How Shall We Conduct Ourselves
9/1/24 12:36 PM
Solitary Man
solitaryman.substack.com
20240901
So many sermons in charismatic/pentecostal circles are all about how wonderful the time period of the book of Acts must of been. We all have imagined what it would of been like to live in such an exciting time.
The reason why this period seems so glamorous is that like so many other topics, our preachers have told us a partial truth, and not all of it.
Sure, the description of the miracles and the mass conversions, the falling of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the introduction of the gospel to the Gentiles, and the various signs and wonders are all things that serve as great inspiration and longing in our hearts to see the same things happen in our own day and age. However I would make the claim that the number of verses that specifically speak of the miracles actually pale in comparison with the number of verses that speak of the persecutions that the apostles and other believers had to endure in order to accomplish God’s work. In fact, the last quarter, or seven chapters, of the book of Acts, was solely about Paul’s major arrest in his life. This arrest lasted a minimum of 5 years, and could of been much longer, when one takes into account the silent delays between trials, and the way the book of Acts ends, where we do not exactly know when Paul was finally freed. In addition, this arrest was only one of several Paul experienced in his life. The first was his arrest at Philippi, which lasted only one night. Another was his final arrest, where he definitely wrote 2nd Timothy, at the very end of his life, and most think that lasted at least a year.
I want to look at the relevant scriptures that speak of this long imprisonment of Pauls:
Act 20:22 And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there:
Act 20:23 Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me.
Act 20:24 But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.
Act 21:10 And as we tarried there many days, there came down from Judaea a certain prophet, named Agabus.
Act 21:11 And when he was come unto us, he took Paul’s girdle, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the Holy Ghost, So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.
Act 21:12 And when we heard these things, both we, and they of that place, besought him not to go up to Jerusalem.
Act 21:13 Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.
Act 21:14 And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, The will of the Lord be done.
Act 23:10 And when there arose a great dissension, the chief captain, fearing lest Paul should have been pulled in pieces of them, commanded the soldiers to go down, and to take him by force from among them, and to bring him into the castle.
Act 23:11 And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.
Act 24:24 And after certain days, when Felix came with his wife Drusilla, which was a Jewess, he sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ.
Act 24:25 And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled, and answered, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee.
Act 24:26 He hoped also that money should have been given him of Paul, that he might loose him: wherefore he sent for him the oftener, and communed with him.
Act 24:27 But after two years Porcius Festus came into Felix’ room: and Felix, willing to shew the Jews a pleasure, left Paul bound.
Act 26:27 King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest.
Act 26:28 Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.
Act 26:29 And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.
Act 26:30 And when he had thus spoken, the king rose up, and the governor, and Bernice, and they that sat with them:
Act 26:31 And when they were gone aside, they talked between themselves, saying, This man doeth nothing worthy of death or of bonds.
Act 26:32 Then said Agrippa unto Festus, This man might have been set at liberty, if he had not appealed unto Caesar.
Act 27:21 But after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss.
Act 27:22 And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man’s life among you, but of the ship.
Act 27:23 For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve,
Act 27:24 Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee.
Act 27:25 Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.
Act 28:29 And when he had said these words, the Jews departed, and had great reasoning among themselves.
Act 28:30 And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him,
Act 28:31 Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.
I know that these are a lot of verses to digest, but they all touch upon Paul’s imprisonment, as far as whether or not this was the will of God for him.
At first, it seems like the Holy Spirit is warning Paul not to go to Jerusalem. He received many words, culminating with a strong word from the well known prophet Agabus, who had predicted a great famine previously (Ac 11:28). The conclusion most would draw is that God is telling Paul not to go to Jerusalem. I don’t think many in the church today would even question if that was what God was saying. Especially since these words seemed to serve as a warning to escape persecution and tribulation. Our western theology has a general aversion to suffering built into it, so this is how we would interpret the verses in Ac 20:22-24 and Ac 21:10-12.
Paul did not see it that way. Ac 21:13 states Paul’s readiness to suffer whatever he had to suffer, in order to fulfill the will of God. Verse 14 states that the people accepted Paul’s conviction.
Many would yet say that this was Paul’s own stubbornness in not listening to the Holy Spirit trying to warn him off. That he perhaps had some sort of martyr’s complex about him. His zeal was making him blind and stubborn. Wasn’t it always preferable to be free instead of bound? Did Paul not preach that same principle to the slaves in Corinth?
1Co 7:21 Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.
However if we read the rest of the pertinent verses in Acts, I think it is quite clear that it was clearly God’s will, and not Paul’s, that he go through this experience:
Act 23:11 And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.
Act 27:23 For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve,
Act 27:24 Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee.
Two witnesses, an angel and Jesus himself, told Paul directly that he was supposed to go to Rome. I think that settles the score on that issue, at least to my mind.
So it was the will of the Lord that Paul went through what he did. The goal seemed to be that he was supposed to end up in Rome to testify. Could not of God gotten him to Rome without being imprisoned? Of course. Did Paul have to give up at least 5 years of his life to imprisonment? Apparently.
Remember that the so called prison epistles were written at this time – Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon. 2nd Timothy would also of been written during his final imprisonment just before his death. These were some of the good things that occurred because Paul was experiencing imprisonment. It allowed him to write the things that he wouldn’t of been able to write in quite the same way had he not experienced this confinement.
How God chooses to perform his will in your life may not always be to your liking. God is God, and we are but his servants. I am going to say something that may shock some, but God is not as concerned about your day to day comfort as you’ve been taught. In America today, a half a million children are in this country from other lands and being sex trafficked. Another half a million children of Americans are missing, being sex trafficked and organ harvested in other nations around the world. Jesus is allowing this as we speak. He is allowing many thousands of children to be raped to death over a period of 2 to 4 years. This is part of the mystery of iniquity that we cannot understand, on this side of eternity. He is definitely ok with allowing you to suffer whatever it is you’re suffering. It is as nothing in comparison to what all these children are going through at this very moment. The American government has become the number one child sex trafficker in the history of the modern world. Our little trials are insignificant in comparison.
I say these outrageous, shocking things in order to wake us all up to the fact that wee need to abandon our idolatrous image of Jesus that we have created for ourselves in our Laodicean houses of heresy that we have attended all our lives.
We are living in unprecedented times of darkness. Since 2020, the world has undergone a permanent change. The world that we were all living in in 2019 is never coming back. Already we are seeing instances of such gross miscarriages of justice, that we simply do not know how to think about, or respond to. We look to the scripture for answers. Specifically, those of us who are the true remnant fully understand that a time of persecution is upon us, such as has never been seen in all of history.
So we attempt to find the answers to our problems from scripture, and from church history. How did the martyrs of old deal with persecution? What did Paul do?
While we can find some answers in places such as the book of Acts, to give us a foundation to build on, I wish to contend that we may find it difficult to find precise and complete answers for some of the situations that we will be facing in the coming days and months ahead.
Let me explain. We all have heard many stories of some of the martyrs of old. How Christians were thrown to the lions during Roman times. They had a choice in either publicly worshipping the emperor as god, or being eaten alive. Most found the choice easy, though there were some that apostatized, rationalizing it by saying that I do not really believe the emperor is god in my heart, so God understands. Indeed, there was a great controversy in the early centuries of the church, as to whether or not the church should ever readmit these apostatizers.
Others over the centuries faced an even clearer choice. Deny Christ, or die. Paul even spoke of how he tried to compel the Christians to commit blasphemy by denying Christ, before he was converted:
Act 26:11 And I punished them oft in every synagogue, and compelled them to blaspheme; and being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities.
My point is that the above examples from history offer us rather clear cut cases as to when a believer must choose to stand up for the faith, even in the face of severe consequence. Indeed, I think even a great number within the compromised western churches of today would feel compelled to not deny Christ, if demanded to so directly.
Today, the whole issue of what should we be imprisoned for has become fraught with peril. The martyrs of old usually had a clear cut choice – deny Christ or die. Today, we are being asked to deny our faith in many secondary ways. By affirming various sexual perversions, or being told to stay silent in the fact of losing various personal freedoms, such as freedom of speech, freedom of travel, etc, or being forced to inject ourselves with various poisons disguised as vaccines, for example.
The devil knows exactly what he is doing. He is attacking us on the basic tenets of the Christian lifestyle, rather than directly against belief in Christ himself. This has guaranteed that the church would divide itself over these issues like never before. Do we go to prison or pay exorbitant fines for refusing death jabs? Or do we rationalize and say that this is a personal medical issue, therefore we should stay silent, or maybe even participate in it, and show that we are good citizens and provide jab clinics in our churches? Did not many of these same churches also state that abortion is a medical procedure, and so we should leave that issue to the medical professionals?
How about the j6’ers? If you were a believer, is it your Christian duty to oppose stolen elections, even if it costs you your freedom? Are you willing to go to jail for 20 years, leaving your family without a breadwinner, over the fact that your country’s democratic foundation is being destroyed? Is this an issue at the same level of conscience as denying your faith in Christ? Or at least important enough to risk losing everything in this life? How about the absurdity of wearing a mask? Never mind the uselessness and the minor health issues it caused, just the idea of wearing it as a symbol of submission to the new world order was more than enough for many to absolutely reject it outright, even though many had to pay fines of thousands of dollars.
How are we to use the scriptures in these instances? I think we can all agree that there will be many different conclusions drawn by many sincere believers in the Lord. Yet we must think about and face these issues head on. We cannot hide from these uncomfortable discussions any longer.
I believe the first thing we all need is a true spirit of humility to guide each and every one of us. When we are dealing with questions such as these, where there are no clear cut answers in the holy bible, we must be open and teachable as to what the Spirit has to say to us. We can learn from each other, but only if pride and arrogance do not rule our hearts.
We must come to realize that the number one truth that we are forced to face when we consider these things is that we must prioritize above all else hearing the voice of the Lord for ourselves. We cannot depend on another man, or our church, or our denomination, to have the definitive answer for our own personal situation. We must hear God, and know that it was God that was speaking, and not our own desire. We cannot simply look for confirmation only. We must be careful in how we interpret things. Look at Paul. He had many others telling him a fact. That he was going to be arrested in Jerusalem. None of the words stated that it was God’s will for him to run away. Instead, Paul had an inner conviction that he knew that God’s will was for him to go to Jerusalem at that time. Others simply gave him the additional information that trouble awaited him there. Those words did not tell him what he was supposed to do, only what was going to happen. He had to seek God all on his own, and make a judgment call as to how to use the specific words that were being spoken to him. Notice that the words were true, but how Paul was to apply them in his circumstance he had to take to the Lord on his own.
Because Paul’s doctrine was well balanced, he knew the ways of God far better than any of us. He knew that God’s ways were judgment (Dan 4:37), for example. That is, he did not have this one sided view of God that is taught in so many churches today, where it seems that God exists primarily to deliver us out of everything negative that comes into our life. That somehow that that is his priority, as far as what he wants to do in our lives. Paul knew that was utter nonsense. We are here to further the kingdom of God, as his obedient servants. He gives us tasks to fulfill, and expects instant and total obedience every time. He wants us to know that he will give us whatever we need in order to accomplish whatever he commands us to do. If we need good health to do his will, he will give us that. If we need certain finances, that he will provide. If we need freedom of movement, then he will keep us out of prison. However, if we don’t need those things to do his will, then don’t expect that they will
be automatically yours, just because you are now a Christian. To Paul, he did not care what he had in the natural. All he cared about was running the race, and finishing it.
Php 4:11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.
Php 4:12 I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
Php 4:13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
Php 3:12 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
Php 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
Php 3:14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
1Co 9:26 I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air:
1Co 9:27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.
2Ti 4:6 For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.
2Ti 4:7 I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
2Ti 4:8 Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.
We are now in unprecedented times. As you read Paul’s adventure in the last 7 chapters of Acts, one can note at least twice where he used his rights under Roman law to obtain a certain measure of freedom. Well, what do we do now that our nations have become an utterly lawless place? No one needs to tell you that we have lost all protection under the law. In Canada, 4 years after the fact the Supreme court has refused to hear any case of the numerous covid violations of our basic rights that were supposed to exist under our charter of rights and freedoms and our own bill of rights. This means that the government is free to do these same freedom destroying measures again in the future. There are still 2 prisoners left in jail, without bail, from the Coutts border protest in early 2022, who have now spent over 900 days in jail, over simple mischief charges. No bail, terribly long trials, delayed sentencing. Tamara Lich and Chris Barber has just endured 44 days of trial over simple mischief charges, with the decision not be expected until early next year. They have spent about one million dollars in legal fees. Thu punishment is the process.
All this is to say that we have no more protections under the law. Look at what’s happening in Britain today. I could name several other countries, where the law is dead. America is almost there as well. So we don’t have the opportunity that Paul had, to appeal to the law of the land. Our law of the land is satanism. We will be forced to make decisions facing very different and unique criteria. It behooves us well to start to think about these larger issues, and seek the Lord for revelation from heaven as to what we are to do.
Do you now understand why these are called perilous times? Why Jesus said that in this day there will be tribulation, and of such a kind as the world has never seen?
Many of us will end up facing impossible scenarios. What if in this next round, a soldier comes to your door with a needle in his hand, with orders to inject you with a deadly toxin by force, if need be? Do you meekly submit, and trust that God will deliver you from any deadly thing, as Jesus promised the disciples in Mk 16:18? Perhaps that is how the Spirit will lead you. Or do you resist, as knowingly accepting a poisonous substance into your body, and into your children’s bodies is a form of self murder, which contradicts the commandment of Ex 20:13, which says thou shalt not murder. Perhaps that is how the Spirit will lead you.
This is but one example of many that I could speak of.
In conclusion, none of us can afford to pretend that these horrible things are not happening all around us anymore. The time for that is over. I believe many of us will soon be facing such impossible situations. We will need all the discernment and wisdom that the Holy Spirit can provide to navigate these treacherous waters. We will also need supernatural compassion and understanding for our fellow brothers and sisters. Humility to try and see things their way, knowing that we can never fully understand what pressures another is facing in their trial, but always ready to extend mercy and grace to those who are caught up in the torments of the wicked. But we will also need to be able to stand on our convictions, once we know the path that Jesus has called us to walk.
I pray that the issues that I have raised has given each and every one of you out there food for thought, and I hope that others will be given inspiration to share some God given insights that can help others in the body to not only survive, but to thrive in the days ahead.
May Jesus grant us all wisdom and discernment in these final days.
Solitary Man
https://solitaryman.substack.com/
