Thank you. There are people who think that if you're a devoted, obedient Christian, that should ensure an easy, happy life.

Well, the Apostle Paul's experience suggests differently.

Today, on Truth for Life,

Alistur Begg walks us through Paul's assault and arrest in Jerusalem

and explains why it's always right to do what's right,

even if the outcome seems wrong.

Acts chapter 21, beginning of the 27th verse.

Although it's fairly trendy to debunk the value of studying history, each of us, if we're honest, knows that studying history is both important and beneficial.

One of the number of books that I've purchased in the last month or so

is a book by a contemporary historian, A.N. Wilson, which I think some of you, whom I think

some of you may read, and he has just written a book that covers the period between the era of

Queen Victoria, the birth of Queen Victoria, and my own birthday in 1952. He didn't actually put my

birthday on the book, but it just so happens that it ends right around 52. And so I was intrigued by it,

and I thought, well, it would be useful to learn

just what was going on in terms of detail, the underpinnings that gave rise to the era in which I,

along with others, have enjoyed living. This, of course, is true to the pages of Scripture,

again and again references made to the past. Classically in Joshua chapter 4, where the stones are

set up in the river, you may recall, and as a result of the priests doing so, the word of God to them

is, in the future, when your children ask you, what do these stones mean, then you will be

able to tell them that this was God, the covenant-keeping

God, who saw his people safely through?

Now, all of that simply remind us that what we're doing here in the Acts of the Apostles

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