Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: This is something that Paul is making this huge argument. Are you willing to die to sin? The part of you, of your soul, that wants to sin and walk contrary to God? And you can say, "You're dead to me." That's what Paul's saying.

Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador reminds us a new life in Christ is to reckon the old man dead.

Brett Meador: A dead thing can't keep sinning. So who are we trying to keep our sins going when we're trying to reckon that old sin nature as dead? If you're really dead to sin, you won't be giving into sin. We're called to let it go.

Guest (Male): Paul's determination to travel to Jerusalem in Acts chapter 21 sets him on a path towards imprisonment and death, despite pleas from the Christians in Caesarea not to go. As Pastor Brett Meador examines Paul's resolve, we consider not only the possibility of facing physical death for our faith, but to live out a committed life for the Lord, as we're called to in today's world.

Brett Meador: The story in front of us in this study of Acts happens with Paul the Apostle as he's in Caesarea. Now he's back in the land of Israel from his third missionary journey, and he's in Caesarea. There's a little thing that happens there that we're going to note and study. We begin in Acts 21:10.

It says, "And as we tarried there many days, there came down from Judea, a certain prophet named Agabus. And when he was come unto us, he took Paul's girdle and bound his own hands and feet, and said, 'Thus saith the Holy Ghost, so shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owneth this girdle, and shall deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles.' And when we heard these things, both we, and they of that place, besought him not to go up to Jerusalem."

Then Paul answered, "What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? For I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." And when he would not be persuaded, we ceased, saying, "The will of the Lord be done."

Strange little story. They're just all hanging out, Christians who love Paul. Agabus comes and gives a word of prophecy and he grabs Paul's... well, the King James says girdle. You're like, "Was Paul trying to hide his rolls? He got on a girdle to make his shapely figure look better?" No. The word girdle is probably... it's an old English word that meant something different in those days. But in your newer translations, it's very accurate. Belt is the idea. Some might even argue, some linguistic scholars say it was like a sash or a belt.

So Agabus comes in with his hands tied and his feet tied, and he says, "The one who owns this belt is going to be tied up when he goes to Jerusalem just like this." And the people, they start weeping. "Oh, Paul, don't go to Jerusalem, man. We love you. We don't want you getting tied up and bound up." And Paul said, "Why are you breaking my heart here, you guys? I'm going to go to Jerusalem. And I don't care if they bind me up. I'm ready to die if need be."

Do you remember what we studied in chapter 20? If you look back to chapter 20, verse 24, it says this. Paul said, "But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God." Paul is not worried about his life. He's willing to die. He's ready to die.

"I don't count my life dear to myself," he says in the King James. He's basically saying, "I don't care if I die. I'm willing to die." And he even says, "I want to do that because I want to finish my course with joy." How can you use the word joy in the same sentence of dying? Well, that's Paul's worldview. As it turns out, it was the Christian worldview back in those days. Do we still have the same worldview as Christians?

See, as Christians to us today, most of us, we think dying is the worst thing in the world that can ever happen to you. Paul looked at that very different than that. Paul said, "Oh, it's the joy that I have to finish my course. And if I die, I die. That's part of the deal." And he wasn't afraid of death. Why? Because Paul had such an understanding of life after death and what that actually means.

And this would be contagious. I think it started with Stephen the martyr in Acts chapter 7, where Paul as a young man standing there holding the garments and consenting when they were killing Stephen. Paul was involved with killing Christians before he was a Christian. And now he himself is saying, "I'm with joy, willing to die." And that's why he says to these people in Caesarea, "Oh, why do you break my heart, you guys? Stop crying. I'm not only willing to be tied up, I'm willing to lay down my life for the cause of Christ."

That was the worldview in those days, and by the way, that worldview would stick with the early church for centuries. Centuries? Well, waves of persecution would come over the church and it was brutal. Man, we think we've heard horrible things, or maybe you've seen horrible movies about the way people die, but there's no more grotesque and brutal deaths than reading what happened to the first three or four centuries of Christians.

They came up with all kinds of torturous ways for these Christians to die because they kept dying with joy and smiles on their faces, not shrieking with pain. So they tried to invent more painful devices to torture them. I've mentioned Foxe's Book of Martyrs before, which is like Christian martyrdom 101. I think every Christian should read Foxe's Book of Martyrs. It's not fun. It's like getting a kick in the gut reading about these early Christians who died for their faith and were unwilling to denounce their faith in Christ.

But it goes deeper than that. Anybody here heard of Eusebius? Anybody read any of Eusebius? Yeah, it's not light reading. Eusebius was an interesting dude. He lived way back in the first few centuries. In fact, he wrote one of his major works, Ecclesiastical History, which is like saying church history. But one of the things in addition to talking about the history of the church in the first four centuries, he also writes about a lot of the Christian martyrs.

And it's shocking, some of the stories. One such story he writes about these two people, Sanctus and Blandina, who were both martyred at the same time. But it took three or four days to kill these two Christians because they wanted to draw it out for days. Sanctus was brought before the multitudes there and he was charged to deny Christ and to say Caesar is Lord. But every time they'd talk to him, "What is your name?" and instead of saying, "My name is Sanctus," he'd say, "I am a Christian." That's all he would ever say. "I am a Christian."

"Say Caesar is Lord," and he would say, "I am a Christian." And he would not say anything other than that. In fact, let me read to you what Eusebius writes. He said, "All the questions that were proposed, he answered in the Roman tongue, 'I am a Christian.' For this he confessed instead of his name, his city, his race, instead of everything. No other expression did the heathen hear from him than that, that he is a Christian."

He suffered many torments devised by men, Eusebius writes. When these men could do no more, they fastened hot plates of brass to the most tender parts of his body. He withstood all the suffering, but his body was one continuous wound, mangled and shriveled, that had entirely lost the form of a human being to the external eye. But again, he passed through torture after torture.

These included the strokes of the scourge, draggings behind horses, lacerations made from lions, other torments demanded by the audience, and then the iron chair upon which his body was roasted. Other tortures followed until he ultimately died. But even thus, they did not hear a word from Sanctus except the confession which he had uttered from the beginning, "I am a Christian."

Man, what kind of person endures four days of torture? And those that were Christians said he did it with joy. Same time, friends of his, a woman named Blandina. Listen to what Eusebius writes about her. She was tortured by tormentors who took turns from morning till night until they were overcome with tiredness. She continued to live despite her whole body being torn asunder, pierced with swords and spears. Later she was bound and suspended on a stake, being exposed as food for wild animals.

When none of the animals would touch her, she was taken down from the stake and returned to prison for another time. Then after scourging and exposure to other animals and roasting over a grill... they would lay a person on a fiery grate and watch them sizzle. But then they pulled her off of that roasting and then cast her before a bull. After much tossing from the animal, she died. Again, this is Ecclesiastical History written by Eusebius.

You say, "Boy, Brett, I'm sure glad we don't have that happening in the world today as Christians." Oh, do you understand that that is happening today? Many of you don't even know about this because the news will never talk about this. But did you hear about the 70 Christians that were pulled out of their homes and beheaded by Muslim extremists? This article came out of the Daily Wire. This is one of the only agencies that actually talked about this, but it actually happened.

Seventy Christians were found dead in church in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the DRC. They beheaded them at the hands of radical Islamic terrorists. Christian group Open Doors, which supports persecuted Christians around the world, said that the terrorists from the rebel Allied Democratic Forces, ADF, which is really Islamic State, ISIS, they surrounded a village in Mayba in the territory of Lubero, taking 20 men and women at 4:00 a.m. from their homes.

The Islamic terrorists later returned to the same town kidnapping 50 more men, women, and children in the village and took them to a Protestant church in Kasanga where they were brutally killed with machetes and hatchets. Can I just say, we just go, "Oh, I'm so glad we're not persecuted anymore." Don't be misled. Hundreds of Christians are being killed daily, whether you're talking about China, Iran, Africa, and other places around the world.

We're the fortunate ones as Christians in America. We don't face that by and large. Not very often. Christian persecution to the death is not really something that happens daily here in America. You say, "Brett, this is depressing. Can we go now? Thanks for the little update on death." Well, that's not really what I wanted to talk about. Paul and the early church, what was it that they were? They were so willing to die and lay down their lives for the cause of Christ.

It begs the question, and I would ask you to consider this personally. What would happen if somebody held a gun to your head and said, "Are you a Christian? If you're a Christian and you say yes, I will pull the trigger." That actually happened to a girl. Remember Cassie Bernall? That poor girl in high school in the Columbine shooting? Remember that years ago? They held the gun up to her and said, "Do you believe in Christ?" and they said, "If you say yes, I'm going to pull the trigger." And she said, "I believe that Jesus is my savior," and they killed her there.

There's a modern-day Christian martyr of the faith. What would happen if that happened to you? Do you have the fortitude, the resolve? Or are you like what I'm concerned some of us modern-day Christians... we're saved by grace through faith, it's awesome. And if that happened, I'd just say, "Allahu Akbar," or whatever, and then I would go away and say, "Lord, I'm really sorry I shouldn't have done that, but forgive me." And we don't have that kind of resolve. We don't really think that... why would I allow myself to be killed?

Well, it's interesting that the early church, they knew that words matter. They knew that confession in faith of Christ is an amazing thing. And death they knew, as they glowed with joy often in these stories of early church Christians being killed in horrible ways. They knew that death was not, in fact, the worst thing that could happen. They knew that the moment they died, they'd be in glory with Christ in heaven.

There was something about those early church people that they had the fortitude. And I'm concerned that do we really have that fortitude? Well, there's no way to know, I think, until you're really in that situation. You'll never really know how you would do until you face certain death. There is, however, a litmus test for us. I think there's a little test to say how would you do? Because the Bible actually gives us a bunch of things that we are to die to spiritually.

And maybe instead of holding the gun to your head saying, "What would I do?" what if today we said, "What does the Bible ask of us as Christians?" We're called to lay down our lives in a different way, and maybe that'll be an indicator of how you'd be willing to do if your life was on the line. And we start with this story here because Paul in Acts 21, he's saying, "I'm willing to die. I'm willing to lay down my life. I don't count my life dear to myself."

But what are the things that we are called to lay down? Well, most of us aren't being called to lay down our lives because we're Christians, but the Bible does ask... let me give you four. Four today that might be helpful for us to take a little bit of a test. Number one: Are you willing to die to sin? As it turns out, the Bible tells us that you and I are to reckon our old sinful self as dead. And that's a behavioral thing.

It's something you and I are asked of by God. Romans chapter 6 is where I'd like you to turn in your Bible. Paul's dealing with this thing where there's a temptation for the Romans to say, "Well, we're saved by grace through faith," which they were. Not by their works, they're saved by grace through faith. But they were also saying, "So we can just keep sinning and partying down because we're saved by grace, not of our works. It's a gift from God, so we can just keep sinning and we'll still go to heaven because of God's grace."

Well, Paul's going to deal with that right here and he's going to make an interesting point about dying to sin. Check it out. Romans chapter 6, verse 1. He says, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein?" Paul's saying we shouldn't be saying we're saved by grace, so let's just keep sinning. We as Christians should be dead to sin.

He's going to argue that there's this part of you that you need to reckon as dead. He calls it your old man. What does my dad have to do with this, Brett? No, it's not the old man your dad. It's your old sin nature that's part of you. Before you were a Christian, you had this old sin nature and it wants to whisper in here, "Do these bad things and sin against God." But Paul's saying how can someone who's rendered that sin nature dead, how can you be alive to sin is what he's saying. "Should we continue in sin and let grace abound? God forbid," he says.

And then he explains further, verse 3. "Know ye not that so many of us were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in the newness of life. For if we have been planted or buried together in the likeness of his death, we shall also be in the likeness of his resurrection."

Now, we're hinting at something that we're going to get to later and that is... we're going to talk a lot about death, but God's really good about the resurrection part too. Don't forget that. We'll get to that later. But Paul's saying, "Don't you understand?" He says there, "Don't you know that when you got baptized, it was showing a type of your old sin nature being put to death even as Christ was buried and resurrected?" Your old sin nature is going to be buried and resurrected.

By the way, if you've ever been baptized, how were you baptized? Some churches sprinkle water. Some people have you squat down and dunk and then come back out. Squatting, dunking, whatever you got, I think it's good. But why does Athey Creek do the fall back and then brought up? It's because of this verse right here. Paul's saying, "Don't you guys understand? Baptism is a dying and being put in the grave. That's what baptism's a picture of." And then even as Christ rose from the grave, we too come out of the tomb of death and we are made alive, resurrected, and baptism is a type of that.

But, Brett, we're still alive. I don't get it. Well, it's rendering, reckoning your old sin nature as dead. In fact, read on. Verse 6 it says, "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin." A dead person doesn't sin anymore. We're dead to our sin nature.

And this is maybe a bad example, but have you ever been tempted to say to somebody, you put the hand up and say, "You're dead to me"? If you say that, you probably shouldn't. Not a very nice thing to say. But there is one that you can say, "You're dead to me." As a Christian, you can talk to your old sin nature. The part of you, of your soul, that wants to sin and do bad stuff and walk contrary to God, and you can say, "You're dead to me." That's what Paul's saying. Reckon your old man dead is what Paul's arguing.

And he said a dead thing can't keep sinning. So who are we trying to keep our sins going when we're trying to reckon that old sin nature as dead? This is something that Paul is making this huge argument: Are you willing to die to sin? Now, one thing that Paul would later talk about is this kind of interesting similarity in Romans 12:1. He says, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service."

And one pastor said it this way: The only problem with a living sacrifice is it tends to squirm off the altar. That's the problem. We're trying to reckon our old sin nature dead, but that old sin nature is still alive and kicking in some ways. But we're to acknowledge it as dead and in faith say, "I've been crucified with Christ, buried my old sin nature, I want to be a new creation in Christ." So you're reckoning the old sin nature dead, hopefully not squirming off the altar as it turns out.

If you're really dead to sin, you won't be giving into sin. We're called to let it go. It's a little bit like an attitude that we should carry, sort of like when a coach is in the locker room before the team runs out and says, "Go out there, you're going to kill them! You're going to win this game!" A lot of that athletic bluster is just that. You're either going to do what you've got to do to win or not.

But when it comes to this idea of saying, "I'm going to reckon my old sin nature dead," can I just say that's not just bluster. That's actually saying we recognize that God is going to help us, give us strength to will and to do what he wants us to do. And we're going to reckon our old sin nature that's there saying, "Oh, you need to sin, keep sinning it up." You're going to reckon that dead and you're going to speak out that word, believing that the Lord is able to keep you from stumbling in sin. And there's real power behind that.

But the question is, are you doing any work at all? Or are you just saying, "Well, boys will be boys, people sin"? No. We're asked to die to our sin, reckon the old man dead. So let's go from, are you willing to die for the sake of Christ? That's a lofty question. Let's go to a more basic: Are you willing to just die to sin? Just to say that's going to be my life goal is to not just keep sinning in my life but to follow the word and do what God asks of me. There's a maybe more simple question to say how are we doing with that.

There's another one that the Bible talks about dying, not just dying to sin, reckoning the old man dead, but also dying to self, number two on our list. Are you willing to die to yourself? Because the Bible, in fact, Jesus talks about that topic more than most other topics. It's amazing how the world and even Christian books are written about loving yourself. I'm amazed how many Christian books... how many times does Jesus say love yourself? Zip.

The Bible does not teach love yourself. Although there's all kinds of psychology and Christian books talking about how you first, before you can love other people, you have to love yourself. That's total hogwash because the Bible says totally the opposite thing. In fact, the scripture I put on this one is Matthew 16. Would you turn over to Matthew 16?

He says in Matthew 16, verse 24. It says, "Then said Jesus unto his disciples, 'If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?'" Here Jesus says, "Man, if any man will come after me, let him deny himself." This is what it means really to die to yourself. The world says pamper yourself. Treat yourself. Jesus says deny yourself.