It used to be amazing to me how many students on campuses trusted in their own ability to figure things out about God, the same way they would trust in their own ability to figure things out in Science or Math or Chemistry.  Many very bright people reject the gospel, because they cannot figure it out for themselves, and do not like the idea that they have nothing to do with their own salvation.  I believe this thought even hinders many Christians from proclaiming the gospel, because they are afraid someone who might be smarter than they are will ask a question they are not able to answer.  This is the issue: if we were able to figure God out on any level, then we would not be dependent upon God at all, but would trust in self, which is what many Christian  are doing, perhaps unknowingly, in their day to day relationship with God.  Many Christians who are born again, seek to live life in their own wisdom, so are frustrated with why the rarely, if ever, experience much victory over sin, over Satan, or over the world.  We are going to look at human reason and God’s revelation today, which I trust will lead each of you a deeper understanding and experience of the wisdom of God.

We are nearing the end of our study in the book of Acts.  Remember some of the themes we have repeatedly seen displayed in this book: the Holy Spirit establishing the church, the Spirit empowering Christians to live the supernatural life of faith; the Spirit choosing and sending people out with the gospel, the direction the Spirit of God provides us as we ask and seek the Lord; the relevance and importance of preaching the gospel, so people hear about the cross of Christ and His resurrection from the dead.  This morning, we will continue to build on these themes as we look at how the gospel is revealed to those who will come to faith as it is preached by faithful ambassadors.

I. The gospel revealed...

Let me take a moment and set up the context for our passage this morning.  Paul has already defended himself before the governor, Festus.  Paul ended his defense by appealing to Caesar, which he could do as a Roman citizen. He did this because the Jews wanted Paul sent back to Jerusalem for a trial because they had planned to set up an ambush along the way to kill him.  Festus wanted to do the Jews a favor, so asked Paul about this.  Paul knew it was a trap, so appealed to Caesar.  Remember the Lord has already revealed to Paul that he will speak to people about the gospel in Rome, so he is to continue to boldly proclaim the truth, no matter what the opposition.  Paul has faced a lot of opposition to the gospel, but has faithfully preached the gospel, even to those who were trying to kill him.  In this passage, King Herod Agrippa II has come to Caesarea to visit Fetus as a new governor, so Festus asks him to hear Paul’s case.  This King Agrippa is the son of the king who persecuted Christians in Galilee before him.  And his grandfather oversaw the construction of the new temple in Jerusalem, but also slaughtered the innocents in his effort to kill Jesus as a baby, the new King who was born.  Since his father reigned over Galilee, Agrippa knows the customs and many of the teachings of the Jews from the Old Testament.  

Paul tells Agrippa his whole story, and in so doing, sets up a powerful and interesting contrast between revelation and reason.  First, Paul tells Agrippa why he is in prison– it is because of his hope in God raising Jesus from the dead that he is on trial, because the Jews have rejected this hope, which is from the Scriptures they claim to believe.  He reminds Agrippa that he too, at one point, opposed the followers of Jesus with a vengeance.  He hunted them down from city to city, seeking to stamp out what he considered to be a false doctrine.  Then Paul recounts how the Lord appeared to him as a brilliant light which knocked him off of his donkey.  Others who were traveling with him saw the light, but did not hear the voice.  It is interesting that Paul includes the detail that the Lord spoke to him in his native tongue and in the language of the Old Testament– Hebrew.  God can clearly communicate truth to us in any language!  We call what happened here “revelation”.  Revelation is something which had been hidden up to this point, but is revealed– made clear, opened– to Paul in a dramatic fashion, so that Paul could never say he made it up in his own mind or that his mind was playing tricks on him.  You can’t make up what Paul experienced.  His testimony is crystal clear.  Jesus revealed who He was to Paul in  a powerful manner, which Paul could not deny, and this led to both Paul’s great ministry and to this testimony before Agrippa.  The gospel was revealed to Paul.

You and I may not, in fact, will not have exactly the same experience or encounter as Paul had, but it does not make our encounter less valid.  If you know Jesus Christ this morning, you have a story.  You have an encounter with the person of Jesus Christ which no one can say did not happen.  We often call this our testimony.  This encounter may have happened as a friend or a preacher was sharing the gospel with you, and you knew that what was being said was true, so you embraced the gospel for yourself.  Some of you came to faith through a Sunday School teacher, through a TV preacher or simply reading the Bible on your own.  In all these cases, there was an encounter with a person–Jesus Christ.  I vividly remember when Gene came to know Christ.  It was Easter Sunday, 1996.  The gospel had been preached during the Easter service.  In my human evaluation of the presentation of the gospel, it was okay, but I didn’t sense that it was out of the ordinary or very powerful, to be honest.   But it was to Gene!  After the gospel was presented, the opportunity was given for people who prayed that prayer to raise their hands.  When Gene raised his hand, I walked over to him and invited him back to the chapel with me so we could talk further.  When we got back there, one of the Ruling elders and I spent a few minutes explaining the gospel to Gene again, because we wanted him to be clear about the gospel.  I asked Gene, after we shared the gospel, if he had any questions, and if he wanted to pray a prayer to receive Christ with us.  He said through a choked up voice– “I just know that this is true, for the first time in my life, I know this is true.”  The Spirit of God had revealed the truth of the gospel to Gene.  About a week later, the elder who had been with me when Gene prayed to receive Christ, met with Gene and his wife.  This elder and his wife explained the gospel to Gene’s wife, Cindy, and she too came under the powerful conviction of the Holy Spirit, and prayed to receive Christ.  About a week later, I asked this elder how the couple was doing, and he said, “They are doing great!  They are still in the hankie stage, where the power of the gospel is so real you simply weep when you talk about what Jesus has done for you.” and he laughed at the joy it was to be a part of what God was doing in a person’s life.

How about you?  What is your story?  You have heard many testimonies from this pulpit, which is good, but I believe we all need to share with others what God has done and what God is still doing in our lives.  These kinds of testimonies should come out each week in small groups.  This is one of the foci of our small group ministry.  If you do not have a testimony, it is time to ask God to reveal Himself to you, maybe for the first time.  I have met many people before who could explain the gospel, better than many Christians, but they were not yet born again.  The way God met you will be different from the way God met the next person, but your testimony about the encounter you have had with Christ should be very real to you.  Maybe you had an encounter with Jesus many years ago, which you know was real; but you have not had an encounter with the Lord on a very deep level for a long time.  It is okay to go back and remember what God did in the past, to remind yourself of who you are and what God has done.  But we also need fresh encounters with Jesus.  Testimonies should be past and they should be present.  I still remember the time when I met Jesus as a child; but I long to interact with Jesus every day, all throughout the day.  I believe that my Lord loves to meet with me, and He loves to meet with you.  He does so in His own way and time, as I cry out for more of God and He responds to that heart cry.  There have been times when the Lord simply met me when I didn’t know how to cry out.  His grace is incredible.  Paul prays this in Ephesians 1:17ff, “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.”  Pray this prayer for yourself and for this church.

My testimony about the revelation of God to me is this: the Lord met me when I was a 6 year old boy; and He also has touched me today as we worshiped Him together!  We know God by revelation, when God shows Himself to us!  What is your testimony?  I urge you to tell someone today– your spouse or child or friend.

II. The gospel not understood...

Paul continues to share his story, and tells how he had obeyed the vision of the Lord and the commands he had been given by Jesus.  He tells again of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, and how the prophets testify to these very things.  At this point, the governor, Festus, jumps in and interrupts Paul.  He tells Paul he is insane!  He attributes Paul’s insanity to his great learning.  In other words, he acknowledges that Paul is smart, but cannot see how a smart man like Paul could possibly believe something so illogical as God becoming man, dying a death on the cross and being raised from the dead.  God does not simply knock people off of donkeys and speak to them.  This is nonsense!  The truth is that this does sound like foolishness to the natural mind.  “Wait a minute Paul– you re a highly educated Pharisee, right?  You are trying to tell me that the prophets say that God will become man and will live a pure life and die, and then be raised from the dead on the third day... and you believe this actually happened because of some experience you had, right?” 
“Yep, that about sums it up.”
“That is nuts.  It makes no sense to my educated mind.  It sounds like a fairly tale to me!”

I have had people literally say these kinds of things to me.  I believe we are to persuade people about the truth of the gospel.  We challenge people to think clearly about what they are really believe, because most people are very inconsistent in their beliefs and lifestyles.  It is fine to interact with people about these sorts of things.  One time a college student told me that he believed that people were basically good and didn’t really need a Savior as Christianity states.  I asked him if he had read the newspapers and counted the number of crimes, and he said people learned this evil from others.  I asked him if he had ever kept a group of toddlers and he said he hadn’t.  I said to him,
“Let me explain to you what will happen.  If you have 5 toddlers, cute as they are, and 3 toys, they will end up fighting over the toys. If no adults are in the room, there will be a lot of crying in a short amount of time– I promise! We did not teach our children to be selfish!  They are selfish because they have Adam’s sinful nature from birth.”  These kinds of interactions to challenge peoples’ false thinking are good.  I call these kind of interactions “pre-evangelism” because people will hopefully be open to giving the gospel a fair hearing and to respond when they hear the gospel, now that roadblocks to receiving Christ have been removed.  But ultimately, we do not figure the gospel out, we accept the revelation of the gospel which has been given to us by God.  The Lord our God opens our eyes to the truth and we receive it by faith.  Paul himself told us in 1 Corinthians 1:18‑20, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  For it is written:
"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate."  
Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”

Paul rejects the idea that it is insane to talk like this and declares the gospel “true and reasonable.”  The words Paul speaks to them are true– no falsehood in them so they must be responded to... and sound minded– from a sound mind and thought.  This challenges the soundness of Festus’ mind and thinking, but Paul does not hesitate to do this.  People often need to be challenged or shocked out of their ‘normal way of thinking’ so that they might consider the truth of the gospel.  Because of our pride, it often takes a hard knock in life to make us open to the gospel.  More people than not have come to Christ through great suffering and difficulty, when they realized that they could not make things work in their own strength.  They needed God’s help. The Lord loves to come through when we need His help.  Ask for, then receive by faith revelation God has given to you about Himself, which will line up with the truth of His Word.

III. The gospel preached...

Paul knows that Agrippa, unlike Festus, has been following his explanation of the gospel, because he knows that the passages from the Old Testament, to which Paul has alluded, are familiar to Herod Agrippa.  Apparently, the Old Testament prophets had made an impact on him in the past, because Paul declares that he knows that Agrippa believes the prophets.  Agrippa makes light of Paul’s question, asking if Paul is going to try to make him a Christian through one sermon.  Paul declares that he wishes this would happen, and that Agrippa would embrace the truth of the gospel, as Paul himself has, so he too might be saved.  I don’t know if Paul was getting to Agrippa, as he had gotten to Felix earlier when they spoke about the gospel and about God’s judgement over all things, but Agrippa cuts the defense trial short and abruptly leaves the court.  He agreed with Festus that Paul has done nothing wrong, but since he has appealed to Caesar, he should go to Caesar.  Paul never hesitates to declare the gospel– neither can we!

Where are you this morning with reason versus revelation and depending upon yourself versus depending upon God?  Are you convinced that the gospel is true, even though you have not figured every thing out about God or life; or are you still trying to or demanding to figure it all out before you will receive the gospel?  God will not come to you on your terms.  He is God.  You come to Him on His terms– believe the gospel which has been revealed to you.  Then lay down your life and ask for His forgiveness, receiving by faith the revelation He has given to you.  Ask for more revelation of His character and person.  I believe He delights to reveal Himself to us.  I can’t tell the Lord how He is going to do this.  I simply pray and wait and seek Him, watching to see how He will work.  Waiting does not mean doing nothing.  I keep my hand to the plow– doing the work He has given me to do, while I wait.  I still spend time in the Word daily.  I need more time in His Word when I am waiting and seeking, because I want to have my mind bathed in His thoughts, instead of worldly thoughts.  I expect that He will answer.  I believe that our heavenly Father absolutely delights in fellowship with us.  He created us for this.  While you wait on the Lord in faith, continue to look for opportunities to preach the gospel.  As you declare the gospel to others, it becomes more and more real in your own heart and life.  God changes hearts.  We pray, and speak to others about what Christ has done in us.  As we tell others about what God has done, He does a work in them to receive Christ.

Edith Burns is a great illustration of this message.  Dr. Phillips favorite patient was Edith Burns.  She introduced herself like this, “Hello, I am Edith Burns.  Do you believe in Easter?”  Then she would explain the meaning of Easter and many people were saved.  One day, the doctor walked into Edith’s room and she asked him why he was so sad.  With a heavy heart, Dr. Phillips told her that she had cancer and would not be living much longer.  Edith responded, “Shame on you Dr. Phillips– do you think God makes mistakes?  You have just told me I am going to see my precious Lord, my husband and many friends– that I am going to celebrate Easter forever and here you are having a difficult time giving me my ticket.”