Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

where I buried a college president, Freemason, and Odd Fellow, and have never gone back to pay
homage at their graves.
13. “Those about Paul, having embarked from Paphos, came into Perge of Pamphylia.” Here we
have the first indirect reference to Luke, our historian, who is so modest we have to watch every little
hint to even keep a trace of him. Here also John Mark disgraced himself by skedaddling away from
the work and returning to Jerusalem. Paul held it to his discount, and refused to take him on the next
tour. The critics believe that the robbers, who at that time awfully infested the mountain ranges
intervening between the Mediterranean plain and the interior tablelands, on which Perge, the capital,
stood, got after them and perhaps treated them very roughly, as they are accustomed to do in the East,
thus scaring Mark out of the work.
14. They now go on south into Antioch of Pisidia.
15-21. They constantly everywhere make free to attend the Jewish synagogues on the Sabbath,
preaching on the streets and from house to house through the week. Hence they go in and sit in the
audience, by physique and costume recognized as Jews by the entire audience. Having passed
through the routine of Sabbath service, the leader sends a person back to invite them to speak freely
as the Lord will. Thus Paul proceeds with a historic sermon on the plan of salvation in the former
dispensation, culminating in the fulfillment of all the types, symbols and ceremonies in Jesus of
Nazareth, whom he preaches to them as the veritable Shiloh of prophecy and the Christ.
22. “Having deposed him,” i.e., King Saul. Why did God depose Saul and cast him away?
Because he spared Agag, the king of the Amalekites. Why was this? Because the Amalekites fought
against Israel and did their utmost to keep them out of the promised land. See this grand symbolic
truth. You must destroy everything that keeps you from sanctification. Agag typifies inbred sin,
which must be utterly destroyed. Saul spared Agag and lost the kingdom and his soul, dying a
suicide; so if you do not destroy inbred sin in entire sanctification, you will forfeit the kingdom of
God, commit spiritual suicide and lose your soul. Why was David a man after God’s own heart? He
was not infallible. He fell in case of Uriah, but God wonderfully restored him. “I have found David,
the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who will do all of my wishes.” Would you be a man after
God’s own heart? Then you must do the whole will of God. King David was an exception to all the
kings of the earth, in the fact that he did not his own will, but the will of God. David’s throne was
unearthly, focalizing in heaven. He was simply the executive of the divine administration, sitting on
the throne of the theocracy, ruling as God’s vicegerent. Hence the risen Jesus was crowned David’s
Successor (as He is his heir) in heaven when He ascended (Acts 2:30), and will be crowned David’s
Successor on earth when He comes again (Acts 2:35).
23-25. John the Baptist, the greatest of the prophets, disclaimed the Messiahship and testified to
the Christhood of Jesus.
27. Paul shows how the Jews and Romans all fulfilled the Messianic prophecies in the crucifixion
of Jesus, quoting those wonderful predictions of David, which were only fulfilled in David’s greater
Son.