December 16, 2025 • 14 mins
Shipwrecked on Malta, bitten by a snake, and still healing the sick—Paul’s road to Rome is anything but smooth, and that tension is exactly where purpose takes root. We walk through Acts 28 step by step: the kindness of strangers, the shock of a sudden bite, the surge of hope as Publius’s father is healed, and the practical provision that sends the crew onward. By the time Paul reaches Rome under guard, the mission hasn’t dimmed; it has sharpened. He gathers local Jewish leaders, reasons from the Law and the Prophets all day, and faces a mixed response that echoes Isaiah’s warning about hardened hearts.
What stands out is how faith thrives without ideal conditions. House arrest becomes a platform for hospitality. Opposition becomes a chance to clarify the gospel. For two years Paul proclaims the kingdom of God and teaches about Jesus Christ “without hindrance,” proving that barriers often become the very boundaries where courage learns to speak. We also pull forward the historical context after Acts: Nero’s Rome, the fires, the scapegoating of Christians, and the martyrdom of Peter and Paul. What looks like a crushing loss becomes a catalyst—the message spreads faster, the church grows stronger, and the empire hears a different kind of power.
We call this living in Acts 29. The Holy Spirit still empowers ordinary people to carry good news into ordinary rooms and extraordinary storms. If your journey feels like a roller coaster—twists, dips, and moments you didn’t choose—you’re in good company. Hold your seat. Take the next faithful step. Watch how God turns setbacks into scenes of grace. If this journey encouraged you, follow the show, leave a rating, and share it with a friend who needs fresh courage today.
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Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT).
Copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast.
Every day, we take one chapterof the Bible, dig deeper, and
discover that the more we dig,the more we find.
You can find out more at theBibleBreakdown.com.
Now let's grow in God's Wordtogether.
Hello, everybody.
Welcome back to the BibleBreakdown Podcast.
Your host, Pastor Brandon.
Today is the day.
(00:21):
Acts chapter 28.
We are going to finish this witha just a bang.
And to me, this chapter is asmall capsule of what has been
happening in the life of Paulfor the past while.
And if I were to give this atitle, it would be God's plan is
like a roller coaster.
God's plan is like a rollercoaster.
We're going to get into that injust a moment.
(00:42):
But as always, if you like whatwe're doing here, make sure you
like, share, and subscribe to uson YouTube.
Make sure you're leavingcomments.
Let us know how you're engagingwith God's Word.
Make sure if you're doing thepodcast thing, you are my
favorites.
And make sure you're leaving usa five-star review.
Also go to our Facebook group.
Let us know how you're engagingwith God's Word.
And don't forget at the end,you're welcome to click off as
soon as we end talking together.
But I encourage you every oncein a while just to let the music
(01:05):
play for a moment and just talkto God about what you have just
encountered in His Word.
And today we're going to finishoff with a bang.
I don't know if you're much of aroller coaster writer.
I I don't really ride rollercoasters a lot, but I have
ridden them a lot.
And one of the things I'venoticed about every roller
coaster is they're all alwaysintended to get you just beyond
(01:26):
the point of throwing up.
You know, I don't know if that'syour experience, but mine is
always, I think I'm good, Ithink I'm good.
And then finally there's oneloop or one up or one down that
before like, oh, that's the one.
That's the one that almost gotme.
But it's always in, it's alwaysthere to kind of, it's meant to
be fun, but it turns out to be alittle bit more frightening or
(01:47):
whatever.
I don't know how that is foryou, but it's always unexpected
turns along the way.
But there's also always a finishline at the end of it.
And that has been the journeywith the Apostle Paul.
Ever since he got struck down uhby God on the on the road to
Damascus, his journey has beenone of ups and downs.
Now it's taken years.
We're we're reading this overthe course of chapters, over the
(02:09):
course of a few days.
This is years and years andyears of Paul's life.
But now we're gonna see the endof Acts, and then at the very
end, I'm gonna tell you whathappens in the rest of the
story.
But to kind of catch you up withwhat's going on, remember
they're on their way to Rome,and as they're on their way,
they experience a lot of troublewith this sailboat that they're
in, and finally it just runsaground and breaks apart, and
(02:32):
they have to just drift theirway onto this island called
Malta.
So complete total shipwreck.
The ship is a complete loss, andnow they are going to try to
just gather themselves togetherbecause they've still tried to
get to Rome.
And so that's where we pick up.
If you've got your New LivingTranslation Bible, reading
chapter 28 of the book of Acts,let's kind of finish this story
(02:53):
strong and see what God's Wordwill say to us today about God's
plan being like a rollercoaster.
So here we go, verse one.
All I can say is poor Paul.
Once we were safe on shore, welearned that we were actually on
the island of Malta.
The people of the island werevery kind to us, and it was cold
and rainy, so they built a fireon the shore to welcome us.
(03:15):
As Paul gathered an armful ofsticks and was lying them on the
fire, a poisonous snake, drivenout by the heat, bit him on the
hand.
The people of the island saw ithanging from his hand and said
to each other, This must be amurderer, no doubt.
Though he escaped the sea,justice will not permit him to
live.
(03:35):
But Paul shook the snake offinto the fire and was unharmed.
Now, can we just pause for amoment?
Go, Paul, poor Paul.
He is on his way to Rome, he isin a shipwreck, he has to drift
his way to shore, and now Paulgets to get bitten by a
poisonous snake.
Can we just say, if luck were athing, Paul doesn't have any of
(03:57):
it?
I don't really believe in luck.
I believe that people uh gothrough life and good things
happen, bad things happen,people get blessed, all this
kind of stuff.
But if if luck were a thing,Paul's got zero.
In other words, Paul, don't youever, sir, don't you ever take
on a game of chance becauseyou'll lose.
Either that or you're theluckiest human being to have bad
things happen.
I just gotta say that.
(04:18):
Paul, uh uh, mm-mm.
Just keep him away.
He needs to be in a padded roomsomewhere so he doesn't hurt
himself or anyone close to him.
But here we are.
Verse six the people waited forhim to swell up and suddenly
just drop dead.
Nice people.
But they had waited a long timeand saw he was fine.
And so they changed their mindsand decided he was a god.
(04:40):
So, verse 7 near the shore wherethey where they had landed was
an estate belonging to Publius,the chief officer of the island.
So he welcomed us and he treatedus kindly for three days because
Mr.
Snake Bitman didn't die.
As it happened, Publius' fatherwas ill with a fever and
dysentery.
Paul went and prayed for him,and laying his hands on him, he
(05:02):
healed him.
Then all the other sick peopleof the island came and were
healed.
As a result, we were showedhonor.
And when it came time to sail,people supplied us with
everything we would need for thetrip.
It was three months after theshipwreck that we set sail on
another ship that had winteredat the island, an Alexandrian
(05:23):
ship with twin gods as itsfigurehead.
Our first stop was Syracuse,where we stayed for three days.
From there we sailed to Rejuum.
A day later the south wind beganblowing, so we followed the
following day we sailed for thecoast of Petule.
There we found some believerswho invited us to spend a week
(05:45):
with them, and so we came toRome.
The brothers and sisters of Romehad heard that we were coming,
and they came to meet us at theforum of the Apean Way.
Others joined us at the threetaverns, and when Paul saw them,
he was encouraged and thankedGod.
When we arrived in Rome, Paulhad per had permitted to visit
his own private lodgings, thoughhe was guarded by a soldier.
(06:08):
Now, what's amazing about thisis Paul had never been to Rome.
Now he had written to Romebefore, that's where we now get
the book of Romans, but he hadnot actually been there yet.
And so he gets to go there andhe gets to see that a church had
already been established there,most likely by the couple
Priscilla and Aquila.
And so now he's there and he hasthese other believers and he's
permitted to go and be withthem.
(06:29):
He just has a Roman guard withhim as well.
Verse 17.
Three days after Paul's arrival,he called together the local
Jewish leaders.
He said to them, Brothers, I wasarrested in Jerusalem and handed
over to the Roman government,even though I had done nothing
against our people or thecustoms of our ancestors.
The Romans tried me and wantedto release me because they found
(06:50):
no cause for the death sentence.
But when the Jewish leadersprotested the decision, I felt
it necessary to appeal toCaesar, even though I had no
desire to press charges againstmy own people.
I asked you to come here todayso that we could get acquainted,
and so that I could explain toyou that I am bound with this
chain because I believe in thehope of Israel.
(07:11):
The Messiah has already come.
They replied, We have had noletters from Judea or reports
against you from anyone who hascome here, but we want to hear
what you believe.
For the only thing we know aboutthis movement is that it is
denounced everywhere.
So a time was set, and on theday a large number of people
came to Paul's lodging.
He explained and testified aboutthe kingdom of God, and he tried
(07:34):
to persuade them about Jesusfrom the scriptures.
Using the law of Moses and thebooks of the prophets, he spoke
to them from morning untilevening.
Some were persuaded by thethings he said, but others did
not believe.
And after they had argued backand forth among themselves, they
left with the final word fromPaul, the Holy Spirit was right
when he said to your ancestorsthrough the Isaiah, through
(07:56):
Isaiah the prophet, Go and sayto these people, When you hear
what I say, you will notunderstand.
When you see what I do, you willnot comprehend.
For the hearts of these peopleare hardened, and their ears
cannot hear, and their eyes, andthey have closed their eyes, so
their eyes cannot see, and theirears cannot hear, and their
hearts cannot understand, andthey cannot turn to me, and so
that I can heal them.
(08:17):
Other words, he's saying, Youjokers are stubborn.
That's what he's trying to say.
So I want you to know that thesalvation from God has also been
offered to the Gentiles, andthey will accept it.
For the next two years, Paullived in Rome at his own
expense, and he welcomed all whovisited him, boldly proclaiming
(08:37):
the kingdom of God and teachingabout the Lord Jesus Christ, and
no one tried to stop him.
And so, as you can see, when thechapter begins, he is bitten by
a snake, then he doesn't die,then he makes it to Jerusalem,
then he talks to the Jewishpeople, but then he gets to talk
to people, and it's just up anddown, up and down.
(08:57):
But all along the way, he isbeing faithful with what God's
called him to do, and God useshim to make a difference.
Can I tell you that is exactlywhat God does for all of us?
Can I just be honest with you asa fellow Christian?
If you became a Christian sothat your life would be easy,
you would never have a problem,and everything would go your
(09:19):
way, I got really bad news foryou.
Often that's not our story.
But often what is our story isthat our life will look like a
roller coaster.
We'll have good days, we'll havebad days, we'll have a whole
bunch of days in between.
But what I can promise you isthat God will always be with
you, and that your life will bea great adventure because God is
(09:40):
with you.
And that is how Acts chapter 28and Acts in general ends.
What I want to tell you now is Iwant to give you the rest of the
story so you kind of know whathappens.
So as things kind of go, we wedon't really know for sure if
Paul was ever actually able tospeak to Caesar.
Um there's there's someinformation there that maybe he
was, but we don't really knowfor sure.
(10:01):
But we do know what happened wasis Paul was in prison for a
little while in Rome.
Then he was allowed to be onhouse arrest for a while.
So he was kind of free, but notreally free to leave Rome.
He was he was there.
But then according to history,what happens is then you have a
guy named Nero who was theemperor.
And Nero, under a lot ofdifferent suspicion, while he
was the emperor, Rome burned.
(10:23):
I don't know if you ever heardof the thing that that Rome
burned while Nero played theviolin.
Well, there's no there's no uhevidence that Nero was actually
in Rome at the time, but we doknow that it was entirely
possible that he might have donesome things that caused Rome to
catch fire and literally burneddown large portions of Rome.
Well, when it burned down, Neroneeded a scapegoat.
(10:44):
He needed to blame somebody forwhat had happened to Rome.
So he blamed the Christians.
And because he started to blamethe Christians, who by the way
had nothing to do with it, hethen looked for the figureheads,
the leaders of Rome, and theleaders of Rome, or leaders of
the Christians at Rome at thetime was Paul.
And at this point, Peter hadlikely come back to Rome
(11:06):
preaching the gospel.
You remember later on what wouldhappen is Paul would preach the
gospel in the city of Rome, andhe couldn't speak Greek very
well, so he had a young uh Romantranslator named Mark who would
translate for him.
And at some point, Mark went andwrote down all of those
different sermons, and we nowhave the gospel of Mark.
So Paul and Peter are in Romeafter the fire, and they have
(11:30):
now the uh Nero has put theblame of the fire on the
Christians, and so he arreststhe Christians.
And so that's why Paul goes backinto prison again, but this time
he's executed.
Peter, because he was not aRoman citizen, was crucified
upside down.
Paul, because he was a Romancitizen, was given a mercy, and
(11:50):
the mercy was he was beheaded.
Now, someone asked me one time,because of Paul being who he
was, was he given a proper, youknow, moment where he could be
honored in this?
And the answer is no.
Because at the time, Paul wasnot considered to be a great
man, he was considered to be aleader of a of a small group of
people that had burned downRome, even though he they didn't
(12:12):
actually have anything to dowith it.
And so, no, he would have likelyjust been taken outside of
whatever uh prison cell he wasin, uh told to bend over and
then beheaded mercilessly.
But little did they know thatthe gospel was so much bigger
than any one man.
And so, even though persecutionbegan, and that's where you hear
(12:34):
the stories of people being putin the Roman Colosseum and
people being Roman candles,which what that means is they
would literally light people onfire and let them burn to light
up the evening, all these thingsstarted to happen.
What would happen though is itgalvanized the Christians to
say, we must preach the gospel,we must preach the gospel.
And so the gospel began tospread because of this, and
within just about a hundredyears from that time, it would
(12:57):
go from being people trying toto squash Christianity but where
it would become the nationalreligion of the entire Roman
government.
And so God was just gettingstarted in the book of Acts, and
we are now part of the rest ofthe book of Acts because as time
continued to go, and even thoughthe church has begun to change,
we're still living in Acts 29.
(13:19):
And so let me pray for us, andwe'll be done for today.
God, thank you so much fortoday.
Thank you, God, that we're stillliving in the book of Acts.
We're living out Acts 29.
And Lord, throughout history,there have been good moments,
there have been moments ofpersecution, moments of tragedy,
and moments of triumph.
But God, as we end the book ofActs today, I pray that you'll
help us to remember that we'restill living in the book of
(13:42):
Acts.
None of this has ended, God, butyou're continuing to move
through your church to reach theworld.
And I pray we will take our partin history to be the book of
Acts for this generation, livingout your will in our world
today.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
One more time.
Let's read this together.
Acts chapter 1, verse 8.
It says this Jesus said, Youwill receive power when?
(14:06):
When the Holy Spirit comes uponyou, and you will be my
witnesses to the ends of theearth.
I pray that you will realizethat we live in the book of Acts
today.
We get to be the example of thebook of Acts, the church for our
generation.
So let's go out today and everyday and live it well.
I love you.
I'll see you next time for thenext book, the book of Judges.
(14:28):
Nope, the book of Joshua.
Welcome to the Bible Breakdown Podcast.
Every day, we take one chapterof the Bible, dig deeper, and
discover that the more we dig,the more we find.
You can find out more at theBibleBreakdown.com.
Now let's grow in God's Wordtogether.
Hello, everybody.
Welcome back to the BibleBreakdown Podcast.
Your host, Pastor Brandon.
Today is the day.
(00:21):
Acts chapter 28.
We are going to finish this witha just a bang.
And to me, this chapter is asmall capsule of what has been
happening in the life of Paulfor the past while.
And if I were to give this atitle, it would be God's plan is
like a roller coaster.
God's plan is like a rollercoaster.
We're going to get into that injust a moment.
(00:42):
But as always, if you like whatwe're doing here, make sure you
like, share, and subscribe to uson YouTube.
Make sure you're leavingcomments.
Let us know how you're engagingwith God's Word.
Make sure if you're doing thepodcast thing, you are my
favorites.
And make sure you're leaving usa five-star review.
Also go to our Facebook group.
Let us know how you're engagingwith God's Word.
And don't forget at the end,you're welcome to click off as
soon as we end talking together.
But I encourage you every oncein a while just to let the music
(01:05):
play for a moment and just talkto God about what you have just
encountered in His Word.
And today we're going to finishoff with a bang.
I don't know if you're much of aroller coaster writer.
I I don't really ride rollercoasters a lot, but I have
ridden them a lot.
And one of the things I'venoticed about every roller
coaster is they're all alwaysintended to get you just beyond
(01:26):
the point of throwing up.
You know, I don't know if that'syour experience, but mine is
always, I think I'm good, Ithink I'm good.
And then finally there's oneloop or one up or one down that
before like, oh, that's the one.
That's the one that almost gotme.
But it's always in, it's alwaysthere to kind of, it's meant to
be fun, but it turns out to be alittle bit more frightening or
(01:47):
whatever.
I don't know how that is foryou, but it's always unexpected
turns along the way.
But there's also always a finishline at the end of it.
And that has been the journeywith the Apostle Paul.
Ever since he got struck down uhby God on the on the road to
Damascus, his journey has beenone of ups and downs.
Now it's taken years.
We're we're reading this overthe course of chapters, over the
(02:09):
course of a few days.
This is years and years andyears of Paul's life.
But now we're gonna see the endof Acts, and then at the very
end, I'm gonna tell you whathappens in the rest of the
story.
But to kind of catch you up withwhat's going on, remember
they're on their way to Rome,and as they're on their way,
they experience a lot of troublewith this sailboat that they're
in, and finally it just runsaground and breaks apart, and
(02:32):
they have to just drift theirway onto this island called
Malta.
So complete total shipwreck.
The ship is a complete loss, andnow they are going to try to
just gather themselves togetherbecause they've still tried to
get to Rome.
And so that's where we pick up.
If you've got your New LivingTranslation Bible, reading
chapter 28 of the book of Acts,let's kind of finish this story
(02:53):
strong and see what God's Wordwill say to us today about God's
plan being like a rollercoaster.
So here we go, verse one.
All I can say is poor Paul.
Once we were safe on shore, welearned that we were actually on
the island of Malta.
The people of the island werevery kind to us, and it was cold
and rainy, so they built a fireon the shore to welcome us.
(03:15):
As Paul gathered an armful ofsticks and was lying them on the
fire, a poisonous snake, drivenout by the heat, bit him on the
hand.
The people of the island saw ithanging from his hand and said
to each other, This must be amurderer, no doubt.
Though he escaped the sea,justice will not permit him to
live.
(03:35):
But Paul shook the snake offinto the fire and was unharmed.
Now, can we just pause for amoment?
Go, Paul, poor Paul.
He is on his way to Rome, he isin a shipwreck, he has to drift
his way to shore, and now Paulgets to get bitten by a
poisonous snake.
Can we just say, if luck were athing, Paul doesn't have any of
(03:57):
it?
I don't really believe in luck.
I believe that people uh gothrough life and good things
happen, bad things happen,people get blessed, all this
kind of stuff.
But if if luck were a thing,Paul's got zero.
In other words, Paul, don't youever, sir, don't you ever take
on a game of chance becauseyou'll lose.
Either that or you're theluckiest human being to have bad
things happen.
I just gotta say that.
(04:18):
Paul, uh uh, mm-mm.
Just keep him away.
He needs to be in a padded roomsomewhere so he doesn't hurt
himself or anyone close to him.
But here we are.
Verse six the people waited forhim to swell up and suddenly
just drop dead.
Nice people.
But they had waited a long timeand saw he was fine.
And so they changed their mindsand decided he was a god.
(04:40):
So, verse 7 near the shore wherethey where they had landed was
an estate belonging to Publius,the chief officer of the island.
So he welcomed us and he treatedus kindly for three days because
Mr.
Snake Bitman didn't die.
As it happened, Publius' fatherwas ill with a fever and
dysentery.
Paul went and prayed for him,and laying his hands on him, he
(05:02):
healed him.
Then all the other sick peopleof the island came and were
healed.
As a result, we were showedhonor.
And when it came time to sail,people supplied us with
everything we would need for thetrip.
It was three months after theshipwreck that we set sail on
another ship that had winteredat the island, an Alexandrian
(05:23):
ship with twin gods as itsfigurehead.
Our first stop was Syracuse,where we stayed for three days.
From there we sailed to Rejuum.
A day later the south wind beganblowing, so we followed the
following day we sailed for thecoast of Petule.
There we found some believerswho invited us to spend a week
(05:45):
with them, and so we came toRome.
The brothers and sisters of Romehad heard that we were coming,
and they came to meet us at theforum of the Apean Way.
Others joined us at the threetaverns, and when Paul saw them,
he was encouraged and thankedGod.
When we arrived in Rome, Paulhad per had permitted to visit
his own private lodgings, thoughhe was guarded by a soldier.
(06:08):
Now, what's amazing about thisis Paul had never been to Rome.
Now he had written to Romebefore, that's where we now get
the book of Romans, but he hadnot actually been there yet.
And so he gets to go there andhe gets to see that a church had
already been established there,most likely by the couple
Priscilla and Aquila.
And so now he's there and he hasthese other believers and he's
permitted to go and be withthem.
(06:29):
He just has a Roman guard withhim as well.
Verse 17.
Three days after Paul's arrival,he called together the local
Jewish leaders.
He said to them, Brothers, I wasarrested in Jerusalem and handed
over to the Roman government,even though I had done nothing
against our people or thecustoms of our ancestors.
The Romans tried me and wantedto release me because they found
(06:50):
no cause for the death sentence.
But when the Jewish leadersprotested the decision, I felt
it necessary to appeal toCaesar, even though I had no
desire to press charges againstmy own people.
I asked you to come here todayso that we could get acquainted,
and so that I could explain toyou that I am bound with this
chain because I believe in thehope of Israel.
(07:11):
The Messiah has already come.
They replied, We have had noletters from Judea or reports
against you from anyone who hascome here, but we want to hear
what you believe.
For the only thing we know aboutthis movement is that it is
denounced everywhere.
So a time was set, and on theday a large number of people
came to Paul's lodging.
He explained and testified aboutthe kingdom of God, and he tried
(07:34):
to persuade them about Jesusfrom the scriptures.
Using the law of Moses and thebooks of the prophets, he spoke
to them from morning untilevening.
Some were persuaded by thethings he said, but others did
not believe.
And after they had argued backand forth among themselves, they
left with the final word fromPaul, the Holy Spirit was right
when he said to your ancestorsthrough the Isaiah, through
(07:56):
Isaiah the prophet, Go and sayto these people, When you hear
what I say, you will notunderstand.
When you see what I do, you willnot comprehend.
For the hearts of these peopleare hardened, and their ears
cannot hear, and their eyes, andthey have closed their eyes, so
their eyes cannot see, and theirears cannot hear, and their
hearts cannot understand, andthey cannot turn to me, and so
that I can heal them.
(08:17):
Other words, he's saying, Youjokers are stubborn.
That's what he's trying to say.
So I want you to know that thesalvation from God has also been
offered to the Gentiles, andthey will accept it.
For the next two years, Paullived in Rome at his own
expense, and he welcomed all whovisited him, boldly proclaiming
(08:37):
the kingdom of God and teachingabout the Lord Jesus Christ, and
no one tried to stop him.
And so, as you can see, when thechapter begins, he is bitten by
a snake, then he doesn't die,then he makes it to Jerusalem,
then he talks to the Jewishpeople, but then he gets to talk
to people, and it's just up anddown, up and down.
(08:57):
But all along the way, he isbeing faithful with what God's
called him to do, and God useshim to make a difference.
Can I tell you that is exactlywhat God does for all of us?
Can I just be honest with you asa fellow Christian?
If you became a Christian sothat your life would be easy,
you would never have a problem,and everything would go your
(09:19):
way, I got really bad news foryou.
Often that's not our story.
But often what is our story isthat our life will look like a
roller coaster.
We'll have good days, we'll havebad days, we'll have a whole
bunch of days in between.
But what I can promise you isthat God will always be with
you, and that your life will bea great adventure because God is
(09:40):
with you.
And that is how Acts chapter 28and Acts in general ends.
What I want to tell you now is Iwant to give you the rest of the
story so you kind of know whathappens.
So as things kind of go, we wedon't really know for sure if
Paul was ever actually able tospeak to Caesar.
Um there's there's someinformation there that maybe he
was, but we don't really knowfor sure.
(10:01):
But we do know what happened wasis Paul was in prison for a
little while in Rome.
Then he was allowed to be onhouse arrest for a while.
So he was kind of free, but notreally free to leave Rome.
He was he was there.
But then according to history,what happens is then you have a
guy named Nero who was theemperor.
And Nero, under a lot ofdifferent suspicion, while he
was the emperor, Rome burned.
(10:23):
I don't know if you ever heardof the thing that that Rome
burned while Nero played theviolin.
Well, there's no there's no uhevidence that Nero was actually
in Rome at the time, but we doknow that it was entirely
possible that he might have donesome things that caused Rome to
catch fire and literally burneddown large portions of Rome.
Well, when it burned down, Neroneeded a scapegoat.
(10:44):
He needed to blame somebody forwhat had happened to Rome.
So he blamed the Christians.
And because he started to blamethe Christians, who by the way
had nothing to do with it, hethen looked for the figureheads,
the leaders of Rome, and theleaders of Rome, or leaders of
the Christians at Rome at thetime was Paul.
And at this point, Peter hadlikely come back to Rome
(11:06):
preaching the gospel.
You remember later on what wouldhappen is Paul would preach the
gospel in the city of Rome, andhe couldn't speak Greek very
well, so he had a young uh Romantranslator named Mark who would
translate for him.
And at some point, Mark went andwrote down all of those
different sermons, and we nowhave the gospel of Mark.
So Paul and Peter are in Romeafter the fire, and they have
(11:30):
now the uh Nero has put theblame of the fire on the
Christians, and so he arreststhe Christians.
And so that's why Paul goes backinto prison again, but this time
he's executed.
Peter, because he was not aRoman citizen, was crucified
upside down.
Paul, because he was a Romancitizen, was given a mercy, and
(11:50):
the mercy was he was beheaded.
Now, someone asked me one time,because of Paul being who he
was, was he given a proper, youknow, moment where he could be
honored in this?
And the answer is no.
Because at the time, Paul wasnot considered to be a great
man, he was considered to be aleader of a of a small group of
people that had burned downRome, even though he they didn't
(12:12):
actually have anything to dowith it.
And so, no, he would have likelyjust been taken outside of
whatever uh prison cell he wasin, uh told to bend over and
then beheaded mercilessly.
But little did they know thatthe gospel was so much bigger
than any one man.
And so, even though persecutionbegan, and that's where you hear
(12:34):
the stories of people being putin the Roman Colosseum and
people being Roman candles,which what that means is they
would literally light people onfire and let them burn to light
up the evening, all these thingsstarted to happen.
What would happen though is itgalvanized the Christians to
say, we must preach the gospel,we must preach the gospel.
And so the gospel began tospread because of this, and
within just about a hundredyears from that time, it would
(12:57):
go from being people trying toto squash Christianity but where
it would become the nationalreligion of the entire Roman
government.
And so God was just gettingstarted in the book of Acts, and
we are now part of the rest ofthe book of Acts because as time
continued to go, and even thoughthe church has begun to change,
we're still living in Acts 29.
(13:19):
And so let me pray for us, andwe'll be done for today.
God, thank you so much fortoday.
Thank you, God, that we're stillliving in the book of Acts.
We're living out Acts 29.
And Lord, throughout history,there have been good moments,
there have been moments ofpersecution, moments of tragedy,
and moments of triumph.
But God, as we end the book ofActs today, I pray that you'll
help us to remember that we'restill living in the book of
(13:42):
Acts.
None of this has ended, God, butyou're continuing to move
through your church to reach theworld.
And I pray we will take our partin history to be the book of
Acts for this generation, livingout your will in our world
today.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
One more time.
Let's read this together.
Acts chapter 1, verse 8.
It says this Jesus said, Youwill receive power when?
(14:06):
When the Holy Spirit comes uponyou, and you will be my
witnesses to the ends of theearth.
I pray that you will realizethat we live in the book of Acts
today.
We get to be the example of thebook of Acts, the church for our
generation.
So let's go out today and everyday and live it well.
I love you.
I'll see you next time for thenext book, the book of Judges.
(14:28):
Nope, the book of Joshua.
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