Roadblocks and Revelation

God has a plan. God is calling and saving a people. God is revealing the path, one step at a time.

Read Acts 16:6-10

Pray

Roadblocks

v.6-7

God sometimes blocks the path we are on.

v.6 - “having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the Word in Asia”

v.7 - “the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them”

God blocked their path so that they couldn’t go where they would have gone, nor do what they would have done.

These Roadblocks take various forms:

This text - Holy Spirit made clear His will in some way (doesn’t say how)

Balaam - Numbers 22 - Angel in the road

Jonah - Jonah 1 - Storm (fish was just grace!)

Joseph - Genesis 37… - Brothers, Slave-traders, Potiphar’s wife, even the other prisoners

Jesus!

What we see as roadblocks are often signs, pointing the way - sometimes they are the way.

Balaam - God reiterated His sovereign rule and the place of His people Israel

Jonah is saved and put on the correct path

Joseph’s trials prepare him for and put him in a place to rescue his people

Genesis 50:20 NASB95

“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.

Jesus’s trials and suffering become the hope of all for salvation!

1 Peter 3:18 NASB95

For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;

God places, and uses roadblocks in our lives.

Revelation

v.9-10

Paul and his companions needed to know what to do and where to go. As they sought to obey God, He revealed to them the path.

In v.9, they knew where they couldn’t go. What did they do? They continued - they didn’t stop doing what they knew.

“When we cannot do as we would, we must do as we can.” - Matthew Henry

They must have wondered what God was up to, why He didn’t want them turning into Asia or up to Bithynia. We often wonder what God is up to.

It wasn’t because God didn’t care for these regions. The gospel would go there in time.

1 Peter 1:1 NASB95

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen

It was because God had another appointment He needed them to make (v.9-10).

Friends, God seldom gives us answers to the “why’s”, and almost never do we see further than the next step in His plan. Yet, we can trust in Him, and that in His wisdom and love there is good and redemptive purposes for any roadblock that might come.

In this case, Macedonia needed help. Europe needed the gospel too.

“Come over… and help us”

Help for their lost souls. Help for the darkness of Satan’s deceit. Help for false religion and wickedness. Help to reveal the Christ that some were seeking.

So when God revealed the next step in a vision - they went - the obeyed.

Application:

Cultivate a heart to do God’s will.

By cultivating a heart for God - Prayer, Word, Worship, Fellowship

Understand that road blocks are valuable. Sometimes they are the path.

Once you have a heart that is willing to accept God’s agenda as your own, then you can deal with where you are and what to do by His grace and power.

God uses every hardship and closed door

Romans 8:28 NASB95

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

Romans 5:1-5

Act in faith on what you do know.

“When we cannot do as we would, we must do as we can.” - Matthew Henry

Pray

for a heart for God and His will

for perspective in the way, and for help with those things in our lives that have us stuck, paralyzed and not knowing what to do next

for the lost around us who so desperately need spiritual help

VBS, lost loved ones, friends, co-workers

for the lost abroad who need a Paul, a Hannah, or maybe one of us to bring the good news of Jesus Christ.