The Holy Spirit forbade them to speak the word in Asia and prevented them from entering Bithynia. What on earth is going on here? Does God not want the gospel preached in these places? This must have been really perplexing. Everything inside us tends to say "this is a godly thing to want to do, we see whole areas where God can be glorified and churches planted, so it must be a right thing to do." But it wasn't, and as yet they didn't know why. The reason, of course, was Macedonia.