Paul’s Power Defense

Acts 23:1-11
P. G. Mathew | Sunday, May 07, 2000
Copyright © 2000, P. G. Mathew

Paul looked straight at the Sanhedrin and said, “My brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day.” At this the high priest Ananias ordered those standing near Paul to strike him on the mouth. Then Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! You sit there to judge me according to the law, yet you yourself violate the law by commanding that I be struck!” Those who were standing near Paul said, “You dare to insult God’s high priest?” Paul replied, “Brothers, I did not realize that he was the high priest; for it is written: `Do not speak evil about the ruler of your people.'”

Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, “My brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. I stand on trial because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead.” When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. (The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees acknowledge them all.) There was a great uproar, and some of the teachers of the law who were Pharisees stood up and argued vigorously. “We find nothing wrong with this man,” they said. “What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?” The dispute became so violent that the commander was afraid Paul would be torn to pieces by them. He ordered the troops to go down and take him away from them by force and bring him into the barracks. The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, “Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.”

Acts 23:1-11

In Matthew 10:17-20 Jesus warned his disciples about what would happen to them when they bore witness to him in the world. He said,

Be on your guard against them. They will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in their synagogues. On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

What Jesus promised began to be fulfilled almost immediately after his death, resurrection and ascension. The book of Acts records several such instances from the lives of the apostles, including this passage, Acts 23, wherein we find the apostle Paul making a powerful defense as he stood before the Jewish high court known as the Sanhedrin.

There are five defenses given by Paul which are recorded in the book of Acts. In Acts 22 we see him speaking before the crowd at the temple. In Acts 23 we see him defending himself before the Sanhedrin. In Acts 24 we find him defending himself before Antonius Felix, the Roman governor who lived in Caesarea. In Acts 25 we find him defending himself before Porcius Festus, the new Roman governor. Finally, in Acts 26 we find him defending himself before King Agrippa II.

In this study we want to examine Paul’s defense before the Sanhedrin. We want to examine the confidence with which he defended himself, the content of his defense, and the comfort Christ gave him after his defense. First, though, I want to examine the context in which Paul made this defense.

Context

When Paul returned from his third missionary journey to the Gentiles, he went up to Jerusalem to worship at the temple. As he was worshiping, some Jews from Asia stirred up a large crowd who seized Paul and began to beat him. These Jews accused Paul of teaching everywhere “against our people and our law and this place,” meaning the temple (Acts 21:28).

Paul was rescued from the hands of the crowd by the commander of the Roman army, Claudius Lysias, who bound him with two heavy chains and took him up to the Fortress of Antonia. Just as Jesus had been bound, so now his apostle was bound. This was a turning point in Paul’s life. Never again would Paul be able to go about freely.

The Roman soldiers wanted to torture Paul to find out why the Jews were so against him, but Paul was spared this brutality by his timely disclosure of the fact that he was born a Roman citizen from the province of Cilicia. So the Roman commander brought Paul before the Sanhedrin in an effort to find out why he was being accused by the Jews.

The Sanhedrin was the Jewish high court, which consisted of seventy Jewish leaders, both Pharisees and Sadducees. These groups held quite different views of God and the Scriptures. The Sadducees were modernists-anti-supernaturalist materialists who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead, in angels, or in the spiritual world. That is why the Sadducees became angry at the apostles when they preached about resurrection of Jesus Christ in Acts 4. Jesus himself rebuked the Sadducees for this type of unbelief on another occasion, saying, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God.”

The Sadducees also refused to believe in the authority of the entirety of the Scriptures. They paid lip service to the first five books of the Bible, but rejected the authority of all the Scriptures as well as God’s sovereign control of the universe.

The Pharisees were orthodox-the theological conservatives of their day. They believed in the resurrection of the dead and trusted in that hope. Additionally, they believed in angels, spirits, and God’s sovereign control of the universe. Unlike the Sadducees, the Pharisees believed in the authority of the entire Old Testament.

The Roman commander, Claudius Lysias, wanted to find out exactly why Paul was being accused by the Jews, so he brought Paul before the Sanhedrin. He asked for a special assembling of this high court so that its members could question Paul and find out why the Jews were so opposed to him.

The high priest presiding over the Sanhedrin at this time was a man named Ananias, who had been appointed to this position by Herod of Chalcis. Herod of Chalcis was the brother of King Agrippa I, the king who arrested Peter and put him in prison, and whom the Lord Jesus Christ killed in Caesarea because of his arrogance. Ananias was appointed to the high priesthood around A.D. 48 and ruled for about ten or eleven years before he was deposed by Herod Agrippa II, the son of Herod Agrippa I.

Ananias was the son of Nedebaeus. A man of great wealth who used violence and political assassinations to reach his goals, Ananias was so cruel that he had to go to Rome at one point to defend himself before Emperor Claudius for his brutal treatment of the Samaritans. While in Rome, Ananias was rescued from punishment by Claudius by Agrippa II, who was a very young man at the time.

Ananias the high priest was also a glutton and a thief who stole the tithes that were to go to the ordinary priests. Because of his known support for Rome, his fellow Jews murdered him in A.D. 66 during the Jewish revolt against Rome. This most disgraceful Ananias was lampooned in a parody of Psalm 24, which we find in Josephus’s Jewish Wars. It goes something like this: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and let Yohanan”-that is Ananias-“enter and fill his belly with the divine sacrifices,” referring to the tithes he stole.

Ananias, along with the seventy Jewish elders, came together to hear the defense of Paul, the apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. We want to look at the confidence with which Paul defended himself, the content of his defense, and the comfort Christ gave him after he made his defense.

The Boldness of Paul

Paul began to defend himself before the Sanhedrin with confidence, courage, and fearlessness. In Acts 23:1 we read, “Paul looked straight at the Sanhedrin.” In other words, Paul was not looking down in guilt and fear, afraid to lift up his eyes. He was not guilty of anything deserving punishment. In Proverbs 28:1 tells us, “The righteous are as bold as a lion.”

Paul looked straight at the Sanhedrin and began to speak boldly, empowered by the Holy Spirit. This was a fulfillment of the promise Jesus made in Acts 1:8 when he said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses. . . .” Jesus Christ commissioned Paul to be Christ’s witness before Israel, before the Gentiles, and before kings. The power of the Spirit of the living God gave Paul the boldness, the power and the confidence to carry out this commission.

What did Paul tell the Sanhedrin? “My brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day.” In other words, Paul was declaring that he was innocent of any wrongdoing, saying that from the time he was converted until the present he had lived a holy life in good conscience before God and before man. Oh, that we also could live such lives in which we have good conscience before God and before man!

Paul’s Good Conscience

Paul spoke of fulfilling his duty in all good conscience. What did he mean by conscience? Conscience is the power within every man which bears testimony with or to our personality within. Conscience speaks of the moral value, whether right or wrong, of the actions we commit. It is a power that is apart from us and yet within us. Conscience judges us by the highest standard we know.

However, our consciences can be inadequately informed. Thus, the judgment of conscience must be regarded as true only when it conforms to God’s objective standard, which is the truth of the Holy Scriptures. We must not rely on our consciences unless we educate and inform them daily by rigorous and systematic study of the Holy Scriptures.

The Value of a Good Conscience

Paul could speak before the Sanhedrin with confidence and boldness because, since his conversion on the Damascus road, his conscience was correctly informed by God’s truth and purified by the blood of Christ. So Paul told the Sanhedrin that his conscience was good, meaning it was clean. Paul’s conscience declared that he had done nothing wrong, and, in fact, that he was doing what was right, in God’s sight. Paul was fulfilling his Lord’s command to bear witness for him before Israel, the Gentiles, and the authorities.

Paul said the same thing to the Roman governor Felix in Acts 24:16: “So I strive always to keep my conscience clear before God and man.” In Acts 26:19 he told King Agrippa II, “So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven,” which he had on the road to Damascus. I pray that, as Bible-believing Christians, we will do everything within our power to live lives that are void of offense. What a way to live! If we live this way, we will fear no man. Paul lived such a life to please his master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

We find the word conscience throughout the Bible. The Bible speaks about having a good conscience, a conscience void of offense and a pure conscience. It also speaks about a weak conscience, which is a conscience that is not fully educated in the word of God. For example, in Romans 14 Paul speaks of people who think it is wrong to eat meat. Such weak-conscienced people haven’t studied the Bible. I have known people for whom certain things are sinful, even though the Bible doesn’t say that they are. Such people need to get into real study of the Bible and educate their consciences. They should give their consciences the highest possible standard, which is the Holy Scriptures.

The Bible also speaks about the conscience of an unbeliever, which is called a defiled conscience, an evil conscience, a seared conscience, a dead conscience. If your conscience is not speaking to you anymore, you are in a very dangerous condition. It is as if you were flying an airplane and your warning lights are not working.

Paul’s conscience was clear, pure, and void of offense, sprinkled clean by the blood of Jesus Christ. That is why Paul could speak so boldly before the Sanhedrin.

The Reaction of Ananias

Paul knew how the Sanhedrin worked because he probably had been a member in the early days of the church when Stephen was stoned. Of course, the membership had changed over the years and the high priest was different but Paul knew the protocol. He stood before the Sanhedrin and began his defense, saying, in essence, “You Sanhedrin, you leaders of Israel, I am totally innocent. I have a clear conscience before God and man.”

What happened next? Unjust Ananias could not bear to hear Paul’s declaration of innocence. He and the rest of the leaders had already made up their minds that Paul could not be innocent as long as he confessed that Jesus Christ had risen from the dead, that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, and that Jesus Christ is God and Lord. In their view Jesus Christ was a blasphemer whom they had nailed to the cross. How, then, could a believer in Christ be an innocent Jew?

As far as Ananias was concerned, Paul was an apostate Jew, so he ordered that Paul be struck in the mouth. “Shut up, Paul!” Ananias was saying. This was the same reaction an earlier high priest, Caiaphas, had to the Lord Jesus Christ himself.

As we said before, Ananias was an unusually brutal and violent man, and this was demonstrated in his treatment of Paul. In Jewish law a person was considered to be innocent until proven guilty, as we read in Leviticus 19:15. The high priest violated this law when he ordered that Paul be struck. Additionally, there was a saying in those days, “He who strikes the cheek of an Israelite strikes, as it were, the glory of God.”

Ananias was violating God’s law when he struck Paul. Because of this perceived perversion of justice, it seems to many scholars that Paul lost his cool and became angry with Ananias. Paul was not Jesus Christ; he was a man like us, and he could react in unrighteous anger. So in Acts 23:3 we read, “Then Paul said to [Ananias], ‘God will strike you, you whitewashed wall!'” In other words, he was saying that Ananias may be beautiful outside but he was full of corruption inside. Paul’s words were similar to those of Jesus himself in Matthew 23, when Jesus told the leaders and scribes they were whitewashed sepulchers.

Paul was immediately rebuked for his outburst. “You dare to insult God’s high priest?” he was asked. All of a sudden Paul acknowledged his sin and apologized, on the authority of the Holy Scriptures, referring to Exodus 22:28, “Do not blaspheme God or curse the ruler of your people.”

In Acts 23:5 we read, “Paul replied, ‘Brothers, I did not realize he was the high priest.'” It may be that Paul was suffering from very poor eyesight or that this assembly of the Sanhedrin was an irregular, hurriedly called meeting and Ananias was not sitting in his proper place or clothed in his official garments. It may also be that Paul had been away from the city of Jerusalem for so long-about twenty years-that he did not know the high priest personally. Whatever the reason, Paul apologized to Ananias and all those present for his outburst. Then he began his defense.

The Content of Paul’s Defense

What was at the heart of Paul’s defense? The resurrection of Christ. As we said before, the book of Acts records five speeches in which Paul defended himself, and in every speech, the heart of his defense was the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Paul knew that the Sanhedrin consisted of both Sadducees and Pharisees. He publicly allied with the Pharisees, hoping to divide the assembly, and so verse 6 tells us he called out, “My brothers, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee. I stand on trial because of my hope in the resurrection of the dead.”

The resurrection of the dead was the heart of Paul’s defense because it is is at the heart of Christianity. Remember how Paul wrote to the Corinthians that if there is no resurrection, if Christ had not been raised, “our preaching is useless and so is your faith. . . . you are still in your sins,” and “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die'” (1 Corinthians 15:14, 17, 32)? The resurrection of Christ is the heart of the gospel.

So Paul began his defense, “I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee.” This was true. Paul was a Pharisee especially in that, unlike the Sadducees, he believed in the authority of the entire Old Testament and in the teaching of the Old Testament, including the idea of the resurrection of the dead.

The resurrection of the dead was the hope of Israel. The Gentiles, we are told, were without God and without hope in the world. They did not believe in the resurrection of the dead. And like Paul, we also believe in the resurrection of the dead. We believe that we will rise with a physical body, as Jesus Christ rose with a physical body. The Bible tells us he told his disciples to touch and feel him, saying that ghosts do not have flesh and bones.

So Paul’s first argument before the Sanhedrin was that he, a Pharisee and the son of a Pharisee, was on trial for his belief in the resurrection of the dead.

Paul’s Opposition to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ

Paul’s second point was that he always, as a Pharisee, believed in the resurrection of the dead according to the entire Old Testament. Yet Paul had a problem: he rejected the claim of the apostles that Jesus was raised from the dead according to the Scriptures and that therefore Jesus was the Messiah, the Savior of Israel.

Paul was ignorant of this truth and thought, together with the other unbelieving Pharisees and Sadducees, that Jesus of Nazareth was a blasphemer. So Paul’s refusal initially to believe in Christ was not because he was against the idea of resurrection from the dead, but because he thought Jesus was a blasphemer and that the Sanhedrin and Pilate did the right thing in getting rid of him.

As a zealous Pharisee, Paul had dedicated his life to destroying the Way-Christianity-because he thought it just a sect or a fraud. Elsewhere in the book of Acts he confessed what he did: He put many believers, both men and women, in prison and beat many of them. He helped to murder many saints of God and tried to force others to blaspheme against Jesus Christ, although we don’t know whether he succeeded or not. Additionally, as an authorized officer of the Sanhedrin, Paul traveled to foreign cities to visit their synagogues to find Christian Jews and bring them to punishment.

Paul was a brilliant Pharisee, educated, he tells us, under the great professor Gamaliel. It was he who heard the mighty defense of Stephen as recorded in Acts 7. He cast his vote to murder Stephen and watched the clothes of those who were stoning him.

How Paul Changed His Mind

All this illustrates how violently Paul was opposed to the idea of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. As a Pharisee, he believed in the idea of resurrection, but he did not believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ until, on the road to Damascus, he was arrested. We read his account in three places in the book of Acts-in Acts 9, 22, and 26. In Acts 22:6-7 we read, “About noon. . . suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me.” This was the light of God himself. Paul was being confronted by the resurrected, risen Jesus himself, who spoke to Paul in Aramaic, asking, “Saul! Saul! why do you persecute me?” What was Paul’s response? “Who are you, Lord?” Then the answer came: “I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting” (Acts 22:8). In other words, the one who lived and died and was buried and was raised up and ascended and was seated-the King of kings and Lord of lords-the Lord Jesus Christ himself was confronting Paul.

When Jesus said, “whom you are persecuting,” that tells us how closely Jesus Christ is connected with his people. To touch him is to touch us, in other words, and he is seriously interested in taking care of us. Then Jesus told Paul, “It is hard for you to kick against the goads.” That is a Greek expression which means you cannot win. It means you are fighting against deity or fighting against the City Hall. I think nowadays we can fight against City Hall and win, but we can never fight God and win. In other words, Jesus was saying, “Saul, give up. You cannot win. I win!”

What happened next? Paul was regenerated. He repented of his sins and trusted in Jesus Christ. All this happened right away, and so we then find Paul asking the question, “What do you want me to do, Lord?” (Acts 22:10).

Have you ever asked this question of God? I have said many times that there are two crucial questions we all must ask: “Who are you, Lord?” and “What do you want me to do?” Those two questions indicate full and total surrender to the King of kings and Lord of lords, the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

At this time Paul was regenerated. His eyes were opened and he was brought out of darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to the power of the kingdom of Christ. Paul was thoroughly converted and then, being a brilliant man, this former enemy of Jesus Christ realized that the apostles and Stephen, whose death he had consented to, had spoken the truth. He realized that Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified and dead, is alive. “Jesus is risen indeed,” Paul would have thought. “He is the Messiah of Israel, the Lord, the Son of God.”

When Paul repented and believed and asked the question, “What shall I do, Lord?” the risen Christ commissioned him to be his apostle to declare to Jews, kings, and Gentiles what he had seen and heard. What you have seen and heard, you must preach.” What did Paul begin to preach? The resurrection of Christ.

The Gospel Message

In 1 Corinthians 15 we find the earliest creedal statement of the gospel coming to us from Paul: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living. . . .” In other words, if someone had a question about the truth of the resurrection, he could check it out with any of these people. Then Paul writes, “last of all he appeared to me also.”

That is the gospel. Christ Jesus died and rose again. Christ Jesus died for our sins and was raised for our justification. This is the earliest Christian creed, and it is what Paul preached.

In Acts 13 we find a record of Paul’s sermon to the people of Pisidian Antioch. In verse 32-38 Paul said,

We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm, ‘You are by Son; today I have become your Father.’ The fact that God raised him from the dead, never to decay, is stated in these words: ‘I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.’ So it is stated elsewhere: ‘You will not let your Holy One see decay.’ For when David had served God’s purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his fathers and his body decayed. But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay. Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you.

The heart of Christianity is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If Christ is not raised, there is no forgiveness for sins. When Jesus was raised from the dead, he told his disciples, “This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations. . . .” (Luke 24:46-47).

After Paul met the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, he was taken into the city. In obedience to Christ, the Jewish Christian Ananias of Damascus came and ministered to Paul, laying hands on him. Paul was healed of his blindness and baptized in the Holy Spirit. After he was baptized in water, God commissioned Paul, saying through Ananias, “You will be his witness to all men of what you have seen and heard.” What was the heart of Paul’s message? The resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If Christ Is Raised, We Too Will Be Raised

The resurrection of Jesus Christ is also vitally connected with our resurrection. If Jesus is not raised from the dead, no Jew or Gentile will be raised from the dead to everlasting life. In 2 Corinthians 4:13 we read, “It is written: ‘I believed; therefore I have spoken.’ With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence.”

Our own resurrection is integrally linked to the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. That is why I hope and pray that you will believe in the gospel: that Christ is the Son of God; that Christ became man; that Christ was sinless; that Christ was our mediator; that Christ took our sins upon him-he who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him; that Christ died for our sins; that Christ was buried, and Christ was raised up; and that everyone who believes in him shall be saved.

Let me ask you: Have you trusted in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation? We must all ask ourselves this question. What was the problem of Paul? It was not that he didn’t believe in the resurrection of the dead. He did, as did all the Pharisees of the Sanhedrin. Paul’s problems was that he did not believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. He thought he was a blasphemer, one who claimed to be God when he was not.

But after his experience with the risen Christ on the road to Damascus, everything changed for Paul. He now believed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and said that in every point of his defense. Paul knew the hope of Israel was to have salvation through the Messiah who was to come. After he was converted, Paul preached that the long-awaited Messiah is Jesus of Nazareth, who died and was raised up again, and that all who believe in him will be saved.

Believing the Gospel Message

When Paul stood before the Sanhedrin, it was the fifth time God in his great mercy had spoken to them. The first time was during the trial of Jesus Christ before he was crucified. The second time was when Peter and John appeared, as recorded in Acts 4. The third time all the apostles appeared before the Sanhedrin, as we read in Acts 5. The fourth time was the trial of Stephen, which we read about in Acts 7. Now the apostle Paul appeared before the Sanhedrin a fifth time. Each time the gospel was presented clearly; yet each time the members of the Sanhedrin rejected it.

Let me ask you: How many times have you heard this gospel? Are you like the Sanhedrin, who rejected it all? If so, consider what we read in Luke 19:41-2. It is speaking of Jesus Christ before his death on the cross. “As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, [Jesus] wept over it and said, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace-but now it is hidden from your eyes.'”

The gospel comes to us, but if we do not receive it, that opportunity is gone. So Jesus said, “But now it is hidden from your eyes.” Five times the Sanhedrin heard the gospel but they refused to believe.

But then Jesus added something: “The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

Even now God is coming to you to save you, to help you, to forgive your sins, and to give you eternal life. I hope and pray that you will surrender and submit to him. We will speak in our next study about the benefit of doing so-the comfort that came to the apostle Paul after he stood in front of the Sanhedrin. It is the comfort of the risen Christ to his people.

Maybe you have heard the gospel many times but never evaluated it. You may have thought it was mythology. But let me tell you, it is the truth-the great truth that God raised up his Son from the dead. Your salvation is linked with this central truth, so I urge you, don’t be like the Sanhedrin. Don’t be like the Jewish nation. Don’t even be like those who were raised up in Christian homes hear the gospel again and again, but do not believe. Isaiah says of such people, “Hearing, they will not hear; seeing, they will not see.” Take warning from the language of Jesus in Luke 19:41-44. “They will dash you on the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another,” and this literally happened in 70 A.D. Even this high priest Ananias, along with his brother, was murdered, as they were hiding together in a cave, by his own fellow Jews. Oh, imagine the suffering they experienced! What was the reason? Simply that they rejected their own Messiah. The same will happen to the Gentiles who reject God’s only Son, given as a gift for our salvation.

The content of Paul’s defense was the hope of the resurrection. Because Christ is raised, those who believe in him shall be raised from the dead.

Have You Trusted in Christ?

Trusting in Jesus Christ alone for your salvation is the most momentous thing you can do in your entire life. If you would like to do this, I invite you to pray this prayer:

Heavenly Father, I thank you for Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord. I believe that Jesus died for my sins and was buried, but on the third day, you raised him up according to the Scriptures. He ascended into the heavens and is seated on the right hand of God the Father. He is the Sovereign Lord of all. You have put all things under his feet. He is now ruling and reigning, and he is coming again to save those who trusted in him, and to judge those who rejected him.

Lord Jesus, forgive all my sins. I believe in you. From this day forward, I will be your disciple and will follow you. I will live for your glory and live by your word. Thank you for hearing my prayer and forgiving all my sins. I praise you, I worship you, and I adore you-King of kings and Lord of lords. Amen.