Turn to the book of Acts chapter
22. Acts 22. I'd like to deal for just a few
minutes tonight with the 23rd to the 27th verse. Before we look into the Word
of our God, let's pray together. Our Father, it's so good to be
able to be together and to approach You as a body of believers that
have come to hear of You. Lord, we thank You for this last
evening of this year that You've allowed us the privilege one
more time to assemble ourselves in worship. We ask you to bless
this word. The Lord calls us to truly feast
upon that which is truth. Bread, water, life. And we ask these things for Christ's
sake. Amen. Some self-righteous Jews seemed to give the Apostle Paul
an audience until he told him in the 22nd verse of this chapter
that the Jewish nation by and large had rejected God and that
the Lord Jesus Christ had sent Paul to the Gentiles. Now, whenever he said that, whenever he set forth that Almighty
God has mercy on whomsoever He will, whenever Paul set forth
that God has no regard whatsoever to man and his free will. When Paul set forth that all
of a man's righteousnesses are as filthy racks, and that God
has the right to do whatsoever He will with whomsoever He will,
whenever he said that, They got mad. They went into a rage. Now, from that truth, we need
to learn that men may appear to hear for a while,
but unless the Lord has given them a heart, A new will, a new
spirit, unless God has created within them a new man that loves
God, that longs for God, longs for His fellowship, longs for
His presence. Unless the Lord has given a new
heart, they're not going to stay. They won't stay. Guard against
first impressions. Be careful. That's taught in
the parable of the sower. They that endure to the end shall
be saved. Men will hear these smooth things,
things that might be interpreted. Have you ever heard anybody when
they're preaching and they say some things, and if you know
what the truth is, You might be able to take what they say
and say, well, I can see what you're saying is so, but if someone
is not a believer, they could take it and interpret it the
way they wanted to. It's just that they say things
in such a way that they never do come right to the heart of
it, to where there's no misunderstanding on what you're talking about.
Be careful, because man by nature is going to be offended whenever
the Scripture is preached clearly and exposes man to be what he
truly is and who God is. But we can never forsake the
proclamation of the gospel of God's grace. compromise on it. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
the Gospel of Christ. Why, Paul? It's the power of
God unto salvation. To the Jew first, also to the
Greek. So Paul was truthful with this
group of Jews about God sending the Gospel to the Gentiles. And they began to shout, you
know, well, away with him. Get him out of here. It's not
fit that he should live. So this group completely, totally
became the judge and the jury and the executioner. Man, by
nature, wants to take God's place. That's what they did. We'll take
care of this situation. Well, the Scripture says, and
here's where we'll pick up tonight, verse 23, and as they cried out,
and cast off their clothes and they threw dust in the air. You know, the ornament of a meek
and a quiet spirit is in the sight of God a great price. That's what 1 Peter 3 verse 4
says. Well, this mob evidenced what
they truly felt. They hated the truth. Therefore, they hated the God
of truth, and they hated everyone that stood and proclaimed the
God of truth. Man does not love God by nature. He doesn't. They deny that, but
it's so. So the Scripture says, they cried
out and cast their clothes off and threw dust in the air. They
were angry. And while seeing the trouble
that was continuing to escalate, verse 24 says that the chief
captain commanded him, that is Paul, to be brought into the
castle and bade that he should be examined by scourging, that
he might know wherefore they cried so against him. Now, this
chief captain figured that the only way to get the truth out
of Paul was to beat it out of him. That's, you know. Now, you know why he thought
that? You know why the only reason
that he would have to beat Paul to get the truth out of him?
It's because that this was the very nature of man. And that
centurion, that chief captain knew that this is, if you're
going to get the truth out of me, if it was going to have to
If I'm going to have to say something that's going to condemn myself,
you're going to have to beat it out of me. The chief captain
knew what he thought, you know. So he said, well, I'll tell you
what we'll do. We're going to just beat the truth out of it. Men, come forth speaking lies. I've told you before. I never
taught one of my kids. I never sincerely. Truthfully,
I might pick around with, but I never taught one of them to
lie. It just came so natural. All right, who did that? Nobody? I guess that lamp right
there just fell over by itself. Did you do that? Which one of
you did it? You know what they're doing? They're lying without
saying anything. And then when they're caught,
they're going to defend themselves. Well, it wasn't my fault. What did Adam do? The woman that you gave me. We'll just beat it out of him.
Paul said in Romans 9.1, I say the truth in Christ, I lie not.
This Roman centurion thought the best way to get Paul to tell
the truth was to beat him We'll beat him and he'll tell the truth.
Paul says, I'm not a liar. My conscience bearing me witness
in the Holy Ghost. Why is it that a believer, any
believer, but especially one that is called to stand in a
pulpit proclaims the truth? It's because God has put a heart
in him that has got to be truthful. It would be the most shameful
thing to me if I stepped out of this pulpit and I went home
and I knew that there was something that I would not say for fear
of offending someone. And it was the truth. And I wouldn't
say it because I was afraid that someone would be offended. I
don't want to say anything about, you know, God's sovereignty because I wouldn't have any business
standing in a pulpit. Paul said, I'm not ashamed of
it. We're not ashamed of the gospel
of God's grace. But I want you to notice how
beautifully we see the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ He said,
I'll never forsake you. I'll never leave you. I'll never
forsake you. Here was Paul delivered by some
centurions. He said, what we're going to
do, we're going to beat you. I'm going to beat you. Now, this
is what they know about Paul. He was taken out of a temple,
synagogue. A group of Jews had him. They were just giving him
down the road. I mean just beating him. And
they're going to kill him. They had a riot going. And so
somebody called the soldiers and they said, we've got a guy
over here getting beat. And he comes up here and they
took him. Bound him with two chains. We
looked at a beautiful picture of redemption right there. Took
him away. He's being taken. He asked that
Roman centurion, he said, can I talk to you a second? The Roman
centurion says, do you speak Greek? Yes, I do. He said, can I talk? He said,
yes, you can. Then he began to speak Hebrew.
That's what we looked at also. And he preached the Gospel. And
that gave his personal testimony of his experience Being converted,
the Lord stopped him on the road to Damascus. And this is the
end of that message that Paul preached. And they got mad at
him when he got to the very end of it. You know, God sent him
to the Gentiles. So that chief captain said, well, I know this.
We got a deeper problem than what's going on here. But I'm
going to get to the heart of it right here. So verse 25, 27
says, Well, as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the
centurion that stood by, and you've got to understand something.
They're getting ready to beat him. He got a beating. He got a beating
from those people. These soldiers did not know what
was going on. They bound him. People are still
hollering. And so that soldier says, I'm
going to beat you again. Paul said to the centurion that
stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman
and uncondemned? And when the centurion heard
that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what
thou doest. This man is a Roman. Then the
chief captain came and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? And he said, yes, I am. Paul the Apostle appealed to
the law of Rome. There was a law that a Roman
citizen could not be scourged, beaten. without a fair trial. Couldn't be beaten uncondemned. But you rest assured that that
very moment when Paul asked that Roman soldier, is this right? You're getting ready to beat
me and you don't know You don't even know what's going on. You got me out of this mess that
I was in over here, and I haven't even had a trial. I've not been
condemned. Now, is it right for you to beat,
to scourge a Roman citizen uncondemned? Now, here's the truth of the
matter. was innocent. And truly, the
Roman law had no hold upon him. He hadn't been tried for anything. He hadn't been found condemned
of anything. Now, like I said when we looked
last time when that group of Jews took Paul and took him in
the temple and took him out and beat him. And those Roman soldiers,
we saw and looked at, that wasn't just an event. It was a historical
event. There's no doubt about that.
But unless we see the gospel in that, what has that got to
do with me? Same thing tonight. Unless I
see the message of deliverance and redemption and freedom from
the law. Unless I see this as a picture,
I don't want to preach the dry letter of the law. I don't want
to preach the dry letter of the word. Anyone can do that. Anybody can stand up and say,
this is what happens. And it was a historical event.
But what's that got to do for me? What I want to know is, do
I see Christ in this? Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that
is a Roman? Let me ask you this. Is it lawful
for a man that is a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem to be
scourged, uncondemned. That's the heart of this question.
That's the picture that we see tonight. Romans 8 says, "...for
the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me
free from the law of sin and death." In Christ, we are citizens of the heavenly
Jerusalem. Paul claimed his innocence by
being a Roman citizen. But I'll tell you this, a believer
is a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem, free. Paul was a child of Rome. We are children of God, bought, paid for, heirs of God
and joint heirs with Christ and not bound to the penalty of God's
laws. Why? Why are we free? That is what I entitled this
message. Why? Did Paul deserve to be beaten? Did Paul deserve to be scourged? No. Why? Because the law forbid
it. I'll tell you this, the law of
God has been satisfied by the blood of Christ. How is it that God can forgive
one of His own? Can forgive them? You know, forgiveness
says that we are sinners. Now, justification, that's a
different word. Justification is a declaration
of innocence before the law. But we are truly sinners in Christ,
justified freely by His grace, being born in Him. But I'm going
to tell you something. I was also born in this world
as a sinner, and here I am, a sinner that has a new nature, and God,
for Christ's sake, justly will not scourge me. being in Adam's fall. We admit what we are, and only
a believer does. We see ourselves as truly sinners
in need of a Savior. He's faithful and He's just to
forgive us our sins. The forgiveness of sins is according
to God's justice. It's not just something He just
sweeps under the table. Paul says, is it right? Is it lawful for you to scourge
a man that's a Roman? Is it right for God to scourge
one that is a child of the heavenly Jerusalem? No. And listen to
this. Paul says, and uncondemned. There is therefore now no condemnation. to them that are in Christ Jesus?
None. Paul appealed to the law of the
Roman Empire for his defense. And do you know who we appeal
to? We appeal to our God, our Savior, our Messiah, our Redeemer,
who has satisfied that law for us, and that law says, no condemnation. No problem. Free. Paul, that Roman centurion, verse
26, he heard what Paul asked and he went and told the chief
captain. He said, be careful. Be careful
what you're doing. This man's a Roman. The law of God that was opposing me, now that
has been satisfied, has been honored, says to me, no condemnation. And Almighty God who has satisfied
that law says, you take care. You touch not mine anointed.
This one's mine. This is bought and paid for by
the blood of my Son. Don't touch Him. Be careful. Don't touch Him. He's Roman.
Don't you touch Him. He's mine. I bought Him. We've
been delivered from the scourgings of the law by the blood of Christ. Therefore, we confess our citizenship
in the holy Jerusalem. We confess our citizenship in
Christ. who is our heavenly city. He is our heaven. He is our God. He is all and in all. That Roman
captain came to him. Verse 27, he says, Tell me, are
you a Roman? Paul said, Yes, I am. God's people are faithful to
confess their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Let me ask you
this. Are you a Christian? Now, I understand
everybody's a Christian. I understand this, but I'm telling
you for a believer. You ask a believer, are you a
Christian? Do you believe that God Almighty
chose you unto salvation? Do you believe that God Almighty
sent His only begotten Son into this world to live for and die
for those that He everlastingly loved? Do you believe that God
Almighty made Him, that is, Christ, to be sin, made Him sin, who
knew no sin, that we might be the righteousness of God, be
made the righteousness of God in Him? Do you believe that? Philip asked an Ethiopian eunuch. That Ethiopian eunuch asked him,
he said, what does hinder me to be baptized? Philip said, if you believe.
And that Ethiopian eunuch says, I believe that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God. And he baptized him. Paul said
in 2 Timothy 1.12, For I am not ashamed, for I know
whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to
keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." Paul
said, Are you going to whip one that is truly an uncondemned
man? We could ask this question. will
the law, knowing that God Almighty, Romans 8, 1, has set forth, there
is now, therefore, no condemnation to them that be in Christ Jesus,
those who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
Knowing that there is no condemnation, we could ask this question and
be right in asking this question. Is it right for the law of God
to scourge me? No. It is not right. It is unjust. Why? Why am I free? Because Christ
took my scourging at the cross. And Almighty God will not inflict
justice twice for the same offense. He paid my debt and put it away,
and I'm free. Is it right? Is it right? No, it's not right. And God Almighty
is just. Let's pray together. Our Father,
this evening, again say thank You. We thank You for another
year. We thank You for this time that
You gave us. Lord, we pray that that which
we were taught, that which we experienced, that which we enjoyed,
and that which was even hurtful, that by Your grace You caused
us to endure. And through all the things that
we've learned and experienced this year. For that, we're thankful. Lord, we don't know what tomorrow
holds. And if you tarry and we wake
up tomorrow, we'll begin another year. And we don't know what
will come to pass, but we know that just like every day, it's
going to be a day, a year, that you've made. And Lord, that which
you bring about this next year will be according to your good
pleasure, your will. I thank you again. I cannot leave
without asking that, Lord, if it please you, would you give
us another day, another week, another month, according to your
will, a blessing? Lord, would You sustain this
church here? Would You keep this church here
according to Your good purpose? Lord, would You allow the Gospel
to be preached here for a little longer? And we ask these things
for Christ's sake. Amen.