Acts Of The Apostles 32 Of 39

. After his report, the church leaders in Jerusalem told him about the devout Jews who were still practicing the Jewish ceremonial laws along with their salvation. They suggested that Paul, rather than incite a riot, join four men who had just completed their Nazarite vow, so when the devout Jews observed that, they would change their minds about him. This was the plan, and Paul willingly went along with the plan because he had planned to preach the Gospel to his own people at Jerusalem, and he did not want anything to hinder his plans of getting the message of Christ to them.

I. THE OVERSIGHT (VERSES 27-35)

Anytime you have plans, you have to consider two things:

(1) When all the planning is completed, someone has to execute those plans. Finding that someone is not always easy.

Illus: This is one of the problems in today's church. Many committee meetings are held behind closed doors, to deal with problems and goals that we are trying to achieve, but once those committees meet and come up with a plan, someone has to do more than just talk, someone must carry out the plans that were made. Someone said, “A committee usually keeps minutes and wastes hours.”

Someone else said, “The chairman of a committee is like the official at a bullfight, whose job it is to open and close the gate, so the bull can come in or go out.” But I like this the best, someone said, “There are more than 200,000 useless words in the English language, and at some committee meetings you hear all of them.”

Generally a committee of three gets things done if two don't show up.

Seriously, to accomplish anything, someone has to quit talking and activate those plans. Also when we make plans we have to consider:

(2) Regardless of how good we may think those plans are, we have no guarantee that they will succeed. James had an excellent plan, and Paul agreed to it, but the plan did not work out as they thought it might. In fact, that plan almost cost the apostle Paul his life.

lllus: I am sure that the apostle Paul, after he agreed to this committee's suggestion, soon felt like the guy who came home from a committee meeting, whose son came home from the zoo and was telling his parents about the giraffe he saw. He said, "He has the face of a deer, the neck of an ostrich, front legs of a camel, and back legs of a horse." The father replied by saying, "There's no such animal:" The son assured his dad there was, and proved it to him by getting him to go to the zoo himself. The dad saw the giraffe for the first time, and his son asked him what he thought about the animal. He said, “This must be the work of a committee.”

I am sure when Paul came close to losing his life, he felt toward this committee's suggestion the same way that that dad felt when he first saw that giraffe.

A. THE REBELS

Verses 27-29, “And when the seven days were almost ended, the Jews which were of Asia, when they saw him in the temple, stirred up all the people, and laid hands on him, Crying out, Men of Israel, help: This is the man, that teacheth all men every where against the people, and the law, and this place: and further brought Greeks also into the temple, and hath polluted this holy place. (For they had seen before with him in the city Trophimus an Ephesian, whom they supposed that Paul had brought into the temple.)”

Notice the Scriptures say that the rebel Jews saw Paul. Until this time they had maintained a hostile silence, but once they saw him in the temple, they assumed he polluted the temple because they had seen a Greek Gentile, by the name of Trophimus, with him in the city just a little while before that time. It does not take a genius to figure out that the people who do a lot of supposing, do not care about finding out the facts. It was forbidden for Gentiles to enter the temple, and they assumed that since they had seen Paul with the Gentile that day, that he had taken him with him into the temple. What they assumed was completely wrong, but when a person wants to find problems he will do it, even if he has to assume something that is not true.

One of the easiest ways I know of to get into some serious trouble is to assume something.

Illus: We suppose that because one or two public officials are dishonest, that they all are bad. We suppose if a speaker or a writer states an inaccurate fact, that he lied intentionally. Oh the wrong that has been done through assuming!