty on this grounds that someone committed multiple intentional homicides not just one multiple intentional homicides then we would put them to death 55 percent of the respondents said that they would want the death penalty for that person so in fact the majority of wisconsin citizens at that time did say they wanted the death penalty for that situation and what's sick about it is this guy is literally facing six charges but if found guilty he won't even fall to the will of the 55 percent in wisconsin which i guarantee if found guilty a lot higher percentage of wisconsin citizens would probably want him to actually be put to death which is just sad that literally these the judges and our legal system is not willing to comply with what the bible actually says and a lot of christians are bringing that number down by having a false ideology of what the bible says look what it says in exodus 31 genesis exodus 31 look at verse number 14 okay and we're going to read a few verses here what the bible actually says verse 14 he shall keep the sabbath therefore for it is holy unto you everyone that defileth it shall surely be put to death there's never do with any work therein that soul shall be cut off among his people six days may work be done but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest holy to the lord whosoever do with any work in the sabbath day he shall surely he put the death so the bible does prescribe the death penalty for the sabbath now in the new testament we realize that we no longer have to observe the sabbath therefore it wouldn't make sense to have the death penalty for the sabbath in the new testament okay and people will use this as an example of how jesus also abolished the death penalty but they really screw up the bible go to matthew chapter 12 i watched a video recently of somebody you know that was against the new ivy or something like that whatever that is specifically my sending pastor pastor stephen anderson and he was saying that you know it's it's wrong for christians to believe in the death penalty especially leviticus 2013 in the new testament this guy's obviously not seen this out of my deception so he needs to watch that but this is his justification he says well he pastor anderson and these people like this are ignorant of of the bible because jesus broke the sabbath and so he you know uh obviously is cherry picking let me let me word this a little better and again you should get the verbatim quotes from this guy this is what the guy was basically saying he said they're basically cherry picking which parts of the old testament law that we should obey and not obey when it comes to capital punishment because they're not doing the sabbath and he's like but that's what jesus did and i was like wow you just said that jesus is cherry picking the old testament to his own his own whims and wishes i was like that's a wicked thing to say that's a blasphemous thing to say but first of all jesus didn't cherry pick anything out of the old testament he fulfilled the entire old testament okay he never sinned in any way but what some people don't understand is how the sabbath works okay so because of their ignorance of how the sabbath works they end up railing on jesus but look at matthew 12 verse 1 at the time jesus went on the sabbath day through the corn and his disciples were in hungered and began to pluck the ears of corn and eat when the pharisee saw it they said on him behold thy disciples do that which is not lawful to do upon the sabbath day but he said unto them have not read what david did when he was in hungered and they that were with him how he entered into the house of god and did eat the showbread which was not lawful for him to eat neither for them which were with him but only for the priests or have you not read in the law how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath and are blameless so what is jesus pointing out jesus is saying look you're falsely accusing my disciples of breaking the sabbath from a sin perspective okay whereas you can technically break the sabbath and it not be a sin because there's a provision or the sabbath now how do you know that well look what jesus says jesus says in verse number five that the priests profane the sabbath but notice it says this and and are blameless so when the priests are profaning the sabbath are they sinning no but here's the question are the priests breaking the sabbath the answer is obviously yes they're doing all kinds of work i mean they're working their butt off okay they're literally just slicing animals up and dicing them and you know putting their parts everywhere and burning it and pouring blood i mean they're working they're sweating they're doing everything you could imagine and it's the sabbath okay but they're blameless why because god told them to do that on the sabbath this would be the same logic as when it says thou shall not kill and be like oh i guess you can't have the death penalty then and you're like no no that's an improper understanding we're not killing we're just legally executing okay and in the new testament i believe after studying this recently that really you can just say unequivocally thou should not kill because god doesn't ever say like kill in the new testament as far as like a positive thing we're putting some we believe in the death penalty putting someone to death is not killing them killing or murder would essentially be taking someone's life that's innocent whereas executing someone is giving them the proper punishment for their crime okay and so i don't believe in killing anyone killing is always wrong murder is always wrong but obviously there is the act of slaying someone or the act of putting someone to death that someone could misunderstand is killing whereas the bible is teaching it's the execution of someone just like the sabbath someone could be technically doing work on the sabbath and someone thinks they're breaking the sabbath in a sense that they're sinning whereas they're not now let's keep reading in this because we're going to get more understanding look at verse number six but i say in you that in this place is one greater than the temple and if you had known what this meaneth i will have mercy not sacrifice you would not have condemned the guiltless notice does jesus think that they have done anything wrong no they're condemning the guiltless for the son of man is the lord even of the sabbath day and when he was apart at thence he went in their synagogue behold there was a man which had his hand withered and they asked him saying is it lawful to heal in the sabbath days they might have that they might accuse him so they want him to heal somebody to kill him isn't that weird they like want some guy to get healed so they can have a reason to kill jesus isn't that sick i mean it's so bizarre and they think that somehow that gives them the right to kill jesus because they don't understand the bible at all okay these people are fools verse 11 he said to them what man shall there be among you that shall have one sheep and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day will he not lay hold on it and lift it out so he's saying you guys already break the sabbath you guys already know that you're supposed to break the sabbath meaning that if if something bad happened you know you would help that person you wouldn't be like oh sabbath you know tough luck you know your kid falls into a pit and you're like well it's nice knowing you you're like see you later no you'd pick your kid out of the pit you'd pick the animal i mean you're gonna do something you know the sabbath wasn't to be a burden the sabbath wasn't to be this like just bizarre day where you just can't do work even when there's a legitimate reason to do work it's basically that you're you're ceasing from work on purpose to serve god to illustrate salvation's not of words that's the whole point okay but it's not to be so burdensome to say like if there's a real situation you know someone breaks in your house well i can't defend my house because it's a sabbath you know that's stupid you know they're not understanding the spirit of the law here and he's pointing out their hypocrisy verse 12 how much then is a man better than a sheep wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days so he's saying if you would pick an animal out of the ditch how much better would it be for me to heal somebody on the sabbath day like that doesn't even make any sense and then notice what he answers the question it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days so is jesus sinning if he heals someone on the sabbath the answer is no now here's another question though did he break the sabbath and the answer is yes let me prove that go to john chapter number five go to john chapter number five matthew mark luke john john chapter number five i know i'm taking a second to explain this but i think it's a good time john chapter five look at verse 18 therefore the jews sought the more to kill him because he had not only had broken the sabbath but said also that god was his father making himself equal to god now that's black letters i don't have a red letter bible but you'll see a lot of red and then right there in the black the black is the narrator and you know the narrator of the bible is called the holy ghost and he's the spirit of truth and he leads you on truth so when the narrator is telling you something about someone true and if the narrator is telling us that jesus broke the sabbath it's because he did look at the verse before it but jesus answered them my father worketh hitherto and i work that's pretty clear it's unequivocal that jesus said i worked on the sabbath i did work now i think there's a lot of spiritual symbolism we can even get here too because guess what in the this the special sabbaths of easter weekend where you had the high day and you had the normal sabbath which is salvation everyone was resting but jesus was working for our salvation by dying and going to hell and being risen again and so it's a picture of how jesus did all the work for us to be saved while we just simply rest but beyond that he literally broke the sabbath healed people again why do you think he was healing people on the sabbath to prove a point that we rest and he does the work and that's how we get saved okay but it also teaches this that just because someone perceives that you violated the old testament law doesn't mean that you really did he never did and if jesus never broke the sabbath you can't say oh well jesus didn't believe in the death penalty for the sabbath oh yes he did he's the word of god you know he's just as much matthew mark luke and john has genesis exodus leviticus numbers and neuteronomy okay just like levit or exodus 31 that we just read where he was prescribing the death penalty of the sabbath that's jesus there okay because he's the word of god so it's not like oh now we entered in the new testament no death penalty no paul said i refuse not to die and we should still believe in the death penalty we should teach it we should explain it we should educate people on it and we should have it and look if someone commits six intentional homicides with their vehicle in the state of texas i hope that the righteous judgment will come and they will get the death penalty you know there's a sin unto death i do not say he shall pray for it is what the bible says you know we shouldn't just let these evil atrocities happen in our city and our state and in our country because it brings more evil we should put evil away from among us go back if you went to acts 25 acts chapter 25 you know and i get a lot of flack for believing in the death penalty but you know what i'm going to continue believing it and you know which uh things i think people should be put to death for everything the bible said that hasn't been fulfilled in christ okay so yeah a i.e the sabbath is technically not something that we should be putting people to death for pretty much everything else is rape being a faggot being a murderer being a rapist oh yeah the guy that is already found convicted of rape murdered six more people what have you been put to death for the rape now i think that technically it might have been statutory rape so there might have been an exception there but i don't know the circumstances but i know this he shouldn't be walking around free based on the rap sheet that the guy had now that wasn't an equitable fair or righteous judgment now look what it says in verse 13 i think actually 12 i think i skipped 12 verse 12 then fest is when he conferred with the council answered hast thou appealed unto caesar unto caesar shalt thou go and after certain days king agrippa and bernice came unto cesarea to salute festus and when they had been there many days festus declared paul's k or cause unto the king saying there's a certain man left in bonds by felix about whom when i was at jerusalem the chief priests and elders of the jews informed me desiring to have judgment against him whom i answered it is not the manner of the romans deliver any man to die before that he which is accused have the accusers face to face and have license to answer for himself concerning the crime played against him now the romans have a pretty decent law here a rule here a custom because this really is similar to the bible keep your finger here we're gonna go one other place and then i'm gonna kind of finish this chapter go to juteronomy chapter 17 go to juteronomy chapter 17 when it comes to the death penalty specifically the bible lays out very strong uh very strongly what you must do in order to legally convict someone of murder okay or of a death penalty crime says in juteronomy chapter 17 look at verse number two if there be found among you within any of thy gates which the lord thy god giveth the man or woman that has wrought wickedness in the sight of the lord thy god and transgressing his covenant and has gone and served other gods and worshiped him either the sun or moon or any of the host of heaven which i have not commanded and to be told thee and thou has heard of it and inquired diligently and behold it be true and the thing certain that such abomination is wrought in israel then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman which have committed that wicked thing under thy gates even that man or that woman and shout stone them with stones till they die now think about the way this is worded look at verse four it's told so that's hearsay okay and thou has heard of it and inquired diligently so notice it's not just hearsay then you sought to see if this is true and behold it be true so it's saying someone told you so you had the allegation made then you did diligent inquisition you and then you found that it was just true notice it be true and the thing certain it's not it's like not only true it's certain it's like beyond a reasonable doubt you know as a phrase you use in america and i think that's great if someone's going to be facing the crime that's going to cause them to be put to death it should be true and it should be certain you know there shouldn't be any wiggle room we have to make this clear and notice how the bible describes in the next verse six at the mouth of two witnesses or three witnesses shall he that is worthy of death be put to death but at the mouth of one witness he shall not be put to death notice no one should ever be put to death because of one witness that is wicked because one person can always be motivated to lie against another and it's often very easy to lie as a singular person what's difficult is to have two completely separate witnesses testifying under proper procedure come with the same craft the same lie it's much more difficult for them to accomplish it does happen in the bible unfortunately there is two sons of belial that lie about nabal and he gets killed but it's a lot more difficult in order to meet that threshold that's necessary to put someone to death and so it protects the innocent it helps the innocent not have to go through that obviously nothing's perfect there's always a loophole but in general we should have that kind of system you know in america has had systems like this that are very similar and we should praise those type of systems we should praise the idea look i'm all for the death penalty but we want it to be true and we want it to be certain but if it's true it's been certain they've been lawfully given all their process everything's up and up it's just fact then we ultimately need to face the the reality that we need to put people to death if so necessary go back and we'll finish here verse 17 therefore when they are come hither without any delay on the morrow i sat on the judgment seat and commanded the man to be brought forth against whom when the accuser stood up they brought an acute accusation of such things as i suppose now here he gives us a little insight look in verse 18 he says hey when they uh ended up you know accusing this guy i thought they're gonna have all this evidence and i thought they're gonna say that he did like you know he killed someone or he's stealing money or like you know something serious but then when i figured out that this is just a big sham you know this is what he said verse but had certain questions against them of their own superstition and of one jesus which was dead whom paul affirmed to be alive and because i doubted of such manner of questions i asked him whether he would go to druslam and there be judged of these matters so this guy reveals a lot in this statement but it's not a very reliable statement for a couple reasons okay but first of all i think he's probably telling the truth in some of this because it's hard to just boldface like what you typically do is you twist the narrative a little bit you just kind of bend the truth a little bit in your favor number one i guarantee you surprised by what they brought his accusation because he's like thinking like man is that all y'all got this is like this is kind of silly and it's like you guys are both arguing whether some dude's alive or not it's like think about it's like well these people think elvis is dead these people think elvis is alive you know it's like this is not a criminal case you know this is to be fought on youtube you know and for you to be found to be idiots you know well these people think the earth is flat and these people don't it's like you know it's like what's going on here you know but obviously he has no respect for the bible either notice he calls it superstition so he has he doesn't care what the bible says obviously it probably doesn't help again like i said earlier that the jews are just making christianity look bad they're making the god of the bible look really awful as far as how evil and wicked they are and the way he speaks about jesus he's just not he doesn't seem reverent in any way um but this is what he does he needs a reason to explain why he just randomly blurted out why don't you just go back to jerusalem because he doesn't want to be tied to any weird conspiracy theory or be asked questions like why would you make such a statement so he tries to like twist this narrative of things that are probably true and then basically making it like well because i didn't really know what they were asking and it's like this weird like religious thing i was like what why don't you go back to jerusalem so he kind of has a cya you know whenever they're like why did you suggest he go to Jerusalem because that's not proper that's not following the right procedures or whatever he hasn't had some kind of narrative to explain himself also helps us realize that history often revises itself throughout the mouth of many witnesses the telephone game is this really what happened no because the bible already told us look back at what it said in verse number nine but festus willing to do the jews a pleasure answered so the bible tells us what his real motive was what was his real motive he was trying to get paul killed and get a favor for the jews get some kind of goods on the jews you know take advantage of that situation when he's talking to agrippa he's not like hey man i was trying to get like some some extra bread on the side from the jews or whatever you know i was trying to get a deal with the jews now he's like oh just you know he was asking you know they're asking religious questions i don't know them so that's why i was like maybe you should go back to Jerusalem or whatever even though that doesn't make any sense whatsoever verse 21 but when paul had appealed to be reserved in the hearing of augustus i commanded him to be kept till i might send him unto caesar so he's like well you know but he did say the right thing and i have to go send him to caesar then agrisa said to the festus i would also hear the man myself tomorrow said he thou shalt hear him and on the morrow when agrippa was common bernice with great pomp meaning that they basically just have a huge group of people it's a lot of prestige or you know they're basically it's a big deal says and was entered into the place of hearing with the chief captains and principal men of the city at festus commandment paul is brought forth now i think what's an why does it save great pomp why does it bring that stuff up think about the opportunity that paul's about to have paul is literally going to be brought in front of the most powerful people in the world and not just a few all of them basically he's just this big entourage of the king and all his men and all the chief captains and all the the greatest men of the entire you know the bible says in the proverbs and it's talking about like a righteous person that he won't stand before mean men he's gonna stand before kings mean means average okay not they're like rude or something or they're like hostile it's just meaning that they're just average he's gonna stand before kings and notice paul gets an opportunity to preach the gospel of jesus christ to the most powerful people in this area that's a cool opportunity but it took two years in prison it says in verse number 24 and festus said king gripa and all men which are here present with us you see this man about whom all the multitude of the jews have dealt with me both at jerusalem and also here crying that he ought not to live any longer when i found that he committed nothing worthy of death and that he himself has appealed to gustus i have determined to send him of whom i have no certain thing to write unto my lord wherefore i have brought him forth before you and specifically before the o king gripa that after examination had i might have somewhat to write forcing me to be unreasonable to send a prisoner and not with all to signify the crimes laid against him now this is this is funny when you think about it okay he's like hey everybody we brought paul and every jew wants to kill him they all said he should die but we have no idea why like no one can tell us what the problem is like all they said is kill him you know but we don't know what's going on why don't you guys figure it out like can you guys figure out because i have to send him to caesar and when i send him to caesar they're going to be like why is this man brought here and they don't want to be like ah you know he's like i gotta write something you know and here's the problem he has literally nothing to write now you know that tells me that's a pretty cool testimony i mean think about it paul i mean this guy doesn't want to be on his side he's not on his side but he's literally he's just staring at a blank piece of paper and he's just like i don't know what to write you know the jews don't like him you know like that's not a good that's not going to make him look good it's going to make him look like an idiot that he's wasting caesar's time bringing people to caesar and it's like the jews don't like him he's going to be like what are you doing why are you wasting all these government resources and all this effort and energy on a guy that we have no reason to accuse him so they're hoping that they can just keep asking him just like keep talking to them and be like say something wrong or you know what's going on but also i think this they made it clear to everybody that this guy is like wanted to be killed by everybody which is kind of a cool intro because it's going to make everybody want to hear what he has to say think about it people love to watch like criminal cases and like the worst people they just want to hear what they have to say they want to hear them testify and whatever you know a point that i had in my notes was that it's obviously not against the bible to testify on your defense because paul did so you know when you get an opportunity to testify just give witness to jesus christ and his word of god go to first peter chapter two is the last verse i want to show you real quick i know i preached a little while but i don't get to see you every day so you got nothing better to do i could tell first peter chapter number two look at verse number 11 the bible says this dearly beloved i beseech you as strangers and pilgrims esteem from festivity lust which war against the soul having your conversation honest among the gentiles that whereas they speak against you as evildoers they may by your good works which they shall behold glorify god in the day of visitation so you know you're gonna sometimes be falsely accused but notice how you overcome them with your you know good works you just keep doing right and it just keeps proving them wrong and you just keep moving on and you know what you're in good company when the only accusation someone can make against you is what you believe right i mean isn't that the only reason they hate paul this is the only thing they can bring well this guy believes jesus rose from the dead that's really like that's the accusation you have he believes in the resurrection he believes in christianity at the end of the day that's why yeah uh his preaching and his beliefs you know and look there's gonna be christians that are gonna be persecuted and you know what it's it's funny to me when they're gonna drag you before court and the only thing they can have to accuse you is what you preach and what you believe and it happens you know and you have to say you know what i must be in good company you know jesus what do they have against them what he preached and what he believed right what do they have against paul what he preached and what he believed and you know what the people that we want to follow are people that preach and believe the bible not you know paul doesn't have any other problems and obviously it's really important to have a good testimony because what if paul had also done something a little bit bad too well then they would just bring that they would just well he kind of stole a little bit of money well he kind of did this too well he kind of hurt this person well he kind of did you know they just have nothing so important to live a life above reproach so that god can use you to give him a lot of honor and glory god can't use the guy that's you know convicted of five felonies here you know that guy's not going to really have the same testimony here it's not going to be effective they're going to be like well why are you bringing them here because of the five felonies you know your honor it's real obvious whereas the guy that's done nothing wrong it's just his preaching and his beliefs then all of a sudden they're going to look like idiots and it's going to glorify god and whereas they speak as about you as evildoers you're going to win a lot of people over because they notice they're like this this isn't fair this isn't right you're obviously persecuting this guy for what he believes and it's going to cause the work of god to be magnified they're also going to say hey here's someone that actually believes what he's saying he's not looking for bribes he's not looking for money these jews these guys are just a bunch of greedy scumbags these guys are a bunch they're committing murder and you know conspiracy to murder and all this evil whatever paul he's done nothing wrong and he's still sticking with his faith he's he's still facing criminal charges and all this evil and he won't denounce his faith he won't go back on it uh the previous guy felix was trying to get money from him he was trying to get a bribe from him and look paul didn't even bribe him paul won't do anything that's not biblical that's not the word of god he has the right testimony and then god's going to use him to do great things on his behalf because he's not going to compromise he's going to stay faithful to god's word and you know what when you just stay faithful to god's word maybe it's two years in prison maybe it's a long period of time of suffering but you know what eventually god can use you in a mighty way let's go in prayer thank you heavenly father for this chapter of the bible thank you that you're willing to use us to give you honor and glory and i pray that we would humble ourselves and realize that you know if we have to go through difficulty if we have to go through things that we don't understand that we'll trust the word of god we'll trust that you're a faithful creator that we don't have to dream up all the scenarios and all the things that we have to do but rather we can just take one step of faith every day that we can trust your commandments we can know if we do that which is right you'll put us in the places and the positions that we need to be put in and and not to get in a rush or to be hasty to resolve situations on our own but rather that we just trust in the lord and allow through god's timing through god's providence that he would get the honor and the glory through our faithfulness and that we would just continue to trust and depend on him alone in jesus name we pray amen go to 423 for our last song brother camera's gonna lead us 423 joy to the world all right 423 joy to the world four two three joy to the world we'll sing they're starting on the first let's sing joy to the world the lord is come let her receive her king let every heart prepare him and heaven and nature sing and heaven and nature sing and have and have and nature sing joy to the world the savior reigns let men their songs employ wild fields and floods rocks hills and plains repeat the sounding joy repeat the sounding joy repeat repeat the sounding joy no more let sins and sorrows grow nor thorns infest the ground he comes to make his blessings fall far as the curse is found far as the curse is found far as far as the curse is found he rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love and wonders of his love and wonders and wonders of his love amen and with that you are dismissed have a good night you