Acts 13:20-25 Let There Be No Weakness!

Acts 13:20-25 “After this, God gave them judges until the time of Samuel the prophet.  Then the people asked for a king, and he gave them Saul son of Kish, of the tribe of Benjamin, who ruled forty years.  After removing Saul, he made David their king.  God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’  “From this man’s descendants God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as he promised.  Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel.  As John was completing his work, he said: ‘Who do you suppose I am?  I am not the one you are looking for.  But there is one coming after me whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.’

In this focus, we see Paul continuing to introduce Jesus to the synagogue of Pisidian Antioch by recounting some major points in the history of the Israelites.  Paul tells these Jews that in Egypt they became a great people, but were in bondage to Pharaoh.  When they went into Egypt as nomads and shepherds, they did not understand anything much about being a nation.  But when they left Egypt, they understood well the components of a nation, how to organize a society that consisted of hundreds of thousands of people.  Before their 400 years in Egypt, they were nomads, wandering from place to place to feed and to take care of their animals.  They had no place to call theirs, for they did not own land.  God had other plans for them.  He promised Abraham that he would own land: Canaan.  In Egypt, even as slaves, he made the people prosper during their stay in Egypt.  (17)  God led them out of Egypt by displaying his mighty power to Pharaoh and to the Egyptian people.  After they were free from their bondage in Egypt, they wandered in the wilderness for forty years.  Finally God allowed them to enter Canaan and take possession of that land.  In Canaan they were faithful to God only as long as Joshua and his contemporaries lived, but as soon as the first generation died off, the decedents of Abraham chose to worship idols again.  In the time of the Judges, it could be said there is no God in Canaan or for the Israelites no real allegiance to the God of Abraham, the one who brought them out of Egypt.  After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.  Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals.  They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt.  (Judges 2:10-12)  The Israelites chose to worship the gods of those people who they were supposed to have driven out of Canaan.  Their failure to do away with the inhabitants of Canaan inundated their society in idol worshipping.  The gods of the people of Canaan became their gods, a trap God said they would fall into if they did not get rid of all the inhabitants of Canaan.  Their gods became a snare to the Israelites, causing the Jews to fall under the control of the people of Canaan.  At different times, the Midianites, Canaanites, Moabites, and Philistines would rule over the Jews.  Because of God’s grace and his promise to Abraham, He would raise up judges to deliver the Israelites from their oppressor.  Finally in the time of Levi and Samuel, the Israelites had gained more control over their own lives, but still worshipped other gods that contaminated their lives; they would go in and out in their faithfulness to God.  Although, in Samuel’s time, the Jews were quite obedient to his rule, but the Israelites saw that the other people surrounding them had kings to rule over them, so they clamored to Samuel to allow them to have a king rule over them.  God gave them what they desired.  Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.  As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you.  (1 Samuel 8:7-8)  The Jews rejected theocracy and turned to autocracy, the rule of one man.  The first king was Saul from the small tribe of Benjamin.  He was a humble man at first but then turned into an unruly autocrat.  God rejected Saul.  He had Samuel select a new king from the household of Jesse.  The youngest son of Jesse was selected as the new king: David, revealing God’s grace once again, selecting someone not deserving, but the youngest, inexperienced son of Jesse.  After removing Saul, he made David their king.  God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.  Paul tells the Jews in the synagogue that David was a man after God’s own heart.  He was willing to be led by God.  In essence he brought back the attitude of a theocratic rule, allowing God to rule the Israelites.  However, David's self-willed weakness of lust in his personal lifestyle eventually caused the splitting of Israel into two kingdoms.  His son Solomon followed David’s lifestyle of marrying many wives and having many concubines.  This weakness corrupted Solomon’s reign.  He fell out of God’s favor by accommodating his idol-worshipping wives, allowing their idols to contaminate Israel.  

Paul emphasizes King David’s faithfulness to God.  David chose to allow God to direct him as he ruled the Israelites.  David’s willingness to follow God in directing the Israelites found favor with God; therefore, out of his lineage would come the Messiah, who would always do the will of God.  From this man’s descendants God has brought to Israel the Savior Jesus, as he promised.  In Jesus, the Messiah, there is no weakness, self-willedness.   David failed to live a holy life, but Jesus would be without sin.  David ruled as a secular king in a theocratic manner.  Jesus would not take the secular throne, but He would rule as divine leader, one who would lead people to God, his Father.  Before Jesus could take his rightful place as the Messiah in the Jewish community, John the Baptist's ministry was to precede him.  Before the coming of Jesus, John preached repentance and baptism to all the people of Israel.  The Jews everywhere knew the ministry of John, a call for the Israelites to repent of their sins.  Jews from from Israel and other countries came to John to be baptized for the remission of their sins.  This period of confession of the Jewish people was a necessary step to the introduction of Jesus.  John came baptizing in water sensitizing people to their need for repentance, but Jesus would baptize with fire.  “I baptize you with water.  But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  (Luke 3:16)  John’s baptism reveals the people’s desire to be right with God, but Jesus will baptize with fire, purifying the soul within.  No longer will people serve God just outwardly, but now inwardly.  This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord.  I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.  I will be their God, and they will be my people.  (Hebrews 8:10)  Paul is informing the Jews in Pisidian Antioch that the old covenant, which was never truly followed by the Jews has now been replaced by the new covenant that Jesus is Lord and that He will change the inner man from a rebel to being obedient to the will of God from their hearts.  This transition moves from outward obedience to laws, to obedience from the soul, the heart.  It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord.  (Hebrews 8:9)   Paul is introducing the Jews to the promise God had given them from the beginning: one day they would have the Messiah in their midst and he would deliver them from the oppression of the world.  He would be so powerful that even a great, holy man like John the Baptist would not be worthy to even unbuckle the straps on his sandals.  There is one coming after me whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.  Even the most righteous of the people in the Antioch synagogue could not come close to the perfection of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.  By Paul relating the waywardness of the Jewish people even after having supernatural events in their lives, he exposes the Jewish people to the need of a Savior, a righteous mediator between them and God the Father.  

Paul is telling these Jews that the Good News is that the Messiah has come and that He has fulfilled the prophets’ words about him.  Jesus died for the sins of all people, and his salvation has come to the Jew first and then to the rest of the world.  He is recounting the history of the Jews to explain to them their unruly nature and that the law could never make them reliable instruments of the living God.  They failed to hold true to the blessings of Abraham; they gave away their land of Canaan because of idol worshipping.  They willingly followed the gods of the people they were supposed to replace in Canaan.  Their behavior became even worse than their idol worshipping neighbors.  They sacrificed their own children who were gifts from God, who made them prosperous in Egypt because their population grew faster than the Egyptian's population.  Paul is reminding them in this short-hand account of the history of Israel that their recalcitrance and their eventual dispersion to other countries was a result of sin, and that they have needed a savior all throughout their history.  These Jewish synagogue attenders knew their history.  They also understood that the Jewish people have faced discipline by God because of their waywardness to God’s directions and commandments in their lives.  They were very versed in their history because of their pride in their Jewishness, their separation from the Gentile world.  They have longed for the Messiah to come to them and to restore the Jewish people to a place of honor in the world, to throw off the yoke of oppression.  Paul was now giving them the answer to their prayers: for the Messiah to come to them and bring real salvation to them and their people.  And all that hope is locked in the man Jesus, who called himself the Son of man.  Paul in recounting the history of their people was telling them that the Messiah has come and that He will bring the fire to their hearts, changing them from just human beings to eternal beings, new creations.  Jesus said to the Pharisee Nicodemus you must be born again; you must make the transition from an earthly vessel to a heavenly vessel that can live with God for eternity.  As Paul reveals Jesus to these Antioch Jews, he reveals the truth of the new covenant.  Jesus has come to redeem all people from their empty way of living, that which was not successful for their Jewish ancestors.  He has not come with a new way of living or new laws; He has come to all people, shedding his precious blood for the sins of the world, making them right with God for all eternity.  Jesus fulfills every requirement that a holy God has placed on people.  Now these Jewish brethren of Paul, need to believe this fact by faith.  Baptism in water would never save them, obedience to the law would never make them right with God.  Only the likeness of God in them would make them right with God, and that comes through faith, believing in Christ’s work and not the work of the flesh.  We have that same privilege today to place our faith in Christ’s work at the cross, trusting in our eternal salvation because He shed his blood and rose victorious from the grave.