I want to preach a sermon to you this morning entitled After the Shaking, After the

Shaking and we're going to go to Acts chapter 16. I'm going to read you a story and then

we're going to make some observations from this story. This will be hopefully a real

clear message after the shaking, after the shaking. Let me read you an interesting story.

We're not going to be able to get the whole context for sake of time, but Acts chapter 16

and verse 20 is a story about one of the one of the most talked about figures in the early

church is this man named Paul who at one point was an elite religious leader who actually did not

know Jesus or the ways of Jesus. He inflicted religious standards on people quite literally

and killed Christians. He saw Christians as heretics. God encounters him, changes his life. He

becomes Paul by the time we meet up with him in Acts 16. He's been doing it for quite a few

years and he's very effective. He's very brilliant. He's become one of the lead communicators and

thinkers and writers. He'll go on to write more than 50% of the New Testament inspired by the Holy

Spirit, of course. God is the author, but he uses people to write the book. So Paul becomes a pretty

central figure in our legacy, in our heritage, and he's a very key player when it comes to doctrine

and theology of the New Testament. And it's here. He is doing work in a city and it disrupts

the economy, basically. And the town doesn't like it. It says the whole city wasn't an uproar because

of these Jews. They said they shouted to the city officials, Acts chapter 16, verse 21. Now

they're teaching customs that are legal for us Romans to practice. All this is exaggerated to

make a point, but they were preaching Jesus. Free grace, free forgiveness, no religion needed.

You don't have to be in the synagogue all the time to be forgiven and loved by God, right? So it

was very disruptive because the religious system at the time had a lot to do with the economy.

You had to pay to get certain animals to sacrifice and what Paul was preaching was going to

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