Alright, now the title of this morning's sermon is Hope for Hard Cases.
Hope for Hard Cases.
Now what do I mean by a hard case?
I'm speaking specifically about somebody who isn't saved.
That's a hard case.
Now not every person that isn't saved is a hard case, but there are certain people, and
that I'm sure we all have one in our life that we're probably more than likely related
to, or somebody that we know that isn't saved, somebody that we've probably talked to about
Jesus Christ, somebody that we've probably tried to give the gospel to, but they've just
resisted it.
They've not gotten saved, and they are what we would call a hard case.
They're somebody that's hard to bring around to the knowledge of salvation.
They're resisting the preaching.
It might be somebody that we've known and preached to maybe even for years, somebody
that might be close to us.
And you know the Bible has got many examples of people that are hard cases, and in the
book of Acts alone, we see many examples of this.
And if you would, keep something in Acts 18 all morning because we'll be back and forth
there.
We're going to look at a specific example a little bit later on in Acts 18 of a hard
case, but I want us to understand that no matter how hard the case seems to be, there's
always hope for that person.
And we see that time and time and time again in the scriptures, and we should never get
discouraged and think that somebody that we know or love that has rejected the gospel
is beyond hope of salvation.
Now of course we understand that there are certain people that are what the Bible calls
a reprobate, that have been given over, that cannot be seen.
Jesus said to certain of the Jews that they could not believe because God had blinded
their minds and their hearts and their eyes because they had for so long resisted God.
I do believe that a person can resist God for so long and to the point where God actually
gives them over to a reprobate mind.
But I believe that those are, you know, that's the minority of people.
Some people just seem to resist God just out of pride, a false way that they're involved
in.
You know, sometimes often it's a child coming to a parent, those of us that have got saved
a little older in life, didn't come from a Christian home.
You know, we have parents that are unsaved and we want to see them saved, but it's often
hard for a parent to receive instruction from a child.
You know, if they were to come to tell you, hey, especially when it comes to matters of,
you know, spirituality, of going to heaven when you die, probably the greatest question
that you could ever ask anybody.
That might be hard for a parent to receive from a child.
They let me answer life's most compelling question, what happens when you die.
I figured it out, mom and dad, let me tell you about it.
Right?
But we should never give up hope on these people and we should always understand that
it's not necessarily that they hate God, it's just that they're a hard case.
Now if you would, turn over to Acts chapter 12 and I want us to remind us of some hard
cases that are in the scriptures, some people that were hard to come to Christ, they weren't
quick, but they were ones that resisted God often.
They were ones that resisted the Spirit often.
You're going to Acts chapter 12, the Bible says in John 11 that the Jews, they were ones
that often resisted the Spirit of God.
They were the ones that often resisted God.
We see that throughout the New Testament.
For example, Jesus said to them, Master, the Jews of late, this is actually his disciples
said unto Jesus, Master, the Jews of late sought to stone thee, and goest thou thither?
Again, this is of course when Jesus is going into Jerusalem for that last time and they
say to him, you know, the Jews, they want to stone you.
I mean, how much more resistant of Jesus Christ can you be to the point where you're willing
to kill him?
You know, if we were to go through the New Testament, specifically in the gospels and
look at all the times that the Jews desired to lay hands on Jesus, when he preached the
synagogue, they took him out onto a hill, they were going to cast him down a hill and
kill him.
And how many times they wanted to stone him or harm him, but they weren't able to.
So we see that the Jews are people that consistently resisted God in the New Testament.
They resisted him specifically with Jesus.
They wanted to kill him.
They resisted the apostles.
If you're there in Acts chapter 12, look at verse 1, about that time Herod the king stretched
forth his hand to vex certain of the church, and he killed James the brother of John with
the sword.
I mean, that's kind of a tragedy right in the beginning of the book of Acts, practically,
right when the New Testament church is taking off.
One of the main disciples, one of the twelve, James the brother of John, is killed with
the sword.
And because he saw it, because Herod the king saw it, that it pleased the Jews.
When the Jews heard that James had gotten killed with the sword, it didn't bother them,
it pleased them.
It made them happy to know that one of Christ's disciples had been killed.
It says that he proceeded further to take Peter also.
He was willing to do them a pleasure.
He said, oh that it pleased the Jews, well let me take Peter also.
And of course, if you know the story, the angel come and miraculously delivers Peter.
Go ahead and turn over to Acts chapter 7, Acts chapter 7, we'll see another example
of the Jews being ones that consistently resisted God throughout the New Testament.
They were hard cases.
If you go to Acts 7, it reminds us that the apostle Paul was one that was known for being
a hard case.
It says in Acts 9 verse 20, and straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues.
This is of course after Paul gets saved, he's on the road to Damascus, he sees the great
light, the Lord speaks to him, he goes blind, and then he gets saved.
And the Bible says in straightway after he got saved that Paul preached Christ in the
synagogues that he is the son of God.
But Saul increased more in strength and confounded the Jews which dwelt in Jerusalem, proving
this is very Christ.
And after many days were fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him.
So one of their own, Paul, who was a Pharisee of the Pharisees, he said, gets saved and
then begins to preach Christ to the people that knew him, the Jews, they took counsel
to kill him.
They're resisting the Spirit, they're hard cases.
Look at Acts chapter 7 verse 51, we'll see it again where the Jews were resisting the
Holy Ghost.
I mean, Stephen just calls him out for it in Acts chapter 7.
Acts chapter 7, the Bible says in verse 51, Acts 7, 51, ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised
and hard in ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost.
He said, you always resist, he's preaching the Jews, he says, you know what, you guys
always resist the Holy Ghost.
Now he wasn't pulling any punches, I mean, he calls them some names, he calls them stiff-necked
and uncircumcised and hard.
They were stiff-necked, what's that mean?
They were stiff-necked, they weren't, they were ignorant, they were proud, they were
stubborn.
You think of somebody who doesn't have a stiff neck, you know, when they get called on the
carpet, when they get told they're wrong, often what does a person do?
They drop their head in an acknowledgement of the wrong that they've done.
But the Jews weren't that way.
When they were told, look, Christ is the Savior, Jesus is the Christ, they were stiff-necked.
They kept it up, they said, no he isn't.
They resisted the Holy Ghost.
And then it goes on in verse 52 and tells us, we're not going to take the time to do
it, but we can go back in the Old Testament and just see time after time after time where
the Jews are resisting God, resisting his commandments, not desiring to do the things
of God.
And he says, Stephen says in verse 52, which of the prophets have your fathers not persecuted?
Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?
They have slain them which were showed before the coming of the just one, whom he had now
been the betrayers and murderers.
I mean, you think I've ever preached a hard sermon.
This guy's up there just ripping face, calls them the betrayers, calls them murderers,
calls their fathers these things.
So we see just all these examples with the apostles, with Jesus himself, with the apostle
Paul, with Stephen here, where the Jews are just stiff-necked, they're hard-hearted, and
they're hard cases.
They resist the Holy Ghost.
We can talk about the Old Testament, but we won't for the sake of time.
Now I say all that because I want to remind us of the fact that even in the New Testament,
we also see many Jews getting saved, don't we?
We also see many of these religious Pharisees, these Jews, getting saved.
If you would, turn over to Acts chapter 2.
Go to Acts 2, while you're going to Acts 2, I'm going to read you from the book of John
chapter 11, where it says, Then many of the Jews which came to Mary and had seen the things
which Jesus did, believed on him.
So many of these Jews are seeing the things which Jesus did, and they believe on him.
It says in John 12, But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus to death,
because that by reason of him many of the Jews went away.
So even though these Jews were very hard-hearted, even though they were very stiff-necked, even
there were some that were very, they were what we would call hard cases, the Bible makes
it clear that there were also many of them, I'm trying not to sneeze right now, that also
got saved.
You're there in Acts chapter 2, look at verse 37, Now when they heard this, this is of course
when Peter stood up and preached that message on the day of Pentecost, and the Jews heard
them and it says now in verse 37, Now when they had heard this, they were pricked in
their hearts, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what
shall we do?
And Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized to every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ
with remission of sins, and he shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Then look there at verse 41, Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and
the same day were added unto them about three thousand souls.
So yeah, they were hard cases, but we see a lot of them coming to Christ.
Now they didn't all happen right away, a lot of things had to happen, I mean Jesus had
to have his earthly ministry, he had to die, rise again, they had to see a lot of things
happen with the apostles, they had to hear a lot of preaching, I mean think about the
apostle Paul, I think he was around for most of, he probably saw, it wouldn't surprise
me one bit if the apostle Paul heard a lot of Jesus Christ preaching himself, I mean
he had to have known who Jesus was, I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit, but we see a
lot of these people getting saved, it might not have been overnight, it might not have
been immediately, they were hard cases and you know what, we probably have some hard
cases in our lives too, people that we care about, that are rejecting Christ, that are
being resistant, they're being stiff necked in their own way.
Now in our text back there if you would, we kept something there in Acts chapter 18.
I want to look at two Jews specifically in our text that got saved.
In Acts 18 we see two Jews who got saved.
The first one I want us to notice is Crispus, okay?
Acts 18 and verse 7, the Bible says, and he departed thence, and entered into a certain
man's house named Justice, one that worshipped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue.
Look at verse 8, and Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, okay so Paul's in Corinth
and this guy Crispus is the chief ruler of the synagogue, I mean he was somebody, he
had some clout, he had some weight to throw around in the synagogue, he was the chief
ruler, not a chief ruler, it says the chief ruler.
It says that he believed on the Lord with all his house.
So here we see a guy that was a Jew, probably maybe a hard case, maybe, I don't know, but
we definitely see that he was one that got saved, and it doesn't go into a lot of detail
about his salvation, what it took or anything like that, but we see that that's one of the
two Jews that got saved.
The other one I want to look at a little more closely is the one that we know for a fact
is a hard case, and that's this guy named Sosthenes.
Look at verse 17, and then all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue,
this is still in Corinth by the way, and beat him before the judgment seat, and Galio cared
for none of those things.
Now if you remember the story here in Acts 18, Paul comes into Corinth, right, he preaches
in the synagogue, he shakes his raiment, he says, you know, you always do blaspheme,
your blood be on your own heads, I am clean, I go into the Gentiles, and he goes into the
house of justice, and in the next verse we see Crispus get saved, and then if you remember
the story that Paul continued there a year and six months.
So in that time that Paul was there, this guy Sosthenes takes the place of Crispus as
the chief ruler, right, and then they commit insurrection, they take Paul before Galio
to try to get him in trouble with the Jews, excuse me, with the Romans, and God just kind
of turns it on its head, and Sosthenes is the one that ends up getting beat.
Now I believe that Sosthenes, you say, well how do you know Sosthenes got saved?
Well first of all, let me just make the case from this text, because we're going to turn
somewhere else here in a minute, but there is nothing in this text that would indicate
that he didn't get saved.
I mean we don't see anything in the story that says Sosthenes was a reprobate, anything
to make us think that he was one that was given over to a reprobate mind, that he was
one that could not get saved, there's nothing in the text here that says that he couldn't
have gotten saved.
Now some people might object to me saying that he got saved because of the way he handled
Paul.
They'd say, well yeah, but he was the chief ruler of the synagogue, he's the one that
committed insurrection and had Paul arrested and he was trying to get Paul killed or at
least beaten or something.
And they'd say, well look how he's handling God's man, how can you say this guy got saved?
With that objection, I would remind us of Paul's testimony.
Of Paul's testimony, if you recall Paul's testimony, it says that he straightway preached
Christ in the synagogues, but all that heard him were amazed and said it's not this he
that destroyed them which call on his name in Jerusalem.
I mean when Paul got saved, he had a reputation as one that destroyed the church of God.
He was one that inhaled men and women with letters from the Jews to take them bound to
Jerusalem and cast them into prison, have them put to death.
He was one that destroyed the faith.
That was the testimony of Paul before he got saved.
So what is Sostenese that's doing anything worse than what Paul had done?
There's nothing here in the text that shows us that Sostenese could not have gotten saved.
In fact, if you would turn over to 1 Timothy 1, again keep something in Acts 18, but turn
over to 1 Timothy 1.
I want us to understand this, because this is important.
That Paul wasn't the best guy in the world when he got saved.
That he was a hard case.
And he was a hard case far more than Sostenese was in my opinion.
From what we see in the scripture anyway, from what we know of Sostenese, and compared
to what Paul did, it's a far cry.
The Bible says, you're going to 1 Timothy 1, remind us what the Bible says in Galatians
1, about Paul.
It says, afterwards I came into the regions of Syria and Cilicia and was unknown by the
face of the churches of Judea which were in Christ, but they had heard only that he which
persecuted us in times past now preaches the faith which once he destroyed and they glorified
God in me.
So here we have this hard case, and Paul the Apostle, who had that reputation as one who
destroyed the faith, now preaching Christ.
You're there in 1 Timothy 1, look at verse 15, 1 Timothy 1.15, this is a faithful saying
worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom
I am chief.
Paul just said he was the cheapest of sinners, he had no misgivings or misunderstandings
about who he was and what he had done.
He says in verse 16, howbeit for this cause I obtain mercy.
He's about to tell us the cause as to why he obtained mercy, even though he was the
cheapest of sinners, even though he was one that destroyed the faith at one time.
He said, I obtain this mercy for this cause, that in me first Christ Jesus might show forth
all longsuffering for a pattern.
Now what's a pattern?
It's something that others could take and follow, right?
For a pattern to them which should hereafter believe unto life everlasting.
Paul serves as an example of a hard case in scripture.
He's somebody that we can look to and say, we have some hard case in our life, we have
somebody that we don't think can get saved, that they're just so hard hearted, they've
just resisted the gospel for so long, we need to take them and hold them up to the pattern
of Paul and see how it matches up.
And ask ourselves, is there still any hope for this person?
Well I don't know, have they destroyed the church yet?
Are they hailing men and women and calling them bound to Jerusalem?
No.
Probably not.
And I don't think Sostenes was either.
So there's nothing in the text here, if you would go back to Acts chapter 18, there's
nothing in the text that gives us any reason to think Sostenes couldn't have gotten saved.
Well people say, and I point to the example of Paul and say, you know, Paul was far worse
from what we know than Sosteny ever was, and they'll say, yeah, but Paul did it ignorantly.
He says he did it ignorantly.
You know, what they mean by that is he didn't know Jesus, he was unsaved.
Yeah, I know he didn't know Jesus in the sense that he was saved, but you can't say
he didn't know Jesus, and he knew who Jesus was, and no one gets saved without knowing
who Jesus is, right?
I mean, Paul clearly had to have known who Jesus Christ was while he was alive on this
earth.
I mean, he was in Jerusalem, he would have heard and seen things, like I said earlier,
I have no doubt in my mind that he even saw the Lord Jesus Christ, probably more than
one occasion.
Maybe even saw the miracles, maybe even heard the preaching.
I mean, when he got saved, when he was on his way to Damascus, Paul, Jesus Christ said
to him, he said, who art thou, Lord?
He said, I am Jesus Christ, whom thou persecutest.
You think Paul didn't know he was persecuting?
I know he was going after the church, but he understood why he was going after the church,
because they followed Jesus Christ.
He knew who Jesus Christ was.
The scripture tells us the nature of Paul's ignorance, because the Bible does say Paul
was ignorant, and I should have had you stay for Timothy, that's alright, just stay where
you are.
The Bible says in 1 Timothy where we were, it says that Paul was before a blasphemer,
that he was before a persecutor, an injurious, and he says, I obtain mercy because I did
it ignorantly in unbelief.
That's the ignorance of Paul.
It wasn't just that he was blameless because he didn't know who God was, it was because
he was unbelieving.
That's the nature of Paul's ignorance.
Paul, when he was doing all those things, when he was blaspheming, when he was persecuting,
when he was injuring the church, when he was destroying the faith, he was acting as any
unsaved or unregenerate sinner might.
He was just acting, he was following the course of this world.
But one of the main reasons, if you would, turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter 1.
One of the main reasons that I believe this guy saws and he's got saved here is because
of what we were going to read here in 1 Corinthians 1.
And there's really no arguing with this.
I mean, this is a case closed verse here.
Look at 1 Corinthians 1, verse 1.
Paul called to be an apostle Jesus Christ, the will of God, and Sosthenes, our brother.
So it calls Sosthenes his brother right there.
Now where was Paul when Sosthenes got beat?
He was in Corinth.
Who's Paul writing to in 1 Corinthians?
The Corinthians, in Corinth.
And this is the only other mention of Sosthenes in the scripture.
This is the same guy.
And you'd have a hard time convincing me otherwise.
I mean, I'm open to being correction, I've asked around, everyone that I've talked to
seems to agree with me on that.
It makes perfect sense.
So here we have Sosthenes, the same guy that was dragging Paul before Galio to be beaten,
who himself ended up getting beaten, now being called our brother in 1 Corinthians 1.
We could further prove that by the fact, if you look at verse 14, you say well maybe it's
a different Sosthenes.
Well would you say that about Crispus?
It says in verse 14, I thank God that I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gaius.
So there you have another guy, that's the same, in Acts 18, the same as Sosthenes, you
have Sosthenes and you have Crispus, both mentioned in Acts 18.
1 Corinthians 1, 1, you have Sosthenes and you have Crispus.
It's the same guy, and he's called a brother.
And it's interesting because of the fact of what he had to go through.
You see, Sosthenes was a hard case, wasn't he?
Especially when you compare him to Crispus, remember Crispus, the first chief ruler of
the synagogue?
He didn't get beaten, he just says that he believed.
Crispus was the predecessor of Sosthenes as the chief ruler, we know that.
Go back to our text in verse 11, Acts 18, 11, and he, Paul, continued there in Corinth
a year and six months teaching the word of God among them.
So he's there a year and six months, sometime after the fact that Crispus had gotten saved.
Of course we already know, and we're going to look at it here in a minute, that if a
Jew were to believe on Jesus Christ they were put out of the synagogue.
And it only makes sense that if this guy Crispus got saved, of course he's not going to continue
as a chief ruler of the synagogue.
He's not going to continue leading people after a false religion.
He's going to turn from his idol unto the living God.
So it goes without saying that he got out of the synagogue.
So he gets out of the synagogue, he joins the church there in Corinth that Paul established,
Paul continues there a year and six months.
And there in that time, I believe, Sosthenes is just resisting.
The whole time, he's just resisting.
It reminds me of when Paul was on the road to Damascus, and he said,
Who art thou Lord?
He said, I am Jesus Christ, who will not persecute us.
He said, it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.
Do you ever think about what he means by that saying, it's hard for thee to kick against
the pricks?
It's like when you would go to an animal, you know, if you were trying to drive an animal
along ahead of you, you'd have a stick and you'd have a prick on it, and you would prick
that thing.
You'd poke him right in the back parts and get him to move.
That's what Jesus Christ was saying about Paul.
When he was getting pricked, he said, hey, you need to go in this direction, you need
to come to Christ.
He didn't move, he kicked, like a mule would.
He was stubborn.
I believe that's what was probably going on with Sosthenes here.
I mean, I tend to think, there's nothing in scripture that can't prove this, but let's
just use a little logic here, you know, I mean, they're both in the same city, they're
both probably part of the same synagogue, they had to have known each other, Crispus
and Sosthenes.
They might have been friends, and Crispus gets saved and leaves the synagogue, and I
wonder if Sosthenes didn't just start to stew, like he's just, man, my friend got saved,
I can't stand this Paul guy, he probably knew who Paul was, Paul's in town, he's stealing
our church members, right?
He's just getting all kinds of, oh, oh, he's resisting, you know, he's a hard case.
Now, who was it that Sosthenes, as Paul, would have been resisting?
Well, it was like Stephen said, the Holy Ghost, they're resisting God.
And again, I just want to reiterate the fact that all Jews aren't just not, these people
that we read about, the Jews in the Bible, they're not reprobate by default.
We have to remember that when we're dealing with people.
Just because we knock on someone's door and give them the gospel and they reject it, that
doesn't make them a reprobate, folks.
That just means it's not their time.
They're not going to get saved today.
And that's why we should always leave with the right spirit and say, God bless you, even
if they're patankerous, try to kill them with kindness, you know?
That way, when the next Christian comes along, we knock that door again, they're going to
say, oh, maybe that will be a little bit more softened towards the things of God.
Maybe then they'll listen.
But if we go, oh, you know, I'm from Faithful Word Baptist Church, I don't want your religion,
get the door slammed.
Well, thanks a lot, you big jerk, and you know, start getting after them, you know,
you reprobate, just start calling them names, you know, and shake your raiment, your blood
be on your own head, you know, that's going to leave quite the impression and not the
right one.
You know, we should, we should walk away and say, well, maybe today just wasn't their day.
Maybe they were having a bad day and we can come back.
But Sostenes, he was one that was resisting the Holy Ghost, and that doesn't make him
a reprobate.
I think Sostenes' problem was, and if you would, turn over to John 7, again, keep something
in Acts, turn over to John 7.
The problem with Sostenes is probably the same problem a lot of the Jews had, is that
he feared God more than man, or excuse me, he poured man more than God, I got that backwards.
He was more afraid of what man thought than what God thought.
Here in John 7, look at verse 11,
Then the Jews sought him at the feast, they sought Jesus, and said, Where is he?
And there was much murmuring among the people concerning him.
For some said, He is a good man, and others said, Nay, but he deceiveth the people.
Howbeit no man spake openly of him for the fear of the Jews.
They are afraid of men, they didn't want to speak openly.
If you look at John chapter 12, this is a common theme throughout the book of John and
elsewhere in scripture, that people were afraid of men, they were afraid of what the
Jews would say, do or think.
It says in John 19, and after this, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, he
was a disciple, he was saved, he was following Christ, he believed, he says, but secretly
for fear of the Jews, so he was afraid of man.
The Bible says in John 9, these words spake his parents, and this is of course in John
9, you're going to John 12, and in John 9 we recall the story of the one that was born
blind, and Jesus heals them, and says he was born blind to the glory of God, and the
blind man shows himself to the Jews, and they go to the parents and say, is this your son?
And the sons don't want to answer, because they know it was Jesus that did it, that healed
them.
They said, he is of age, ask him.
It says that these words spake his parents, because they feared the Jews.
For the Jews had already agreed that if any man did confess that he was Christ, he should
be put out of the synagogue.
People didn't want to lose their favorite spot in the synagogue, their seat.
They didn't want to lose their friends, they didn't want to lose the fellowship that they
had there.
They were afraid of what the Jews would do, they were afraid of being put out, they had
the fear of man.
Here in John 12, we'll see it again, look at verse 42, nevertheless among the chief
rulers, many of the chief rulers, also many believed on him.
So here we see again, chief rulers of the synagogue, believing on Christ, getting saved.
But because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of
the synagogue.
And Jesus, it's no wonder that he warned of this very thing.
He told his disciples, he said, these things have I spoken unto you, and those things were
that all men would hate you, if they had hated me, they would hate you also.
He said, these things have I spoken unto you, that you should not be offended.
They shall put you out of the synagogues, yea the time cometh that whosoever killeth
you, will think that he doeth God's service.
The Bible is clear that we should not fear man, and I believe that's what's going on
here with Sostenes.
I think he, that was why he was resisting.
That's why he was such a hard case, and that might be why we have a hard case in our life,
that there's somebody we know that's resisting, and that's not, you know, they're resisting
the gospel, they're resisting the things of God, it's because they're afraid of what
other people might think, what their family might think, what their friends might think,
what their co-workers might think.
There's a lot of reasons why people resist God.
It's not just because they're reprobates, a lot of times it's because of the fear of
man.
The Bible says in Proverbs 29, I'll read to you, it says this, the Bible says in Proverbs
29 that the fear of man bringeth a snare.
It says whosoever shall fear man, it bringeth a snare.
Now we see the snare in our text, and it goes on in Proverbs 29, it says, but whoso putteth
his trust in the Lord shall be saved.
It says if you fear man, you're going to get a snare, but if you put your trust in God,
you'll be saved.
You won't get caught.
I love the fact that we see the snare and we see the safety that's spoken of in Proverbs
in our text.
Here in Acts 18, look at verse 6.
Paul trusted God and he certainly did not fear any man, did he?
Look at Acts 18 verse 6, we'll see that Paul did not fear man.
He said, and when they opposed themselves and blasphemed, I just love the visual you
get of Paul doing this, him shaking his raiment at him.
I mean, it wasn't just like, you know, it wasn't Brother Hunter in our TD Jakes video,
the Fortune 50 challenge, he took his coat off, right?
I mean, he was furious, he's shaking his raiment at him, you know, like shaking the dust off
his feet.
And he says, your blood be upon your own heads.
That's not very nice.
He says, I am clean, from henceforth I will go to the Gentiles.
And he said, well yeah, he's just being showy.
Let me remind you, Paul did this in the synagogue to these Jews after he'd been stoned in Acts
14.
I mean, he's already had these same Jews, not these Jews, but Jews come after him and
pursue him to another city and stone him and leave him for dead.
I mean, Jews suffered at the hands of the Jews mightily, multiple times.
I mean, he'd been whipped by him, beaten, stoned, and if that didn't stop him, he wasn't
afraid of man.
He sat up and said, you know what, your blood be on your own heads.
I go to the Gentiles.
He's a bold man.
He put his trust in the Lord, right?
And therefore he was saved.
That's why it says in verse nine, then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision.
Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace, for I am with thee, and no man shall
set on thee to hurt thee, for I have much people in this city.
You know, it's interesting that he received that vision after he made the statement to
the Jews, after he shook his raiment, after he put his trust in God, then God comes and
reassures him.
It wasn't the other way around.
Paul didn't sit back and say, should I say this, Lord, are you going to be with me?
He just went ahead and said, he said, you know what, your blood be on your own heads.
And then God comes to him and says, no man's going to hurt you, Paul, I want you to stay
here in court and continue.
No man will sit on thee.
And isn't that exactly what we see play out?
They try to take Paul and get him in trouble with the authorities, get him cast in prison
or beaten or killed or whatever, and before he can even open his mouth to respond and
defend himself, Galileo says, you know what, what are you even doing here with this guy?
You know, if it's a matter of your law, see, he'd do it.
I will be no judge of such matters, and he dismisses the case.
Paul doesn't even have to plead his defense, and it gets thrown out of court.
God was with him.
God came through on his word.
He said, I am with thee, and no man shall sit on thee to hurt thee.
But we also see that snare, don't we, we see it with Sosthenes, a fearing man, and it just
might be that, you know, as Sosthenes was a hard case, it may be that you know somebody
in your life who's a hard case, and they won't come to Christ because they're snared,
be it the fear of man or some other thing, and I love that, that language, snared, you
know, it's not something we talk about, we use a lot, I mean, if we were, if we were
around people who did any kind of hunting or trapping, they would know what a snare
is, you know, it's a trap, something that you lay, you know, like a, like a, I don't
know any traps, to be honest, just because I'm from Michigan doesn't mean I know all
the traps, right?
But I've known guys who would do it, and, you know, they'd go out and they'd set traps
and they, and they, and they'd catch animals, and they'd set snares, now if you've ever
seen a snared animal, you know one thing about a snared animal, it cares about nothing else
but getting loose, I mean, it doesn't care how wet it is, if it's raining, it doesn't
care how cold it is, it doesn't care how hungry it is, it's going, it'll try and chew
its own foot off to get out of that snare, there's nothing pleasant about being a snare,
they want to escape, but the thing about a snare is, is that it's impossible to escape,
and it's somebody else that has to come along and release that snare, and somebody else
has to come along and let that animal go, to let, to release that trap and let them
go, and if you've ever tried to, if you ever see a snared animal, you know, if you try
to approach a snared animal, they will fight you tooth and nail, I mean they will fight
you to the death, I know guys that when they would go, they would do trap, they would trap,
you have to club the animal before you take it out, you have to kill it before you can
get it out of the snare, obviously, they fight, right, they're snared, they want loose, it
always reminds me of this, when I drove for UPS back in Michigan, I had this Saturday
route where I go out and deliver all the next day air packages, and the route I had was
really rural, I had to go out, out in these just long distances, you know, way out in
the woods, and the guy who ran that route during the week, the full-time driver, I was
out on a Saturday delivering, I saw the full-time driver at a gas station, just out in the middle
of nowhere, out in the boonies of Michigan, and he's over by a pay phone, this is before
cell phones were really popular, I guess, or he didn't have one, I'm not sure, he could
get reception or something, but he's got a pay phone, so I pulled over, I recognized
him, because I was on his route, it was just, you know, I was living the next day air on
that Saturday, just to kind of talk to him for a minute, and I said, well what's going
on, what are you doing, and he was a trapper, and he said, well I'm trying to get a hold
of the DNR, what had happened was he had set a snare, he set a trap for, I don't know what
it was he was trying to catch, but a bald eagle came down to take the bait, and he came
up on his trap, he was checking his traps, and there was a bald eagle in it, now we,
you know, we always see bald eagles on, you know, currency and things like that, but if
you ever see one in person, one that's not in captivity, one that's grown up in the wild,
you know, if it's healthy, I mean those birds, Stan, they're tall, they're big animals, they're
intimidating, and he came up on that thing, and he had to, he said he tried to let it
loose, but man, it would have probably just sunk his talons in him, who knows what, so
he's getting the DNR, I talked to him about it later, I had to go, but he said that they
came and they had to like get it with some kind of a thing around the neck, you know,
like a pole and blindfold it before they could let it go, so the point I'm trying to make
here is that when somebody's snared, you know, they don't like it, they'll fight, they'll
resist, and you're not going to be able to just come up on your heart case who's afraid
of man, who has that snare in them, and just expect to just let him go in a moment, you're
going to have, it's going to take some work, and that's what the Lord had to do here with
Sosthenes, he had that snare, he was caught in the snare of the fear of man, and God had
to kind of work on Sosthenes, he had to loosen up that snare and let him go, didn't he?
And that's exactly what we see here in verse 17, God uses man to loosen up the snare in
Sosthenes' heart, he says, then all the Greeks took Sosthenes, the chief ruler of the synagogue,
and beat him before the judgment seat, you know, that was the trapper coming along and
clubbing the animal, right, before taking him out of the trap, setting him free, putting
him on the dinner plate, and Galileo cared for none of those things, the Bible says there,
you know, and it's interesting, you have to think about what Sosthenes went through, because
that's it, that's all you read about Sosthenes until you get to 1 Corinthians 1, I wonder
what went through Sosthenes' mind when he was at home nursing those wounds, you know,
a lot of times God will use things like that, I have known people who testify to that, God
will put you on your back, literally, put you in a hospital bed to get you to start
thinking about some spiritual things, sometimes that's what it takes to get a person who's
hard-hearted, somebody who's being a hard case, somebody who's being stiff-necked, somebody
who's resisting God, God doesn't just give up on him and say, oh, have it your way, God
will start working on him, and it just might be that he'll beat him, I mean, I'm sure Sosthenes
went home with a little bit more than a limp, this wasn't a slap on the wrist, I don't think,
I think this was a beating, it says that he drove them from their judgments, I mean, Sosthenes
probably had to lay on his back for a while, and nurse those wounds, and let the swelling
go down, and let the wounds heal, and all that time he's thinking about, maybe Crispus
was right, maybe Paul was right, he started to think about the things he heard, I mean,
I believe he was in that synagogue when Paul first showed up, when he preached to them
Christ and then said, you know what, and when they had blasphemed, it might have been that
it was Sosthenes that was one of the ones that was blaspheming, he started to think
about the things that Paul had preached to them.
The Bible says in Proverbs 20 that the blueness of a wound cleanses it away evil, it says
the blueness of a wound, that's talking about a bruise, do you ever get hit hard enough
you have one of those bruises that's just bright blue, or a deep, deep dark purple,
that bruise doesn't just go away overnight, it says the blueness of a wound cleanses it
away evil, so do stripes, it's talking about getting stripes on your back, getting beaten
with the rod, stripes the inward parts of the belly, sometimes people have to go through
some physical suffering even, to start to get it right with God, to start thinking about
spiritual things, and it just might be that that hard case you know needs life to be on
a little bit more, we should never give up on people that we consider a hard case, and
just trust that God knows what it is that they need, and just let life work on them,
life has a way of working on people.
The Bible says the way of a transgressor is hard, the person who is going to resist God,
the person who is going to mock the things of God and scoff at the things of God, it's
going to catch up to them, sure everything seems fine today, life's a party, but eventually
it catches up to them, and the Bible says that the way of a transgressor is hard, when
they start having to go through trouble with the law, trouble with money problems, family
problems, all these things, they start to work on their heart and loosen up the snare,
then maybe, maybe years, maybe a decade will go by, they'll start to say okay, tell me
again about Jesus, tell me what John 3.16 said again, remind me one more time, our job
for the hard case is to be there when they finally come around, when that person finally
starts to come around, it's up to us to be there, the Bible says if you're still there
in Acts 18, look at verse 18, after Sosthenes had gotten beaten, after Sosthenes had been
beaten, after Sosthenes was at home licking his wounds, thinking about the things that
God, or that Paul had preached to him, it says in Acts 18, and Paul after this tarried
there yet a good while, he was still around when Sosthenes was coming around, and that's
what we need to do, you know, and I've thought about this, you know, because, it's easy,
you know, to say these things and talk about it, sometimes it's hard to understand exactly
what I mean by all this, but I think we're getting to this morning, and I've gone back
and forth since I wrote this about whether or not I'd shared this bit about myself, because
it's, it's not easy, you know, there's nothing more pathetic than seeing a grown man cry,
so try to keep it together here, but my mom was the hard case, my mom, when I first got
saved, her first thing that she said to me when I got saved and started to live, I remember
I called her the day I got saved, said mom I got saved, she said well I'm proud of you,
you know, and I didn't grow up in a Christian home, I mean I was running around being wild
doing all that stupid stuff, and I was making a mess out of my life and everybody knew it,
so I called her and said hey mom I got saved, they said well that's great honey, good for
you, you know, she was being nice about it, then I started getting a little bit more serious
about the things of God, trying to start cleaning up my life and things like that, and then
it was like maybe you need to see a psychiatrist, so she told me, you know, because the change
was so dramatic, you know, when we first get saved we're burning Salus maybe too much,
you know, we're trying to get everybody else saved, and we're trying to push our own beliefs
maybe a little too much, while we believe, and I think that's kind of what I did, where
she says look, you know, I think you have some issues here, but after a time, you know,
I stayed faithful and it took years, and over that time my mom, I mean, I can remember conversations
where she mocked God, you know, she mocked him, and I feared for her, you know, and I
tried, you know, at that time I really didn't know how to give the gospel, I wasn't, you
know, unfortunately, but it wasn't long after that my mom was diagnosed with cancer, breast
cancer, and she went through years of fighting that, she went through, had a double mastectomy,
radiation, chemotherapy, you name it, she went through a lot of that stuff, and she
developed fibromyalgia, I believe at the end where even just the shirt touching her arm
was causing her pain, she still hadn't gotten saved, but around this time what had started
to happen was my mom would come to church with me every so often to the Baptist church
I was going to, you know, I would ask her to come to church with me and she would go,
you know, she'd appease me, she was glad, at this time I'd kind of, you know, I'd kind
of even my keel a little bit, you know, spiritual things, I was just trying to be a light to
them, be a testimony, let them see my good works before men, that they would glorify
my father, that kind of thing, and it started to work, you know, they were glad that, you
know, I was saved and gotten out of, you know, the lifestyle I was living, you know, partying
and all that, so they were glad for that, so she'd come along and she'd go to church
and she'd listen to the preaching and other ladies in the church would come and try to
preach her the gospel and talk to her about Christ and things like that, and she'd listen
to them, you know, but she started doing that when she'd gotten sick, and, you know, it
got to the point with her arm that she was actually considering having it removed, that
they were actually going to take her arm off, they were going to remove it, and it had gotten
that bad, so I just kind of watched my mom for, you know, literally years, just this
disease just taking her piece at a time, piece at a time, piece at a time, it was really
hard to watch, but, you know, eventually it got to the point where she just couldn't fight
it anymore, you know, I mean, it's a hard thing to fight and decided she was just going
to let it take over, and it went to her brain, she got brain cancer, and I'll never forget,
she was a hard case, and I'm sharing this because I don't want anybody else to think
you can give up on a hard case or that you should.
She was in her bed, on her dying bed, we put her in that bed, and she was going through
hospice at home, and I remember the first night she was in, it was such a strange thing
to put somebody in a bed that, you know, they're never going to get out of, but she was in
that bed, and the first night she was just restless, I mean, she was just, kept trying
to get up, me and my stepdad was there, and we were trying to, you know, mom, you've got
to stay in the bed, you know, you're going to hurt yourself, and then she said, I've
got to go, I've got to go, I said, mom, where are you going to go, and she reached out and
she grabbed me by the shirt, and she looked me in the eye, she said, I'm going to go to
hell, like that, I mean, that intense grabbing me, I'm going to go to hell, you know, and
that's when I knew that that snare was finally getting loose, that that disease had run its
course, and now she's ready to receive, she's ready to be set free.
So I, you know, I had to pack, because of course at that time I didn't know anything
about soul, and so I had my pastor come over, and he prayed with her, and I believe she
got saved, you know, as far as I know, she got saved the next day, and she's in heaven,
but my mom was a hard case, you know, and I don't want anyone in this room to ever think
that there's somebody in your life that's beyond salvation, just because they've rejected
you, just because they've said, you know what, I don't need your religion, don't put your
religion on me, you know, I don't care about what your church is saying, you know, they
reject you, they reject the Bible, you just let life work on that person, you just look
at them like a sostenese, you know, maybe you have to shake your raiment a little bit,
and you let God work, and you let man work, and you let life work on them, and beat them
down a little bit, and there'll come a day when that hard case, they'll reach out and
grab you, and they'll say, you tell me what it is I need to know.
Don't give up on your hard case.
Pray that they wear out in that snare.
Your job is just to be there for a good long while, and be ready to let them loose when
they finally do.
Let's pray.