Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 8, 2017 | Men's Fraternity - Spring 2017, Session 9

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March 8, 2017 | Men's Fraternity - Spring 2017, Session 9 · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: All right, men, good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: We are uh rapidly approaching the end of this semester's uh men's fraternity.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was just talking with Jim.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: We are gonna go a few more weeks beyond uh when the book ends.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: So do Paul today and Paul again next week, and then um Jim says uh probably two more weeks after that.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll um we'll look forward to seeing what uh what he wraps us up with those two weeks.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so this week as we kick off Paul, it was um Gene Getz was talking about um uh Bill McCarthy and uh Bill McCartney and also um Chuck Colson in his uh in in uh you know I've always said that uh the greatest thing to come out of the uh whole Watergate scandal was the conversion of Chuck Colson.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: And um yeah, that guy uh did a mighty thing.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: I remember him him saying, you know, when he was in prison and talking with the prisoners, they say, Well, you'll forget us after we leave, after you leave, and he said, No, I won't.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he kept his word and he started the whole prison ministry and uh Angel Tree and all that.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And um and then when I was reading about uh you know Bill McCartney, that guy, uh you know, both of those guys were were singularly focused, um, but yet it was on a secular a secular goal.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, um Chuck Colson, he'd do anything for the president, and Bill, he wanted more than anything to to uh to win a championship at uh Colorado.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: So um but in 1991 he had a vision and he got together 4,200 men for the first Promise Keepers.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh in 1992 they filled uh Folsom Stadium with men with promise keepers.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: We were living in Indiana at the time, and a good friend of mine that I had met actually went to that that first one, that first stadium um there in uh in uh 1992.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the following year was I think the first year that they had multiple sites, and uh he invited a group of us men and we went it to uh Indianapolis.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I can remember just being in awe of uh of being in a stadium in Indianapolis and the whole place just filled with men uh praising God.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: So uh yeah, I had the opportunity then over the next number of years to go to a number of uh uh Promise Keepers uh stadium events.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: So uh but anyway, but we're gonna talk about uh Paul today, and uh he had a singular focus too until uh God kind of got a hold of him uh for the kingdom.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna turn it over to these guys.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks a lot, Paul.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't know you lived in Indiana.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_03: Where at in Indiana?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_03: Really?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't know that.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_03: So you you were in Richmond, home of the Red Devils.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Richmond's in Virginia.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Not not you didn't understand that that Richmond's in Virginia.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: You get confused, Paul.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Indiana's basketball state.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Indiana's a basketball state.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: What were you doing?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you played football in Indiana?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a high school football state.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_02: Little known fact.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_02: Very little known.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_02: And it's also basketball.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's a wrestling state, too.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: No, it isn't.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, hold it.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Where's Kenny?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: Kenny, Indiana State.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Oregon, Iowa, Indiana.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Indiana.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: Google it.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Google it.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: Indiana, rated 37th in the nation.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_02: Wrestling state.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, don't make me spit up my dream.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Men's basketball championship coming up this week in Kansas City Sprint Center.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so shorter rooting for some of the underdogs, rooting for K-State or something else.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: Some of these guys need to win a couple of games so they can make it into the Big Dance.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: That would really be nice.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: Because right now it looks like the Big 12, even though they're rated the best conference in the nation, is only going to get five teams in.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: We need more than that.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: So because we need them to lose in the first round in the in the Big Dance.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we need.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: What is wrong with the Big 12?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, every time they get in the NCAA tournament, Keith, they lose right away.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's embarrassing.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: And the ACC always wins.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: I hate that.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um Indiana.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: You're crazy.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Let's see.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: So now this is uh March Madness Starts this Sunday.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Is this just from last year?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, that's my bracket.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: I got everyone right.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: So um I love the I love the title.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yesterday ESPN ran an article called March Madness How to Pick Your NCAA Tournament Bracket Based on Team Mascots, which is, you know, I run a bracketology thing here at church.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: There's several couple dozen people who, you know, in and out of the church, if you want to join, win the big money.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Big money.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: All the big money.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: All the big money.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: But the women always pick it based on mascots and team colors and you know, avoiding awful words like the Duke blue devils, you know.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why the women don't win much.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_03: But you know what Lori told me?
• 4:51
  unknown: Why?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_03: Because Lori actually won't be.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: I've never won it, and Lori has won it.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: By going on how good looking the players are and the team mascots, and it's even more obscure.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_03: She said that she picked her teams based off of the male cheerleaders on their teams.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_03: Based off of the yell leaders like uniforms or something like that.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's humiliating.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's humiliating.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: I know all these people.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: I know these teams, and she beats me anyway.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyway.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we got NCAA tournament coming up.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: It'll be fun.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that's it for sports, right?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anything else like some football or wrestling thing from Indiana I missed out on?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure there's probably lots.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, Kenny was telling me uh Hartsaul here that his son's gonna be in the paper today or tomorrow as the all-city wrestler at 138.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: So is he really?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_03: Bingo! Oh that's awesome.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: So um go ahead.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_03: We should what?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: We should get his autograph on Sunday.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: If you see the if you see a look at Lil'Kenny around.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: We'll give it a couple weeks.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_03: We'll have a table set up and we can do some autograph session or something.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: So what I was thinking, we've got Paul's last chapter.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: We uh we're gonna do two weeks in Paul.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it struck me uh that I wanted breakfast a little longer.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: So so I'm gonna I'm gonna print up another uh a chapter, let's see, a quill and Priscilla.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's a couple who is in the early church.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Very interesting a couple.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna print something up and I'll hand it out next week so you can read it, and we'll we'll do a QA on that the following week.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so we'll have at least two more weeks here.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, and if there's some New Testament sort of apostle or apostle follower you want, we can do that.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: We can move this a little closer to Easter before we we stop.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna miss the I'm gonna miss the food.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_03: Me too.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna miss you, actually.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: And Tom's back today.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_03: Tom's back.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: Tom's back, which is awesome.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: After having brain surgery and cancer of the larynx and uh breaking his hip, he's finally back.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: So make sure my head doesn't fall.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: He's keeping us stabilized.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: Recovery going well though?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_03: Going get getting better.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_03: It's going it's positive, it's going in a positive direction.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Which is gonna be a good waste.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: It's good to have you back, Tom.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, Paul.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I've heard about Chuck Colson before.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: That was the page 197.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't he start another chapter with Chuck Colson?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think maybe like chapter two or three.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: He starts every third chapter with Chuck Colson.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: So no, don't need to make fun of him.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, we're in the Apostles of Jesus, and these guys are a diverse group.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: That was our big point.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Now we come to, I like to retitle these chapters.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Paul, the greatest Christ follower in history.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's actually a movie made, which I did not see a couple years ago, in which um who's the X-Men who's got the iron stuff coming out of his fingers, you know?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: Wolverine.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: Wolverine, yeah.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is Wolverine played Paul.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: So you can tell Paul was a tough dude.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Paul was a tough dude.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: But he was the greatest Christ follower in history.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna talk about this guy.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: And the first category here is take it away, man.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: He was the worst of sinners.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: He really was.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um Paul, I think most of us probably know this, but Paul was Paul was a bad dude.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: He was not a guy, especially if you were a Christian, he was not a guy that you wanted to cross paths with.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_03: He was taking people out of their homes, he was throwing people in jail, he was sitting there killing Christians for the things that that they believed.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_03: And he specifically talks about we see we see a situation of of Saul.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_03: And so one of the questions um under murderous threats on 198 is Have you ever encountered people who hated your witness for Christ so intensely that they wanted to kill you?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, Muslims here, the um happened with Coptic Christians overseas.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: I haven't personally experienced that.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_03: Jim, have you experienced something like that?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_03: Especially during NCAA tournament time, right?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: I was driving in there.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: I was thinking, I was thinking, you know, I'm Muslims are so crazy fervent about their faith.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's just whack.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Morocco is considered the friendliest Arab country in the world.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: But one day uh I was in Morocco and uh and I'd taken my brother with me this time, the doctor, and uh we're walking down uh a street in a city, and it's just really busy and it was fun.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I go, hey, pose, I'll take a picture of you against the backdrop.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what I didn't realize is um well I'll tell I'll tell this part later.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, so I take the picture and I feel this fist crashing into my face.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Some guy has come up, some short stocky guy came up and slugged me full in the face.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, after after a preacher for a fuse, you're not used to that.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: I used to get in hey Hartzall, I used to get into fights every week in high school.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: That was back in the day when you fought a lot, and I used to pick fights after football games and under the stands, and I lost everyone, but I loved I was stupid, I was stupid.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I hadn't fought a long time.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: This guy just, just clocked me.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: I go, what?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: What?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: And you can hardly understand his arabic, but he starts yelling that in the background of the picture that I'd taken of Rob, there was a neighborhood, not not a freestanding mosque that you could ever recognize.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: But there was a mosque there that I was supposed to know was there across the street.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that there's this opening.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: There's no minaret, there's nothing there.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: And this guy slugged me.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: And he yells back, he's about to slug Rob.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Unfortunately, a shopkeeper came out and grabbed him.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: But that's the closest I ever got.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, it wasn't my witness for Christ that caused this to happen.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was the fact I was taking a photograph, but that's the only thing I can remember, sorry.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: So it really doesn't apply.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: So it's pretty close, though.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_03: We we we can make the connection.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's like getting being in the Ethiopian here who gets shot in the head by ISIS.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's close.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_03: Anyway, he talks about um Kifa Sempangi.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's one of the guys that he met.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, turn to page 199 top of the page, you know.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: This he he's this redeemed church um in Uganda.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_03: Uganda.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, bottom of 198, uh top of 199.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_03: And a man who's kind of this this ruthless dictator leader, um just really nasty towards Christians, nasty towards people who didn't believe, the same as him, um, to the point where Kifa actually had to leave the country and come to America.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_03: Leave Uganda, come to America.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um and we see that once in a while.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: Typically it's it's overseas when we see things like this happening, but um several the folks who are are persecuted like that, like Paul would have been doing to the Christians at the time, um they sometimes come to America like Kifa did.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Did you read that article that paragraph there?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, let's let me let me read me read that.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_03: I was in case.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um this is this is his account, top of one ninety nine, he says, and this is in the italics.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: All of his victims suffered unspeakably.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: They were tortured and humiliated in front of families and friends, they were dismembered, decapitated, made to eat their own flesh.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_03: Their bodies were fed to crocodiles, or left unburied in streets and forests.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: Perhaps worst of all, an entire generation of Ugandan children was growing up having nothing but suffering, horror, and terror.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_03: You can't imagine what that's that's like.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_03: Not just that there is the persecution going on, but how that affects their kids, how that affects their families, because they they see that.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_03: They see the the decapitations, they see that oh my dad's not here anymore because he believed in this, and so I can I can't imagine for the the children and and family members that didn't die, just all the thoughts and the the confusion and the questioning, especially if they were putting their faith in God, just all the all the swirlings of emotions that that would have been going on with them.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm blown away by all the suffering in the world that Christians Christians suffer.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, so what are we uh young man named Saul?
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: He was uh yeah, originally named Saul.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um same guy as Paul, but originally named Saul.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: And you guys all heard of Stephen before, right?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_03: Stephen in the Bible, he was he was stoned to death.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_03: And Stephen was one of these guys who was he was helping out the widows, he was um trying to tell people about Christ, and as we see at the bottom of the bottom of 199, uh says, at this point, this is after Stephen had gone before the tribunal, says at this point, those whom Stephen had just called stiff-necked people with uncircumcised hearts and ears responded with with intense hatred.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_03: And this is Acts 757 and 58, um, just underneath that, top of 200.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_03: At this they covered their ears and yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city, and began to stone him.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: And Saul is there, standing there, approving the stoning of Stephen.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_03: Just an inju I mean, we can't even imagine what that would be like.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: You're standing there, you were proving somebody killing another human being by by stoning him because of what he believed in.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: It's outstanding.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_03: Um then kind of the last part of this section is just how and I'll I'll read it the very last couple sentences.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_03: He says, obsessed with both his success and what he believed was God's will, a lethal combination, Paul approached the high priest in Jerusalem and asked for official permission to go all the way to Damascus and take the followers of Christ into custody and bring them back to Jerusalem as prisoners.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_03: Which kind of is is a good segue into his road to Damascus and um this next right about face section.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: My goodness.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: A few years ago I was in uh New York City, as you know, how we witnessed uh Derek had this great idea that the high schoolers needed to learn how to witness, so he took a bunch of high schoolers, 20 last year, and 10 of us leaders, went to New York City, we witnessed.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we didn't face persecution really.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: I remember though, uh one time when I was in New York City witnessing with Jews for Jesus, wearing a Jews for Jesus t-shirt in Grand Central Station down underneath, you know, uh people, and I'm handing out pamphlets to people getting on subway and all kinds of people.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then I see these guys looking at me with murderous intent, you know, about 20 feet away or whatever.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, maybe a little farther than Carl is here, maybe right back at the post, and they're just standing there and they're angry, you know, or something.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then the crowd parts for just a moment, and one of them with long curls, you know, one of these orthodox guys and so forth hawks up a luger.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: And with brilliant aim, he spits that mammoth thing right over and it hits me right in the face when I'm when I'm handing out these these pamphlets.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's the closest I ever got to getting to getting attacked for for actually for doing something for Christ.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it's rather minor.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: I think Paul would have not written that one in the Bible.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: It wouldn't have made it.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: It wouldn't have made it.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: So um anyway, Paul's destroying the church.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Acts 8, 3, he's going from house to house, dragging off men and women and women and putting them in prison.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, to be honest, some of this reminded me of Isis, you know, because ISIS, you know, enslaves women and children today.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: If you ask Isis, why is it that you kill little children of Christians or women or rape them first?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: And they would just say, well, it's their fault because they're not following the Quran.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think if you'd asked Saul, why do you mean, why would you drag off women?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Why would you leave children, orphans, crying?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: He'd say it's their fault.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they worship a false god.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: So Saul is, he is, like you said, he's a he's a really bad boy at this point.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: And he's uttering these murderous threats, Acts 9, 1 and 2, with every breath.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: He's eager to kill the Lord's followers.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: He goes to the high priest, so now he's about to head up to Damascus.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Damascus about you stand on the Golan Heights, you know, there's a lot of a lot of fighting right there.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: The United Nations has a camp.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: You can look down into Syria and there's a little camp right there, but the United Nations is worthless.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you get the uh Syrian rebels who are who are close to terrorists, the ones who are fighting against against Assad.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: And they'll come across, and so there's there's fighting there.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: But you can stand there during the day.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: There'll be soldiers protecting you.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: You stand there, and you can almost see Damascus 60 miles away.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Jerusalem's 60 miles, mmm, 70, 70 or 80 miles behind you.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a 150-mile trip, right?
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: He's gonna take a 150-mile trip by road with people to go up to the Damascus community.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: There are at this time about 10,000 Jews who live in Damascus, and there's, who knows, maybe a thousand, two thousand Christians at most.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: He's gonna travel that far just to just to arrest and beat up men and women and bring them back to Jerusalem and change.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: This guy's he's a jerk and he's radical.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: So we have on page 200 the title, Right About Face.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: Question Have you ever thought you were dead right and suddenly discovered you were dead wrong?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because he's on the road to Damascus, he's so convinced that he is right.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: You ever met a person like that who's just you try to talk to them about I mean, I've I found it here last fall before the election.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I would be standing in the lobby over at Mulvaine, and I'd have the first person, one person come to me and uh just be so desirous that I publicly say that everybody should vote for Trump.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the very next person who would come up would be someone who would just start railing against Trump.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, and I just think of one girl in her late 20s, you know, and just railing, you know, man, you need to speak out against Trump.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_01: The guys are pervert and so forth.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: The women are not safe in this country with him.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: And and and I say, so Hillary's who you really like?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm not saying that, but I mean, you know, Trump's so bad, we gotta vote for anybody but Trump.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, and you go back and forth, and both sides are so convinced they're they're right.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's even worse, of course, if it's if it's Christi if it's religion.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: So so you have this story where in chapter nine, and this is the subtitle, bottom page 200, so there's uh he gets knocked off of his donkey, the light from heaven, and and he sees Jesus.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: He's the last person who's ever seen Jesus, and been spoken to by Jesus, is Paul, Saul at this point.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, and Jesus says, Why do you persecute me?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: Which there's a great lesson here.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Paul, it's great having you, man.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: Come back.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh thanks.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: And Hart's all I know you got to go pretty soon because you got a wrestling match or something at 7 30.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, this isn't this an interesting point that one thing's for sure that when Christians get persecuted, Jesus so identifies with that.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Since we are his body, we the they are persecuting Jesus, which is kind of cool, isn't it?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: So why do you persecute me?
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: And um and then eventually realizes Jesus is the Son of God.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus says it's hard for you to kick against the goads, this is gonna happen, you know, and and and just give up, basically.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh he does.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Now um Jerry asked a good question.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh came up this morning just at the start.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: Where's the free will here?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's looked like a mugging.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: I'm paraphrasing what you said.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's a really good point, isn't it?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: There uh, you know, I I don't want to get too heavy into the Calvinism versus Arminianism questions, but uh there's basically two divisions about about God and man, God's sovereignty, man's free will.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And one side, the Calvinist, the Presbyterian, the Reformed side, uh, not all Presbyterians, obviously, but uh really conservative ones, uh basically say man does not have free will.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: And anytime God saves, he does it kind of like this.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: They would love this account and say it's always God shining a light, zapping people who who would not vote for God if they could and uh could not vote for him if they would want to.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're absolutely unable.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and and he mugs everybody.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's the Arminians on the other side, that would be the Pentecostals, the Methodists, the Nazarenes, the Wesleans, Baptists.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: Baptists are now split, the division, there's a fight in the denomination over this very issue.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: And they would say, no man has a free choice, at least.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I I'm close to that.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: I believe man has doesn't have free will.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think our will is shaped and bent, but I think we all have free choice, and God moves on us to lead us towards salvation.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_01: But sometimes he just blasts people, like he did with C.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: S.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: Lewis, who said, and I quote, You must picture me alone in that this is uh Surprised by Joy, the book about his conversion.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_01: And he's a professor at Oxford, uh Magdalene Hall.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and he says, You must picture me alone in my room, night after night, feeling whenever my mind lifted, even for a second, from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_01: That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: In the Trinity term of 1929, I gave in, admitted God was God, and knelt and prayed, perhaps that night, get this, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: He describes himself at other times as being dragged, kicking and screaming.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: And there are there are some people at TBC who probably would describe their conversion that way.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: But this I find to be a really interesting topic.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: I remember when uh Ward Whelan had come to Christ, and he wasn't a kicking and screaming guy, but he he he he wanted his friend uh who owned Ladda Whitlow to come to Christ, and so he brought him.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: I started a Bible study, and basically this morning is kind of 15 years later now, growth of that.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: But so he brings, he brings that guy.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: That guy, you know, came.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: I remember our first Bible study, and we just started Genesis, and this guy believed in evolution, he wasn't sure God existed, he thought all of us were freaks, and I mean it was it was crazy.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Just everything was negative, and it continued to be.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: He was like a gadfly for months against everything, certainly not buying the whole fundamentalist Jesus only type of thing.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then gradually, it was just really strange.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: He just reluctantly said, Oh, you know, uh Jamie Creviston was part of that, and Jamie Creviston had had cancer, nearly died, and during that time, you know, his story, how he'd we'd prayed for him, and the whole thing turned around.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so he's reluctantly believing that maybe prayers can get answered, and finally he comes to Christ.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: By the way, he got cancer, died within about a year or two, but he died a fervent Christian.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh uh, but so you there are these stories, and I and I love I love these stories.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that wasn't even in the chapter.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: So uh are you gonna do they're all afraid of them when Paul comes back to Jerusalem?
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: Am I still doing that?
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna do the next section.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyway, so Paul becomes a Christian, and when he comes back to Jerusalem, uh, brothers, this is Saul of Tarsus, and he's one of us now.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: Oh no, nope, not that Saul.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyway, that's that's page 202.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: They're all afraid of him.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so he needs a guy named Barnabas to come and you know, put his arm around him and say, you know, trust this guy.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_03: So right now kicking off that next section, as you look back on your life, can you see how God prepared you for a special spiritual task even before you became a Christian?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's that's such a great question.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_03: I think all of us can look back, whether it's something specifically spiritual and about our Christian life or just in leadership, kind of in life in general.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_03: But I think we can all look back and see how God used different situations, used different people, used different um life events to prepare us for something.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, for myself, I think of just the summers that I was that I got to work at kids across America as a as a summer camp counselor at a Christian camp.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_03: I think of working with kids through the football camps and things like that in the summer times and being able to volunteer and be a small group leader with our with our junior hires when I first moved to Topeka, kind of within that in that first year.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um and then kind of see how God used all of those situations to really prepare me to go into full-time ministry, to prepare me for vocational ministry.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I didn't know that's what he was preparing me for, but when I look back, I can see, oh, I all those things were really helpful to me.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_03: God was God was really shaping me and molding me to be the person that I am today.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I think of even when I worked at Target for about a year, just all of the different leadership lessons, all of the skills, the leadership development that I learned over there, and seeing how a lot of those leadership kind of management skills get brought over and are really helpful for me here.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I had no idea that's what God would use it for, but but he has.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_03: And we see something similar in Saul's case because Saul he kind of had this multicultural education.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_03: He yeah, I love this slide.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_03: You know, circumcised the eighth day of the nation of Israel, tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew of Hebrews, as the law of Pharisee.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_03: And so he grew up learning and being steeped in the Jewish law, being steeped in in the customs, in the Old Testament, in God's word, um, namely through a guy, Gamaliel, who was one of the one of the top, top, top teachers of the time for the Jews, but he was also a Greek, which is interesting.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_03: Not usually your your typical combination.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_03: And so what we see is that through this education that Paul had, he was able to relate to the Jews because he is he was very well versed, he he knew the rituals, he knew um God's word, he knew what was supposed to happen, what wasn't.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_03: But as a Greek and growing up in Tarsus, um very, very secular, kind of one of the leading secular and pagan centers of the world, he was now equipped and ready to witness to both the Jewish side and to the Gentile side.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_03: And as we see later, he was eventually deployed mainly to go and teach to the Gentiles and even convert some of those Jews who were living in those Gentile nations because of the background that he had that God had prepared him for.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's uh um it is remarkable in Paul's life.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he he's he's he's born up, like you said, in Greek-speaking Tarsus, huge, like you said, cosmopolitan city, 250,000 people.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: So how boy does that prepare him for traveling around the Greek-speaking world?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody who was born in Tarsus was automatically free, which is a huge advantage simply because uh about 80 years before Paul was born, Tarsus had happened to pick the right side in the whole Julius Caesar War thing.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: Therefore, they they got the special blessing of being named everybody ever born in Tarsus automatically gets Roman freedom.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: Did that help Paul later in life?
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then such a religious family that he gets sent down all the way down to Jerusalem a thousand miles to grow up and learn and learn Hebrew and learn all of that stuff.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: So that helped.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: He studies under Gamaliel, who even today is still listed by Jews as one of the seven greatest rabbis of all time.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: Gamaliel, who required that all of his students learn Greek, learn Latin, that they learn how to be polite and eat with their fork and meals, that they uh that they learn a trade.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: So Paul learned how to make tents.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, all of this stuff is you go, wow, God really, even before Saul became a Christian, was superintending.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's remarkable.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I think that I think, Derek, this would be one of the two most interesting questions for us to discuss in groups.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: Look back on your life, because everybody here has a really unique background, and and and say, what was there even before I I grew up or came to know Christ, which clearly God has used, God was preparing me, you know, for for today.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's I think the other interesting question is the millican question about, you know, were you kick, drag, kicking, and screaming?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh to what extent was free choice or free will involved in your conversion?
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: I always think that's an interesting one.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is the other interesting question.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's great.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh principle no matter how sinful we are, God's grace extends to all humanity.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's principle on what pages?
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: What pages?
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh 209, the principal start.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that would include people like Paul and you and me.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: You want to say anything about that?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: I don't either.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Principle two.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: God works his greatest miracle when he transforms.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, there's Chucky Colson.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh when he transforms a practicing sinner.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, he's a sinner because he's smoking a pipe.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: No, and this is back when he was an arrogant jerk working for Nixon.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the pipe.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: I happen to love the smell of pipe.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, but I uh I don't I don't smoke one, but I like the smell.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: You could do that.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_01: Why did I talk about the pipe?
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: I just I'm not legalistic and I don't mind when people smoke pipes, but but that's Chuck Colson before, and there's Chuck Colson afterwards.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: Can you tell the difference?
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: See the smile?
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it just took the pipe out.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_01: No, sorry, go ahead.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: His face is a little fatter, and he combs his hair a little different.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so uh we have a memory verse.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Let's say it together.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_02: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding in all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make your path straight.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: This coming week, Paul, questions 200, 2003, and so forth.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: Lead us in prayer.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, let me pray.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_03: God, thanks for the example of Paul, um, who was uh a murderer, a a killer, a a beater of Christians, and that you, even through all the things that he had done, you can still use him and bring him into your kingdom.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_03: And Lord, I pray that in all of our lives that we would see that same forgiveness that you extended to Paul, um, extended to us through your love.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_03: In Jesus' name, amen.