Participants: Jim & Mark Howard
Series Code: ABOTB
Program Code: ABOTB00023B
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00:01 Welcome back to Books of the Book.
00:02 Just before the break we were looking here at Paul before the 00:08 Sanhedrin in Acts chapter 23 and Mark, we were talking about this 00:13 response of Paul when he had made a very plain statement to 00:18 the high priest calling him you whitewashed wall or a hypocrite 00:24 because he was charging Paul according to law but he was 00:27 actually going to contrary to Jewish law by having him struck 00:31 without a trial. Then he says, once he finds out he's the high 00:34 priest, well you shall not speak evil of a ruler of your people. 00:38 I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that. But you know as I look at 00:43 this, we need to also recognize that this high priest was about 00:47 seven or eight years later we understand assassinated. 00:50 So what the Apostle Paul said here in one sense could be 00:54 perceived to be a prophetic utterance of sorts because he 00:57 was very clear, God will strike you and exactly seven or eight 01:02 years later he did find himself in a death that he didn't plan. 01:07 That's right. Another thing that strikes me about that is, and I 01:12 think back for whatever reason to the book of Daniel where the 01:17 Lord told Daniel in a dream in Daniel 2 that it's God who sets 01:22 up kings and takes down kings. God has control over things that 01:27 go on in this world. Everybody has their day of opportunity 01:30 and God is long suffering and we've seen that in the history 01:36 of Israel and other places. The Lord says vengeance is mine, I 01:41 will repay. I don't think Paul is feigning his respect here. 01:46 He's not saying oh wink, wink, if I would have known you were 01:50 the high priest I wouldn't have said it and I think some people 01:53 get that from Paul. He was so bold and so they say well yeah 01:57 well Paul really... They read into him some of this heroism 02:01 that we have. I think Paul really meant he really didn't 02:05 realize it was the high priest. The reason I say that is you 02:09 know the same apostle... it actually makes me think of 02:13 Romans chapter 13 and the Apostle Paul tells us in 02:17 Romans 13 and I'm looking at verse 1: He says, And let every 02:20 soul be subject to the governing authorities for there is no 02:24 authority except from God and the authorities that exist are 02:27 appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority 02:31 resists the ordinance of God and those who resist will bring 02:35 judgment on themselves, for rulers are not a terror to good 02:39 works but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? 02:43 Do what is good and you will have praise from the same. 02:45 Now it's interesting. In other words Paul's saying God sets up 02:48 these authorities for our protection and he says if you 02:51 don't want trouble from the authorities do what's right. 02:54 Well that didn't always work even for Paul but it doesn't 02:57 deter him from being respectful to authority. He goes on to talk 03:02 about how the authority is God's minister for our good, but if 03:06 you do evil, be afraid. He says he's God's minister and avenger 03:10 to execute wrath on him who practices evil. He says he 03:13 doesn't bear the sword in vain. He talks about rendering taxes 03:17 to whom taxes are due, rendering honor to whom honor is due and 03:20 customs to whom customs are due and this kind of thing. So we 03:24 know that when he speaks this phrase to the high priest, I 03:27 didn't realize it, he meant it and it should speak something 03:31 to us about the need for being respectful of authority whether 03:34 it be in the church or whether it be in community. Vengeance 03:38 is mine, I will repay. God took care of matters with that high 03:42 priest and he also will help Paul through this situation as 03:46 we're going to find out. But the Lord is in charge of all things. 03:50 Now in verse 7 it says when he had said this, I'm sorry verse 03:55 6. It says that when Paul perceived that one part were 03:58 Sadducees and the other part Pharisees, he cried out in the 04:02 council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a 04:06 Pharisee; concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead I 04:09 am being judged. And when he had said this a dissension arose 04:13 between the Pharisees and the Sadducees and 04:15 the assembly was divided. 04:16 Of course, the Sadducees say there is no resurrection and 04:20 it's interesting here that Paul took his knowledge first of all 04:23 of the fact that these guys weren't here for truth and 04:26 justice. They were here to further their own means. 04:29 So he picks an issue that is an issue that is a personal 04:34 contention between them. Knowing that because they're only there 04:38 for contention's sake it may take the heat off of him and 04:41 certainly what we find happening is it does. They get into a 04:45 fight with each other and it says in verse 10, Now when there 04:48 arose a great dissension, the commander fearing lest Paul 04:51 might be pulled in pieces by them, not because they are going 04:54 at Paul necessarily, well the Sadducees were but the Pharisees 04:56 defend him. They say well we don't find a fault in him 04:58 because now he's on our side in this issue. But this tumult 05:03 arises and they command the soldiers to go down and take him 05:07 by force from among them and bring him back to the barracks 05:10 again for his safety. So it's interesting that this is 05:14 happening among this religious group. You're almost thinking 05:18 you're in a mob somewhere of totally irreligious people. But 05:22 these are the leaders of the Jewish church. 05:23 When you just read in Romans that the Apostle Paul said that 05:27 the authorities are there to be our protection. They were 05:31 certainly the protection for the Apostle Paul here protecting him 05:34 from his own people. You'll notice in verse 11 something 05:39 happens here that I think is very important. Because you can 05:42 imagine the Apostle Paul, yeah he had high hopes for when he 05:46 went to Jerusalem and the leading brethren they were 05:50 trying to do what was right. We believe that James and the 05:54 counsel given there was not the best and it caused Paul to 05:58 perhaps be bound a little bit earlier than he would have been 06:02 so that didn't work out as planned and now we see that 06:06 he's not getting very much traction here either and the 06:10 Apostle Paul has got to be starting to become discouraged. 06:15 He's been so excited. He's got such a burden. We read in the 06:19 epistles about his burden for his countrymen and it's just 06:23 not working out. But in verse 11 it says, But the following 06:26 night the Lord stood by him and said, Be of good cheer Paul, for 06:31 as you have testified for me in Jerusalem so you must also bear 06:35 witness at Rome. You know, there are certain passages that 06:39 we have read where it talks about these warnings, the Spirit 06:43 warning different believers in different cities about what's 06:47 going to happen to him in Jerusalem. I can only imagine 06:49 he was starting to think, I wonder if I should not have come 06:53 if that wasn't the right thing to do? Here we find that the 06:57 Lord affirms what he did. He says, As you have testified for 07:01 me. He doesn't chastise him for coming in disobedience to him, 07:05 but this makes it clear that it was perfectly allowable in the 07:08 will of God to come to Jerusalem and he affirms him for 07:11 testifying for him. That's right. And as much as he 07:14 has been beaten and his life has been threatened, he will make it 07:19 to Rome. So I'm going to make it out of this place alive. 07:22 He's going to Rome and he knows that now. So this is an 07:25 opportunity for encouragement and the Apostle Paul is 07:28 encouraged but we find that the hatred of his opposition has not 07:32 gone away. In verse 12 it says, And when it was day, some of the 07:37 Jews banded together and bound themselves under an oath saying 07:41 that they would neither eat nor drink till they had killed Paul. 07:45 Now there were more than 40 who had formed this conspiracy. 07:50 That's a lot of people. If you think about it, he's really in 07:54 danger now. They took a vow. 07:56 They took a vow, yeah, exactly. I'm going to talk about that in 08:00 a minute. It says, They came to the chief priests and elders and 08:04 said, We have bound ourselves under a great oath that we will 08:08 eat nothing until we have killed Paul. Now you, therefore, 08:12 together with the council suggest to the commander that 08:15 he be brought down to you tomorrow as though you were 08:19 going to make further inquiries concerning him. So use some 08:23 deception here. But we are ready to kill him before he comes near 08:27 So think about this for a moment Is this really happening. These 08:32 40 Jews, church members, religious. I mean they're 08:37 obviously religious because they are taking an oath, an oath 08:42 before God, right? Let the divine punishment come upon me 08:46 if I do not kill Paul. Okay, so they're taking an oath before 08:51 God and then they're encouraging the leaders to be deceptive and 08:55 lie so that they can kill the Apostle Paul and commit murder. 08:59 I mean, the blindness that is happening here in this passage 09:05 is absolutely amazing and you see now that it really is the 09:10 officers of Rome now who are the ones who are protecting Paul. 09:16 Paul is having to hide behind his own imprisonment to keep 09:21 from being hurt here by these Jews. 09:24 You know there's a lesson that could be learned that we won't 09:27 look at as much right now, but here... There's a lot of 09:31 discussion today in Christianity about church and state and the 09:34 state is generally the enemy. But here we don't see the state 09:37 that is doing the persecuting. We see the church doing the 09:39 persecuting. The state is defending, which is very 09:41 interesting. Now we pick up in... 09:44 You know, Mark, before you do that, it just made me think when 09:48 I was looking back at this. This oath, you know, I'm not going to 09:52 eat or drink until I kill Paul. Well we keep reading and we find 09:56 out that Paul spent a couple years in prison. In fact, the 10:00 very last couple verses of the book tell us he was two years in 10:06 one place. Obviously they broke their oath or there were 40 dead 10:12 men. This is quite an amazing thing. As we're looking at this, 10:18 we just need to remember that God would not have us believe 10:24 that the end justifies the means and that's what we really see 10:29 happening here. Sometimes we think well if I'm not fully 10:34 honest it's okay if it's in order to make things work out 10:38 for this cause that I believe is right. There is a variety of 10:42 things that we could do. Slandering someone's character 10:46 in order to promote something that we think is right; tearing 10:49 them down. In reality what you are seeing here amongst the 10:53 church is politics. They're being political. They are 10:59 putting their goals above their integrity in how they go about 11:03 doing things. The Apostle Paul, he didn't know how things were 11:07 going to work out. He trusted that to God but he made sure 11:10 that he always maintained his integrity. That wasn't the case 11:13 for his opposition. Absolutely Jim. And as we go on 11:17 here in verse 16 we find an interesting intervention here. 11:21 It says, So when Paul's sister's son heard of their ambush, he 11:25 went and entered the barracks and told Paul and Paul called 11:29 one of the centurions to him and said, Take this young man to the 11:32 commander for he has something to tell him. And of course then 11:35 the young man was taken before Claudius Lysius and he hears 11:38 about this plot and prepares to thwart it. Now it's interesting 11:41 in mentions Paul's sister's son here and we don't hear a lot 11:44 about Paul's family members and there's a good likelihood that 11:47 they had not converted to Christianity but evidently the 11:51 young man had in his heart some affection for his uncle and he 11:54 heard about this plot and I believe the Lord was in that. 11:58 The Lord used that and Claudius Lysius to bring protection to 12:02 Paul and it says that Claudius, in verse 23, called for two 12:06 centurions saying, Prepare 200 soldiers, 70 horsemen, 200 spear 12:09 men and go to Caesarea the third hour of the night and take Paul 12:13 and they brought protection. So once again we see that the Lord 12:17 is able to thwart the plan of Paul's enemies and bring 12:21 deliverance. And it's important for us to know that the same 12:24 God seeks to preserve us and bring our deliverance. 12:28 Well that's all the time we have for Books of the Book. 12:32 See you next time. |
Revised 2014-12-17