“DO NOT BE AFRAID; KEEP ON SPEAKING”

Acts 18:1-17         Key Verse 18:9-10

“⁹One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: ‘Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. ¹⁰For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.’”

In today’s passage we see the end of Paul’s last missionary journey inside of continental Europe.  Till now, Paul had been sharing the very clear message, Jesus is the Christ everywhere he went and everywhere he went many believed, but also he experienced great persecution and opposition everywhere he went as well.  In today’s passage Paul, gets to the point where he is at his limitation.  It was at this moment that the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision.  The vision of the Risen Lord and His Words strengthen Paul and he continues on his mission.  We can learn that it was the Risen Lord that helped Paul to continue to the end.  The Risen Lord revealed to Paul what the Lord was doing, so that he could continue to preach the Gospel to the end.  In today’s passage we learn that when we listen to our Lord’s words we too can overcome all the hardships and difficulties and press on to the end in our mission life and bear fruit that will last forever.

Part I – Paul’s tentmaker mission life (1-4)

After leaving the city of Athens, Paul went next to Corinth.  Athens was known for its many idols.  Corinth on the other hand was known for its temple to Aphrodite, the goddess of love, beauty and sexuality.  At this temple the priestesses practiced ritual prostitution.  There was said to be 1,000 such women at the temple.  The people of Corinth were steeped in sexual immorality; whereas the city of Athens was full of idols.  Paul could see that the Roman Empire was full of idol worship, and sexual immorality.

It appears that when Paul arrived in Corinth he was running low of money to support his mission life.  But by God’s grace, God led him to two Jewish believers, Aquila and Priscilla.  They also were in Corinth because the Roman Emperor, Claudius drove out all the Jews from the city of Rome, where they had been.  So they came to Corinth to start their lives over.  Paul met them and together they began to make tents together.  Look at verse 3, “[A]nd because he was a tentmaker as they were, he stayed and worked with them.”  Paul worked hard to support himself and his ministry.

Look at verse 4, “⁴Every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks.”  Paul supported himself, but he continued to go to the synagogue every Sabbath and reason with the Jews and Greeks there.  Paul could have gotten completely wrapped up in making money, trying to support himself and taking care of his physical needs and neglecting the work of God, but he did not do so.  Paul did not neglect his responsibility to support himself, but at the same time, Paul kept his primary focus on serving the flock of God preaching the Gospel every Sabbath at the Synagogue.  He shows us a good example.  He took up both matters, his own support and God’s mission, properly.  This is what we call a tent-making missionary.

God established our ministry as a tent-making ministry.  This is God’s wisdom.  The world is in great need of harvest workers.  The problem is that most missionaries sent out are sent out only after they have material support from home.  But this really hinders the work of God from spreading quickly.  These days, many countries do not give Visa’s to full-time missionaries.  They have to go as self-supporting missionaries.  Also the financial burden to support one missionary is often more than others can do.  In Korea, they are praying to send out 1 million missionaries.  This seems like a lot of people, and it is, but in reality 1 million missionaries would still leave the mission field with too few workers.  But how can anyone financially support so many?  Many missionaries have had to return home because of financial difficulties.  The only answer is for self-supporting missionaries.  Msn. Paul Koh in the Philippines gives a good example of a self-supporting missionary.  Even though he has financial difficulties he remains in the mission field, even skipping meals as Shep. Maria shared with us several weeks ago.  Because of his sacrificial life Msn. Paul has so many growing sheep and they are constantly coming to his house asking for Bible study; wearing him out completely.

Msn. Andrew Park is another good example.  He works hard all day and can only go to campus in the evening.  He really wants to go during the day, but his boss will not let him get off early even one day a week, so he continues to go in the evening.  He supports himself and his family, but he also serves the campus ministry.  He and his coworker Shep. Rebecca continue to serve and pray for and teach the Bible to Courtney believing that she will grow as a mother of faith for this generation.  May God help us to raise many self-supporting harvest workers in this generation, people who support themselves in order to promote the Gospel as of first importance.

Part II – Do not be afraid; keep on speaking (5-17)

A little while later, Silas and Timothy joined Paul in Corinth.  After they arrived, Paul then ‘devoted himself exclusively to preaching, testifying to the Jews that Jesus is the Christ.  We can see that Paul’s primary focus was not on building up a business or making his life secure in this world.  We see clearly that Paul ‘devoted himself exclusively to preaching and testifying that Jesus is the Christ.’  Silas and Timothy came with an offering from the Ephesians to support Paul’s work.  Paul could have set this money aside for a rainy day, and continued to work and on the Sabbath continued to preach the Gospel, but Paul did not do this.  Instead, he saw God’s providence in this and he devoted himself fully to preaching the Gospel.  He trusted God would provide for him in all circumstances, whether by his own hand or some other means.

We can see that Paul was not trying to build up something here on earth.  We see that Paul’s first and primary concern was to preach the Gospel.  I thank God these days my work is very slow.  I do tradeshows and when business is slow, my work is slow.  But by God’s grace my coworker has work.  At first, I was worried and anxious, but I could see that God allowed this to happen so that I could devote myself fully to serving the work of God at UCLA and here at the center.  It is a good opportunity to go to campus, even every day to go fishing and to teach the Bible.  Next week is the beginning of the school quarter.  I pray God would strengthen me to go fishing three days a week and have Bible study with three students this quarter.  My prayer this year is to be a reliable and useful and responsible servant of God.  I believe that God is answering this prayer through my circumstances so that I would fully devote myself to serving His flock at UCLA and participating in doubling our ministry by the end of this year.

We see here also that Paul’s message never changed.  He preached Jesus is the Christ.  It is Christ who suffered and died and rose three days later to wipe our sins away before the Holy God.  It is through His innocent blood shed on the cross that we are forgiven.  This forgiveness is given freely to those who accept it by faith.

Paul’s message that Jesus is the Christ should have been readily apparent to the Jews when he reasoned with them with the Scriptures, but strangely they did not accept this message at all.  Instead they became abusive and opposed Paul.  Paul finally could see that they would not accept the message so he shook out his clothes and told them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am clear of my responsibility. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”  Paul was 

Paul then left the synagogue, but he did not go very far.  Look at v. 7, “⁷Then Paul left the synagogue and went next door to the house of Titius Justus, a worshiper of God.”  Interestingly, the first house church in Corinth was situated right next door to the Synagogue.  Verse 8 reads, “Crispus, the synagogue ruler, and his entire household believed in the Lord; and many of the Corinthians who heard him believed and were baptized.”  Amazingly, when Paul began focusing on the Gentiles, Paul was able to help even the synagogue ruler and his entire family to believe in the Lord!  And not only that but also many other Corinthian’s who heard the message also believed and were baptized.  What an amazing work of God!

Interestingly, it was at this time that Paul had a vision of the Lord who gave him a message.  Look at verses 9-10.  “⁹One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: ‘Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. ¹⁰For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.’”  We have to ask ourselves a question here.  Why after such an amazing work of God, did the Lord have to come to Paul and give him these words?

Interestingly, every time Paul experienced a great work of God, he also experienced a strong counterattack from our enemy.  In the city of Pisidian Antioch, almost the whole city came out to listen to Paul, but when the Jews saw the crowds they were filled with jealousy and stirred up persecution against Paul and Barnabas.  In Iconium, Paul spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed, but there was a plot afoot among the Gentiles and Jews of that city to mistreat and stone Paul and Barnabas.  In the city of Lystra, Paul healed a man born lame from birth.  But then some Jews came from Antioch and Iconium and won the crowd over and they stoned Paul and dragged him out of the city, because they thought he was dead.  In Philippi, Paul drove out a demon from a young girl, but her owners were so upset, that they had Paul and Silas thrown into prison.  In Thessalonica, when Paul preached that Jesus is the Christ, some Jews as well as a large number of Greeks believed, but the Jews were jealous and they formed a mob and dragged out Jason from his home and placed before the city officials.  Only after Jason posted bond was he let go.  Everywhere where Paul experienced a great work of God, he also experienced a great backlash as well.

Many coworkers have also experienced such a thing.  Not too long ago, Shep. William experienced a great work of God; he had a group Bible study on campus last year with six willing and eager students.  They came to our Spring Bible conference.  They even shared one graceful special song for us at this conference.  But strangely soon after the conference, they listened to some who were slandering our ministry and they became shaky and all but one stopped studying the Bible.

We can learn that in this world the spiritual battle never ends for us.  Even though we may experience God’s Almighty power and hand and work in our lives, our enemy is not going to surrender till the last day.  We cannot escape the spiritual battle.

Perhaps, Paul after experiencing this great work of God was wondering to himself, “When and how will the persecution begin this time?”  It was at this time that Paul received the Lord’s message in a vision.  Look at verse 9 again, “⁹One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: ‘Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent.’”  Obviously, the Lord saw that Paul needed to hear these words.  Obviously, Paul was afraid and considering to stop preaching the Gospel.

We can see that Paul was not a superman.  He reminds us of Elijah, who stood against the 450 prophets of baal and defeated them completely; but soon after fled in fear for his life because of Jezebel.  Paul was a powerful servant of God, like Elijah, but neither of them was robots.  He met his limit.  Now the Lord visited him personally and gave him these words, “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent.”  We also may feel like giving up sharing the Gospel after experiencing some failure or disappointment.  We may become completely discouraged and ready to run away.  Sometimes when we give our whole hearts to plant one word of God in the students we have Bible study with, sometimes they criticize us or remain unchanged or indifferent to the message.  But just as the Lord came and encouraged; may God come to us and encourage us to keep speaking despite many challenges and difficulties.

Look at verse 10, “¹⁰For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.”  As shared earlier, every time that Paul experienced an initial success, he soon experienced strong opposition and persecution.  His enemies tried to harm him, even trying to kill him to shut him up.  But Jesus told him, “I am with you.”  This moved Paul’s heart.  He was greatly encouraged and all his fear was driven out.

Look at verse 10b again, “[B]ecause I have many people in this city.”  Paul may have felt like a woman who had carried her unborn child all the way to the ninth month, but did not have the strength to give birth to her child.  The Risen Christ encouraged Paul to see what He was going to do through Paul.  The Lord was working ahead of Paul.  The Lord was going to save many people in this city through Paul.  The Lord helped Paul to see things from the Lord’s perspective; to see what the Lord was doing even through all these challenges and difficulties that Paul was experiencing.  It appeared that everywhere that Paul turned to serve God’s Kingdom purpose for his life; the enemy counterattacked and tried to push him back and thwart everything that Paul was trying to accomplish.  The enemy wanted him to be quiet and not to speak any longer.  But the Lord told him, “¹⁰For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.”  Paul accepted the Lord’s Words and being strengthened through this vision Paul remained another year and a half teaching the people the Word of God. (11)  The Risen Christ empowers his servants to finish to the end. When discouraged, we must come to the Risen Christ for his Word.  It is the Lord’s Word to us that strengthens us to serve His purpose and to see God’s Almighty hand work through us.

In our own lives it is easy to be discouraged and to keep our mouths shut.  When we look around us and at our circumstances and the response of those we serve, we are tempted to want to keep quiet.  Sometimes we tell our sheep again and again the message, but it appears that nothing changes in that person.  We are tempted to give up on them, to stop preaching the Gospel that Jesus is the Christ to them.  But we need to look up to our Risen Lord and see what He is doing and to listen to His Words, “I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.”  May God help us to serve this generation to the end and fulfill His purpose that many may be saved.

In verses 12-16, we see that his enemies do not give up, but united together and attacked Paul, by bringing him before the Proconsul of Achaia, Gallio, who dismissed all the charges the Jews brought against Paul.  They were completely shut down and they became so angry, that they went to their own leader and took out their anger against him.  Later even this man, Sosthenes, became a believer as well.  In this way, God protected Paul so that he could continue to preach the Gospel that Jesus is the Christ and many could be saved.  Here we see that when God is with us, nobody can stand against us.

Through this passage we learn that it was the Risen Lord who was Paul’s power source to stand firm to the end and win the ultimate victory in planting the seed of the Gospel in the heart of the Roman Empire.  When Paul trusted the Risen Lord and obeyed His Word, he could experience a mighty spiritual victory.  When Paul was fearful and discouraged inwardly, the Risen Christ said to him, “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking.”  May God help us to have the Risen Christ and His Word in our hearts and minds even in our times of discouragement that we would continue to serve God’s mission in our generation and help to plant the Gospel in the hearts of many who are locked up in idol worship and sexual immorality.

One Word: Keep on speaking; do not be silent, for I have many people in this city.